I was not sure I understood what the phrase “the play of forms” meant. I continued reading, skipping the passages on technique which I was determined to read later.
I read:
He should be careful of the influence of those with whom he consorts, and he runs a great risk in becoming a member of a large society, for large bodies tend toward the leveling of individuality to a common consent, the forming and adherence to a creed.
I read:
You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing: wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you.
I read:
An artist has got to get acquainted with himself just as much as he can. It is no easy job, for it is not a present-day habit of humanity.
I read:
… every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race. Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a “universal” without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.
I read that again. Then I read:
The artist should have a powerful will. He should be powerfully possessed by one idea. He should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express.
I began to read the book from the beginning, slowly. I woke in the night and found the book in my hands and the reading light on. I turned off the light, and slept.
In the morning, my mother said, “You didn’t sleep last night.”
“It’s a good book, Mama.”
“Sit down and have your breakfast, Asher.”
“Did you read the book?”
“I looked through it quickly on the subway.”
“Did you read what he said about an artist having to free himself?”
“No. I don’t remember that.”
I told it to her. “I don’t think I want to free myself that way,” I said.
“In what way do you want to free yourself, Asher?”
“I don’t know.”
“Eat your breakfast,” she said softly, “and I’ll walk with you to school. I have the meeting to go to.”
There was no mail from my father that day. Nor was there any mail from him the next day, which was Shabbos.
My mother and I were in the living room late that Saturday night when the phone rang. I went to answer it.
“Asher Lev?” It was Jacob Kahn.
“Yes.”
“Bring all the drawings you made of Guernica. Bring other drawings, too. Any you want.”
“I’ll bring them.”
“You know how to travel?”
“Yes.”
“I will see you tomorrow at two o’clock.”
My mother was at her desk, reading.
“No,” she said when I told her about the phone call. “I think I ought to go with you the first time.”
“I want to go alone.”
“Asher, it’s easier to get lost on the New York subway than it is to walk from here to your yeshiva.”
But I insisted, and in the end she consented. I would go alone. I was to be back by seven o’clock. If I could not be back by seven, I was to call her.
I stayed up late that night, drawing sections of Guernica from memory. I spent a long time thinking about the faces of the women in the Reni and Poussin paintings and about the story of the massacre in the Christian Bible. My mother was still at her desk when I finally went to bed.
I had an algebra test the next day that I had forgotten to study for; I did not do well. I came out of the school building at one o’clock and walked quickly to the subway. It was a cold cloudy March day. I had left my books in school and carried with me only the sketchbook filled with my Guernica drawings and another sketchbook filled with drawings of my street. The subway was not crowded. I watched carefully for the stations where I needed to change trains. I noticed that the farther I traveled from Brooklyn, the more frequently I was stared at. In my dark-blue winter coat and hat, and with my thin pale features and red hair and dangling earlocks, I was not exactly a typical New Yorker. At one point in the journey, during a particularly long ride between stations, I opened my Guernica sketchbook and began leafing through the drawings. I saw the eyes in the round face of the elderly woman sitting next to me slowly grow wide with astonishment. I closed the sketchbook and looked out the window near my seat. We were in underground darkness outside the window and I could see only my reflection. I spent the rest of the journey looking at my reflection in that dark window of the train.
I got out at the Ninety-sixth Street and Broadway stop. The wide street was crowded with people and traffic. I walked some blocks along Broadway and turned down a street toward the Hudson River. I found the address he had given me. It was an old gray brick loft building. I had to press a button outside the metal-and-glass front door. An old man with white hair and rheumy eyes opened the door.
“Yes?” he said. He had a hoarse voice.
“Jacob Kahn,” I said.
He looked at me out of the rheumy eyes, waiting.
“My name is Asher Lev,” I said.
He nodded and stepped aside to let me in. He pointed to a book on a stand near the door.
“Sign,” he said. “And sign out when you leave. Building regulations. Fifth floor for Mr. Kahn.”
He shuffled off toward the elevator. I followed. It was a slow, lumbering elevator.
“You one of them artist fellers?” he asked.
“Which?”
“They come in and out all the time.” He peered at me closely out of his wet eyes. “You don’t look like one of them,” he said. His hoarse voice had begun to remind me vaguely of Yudel Krinsky.
The elevator lurched to a halt. He pulled open the metal door.
“Mr. Kahn’s place is the last door on the right. You need the elevator when you’re through, you push this button here and I’ll come up.”
He pulled the metal door shut. The noisy whine of the elevator faded quickly. I walked down the corridor. It was dimly lighted and smelled vaguely of strong disinfectant cleanser. I stopped outside the door to Jacob Kahn’s studio and waited. I was sweating heavily, and I removed my hat and coat; I left my skullcap on. I heard voices inside. I recognized Jacob Kahn’s voice; the other was the voice of a woman. I stood there hesitating. I stood there a long time. I looked at my wrist watch; it was a little past two o’clock. I knocked softly on the door. The voices did not stop. I rang the bell. The voices ceased abruptly and I heard footsteps. The door was opened and Jacob Kahn stood there, broad-shouldered, white-haired, wearing paint-smeared dungarees and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. A cigarette stuck out from beneath his walrus mustache. With the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, I could see the muscles of his arms; they were powerful arms, and they looked sculpted from stone.
