noflagbigenough
In Washington DC, there is a swath of land that cups the waters of the Atlantic – not a beach, for there is no sand, but a tidal basin. The grass reaches right out to the water in an unnatural display of human ingenuity, where the land curves in a mathematically perfect parabola, a two-foot cliff that separates park-goers from the salty brine. Swans gather here, where their webbed feet are soothed by the gentle tickle of the grass as they beat their wings to descend into the water and fish for prey beneath black-blue surfaces. Here, in the springtime, the cherry blossom trees are in bloom and their petals form a blizzard in their descent, forming small flurries of white and pink against the macabre and gnarled shapes of black branches. In the spring, this tidal basin is crowded with fat tourists who snap poorly-composed photographs of the scenic surroundings in dumb awe that lasts exactly one-thousand-six-hundredths of a second when the shutter clicks and they move along. It’s part of an unspoken social discourse: a proclamation of wealth and culture that, perhaps, is not there at all.
Dr. Lecter sits presently with his back to the crowd in a secluded inlet on this basin, shaded in the early Sunday weather from the boughs of an old oak tree. Artists favor this spot because the tourists stick to the trail and cannot find it, so it produces the opportunity to sit in relative silence and enjoy the springtime colors and the distant white columns of capitol buildings built with gardens in the style of Versailles and architecture done in the style of the ancient Roman Empire.
With his charcoal against the page, he sketches the graceful shapes of the necks of swans bowing to one another on the water, and his mind is drawn inward, into the corridors of itself. Somewhere in his memory palace, he is reliving memories that never happened, touching the soft down of the swans with a little girl in his lap, smiling, frozen in time in her perfect innocence, struggling to pronounce his name. Anniba, Anniba.
He’s drawn out of his reprieve when the presence of another man prickles the hairs on the back of his neck. He can smell the man’s toil, salty sweat that means he is active in an athletic sense. But he also smells charcoal – a fellow artist.
“If you’d like, I’m nearly done. You can have my spot here.” Dr. Lecter offers when the scent nears him – not turning his head away from his work.
