by Jody Shields
If the grotto’s structure proved to be sound, her studio could be set up inside. She requested assistance, and the next morning five orderlies resentfully listened to her instructions.
“This will be a studio, a place to work. I must have light in order to paint. You understand?” Her voice was too loud, and she had already forgotten the men’s names. She remembered faces, bodies, gestures. Not words. None of them had a profile interesting enough to sketch.
“See about the light once we get inside the place, ma’am. Hard to tell what you’ll find there. Dirt and animal bones, I’ll wager.” The supervisor spat into the grass near his feet. After the fallen stones, weeds, and branches blocking the path and entrance had been cleared away, Anna stooped after the men to enter the rough doorway.
Inside the grotto, the dim light from small apertures spilled weirdly over the walls, rough and deeply pocked with an unrecognizable material. Fascinated, Anna gingerly touched the surface and discovered that the walls were covered with shards of mirror and shells, their shapes so blackened and grayed with dirt they might have been fished from the earth rather than the sea. In the eighteenth century, the mistress of the house and her daughters had decorated the nymphaeum with thousands and thousands of shells in an ever-expanding pattern, a project that had consumed years of their lives and was their sole surviving accomplishment.
The mark of the hand, Anna said to herself.
Above her, a man’s head was outlined against the sky as he peered down through a small jagged opening in the roof, the broken remains of a nineteenth-century skylight. He suddenly vanished, and she dodged the twigs, leaves, and dirt showering down as the orderlies began to brutally enlarge the opening, changing the proportion of light and dark in the interior.
Anna had once visited a cathedral that had deliberately been constructed with a tiny pinhole in its dome. As the sun rose, a thread of light from the pinhole elongated over the numerals set into the marble floor, hour by calculated hour, transforming the cathedral into a vast sundial.
Now, gazing up at the hole in the roof, she was reminded of the men stationary in the trenches; the only visible sign of time passing was the heavens wheeling over their heads.
IRON PIPES EXTENDED under the length of the greenhouse, funneling steam from a furnace in a distant brick shed up through vents in the floor, a functioning system for more than seventy years. There was less green under the glass roof now, plants were neglected, heat was haphazardly delivered, and there was a shortage of garden tools. If fuel rationing became more serious, the greenhouse would be abandoned.
Outside the greenhouse, Catherine watched as a shiver spread along the lower branches of the medlar trees within, disturbing their knobby fruit, the folded order of their white-flecked leaves. Concerned an animal or a bird had become trapped inside the greenhouse, she quietly entered and closed the door.
A black shape, half seen, moved rapidly in the irregular space between the trees. Someone was in the greenhouse.
“You’re trespassing.”
The trespasser solemnly pushed aside the thin branches of the trees, her face remaining concealed by a brimmed hat. She moved closer and lifted the finely crosshatched veil from her face, surrendering to Catherine’s gaze. “Good day. I’m Anna Coleman.”
“Catherine.” She noticed that Anna’s wide face had the tenderly tinted skin typical of women with reddish hair, and the lines across her forehead and fleshy neck had darkened with sweat to an intimate pinkish mauve color.
“The patients must enjoy visiting the greenhouse.” Anna’s smile was confident.
“No one is allowed here but the gardener.”
“I see.” After a pause, she said, “Dr. McCleary said you’d generously allowed your home to be used as a hospital.”
“My husband believed it was our duty. Are you a nurse?”
“No. An artist.”
“An artist? Whatever will you do here?”
“I’m at the service of the wounded.”
“We’re all in service.” Catherine regretted that her voice betrayed her unhappiness to this woman. “Others suffer more than I do. But an hour doesn’t pass that I’m not reminded . . .” Her words trailed off.
Anna nodded. “The war cannot be avoided. Even at a distance.”
Catherine flushed as Anna solemnly evaluated her face, and even the position and weight of her limbs. Her scrutiny made Catherine uneasy, certain she’d somehow revealed herself to Anna. “Keep the door closed if you come to the greenhouse again,” she said abruptly. “A change of temperature injures the plants.” Catherine pulled the thin doors together behind her less gently this time.
