The Color of Light

by Helen Maryles Shankman

  I told her a few tasty bits of my own history; my parents’ abandonment, my bleak childhood, how Art had carried me in her hands, saved me from it all. And while I talked on, her black eyes filled with emotion, her eyebrows acting as punctuation marks; swooping fiercely up and down, asking questions, expressing sorrow, outrage or pity.

  I never told anyone the things I told her. The act of shaping it into words for her caused me physical anguish, as if it were happening all over again. At the end of it, I was bent over the table, exhausted, spent.

  Her small white hand glided over mine, alighting as gently as a butterfly. “We are just the same,” she said softly.

  My fingers curled around hers.

  In the course of a single evening, I had fallen truly, madly, deeply in love, and found that the woman of my dreams could never be mine. I knew now, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I could never walk her home, that she would never invite me in, that we could never be seen kissing on Paris street corners. I should have been distraught. Instead, I felt that something important had passed between us, something had changed.

  Slowly, regretfully, she slipped her hand out of mine.

  “Here. You open it.” She pushed the drawing across the marble topped table.

  “Ladies first.” I pushed it back.

  She unfolded it. Her face broke into a dazzling smile, and then she giggled, clapping her hand over her mouth, as if she were afraid to be caught being happy. She turned it around to show me.

  Sofia had drawn my head, a perfect miniature likeness. Beneath it, I had drawn a longshoreman’s torso, with huge muscles and washboard abs, feathery white wings. At the bottom, she had drawn a clawfoot bathtub full of bubbles. I burst out laughing.

  Now she noticed the time. “Oh! I’ll be late!” She gestured for the waiter. “Good night, English. See you tomorrow.” She pulled her collar up around her face and went out into the night.

  Waiting for my change, I smoothed out the drawing, pressed it flat. In her hands, I was smoldering, sensuous, sexualized. I ran my fingertips over her lines, feeling the grooves in the paper. Was that really how she saw me, or did she just draw me the way she drew everything else?

  That night, I started on a painting of Sofia as I found her that evening, alone at a table by the wall in La Coupole, letter in hand, the plum in the glass, the thousand-mile stare. The next day, after class, I would ask her to pose for me in my studio in the green dress she had worn the first time I laid eyes on her. And after a moment of hesitation, she would say yes.

  Our innocent little trysts went on for another six blissful weeks.

  By March, the background of my painting was already roughed in. I had been to La Coupole so often I could paint it in my sleep. Sofia’s skin was the color of skim milk, almost blue-white. I was using zinc white for its transparent bluish properties, mixing it with lead white for creaminess. Her lips were a holy matrimony of cadmium red scarlet and alizarin crimson. On breaks, we gazed dreamily into each other’s eyes over cigarettes while I told her how well it was going and pondered what it might be like to kiss her cushiony lips.

  Under the discreet cover of a crowd, we were always together. Strolling together through the barren Tuileries, lagging behind a group of classmates on their way to the Louvre, she told me a song she heard on the radio had made her weep; I told her a new Balthus painting I had glimpsed in a gallery made me wretched with jealousy. She whispered guiltily that she disliked Picasso; I assured her he was overrated. She cried her eyes out during Wuthering Heights; I laughed at her. She told me she was tired of the dreary Parisian winter; I told her I had already used up three tubes of Payne’s grey and it was only February. She griped that the master kept telling her that she was rushing, she should get the big relationships in the painting down first; I told her that since she had started, the master hardly noticed anyone but her.

  On March 16th, Hitler rolled over Czechoslovakia, and we finally knew that war was imminent.

  That night, we met at La Coupole, as we often did, under cover of acquaintances from school and the expatriate artist community. I arrived before Sofia. At the table were Leo and Margaux. Salvador Dali with his beloved Gala. One of the lesser Surrealists. Colby. Erlichmann and his girlfriend Beata. Sawyer Ballard.

  I took out my sketchbook and pencil, waited for something to catch my eye, but the truth is I was watching the door, my heart already pounding, living for the moment she would walk through it and smile just for me, illuminating the room like the sun.

