Pictures of the Past

by Deby Eisenberg

  She considered this for a few moments, and then said, “I am not surprised.”

  He didn’t know how to interpret that and so he said nothing, and just looked at her quizzically.

  “Why would this surprise me? Do you think I would fall for a man with no appeal?”

  But then she continued. “Would it surprise you to know that I had a boyfriend?”

  He had not prepared himself for this revelation and it blindsided him. What had he been thinking, he asked himself—that she been sitting at home waiting for her prince to ride in? Finally he said, sheepishly, “If I am to be honest…that upsets me.”

  “Well then, I appreciate your honesty, and I will return your trust.” She paused now and offered him the most little girlish swaying of her head from side to side. “There is no boyfriend. I was just postulating. Truly, I only know boys my age, and they are cute, but too immature. When I am older like you…”

  “Twenty-two,” he interjected.

  “Twenty-two, then. I will have a boyfriend for you to be jealous of.”

  “Not likely,” he returned.

  “You think I will be old, withered, and unappealing already.”

  “No, I think you will be married and with children—ours.”

  “Oh, you are quick to change your direction. And so this girlfriend…”

  “She is no longer a girlfriend.”

  “All right then. This girlfriend, who is no longer…her name…”

  “Emily…Emily Kendall.”

  They had reached the Crillon and they entered the hotel lobby. Taylor led her immediately to a secluded corner with a small couch. He took her purse and diaphanous cream shawl and placed them on the coffee table and they sat down together. He had no intention of letting the evening end too soon. Taylor loved every word of this conversation, the fact that she could tease—this young girl could turn the tables on him.

  She said nothing for a while and just whispered the name “Emily” two or three times, as if that act would conjure a specific image. Finally, she said to Taylor, “Blond hair also, I am wondering?”

  “No, not blond, darker, reddish actually, but very dark—auburn, we say.”

  “You know, I just don’t feel that you make a good boyfriend. If I were to take someone’s boyfriend, I’d want assurance that he was worthy.”

  “I was loyal and true for a long time.”

  “But you come abroad and forget her immediately.”

  He knew she was being dramatic and sarcastic with him, but certainly there was truth in what she said. He tried to think of a way to escape from this tangle of words, and then it came to him. “You are wrong. I did not forget her, well at least not immediately. The first day, when I arrived, I could think only of buying the perfect gift for her.”

  “Now, finally you are talking like a good boyfriend,” Sarah said enthusiastically, her eyes angling up to meet his.

  “As a matter of fact, I bought her a painting, the most beautiful painting I had ever seen. And I was so excited. For an hour, I was so thrilled just thinking of watching her when I gave it to her.”

  “An hour only?”

  “An hour only.”

  “And why that short a time?”

  “Because at the end of that hour…I met you …I saw your face.” He let the words float toward her and said nothing more for a moment, just held her gaze. And then, as if reacting to the sting of a bee, he jumped up and pulled her with him off the sofa. “I must show it to you. I know you will love it. It’s crazy. It’s like I was meant to give this painting to you. Now I see it perfectly.”

  “You are crazy.”

  “Say nothing. When you see it, you will understand. You must come with me to my room.”

  “Taylor, wait. You are getting too excited. I hardly think I can go up to your room with you. I’m sure you understand that. Papa is giving me a great deal of latitude as it is. I cannot betray his trust.”

  “Of course,” Taylor said. He was trying to slow down and be rational. “Of course you are right. But I am going to bring the painting down to you and you must promise to stay here.”

  When he left abruptly, she retired to the ladies lounge, where she powdered her face and reapplied her lipstick, and had a brief conversation with two of the other occupants about highlights of the exposition. By the time she returned to the couch, he was back and had almost finished unwrapping the painting.

  As if their moves had been synchronized, they looked at it first from two feet away and then moved back another five feet. He was silent, waiting for her response.

  “It is magnificent,” she finally said. “It is everything anyone would want in a work of art.”

  He knew what her reaction would be, and yet, he was ecstatic to hear it from her lips. “Go on…tell me what you are thinking.”

  “It has all the beauty of the Impressionist style. All of the brush strokes, the colors, and the romantic theme as well. But there is also a story here.”

  “Exactly,” he interjected. “I knew you were smart— and sensitive. Help me to understand what is going on here. There are so many ways to read this. Is this the beginning of a story? Have they just seen each other for the first time? Is this the middle of the story? He has not yet told his partner that he is in love with someone else. Or is it the end of the story? He has had to say good-bye to his true love; he had no courage to leave his girlfriend or fiancé or wife. I even asked the collection curator if there was a series of these paintings and perhaps that might clarify the story.”

  “There are no others?” She was as curious as Taylor.

  “Not that he was aware of. He explained that it seemed to be a solitary effort, so different from Lebasque’s other works, which were much less detailed, where rarely did faces emerge from the canvas. So we have only this painting and its little mystery, seen through the eyes of the little girl.” Taylor sucked in his lips and shook his head. He looked back at Sarah and saw her smile. The painting had been clear to her immediately. Maybe he did not understand it when he first purchased it—when he thought of it hanging in the home he would share with Emily. But now just these few days later, he could see what she saw. She studied the painting one more time and then turned to Taylor.