Anna remained in the greenhouse, leisurely examining a rosebush, its jagged leaves curved like the hollow of a spoon, stems forked with fine, sternly upright thorns. After studying an object, she could sketch it entirely from memory, fit together its dissimilar parts. One curve echoed another curve, one line another line.
Surrounded by disparate shades of green, leaves of viridian shading to a sulfurous yellow and silver, Anna stretched her arms over her head, sensing the humidity dissolving the boundary between her skin and the air. She slowly unbuttoned and removed her jacket and blouse, unlaced her chemise. She plunged her bare skin into the enveloping heat.
Outside, at a corner of the greenhouse where black metal bars met at an angle, Catherine silently watched her.
The next day, she discovered evidence of Anna’s intrusion everywhere—stalks broken, leaves withered as if the woman’s eyes had robbed them of their green, buds that had browned, never to open. Her sanctuary had been spoiled.
DURING THEIR FIRST busy weeks at the estate, Anna and Kazanjian saw each other infrequently. When they had met by happenstance, she discovered it was strange to see him in an elaborately gilded room after the temporary, windblown rawness of the base hospital.
They stole an hour together and whispered alongside the clock in the third-floor corridor, guarded by a somber portrait of a gentleman in a lace collar. Kazanjian’s warm hand, with its faint odor of carbolic, covered hers for a moment, and she returned his smile. She already wished for a less fragmentary conversation with him, missing the intimate connection they’d once shared. At the base hospital, they had found each other at odd hours, usually outside the tents before dawn, and this time had a sacred quality, their hushed sentences meshing as men suffered around them.
Despite his fatigue, Kazanjian radiated quiet satisfaction, as his innovative techniques had earned the respect of the medical staff. He also enjoyed the almost supernatural aura associated with combat, and orderlies traded wildly exaggerated stories about Kazanjian’s heroism. Although she had worked alongside him, Anna Coleman did not figure in their narratives. A woman who had emptied bedpans, swept floors, disposed of soiled linens, held a dying man.
But Kazanjian had others to serve now, and he escorted Anna back to her quarters, ill at ease in the areas of the house unconnected with his work. The jumbled hospital furniture, the temporary partitions erected in room after room had so confused the character of the house that Anna didn’t notice the absence of mirrors until he remarked on it.
“Why, that is peculiar,” she said, her mind racing back through the rooms, wondering how this had escaped her.
They bid each other an unexpectedly formal good day. A dozen steps later, he vanished into the ward. She immediately felt his absence.
CATHERINE UNSMILINGLY ADVANCED into the grotto; the thick insulation of the air around her was as close and intimate as a pulse. Plaster had a clean, delicate odor. The stone floor released a mineral scent, flat and cold. Oil paint and turpentine were heady as perfume. Underneath, an elusive, sweet, and rich note.
“It’s melted beeswax.” Anna looked up from her easel, answering Catherine’s unspoken query.
Catherine didn’t ask another question, her attention fixed on the mysterious shapes draped with rough muslin, the chalks and half-opened paint jars, the jumbled brushes and tools, stained fr
om use. Sharp. Dirty. This untidy display was tempered by the soft, irregular glow of light cast off the walls of shells, cleanly frozen into a silvery pink glimmer.
“This is such a peculiar place. Hidden like a cave.”
“Surprising what becomes useful during a war.”
Catherine was critical of Anna’s untidy, loosely pinned-up hair, her hands and smock blurred with chalk and paint. Anna could have been one of the women serving tea to departing soldiers at Waterloo Station. Unfashionable, earnest women, former suffragettes. She addressed Anna as if she were a maid: “This is your studio?”
“Yes. I will sketch the patients.”
“For what purpose?”
“To document their faces. I can record skin color more accurately than a photograph.”
Catherine reached for something across the table, and her sleeve sent pencils clattering to the floor. Startled, she stepped back at Anna’s harsh swearing.
“The lead inside the pencil breaks if they’re dropped. If you wish to help, there’s a smock by the door. Put it on. Your clothing is too fine for this space.”
