The Art Student's War

by Brad Leithauser

  Bianca paused and then said, “Oh I think he’s fine.”

  She didn’t have the heart to mention that lately she’d been worrying about Grant, too. Not that there was anything new, exactly—which perhaps illustrated the problem.

  Spurred partly by nasty remarks from Maggie, Bianca felt as though she’d belatedly put two things together. There’d been a pair of crises in her married life—the day she’d boarded the train to Cleveland, and the controversy over Grant’s client’s lakefront lots—and hadn’t his response to both been virtually the same? More than chastened. Each time, he’d come out almost shell-shocked.

  There had been a time when Grant had seemed very ambitious at Cutting and Fuller; he’d even talked about breaking off with some younger partners and starting his own firm. But all such talk had died with the crisis over the lakefront lots, and these days he spoke with a sort of resigned spectator’s wistfulness about Walton’s bold business forays. And surely Grant was too young to have turned resigned and wistful …

  “And he seemed very pleased about your news,” Uncle Dennis said.

  “Oh yes. Very pleased.”

  Uncle Dennis appeared deep in thought, and then he opened what was dependably the most difficult topic: “How does your mother seem?”

  Overhead, as if in answer (one of life’s typically heavy-handed symbols), another bat zigzagged through the streetlight’s glare. “Well, she seemed pretty good tonight. You could feel she was trying. But then you have to ask: why does she have to be trying? Why is it an effort, when we’re talking about a family gathering? And I got a little nervous when Papa mentioned moving.”

  “She said she didn’t want to leave her friends.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “But there is a logic to it, honey.” Uncle Dennis was reproaching her, ever so mildly. “At this point, it’s the only neighborhood she knows, and she has a role there.”

  “A role?”

  “Yes. A role.”

  And Uncle Dennis was possibly right. For the peculiar fact was that as the old neighborhood had declined, with people moving in and out much more quickly, and so many homes looking dilapidated, Mamma, the longtime resident, had become an increasingly trusted neighbor. If she couldn’t exactly be described as popular, she had become somebody to consult.

  “But it’s so unfair to Papa. Why should he have to live in that house till he dies, when he’s spent his whole life dreaming of better, bigger houses? Houses matter so much to him.”

  “Your father hasn’t had an easy time of it. But then neither has your mother.”

  “I keep wondering if there’s something we should do. Or should have done. In order for things to turn out differently.”

  Uncle Dennis thought a moment. “It reminds me of a story I read.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well. There was a man, an ordinary man, but because of the peculiar anatomical structure of his brain, scientists were able to boost his IQ more than a hundred points. He became the smartest man who ever lived. But the side effects were virulent and it turned out he had only a short time to live. And somebody asked him, on his deathbed, what was the one question—if he could ask God only one question, what would it be? And for a while the smartest man who ever lived cogitated. There were so many good questions to ask: Is there a Heaven? What’s the nature of Truth? Does Time have an end? And finally he declared, This is what I would ask God: Is life more like a movie, or is it more like a play?”

  Even by Uncle Dennis’s standards, this was pretty elliptical. “I’m not sure God Himself would understand the question,” Bianca observed dryly.

  “Well, maybe not. Certainly, all the people were perplexed. So the smartest man in the world explained himself. He said, ‘I’d ask God, if You were to start the world over, with each detail just exactly how it was, would everything turn out the same?’

  “In other words,” Uncle Dennis went on, “is it more like a movie, or more like a play? You start the movie again, it always turns out the same. The play, though, each time’s it’s different. You see what I’m saying?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Really, I’m simply rephrasing your question. I’m saying if you started it all over, you ran it back and here’s that young couple on their wedding day, hand in hand, Ludovico Paradiso and Sylvia Schleiermacher, would it all come out the same? Would your mother and your father again wind up so burdened and so put upon? Or was there a possible world where everything turned out just fine for Sylvia, for the two of them? That’s the one thing we’ll never know.”

