The Color of Light

by Helen Maryles Shankman

  Her words brought an accusatory flash to his eyes, an arrow of pain to his heart. “Oh, come on, my darling, such an orgy of tristesse,” she teased. “Always so much sturm und drang. You are doing the right thing here. Letting her go, letting her have a chance at a normal life.” She waited for a moment before giving him the coup de grâce. “It’s what Sofia would have wanted, don’t you think?”

  Shooting her a look of pure hatred, Rafe plunged into the crowd.

  It was wrong, it was stupid, it was reckless, he knew it, and still he charged forward. Snapshots of David Atwood with his arm around her waist replicated in his brain like a virus. What else did they do together, in the name of saving his school?

  “Rafe,” said Levon. Rafe barely acknowledged him, plowing through the throng of downtown artists and Upper East Side elite. Giselle loomed before him, in a pair of brown stirrup pants and a tweed jacket. She must have come directly from riding, he smelled polished leather; she kept a Tennessee Walking horse at Claremont Stables over on Eighty-ninth Street. She was accompanied by a well-preserved dowager, also in horsey dress. As he passed, she put her hand on his arm.

  “Rafe,” she chortled in her throaty voice. “There you are! I’d like to introduce you to—”

  With a sinking feeling, Levon watched him pull away from her.

  “What is it?” said Turner.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “Someone I used to know.”

  Tessa and David were stopped in front of a painting of a rather grotty-looking studio sink.

  “It’s obscene,” he said. “And I’m not even talking about the genitalia.”

  “Don’t you see it?” she said, incredulous. “The unconventional way he uses space? The way he uses paint?”

  He shrugged. “It’s all just another way of saying ugly. Like Van Gogh before he got to Paris. All these soupy grays and browns and lumpy paint and bad drawing.”

  Tessa felt a kind of turbulence disturb the rarefied air in the gallery, tipped like chimes into motion around her. She turned to see Rafe slicing towards her through the crowd.

  Their eyes met; he looked as if he had something important to tell her, something that couldn’t wait. With ten feet left between them, he slowed to a stop.

  He was wearing her favorite suit, a double-breasted chalk-striped gray with baggy pants and peaked lapels, lined in crimson, all very 1940s, and she smiled at him, understanding that he had donned it as a signal, a kind of discreet love letter. But his face, his beautiful face…he was pale and ashen, as if there were a shadow moving under the surface of his skin. Some crisis was happening inside him, some private agony she did not know about and did not share. His eyes fastened on her as if he were drowning and she was a faraway shore; his lips parted, as if he were going to speak; and then he changed direction and stalked out the front door of the gallery.

  Tessa had already taken an automatic step forward when a hand locked around her wrist. “Don’t,” David said quietly. “Turner’s over there, watching.”

  Tessa turned her head. David was right. She closed her eyes, took deep breaths, counted to ten, put on a smile and took his hand.

  Outside in the corridor, Rafe slammed open the door marked Emergency Exit. Shaking, he leaned against the wall of a decidedly unglamorous cinder-block stairwell and put his head between his hands. The bright lights were hurting his eyes. He reached out and snapped off the light switch, waited for the madness to go away.

  The steel fire door yawned open, admitting two more people. Hidden in the shadows halfway up to the next landing, they didn’t notice him.

  For one ghastly moment, he thought it was David and Tessa. There followed the sounds of giggling, the papery rustle of clothing being removed. A girl’s voice saying, no, no, no, giggling louder.

  Not Tessa, thank God. He rolled his eyes, trapped. What was the best way to escape? He could head up the stairwell, which exited on the second floor, or he could wait quietly until it was over and they left.

  No, no, no, the girl was squealing, but her voice had changed, the giggling was nervous now, the no no nos evolving into frantic protest.

  He reached out and flipped on the light switch.

  A man in a tight iridescent suit was grinding himself against a waif of a girl he had pushed up against the wall. Allison, half-dressed, red lipstick smeared across her pale face.

  “Are you all right, Allison?” he asked.