Catherine wavered. What did this woman expect from her? She refused the smock. Anna watched her, and the concentration of her gaze made Catherine feel obligated, as if the other woman had forced a coin into her hand. No, Anna was beholden to her.
“Start by sorting the clay tools. On the center table.”
The tools were unfamiliar, made for unknown purposes, and Catherine slowly organized them according to the shape of their sinister metal hooks. She put them into a metal container with a clang.
Anna looked up. “Please work quietly.”
“It isn’t necessary that I work here at all.”
“Even the queen rolls bandages.”
Catherine coolly wiped her hands on a cloth. How dare she speak to me like this? Without a word, she walked out of the studio with her anger, unable to rid herself of the idea that Anna had dismissed her.
SEVERAL DAYS LATER, Kazanjian stood in Anna’s studio, eyes narrowed behind his spectacles, which blindly reflected the skylight that he craned his head back to observe. Shells were scattered over the floor, fine sharp shards dry and curled as leaves, and there was a delicate crack as he stepped forward. “For luck,” he said.
“A blessing.”
He toured the studio, soberly examining the revolving modeling stands, large flat basins for soaking paper, barrels for wet and dry clay, plaster, water, the easels tilting on the uneven floor. Tools were arranged on two long worktables. Coarse gray linen smocks and aprons hung on pegs near the door.
He peered over a worktable at the images displayed on a length of linen nailed to the wall:
menu card from Paillard
pressed rose and a ribbon
engraving of an écorché figure
copy of an engraving, allegorical figure of “Touch,” by Floris, circa 1561
poste carte of A Lady with a Dog by Agnolo Bronzino
photograph of Bernini’s sculpture of Daphne and Apollo
sketch of figures on rooftop of Palazzo Palagonia
sketches of base hospital
several photographs
She wanted him to turn away from these personal images but also wanted him to admire her choices.
“Your inspirations?”
“Yes. Mementos. Bits and pieces. Notes toward works in progress. The collection always travels with me.”
“I hadn’t realized how you must have felt constrained at the base hospital without these familiar things.”
“I made do.”
“Yes, one makes do. For a long time, I was unable to part with the jacket I’d worn the night I was forced to leave my family and flee. Even after I was a grown man and it no longer fit.”
He had been as forthcoming only once before, when speaking of his childhood during their long journey by train. He’d worked in a thread factory when he was young, standing at the machines for six to seven hours a day. A blizzard of fine fuzz from the spinning cotton had continuously blown around the room, lining his nose and ears. “My work in the factory honed my dexterity,” he had told her without a hint of regret or pity. “It made me nimble.”
Kazanjian noticed a thin piece of scrap metal bent into a ring hanging from a ribbon that he’d jokingly presented to her at the base hospital. Now she deciphered the question in his eye and her face became hot.
“Every artist is a magpie.”
Kazanjian gently took Anna’s hand so her fingers rested on his open palm.
“Work has shaped my hand. A thousand brushstrokes,” she said.
“Why not a thousand pleasures?” He smiled at her surprise.
Anna enjoyed this unaccustomed union with him, then suddenly understood he wanted something more from her, his affection returned, mirrored. She ruthlessly corrected herself, withdrew her hand, but instead of revealing hurt at her rejection, Kazanjian’s face was unexpectedly compassionate. Seeing this, she floundered, as if in a depth of water that no longer supported her.
“I must return to my work,” she said finally, her voice strangely breathless. She moved away from him, but their intimacy remained, pronounced as a change in temperature or light.
A WEEK LATER, CATHERINE entered the studio, and without a greeting or explanation, Anna handed her a smock of roughly woven linen. Catherine held it, hesitating, a crude garment unlike anything she’d ever worn, not made for her body, not discussed with a vendeuse or fit and measured by a kneeling seamstress with thimbles, pins, silk papers. The smock was the uniform of an acolyte or apprentice, a commoner.
