The
Portrait of a Baby
It was on Christmas night at around 11 o’clock,
when everyone was partying the night away at clubs, discos and beaches, that
Samuel the painter was busy in his studio.
Samuel was poor, very poor. He lived alone in a
shanty built entirely out of tin and wood, which was 6 feet by 4 feet, in one
of the slums of Mumbai, India. This shanty of his, also served as his studio,
where he painted portraits of nouveau riche business merchants and postcards
with floral scenes, to be sold on the streets of Mumbai during fairs and
festivals.
Samuel tried the whole of Christmas morning, to
sell some of his painted postcards on the streets of the bazaar. He had hoped
that some of his floral designs would attract the eyes of those celebrating
Christmas or that maybe his woeful appearance would evoke some empathy or
sympathy from a passerby, thus bestowing upon him a donation of at least fifty
rupees, so that he could have something decent to eat for the week.
Unfortunately, he did not sell a single postcard,
in spite of spending the entire day in the biting cold. Although it does not
snow in Mumbai during winter, the cold breeze and atmosphere can be quite harsh
on a painter’s hungry body, with only a khadi kurta and flimsy worn out dark
blue jeans. He returned to his shanty by 6 o’clock in the evening, tired and
famished, with a bundle of his floral postcards still in his hand. In fury
tinged with frustration, he flung his creations upon his filthy and damp bed,
picked up his paint brush and tried to finish a painting he had begun the
previous night. Outside his window Christmas revelers were hugging each other
with presents in their hands, wishing each other a very happy Christmas.
“Happy Christmas,” muttered Samuel under his
breath, as his curly long raven hair, which reached right upon his shoulders
and which had not been washed for months, fell tenderly over his pox marked
fair face. “What’s so happy about it? I’m still starving!” exclaimed Samuel to
himself sarcastically, as his paint brush moved briskly and furiously over the
canvas.
The paint on the easel mixed themselves
according to Samuel’s command and brought out beautiful shades of
greenish-chrome yellow and aquamarine, that would have charmed any observer,
but unfortunately not the observers that Samuel came across.
“I should have listened to my mother,” murmured
Samuel as he did a few minor touchups to the painting, “I should have joined my
father in the family business…but no, I was stubborn, I wanted to be an
artist…ha!, some artist I have made myself….can’t even keep warm in this
weather….did not even go to Church for fear that the rotten stench from my cold
body, would spoil a decent man’s Christmas…I’m not a painter, I’m just a
loser…a loser!”
As Samuel uttered the last sentence, he dropped
his paint brush and fell upon the muddy floor of his shanty, in front of his
painting ….and started to weep like a child, his curly long hair covering his
face completely.
Just then….an unearthly sound of a pipe being
played, echoed through the dilapidated shanty. Samuel immediately raised his
head up and looked around, his tears still wet upon his crimson cheeks.
“Who is it?” came Samuel’s voice in fear. He
thought that his hungry mind was playing tricks with him….but the pipe playing
continued uninterrupted. Samuel staggered himself, trembling with terror, to a
standing position….and then realized that the pipe playing was coming from his
painting.
Now the painting itself was a strange piece of
art in itself. It was the portrait of a beautiful damsel, with silvery white
hair, clad in a simple gown which was aquamarine in colour. She was holding a
radiant sunflower at her breast in her left hand, while her right hand was
raised to the heavens. She was surrounded by a number of snow white doves.
Samuel stared fixedly at the painting
especially at the eyes of the resplendent damsel, which was honey brown and
full of pathos.
It then happened…the damsel blinked her
extraordinarily large eyes and smiled a tender hearted smile at Samuel. Samuel
froze in amazement as the enchanting damsel pulled herself out of the picture
canvas and with the sunflower still daintily held in her hand, stood strong and
tall in front of her creator Samuel.
“I’ve gone balmy….this can’t be happening,”
whimpered the horror struck Samuel rubbing his eyes continuously with the back
of his hands.
“Do not fear me painter,” declared the maiden,
in a voice that sounded like the gush of cold wind.
“What…what do you want with me?” stammered the
painter.
The damsel looked carefully all around the poor
wretched room and said: “You are to paint a picture for me. I am the spirit of
resplendent poverty.”
“Spirit…spirit,” gasped Samuel but the damsel
paid no heed to his mutterings.
“You, oh painter, will paint a marvellous
picture of the baby in the manger with his mother and foster father.”
“Jesus’ birth,” mumbled Samuel astonished.
“Yes, oh painter,” affirmed the spirit now
gliding all over the room, making Samuel feel quite giddy, “If the painting is
completed by midnight tomorrow, you will be rewarded with gold but……if you
fail, you will be killed on the spot and doomed to roam the earth as a ghost,
for the rest of eternity.”
The thought of being rewarded with gold
appealed to Samuel, although he could not digest the part about roaming the
Earth as a ghost. He was about to pinch himself to see if he was awake, but
before he could, the damsel backed herself into her own picture and was frozen
as a piece of the canvas once again. Samuel looked at the clock on the broken
stool near his bed; it was 12 midnight. Immediately although he yearned for
food and was chilled to the bone, he put a fresh sheet on his easel and began
to paint.
