stephen.w.fahey@gmail.

com @STEPHEN__FAHEY

Nascoste
Written By

Stephen Fahey

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When I was nineteen I created a wonder. All the lessons I had

learned under master sculptor Tomassino Bregazzi had served

me well. Most of all however, he had taught me to resist the vain

whims which take an artist and make them into a monster. The

Mother, as I call it, is a woman of full breasts and hips, draped in

the silken life giving waters which cascaded down her flesh in so

kind a form as to conceal the loin from view. However, the

streaming liquid effect of the marble in fact accentuated that

which was hidden through innate human want to know and see

that forces the viewer to contemplate that which I obscured. Her

naked form is clothed in the water, shielded from the obscene,

but the outreaching arm with open hand and upward facing palm

both beckons and warns in a single gesture. Her fingers both

offer and seek, reflecting her soul in the love and the pain of

motherhood. The Mother needs and The Mother gives, but she is

forever trapped between those two worlds. Her legs are firm but

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her skin has begun to age. The veins of her ankles bulge in spite

of her still unaged face. Her shoulders, strong but narrow. Her

chin raised but her brow furrowed. And her face, pained but

open. She is troubled but also at peace and in her suffering she is

whole. Standing on her toes she gives her entire self and calls to

the viewer almost as if needing some desperate help. I was

satisfied with what I had created, there was never a work like it

before. And I knew that Master Tomassino would have been

satisfied too, but as soon as I had finished The Mother I knew

that I had to release her. I had so much more to learn and so

much more to do.

I didn't want to sell her, nor had I need to having inherited the

farm on which I was raised. The Mother was precious to me but

more than for me, for her I wanted her to be viewed. So in the

silence of night I delivered her to the offices of the local

magistrate. While all the world slept I pushed the wheeled crate

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into the grounds of the magistrate’s offices and dismantled the

wood around it. Those offices are set aside from the main village

so I managed to remain unseen and left no trace that could lead

back to me. I was stronger then and able to heave the planks

down and rush them out of sight with little effort, not like now. I

wanted to engraved Gesianni on The Mother so the people

would know the name of her creator, but I didn’t. Instead, I let

her to stand alone.

I thought then that I had accomplished something wonderful and

to a measure I had, but The Mother was just the beginning.

People didn’t come to view it in hordes as I had hoped. Nor was

her decadent grace lauded. I was disappointed that The Mother

wasn’t better received, but I had, through use of posture and

detail, achieved something which I knew had far surpassed even

Master Tomassino’s works. That alone gave me the courage to

continue.

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I had known then for some time what I would carve after I had

finished The Mother. When I got back from the magistrates

office that same night I began working on The Warrior. At that

time I had dreamt of The Warrior so often that I knew her form

before I ever laid a hand on the marble. She knees with her child

swaddled on her back in a cloth sling. Her left knee is raised and

her left elbow rests upon it. In her hands, tight against her

shoulder, her musket was fires with her finger depressing the

trigger. On her face a sublime calm reigns. She is not angered,

nor is she afraid. There is no guilt and no hatred. She is the

weapon and the victim and the mother and the child. The whole

piece was as The Mother was in fashion, but more focused on

the actions of a warrior who neither seeks of shies from killing.

The child and the musket are life and death and the warrior

herself is all of us. I smoothed the ragged clothes she wore to a

softness that could be seen and touched but not felt like mist on

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lakes in earliest morn. I had practiced and practiced until I had

perfected the cloth effect. I was proud of it but more so satisfied

at developing a new technique than having a sense of being

better than others. Master Tomassino’s words remained with me

at all times. I refused all vain impulses and searched without rest

to become better with each piece that I created. “There is no

peak, and there never will be,” was his mantra.

This second work took all the skill and knowledge I possessed. I

used all the techniques I knew and invented others and in the end

she was almost too lifelike. Though she was carved of marble

and all one colour, she still appeared so real as to trick the mind.