Anna’s half-scornful face acknowledged this—and pleasure at Catherine’s discomfort—as she waited. They understood each other. Catherine had never hidden from her maid while she was being dressed, but she turned her back on Anna, refusing the other woman entire satisfaction, and slipped on the smock.
Gradually, the two women developed a routine. After Catherine buttoned the smock over her dress, she stepped around and Anna handed her a list of tasks. Catherine welcomed the other woman’s abruptness, since this eliminated the need for conversation. Each task was a fine thing, a translucent peg, a nail against time until Charles would seek her out. He would come to her.
She surreptitiously watched Anna, fascinated by the reckless animation of her expressions. The woman tilted her head, grimaced, squinted, and sighed in judgment. Compressed lips, the tapping of her fingers or a pencil indicated calculation, or some flaw or failure in the creation on her easel.
Anna’s movements were repeated as flickering patterns across the shells and slivers of mirror on the walls, which had the effect of making the room seem claustrophobic and mysterious. On certain days it was musty; the air held a dankness emanating from the adjoining chambers deep in the hill, never explored because of poor light and the thin sound of invisibly running water.
Catherine’s days were now shaped by measurement and repetition. The degree of color dissolved in water. The pressure of a brush wiped through a rag. The point of a pencil. She cut and sized paper. Arranged chalks by color, progressively light to dark, and fit them into slots in a wooden box. Some distinctions between the colors were so fine that her fingers felt dumb, her touch suddenly as insensitive as her eyes. Everything she did felt raw, primitive.
ANNA SKETCHED BOTTLES, a chipped cup, an apple, situating them on the table at different hours and angles to find the best light. After this series of still lifes was completed, she arranged a roll of gauze in front of a piece of draped white linen.
White on white was the most difficult thing to depict, she told Catherine. “Once as an exercise I spent two weeks on a chalk drawing of an egg against a white background. That was patient work.”
The rhythm of work slowly diluted the women’s initial antagonism. At first, when Anna requested assistance, Catherine always had a startled reaction, as if surprised by the intrusion of a voice, by Anna’s presence.
CATHERINE AND ANNA tenderly lowered a sheet of Whatman
paper into a basin, and the film of water on its surface caught the light, transforming it into a dazzling white rectangle, sharp as a sail. The paper swayed voluptuously in the water.
“What do you think about when you sketch at your easel?” Catherine asked.
“Nothing. Anything. Everything. I’m in the color. I don’t know.” Cutting short her confidence, Anna gestured at the basin. “The paper has soaked long enough. It will become too soft. Pick up the other end. Carefully.”
Water streamed off the thick paper carefully held horizontally between them.
Anna nodded at the paper. “See the marks?”
Faint lines—a lighter opacity—were scored across the length of the paper.
“The lines were impressed by the wire tray that held the paper pulp as the sheet was formed. A watermark is in the corner.”
“Like a scar.”
“Exactly like a scar.”
They worked in silence, dense with purpose, soaking papers then laying them flat to dry on blotters.
Catherine hesitated over her next words. “When will the men—the patients—come here for their portraits?”
“Dr. McCleary decides when they’re ready. I only wait.”
“Won’t you be bored to study the same faces day after day?”
“Not at all. A face is infinitely interesting. More interesting than conversation. Some people who sit for me chatter the entire time. About the weather. About their health. Their children.”
“Perhaps they don’t feel comfortable posing. You might discover something about them that they’d rather keep hidden.” Then Catherine chose to remind the other woman of her position. “I am always mindful not to look directly at the servants. It makes them uneasy. It isn’t respectful.”
Anna made a scornful sound. “My hand moves; I draw exactly what I see. That’s my only responsibility.”
“You make it sound easy. Won’t it be difficult to draw a damaged face? How can you look at them?”
Anna shrugged. “My portraits of the patients will never hang in an exhibition, that’s certain. They’ll be hidden in a medical-office cabinet. Like the men are hidden here. The doctors—or the military—have decided that the men without faces are worse than cripples. Not to be seen. Not to be mentioned. But if every mother in the country could see the sketches I’ll do of the injured soldiers, the war would end in a day.”