“Come in, Asher Lev,” he said. “Come in. Anna, the prodigy is here.” I felt his fingers grasp my arm. He took my coat and hat and tossed them somewhere. He pushed the door shut with a swift movement of his leg. “Welcome, Asher Lev,” he said, smiling down at me. “It is good to see you here. Anna, where are you? Ah, here. Anna, this is my Asher Lev. Asher Lev, this is my Anna Schaeffer.”
A woman had materialized suddenly from behind an enormous canvas. She was of medium height, matronly, with an oval face, sharp blue eyes, and short silvery hair. She wore a dark-blue wool dress and a long necklace of white beads. She offered me her hand. I hesitated. Jacob Kahn moved adroitly toward her, took the offered hand in his left hand, lifted my hand in his right hand, and joined our two hands together. I felt the woman’s palm and fingers against my skin. Her flesh was warm and dry.
“To the future,” Jacob Kahn said solemnly. “To the beginning of good things. We are assembled to celebrate our glory, if I may paraphrase Apollinaire. Anna, it is not polite to stare.”
She was staring at my skullcap. I saw her eyes on the skullcap, then I saw them move
slowly across my head and face to my sidecurls. They remained fixed on my sidecurls.
“Anna,” Jacob Kahn said softly. He removed the cigarette from his mouth and flicked ashes onto the bare wooden floor.
“You did not tell me,” the woman said to him, her eyes still on my sidecurls. “You are a tricky old man.”
“Are you upset with me that I did not tell you?”
“Yes, I am upset. You are tricky and nasty.” She did not sound upset.
“He is a prodigy, Anna. A prodigy in payos.”
“Payos?” She was still staring at me.
“The hair you are gaping at. The earlocks.”
“Payos,” she said. “Payos. And a skullcap. And dark clothes. And a prodigy.” She looked at Jacob Kahn. “You are a mean, tricky, and nasty old man. You are not being nice to an old woman, Jacob Kahn.”
“On the contrary, my Anna. I am being very nice. I am being enormously nice. It is against my nature not to be nice. I introduce the boy to you without advance preparation. All the disadvantages are his. All the advantages are yours. Could I be nicer?”
“Yes,” she said. “You could bring me a drink.” Then she turned to him and said something in French. He laughed, stepped carefully between two huge canvases, and disappeared.
She turned back to me slowly and smiled. “Come over here with me, Asher Lev. Let us stand where there is more light.”
I followed behind her, treading carefully between the sculptures and easels and canvases and worktables that were the heavy traffic of that room. We stood near a wall of windows. The sky, filled with clouds that gave off gray light, seemed to border upon the windows. Beyond low rooftops and trees and a strip of highway, I could see the dark waters of the Hudson and the New Jersey shoreline.
“Let me look at you in the light,” she said. I saw her blue eyes moving across me. “You have Chagall’s pale face. Do you suffer fainting spells?”
“No.”
“I asked Jacob which of the three he thought you might become.”
“The three?”
“Modigliani, Soutine, and Pascin. Pascin’s name was originally Pincas. Have you heard of those three? They were Jews.”
“I’ve seen some of their paintings.”
“They were dedicated people. You have not been beaten for drawing, have you?”
“No.”
“Soutine was severely beaten when he was young. When he was your age, I believe. You are thirteen? Yes. He was quite severely beaten. Orthodox Jews do not care much for painting, I understand. You are what is called a Hasid?”
I nodded.
“Your parents do not mind your drawing and painting?”
I was quiet.
She smiled faintly. “May I ask you what your father does?”
I told her. She seemed surprised.
“How very interesting,” she murmured. “Why aren’t you and your mother with your father in Europe?”
I told her that, too, briefly.
She looked at me intently. Then she looked out the window, her eyes narrow in the gray light. A barge moved slowly across the dark surface of the water.
“Are you very religious?” she asked quietly, still looking out the window.
“I’m an observant Jew.”
“What does that mean, specifically?”
I did not know what to say.
She looked at me. “Do you believe in a special way? Do you behave in a special way?”
“I believe in God and the Torah He gave to the Jewish people. I pray three times a day. I eat only kosher food. I observe Shabbos—the Sabbath—and festivals and holy days. We don’t travel or work on the Sabbath and festivals and holy days. I believe the Rebbe is a gift to us by God to help lead us in our lives. I believe—”
“The Rebbe?” she said.
“The Rebbe is the leader of our group.”
“Ah,” she murmured. “Yes. The man in Brooklyn Jacob goes to visit all these years. Yes. Go on.”
“I believe it is man’s task to make life holy. I believe—”
“Asher Lev,” she said softly, “Asher Lev.”
“Yes?”