I had reached out farther than I had thought possible and made a

thing so stark and so pleasurable to view that I kept The Warrior

as mine for some weeks before I let her go too. This time I

wheeled The Warrior through the streets amid the noon rush of

school children running home to milk the cows on their lunch

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breaks and farmers returning from market. I had covered her in

bales of wheat and, dressed in rags, I pushed her into the

marketplace. Then, once I had slid a frame beneath the

undercarriage of the cart I waited until I wasn’t being watched

and set a light to the bales. The wheat burst into flames in a flash

as I turned and walk around a corner and in moments she was

revealed to the world, born of fire. Walking then from the market

I listened as people came running and throwing water on the

apparition, making her glisten. Before I was out of earshot

though I heard their gasps of awe.

The connection between The Mother and The Warrior was

obvious and it wasn’t long before the “Nascoste”, as the villagers

began to call them, became the talk of the town. I heard

shopkeepers and families speak of them and I heard strangers

argue over them as I passed them in the street. Children armed

themselves with sticks, tired their shirts across their backs and

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posed like The Warrior up and down the street, pretending to

shoot whomever crossed their paths. It was a strange feeling to

see the work I had created have such an influence on the

children. It was intended for adults but it seemed that the

children were the ones who were changed the most. It was fun

for me to see the children’s quaint war with the world - some

even carried their friends on their backs while shooting innocent

pedestrians, mimicking the swaddled child.

It was at this time that the two Nascoste were first acclaimed.

The artists of a neighbouring village visited when word spread of

another statue having appeared out of nowhere. The sudden

appearance of the second Nascoste sparked the artists’ visit and

their visit and subsequent and prolonged declarations sparked the

first visit of the court. It was odd to see the court in the market

surrounded blood and shit, but those brave souls confronted their

discomfort and looked upon The Warrior with a glorious pain,

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for its was so beautiful. I watched them from a distance and was

pleased to see that none of them spoke for quite a time – for

those learned men knew what stood before them.

Once word spread across the provinces our little village burst

with people coming to see the Nascoste and the vendors who

came to sell food and trinkets left and right. This continued for

some months before a member of parliament came to view the

statues. Once that happened the two works I had given to the

people became treasures. The economic benefits of such large

numbers of visitors allowed the village to grow into a town and

within two summers the population doubled. I felt great pleasure

knowing that I had given people jobs and secured better living

conditions for all. I did not need recognition and I did not seek it.

I wanted nothing but to continue the work I had set out to do.

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It took me four winters and five summers to complete the

following piece. The Sacrifice was laid prone with a gasping

terror in her stare. She wore wounds of the flesh and a rope

bound her feet to the slab on which she was presented. Hers was

a pain so raw that one could scarce not feel horrified for her. The

strain on her jawline from her scream and the taught

relentlessness of the rope made her a figure of torment and

suffering so brutalised that her naked frame twisted into that of a

creature more than of a human being. Her skin churned in an

agonised truth that was inescapable and that lure of honest and

miserable force was the gift I gave the people of our town one

night when I submerged The Sacrifice in the river near the

courthouse. It was the most difficult placement for me to make

as it required a lot of planning and a wooden framework to slide

the statue down the riverbank and into the water. All done in

absolute darkness, or course. Then, one bright dawn when the

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birds had just begun to stir, I diverted the river farther upstream.

At noon there was a crowd gathered on the riverbanks. People

ran from their houses and from the fields and children squealed

and pushed each other aside to get a glimpse of The Sacrifice.

This third statue secured the Nascoste in the annuls and a strange

legend sprang up of the man who all the nation wished to find.

There were visits from professors of art from all over the nation

and parliament itself came as one to our humble town to view the

newest statue. I was awarded several titles and a street was

named after me. Of course I never collected these awards. But

because I was regarded in higher and higher stead so was the

town. And so I was pleased that officials from the capital had

seen fit to bring such good fortune to the area. It was a time of

great peace and happiness for the whole town. Houses were built

and families filled them. A theatre and a hospital sprang up too

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and the school was refurbished. The town had never been so well

off.

