“I can see you’re giving this serious thought,” Weaver said. “Is there anything else I can say that might help you decide?”
The pale, barely open buds on the trees looked, when Sonja allowed her vision to blur slightly, as though they were not attached to branches but hovering in the air like a hatch of newly warmed, newly winged insects.
Sonja said, “My husband keeps trying to teach me the difference between a couple and a few. How many is a few?”
“Your husband sounds like a pedant. If you want to be literal about it, I suppose you’d say a couple is two. A few—three. Maybe more, but not many. Why?”
“So when you say the happiness of a few must be sacrificed for this arrangement. . . . If you said a couple you would have meant two, so that would be the happiness of my Henry and your wife. But you said ‘a few,’ so more than two. Am I numbered? Is my happiness of no concern?”
She heard the chair roll across the floor again and knew he had stopped behind her. “What if I answer your question with another question: Are you happy now? Perhaps we should set the matter of happiness aside entirely. My wife, for example, is not happy married to me. Nevertheless, she—Harriet, by the way, is her name—wants to remain married to me. By now she probably can’t imagine another life. When my daughter Emma was a teenager she hated school, and a day didn’t pass but that she left the house in tears. You know what I said to her? ‘Baby, I’m sorry you’re unhappy, but you’ve got to go. Some things are more important than your happiness, and education is one of them.’ ”
“And are you another?”
Weaver’s laugh soon disintegrated into a dry, breathy cough. “My dear, I’m not the least bit important. But art is. It’s supremely important. And as it happens, in this mix I’m the one who makes art. And you are helping me in the process.”
She turned away from the window. Because she stood over him in his chair, he looked even smaller. Older too, and weaker. She had no trouble imagining a future in which he would be hunched down in a wheelchair while a younger woman—Sonja? that daughter who was so unhappy in school?—rolled him from room to room.
“But you want more,” she said. “Already you have me posing for you. So you’re asking for more.”
“Do we need to discuss this? Of course I want something more from you, and I think you know what that something is.”
“You want me to be . . . a wife?”
This time Weaver’s laugh was a single dry bark. “As I said before, I have a wife. I’m in no hurry to acquire another. But if that’s what you would require, if that’s what it would take to get you to say yes . . . What the hell. You divorce Henry, I’ll divorce Harriet, and you’ll be my wife. Why not.”
Now it was Sonja’s turn to laugh. “You make it sound as though you’re still talking business.”
This time he came out of his chair quickly, and though he moved toward her as if he meant to put his hands on her, he stopped just beyond arm’s reach. “What if I told you I adored you? Would that make the difference here? I have the feeling it wouldn’t mean a goddamn thing to you. You seem to have no vanity, so I can’t appeal to you by pointing out you’d gain a measure of fame by being my . . . my mate. Better still, my inspiration. You’d be more celebrated for that than for being my wife. Let’s face it—the artist’s wife is never remembered, unless she was his subject as well. You already know that one day your image will adorn the walls of museums, but you’re wise enough to realize that the same hands that hang the paintings might someday take them down. A hell of a lot of art that people once thought was great is now gathering dust in the dark. For that matter, canvas can eventually turn to dust. But while I’m alive I want to make the finest art I can, and I want you near me while I do it.”
She had grown accustomed to standing unclothed before him, but now it was his gaze that was naked and she couldn’t bear it. She whirled around and faced once again the wooded slope behind the studio. At that moment a crow sliced in and out of the trees at a speed so astonishing it didn’t seem possible it could avoid crashing into the trunk of an aspen.
“Would you like to travel?” he asked in a rapid, diminished voice. “Would you like to get away from here, where people would talk? I don’t give a damn myself, but if that’s what you want . . . We could visit Paris. A friend of mine has an apartment in the Latin Quarter overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens. He’s seldom there, and he’s told me I’m welcome to the place anytime. Or perhaps you’d prefer a fine hotel—maid service and room service so you don’t have to lift a finger. The Savoy in London? Do you want to go back to your homeland? Do you have family you’d like to see again?”