  Sawyer got up, came around the table to me, leaned over to shake hands. Despite the fact that Sofia politely declined his advances, he’d kept right on trying, some kind of belligerent American can-do, go-getter attitude at work there, as if he thought she ought to say yes out of gratitude.

  “What do you say, Sinclair?”

  “Evening, Sawyer. How’s that landscape coming along?”

  “Oh, you know. Nothing I haven’t done already ten times over. I’m thinking of going back to Boston. There are too many uniforms in this place. Things are about to get hairy, and if war comes, I want to be back home.” Absently, I nodded agreement, only half listening.

  Just then, Sofia came through the door. She slowed, scanning the vast crowded eating hall. She looked stricken.

  “Looks like she picked you,” Sawyer said enviously. I had already forgotten him. “You win.”

  “What do you mean?” Not taking my eyes off of her, I tried to look as if I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Oh, come on. She chose you. Must be that ripping accent you Brits have,” he groused. “Completely unfair advantage. Well, congratulations. I hear those Jew girls are wildcats in the sack. I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”

  Before I had time to think, I struck him full on the mouth. He staggered and went down, knocking over chairs, falling against a table full of Hungarians.

  I threw myself onto him, punched his smug face two more times before someone pulled me up from behind, pinned my arms back.

  “Sinclair!” Angrily. It was Colby. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Sawyer propped himself up on his elbow, put his hand to his mouth. He rolled over, spat out blood.

  We were instantly surrounded by a swarm of curious onlookers. This was La Coupole, after all, where a fistfight over a woman was part of the floor show along with celebrity spotting. I was unreasonably happy to see Sawyer bleeding like a pig. Someone retrieved his glasses from a bowl of bouillabaisse and passed them to him. Colby gave him some clean napkins. He wiped his mouth, grimacing at the sight of his own blood. Rejecting offers of help, he got to his feet. He put his glasses back on, carefully winding the gold wires around his ears. The fight was obviously over. Disappointed restaurant patrons went reluctantly back to their own altercations.

  “So it’s that way,” he said, dipping a napkin in soda water and brushing at the bloodstains on his white shirt. “You’re in love with her. You’re crazy, Sinclair. What are you going to do, bring her home to meet your mother? Marry her?”

  Suddenly, I realized Sofia was there, aghast at the sight of us both spattered with blood.

  “What is this about?”

  I looked at her, then away, ashamed, not knowing what to say.

  “This is about me?” she said, her face pale.

  “Hey, Sinclair,” said Sawyer. I turned to him, and he socked me on the jaw, sent me sprawling over a table and onto the floor.

  I lay there for a minute, the taste of blood filling my mouth. Sofia was on her knees beside me, cupping my face in her small white hands. A garçon came over, gesticulating furiously, jabbering in French to the tune of you must leave now.

  “Raphael, Raphael, my angel of healing,” she whispered, “What have I done to you?”

  “You’re going to have a hell of a mark.” Colby frowned at me, folded some ice into a napkin, squatted down and held it on my jaw. I winced and pushed him away.

  “What’s gotten into you, Sinclair? Sawyer’s
a prick. You know that. You’ve known it for five years.”

  Slowly, I pulled myself up off the floor, rubbing my jaw. I needed to talk to her, tell her to forget everything she had heard. I needed to tell her that Sawyer was wrong, that he didn’t know anything about it, that she was too damn good for my so-called family. But she had disappeared during the confusion in the noisy restaurant.

  My sketchbook had fallen to the floor when Sawyer hit me. Looking around, I spotted it under our table, between Erlichmann and Beata. I apologized for disturbing their evening. He waved it off. “Love is a messy undertaking,” he advised me in his morose German accent. “Enter at your own risk.”

  I bent to retrieve it from between the legs of Beata’s chair. “Don’t go to her,” she instructed me in a low voice. Her gray eyes were serious and sad. “There is something you don’t know.”

  I clenched my jaw. It hurt. “I know I love her,” I replied. I pulled my collar up and went out into the misty night.

