by Mary Rickert
“ ‘That must be Mr. Castor’s work,’ she said.
“ ‘I didn’t know he painted.’
“ ‘Well, he did, you can see for yourself. Folks said he was nuts about painting out here. Are they all like these?’
“ ‘More or less.’
“ ‘Should have stuck to cough drops,’ she pronounced. (This from a woman who once confided in me her absolute glee at seeing a famous jigsaw puzzle, glued and framed, hanging in some restaurant in a nearby town.)
“When all was said and done we had fifteen boxes of those paintings and I decided to hang them in the room that was half of what had once been a magnificent kitchen. Few people would see them there, and that seemed right; they really were quite horrid. The sunlight could cause no more damage than their very presence already exuded.
“When they were at last all hung, I counted a thousand various shapes and sizes of the same dark-haired, gray-eyed lady painted in various styles, the deep velvet colors of Renaissance, the soft pastel hues of Baroque, some frightening bright green reminiscent of Matisse, and strokes that swirled wildly from imitation of van Gogh to the thick direct lines of a grade schooler. I stood in the waning evening light staring at this grotesquerie, this man’s art, his poor art, and I must admit I was moved by it. Was his love any less than that of the artist who painted well? Some people have talent. Some don’t. Some people have a love that can move them like this. One thousand faces, all imperfectly rendered, but attempted nonetheless. Some of us can only imagine such devotion.
“I had a lot of free time in Castor. I don’t like to bowl. I don’t care for greasy hamburgers. I have never been interested in stock car racing or farming. Let’s just say I didn’t really fit in. I spent my evenings cataloguing Emile Castor’s photographs. Who doesn’t like a mystery? I thought the photographic history of this man’s life would yield some clues about the object of his affection. I was quite excited about it actually, until I became quite weary with it. You can’t imagine what it’s like to look through one man’s life like that, family, friends, trips, beautiful women—though none were her. The more I looked at them, the more depressed I grew. It was clear Emile Castor had really lived his life and I, I felt, was wasting mine. Well, I am given to fits of melancholy, as you well know, and such a fit rooted inside me at this point. I could not forgive myself for being so ordinary. Night after night I stood in that room of the worst art ever assembled in one place and knew it was more than I had ever attempted, the ugliness of it all somehow more beautiful than anything I had ever done.
“I decided to take a break. I asked Darlene to come in, even though she usually took weekends off, to oversee our current high school girl, Eileen something or other, who seemed to be working through some kind of teenage hormonal thing, because every time I saw her, she appeared to have just finished a good cry. She was a good kid, I think, but at the time she depressed the hell out of me. ‘She can’t get over what happened between her and Randy,’ Darlene told me. ‘The abortion really shook her up. But don’t say anything to her parents. They don’t know.’
“ ‘Darlene, I don’t want to know.’
“Eventually it was settled. I was getting away from Castor and all things Castor related. I’d booked a room in a B & B in Sundale, on the shore. My duffel bag was packed with two novels, plenty of sunscreen, shorts and swimwear and flip-flops. I would sit in the sun. Walk along the shore. Swim. Read. Eat. I would not think about Emile Castor or the gray-eyed woman. Maybe I would meet somebody. Somebody real. Hey, anything was possible, now that I was getting away from Castor.
“Of course it rained. It started almost as soon as I left town and at times the rain became so heavy that I had to pull over on the side of the road. When I finally got to the small town on the shore, I was pretty wiped out. I drove in circles looking for the ironically named ‘Sunshine Bed and Breakfast’ until in frustration at the eccentricity of small towns, I decided that the pleasant-looking house with the simple sign ‘B & B’ must be it. I sat in the car for a moment hoping the rain would give me a break, and craned my neck at the distant looming steeple of a small chapel on the cliff above the roiling waters.