She interrupted him to ask, “If I say no, will you still hire me to pose for you?”
Weaver said nothing. He retreated to a worktable, where he busied himself with work that didn’t need to be done. Finally, after picking up and putting down five or six paint tubes—he seemed interested only in how neatly crimped the bottoms of the tubes were—Weaver replied, “I won’t ask you again, but my offer—my request, my plea, whatever the hell you want to call it—will remain open. If you should ever change your mind.” He pushed himself back as if something on one of his own paint-clotted palettes had repulsed him. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”
To Sonja’s surprise, Weaver still wanted her to pose that day, although he started a new work rather than continue with the previous sitting, in which she was seated on the edge of the bed, naked but for the blanket draped across her lap, looking impassively at the adjacent small table and its water glass.
Now Weaver pulled the bed away from the corner and aligned it with the north window and the meadow beyond. He stripped the blankets and sheets from the bed and bade Sonja undress and lie flat on her back on the bare mattress.
The end of life has long fascinated the artist—Roman death masks, depictions of the crucified Christ, soldiers mutilated on the field of battle. David’s “Death of Marat.” Ruskin’s deathbed drawing of his beloved Rose. Delacroix. Eakins. And at first glance, Ned Weaver’s “An Early Spring” seems as though it might belong to that tradition, for what but death brings that attitude to the human body—eyes closed, hands folded across the chest, legs pressed together? She is naked, but we all will be before the mortician does his job. Or has he already done his work? She’s pale, but wait—she doesn’t have the marmoreal pallor of death. Blood, and not the embalmer’s substitute, looks to be pumping yet through those veins. But she can’t be sleeping; no one sleeps in that position.
Perhaps we’re making the mistake that viewers of representational art so often make when they assume a work is “about” the people, objects, or scenes on the paper or canvas. On the other hand, we know when we look at Marden’s “Cold Mountain” or Arp’s “Mountain, Table, Anchors, Navel” that neither tells us as much about mountains as about the artist.
On that day, she was no more dead than those wildflowers outside the window—rendered in the looser brushstrokes we associate with the Impressionists—were in full bloom. Anyone familiar with Door County knows that a field will not bristle with points of pink, yellow, and lavender until the first weeks of summer.
At any rate, Francis Taub, the collector who bought “An Early Spring” and so many other Weavers, could not bear to look at the painting for long. He knew far more about oil deposits under the earth than about oil paint spread on a canvas, and he couldn’t even be sure of what he felt when he gazed at that supine naked body, but he knew that his feelings disturbed him. “Early Spring” never hung on a wall in any of the Taub homes or offices.
22
The game was hearts, and no more than four men sat in at one time. Anyone else gathered in Charlie Raven’s shack could stand and watch the cards being played—but keep their damn mouths shut—or they could go outside and jig through one of the holes drilled in the ice of Weasel Lake. They could help themselves to a brandy or a beer—as long as they were as willing to replenish the supply as deplete it. They co
uld tear off a strip of venison jerky, but they were not welcome to any of the chocolates— Charlie Raven had a sweet tooth, and the Russell Stover box was his private supply.
Henry stood alone at the window while the card game chattered on behind his back.
“Whoa! Is he going for it?”
“If he is, he ain’t going far.”
“Make him eat it. Make him eat that black bitch.”
“Should we just get it over with and see if someone’s got the stopper?”
Henry didn’t belong there. He was younger than any other man by at least twenty years. He had a wife and a child and a house with a front and back door. His income was more or less regular. He liked to hunt and fish, but for him it was recreation, not a primary source of food. He had a name and a reputation in the county that stood for something besides poaching and hard drinking. And Henry could not keep up with these men at the card table. They played fast, they talked constantly, and they slapped their cards down as if they wanted to inflict harm.