  I had only one thought. She was going to cut me out of her life without another word. I looked up and down the street, but it was empty of passersby. Taxis stopped in front of the restaurants and bars and cafés, spilled out their loads of laughing passengers, zoomed off again to pick up their next fares. I hailed one, instructed the driver to take me to the Fourth Arrondissement, Rue des Rosiers, and there’s an extra franc for you if you step on it.

  When he squealed to a stop, I threw the driver his money and got out. The street was deserted. The rain was making a tremendous racket, beating a tattoo on the roofs and garbage cans and gurgling down the drainpipes. I looked up, wondering which window might be hers, but water ran down my face and into my eyes, making it impossible to see more than five feet ahead. Too late, I remembered her rules. No visitors, male or female. Without a plan, I splashed across the flooded gutters to her door.

  And there she was, hatless, completely drenched. She was standing before the gate to the courtyard, key in hand, as if she were about to open it when she had become absorbed in thinking about something else.

  I wanted to put my arms around her, protect her forever from idiots like Sawyer. Instead, I came up behind her, hands safely in my pockets.

  “I’m sorry, Sofia.” I repeated helplessly. “I’m sorry.”

  She acknowledged me, imperceptibly nodding her head, as if she had decided something.

  “Let’s go,” she said abruptly. “Let’s get away from here.”

  I waved my arms, flagging down the taxi I had just left. Once inside, I directed the driver to take us to nearby Place de Bastille. Here were the kind of places where the lowest rungs of society came to dance, to argue, to fight, to drink, where sailors and day-laborers came to negotiate a price for services rendered in small rooms nearby. Places where nobody would recognize Sofia or me.

  We took a small, scarred table in the back of an odiferous joint on the Rue de Lappe, smelling suggestively of urine, beer and sweat. She shrugged off her coat, left it dripping on the back of a chair. I looked across the table at her, glowing in the poor light of the squalid bar. Bits of blue-black hair clung to the sides of her face.

  “Have you got a cigarette?”

  I did. She placed it between her lips and leaned forward for a light, our faces almost touching, so close that I could feel warmth emanating from her skin. She leaned back in her seat, held her cigarette aloft. Gray smoke rose in a lazy line towards the ceiling.

  “Tell me, English,” she said. Her voice was low, melancholy, thrilling. “Tell me what you are going to do when you are finished with your studies.”

  Here, I was on solid ground. I told her I was going to stay in Paris forever, painting lonely landscapes and alienated apartment dwellers. There was a gallery showing some interest in my work, and I hoped they would take me on. I told her I wanted to buy a little place in Provence, something charming, surrounded by picturesque Van Gogh fields full of picturesque Monet haystacks. I told her she should visit England someday, that I could take her to see the sights, maybe the places where I grew up.

  She listened to me drone on and on, resting her chin in her hand, looking at me through drowsy half-closed eyes. I think she just wanted to hear the sound of my voice rising and falling, telling stories, weaving dreams. They must have been her dreams, too.

  The music changed to jazz. “I want to dance,” she said suddenly. “Let’s dance.”

  I rose to my feet and followed her obediently onto the small, close dance floor. She turned to face me. I stood as awkwardly as a schoolboy, my arms dangling at my sides.

  “Go on,” she said. “I want you to.”

  I slid my hand around her tiny waist. She curved her hand over my shoulder, placed her other hand lightly in mine.

  I had been with women before, dozens of women, oceans of women, straddling, you might say, the entire spectrum of the social strata. Models, actresses, society girls, hat check girls. American art students with more money than talent. Once, a sword swallower from a troupe that was performing at the Place du Tertre, and her sister the fire-eater. I didn’t care what color they were or what language they spoke or how much money their daddies made. All I ever asked for was a good time.

  This burned.

  Burned with an incandescence that consumed, lit me up from within like a house on fire. With every lunge forward, with every step back, with every brush of her body against mine, the flames leapt higher. I burned for her.

