A PORTRAIT OF ITZAK
By Roo
A PORTRAIT OF ITZAK
By Roo
Orzini asked Hitler to include a living subject in the landscape, and after securing Hitler's promise and good word (he was younger then, his word was good), Orzini gave a high-pitched whistle into the lush valley below. Moments later, amidst a deep, guttural rumble, there emerged from between two mountains a red dragon, whose sheer size and mass dwarfed the Alps. The dragon's name, according to Orzini, was "Itzak" and he was a thousand years old if he was a day. Itzak covered the miles between the men on the hilltop in three strides and finally settled at the base of the hill, expelling shorts puffs of white smoke. Hitler, initially taken aback, later gaped at the creature in undid- guised awe. He reached his artist's hand out to touch the crimson scales, to admire their sheen, their texture...unthinking, he took hold and pulled one out by its root sending a stab of pain through Itzak's mammoth frame. The great beast roared his annoyance and inhaled sharply, stoking the fire that burned in his belly. Orzini calmed Itzak with a few well-chosen words whispered in the dragon's tiny ears and momentarily, Itzak quelled his rage, dampened his coals and settled on one hip to listen to the two men talk. He kept one eye on Hitler. Hitler readied his palette, chose his colors and brushes carefully. He put a fresh canvas on his easel, flexed his fingers and asked Orzini to pose with his dragon. Orzini, testing Hitler's patience, had one final request; the choice of reds...the choice of just the right shade of crimson to capture Itzak's true colors. As far as Orzini was concerned, the particular hue in question did not rest on Hitler's palette, nor did it reside in his copious painter's case.. Removing a fine bladed knife from his belt, Orzini held his wrist over Hitler's palette and drew the blade across the soft flesh until the blood ran freely, cascading without hindrance onto the young man's palette. Disgusted and fascinated at once, Hitler idly swirled his horsehair brush in the blood; it was already beginning to congeal. Without further hesitation, he laid the tip of the brush to the canvas and began to daub at it madly, a man possessed!
In a matter of a few short minutes, the painting was completed. Hitler stepped back from the canvas, pleased with himself for having caught the image just so. Orzini lay dying on the ground at his feet, his pale fingers outstretched, brushing the scales of his friend. Itzak let one solitary tear slip down the length of his nose where it lingered precariously on the tip, before falling, drenching Orzini in life-giving salt. Almost at once, Orzini colored, and rose, reborn. Hitler, having ceased to be amazed at anything, shook Orzini's hand and offered him the canvas, now dry.
Orzini accepted the canvas, and, although not overly pleased with the artist's conception of Itzak whose own nose was not nearly as pronounced as the artist had rendered, he thanked Hitler and made ready to mount the dragon at the base of its neck. Hitler inquired: "When? When do you honor your side of the bargain?" Orzini, sitting astride his dragon, replied, "There is, in your work, young man, a degree of talent. It springs from technique, from rules and order, but there is no heart. Go and find the heart of it. If you return to this same hillside in 10 years, I will be here, with Itzak, waiting, and we will judge your work a second time. Go now, and search for the heart, and finding it, return to me, but take warning: do not let yourself become distracted by lesser matters. Your artist's soul is at stake here, and you must assign priority to that." Orzini dug his heels in the flesh at Itzak's neck and urged the dragon to stand. Itzak obeyed, stretching his massive wings, flexing his muscles. Orzini looked at Hitler one last time, down at his painting, then back at Hitler. "If you do not find the heart, do not find the still point within you, if you continue to let your petty annoyances serve as major distractions, then we will not meet again, Adolf." With that, Orzini loosed a whistle and Itzak cupped the wind in his wings and flew from the hillside, returning to the mountains of his origin.
Adolf Hitler never returned to that same Bavarian hillside. He'd long ago put away his paints and canvasses, the hopes and dreams and foolish ambitions of his youth. Ten years came and passed without a reckoning between the artist and the count. Another ten years rested upon those ten passed, and Herr Hitler became The Fuhrer, Overlord of the Third Reich, Master of all Germany. Although, as he sat contemplating in his bunker while the war for Berlin raged over his head, he regretted not honoring the rendevouz with Orzini. He, Hitler, would've had much to teach the arrogant Pole who had claimed his work would come to nothing without heart. He wondered briefly if Orzini was still alive, riding out the war in a concentration camp, breaking his back splitting stone or digging graves. How utterly ironic that would be! And the dragon, Itzak...an amazing, unforgettable creature...even for a Jew. Hitler toyed absently with a small brown bottle, opened it and shook a cyanide capsule into his palsied hand. As he gripped his pistol with the other his mind wandered back to a perfect day on a hillside. Before he bit down on the capsule he wondered what had become of that painting...
...Astride Itzak's neck, both Orzini and the great dragon surveyed the burning rubble, the blasted out buildings, men, women and children lying dead, and dying in the once great city of Berlin. Orzini absently stroked the dragon's neck when he sensed his companion's eyes come to bear on the national flag flying defiantly over the burnt out shell of a building...a spiky misshapen cross in a field of crimson...the swastika swimming in blood. Both man and dragon drew the same analogy. They looked upon the tableu of death and destruction painted with a palette of blood and tears, and found the artist's work to be wanting. There was no heart in it. Neither of them was surprised.
END...