The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque

by Jeffrey Ford

  “‘It is raining,’ I said loudly in order to project my voice beyond the barrier. ‘The path is muddy. There is a cat and a crowd. I see an open window through which everything passes. It will happen at the end of the day, and there will be peace.’ When I was finished, a few moments of absolute silence reigned in the dining hall, and then the voice of a young man called out, ‘Thank you.’

  “That evening I responded to the questions jotted on a dozen leaves and subsequently read aloud. When my father announced that the session was over, there came a thunderous applause. I left the room in the same manner as I had entered: the lights were briefly extinguished, and I fled through a nearby door, my father preventing anyone from following me. We had arranged to have a carriage waiting for me outside the building, and like some fairy-tale princess racing against the approach of midnight, I rushed to it and was on my way before I could be spotted. Back at our apartment, I waited alone for him to return, hoping that I had done well. Eventually I fell asleep on our parlor couch, for he did not return until daybreak. As he explained to me, when the festivities were over, Ossiak met with him, and they discussed the results of that year’s snowfall.

  “He was both troubled and delighted. The act of the Sibyl had been a great success, but his news of financial ruin did not sit well with his employer. Still, Ossiak was not so ignorant as to blame the bearer of bad tidings. He entreated my father to put the question of the fate of his fortune to the Sibyl.

  “Our performance was an interesting entertainment, and I doubt that many of those present thought of it as anything more, that is until three days later, when the daily paper brought some shocking news. The first person whose question I had answered was a young man who, owing to his economic station in life (I believe he was a waiter or laborer at some hotel or tavern), would not normally attend one of Ossiak’s affairs. He was present that night because he had recently come to the aid of one of Ossiak’s nieces on the street when she was accosted by a ruffian. To repay this young man’s gallantry, Ossiak sent him an invitation to the gala.

  “As it turned out, the young man had a vision of his own. Over a period of years, he had saved a sum of five thousand dollars. The Tuesday following Ossiak’s affair, he took a day off from work and went to Hanover Racetrack. There, at the betting window, he put all his money to win on a horse by the name of Calico. Calico was a well-respected Thoroughbred, but that day it rained, which turned the track to mud, and Calico lost the race. Later that afternoon, the young man committed suicide by slitting his wrists with a straight razor, thereby finding peace from his overweening desire for success. Instead, it was I who found success. All those who had been in attendance the evening of my first performance now believed I was imbued with special powers.”

  “A sad story,” I managed to say, while my memory of the sketch of Mrs. Charbuque was replaced by the harrowing image of Ryder’s The Race Track.

  “Do you see the irony in it, Piambo? My prediction was pure fabrication, but at the time, I believed quite ardently in its veracity. The crowd allowed themselves to be deluded in the name of entertainment, and the young man, wanting so desperately to be a winner, took my words as an assurance that he would be. Add to this the trumpery of the ape’s arm, my father’s sudden new guise as a huckster of marvels, and Ossiak ignoring the warnings that his economic empire was fragile. This maelstrom of illusion coincided to produce not one but several tragedies.”

  “Besides the suicide, which probably could not have been avoided, what other misfortunes came of it?” I asked.

  “Well, most important to me, an innocent young girl was transformed into a monster. From the time my father told me of the young man’s demise, I felt the weight of the responsibility I carried. He was so jolly over it, it made him red in the face, and when I broached the question of whether my response had in some way spurred the poor man to place the bet, he responded, ‘Nonsense, dear. A fellow like that, in his situation, could hear a thousand messages of warning, and still they would all sound to his addled ears like the same affirmation to proceed unto glory.’

  “No one knew for certain that I was the Sibyl, although I’m sure many suspected it from the tenor of my voice and from their knowledge that my father had a daughter. We had numerous visitors following the performance and its subsequent revelation. Friends of my father’s, Ossiak’s other employees, would drop by the apartment looking for a chance to ask the Sibyl a question. My father told them that the Sibyl had left town for a week or two and would most likely give another performance somewhere in the city the following month. These visitors would eye me suspiciously, and I would turn away. I felt that to return their gazes would engage the voices of the Twins, and I would be forced to speak their fates in cryptic phrases.

  “Eyes became very frightening to me. I felt their gaze almost physically, as if they projected beams that searched every inch of my body and soul for signs of their bearer’s future. Each sighted orb was like that giant eye that had stared down at me through the optical magnifier.

  “With the help of Ossiak’s influence, Father found another venue for the act at one of the better hotels. I no longer recall which one, but it was an upscale establishment catering to society’s elite. We had our second performance there and this time charged for it. Once more situated behind the screen, I felt safe for the first time in weeks. I again served as a conduit for the whisperings of the Twins, and we took in a small fortune.

  “What I did not learn until later was that Ossiak himself was in the audience, and one of the leaves I received bore a question from him. My father read it: ‘Does the future hold more?’ and my answer involved images of a splintering throne, a rotten apple, a half-empty glass. I heard from the other side of the boundary a solitary groan rise from the audience and did not realize it at the time, but I, an eleven-year-old girl, had tossed the pebble that initiated the avalanche of his financial ruin.

