Tiffany blues, p.21
Tiffany Blues, page 21
“Is that when you became determined to solve the problem of capturing light in black and white?” he asked.
“I think so. I began a quest.”
“Ah, yes, the quest. I’d venture to say some of us are born with that desire to discover or create, while others simply are not. Neither of my wives had it. And few of my children do, much to my dismay.”
“Why to your dismay?” I asked.
“Because looking back at my life from this vantage point of seventy-plus years, I see that all the things that have given me the most pleasure were found on my quest for beauty.” His eyes sparkled. “I’d say that’s been the theme of my life. It’s certainly the leitmotif for the estate and the colony. You’re a beneficiary of that quest.”
“Which makes me very lucky.”
“But also very cursed,” he said sadly.
“Why is that?”
“Because even if you capture the beauty, it’s fleeting.” He used his paintbrush to indicate the imagery on his canvas.
“Beauty is a kind of lie,” I whispered.
Compassion filled his eyes. “You’re too young to be so cynical.”
“Isn’t it a lie?” I asked. “Just an interpretation of what’s real, a false impression created with tricks of the trade, trompe l’oeil, chiaroscuro, foreshortening . . .”
“Well, it might not be reality, but it is my truth,” he said.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“So you have sketches in that book to show me?” He held out his hand.
I didn’t feel I could refuse. I handed it to him.
He spent the next ten minutes studying my drawings and gouache sketches.
“I’m impressed but not surprised. Your draftsmanship is superior, and you have a great eye for detail. That you understand how patterns repeat all through nature and use that in your designs is sophisticated and intriguing. But these are all still blacks and whites and grays. You’ve been here two weeks, and still no color? You promised me at the lily pond that you were going to paint—and not your stone and glass paintings. It’s time for you to paint with color. It’s all around you. You can’t capture light if you’re afraid of its rainbow.”
He paused for a moment.
“Before we accept a fellow, we get references. You know that. You had them sent to us along with your painting.”
What was he saying? References? What did he know?
“Actually, I don’t know anything about the application process, Mr. Tiffany. Minx Deering applied for me without telling me.”
“Ah. I was aware you two were friends but not that she applied for you.”
“Who wrote my references?”
“Your application came with two letters from teachers of yours at the League. Mr. Sloan and Mr. Pannell.”
I felt a surge of relief. For a crazy moment I’d thought he’d communicated with my teachers from Andrew Mercer.
“Both were very complimentary, of course,” he continued. “Mr. Sloan, whom I know quite well, wrote that being here might open you up to painting beyond the imagery you keep returning to over and over.”
“I see.”
“Miss Light”—his voice was low, and the breeze nearly drowned out his words—“why is it that you are afraid to go beyond that stone chamber you keep painting?”
I decided to be truthful. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
“My daughter Dorothy has been studying with the great Dr. Freud for years, and through her I’ve been introduced to his fascinating theories. Are you familiar with them?”
“Yes, I am.” Since the war, the doctor’s theories had been gaining notoriety among intellectual and artistic communities, and it seemed everyone had turned into what Minx’s father called an “armchair psychiatrist.”
“I can’t pretend to be an expert, but I’d say the first question to answer would be when did you first paint the light coming through the window in the mausoleum?”
When I didn’t answer right away, he started to pack up his paints. I still hadn’t responded by the time he was done. He didn’t press me but instead suggested it was time to head back to the house, so we set off, Funny leading the way.
“When I was fourteen,” I finally said.
“And what was it that happened to you at fourteen?”
There were parts of the story that it could not hurt to tell.
“My mother remarried.”
“Yes, you mentioned she remarried the last time we spoke. But that the marriage hadn’t been a successful one for her. Was it problematic for you, too? Didn’t you like your stepfather?”
“No, not at all.”
“Was he cruel to you?”
“Not in the beginning. But he was to my mother. When he drank, he became mean. I think if he would have . . . I think it would have become worse.”
“Would have? What happened to him?”
I began to lie. “My mother divorced him.”
Mr. Tiffany turned to me and searched my face. I expected him to tell me he knew I wasn’t telling him the truth, but he didn’t. “Good for her. Was this all in Ithaca?”
Another lie: “Yes.”
“And you said your mother has since died?”
“She did.”
“When you were how old?”
“Sixteen.”
Mr. Tiffany was quiet, thinking, walking. “And you first saw the mausoleum when you were fourteen?”
“Yes.”
“And you painted with color then?”
“Yes.”
“And you said when you were at boarding school, they didn’t allow you to use your paints. Only pencils.”
“That’s right.”
“How old were you then?”
“Sixteen. I started school five months before she died.”
“When you graduated, there was nothing stopping you from resuming painting with color. So clearly, your mother’s death while you were at boarding school was a defining incident for you. You need to explore that time in terms of what color represents to you, what it would require of you that you can’t give it. Might you ask your aunt what she remembers about your childhood and teenage years that seemed important? She might have seen something that would help. My daughter tells me there are particular crises we endure that our unconscious can block to protect us. That the memories are so damaging that our very minds do the job of blinding us to our own reality.”