  “Oh, hi Mr. Sinclair,” she said in a tiny voice. She was very frightened, he could feel it coming off of her in great wide waves.

  “Do you need help?” he said, his eyes meeting hers.

  “Yes,” she said, and began to cry.

  He started down the stairs. “Let her go,” he said. “Find someone else who wants to do all those naughty things you’ve been dreaming up since you were ten.”

  “I have another idea,” the young man said in a bored Teutonic voice. “Why don’t you fuck off.”

  “Let her go,” Rafe said.

  The young man turned to face him, then tilted his head in recognition. “I know you. I was at your Halloween Party. What was it? The Naked Masquerade? You’re the vampire. The Phantom of the Art School. Look here, Mr. Vampire. You just fly away now, and tomorrow morning I’ll send you a big fat check so that all the little artists in your school can go on making potholders and leather wallets for the rest of the year. All right? Now, fuck off.”

  Rafe grabbed him by the throat and hurled him up the flight of stairs. There was a horrible clang as his head hit the metal railing. His body slumped into an awkward pile on the landing.

  Allison stared at Rafe as he came down the stairs. He smiled reassuringly as his fangs receded into his mouth, his eyes returned to their usual smoky gray. “You might want to fix your lipstick,” he reminded her. Then he opened the door and stepped back out into the corridor.

  7

  Are they going to sue us?” asked the baby powder magnate. The board was furious. One man, the heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, implied that it would have been best for all parties involved if the girl had just kept quiet and taken it like a man. There was a silence in the room as the other members contemplated the implications of the mixed metaphors.

  Rafe hadn’t said a word in his own defense. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t said anything at all, sitting on a folding chair in the Cast Hall, still wearing his coat, toying with the brim of his hat.

  “I think it’s been withdrawn, now that we have Allison’s story.” said Levon. “This wasn’t his first time, either. Last year, his family paid a girl a million dollars over something that happened at the Limelight.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” said the heir to the cough drop fortune. “Bernard, will this present any foreseeable problem with the Corning Institute?”

  Blesser made a rueful face. “We’ll see. They haven’t called. I’ve got my fingers crossed.” He consulted his notes. “They did want to know if we’d made any progress towards hiring someone who could head up our video art program.”

  “Tell them we’re working on it,” Turner instructed him.

  Levon looked at Rafe; had the words “our video art program” really just come out of Bernard Blesser’s mouth? Say something, he urged him silently. Just smile at them. But Rafe said nothing, continuing to stare out the window at the rain.

  “Anything you want to add, Rafe?” he prodded, bewildered. The board members were looking to him for guidance. Giselle was staring at him, too.

  “I’m sorry,” said Rafe, stirring himself. “Were you talking to me?”

  Levon looked at him strangely. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then the meeting adjourned. There was coffee in a silver pot and lovely little cakes and petits fours from a new catering place in Tribeca. While the members of the board rose from their chairs and made their way towards the refreshments, Blesser found Rafe and took him aside.

  “There’s a problem,” he said.

  The dream was coming every night now. The shadowy child, the fi
ery furnace, the host of demons chasing him through the house, sinking their teeth into his flesh. Today there had been a frightening twist; he woke to find himself outside on the balcony, scant minutes before the sun would have risen and turned him into a heap of ashes.

  Pay attention. He trained his eyes on Blesser, willed himself to listen. Smiled politely. “What is it, Bernard?”

  Blesser dropped his gaze. “It’s the new ventilation system. Turns out it cost twice what they quoted us. We can’t meet payroll this week.”

  “Oh.” He tried to think of what to do, but now the only thing that came to mind were pictures of Tessa and David on a sunny beach, rolling around in the surf while U2 wailed With Or Without You. Soundtrack courtesy of Harker’s rock history mix tape.

  He couldn’t process this right now. Patting his pockets, he found a business card, jotted something down. “Here. Call my banker at Barclays. Give him these numbers. Tell him what you need, he’ll take care of you.”

  Blesser took the card, then whispered, “I think you did the right thing with that Austrian fellow. So what if his father’s a diplomat. Anyone with an ounce of decency would have done the same.”