“It was clear the rain would continue its steady torrent, so I grabbed my duffel bag and slopped through the puddles in a sort of half trot, and entered a pleasant foyer of classical music, overstuffed chairs, a calico asleep in a basket on a table, and a large painting of, you probably already guessed, Emile Castor’s gray-eyed beauty. Only in this rendition she really was. Beautiful. This artist had captured what Emile had not. It wasn’t just a portrait, a photograph with paint if you will, no, this painting went beyond its subject’s beauty into the realm of what is beautiful in art. I heard footsteps, deep breathing, a cough. I turned with reluctance and beheld the oldest man I’d ever seen. He was a lace of wrinkles and skin that sagged from his bones like an ill-fitting suit. He leaned on a walking stick and appraised me with gray eyes almost lost in the fold of wrinkles.
“ ‘A beautiful piece of work,’ I said.
“He nodded.
“I introduced myself and after a few confused minutes discovered that I was neither in Sundale nor at the Sunshine B & B. But I could not have been more pleased on any sunny day, in any location, than I was there, especially when I found out I could stay the night. When I asked about the painting and its subject, Ed, as he told me to call him, invited me to join him in the parlor for tea after I had ‘settled in.’
“My room was pleasant, cozy, and clean without the creepy assortment of teddy bears too often assembled in B & Bs. From the window I had a view of the roiling sea, gray waves, the mournful swoop of seagulls, the cliff with the white chapel, its tall steeple tipped not with a cross but a ship, its great sails unfurled.
“When I found him in the parlor, Ed had a tray of tea and cookies set out on a low table before the fireplace which was nicely ablaze. The room was pleasant and inviting. The cold rain pounded the windows but inside it was warm and dry, the faint scent of lavender in the air.
“ ‘Come, come join us.’ Ed waved his hand, as arthritic as any I’ve ever seen, gnarled to almost a paw. I sat in the green wing chair across from him. An overstuffed rocking chair made a triangle of our seating arrangement but it was empty; not even the cat sat there.
“ ‘Theresa!’ he shouted, and he shouted again in a loud voice that reminded me of the young Marlon Brando calling for Stella.
“It occurred to me he might not be completely sane. But at the same moment I thought this, I heard a woman’s voice and the sound of footsteps approaching from the other end of the house. I confess that for a moment I entertained the notion that it would be the gray-eyed woman, as if I had fallen into a Brigadoon of sorts, a magical place time could not reach, all time-ravaged evidence on Ed’s face to the contrary.
“Just then that old face temporarily lost its wrinkled look and took on a divine expression. I followed the course of his gaze and saw the oldest woman in the world entering the room. I rose from my seat.
“ ‘Theresa,’ Ed said, ‘Mr. Delano of Castor.’
“I strode across the room and offered my hand. She slid into it a small, soft glove of a hand and smiled at me with green eyes. She walked smoothly and with grace, but her steps were excruciatingly small and slow. To walk beside her was a lesson in patience, as we traversed the distance to Ed, who had taken to pouring the tea with hands that quivered so badly the china sounded like wind chimes. How had these two survived so long? In the distance, a cuckoo sang and I almost expected I would hear it again before we reached our destination.
“ ‘Goodness,’ she said, when I finally stood beside the rocking chair, ‘I’ve never known a young man to walk so slowly.’ She sat in the chair swiftly, and without any assistance on my part. I realized she’d been keeping her pace to mine as I thought I was keeping mine to hers. I turned to take my own seat and Ed grinned up at me, offering in his quivering hand a chiming teacup and saucer, which I quickly took.
�
� ‘Mr. Delano is interested in Elizabeth,’ Ed said as he extended another jangling cup and saucer to her. She reached across and took it, leaning out of the chair in a manner I thought unwise.
“ ‘What do you know about her?’ she asked.
“ ‘Mr. Emile Castor has made several, many, at least a thousand paintings of the same woman but nothing near to the quality of this one. That’s all I know. I don’t know what she was to him. I don’t know anything.’
“Ed and Theresa both sipped their tea. A look passed between them. Theresa sighed. ‘You tell him, Ed.’
“ ‘It begins with Emile Castor arriving in town, a city man clear enough, with a mustache, and in his red roadster.’
“ ‘But pleasant.’
“ ‘He knew his manners.’
“ ‘He was a sincerely pleasant man.’
