The art of vanishing, p.3
The Art of Vanishing, page 3
“Well, that’s all the time we have for today. I so hope you enjoyed the tour.” Susie bowed her head and a cacophony of voices chimed in.
“Enjoyed? We are obsessed.”
“There is truly no other way to see the museum!”
“It would not be the same without you, Susie.”
“I wish we didn’t have to leave you, Susie!”
The women swarmed Susie, an adoring crowd greeting their fearless leader. They said their thank-yous and vowed to come back soon, and Susie gave recommendations for the rest of their day in the city. The throng finally splintered off, revealing one last member of the tour group I hadn’t seen before, a tall woman with a head of boisterous red curls. She was dressed casually in a thick sweater and a pair of jeans that somehow accentuated her height. She wore glasses with chunky black frames. They covered so much of her face that it took me a minute of studying her to realize she wasn’t as old as her clothes and eyewear made her seem. She stepped forward to have her moment with Susie.
“I wanted to introduce myself,” she said, offering Susie her right hand. “I’m—”
“Jamie Leigh, the new museum president, I know.” Susie cut her off, enthusiastically shaking Jamie’s hand in hers. Susie studied her. “You’re so much younger than I thought you’d be.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I tagged along for the last few rooms of the tour today. I’ve been studying the art for weeks, but there’s nothing quite like getting to know it in person with a trusty guide.”
“Of course I don’t mind! I’m flattered you joined us.”
“Have you been doing this for a long time? The patrons obviously adore you.”
“Oh yes,” Susie said. “I’ve lost count of the years. I do all the museums in the area, but the foundation is my favorite. Is this your first official day on the job?”
“I don’t technically start until Monday; I just wanted to have some time under the radar to get familiar with it all.”
Susie breathed in deeply, closing her eyes for a few seconds as she did. “Be warned”—she reopened her eyes and they twinkled—“this place is nothing short of magical. You’re going to get addicted to it.”
“I can tell,” Jamie agreed. “There’s something, dare I say, hypnotic in the air here.”
Three people bustled into the doorway, stopping for a moment to collect themselves. I recognized them as having some affiliation with the team that governed the museum; the three of them popped up in here from time to time, always distinguishable from the regular visitors by their somewhat more formal way of dressing. They spotted Jamie and hurried over in her direction.
“There you are,” one of the women exclaimed. “We heard you were here! We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I’m Henry Wallingham.” Henry took Jamie’s hand and gave it a single firm shake.
“Lisa Meyer,” Lisa said as she leaned forward to give Jamie a kiss on each cheek.
“And I’m Christie Hall,” Christie said with a brief nod. “We’re on the board and have been just dying to meet you.”
“Of course,” Jamie said. “I’ve been looking forward to it as well.”
“We were planning to be here to greet you on Monday, when you were scheduled to arrive. We rushed down when we heard you were here early,” Lisa said.
“Could we take you for a cup of coffee at the café? We were so disappointed not to be on your interview committee; we’d love to get to know you better,” Christie said.
“Absolutely,” Jamie said, clapping her hands together. “I’m free as a bird, not on the clock until next week, of course.”
“So much for incognito,” Susie said quietly with a little wink.
“Best-laid plans,” Jamie said. “It was nice to meet you. Thank you for the tour.”
The group ushered Jamie out of the gallery. Jamie turned back to wave to Susie, whom none of the board members had even acknowledged. Susie smiled at them, waiting until they had a few minutes’ head start to follow them through the exit.
The evening arrived and so did Claire, on her own for the first time, pausing in the doorway, illuminated by the light of the gallery behind her, not yet far enough into our room to have triggered the overheads. She glowed like something supernatural, like she didn’t belong to the world she was standing in. I couldn’t look away.
She inhaled with confidence and took a step into the gallery. The lights flipped on, and she and they warmed the space around them. She pushed her mop and bucket to the center of the room and abandoned them. She crossed to the wall next to ours that held three paintings of three sisters each—nine sisters, in total, on one wall—and took her time, gazing up into each one. She inched along the floor, not daring to miss a square foot of what was on the walls in front of her.
Everyone remaining in this gallery’s frames froze in their steps. The rules were unspoken, but we knew what was expected of us. We were supposed to appear permanent. During the day, we remained in place as our painters, sculptors, creators had staged us. At night, we took liberties. If we were in the same room as someone on the night shift, we were supposed to pause, to move with caution, to fade into the background, but at each person’s own discretion, of course. Some of my peers were looser with this than others but, to their credit, the night staff rarely looked at us.
We were only open five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday, but the museum was rarely empty on Monday and Tuesday. It was quieter, but you’d still catch the occasional VIP group or museum employees using those days to update archival photographs or descriptive text or to take photos or videos for the museum’s promotional platforms. We were free at night.
