by Fiona Davis
Clara nodded and pulled a tissue out from her sleeve, gently dabbing at the skin under her eyes. A habit Virginia had seen every day but only now recognized as something a woman would do, so as not to smear her makeup.
“I have to ask, why weren’t you on the train as well, if you were Clyde?”
“I should have been on the train with them, but I missed it, because someone delayed me. Some would say it was a lucky break. I consider it a terrible tragedy.”
“Don’t say that. You’re alive.” Virginia pressed on. “Why didn’t you claim the paintings back then, when it all happened?”
“There was nothing left to claim. They were all destroyed.”
“Except the untitled one.”
“I didn’t know about that. Not until I saw it in the auction catalog.” She eyed Virginia, sizing her up. “I’d been told it was still around, but I didn’t believe the person who told me. Oliver originally said he had destroyed it.”
“Who’s Oliver?”
“An old lover. A jealous one. Once I’d recovered from the shock of the crash, I reached out to him to find out the truth. By then he’d killed himself.” She stood, her arms crossed. “There, I’m obviously the painter. Do you need more proof? Where is it? I want it back. Now.”
“What happened, after the accident? Where did you go?”
“Why do you deserve to know? Do you have the watercolor or not? It’s mine.”
“I thought I was rescuing it.”
“You stole it.”
“I swear I didn’t mean to. When I discovered it, the watercolor had been collecting dust for decades.”
“I must have it in order to claim The Siren as my own before it goes to auction.”
“The Siren?” Of course. The title fit perfectly. Virginia pictured the painting’s vague figure, which swam in and out of the viewer’s gaze, the wash of blues. “Where did you go after the crash? Where did you disappear to?”
“I have to tell you a story and then you’ll tell me where it is? Is that the game you’re playing?”
After a moment, during which Virginia remained silent—not without great difficulty—Clara dropped her hands to her sides.
Her words came out slowly at first. “After Oliver made me miss the train, I exchanged my ticket and had a telegram sent to Chicago saying I’d be there a day late. I went back to the studio Levon and I shared, livid with myself. And with Oliver.
“A friend came by the next morning and knocked on the door. He said there had been an accident, and he’d come around praying we hadn’t taken the Twentieth Century Limited. Showed me a copy of the newspaper saying it had crashed, fallen into a river, many killed. No mention of Felix or Levon. A few days later I got word that the paintings were all gone, that Levon and Felix were dead.” She paused. “Everything I loved was lost.”
“What did you do?”
“I wandered about, out of my mind with grief, blaming myself. They had done so much for me, taken risks, and paid with their lives. I had to get out of town, get away from everything that reminded me of Levon. I put on a pair of trousers and one of Levon’s old jackets. He used to talk about how he’d dressed his sister like a boy when they were driven out of their village, back in eastern Turkey. Dressed as a man, I felt safe traveling alone. The jacket still smelled like Levon.”
“That’s when you became Totto?”
“Yes. Since I’d already tried on a new identity with Clyde, what was one more? This way, no one could find me and start asking questions about Levon. I could simply disappear, leave my fury behind me.” A wisp of a smile showed, briefly. “I ended up teaching art back in Arizona, where I grew up, eventually settling in an old mining town called Jerome.”
“Did you paint?”
“No. Never again. But I stayed tuned in to the art world. I’d get the auction catalogs from New York in the mail, subscribed to all the magazines. Watched as the brilliant few of our contemporaries hit it big. I read that the Grand Central School of Art had been closed, abandoned. Last summer, I saw the listing for The Siren.”
“Wait, just last summer? When did you come to New York?”
“In September.”
Virginia remembered Doris calling Totto the “newbie.” She’d assumed it meant he’d been working there for, say, sixteen years, versus Doris’s seventeen. Not six months. The combination of Totto’s advanced age and Grand Central expertise had thrown her. “Seeing your work up for auction must’ve been a shock.”
“I went to a canyon and screamed until my voice was hoarse. It was mine, but how to prove it? No one would believe me. Then I remembered the watercolor, how I’d tucked it on top of the storage cabinet and forgotten about it. I had to come back, see if it was still there. It wasn’t. When I saw the crates, I figured maybe it had been put away and began working my way through them on my lunch hour. I wasn’t going to give up until I’d scoured every one.”
“Why did you leave it up on top of the cabinet in the first place?”
“That was where I stored most of my work, after the students had cleared out for the day. I didn’t want the director to know I was painting for myself during class. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. The oil was painted later, away from the school. Where did you find the watercolor?”
“Behind the storage cabinet. One corner was sticking out; we must have knocked it from its hiding place when we . . .”
“We what?”
Virginia was certain she was turning the color of rhubarb. “I was up here with a man.”
“I see.” Clara muttered under her breath. “The type of woman who’s only good when she’s on her back.”
“It was from behind, actually.” She couldn’t believe she just said that.
One corner of Clara’s mouth lifted, a dint of humor.
“Anyway, that blue color caught my eye. Why didn’t you just look behind the cabinet in the first place?”
“I tried. Damn thing is anchored to the wall, there’s no light, no way to tell.” She threw up her hands. “For God’s sake, have I proven to you that I’m the artist? That I’m Clyde or Clara Darden or whoever else you want me to be?”