  “For the next month we performed at the hotel once a week. In the interim between shows I began spending more and more of my time behind the screen. When people visited the apartment I would run and hide. My father never worried about or admonished me for my growing shyness, for having dedicated so much of his life to his crystalogistics, he thought it only proper that I should become dedicated to my profession.

  “Then one day the police came to the house. I hid behind the screen as they questioned my father about the fate of my mother. When he told them that a wolf had carried her off, they laughed at him, and I heard one of them say, ‘Come, come, Londell, do you take us for fools?’ There were things said that I did not want to hear, so I shut them out, refusing to listen. Although I worked hard not to acknowledge what was said, the one thing I do recall is the sound of my father opening the chest within which he kept the proceeds from the shows. Soon after, the police left. It was immediately following this incident that we began doing five shows a week. That is when my fear of the world outside the protection of the screen grew into a mania. When I was caught in plain sight, I would tremble and cry hysterically, but when I was safely hidden behind the falling leaves, I felt I was God.”

  CONSULTING THE TWINS

  A SINGLE green leaf fell, sawing back and forth in the air past the static depiction of its autumnal kin. “I will demonstrate for you,” said Mrs. Charbuque. “Do you have your pencil?”

  “Yes,” I said, still trying to digest her statement that she had felt herself to be God.

  “Write out a question,” she said.

  I leaned over in my seat and lifted the paper leaf from the floor. It took only a second to think of what to ask. You do not have to be psychic to guess what it was. “I have done so,” I said.

  “Place it carefully beneath the thumb,” she said, and I saw that insane monkey arm inch its way slowly up from the top of the screen. The sight of it now made me smile, and I heard Mrs. Charbuque giggle quietly like a girl in church.

  I stood and secured the leaf in the hairy hand. Then it lowered with the same comic slow
ness as it had risen.

  “‘Do I see it clearly?’” Mrs. Charbuque read aloud. “A moment now, Piambo. I am consulting the Twins.”

  Knowing the entire thing was a farce didn’t matter. I still felt a kind of mild excitement tingling in my chest as I waited for her pronouncement.

  “I see fire,” she said, “…and snow. There is a shiny coffin, a smile, and an angel on the beach at sunset. That is all.” A few moments passed, and then she laughed. “How was that?”

  “Curious imagery,” I said, “but I’m afraid I’m no wiser than I was before asking.”

  “In all the time I actively portrayed the Sibyl, I don’t think I ever actually answered anyone’s question,” she said.

  “Your record remains unbroken,” I told her. “How long did you perform as the Sibyl? You’ve already said that you continued with the act after your father passed away.”

  “I not only continued, Piambo, I became famous and, as you can see by the trappings of my life, wealthy,” she said. “Yes, for someone who for all intents and purposes did not exist, I did quite well.”

  “Tell me about how that happened,” I said as I sketched the twin arches of her eyebrows.

  “My father and I were to go to the mountains twice more, and in the summers following each season of snow, we performed in the city. A goodly piece of everything we made on the act was handed over to the police to keep my father from being prosecuted for the murder of my mother. This weighed on him, not out of guilt but because he was loath to share our wealth. As much as he enjoyed playing the assistant to my Sibyl, he was still first and foremost a crystalogogist. Once we were back in the mountains, he buried himself in his work. The tale told by the snowflakes became grimmer with each reading, but barring his obvious concern for the future, he was always pleased to trudge out to the tin laboratory and climb the ladder to the optical magnifier.

  “Then, at the end of the second summer, Ossiak called father and all the other diviners on his payroll to a meeting at his estate on Long Island. I did not attend, but when my father returned, he was pale as death. He told me that Ossiak had never made an appearance, but one of his underlings had told all those present that they were being let go and that their records and equipment would be confiscated. That was it. With his work gone, my father had no will to continue. I told him we would make our way by performing the act, and he sighed and nodded, but I could never get him to agree to set new dates at the hotel. Eventually he took to staying indoors and sleeping much of the day away.

  “One afternoon, while sitting in his chair in the parlor, he asked me to take up my guise as the Sibyl and foretell his future. I told him I didn’t want to, but he insisted. He made me go into the bedroom and bring out the screen. Once it was set up, I slipped behind it and sat on my chair. ‘Sibyl, what does the future hold?’ he called out in a weak voice. I was quite upset, but I tried to calm myself and concentrate on listening for the Twins. Nothing came to me. He waited patiently for my answer. I got no sign from the benefactors in my locket and felt they had abandoned me. Of course, I knew that Father was in a bad state, so I consciously fabricated pleasant imagery. ‘I see sunshine,’ I said, ‘an ocean of sunshine and great good fortune,’ and other such satisfying bits of nonsense. When I was done, I listened for his response. I thought he might applaud or perhaps even say ‘Eureka,’ but there was absolute silence. When I finally came around the screen, I found him dead in his chair. His eyes stared with such frightening intensity, and…”

  Mrs. Charbuque’s voice trailed off into silence. I had stopped sketching halfway through her story, and only a day after wanting to strangle her, I felt the greatest sympathy.

  “You were thirteen,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have any other family to take care of you?” I asked.