  CHAPTER XXXI

  She was sitting in the kitchen, over the one cup of coffee she still allowed herself each morning, when the phone rang. She wished it wouldn’t. She was enjoying the newfound tranquillity of having Grant at work and the boys at school. The boys were in for the whole day now—they were first graders. She had pressing chores to attend to (she must write another letter to her aunt, who, according to all reports, was doing very well after her surgery) but not quite yet. The light was lovely this morning. And the feeling of privileged aloneness was still novel enough, in this fourth week of September, that a ringing phone felt intrusive.

  “Bianca, it’s Maggie.”

  “What is it?”

  Something wasn’t quite right—this was clear from Maggie’s funny pinched tone. Nothing disastrous, maybe—but something wasn’t quite right.

  “Have you seen today’s Free Press?”

  “It’s here on the table. I haven’t opened it yet.”

  “It’s Mrs. Charles Olsson—Ronny’s mother. She died. I thought you’d want to know …”

  “Oh no. I can’t believe it. But this can’t be.”

  Maggie kept talking in her ear as Bianca rifled through the newspaper. The photograph of Mrs. Olsson struck her with a hard thud. Dead? The world’s most beautiful woman? And meanwhile, at the back of her mind, an absolutely lunatic suspicion: this would never have happened if only she’d been a better person and begun the letter to Aunt Grace she’d been intending to write …

  “I just thought you’d want to know,” Maggie kept saying. She wasn’t sure how to proceed. Bianca had encountered this before. The truth was, Maggie was never any good—she was out of her element—in dealing with life-and-death matters. She could be wonderfully funny and acerbic with little or even medium-sized adversities, but tragedy dwindled Maggie’s voice; she sounded little-girlish, tentative, and afraid.

  Maggie seemed relieved when Bianca cut the conversation short. Bianca then read the obituary straight through three times. It held few surprises, beyond the stunning surprise of the thing’s very existence. Dead at fifty-three. Born March 3, 1899, in Scarp, North Dakota. Active in various charities, including the Vista Maria girls’ orphanage. There were many references to Mr. Olsson, of course, and one to Ronny, identified as an art professor at the University of Michigan. And a reference to Mrs. Olsson’s sister, Betty Marie Bashaw, of Ferder, North Dakota, whose husband, so Mrs. Olsson had unforgettably proposed one afternoon at Pierre’s, ought to be shot. Mrs. Olsson had died of kidney failure.

  Placing the obituary carefully on the kitchen table, Bianca retreated to the bathroom and inspected her face. She didn’t feel at all like crying. “Mrs. Olsson is dead,” she said aloud. “Mrs. Olsson died.” Once before, a phone call had brought word of an unexpected death, but under utterly different circumstances. Henry Vanden Akker had been only twenty-two, and in many ways she’d been madly in love, and he was her fiancé, more or less. Mrs. Olsson, on the other hand—Bianca hadn’t seen Mrs. Olsson in nearly ten years, and she’d only rarely been able, given the woman’s august unpredictability, to muster anything so straightforward as affection for her. It was all right, then, if she didn’t feel like crying.

  It was all right, then, if she could declare, clearheadedly, “Mrs. Olsson is dead.”

  But the next moment she realized she wasn’t being clearheaded at all. What about Ronny? She must call Ronny!
>
  Ronny had lost his mother. Ronny was an only child who had always had difficulties with his father—and now he’d lost his mother. Bianca returned to the kitchen and dialed Ronny’s apartment in Ann Arbor. Her hands were trembling.

  She let it ring eleven times before hanging up. What should she do next? There must be something she should do—but what? Surely he would call. Who else would he naturally turn to now? She dialed him again—no answer—and after five minutes she dialed again.

  Breaking all caffeine restrictions, she gulped down a second cup of coffee, and then a third. She telephoned Ronny, and there was no answer. She made herself a childhood favorite—a cream-cheese-and-jelly sandwich—ate it, and made another. She ate that and called Ronny. This time he answered.

  “Ronny, it’s Bianca.”

  “You saw the Free Press.”

  “Yes, I did. I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Ronny said. “Thank you for calling.”