  The dance floor became packed with unwashed bodies touching us as they swayed in time to the music, the air thick with smoke. The band grew louder and more insistent, the saxophone lamenting over the piano and the violin. From time to time, there were bursts of raucous laughter, or shouted indignation, threats of violence. The tobacco-stained walls beaded over with droplets of humidity. Nine o’clock came and went. When I pointed out the hour, Sofia acknowledged me with a nod, bowed her lovely head, and delicately rested her cheek on my chest. I hardly dared to move. I feared that any sudden movement would frighten her away.

  This was it, then. This was love, blinding, selfish, unassailable, deathless love. Yes, I did want to marry her, bring her home to meet my mother, then take her away and spend the rest of my life erasing the memories of everything that had come before. This was the last woman I ever wanted to make love to, the only face I ever wanted to see in the morning when I opened my eyes to the new day.

  At two in the morning, damp from the exertion and the humidity, we found our table, collapsed into our seats. Sofia fanned herself. I ordered drinks.

  “Sofia,” I said. She turned to me expectantly.

  “I love you. I love you more than anything in this world or the next. I love the kindness in your voice, the passion in your eyes. I want to be the only man to ever see you naked, the only man to ever lay his hands on your porcelain skin. I want to make love to you every night before we fall asleep, then wake up in the morning and do it again. I don’t know if I believe in God, but I believe in the salvation of your love. Marry me.”

  But I never said it, never said any of it. I don’t know why. I couldn’t get the words out, as much as I yearned to say them. Maybe my parents’ marriage put me off the whole institution. Maybe it was the hand of God. Or maybe Sawyer’s words got to me, after all.

  She waited for a moment, then tilted her head, reading me, taking it in. Then she smiled a sad little smile, the corners of her mouth turned down instead of up, her black eyes telegraphing the tragedy still to come, if only I had been paying attention.

  “Let’s play,” I said, and I tore out a page out of my sketchbook, hurriedly drew a picture, folded it over, slid it across the table.

  She scanned the room, searching for inspiration. Her hair was longer than was fashionable, and the rain had turned it curly; it hung in tight ringlets around her head. I watched her as she drew. I loved looking at her hand grasping the pencil, her small tapered fingers like some kind of Italian cookie rolled in powdered sugar.

  She squinted at her drawing, folded it
and passed it back to me.

  My turn. I hesitated, staring at the blank paper. I scribbled something down, slid it across the table to her.

  “Go on,” I said. “Open it.”

  She lifted the top flap, unfolded the bottom. When she saw what was inside, she sat back in shock, then clapped her hand over her mouth as if she were afraid something would fly out, something she could never take back.

  Sofia had made a mermaid in the centerfold, a beautiful female torso with a long, shimmering tail. Bubbles rose to an imaginary surface. A shark glided in the distance behind her.

  But at the top, looking like it belonged to another picture, was a couple embracing. The woman had dark curling hair, a small pointed nose, her rosebud mouth pressed to her lover’s lips in an eternal kiss. The man lay across her body, concealing it, his arms clasped around her slight shoulders. His hair was clipped close in the back, coming to a peak as it fell over his forehead.

  Under the mermaid, abandoning the game, I had scrawled the words I love you.

  She took a good, long time looking at it, smoothing out the creases in the paper, tracing her fingers along the lines I had made. An artist’s caress.

  “Raphael,” she finally murmured. “One more dance.”

  The band was playing a scratchy tango, Una Por Cabeza, passionate even for a tango, and this time there was no hesitation when I put my arm around her waist and she settled her hand upon my shoulder.

  For just a little longer Sofia upheld the imaginary space between us, like a student at a proper dance academy; but in the final wistful minutes of the night before daylight begins to send feelers out into the darkness, the entire length of her body dissolved into mine, and the lilac perfume of her scent filled my senses when I rested my cheek against her hair, and her pale face was luminous in the smoky haze when she turned it up to mine.

  Her hand moved to the back of my neck. I shuddered at her touch. Now, on the edge of the precipice I hesitated, knowing with certainty that after this, nothing could be the same. For just one more moment I held back, measuring the full weight of its meaning, for her, for me, for ever, after this night.