She had no doubt of Clara’s story.
But even though Virginia had discovered the painting, she’d also surrendered it.
Clara took Virginia’s silence for doubt. “Follow me.” They walked deeper into the art school, down the long hallway. At each room, Clara narrated a story. About her first illustration class, the students, the art exhibits. New York during the 1920s came to life through her words, Clara’s eyes sometimes blazing with anger, other times wet with tears. The school truly was full of ghosts. Virginia imagined them streaming through the hallway, whispering between easels.
Clara pointed to one of the bigger studios. “This is where Levon used to teach. I took his class once, on a dare.”
“What was Levon like?”
“Passionate, sometimes bullheaded. Always engaged with whoever was in front of him. He’d suffered terribly as a child.”
“And Oliver?”
“Privileged. Beautiful and knew it. He supported me early on. Without him I might not have made it as far as I did, but he made sure I remembered that. He thought he could live out a life of an artist through me, I think, and resented my success.”
“How did you get the job at the information booth?” They circled back toward the entrance.
“I knew someone who knew Terrence.” Clara stopped in the small foyer. “How much do you want for it?”
“For what?”
“The watercolor.”
“No, that’s not it. I don’t want your money. You should have it; it’s yours, rightfully so.”
“What have you been doing with it, shopping around for the highest bidder?”
“No. I wanted to find out more about it, about you. Over the pas
t couple of years I’ve lost so much, and the watercolor gave me hope that eventually I’d be okay. I know that sounds strange. But I loved it.”
“Loved?” She leaned forward. “Why past tense?”
“Well, that’s the tricky part. I don’t have it. It’s with the Lorettes.”
“Irving Lorette?”
“Irving and Hazel. I was told to talk to them. They said they were going to get an expert at the MoMA to examine it.”
“And?”
“They lied, and now they won’t give it back.”
Clara’s entire body went rigid. “Bastards. What were you thinking, giving it up like that?”
“I have no idea how the art world works. I assumed they were doing the right thing.”
“You fool.”
Virginia’s defenses rose. “It certainly didn’t help matters, you sending me threatening notes. I was terrified. You tried to come after me in the school that one time, right? When I ran out the door?”
“I came in to try to figure out where on earth you’d found it, then realized someone else was already in here. What you heard was me trying to hide inside one of the closets.”
How ridiculous. “We were frightened of each other!”
“This isn’t some zany comedy. It’s not funny.”
“No kidding. You had some guy mug me at knifepoint and try to steal the watercolor.” Virginia grew indignant at the memory. “I could’ve been killed. You should know that right after that terrifying incident, I handed it over to the Lorettes, happy to be rid of it, at least temporarily. So it’s partially your fault they have it now. Why on earth did you do that?”
“I watched as you waited in line at the Lost and Found, then didn’t follow through. I offered the guy twenty bucks to follow you and grab the portfolio case. I didn’t know he had a knife. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”
For a moment, the two stood off against each other. Until Clara hung her head. “It’s all lost. Again. Without that watercolor, Clara Darden is just a footnote to history. If that. Levon gets to be celebrated and revered. I loved him, but nothing has changed, almost fifty years later.” She leaned back on the wall, all fight drained away, fighting back tears. “You ruined it all, you meddling, ignorant fool.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
March 1975
Clara should have never come back. She felt like a paper-thin shell of a person. An apparition, sitting in this abandoned art school. Better yet, a relic, just like the dried-up paint cans and brittle brushes.
All her savings had been spent on her big trip to New York. Just like last time, it had ended in failure. Clara’s new life back in Arizona had been fine, rich in beauty. She’d found a town of artists on the edge of a mountain, most of whom made Indian jewelry, metal sculptures, or misshapen macramé webbings to sell to tourists. Her house had a sagging front porch and a tiny bedroom that was boiling in summer and freezing in winter. She made some friends but never got close to anyone. Teaching art at the local school paid the bills. No one questioned her clothes or voice, asked if she was a man or a woman. She was free to be Totto, the name she came up with on the train out west.
New York City, when she first returned, had thrown her off-balance. The crowds made her dizzy; the filth overwhelmed. But she’d settled into a routine with the job she got from Terrence, a distant relation of one of the teachers in Arizona. Her old knowledge of the terminal returned right away, although every so often, early on, she’d answer a question incorrectly, sending the inquirer to the newsstand near gate 37, when it had relocated decades ago. Her sole purpose had been to see if she could get that watercolor. She dreamed of it at night, rued the day she didn’t take it home with her instead of leaving it on top of the cabinet.
She looked around. The sorry state of the old art school matched her own.
Virginia spoke cautiously. “Where are you staying?”
“I found a short-term rental. Downtown.” Clara narrowed her eyes at her. “Don’t tell anyone in the booth about me.”
“I swear I won’t.”
The dimwit had handed the watercolor over to the Lorettes, just like that. Mr. Lorette, who’d had it in for her since the very beginning.
“I’m sorry for all the suffering you’ve been through,” Virginia said. “The train crash, losing everything.”