  “It must have been a terrible, terrible shock. I’m so sorry.”

  “It wasn’t completely surprising, I guess, but yes, it was a terrible shock. I’m not sure how much I believe it even yet. It turns out I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing.”

  “And your poor father.”

  “That has been surprising. He’s just a wreck. I would have sworn he didn’t much like her—”

  “Oh Ronny, you mustn’t say such—”

  “But he’s just a wreck. He’ll recover, of course, but for the moment he’s fallen apart. And you know what? I think by doing so he’s sort of holding me together. I tell you, it’s all been very strange.”

  “I’m just so sorry,” Bianca said.

  “And to make things all the stranger, Mother left very strict instructions about no funeral—no service ‘of any sort whatsoever.’ Absolutely dead set against. Nothing, she wants nothing, and what do you do with that? My father and I, we don’t know what to do.”

  “She was always very good to me,” Bianca said, which was certainly more true than not.

  “She liked you. You know, not to be telling tales, but I think she secretly hoped you and I might someday be together.”

  “I—well—yes, she did, Ronny. Definitely. I mean, she said as much to me.”

  “She said so? She really did?” And Ronny’s voice had changed. This was that younger Ronny who kept surfacing—that intense, openhearted young man whose parents had required such constant watching, and complicated negotiations, as he sought a path in life.

  “At that restaurant, Pierre’s.”

  There was a pause. “I’m coming downtown the day after tomorrow. Thursday. To talk with some lawyers. Perhaps we might meet first? A very early lunch?”

  “Ronny, I’d like that very much.”

  “I enjoyed our time at Jason’s. Could we meet at Jason’s? At the ridiculous hour of, say, eleven-thirty?”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  They talked a while before hanging up. Ronny sounded remarkably calm and collected.

  Yes, once before Bianca had received news by telephone of a death, and in that instance it was as though dying were a family contagion: in the following weeks, Mr. and Mrs. Vanden Akker had withered away like plague victims. Would the same thing happen again, despite how Ronny had sounded? She must have been afraid it would, for there was something hugely reassuring, on Thursday morning, in seeing him looking so splendid. He was seated at a table at Jason’s, awaiting her.

  Her cheery opening remark was hardly a customary salutation to someone in mourning: “I think that’s the most beautiful necktie I’ve ever seen.” These were the first words that popped into her head. Ronny was wearing a solemn black suit—the first time she’d seen him in a black suit—but a bright geometric tie in unusual greens, golds, orange-reds.

  Ronny certainly didn’t take the compliment amiss. “It’s Belgian. I bought it in Brussels, not far from the Musées des Beaux Arts. I didn’t even know the Belgians made ties. But I saw it and I said, Whoever designed this, he knew the paintings of his countryman Rogier van der Weyden. The same palette.”

  “How clever of you, Ronny.” He was right, of course.

  Ronny got up and helped her into a seat. He said, “This time, I wouldn’t get any particular credit for guessing you were pregnant.”

  “I’m twelve pounds heavier than when I saw you last. Or thirteen. It’s a little alarming.”

  “Is it still all right for me to say you look beautiful?”

  “More right than ever. I’m beginning to feel like a cow.”

  This wasn’t the conversation she’d envisioned having with somebody who had just lost his mother. But conversations with Ronny rarely followed predictable lines …

  “I hope your father’s doing better,” she said.

  “You know what? He isn’t. I’m not sure how strange death is, but mourning? It’s a very strange business. For maybe the first time in my life, I feel quite sorry for him.”

  “You always make yourself sound much more hard-hearted than you are.”

  “Do I?” Ronny said. “Actually, I think that’s the nicest compliment anyone’s paid me in quite some time.”

  She was ravenous—she confessed—and she ordered the lamb chops. To her surprise, Ronny did, too. “Isn’t grief supposed to dull your appetite?” he asked. “That’s not what’s happening to me.” Bianca ordered a glass of milk and Ronny a glass of wine.

  “How long had your mother had kidney problems?” Bianca asked.