I was glad, but even before the professors had arrived I had set

about carving The Bride. The Bride’s long flowing dress was

adorned with floral patterns and draped down over her feet. I

had to invent several new tools and methods to create such

fragile netting and petals which even I thought would rustle if a

gust of wind took them. The fine detailing of the dress was so

intricate that it took me longer to carve than all the other works I

have created. The statue tapered upward to a small bust line and

drew one’s view to the hands joined around a bouquet held

almost to the face. Although the veil covered her face I had

pierced the marble of the veil itself and carved a smiling mouth

through the tight stone lace with a long and narrow chisel. Her

hands, with fingers interlocked, were the sole portions of

uncovered skin. Slender but strong and formed in such perfection

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that even I was astounded at having created them There was an

intentional deathlike sense to her too, as if she had been stood up

from her grave. I masked the bonds of marriage in showing them

as a form of death in a declaration of freedom through

unification. The greatest work I had ever done was The Bride’s

veil and her mouth - carved though its miniscule holes. It was for

me an accomplishment in itself that I was driven to surpass. And

as soon as I had completed her I could feel the pull of something

even greater calling to me from within. Something wanted to

escape and outshine The Bride.

Near the town centre there was an old church which had been

consumed in a fire the previous winter. It was little more than a

charred shell due to be rebuilt soon after I finished The Bride.

And so I made it her home at once. After the church was

reconstructed around her people from countless towns flocked in

droves to be married in her presence. Even religious leaders of

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other faiths visited The Church of The Bride so see her for

themselves. Men wept before her and at night when the priests lit

the candles the soft glow of countless flames poured through the

veil and the netting atop the dress to reveal the mouth’s subtle

smile and the finer detailing of the marble fabric beneath the

netting which is otherwise unnoticeable. Some people referred to

her as an angel but The Bride was nothing more than cold stone

worked into a loving form. It was fun to make people so elated.

Since Master Tomassino died I have lived this life of mine alone

and as such I have never shared the love which I have in me with

others other than through the works that I have secreted into

public places. It is the greatest of feelings to know that one has

contributed.

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More people came as the legend of the Nascoste grew and as

those people settled our town grew too. And that is when things

changed. People had lauded me and awarded me but after The

Church of The Bride was built people started to write about me

and create false tales about who I was and where I was from.

The meaning behind the statues that I carved were mine, but

people tried to make them their own as people are want to do.

And in their attempts to claim the art I loved so much in the end

those people polluted what I had created. I was made into a

whore. The contribution I was making to the town and to

peoples’ lives at large were overlooked for the sake of profit and

status. I had given The Mother and The Warrior and The

Sacrifice and The Bride to the people but some individuals

attempted to take ownership of them. Some individuals wanted

to remove the essence of those works to line their own pockets

with the love I had shared with all of the townspeople. This was

a terrible slight to me and I took such horrid offence that as I

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began to carve The Whore, into which I poured the hatred inside

of me.

I chiselled The Whore into an eight foot tall kneeling recipient.

Her mouth agape and her buttocks resting on her heels. I dirtied

her clothes with fine detailing of soil and grit and made her into

all the things that The Bride was not. Her face wore a

desperation void of hunger or pleasure. He hands were to her

breast and to her loins and her cheeks were awash with tears.

The angst in her presence was so vivid that I was chilled

whenever I looked upon her. She was all that I was made into

through the cheap fools who sought coin for the statues which

had made their lives so much better. It was not obvious if she

was a willing participant or a victim. Nor was it obvious if she

was enduring pain or pleasure. The vulgar force of her stance

announced a horror that was so palpable and so human as to

bring the observer to a point of such viewing pleasure which was

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itself a form of pain. I wanted to make those ridiculous

individuals into the whores that I knew them to be. I wanted to

poison the vile people who wanted me to be their slave. And so,

when I had finalised the veins in her arms and the strain in her

lips and tongue, when I had contorted her spine to warp in a

painful twisting, when I had degraded the once beautiful female

form, I chiselled the faintest smirk in the left corner of her

mouth. Imperceptible to all but me. She was the revenge I could

not reap in person. But looking back now I see that she was in

truth the whore I had become. I had fallen to the whims of vain

people. I had let the world of man seep into the private and

sanctified space which was mine and mine alone. I had become

that which I despised. And so I took a hammer and The Whore

over and over again until I had a smaller, fresh block of marble

with which to work. With this piece of stone I began to create a

child, The Infant, and into it I placed the vulnerable strength of

the rebirth I embraced thorough erasing The Whore.