Claire continued her lap and by the time her measured pace had carried her around to me, I was far too nervous to make eye contact. I hid my face in my book and felt her eyes crawl all over my body. I felt hot; a fire had begun inside my stomach that was burning its way along my skin. I was terrified that this feeling would end and my nerve endings would go back to the temperature they were before.
My sense of time remained completely distorted. It might have been three minutes, it might have been an hour that she stood there with her gaze on me, setting me aflame. When she took her first step away, my insides began to cool and I shuddered at the sudden change in temperature. She slowly continued her circle, completing one full turn about the room like a woman in an Austen novel. She was Elizabeth Bennet in a janitorial uniform and I, Fitzwilliam Darcy in oil on canvas.
Was it just my delusional brain, or had she lingered in front of me longer than in front of anyone else?
She still had responsibilities to attend to. She reluctantly pulled the mop from its soapy swamp. I counted how many seconds would pass before she looked back up at the artwork. I rarely got past twelve. She relished dusting our frames; the proximity was entrancing. It was with reluctance that she left the room at the end of the night, forcing herself back to the world she had come from.
A few nights later, Claire entered and crossed straight to me, bucket and all. After she’d moved on, Marguerite, who had chosen to loiter at the piano tonight, much to my chagrin, dropped her jaw in shock.
“Does she always do that?”
“She always comes to stand with me at some point. She normally warms up with a circle around the gallery first.”
Marguerite’s cigarette dangled in her left hand and she tapped her ash off mindlessly. “Do you think she knows something? Have you given us away?”
I was annoyed, unwilling to share this new part of my life with my cynical sister. “What is there to know, Marguerite? I think she likes art and I think she likes us.”
“You think she likes you.”
I was afraid to put those words into the air.
“Some of us are going to hang out in Le Bonheur de vivre tonight. I assume you’re not coming?” She didn’t even wait for my response. “That’s your loss,” she said as she swept out of the room. I could hear her greeting my mother as she walked into the garden.
I looked back into the gallery and was shocked to see that Claire was standing in front of me again, her eyes trailing along the painting as if she had just watched our spat and Marguerite’s departure. I froze, unsure of how much she had just seen. She smiled slyly and returned to her work. I didn’t move for the rest of the night.
A week in, Claire started talking to herself during her shifts. “I’ve never really been one to just talk, like, out loud when there’s no one else around,” she confessed as she chattered on. “Except for you all, of course.” My heart thundered at her acknowledgment of us, even if it was in a joke. “But I also never was the kind of person who felt welcome in places like this.” She giggled shakily. “This is so weird, just talking into the air. I guess Gracie does it all the time, but she’s kind of batty, God love her.” She anxiously spun her ring around her finger.
She continued her work, exchanging her mop for a spray bottle and a cloth and moving toward the window. I waited for her to come back in my direction.
After she had finished spraying down the windows, she sat on the bench directly opposite me. She leaned backward, sinking lower. She sighed. “This schedule is brutal.” She rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Something’s going to have to change if I’m going to keep this up. Now I really understand that phrase ‘burning the candle at both ends.’ ”
She looked right up at me and continued. “It was so impulsive of me to come work here. I don’t even know what got into me; I’m sure I could have found a day shift somewhere if I tried. That would probably make more sense. Maybe I can ask them if I can switch to the opening shift.” She shook her head. “No, but then I wouldn’t have this whole place to myself.
“I just can’t believe I get to be here. Me. Every day, like it’s no biggie. I wish little me could see me now.” She looked down at herself, running her hand over her jumpsuit-clad stomach. “I guess she’d be pretty shocked to see me in this janitor’s uniform. But I always thought growing up would mean big parties and going to museums whenever I wanted. I guess I got part of that right. Why am I talking so much? Am I losing it?”
I once heard someone say that people in solitary confinement often lose their voice in the first few days because of how much they talk to themselves—telling stories, singing songs whose lyrics are trapped in the recesses of their memory. The night shift had some kind of similar effect on Claire; as she worked in solitude, she got chattier and chattier.
More of her life slipped out each night—she thought her grandmother Gracie was a saint whom she didn’t deserve. Gracie was teaching Claire to play poker and Claire sometimes reviewed the rules aloud, describing potential hands and announcing herself the winner.
As I got to know her through these nocturnal monologues, I became even more endeared by her. I understood at first that it might just have been the novelty of our situation; I had spent decades in the same place with the same cast of characters and here was someone new. But it couldn’t be that simple. There was something special about Claire. She was serious, logical, thoughtful, and a committed employee. Even so, there was something bubbling under the surface that being in this place was unlocking in her, a childlike curiosity about the art and its home that couldn’t help but spill over. She spent untold minutes just staring at a single painting. We captivated her the same way she captivated me.
I thought and hoped it was more than just an appreciation for art. I was pretty sure Claire was flirting with me. What began with furtive glances grew into sustained eye contact. She even referred to me once as “a handsome guy like you,” and then quickly turned bright red with embarrassment. As she dusted our frame, I could practically feel the heat radiating off her blushing cheeks. When she had finished for the night, she hurried out of the gallery without a backward glance.