The girl wouldn’t give up. It was as if she was looking for absolution, and Clara wasn’t about to give her that. “It was the Depression. The whole country was suffering. Not like today, where they’re moaning about gas prices or inflation. People were starving to death in the streets.”
“Does anyone else know that you painted The Siren? Is there anyone else alive who could recognize you and stand up for you?”
She was stubborn, this one. Not about to back down. No matter how cruel Clara was. Clara grudgingly respected her for it, to be honest. Same for the way she’d showed up day after day in the information booth, cleaning it up and making herself useful, when she wasn’t being annoying and prissy.
“Not a soul.”
Virginia exhaled loudly. “Where was the last place you saw it, then?”
“In the cottage in Maine. Oliver told me later that he’d stashed it in the attic.”
Virginia scrunched up her face. “Who else had access to the cottage?”
“An actress named Violet, who Oliver eventually married.”
“Is she still alive?”
“No. She died in Palm Springs a decade ago.”
“Anyone else?”
“Mrs. Lorette. She handled all the sleeping arrangements and kept the cottages stocked.”
“Then the Lorettes must have the painting.” Virginia spoke Clara’s thoughts out loud, gathering steam. “That’s why they took the sketch. They don’t want it to come out, because it’ll screw up the auction, rewrite history in the art world.”
The logic made sense, but Clara wasn’t about to thank her. “You delivered it right into the wolf’s hands, just like a fairy tale.” She stood. “I’m going back to work. I’ve come this far; I’ll figure out another way to get it back.”
“Let me help you. I owe you that, at least.”
“Don’t bother. You’ve done quite enough.”
But the woman wouldn’t let up. The day after their confrontation, Virginia approached Clara in the booth and whispered into her ear, “Meet me at the art school at one o’clock.”
Clara ignored her, shoving a timetable through the window at an impatient young man with too-long hair who was carrying a backpack.
She turned to face Virginia, crackling with bitterness. Yesterday, Clara had stomped over to the Lorettes’ town house. By the time she got there, she’d been ready to storm the ramparts. But her fury dissipated when a maid answered the door and said the couple was out of town. Her bored demeanor indicated she was telling the truth, that the Lorettes weren’t hovering on the other side of the door. Clara had tried, lamely, to get inside, but she was rebuffed.
This morning, she’d awoken to the sound of the garbage trucks grinding away outside her window and decided she was done. New York had lost all the mystique that she’d constructed around it during her decades away. From Arizona, even the hard times of the Depression had acquired a dreamy haze, of the gang sitting around Levon’s fireplace, talking about art in order to divert attention from their growling stomachs. The city had since recovered, gone to war a few times, risen and fallen. It was unrecognizable and had moved on without her.
Virginia’s eyes were wide, like a doll’s. Clara hissed at her, “Please stop acting like we’re in a spy movie.”
“Promise you’ll meet me. One o’clock.”
Doris glanced over, sensing the tension. Clara relented, just to get Virginia off her back. “Yes. Go away now.”
At one, Virginia was waiting at the doorway of the school. “I thought you weren’t g
oing to come.” She fiddled with the lock, swearing under her breath, before opening the door.
She ushered Clara inside. “Follow me.”
An easel sat next to a worktable in one of the smaller studios, where a dozen tubes of paint were arrayed in the shape of a rainbow.
“What’s this?” Clara stopped and stared.
“I went to the art supply store on Fifty-Seventh Street, picked up some things. Look.” Virginia pointed at each item. “A palette, some brushes; they said we needed turpentine and a cloth, so I bought those as well.”
“You planning on becoming an artist?”
“No. Not me. They’re for you. I feel bad about getting in the way of everything.”
Clara eyed the brushes. Not the best quality, but not the worst, either. The prestretched canvas was pedestrian but usable. The whiteness gleamed in the dingy room like fresh snow.
Virginia was positively giddy. “Do you like it?”
“What’s there to like? I don’t paint anymore.”
“Aren’t you an art teacher?”
“Doesn’t mean I make it.”
“Don’t you miss it?”
Clara looked back at the canvas. She remembered the way Levon struggled to hold the brush the last few months of his life. “Levon couldn’t paint, near the end. Lead poisoning. Made his arm go weak.”
Funny how regret never let up, even years later. Certain memories still carved out her insides: The look on Oliver’s face when she’d betrayed him on the beach in Maine. How she’d tortured Levon for not trying harder to paint. Learning that her parents had both gotten sick and died a few months before her return to Arizona.
Virginia was looking at her strangely. “Did you and Levon ever consider getting married? Having kids, that kind of thing?”
Clara picked up one of the brushes and ran her finger over the tip. “No. Back then, we were more like the hippies of today. There was no rush to make things official. And the last thing we needed was another mouth to feed.” She pursed her lips. She didn’t want to let Virginia in, the busybody.
“My daughter, Ruby, had a brief hippie phase when she was fourteen. She was into tie-dye and swiped all her father’s white T-shirts, turning them into these wild, swirly designs. Her plan was to sell them and buy a camera with the money.” She shrugged. “My ex-husband yelled at her but then ended up buying her a camera anyway.”