For the next fourteen hours, Samuel drew and
painted like a madman, without a pause and without a sound coming from his
mouth. Most of the slum dwellers went to work the next morning, but Samuel just
painted. An elderly lady from the neighbouring shanty, even knocked on Samuel’s
door, to share with him the leftover red meat of the previous night, but Samuel
did not answer the door.
By two o’clock in the afternoon the picture was
almost ready. The manger was dark, filled with warm hay and occupied by a few
lambs and an old cow. In front, in a posture of reverence knelt a very swarthy
but handsome Saint Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, while lying down next to
him, tired and pale after giving birth, was the Mother of Jesus, who looked
like a teenager, with warm light blue eyes and long silky raven black hair.
Next to her wrapped up in white swaddling cloth, was a new born baby with a
healthy body… but no face.
The problem was that Samuel could not find in
his imagination, a fitting image for the new born. He rattled his head and
pulled his hair, but nothing seemed to be to his liking. He tried to recall
images of infants he had known, but none was suiting his purpose. He painted
the rest of the picture carefully, and yet was unable to think of a face that
would fit the baby Jesus.
The hours passed on quickly from two o’clock to
three o’clock…four….five…six….seven, but Samuel remained puzzled.
“No face, no face is worth it,” grumbled Samuel
breaking a wooden paint brush into two. The slum dwellers had returned to the
slum by eight o’clock that night, after a hard day’s work. Some were drunk and
some were shouting abuses at each another which terribly annoyed Samuel.
“Shut up, I need to concentrate!!” shouted
Samuel at them from his window and then got back to sketching a face with his
black crayon.
“Now what’s with the silly painter?” asked one
of the middle-aged slum dwellers in a gruff voice.
“He’s been painting all day…only one picture,”
answered a young lad clad in a dhoti, who lived outside Samuel’s shanty.
“Picture of what?” asked the elderly lady who
had earlier come with the leftover red meat.
The lad smiled as he replied: “The picture of
Christmas, Jesus as a baby in the stable, with his foster father and Mother….just that the baby has no face!”
The crowd outside Samuel’s shanty started to
laugh derisively, without mercy. Samuel burned within with anger, but said
nothing and continued to sketch, his finger black with grime and charcoal.
After a while there was a knock on Samuel’s
door.
“Why don’t they leave me alone?” grumbled
Samuel, throwing his black Camlin crayon on the muddy floor and moved towards
the door to open it and give the intruder a piece of his mind.
Outside stood the old lady who had come in the
morning, wearing a tattered white sari and green plastic bangles, holding a
small picture in her hands.
“What is it now?” asked Samuel rudely.
The old lady with a feeble smile gave Samuel
the tiny picture and said:
“Son, I
heard you were having trouble finding a suitable face for the baby in the
manger, so I thought….I thought my picture would help.”
Samuel stared at the picture….and his face
shone in delight. The picture was actually a photograph of an extraordinarily
beautiful new born baby, wrapped in a torn bed sheet with a smile on his face
and pretty ebony black eyes.
“Thank you so much dear old woman,” replied
Samuel beaming with joy. “This child is perfect for my portrait….by the way,
who is he?”
The old lady’s eyes brimmed with hot tears as
she answered meekly:
“This is the photograph of my son, Randir.”
The answer astounded Samuel, for Randir, the
old lady’s son was a murderer and drug smuggler, who was condemned and hanged.
‘He was a very beautiful child,” mumbled Samuel
distraught.
“You can give him salvation by painting
him….and goodnight to you,” answered the lady in a choked voice, as she
retreated back to her own shanty after closing Samuel’s door.
Samuel did not appreciate the fact that he had
to give Randir’s face to Jesus…but the old lady did request him….so he copied
the image of the charming face onto his canvas.
At midnight, the damsel appeared again and
Samuel greeted her with courtesy and pointed towards the picture.
The sound of a pipe playing began again as the
damsel stared at the portrait….but suddenly the music ceased as she pointed to
the face of the baby with shock in her eyes.
“Who is this?” she exclaimed.
“The child Jesus,” replied Samuel.
“You lie to me,” said the damsel still pointing
to the face of the baby, “This is the face of the murderer Randir.”
“There you are wrong,” replied Samuel with
determination, “No child is born a murderer. All children are born innocent and
bring happiness and hope to their parents, just the way Jesus did. The
difference here is that Jesus though mortal, was Emmanuel, God incarnate,
whereas a mortal child can only become one when joined to the heart of Jesus….I
through this painting have pleaded salvation for the soul of a mortal, for the
sake of a poor mother.”
The damsel was pleased with Samuel’s answer,
and all at once the pipe playing started again, with a choir of children’s
voices singing the carol:
“Come and behold him, born the King of angels
O come, let us adore him
O come, let us adore him
O come, let us adore him
Christ the Lord.”
Then there was a bright light that spread all
over the shanty, blinding Samuel for a minute.
When he rubbed his eyes and looked again, he
was overjoyed to see his whole shanty overflowing with gold coins, bedazzling
him. The portrait of the Christmas scene had vanished, and in its place stood
Randir, dressed in a white robe with a bright yellow sash around his waist, who
smiled at Samuel and said:
“Thank you for helping me. We shall meet again
in heaven.”
Randir then vanished leaving Samuel scratching
his filthy head, with a beaming smile of peace.
Copyright
© 2012 Fiza Pathan
A short story from my book 'Treasury of Bizarre Christmas Stories'
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