  Rafe smiled at him. “Thank you, Bernard. I appreciate that.”

  He could see Levon was working his way over to him, holding a little glass plate bearing a pink petit four, laughing at something the cough drop magnate had said. Rafe could see what was coming. First, Levon would ask if he could see him in his office. Then he would lash into him.

  Rafe almost growled. He was not feeling very fond of Levon lately. Turning on his heel, he skulked off through the back door of the Cast Hall.

  In the stairwell, he thought, I wonder what Tessa is doing right now? He was already on his way up to the studio floor when he remembered that it was off limits. In a rage, he grabbed the pay phone and smashed it against the metal receiver. It made a deafening clamor before shattering in his hand.

  He paused on the sidewalk outside the building to collect himself. It was evening, the lights had twinkled on. New York was magical at this hour. People leaving work, their glad footsteps echoing down the streets. Friends meeting friends for a drink, or dinner, a club, the movies. Lovers hurrying towards each other in a heightened state of anticipation under a deepening blue sky. But Raphael Sinclair had nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one who was waiting for him. He might as well go home.

  He cut through Washington Square Park, his footsteps echoing on the pavement. The sulphur lamps bathed the benches and the sidewalks and the dead grass in a yellow glare. There was not another living being as far as the eye could see. Except for a girl with dull brown hair, making slow, aimless circles on the swing.

  He stopped in front of her. “Hello,” he said.

  “Spare any change?” she said in a flat, colorless voice.

  “How old are you?”

  “Old enough.”

  Her pupils were fully dilated, like black holes. She was seventeen, maybe eighteen, he guessed. The girl put her arms around herself and shivered, her teeth rattling, though it was not a cold night. Something in his chest began to swell and thicken, his eyes began to change, his fangs to lower.

  “Come with me,” he said. His voice shimmered with every color of the rainbow, an angel’s song. “Let me take you somewhere warm.”

  8

  Hello, my dear,” Leo greeted her warmly as he glided through the art department into Ram’s office.

  Tessa looked up from the layout she was working on. Ram thought she should try her hand at designing. On the table before her were three columns of type and a few photographs. Under Gaby’s deft fingers, it would already have been a witty front-of-book page juggling a story about blush, a hot new diet trend, and a Swiss anti-aging treatment. In Tessa’s hands, it looked like the bottom of a birdcage.

  “Tessa!”

  Gaby was beckoning her towards the office. She had to find Ram and Anastasia, she didn’t want to leave Leo by himself. Could Tessa babysit him for a few minutes? Gladly, she left the layout on her desk.

  Leo was at the window, fiddling with the blinds. Afterwards, he leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed, basking in the weak winter sunbeams that filtered in between the slats. In the light, his thinning hair was as white as snow.

  “I have something for you, my dear,” he said. From under his arm he produced a manila envelope. His hands under the command of a slight but perpetual tremor, he undid the clasp and pulled out a black-and-white photo. Tessa watched him struggle, understanding that she must not offer to help him with it.

  When he had it out, he gazed at it fondly, then placed it in her hands. Saint Valentine’s Day, Paris, 1939, it said in a small neat script at the bottom.

  She gazed at the characters from Rafe’s story, seeing them take on contours, come to life. A woman with serious gray eyes who must be Beata. A tall man with blond hair and telltale round glasses who must be Sawyer Ballard. Leo himself, neat, dapper, suave. Next to him must be Margaux, in a tight chignon, something a little pitiless in her expression. Colby, identifiable by his warm smile. Rafe, or rather, the eager, driven young man he used to be, staring forever at the woman in the center of the photograph, a slender, dark-haired sylph with a heart-shaped face. She wore a black dress with white polka dots, her white-gloved hands folded in her lap. The tragic beauty of her eyes marked her clearly as Sofia.

  “Her beauty extended to the inside, as well.” Leo remarked quietly.

  Tessa looked at him, this man who knew her grandfather’s sister when they were both young, his fragile skin marked with age spots, his trembling hands. It was hard to connect him with the self-assured young man in the photograph, poised to take over the world.