  “I think it tells the story of the day they were born,” she said softly and slowly, but confidently.

  Taylor considered her words and drew her to him. It was impossible to believe that the dim light of the hotel lobby was responsible for casting her entire face in a brilliant glow. He brazenly removed the one large clip holding her hair back in its tight chignon and he ran his fingers through the loosely falling blond locks. “I have wanted to do that all evening.”

  She looked around quickly at the spirited hotel lobby, but saw that none of their group was present. With the soft pressure of his fingers along the nape of her neck, their tender touch brushing her ear so that a tingling sensation disarmed her from any ability to resist, he brought her head to his and she closed her eyes and accepted his kiss. But after only ten seconds, she pulled away and straightened her dress. She retrieved the hair clasp from the coffee table where Taylor had dropped it, nervously fumbling to reattach it so that it could once more hold her hair away from her face.

  He stepped back and allowed her to compose herself.

  “I spoke to your father and asked him a great favor.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Not when we were all together, but at a break this morning, during the conference. We had just signed off on the papers creating International Goods and Services. We had acknowledged the success of our conference, and so I took him aside,” Taylor said, trying to be businesslike. “I asked him if I might accompany you both back to Berlin for a stay…a brief stay, I assured him…an opportunity to see his operations firsthand.”

  “Oh really…and what did he say to this proposal?”

  “He was open to it…”

  “But I think you insult my father with these words.”

  Taylor
was puzzled; he bent his arms at the elbows with his palms open and angling outward. His head went side to side in the recognized pose of confusion. “Insult him. I think you misunderstand. He seemed pleased…maybe flattered that I was so intrigued by his factories.”

  “Insult his intelligence.” She was smiling and laughing slightly. “You think that you are not transparent to him, that he is unaware of your true motivation.”

  “Oh, and now I ask you what you think that motivation is.”

  “I think that you are not yet ready to put an ocean between us.”

  Rachel

  New York

  January 1972

  This time love came to her in quite a different manner. There was no immediacy of love at first sight. She would never allow herself to fall into that trap again. Well, that was not totally true—she had fallen for love at first sight just once more—about two and a half years before—the moment that Jason was born.

  Following the Jewish tradition, she was thrilled to honor Ida’s wish and she chose a name for her son with the same first initial of the brother that Ida had lost. After Jason Gold’s birth, Rachel—just like Ida so many years ago—was not eager to leave New York. She had become comfortable sharing a household with her aunt, had made many wonderful friends, and was extremely vested in her educational path at New York University. And that was where the love, that wasn’t at first sight, was slowly and carefully nurtured.

  It was her last semester of college. It was his last class to teach as a graduate student, prior to receiving his MBA. Sometimes he found it exasperating. “Accounting for Non-Business Majors.” Yes, he was teaching bright students, but they were generally in the literary and fine arts sectors. This class was for the layperson— regarding how to really exist financially. In other words, if you finally landed a role in a Broadway play, wrote a screenplay, or sold a painting, how should you successfully handle that first windfall, in case there were bleak times ahead? He always thought he should walk in the classroom the first day and simply say, “I have three words for you—hire an accountant,” and then not show until the final exam where he would hand out papers that ask—"what are the three words that sum up the class?” You would get an A if you wrote “hire an accountant.” But, of course, he couldn’t do that. That would be condescending, and even a little mean, two qualities that did not define Richard Stone.

  And since he was teaching this course almost by rote after having taught two classes for each of the previous three semesters, Richard was quite caught off guard by this young woman in the front seat, right aisle. Oh, he was familiar with beauties. NYU was, after all, a premier school for the budding actors and actresses of the time. But most of the girls, especially, were thin little waifs who acted like they wanted to be anywhere else but in his class. And he was used to rejection by beauties. In fact, he was recovering from a major setback in the romance department. A girl, Sharon Lee Stein, who he had dated for two years, who seemed to like his quirky humor, his just-above-nerdy looks, his Wall Street potential, left him (with a ring in his pocket) for another man.

  So now he was completely surprised by this enchanting young woman in the front row, staring at him with eager eyes (for his knowledge). For Richard Stone, the feeling was as if he had been hit by a car. It was that rush of anxiety that overpowers you when you see it coming, the deep thud inside upon impact, and then the relief that you have survived, and that you will be OK. But in cases of love, there is the potential that you might even be better than ever.

  Later, as his mesmerized state abated, he began to analyze her powerful attraction. She was beautiful, young, and radiant looking, yet it was evident she had a certain maturity to her. And he kept feeling he might have recognized a slight vulnerability behind that self-assured façade. Whatever her story was, he knew he wanted to be part of it. He set his goal to attain Rachel and he knew he would structure a plan as he would any project for his graduate degree. Soon Richard would have his MBA from the university and he had already accepted an offer from the financial analysis department of the Goldman Brown Trust.