But Max Sherry was a regular; Charlie Raven, Morgan Sherrill, and Barney Sykes were Max’s friends, and Henry wanted to know if they, along with Ernie Glaser, the man who was supposed to have discovered Sonja, had also watched his wife while she posed for that artist. He wanted to know, but he didn’t want to ask.
Since the day Max Sherry had told him about Sonja, Henry thought of little else, yet he couldn’t make any of those thoughts move from his mind to his tongue. He hadn’t confronted Sonja, and he hadn’t asked any other man if he had ever had such a problem with his own wife, as improbable as that might be. He hadn’t sought advice or consolation, though he could use both. He felt unmoored and unmanned, yet he put himself in the company of these directionless men who no doubt would, if they knew of his dilemma, mock his masculinity.
“Henry,” Barney Sykes said, “we got any flags out there?” He assumed Henry was watching to see if any of the tip-up flags were up, indicating a fish on the line. For what other reason would Henry be staring out the window?
“No, but somebody out there is pulling in a shitload of bluegills.”
“Georgie Bohn,” Charlie Raven said as he shuffled the cards. “He loves those fucking bluegills. Fries ’em up like potato chips.”
“And it’s about as easy to make a meal out of potato chips,” Barney said.
A chair scraped, and Henry heard Max’s voice. “Fuck it. I’ll go drill some new holes. We ain’t got a hit so far with them in close.”
“Stay away from Georgie,” said Charlie, “unless you want bluegills tipping your flag.”
“Henry,” Max said, “you want to sit in here?”
“No, I’ll give you a hand moving the lines.”
The sunlight reflecting off the ice gave Henry a headache, but he tried not to squint. Ever since he fell from Buck and tore open his forehead, he had trouble with his right eye. If he pinched his facial muscles for long, his eye would begin to twitch so violently it threatened to shut itself, and that was all he needed—to have only one good eye to go with his one good ear. He wished he had a cap like Max’s with a bill he could pull down low.
Henry and Max took turns drilling holes, exertion strenuous enough on that warm February day to allow both of them to break a sweat. They unbuttoned their coats, and while Max put fresh bait on each line, Henry lit a cigarette and kept his gaze fixed on the only available darkness—the hole that peered into the lake’s green-black depths.
“Don’t much care for cards, do you?” Max said as he knelt on the ice and reset the tip-up.
“Not really,” Henry replied.
“Nor ice fishing?”
“I have trouble sitting still.”
“Yeah, well, fishing and cards . . . they don’t allow for much moving around.” Max stood and with the toe of his boot pushed a little slush back into the water. “So what are you doing hanging out with us old farts?”
“I guess I wanted to find out if you’d ever mount an expedition to go off and spy on my wife.”
Max’s laugh was as hard and cold as the ice underfoot. “We sure as hell wouldn’t do it when you’re around, now, would we?”
“I suppose not.”
“You ain’t spoken to her about what she’s been doing?”
“Not yet.”
“Jesus, Henry. If it was my wife . . .”
“You’d what?” The question could have been belligerent, challenging, but coming from Henry’s lips, it sounded like a plea for help.
“I’d let her know what time it is.”
Max’s choice of words struck Henry as so odd that he couldn’t keep from smiling, and that in turn seemed to anger Max.
“This is funny to you? Maybe you’re one of those men who don’t give a shit what his wife does once she’s out of his sight.”
“It’s not that—”
“Or maybe you never did believe me on this. Come over here and stand beside me.”
Henry did as he was told. Max pointed toward shore with one hand and with the other pressed down on Henry’s shoulder to get Henry to hunch down and share Max’s sight line. “See that stand of scrub oak just back of Charlie’s place?”
“I see them.”
“Well, those leaves there are the same color as your wife’s pussy hairs.”
Had he wished, Max Sherry could probably have pushed Henry to his knees by only slightly increasing the pressure on Henry’s shoulder. Instead, Max removed his hand and shoved Henry away.