  He was pensive, communing with his ghosts. “You may have that one. I made you a copy.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lubitsch,” she said.

  “Thank you, my dear.” he said with a small bow and a courtly smile. “You have given me great pleasure during your time here.”

  Gaby came into the room, peremptorily closed the blinds, shutting out the sun. Leo gave out a little sigh, almost imperceptible.

  Together, Tessa and Gaby opened and closed drawers, quickly laying out the tools he would need to design. His special Swiss scissors, the blades long and light. The headline and subhead to each story, cut into long strips. Sheets of body copy, color xeroxes of the photographs, all neatly trimmed and clipped together.

  Leo was on a roll, they finished three new stories as the afternoon waned into evening. Deftly, Tessa and Gaby taped down the bits of typography and illustration and photos and charts and whisked them off to Production. Leo chatted to Anastasia in French as he stood at the counter, sedately laying down type, frowning at it, moving it elsewhere.

  At seven o’clock, the sun long gone, Leo gave them a small wave and glided out the door. Thea left first, then Gaby. Ram was effortlessly wrapping an orange scarf around his neck in a way that made him look like he was ready for a GQ photo shoot. If Tessa tried to tie it that way, the scarf would just end up looking messy.

  “Elle was fired,” he said. “I bet Anastasia asks you to stay on.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “I am so behind on my thesis project. I should be in my studio right now, as a matter of fact.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that. She can be very, um, convincing.” He was wearing a voluminous dark coat with a high collar, a white kerchief bound artfully around his head. Now he was pulling on a pair of leather gauntlets. “I’m doing the clubs tonight. Someone may not make it into work tomorrow. How do I look?”

  She smiled. “Like a character in a Toulouse–Lautrec painting.” When he raised an eyebrow, she corrected herself. “I meant, you look fabulous.”

  “Thank you, honey,” he said. “That means a lot, coming from a big slut like you.”

  The way he pronounced it, there were two syllables; ssssss-lut. She sighed in exasperation. “Were you born talking that way,” she said, “or did you have to take
a class?”

  His eyes crinkled in a smile. At the door, he hesitated, turned back. He had recently grown a caterpillar’s worth of hair under his lower lip, and now it twisted in a frown. “Crumpet,” he said, a look of concern crossing his marvelously styled face. “If that’s what you really want, to spend more time painting, you should tell her. You’re too nice. You have to do what’s best for you.”

  “Tessa!” The hairs prickled up at the back of her neck. Anastasia was still in Ram’s office.

  “She won’t hurt you,” he promised. “Much.” He turned and then he was gone.

  Reluctantly, Tessa poked her head around the door. The lights were off, it took her a moment to acclimate to the dark. Anastasia had raised the blinds, and she was sitting at Ram’s desk, her feet up, gazing out at the skyline. Upon seeing Tessa, she fluffed her hair and smiled.

  “Join me.” she said, gesturing at a chair. Tessa slunk in and took a seat. “Why are you still here? Raphael will kill me, he says you need to spend more time on your homework.”

  “Gaby needed the raw food story for tomorrow morning,” she muttered.

  Anastasia smiled again. “Very dedicated.” She turned towards the window. “Beautiful, isn’t it. I love the city at night.”

  Tessa studied her dramatic profile, nodded.

  “I’m sure Ram told you. Elle found another job.” She slipped off her shoes, wiggled her painted toes. “You could stay on with us, you know. Everyone here loves you.”

  Tessa said. “I should get back to my thesis project.”

  Anastasia chuckled. “Yes, of course you should. But you still have to eat, my darling. Sometimes I think our Raphael has his head in the clouds, so irresponsible, letting his beloved students think they have a future in art. This dream he has of recreating a world that appreciates his kind of painting…that’s all it is. A dream. He does not seem to know that painting is already dead. They held the funeral the day the camera was invented.”

  Without warning, she snatched off her glasses. Tessa gazed into the dark eyes, captivated by their lava-lamp glow.