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I never showed The Whore to a single soul. Instead I prolonged

the efforts which gave me such pleasure and made The Infant a

coiled creature with such refined detail that the pores of its skin

were visible. The emotion of the piece was both innocent and

pensive. For as it was viewed one saw both The Infant itself and

one’s own self reflected in it. For me, when I looked upon The

Infant I realised that the pains of life and adulthood, in particular,

were drawn out of the most distant memories inside me like

leaches do to venom in flesh. It made me think of the innocence

which I had lost over the decades. It brought the mother I had

loved and lost so long before back to me, along with all the

emotions I had been suppressing. As I stood over that small

sculpture and looked down at its fragile form I knew that I had

created something special. The face was knotted into a wrinkled

mask of skin. The small hands were clenched into fists no larger

than walnuts and the rippling folds of skin pinched in an almost

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fearful tension. The toes pointed in various directions and the fat

of the knees and elbows was dimpled even though all joints were

bent. The head itself was crowned with fine hair of such fragile

construction that the fontanel itself was just visible through the

scalp. I had to invent knew tools to product this effect, piercing

the marble with the finest but strongest of needles let shadows

pool inside of the narrow holes that remained when the needles

were removed. This allowed me to create the appearance of the

seams of the skull beneath the skin. I carved both ears even

though there would be just one visible at a time while the

sculpture was laid flat. And there was a certain softness in those

ears which I felt was a magic in itself. I don’t know how I made

those ears so delicate. I sanded them and sanded them and

happen to stop at just the correct moment to leave them in so

fine a state.

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When I finished The Infant I knew at once where and how I

would deliver it. In the town a summer tradition had grown

around the works which I had shared before and people would

come and tour them one after the other before gathering in the

town square to feast and drink together in the evening when the

feast a roasted pig was served to all. I snuck into the kitchens

before the feast and hid The Infant in the pig then waited for the

pig to be served.

At first there were screams of shock at the sight of a pale child

covered in blood but the moment that the child was removed

from the pig a wail of cheers tore through the crowd. All the

townspeople gathered. People walked from the fields with their

children and the pig was shared with all in attendance and all the

ale and wine in the town was downed with loving happiness that

night. I used the distraction of the emergence of The Infant to

escape the bustling crowds as soon as the screams began, but

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when I reached the town limits I looked back to see the main

square seething with revellers. It was a sight. A bold and honest

sight. And it gave me such rich pleasure that I had to laugh a

quiet laugh before turning back to the trail home.

I remember that night so well, even now after decades have

passed. I sat outside and watched the stars roll across the

heavens and was thankful for the gifts which I had been able

give. It had been five summers since The Bride had been found

and in that time I had watched the town grow into a fuller and

more hopeful place. Children no longer walked barefoot. Not

one person slept in the street and there were no starved waifs

who had been cast out of their homes for thieving to survive. The

town in which I was born and raised had gone from a dirt

tracked village to a paved jewel in the nation’s crown. And all

because of the work I had done throughout the decades. That

night I pondered the good I had done and as I did I missed the

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father I had never gotten to know. I wished so much that he

could have seen what his son had done. I hoped that he could see

the deeds which I had accomplished from wherever he was. I

hoped that he was proud. But most of all I just missed him. As

the distant songs of the festivities in the town began to quell I

took to bed and slept in a dreamlessness that was a dream in

itself.