  In class, he tried to be professional, tried not to look at her too much. But it was almost impossible. The thick waves of her hair, her large, inquisitive brown eyes, the way her sweaters clung to the beautiful curve of her breasts, made it a challenge to concentrate. Eventually, he tried to think of teaching just for her (without looking at her), as the eccentric student mix went in many distracted directions and only Rachel seemed to be responsive and to soak in his lesson. In a sense, the class reminded him of the years he spent teaching junior high math, while awaiting his draft status. They were not the preteen gum chewers and letter passers, but the actors were “acting out,” whispering about tryouts and rehearsals, the dancers were stretching legs and pointing toes, and the artists were doodling or sketching instead of taking notes.

  Finally after the first month, Rachel, to his amazement, actually stopped Richard on the street to talk to him. “I don’t know how you do it—I mean teach seriously while everything is going on.”

  “Oh, you noticed that too. Well here’s my trick, Rachel.” He was caught off guard hearing her voice, feeling the touch of her hand on his shoulder to gain his attention. He only willed his mind to function to prepare logical words for a response. “I realized from the first time I taught this type of class for non-finance majors that most of the class were taking the course Pass/Fail. This is not the student population that I am used to. In my sections for finance majors, the kids are quiet, unless they are obsessively asking questions, and they’re serious about learning the material and getting a good grade.

  “So when I get a class like yours, I just block out the shenanigans of the ‘artistically gifted’ of NYU and try to teach to whoever is listening—which, in this case, happens to be you—and maybe only you.”

  “Oh,” she returned softly, obviously taken aback. She was surprised that he had even noticed her, since he barely looked her way even when she asked questions.

  He tried to keep his cool; he was so practiced in looking away from her in class that he didn’t know how to handle himself now. “So I guess I need to know if you’ve learned anything, to assess if my system is working,” he finally said.

  Rachel’s relationship with Richard stayed at a controlled distance until the end of the term. Their feelings were never verbalized those first months, and they interacted in an acceptable student-teacher manner, although he did invite her to his office two or three times for tutorial sessions and another two or three times she sought his help before a test. But both of them were aware that there was no need for tutoring, no test anxiety; Rachel could have excelled even in the class for finance majors.

  By their first real date after the course ended, they knew only the most elemental things about each other— that they were both Jewish, both bright and directed, both valued a sense of humor. And they knew the most important part of each other’s history.

  From the beginning she didn’t want to mislead him or take him by surprise. So very soon after their initial connection, the week after they spoke on the street, she knocked on his office door.

  “I won’t be in class on Thursday; I just wanted you to know.”

  At first he didn’t understand; he thought she meant not ever after Thursday. She could tell that from the reaction on his face. “Just that day—you see—it is Parents’ Day at Rusty’s school. I have a son Rusty, Jason really. He’s two and a half, and he is the light of my life. I have no husband.”

  There, it was out. In the past two years she had not been truly interested enough in anyone to even reveal this much. Solitary dates had occasionally been entertaining—that was all. But she wanted Richard to know who she was from the start. As she spoke, she pulled out a preschool picture of an adorable rusty-haired boy and placed it in front of Richard.

  “Well,” Richard said almost choked up that this catharsis on her part indicated that she too thought they might have a future. “You’re ahead of
me—I’ve been rejected by love and I have no wonderful picture to show for it.”

  It was then that he told her about Sharon Lee Stein. “Since you have been so honest with me—I will tell you about my experiences with Sharon Lee Stein.” He sat back in his chair, twirling his pencil in his hand and focusing intently on the act without looking up at her. “Obviously, you see me as a handsome, charismatic lady’s man, but it was not always so.”

  She smiled broadly; did he truly not know how attractive he was? His allure was not because of his face or body, but his general bearing, his wit, and the charm of his personality.

  Lifting only his eyes to assess her expression, he felt assured enough to continue. “Now, as I was saying…in high school I was a big team player, but we’re talking the Debate Team and, oh yes, the local Math Olympics team. The ladies were not truly falling all over me.

  “So when Sharon Lee started paying attention to me at the beginning of my junior year of college, I was an easy mark. It started slowly—peaked grandly—and ended badly. When I was little, they called me four eyes. Truth be told, I was blind—blinded by her.”

  This time he was not afraid to look at Rachel’s eyes, and he was pleased to see her sympathetic expression. “Have you ever been with a date in a room, sitting on a couch at a party, sitting at an intimate dining table, and the person you are with isn’t looking at you when you talk? He is looking past you—seeing who is better behind you—over your shoulder.

  “Actually she wasn’t even that great looking—nothing like you. But I was a late bloomer, over-ready for love, and an easy target.” She nodded with understanding and pondered silently her own past.

  “My parents who are kind of ‘old country’ saw it easily,” he continued. “’She’s too made up…too much bust showing…her language is not refined,’ they said. And this from two people who, although successful in business with a good place in Jewish society, still spoke with the accents of immigrants.

  “But they only voiced their feelings once—my parents are good, supportive people—they’ve always let me find my own way,” he said.