“I can’t ask her. My aunt died last year, just before I moved to New York.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve dealt with a lot of death, but I’ve had a long life. You’ve dealt with a lot of it, but your life is still short. I hadn’t quite gotten past my first wife’s death when my second wife died as well . . . I often think death is why we paint, why we sculpt, why we write music and books. Not to leave something behind, as most people think, but to distract us from the truth of what is coming, from what is inevitable.”
All around us, the woods resounded with birds chirping. It seemed almost sacrilegious to be talking of something so serious amid such joyful sounds.
“I suppose you’ve heard that we’re having a party tomorrow evening?”
“I have,” I said, unsure of the reason for the change of subject.
“And that my friend Mr. Edison is coming and will be demonstrating his Spirit Phone?”
“Yes, several of the fellows were talking about it last night. It sounds very experimental and bizarre.”
“I’ve always wanted to believe in life after death. In the idea that we’re presented with multiple opportunities to do the right thing from life to life. I’ve studied mystics and Eastern religions looking for proof. I think about them all the same way I think about luck. I’d love for it to strike, but I remain a realist.”
“I think I am, too.”
“Mr. Edison isn’t, and he thinks he’s finally found a way to reach beyond our cosmos. You should volunteer tomorrow. If I’m wrong and my friend is right, maybe you can use his phone to communicate with your mother or your aunt and ask them what happened to you to drain you of color, to make you afraid.”
I shivered.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Like many artists, Mr. Tiffany was very observant, and he’d just seen something I would have preferred to conceal from him.
“I’m fine. Just a cool breeze,” I said. But I feared that he, ever perceptive, didn’t believe my excuse.
22
After we parted, I took out one of the bikes and rode into town. I didn’t want to draw or paint. Mr. Tiffany was right—what kind of artist was I if I didn’t use color? There I was, surrounded by nature, flush with late spring and all its colorful bounty, yet I continued to use my charcoal pencils and a palette of blacks, whites, and grays. I studied light but refused to paint it in all its glory.
At the bookstore, I browsed for a half hour and, since I had finished The Age of Innocence, settled on Edith Wharton’s newest novel, False Dawn. I took in the other shops and then stopped at the luncheonette, ordered an egg sandwich, and opened my book.
False Dawn took place in the 1840s and was about a young man sent to Europe to buy art for his domineering father. The characters brought to mind Mr. Tiffany and Oliver, and I found myself feeling frustrated again. I’d hoped for some respite, not reminders.
After I ran out of distractions in town, I bicycled back to Laurelton. The house was a hub of activity as the staff prepared for the upcoming party. The idea of the looming festivities depressed me. I didn’t want to witness another attempt to contact those no longer living. To turn what my aunt had found sacred into sheer entertainment.
I sat by the alembic glass fountain in the central court and watched the colors change and tried to listen to the soothing sounds of the running water, but there was too much activity going on around me.
Mr. Tiffany had designed Laurelton so that water from the main fountain in the central court ran through a small channel and outside, where it traveled through a series of fountains, pools, and ponds, down to the Sound. A steady stream flowed from the mouth of a vase to the mouth of a green mosaic and enamel dragon, into a crystal pond, then reemerged farther downhill in a hanging garden, where it emptied into a stone sculpted shell guarded by a statue of Venus and then spilled over into a pond surrounded by foliage.
I followed the water’s path from inside the house down to the twin lakes, where I sat on a stone bench and looked out at the view. But not even the peaceful vista soothed me.
Restless, I walked down to the Foundation building, hoping that Minx or Paul or Luigi would be there, but the studio was empty. I spent the next hour laying out all the drawings and gouache studies I’d done since arriving at Laurelton. Dissatisfied with them, I kicked the sea of papers into a pile.
“Whatever it is, don’t take it out on your drawings.”
I turned around, smiling at the sound of Oliver’s voice. A wave of relief and excitement washed over me.
“Hullo,” I said.
“I’ve been looking for you outside everywhere. I didn’t think I’d find you in here on such a lovely day,” Oliver said.
“I was out earlier, but . . . Did you just get here? How was New York? I missed you,” I blurted out.
“And I missed you, too.” He came over, wrapped his arms around me, and kissed me.
Extricating himself a few seconds later, he said, “That’s better. I have to admit, you were very much on my mind while I was gone. How did you fare?”
I cocked my head back and forth. “All right, I suppose.” I gestured to the work on the floor. “No, not all right at all.”
“What’s wrong?”
I shrugged.
“Grab your paints. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To get you out of your funk.”
Oliver waited while I gathered up my gouaches, a block of thick watercolor paper, and brushes. With one hand, he took my portable easel from me, and with the other, he took my free hand.
Thirty minutes later, we were on his boat, cosseted in a cove, anchor thrown. We both set up our paints and easels.
“I didn’t bring any water,” I said, realizing my mistake.
“I never bring water,” he said.
Leaning over the side of the sloop, Oliver lowered a pail and brought it up, sloshing.