  “Believe it or not, Piambo, I took care of myself. You cannot fathom the struggle I went through to make the arrangements necessary for my father’s funeral. Each individual I met with was an appointment in hell, but I wanted to be left alone eventually, so that no one could see me. If I were to seek out relatives or depend on the relief agencies for assistance, I would never be free from their glances, their looks.”

  “That took courage,” I said.

  The door opened, and Watkin entered.

  “Good grief,” I said, my annoyance obvious.

  “Your time is now up,” he said.

  I gathered my things and put on my coat.

  “Tomorrow, Piambo,” said Mrs. Charbuque, and I read a wealth of emotion in her salutation.

  “Tomorrow,” I said, trying to imbue mine with as much.

  Watkin wore the same grimace as he had earlier when showing me into the room. As I walked toward him, I stopped short, suddenly remembering a question that nagged at me, and called back, “Mrs. Charbuque, you said your husband was lost in a shipwreck. I am curious to know the name of the vessel.”

  “You will have to wait until tomorrow for that,” said Watkin.

  “Now, Peter, it’s quite all right,” she said from behind her screen. “If I’m not mistaken, it was the Janus.”

  “Thank you. Good day,” I said.

  Out on the steps, I turned to Watkin and said, “Have a tedious evening, Peter.”

  He, of course, slammed the door in my face.

  I had a good two hours before the event I was to attend that evening. Even though the National Academy of Design was on East Twenty-third Street, not far at all from my house on Gramercy, rather than going home I chose to arrive early and spend some time wandering the halls of my old haunt. The sun was setting as I approached the building, and the sight of the warm glow emanating from its tall arched windows induced a wave of nostalgia. I stood for a moment outside the low wrought-iron fence and took in the building’s architecture of gray and white marble and bluestone, before proceeding up the left side of the double stairway to the entrance.

  Classes were still in session, and I took great pleasure in roaming down the halls, peering in at the earnest students, mostly young but some old, laboring in the fields of art. Many of the instructors were professional artists, and I knew almost all of them. Of the people who had passed through those halls, one could compile a roll of America’s most famous artists—Cole, Durand, Ingram, Cummings, Agate; the list was long. On that particular evening, though, I moved stealthily, not wanting to be discovered by any old friends. From the moment I entered and smelled the familiar aroma of the place, I had a specific destination in mind.

  On the main floor, in the far corner of the east wing, was a small gallery in which the academy displayed works from its private collection. Certain paintings hung therein that were perpetually on display: a Thomas Cole landscape, an Eakins portrait, and the one I had come to visit. With my busy career, I could usually make time only once every year or two to commune with this piece. Every time I entered the gallery I experienced a moment of trepidation in which I would entertain the fear that perhaps the work had fallen out of favor and been removed to storage. On that evening, I was not disappointed.

  The gallery was empty but for me, and I walked quietly to a bench and sat down in front of Sabott’s masterpiece, The Madonna of the Manticores, the same work my father had taken me to see so many long years before.

  Because of what Mrs. Charbuque had just told me about the loss of her father, my thoughts were on the loss of my own. I am speaking not of my birth parent but of Sabott. It was just down the hallway from the very spot where I sat that I had first encountered him. He had been teaching a course in painting for the academy that season. I had been a student for a few years, and at an early age, not so many years older than Mrs. Charbuque when she had become the Sibyl, I had already developed a distinctive painting style.

  Luckily, the classes at the academy were free. Although my father had left us fairly well off when he died, my mother had to budget this money carefully because no more would come in until I was able to make a living. I was forced to dress poorly and
could not always afford the necessary supplies, but I had some innate talent, and the teachers usually helped me out with extra expenses when they could.

  Then Sabott came to teach. I did everything I could to be accepted for his course, even though it was reserved for more accomplished students, who were usually older than I. Mr. Morse, the man who subsequently invented the Morse code, was the president of the academy at the time, and he happened to be a great supporter of mine, having known my father. He pulled the necessary strings to get me into Sabott’s painting class.

  Sabott was a strict teacher, and many of the students did not like him. I, on the other hand, was completely devoted to him because of my father’s admiration for his work. Throughout the weeks of the class, he said only the same two words to me again and again. He would come to look at one of my paintings, point to something in the composition, and shake his head. Then he would lift the palette knife and hand it to me. “Scrape it,” he would say, which meant I was to clean the canvas and begin again. This I did without a word of protest. During the final week of the class, I worked on a portrait from a live model, a woman dressed in only a pink robe. Every day I expected him to tell me to clean the canvas, but he didn’t. It was the finest piece of work I had ever done. On the last day, as I was adding some highlights to the robe—finishing touches—he discovered a problem with her hair. “Scrape it,” he said. I almost cried, but I did as he instructed.

  The class ended, and I had not even one completed canvas to show for it. Sabott left, as he was not going to teach the following season. Exactly one month later he arrived on the doorstep of our house in Brooklyn. That day, he asked my mother’s permission to take me on as his apprentice. From then on, he clothed me, fed me, educated me, took me with him on his travels, and worked me like a dog, demanding that I become the finest painter I could be.