  “You mustn’t believe what you read. It was really drink.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “She did have kidney problems, but drink’s what killed her.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that …”

  “And you know what? I think her death’s liberating in some ways. I’d feel worse about saying this if I didn’t believe my mother would understand completely. She wasn’t always an easy person to have for a mother—she couldn’t stay out of anything—but these last few years were difficult in a brand-new way. You know what, Bianca? It ripped me apart to see her drinking the way she did. And the not wanting to go out, because the drinking made her look worn and a little bloated, and sometimes her skin—” He shook his head.

  “She had such wonderful skin,” Bianca said. “It took all the light in the room and fed it back to you.”

  Then Ronny said something very unexpected: “Good Lord, I adore you.”

  “Well—thank you.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought to put it as you just did, but that’s exactly how it was with Mother: all the light in the room fed back to you.”

  “You’re going to take up painting again,” Bianca said.

  “Just as soon as the next world war begins …” Ronny lifted his glass, as if in toast, and sipped his wine.

  He put down the glass and again took up the subject of his mother: “It became a vicious circle. Not wanting to go out. And if you’re not going out, you’re home alone, all the more reason to have another drink. I’m telling you, it ripped me apart. And she could see it did. And she didn’t want to do that. Whatever else she wanted, she didn’t want to rip me apart.”

  Ronny seemed to be doing quite well, on the whole, but his chin was trembling at the conclusion of this little speech. Bianca launched immediately into a string of reminiscences. The first time she’d laid eyes on Mrs. Olsson, seated in the music room in a cone of light. The evening when Mrs. Olsson made omelets. The wonderfully stylish way she’d introduced an eighteen-year-old girl to Pierre: Bi-an-ca Pa-ra-di-so.

  The memories brightened Ronny’s face, and even when the lamb chops arrived Bianca went on chattering. The couple of times when Mrs. Olsson demanded a tour of the art museum … “And she had such funny, caustic observations, about the portraits especially, the subjects and the painters. She was so perceptive. And very tart.”

  Ronny laughed. “She saw no reason to hold back her opinions.”

  Bianca remembered somethi
ng else. “And one day she asked me a fascinating question about you. Did you inherit your artistic talent from your father? Or from her?”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I’m not sure I answered. But she did. She said it came from her.”

  “Did she now?” Ronny laughed heartily. “Good for her.”

  “Well, hello.”

  A sandy-haired young man was loitering beside their table, evidently an acquaintance of Ronny’s.

  Ronny’s reply was surprising, given how faultlessly courteous he usually managed to be: “What are you doing here?”

  “We were supposed to meet. Remember?”

  Ronny consulted his watch. “Later. After the lawyers.”

  The young man shrugged. “I got the time wrong.”

  “And not here. At Haggerty’s.”

  Another shrug. “I got the place wrong.” He had a round, appealing, wholesome face, and his shrugs were delivered with the accomplished grin of somebody used to disarming suspicion or censure. “Do you mind if I sit down?” The question was directed, unexpectedly, at Bianca.

  “No. Of course not.”

  Now it was Ronny’s turn to shrug, before duly offering introductions. “I’d like you to meet Bianca Ives. We were art students together some years ago. And this is my friend Chris Abendorfer. Chris works in advertising.”

  “I’ve heard of you,” Chris Abendorfer said.

  “I think I’ve heard of you,” Bianca replied. She wasn’t sure why she said this. It wasn’t true.

  “Bianca is going to have a baby next May.”

  “And I can’t think of anything more wonderful,” Chris Abendorfer said.

  “Chris ought to know. He’s the eleventh of eleven children,” Ronny said.

  “Eleventh of eleven!” Bianca said.

  “A late arrival. And now Ronny’s criticizing me for arriving early …”

  “Your poor mother,” Bianca said.

  “Poorer with each child.”

  “Are you from around here?” Bianca asked him.

  “No. But I am flattered. I thought the dazzled look in my eyes gave me away. Branded me a hopeless hick. I’m a west Minnesota farm boy originally.”