Not a week passed before I commenced work on The Girl. I did

not know at first what I was doing, but I knew that she would

appear as I worked. Chipping at the marble I watched as she

emerged, her arms open and raised, calling to be lifted from the

ground. Her fingers were the first part of her to appear, reaching

out of the top of the cold solid block I was working with. Her

arms were nimble but with a feebleness to them that suggested a

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poor underfed thing. The face came then, a beaming smile with

awkward teeth creasing the centre of large cheeks and ears that

stuck out that little bit too far. She was fair and hopeful and filled

with life. Her torso and legs followed, before her feet came into

view. She was balanced on the toes of one foot with her other

foot off the ground in mid jump. Around her I carved a dress and

used all of the skills that I had developed in creating The Bride to

make The Girl the finest fabrics known to man. I work endless

hours on the infinitesimal detail of her skin too, as I had with The

Infant and gave The Girl a realism so stark that at night while the

candlelight flickered on her face I swore more than once that she

looked at me.

I loved her as a father loves his daughter. I strove to do better

with her than I had in all the of other works which I had created

combined. I slept when I collapsed and when I awoke I

continued. This is how it was for another four summers. I

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became frail, half the man I was but so impassioned that I was

stronger than I had ever been. The Girl was so beautiful and so

full of hope that to see her was to want to lift her in ones arms

and swing her around in the air. The work that I had done on her

skin and hair and her dress made her so real that I knew people

would be overcome when I let her go. There was nothing so

detailed and nothing in all the arts that used such a varied number

of techniques to create. There wasn’t a single facet of her

construction that wasn’t a peak of art, let alone sculpture.

I named her Kalina and I kept her with me throughout most of

the following winter so that I wouldn’t be alone. I had never

named a piece before, nor have I since, but Kalina was different.

Her curled hair and her evident, wild freedom was of such great

comfort to me that I did not want to share her with the world.

But painful as it was, I did. In the coldest night of that winter I

knew that the fountain outside the school would be iced over as

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it does be in such temperatures. It was run on pressure from a

river higher up on the hill at the foot of which the fountain stood

and although it never stopped flowing during the warmer months

it became a solid block of ice each winter. As the school would

of course have other children there I placed Kalina in the

fountain so that she wouldn’t be alone. I chiselled free large

clumps of ice until I had room to set her in the fountain and

worked the ice in the pipe opening until the water flowed again,

then I positioned her under the stream and let the cold of night

form ice around her. The tears on the haggard face I wear then

were cold as I watched her vanish into the glasslike cocoon of

ice. I knew that come the following morning she would be a

buried in a block, hidden from sight, but as the following dawn

would warm her, around the same time that the other children

came to the school, Kalina would be freed – or at least parts of

her would. I didn’t wait to watch that dawn, I couldn’t. It was

too painful for me, even though Kalina was being freed. I wanted

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her to remain with me so much that it hurt, but I could not let the

fear and pain inside of me hold her back.

I didn’t sleep for over a week after I let Kalina go. I knew it was

for the best but it hurt so much that I was overcome. I never

fathered children, nor married and with no living kin still alive I

was as alone as a person can be. But Kalina gave me a hope and

a love that I had never known, nor have since.

I was two summers before I carved again. It took me that long to

regain the will. I had remained on the farm and not seen or spoke

to a living soul since that night at the school. Whether or not it

was a good thing, I learned nothing of the townsfolks’ reception

of Kalina. That was too much to ask. So I was stunned when two

soldiers with muskets walked onto the farm and up to the

homestead. Little more than children, the two soldiers recited

their orders to inform me that the town now belonged to some

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colonel and that a meeting would be held in the town that night

that I must attend. But the soldiers soon left and took nothing

from me. I was fearful for the town and for the statues I had

placed there. I knew nothing of war and arms and in the all of the

time that I had spent hiding I had slipped from the town behind a

subsequent veil of ignorance. There were no ports and no

abundant resources in our town so the soldiers soon pilfered it

and moved on. But some weeks later the soldiers returned,

haggard and worn from battle and worse of all, pursuing them

were other soldiers who used bombs on our fair town in the

hopes of quashing their foes.