Claire
I had just told my imaginary friend I thought he was handsome and I was humiliated, even though I was only talking to myself. He wasn’t even real! I mean, he was real in the sense that he was in a painting sitting there in front of me. But he wasn’t a living, breathing, talking person. Except…
I’d been in the museum for about a month now, five days a week, sometimes more frequently when they needed additional coverage after special events. I’d gotten better at my job and more comfortable marching through these halls on my own. And I’d soaked in as much of the art as I possibly could, studying the hundreds of paintings I was surrounded by in every free moment I could grab. The walls were so heavy with art that there was always something new catching my eye, something I hadn’t taken in the day before.
As I looked at these paintings night after night, something unbelievable crossed my mind. Was it just me or were they maybe moving? Shifting around in their frames? It was hard to tell when I was looking directly at them; it felt like we were playing a game of Red Light, Green Light and they froze every time I turned around. I could have sworn I’d seen subjects in one frame on a Thursday night and in another painting, in another gallery completely, on Friday.
Was I imagining things? Quite possibly. Or I could just be wrong. There must be thousands of paintings in this place; there was no way I was correctly remembering who was supposed to be in which frame. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, couldn’t stop my brain from going back there, from watching the walls. I could have sworn they were thinking, maybe even whispering, though I couldn’t hear what they were saying. And that one guy, the guy in my gallery, the one I’d taken to talking to when things were a little boring—he looked at me like he knew I knew he was looking.
It was silly. It was just art, I kept telling myself. I was still getting used to seeing so much of it. I checked the time on my phone; it was definitely time to call it a night. It must be the adrenaline, the adjustment to the night shift, the thrill of finally getting to do something all my own. A little more sleep and I was sure I’d regain my senses, though I doubted the magic of walking those halls at night would ever fade.
But if I was right, if they were alive in some way—what if he’d heard me tonight? Oh god.
Jean
Claire had greatly improved her mastery of the mop, no longer having to double back to cover spots she’d missed. If Linda could’ve seen her, I knew she’d be proud. But Linda never came by. I didn’t mind. It meant I had Claire all to myself. Well, myself and anyone else who stuck around in the paintings of our gallery at night, but they tended to pay Claire no mind.
At the end of each night, Claire came right up next to me, dusting the frame that ran just under my toes. Having her this close made me feel like something magnetic was running its way along my skin, charging up something that had me ready to shoot off through the ceiling. Even as I maintained my relaxed posture, every muscle in my body clenched. My forearms were on fire. She had this look on her face, as if she might be wondering what it would be like to be held by me. Or, at least, I was hoping that’s what the look meant.
Nothing about Claire implied an education in art; she lacked the pretension of the curators, assistants, and guides who marched through these hallways like they ran the place, which they did to a certain extent. I could always tell when someone had studied art or art history. They projected a confidence that said “even if I don’t understand something yet, I will before anyone notices.” Claire had no preconceived notions about anything that hung before her. She was looking at us sheerly for what we were. It was reminiscent of the way the collector saw us as well, for our shape, our colors, and our light.
Unlike in other museums that I was familiar with, we were never moved around at a curator’s whim. We were on the walls in specific places, based on four principles drawn up by the man who had put us here: light, color, line, and space. And as none of those things were ever changing about us, we never went anywhere.
After he died, people tried to challenge that. A claim has been made for everything: for rearranging us, for sending us out on tour, for moving us miles away to a brand-new building identical in its layout to the original space—that one actually happened. You name a change; someone has thought of it. But for the most part, we stay where we are and I like it that way.
At least we roam somewhat freely at night. Marguerite would not have been satisfied if we were housebound. We were so different, she and I. Born to a different mother, she was brazen and bossy where I was quiet and contemplative. Five years my senior, she acted as if she was another maternal figure to me. A very intense one at that; she was opinionated and critical of every decision I made, whether she spoke her thoughts aloud or just allowed them to register in the way she looked at me. If I was completely honest, I was incredibly intimidated by her.
If we’d been hung in a different museum, one with a more flexible collection, we might have been sent out on tour. Marguerite would have relished the constant change, shifting from gallery to gallery or museum to museum. She would have thrived in rooms we didn’t recognize, displayed for patrons speaking languages we didn’t understand. I’m sure she found our reality dull, but she didn’t let that hold her back. She’d carved out the life she wanted here. She’d been the first of us to learn English, desperate to understand every passing conversation between patrons and to befriend as many of the other painting subjects as she could. Pierre was quick on her tail; my language skills took somewhat longer to develop but I became fluent eventually. I wasn’t sure my mother had ever learned; she certainly never spoke anything but French to me.
I admired that piece of Marguerite, her ability to make life a thing she wanted to live. I was paralyzed, waiting for my purpose to come and find me. She sought hers without needing anyone’s permission.