“Asher Lev, you are entering the wrong world,” she said.
I was quiet.
“Asher Lev, this world will destroy you. Art is not for people who want to make the world holy. You will be like a nun in a bro— in a—theater for burlesque. Do you understand me, Asher Lev? If you want to make the world holy, stay in Brooklyn.”
I did not respond. There was a long silence.
She stood peering gloomily out the window. “He does not take students, you know. He has never had students in America. He had students in Europe. When Hitler came, the students were not kind.” She was silent a moment. Then she looked at me. “You will not hurt him,” she said. “Many have hurt him. He is like a monk. There are so many things he does not understand.”
I did not know what to say. I shook my head.
She smiled. “I am a possessive woman. I worry about my painters and sculptors. Where are your drawings, Asher Lev? Jacob said you were bringing drawings.”
I handed her my sketchbooks. She placed them on one of the worktables near the wall of windows, opened one, and began slowly, very slowly, turning the pages. I watched her for a while. Her face was expressionless. She looked to be in her sixties, but I could not be certain. I wondered where Jacob Kahn was. I could not hear anyone else in the studio. I watched her slowly turning the pages of the sketchbook. Then I moved away from her. She did not seem to notice me. I began to walk about the room.
It was an enormous room. The walls were huge. High overhead was a large skylight set in a slanted roof. One of its windows was open. Gray light fell across bronze and stone and wood sculptures that stood scattered about the floor, and across huge canvases that leaned against the walls and smaller canvases set in easels. There were worktables everywhere, some cluttered with tubes of paint and various sizes of brushes and small rollers, others laden with chisels and mallets. There was dust and paint on the floor and walls, on the worktables and easels; I thought I could even see flecks of paint on the ceiling overhead. I felt tiny, surrounded by the enormity of the room and the creations it contained.
I heard someone behind me and turned. It was Anna Schaeffer. I had the feeling she had been watching me for some time. I saw her looking at two huge bronze sculptures directly before me.
“I never weary of looking at those,” she said. “I plead with him every week to let me take them. There are museums that want them. But he parts with very little now. He says he wants in his old age to be surrounded by the work of his hands. Here are your sketchbooks. You are, bluntly put, magnificent. Ingres would have been proud. You have a sense of line that can only be a gift. Do your people believe drawing is a gift from God? Even though they despise drawing? No doubt they believe it is a gift of Satan. Yes? In any event, your drawings of Guernica are astonishing. You even remembered to put in the dripping of the paint. The others are drawings of your street, yes? They are quite exquisite. Who is this man whom you draw so often?”
“Yudel Krinsky.” I told her about him.
“And this woman?”
“My mother.”
“And this man?”
“My father.”
She looked closely at the drawing of my father. She nodded slowly to herself.
“And this?”
“Someone I dream about. An ancestor.”
“Asher Lev, are you really thirteen years old?”
“Yes.”
“Why not?” she murmured. “Why not? Goya was twelve. Picasso was nine. Why not? It could happen in Brooklyn to a boy with payos.” She looked around. “Where is he? Jacob,” she called. “Jacob.”
He came out of the dimness behind tall sculptures set in a far corner of the studio. He carried a glass in his hand and was smoking a cigarette. He walked quickly toward us, smiling, and gave her the glass.
“You have become acquainted?” he said to the two of
us.
“Yes,” Anna Schaeffer said soberly. “We have become acquainted.” She sipped from the glass and left a lipstick stain on its rim. “Whenever you tell me, Jacob. Anytime you feel he is ready.” She sipped again from her glass.
“It will be five years,” Jacob Kahn said to her. “Millions of people can draw. Art is whether or not there is a scream in him wanting to get out in a special way.”
“Or a laugh,” she said. “Picasso laughs, too.”
“Or a laugh,” he said.
Millions of people can draw. My Uncle Yitzchok had said that to me once. Millions of people can draw. When had he said that?
Jacob Kahn turned to me and held out his hand, indicating the sketchbooks. I gave them to him and he went through them quickly, then returned them to me. He looked at me in silence. He seemed sad.
“Listen to me, Asher Lev. You can become a portrait painter. You can paint calendars for matzo companies. You can paint Rosh Hashonoh greeting cards. What do you need this for?”
I did not say anything. Anna Schaeffer sipped quietly from her drink, her eyes fixed upon Jacob Kahn.
“Do you understand what this is?” Jacob Kahn asked me, his strong voice rising. “Do you begin to understand what you are going to be doing to yourself? You understand now what Picasso did, yes? Even Picasso, the pagan, had to do this. At times, there is no other way. Do you understand me, Asher Lev? This is not a toy. This is not a child scrawling on a wall. This is a tradition; it is a religion, Asher Lev. You are entering a religion called painting. It has its fanatics and its rebels. And I will force you to master it. Do you hear me? No one will listen to what you have to say unless they are convinced you have mastered it. Only one who has mastered a tradition has a right to attempt to add to it or to rebel against it. Do you understand me, Asher Lev?”
I nodded slowly.