I went to the river each night and watched the fires. I tried to

help twice but the bombs made it too dangerous. The

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townspeople had fled as soon the violence began but the soldiers

hid in the their homes. After almost a week the bombs stopped

falling and a silence like a spring morning reigned down all

around us. I walked into town and wandered streets littered with

corpses and rubble and blood. Some buildings had been reduced

to dust and others hung open like pieces of meat that had been

hacked at with a cleaver. I rushed straight to Kalina - the ever

beautiful and ever kind Kalina whom the bombs had wounded.

She was scorched down one side and her pale arms and legs

were half white and half ashen-black. Her little dress had been

smashed off down the burnt side and her fingers were all missing

as she reached for me. Her face was the worst though, half

obliterated but still smiling. I couldn’t look at her and not feel

death’s hand on me. She was still reaching up, asking to be lifted

and I longed to hold her. But others approached so I turned and

walked towards The Bride to check on her.

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That night I sat at home unable to escape the image of Kalina

and the other statues, all of whom had been damaged. I was

broken. Shattered worse than the works I so loved. The town

was in ruins and the people who had survived wandered the

streets unable to accept what had happened. I felt for them all

and as I walked the fields around the farm that night I decided

that it would be me who gave them hope.

With the last of the strength in me I locked the barn doors again

and set about creating The Angel. I made her wings enormous

and she stood so tall that I had to remove the support beams

inside the barn. I drowned the pain inside me with sweat and

blood and wore these hardened hands of mine down to raw

claws. I strained all the muscles and tendons I possessed because

I knew that The Angel was the most important piece of all. I

gave her massive wings with a slight inward curve to offer

protection to the viewer. I also made her simple and plain that I

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could reveal her as soon as possible, but she was so

proportionate as be divine. In three weeks I stood before her.

She looked down at me and into me and soothed the seething,

dread inside of me. She knew the pain I felt in losing Kalina. Her

hands reached down towards me like a mother to a child,

however, her features were so radiant that the soul inside of me

wanted her as a man wants a woman. She was balanced and

poised. She was perfection. She was grace and assertiveness.

Calm and desire incarnate. Her smooth dress fell to the ground

and hid her feet from view but the sheer mass of her wings

flowed in unison with her long slender dress and waving hair,

capped with its flowering crown. She was the greatest thing I

have ever made and the moment that I finished her I chiselled the

Gesianni name along her base and then went to the town to see

what was happening.

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There were still buildings being demolished and some were being

restored. All the corpses had been removed but the scorched

walls had not all been repainted or scrubbed clean. It was still a

broken, soulless place. Pitiful even. I walked to Kalina and sat

with her for a while, but as night fell I bid her farewell and

returned home to begin. I climbed up and removed the shale tiles

from the barn roof, then packed a bag of food and clothes and

books that I placed outside. Then, knowing the generations who

had raised their children there, I listened to the past and heard

them all. I saw the ghost of the child I was run around the house

in bare feet, chasing chickens and squealing with happiness. And

I pictured the parents I never knew weeping as I took a lamp in

one hand and a bottle of scotch in the other. I could even hear

Kalina as I entered the house and splashed the scotch on the

curtains and furniture and then smashed the lamp to ignite it.

Taking a scarf from the rack in the hall I lit the end of it from the

flames which had started to engulf the house in seconds and

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walked with it to the barn. Looking up at The Angel I nodded to

her in thanks and cast the burning scarf into the straw beds where

the cows used to sleep. In moments the place that I had called

home since birth was an frightful inferno. But it was not painful

as I had thought it would be. Inside me I felt The Angel in the

flames. She was unbound love sacrificed in open hope and as she

such swaddled me as a mother does her new born.

I had no plans then of where to go or what to do and the decades

since have found me here and there, working odd jobs for food

or a bed without purpose, but I have never once regretted

sacrificing all that I was and all that I had. I never returned home

to see what became of it and though I am old now and I have

lost the strength to carve and sculpt I remember all the works

that have I made with pride and love.

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stephen.w.fahey@gmail.com @STEPHEN__FAHEY

End

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