“You sure as shit believe me now, don’t you?” asked Max.
“Those men in there,” Henry said, still staring in the direction of both the shack and the oak leaves, “how many of them have seen her?”
“Fuck if I know. I told you. Ernie’s the one who found her, and I ain’t too sure who he shared with.”
“Charlie?”
“Why—would that bother you more because Charlie’s part Indian?”
“Morgan?”
“Yeah, Morgan. He don’t get too close though, because he’s too fucking fat to sneak down the hill.”
“Barney?”
“Okay, Barney. The others I don’t know about. I swear to God. Ernie’d be the one to ask.”
“You don’t talk about this among yourselves?”
“We do some. Sure.”
“And what do you talk about?”
“Your wife’s a good-looking woman, Henry—what the hell do you suppose we talk about?”
Growing amid the deep green of those tall pines, the oak tree and its rust-colored leaves looked out of place, like something forgotten and left out in the weather. Henry kept his eyes trained, no matter how the right one twitched, on that tree. “Tell me, Max—you still have that pistol you showed me that day in the orchard? Because if you do, I’d be willing to buy it from you.”
When he accompanied Max out onto the ice, Henry had no idea that he would make this request, yet once it was out of his mouth it altered not only the present moment but those preceding it as well. Yes, this was exactly the reason Henry had walked out of the shack with Max. Henry even felt as though some of that old power of being able to act on the instant was flowing back to him.
Max shook his head slowly and sadly over Henry’s offer. “Henry. That’s not the route you want to go. No sir.”
“You don’t want to part with it,” said Henry, “that’s okay. I can lay my hands on another.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“I’m not going to murder anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’d just like to have it in my pocket. In case I need to show someone how serious I am. Like when you brought it to the orchard.”
Squatting once again by the nearest hole in the ice, Max lifted his line slightly to test if the minnow was still on. Satisfied, he stood and shook the icy water from his fingers. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he said to Henry. “I’ll loan it to you. But not today. You need to think on this business. And you need to talk to your woman, goddammit. You do that, and you still want to stick a
barrel in that fucking artist’s ear and scare the shit out of him, all right.”
“So you don’t have your pistol with you?” said Henry.
Max ignored Henry’s question. “Today’s Sunday. . . . You meet me next Wednesday at the Top Deck. Seven o’clock? I’ll have it with me then, and if you still want to take a turn with it, it’s all yours.”
“Top Deck, seven o’clock. Wednesday.”
“And in the meantime, find someone else to talk to about this. I sure as hell don’t have any advice for you.” Max rubbed his hands together for warmth. “Now, let’s go inside and break the seal on Charlie’s brandy.”
As they walked back across the creaking ice, Max went back on his word. “When you’re passing to Morgan,” he told Henry, “hold back a high spade or high hearts. He’s always looking to shoot the moon.”
When Henry walked out of Charlie Raven’s hours later, he paused for a moment beside his truck and stared up at the night sky. Maybe it was a good thing Max didn’t have the gun with him. Henry might have taken it into Charlie’s shack and shot the eyes out of every one of those old bastards.
Henry shuddered at the stupidity and savagery of his thoughts. Perhaps he should go back inside and tell Max to forget about the Wednesday meeting at the Top Deck. No, that would take time, and Henry was suddenly in a hurry. Earlier, in the double glare of ice and sun, he couldn’t see clearly, but now, wrapped in darkness, his way was clear. He would talk to Sonja. That was why he had been so confused about what to do, trying to lay his hands on a pistol, hanging around these old mossbacks, when what he really wanted was to sit next to Sonja, take hold of her hand, and tell her about his dilemma. But he had to remind himself—he wasn’t going to talk with her, he was going to lay down the law: She would stop posing for that artist. That was the first thing. Later, if she wanted to tell him her reasons for posing, maybe he’d listen. Maybe.