“ ‘He drove up to the chapel and like the idiot he mostly was, turns his back on it and sets up his easel and tries to paint the water down below.’
“ ‘He wasn’t an idiot. He was a decent man, and a good businessman. He just wasn’t an artist.’
“ ‘He couldn’t paint water either.’
“ ‘Well, water’s difficult.’
“ ‘Then it started to rain.’
“ ‘You seem to get a lot.’
“ ‘So finally he realizes there’s a church right behind him and he packs up his puddle of paints and goes inside.’
“ ‘That’s when he sees her.’
“ ‘Elizabeth?’
“ ‘No. Our Lady. Oh, Mr. Delano, you really must see it.’
“ ‘Maybe he shouldn’t.’
“ ‘Oh, Edward, why shouldn’t he?’
“Edward shrugs. ‘He was a rich man so he couldn’t simply admire her without deciding that he must possess her as well. That’s how the rich are.’
“ ‘Edward, we don’t know Mr. Delano’s circumstances.’
“ ‘He ain’t rich.’
“ ‘Well, we don’t really—’
“ ‘All you gotta do is look at his shoes. You ain’t, are you?’
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘Can you imagine being so foolish you don’t think nothing of trying to buy a miracle?’
“ ‘A miracle? No.’
“ ‘Well, that’s how rich he was.’
“ ‘He stayed on while he tried to convince the church to sell it to him.’
“ ‘Idiot.’
“ ‘They fell in love.’
“Ed grunted.
“ ‘They did. They both did.’
“ ‘He offered a couple a barrels full of money.’
“ ‘For the painting.’
“ ‘I gotta say I do believe some on the church board wavered a bit but the women wouldn’t hear of it.’
“ ‘She is a miracle.’
“ ‘Yep, that’s what all the women folk said.’
“ ‘Edward, you know it’s true. More tea, Mr. Delano?’
“ ‘Yes. Thank you. I’m not sure I’m following . . .’
“ ‘You haven’t seen it yet, have you?’
“ ‘Theresa, he just arrived.’
“ ‘We saw some of those other paintings he did of Elizabeth.’
“Ed snorts.
“ ‘Well, he wasn’t a quitter, you have to give him that.’
“Ed bites into a cookie and glares at the teapot.
“ ‘What inspired him, well, what inspired him was Elizabeth, but what kept him at it was Our Lady.’
“ ‘So are you saying, do you mean to imply that this painting, this Our Lady is magical?’
“ ‘Not magic, a miracle.’
“ ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
“ ‘It’s an icon, Mr. Delano, surely you’ve heard of them?’
“ ‘Well, supposedly an icon is not just a painting, it is the holy manifested in the painting, basically.’
“ ‘You must see it. Tomorrow. After the rain stops.’
“ ‘Maybe he shouldn’t.’
“ ‘Why do you keep saying that, Edward? Of course he should see it.’
“Ed just shrugged.
“ ‘Of course we didn’t sell it to him and over time he stopped asking. They fell in love.’
“ ‘He wanted her instead.’
“ ‘Don’t make it sound like that. He made her happy during what none of us knew were the last days of her life.’
“ ‘After she died, he started the paintings.’
“ ‘He wanted to keep her alive.’
“ ‘He wanted to paint an icon.’
“ ‘He never gave up until he succeeded. Finally, he painted our daughter Elizabeth.’
“ ‘Are you saying Emile Castor painted that, in the foyer?’
“ ‘It took years.’
“ ‘He wanted to keep her alive somehow.’
“ ‘But that painting, it’s quite spectacular and his other work is so—’
“ ‘Lousy.’
“ ‘Anyone who enters this house wants to know about her.’
“ ‘I don’t mean to be rude but how did she—I’m sorry, please excuse me.’
“ ‘Die?’
“ ‘It doesn’t matter.’
“ ‘Of course it does. She fell from the church cliff. She’d gone up there to light a candle for Our Lady, a flame of gratitude. Emile had proposed and she had accepted. She went up there and it started raining while she was inside. She slipped and fell on her way home.’
“ ‘How terrible.’