“Out here, nothing ever seems as bad to me.” He filled two cups from the pail and handed one to me. “Paint with this, Jenny. It’s magic.”
“Paint with sea water?”
“Always, when I’m on the boat. Try it. I swear, it improves my work.”
We prepared our palettes. I watched Oliver squeezing out cool blues, deep greens, and warm yellows and compared them with my monochromatic choices.
Small waves slapped against the side of the boat. The setting sun turned the water into gold. Above us, gulls screamed and dove into the sea, foraging for dinner. Oliver’s brush danced, dipped, swept, dipped, danced . . .
I touched the tip of my brush into the water, then into the black paint. I looked at the view . . . at the sea, the distant shore, the sky, the clouds . . . at Oliver . . . at his hands, his brush, his painting, a colorful pastiche coming to life.
I felt like breaking the rules. We weren’t supposed to paint from models while we were at Laurelton Hall. But the scenery was too pretty, too peaceful, too bucolic for my mood. I began to sketch Oliver’s arm, hoping I might capture both his strength and grace and the raw need I felt building inside me to touch him, to have him touch me.
I’d painted only a few indecipherable black lines, and Oliver couldn’t have known I was drawing him, when he grabbed the brush out of my hand.
“No, Jenny, not black. Not gray. Look around. You’re here for a reason. There’s beauty everywhere you look, and it’s all in color.”
“Did you and your grandfather conspire to pick on me today?”
“Conspire? No, but we did talk about your work while we were on the train. We chose to give you a spot here hoping you’d expand your palette. We don’t want to see you squander it.”
“Why I paint in black and white is none of your business.” I hated that they had been discussing me in a way that suggested there was something wrong with me. And I worried that in doing so, Oliver might have shared more about my past than I wanted him to.
Oliver stared at me as if I’d just slapped him. “No, the why isn’t our business, but helping you out of your colorless prison is.”
His voice was tender, trying to soothe me. But all I could think about was what he’d told his grandfather. What confidence he might have shared.
I grabbed my brush back. “Fine, then. I won’t paint you. I won’t paint at all. I’ve had it with both of you probing my psyche.”
Oliver turned his gaze to my easel. “Fine, but if you’re going to paint me, you have to agree to really paint me, Jenny. All right?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Look at me, Jenny.”
I turned and faced him. “I don’t understand what you are asking me.”
“Agree first.”
How could I agree without knowing what I was agreeing to?
“Agree, Jenny,” he challenged again.
I was tired of being careful. Of not inviting danger. Tired of lying and pretending. I was angry and disappointed. Determined and desirous.
“All right. I agree.”
Oliver reached into my paint box of colors and rummaged through the tubes, shoving one aside and then another, until he found the tube of black paint. Holding it, he pulled his arm back and threw.
“No!” I shouted, as I rushed over to the side of the boat to try to catch it, but I was too late. With a splash, my tube of black landed in the water and quickly sank.
I turned back to see Oliver using a rag to wipe the black paint off my palette.
“What are you doing?” I yelled.
He didn’t answer. Picking up a tube of cobalt blue from my set, he squeezed a curl of it onto my cleaned palette. Then came a half inch of yellow oxide. Then dioxazine purple, followed by cadmium orange . . . burnt umber . . . phthalo blue . . . cerulean blue . . . phthalo green . . . raw sienna . . . and finally, cadmium red.
He shoved the colorful palette into my hand. Gave me back my brush. Then he stood and took off his sweater, pulling the V-neck white cable-knit over his head and dropping it onto the deck. He unbuttoned his shirt and dropped that, too. Bare-chested in the cool air, he kicked off his boating moccasins, unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped his trousers, and stepped out of them. And finally, Oliver took off his underclothes.
Standing in front of me, naked, with the sun turning his skin golden and shining on the auburn highlights glinting in his black hair, he pointed to my palette.
“You wanted to paint me? Go ahead. But paint me with the colors of the living. Not the goddamned dead.”
The boat swayed, the water lapped, the birds called to one another. A breeze blew. I stared at Oliver’s long limbs and smooth muscles, so like the Greek marbles in the museum that I’d sketched over and over. They had been cold white marble, but Oliver was flesh—oranges and reds and peaches and browns.
“Try,” he whispered. “At least try to paint me, Jenny.”
I looked at the palette and back at him. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I threw down the brush.
Oliver came over and stood beside me. I felt the heat radiating off his skin. Reaching out, he picked up one of my brushes and put it in my hand, curling my fingers around it, his touch sending cascades of sensation up my own arms and down through my chest and torso and settling deep inside me.
Still holding my hand, he dipped the brush into the rich red and then into the white and then the yellow and mixed a color with me. I watched the swirls turn into a wild flesh color, not close to his in reality but the color of his skin in the setting sun. He pushed my hand so the brush ran through the color and then forced my hand over to the block of paper and stroked the brush to make the shape of a man’s arm.
His touch, usually so gentle, was brutal as he painted for me, with me, not giving me a choice, as the colors took form and the form took shape. A man’s shape. His shape.