“ ‘Oh, yes, but there are really so few pleasant ways to die.’
“Our own rain still lashed the windows. The fat calico came into the room and stopped to lick her paws. We just sat there, listening to the rain and the clink of china cup set neatly in saucer. The tea was good and hot. The fire smelled strangely of chocolate. I looked at their two old faces in profile, wrinkled as poorly folded maps. Then I proceeded to make a fool of myself by explaining to them my position as curator of the Castor museum. I described the collection, the beautiful house and location by a stream visited by deer, but I did not describe the dismal town, and ended with a description of Emile’s horrible work, the room filled with poor paintings of their daughter, surely, I told them, Elizabeth belonged there, redeemed against the vast assortment of clowns, for the angel she was. When I was finished the silence was sharp. Neither spoke nor looked at me, but even so, as though possessed by some horrible tic, I continued. ‘Of course we’d pay you handsomely.’ Theresa bowed her head and I thought that perhaps this was the posture she took for important decisions until I realized she was crying.
“Ed turned slowly, his old head like a marionette’s on an uncertain string. He fixed me with a look that told me what a fool I was and will always be.
“ ‘Please accept my apology for being so . . .’ I said, finding myself speaking and rising as though driven by the same puppeteer’s hand. ‘I can’t tell you how . . . Thank you.’ I turned abruptly and walked out of the room, angry at my clumsy social skills, in despair, actually, that I had made a mess of such a pleasant afternoon. I intended to hurry to my room and read my book until dinner, when I would skulk down the stairs and try to find a decent place to eat. That I could insult and hurt two such kind people was unforgivable. I was actually almost blind with self-loathing until I entered the foyer and saw her out of the corner of my eye.
“It is really quite impossible to describe that other thing that brings a painting beyond competent, even beyond beauty into the realm of great art. Of course she was a beautiful woman; of course the lighting, colors, composition, brushstroke, all of these elements could be separated and described, but this still did not account for that ethereal feeling, the sense one gets standing next to a masterpiece, the need to take a deep breath as if suddenly the air consumed by one is needed for two.
“Instead of going upstairs I went out the front door. If this other painting was anything like the one of Elizabeth, then I must see it.
“It was dark, the rain only a
drizzle now, the town a slick black oil, maybe something by Dali with disappearing ink. I had, out of habit, pocketed my car keys. I had to circle the town a few times, make a few false starts, once finding myself in someone’s driveway, before I selected the road that arched above the town to the white chapel, which even in the rain glowed as though lit from within. The road was winding but not treacherous. When I got to the top and stood on that cliff the wind whipped me, the town below was lost in a haze of fog that only a few yellow lights shone through. I had the sensation of looking down on the heavens from above. The waves crashed and I felt the salt on my face, tasted it on my lips. Up close the chapel was much larger than it looked from below, the steeple that narrowed to a needle point on which its ship balanced into the dark sky, quite imposing. As I walked up those stone steps I thought again of Edward saying he wasn’t sure I should see it. I reached for the hammered iron handle and pulled. For a moment I thought it was locked, but it was just incredibly heavy. I pulled the door open and entered the darkness of the church. Behind me, the door heaved shut. I smelled a flowery, smoky scent, the oily odor of wood, and heard from somewhere a faint drip of water as though there was a leak. I was in the church foyer; there was another door before me, marked in the darkness by the thin line of light that shone beneath it. I walked gingerly, uncertain in the dark. It too was extremely heavy. I pulled it open.”
He coughed and cleared his throat as though suddenly suffering a cold. She opened her eyes just a slit. The heat from the wood stove must have been the reason for the red in his cheeks; how strange he looked, as though in pain or fever! She let her eyes droop shut and it seemed a long time before he continued, his voice raspy.
“All I can say is, I never should have looked. I wish I’d never seen either of those paintings. It was there that I made myself the promise I would never settle for a love any less than spectacular, a love so great that it would take me past my limitations, the way Emile’s love for Elizabeth had taken him past his, that somehow such a love would leave an imprint on the world, the way great art does, that all who saw it would be changed by it, as I was.