Forgetfulness

by Ward Just

  After New Year's a false spring arrived in St. Michel du Valcabrère, the temperature rising to nearly 10°C. under a watery Mediterranean sky. The snow remained but here and there brown patches were visible in the fields, along with the persistent sound of running water. Each afternoon Thomas drove to a different village and sketched churches inside and out. Many of the churches dated from the Middle Ages. He had an idea he could discover the medieval rhythm of life from the altars and choirs—bare ruined choirs, according to the Bard—and the worn wood of the pews, heavy stones underfoot. The fathers had ruled things to suit themselves, in those days and later, and now the churches were relics, sparsely attended, mostly by old people. The priests were old. There was great beauty in the architecture, in the silence and the overhead space—a beauty, he concluded, of a sentimental kind, the beauty of a very old woman praying fiercely. He was unable to judge the inner beauty of men, since there were so few in church of an afternoon. Surely men had as many troubles as women but did not visit church to solve them. Thomas looked at the old women and tried to imagine them when they were young, as young as Florette when he first met her, or the model he'd lived with when he was twenty-one and struggling to discover if he had talent or merely a flair for illustration.

  He thought Karen could help in the discovery and to that end listened to her comments with the attention New York collectors had given Bernard Berenson. Then it turned out that Berenson was not all he seemed to be. He knew everything there was to know about Venetian masters including the devious ways of the doges, sharp practice as second nature, and then he met Duveen. Karen knew nothing of sharp practice. She was rarely devious, and when she was, it was inadvertent. She said that she often wished she could care about something as much as Thomas cared about his art. She said, You'll have it as long as you live, no matter what else happens to you, because you'll never use it up or wear it out. Whether that will make for a happy life, I'm not sure. Maybe not. Maybe that one thing is so large it crowds people out. And then again it's possible you can get along without them. The other people, including me. Maybe you can tell me what inspires such devotion. Believe me, I'll listen. I'm all ears. He told her that a true picture came from loving the work itself—the paint, the brushes, the canvas, the look and feel and smell of it, the space itself, negative space until you made the first stroke—confident that at a certain moment the oils would explode off the canvas, the picture revealing itself as dawn revealed the day to come, not its weather or its events but its presence. He had forgotten all that in the weeks since Florette's death and searched now to get it back, something he believed was second nature to him, his own version of sharp practice. But apparently not, and so in the afternoons of the false spring he went from church to church in search of—he supposed he would call it enlightenment. In any case, some way of beginning again.

  The churches were empty but if he stayed awhile he would hear the creak of the portal and someone would enter and take a seat and begin to pray silently. Often the penitent would light a candle and then Thomas would wait for the decisive clink of a coin slipped into the metal box behind the vase full of white tapers. Of course it was cold inside the churches and noisy, too, with wind and the creaks and groans of centuries-old stone and wood. He never believed he was alone, owing to the unsettling noises. When he was far enough inside his work he believed he could apprehend souls gathering around him, scrutinizing his sketch and deciding it wasn't worth their attention; it was only a sketch, after all, something provisional. After a while his eyesight began to fail in the dim churchly light. When his fingers seized up, the cold locking his knuckles, Thomas gathered up his paper and charcoal pencils and stood, his knees stiff as wood. Lightheaded, he had to grasp the back of the pew to steady himself. He walked to the alms box and deposited ten euros and walked out of the church and into the square, feeling every bit as old as the women he watched at prayer. The time was always dusk or near dusk and he would walk at once to the café across the street-there was always a café in the church square—and order an espresso and a pony of the local marc, firewater to chase the chill from his bones. He sat at one of the round tables and listened to the conversation that often involved local gossip and horseracing, with the usual gibes at the government. No one ever paid much attention to him, an elderly foreigner who evidently desired solitude.

  When Thomas finished his espresso and marc he paid up and drove home. Often he forgot the name of the village he was in and how he got there and had to ask someone to give him directions home. Then he heard Florette's baritone laugh, rich as chocolate and as seductive. She was with him every hour of every day and he wondered how long he could live with a ghost. He began to think of her as a kind of benign god, present everywhere and visible nowhere. She was with him in the church and the café afterward and when he drove home in the darkness and later in the evening when he played solo billiards, the only sounds in the room the click of the balls and the soft thump when one of them struck a cushion. Billiards was now an essential part of his evening repertoire, along with the nightcap when he finally gave it up, racked the cue, and sat heavily in the high-backed chair that oversaw the billiards table. He used the remote to put an end to La Bohème and listen instead to the piano music of Art Hodes, blues in the old style. With the billiards table and the portraits, his living room had the look and feel of a men's club in London or a bar in the tropics, British India or Malaya, except it lacked ceiling fans and a white-coated barman. But as Thomas poured a glass of cognac he was remembering not the Garrick or the wide-verandahed resort hotel in Mysore but the lobby bar of the Hotel Pfister in Milwaukee, all dark wood and cocktails in large glasses. He remembered portraits of women on the walls but may have been mistaken; this was more than forty years ago. He drank beer, his father a bourbon and soda. They were in Milwaukee on some errand, had dined together at Mader's and stopped by the Pfister for a nightcap before driving home to LaBarre. His father was upset about something. What are you going to do with your life, Tommy? What are your plans, boy? Yes, it was the semester he was on probation at the university. The dean had written a sharp letter and the doctor was embarrassed and irritated at the imperious tone. Thomas remembered that it was Christmas vacation and they had been shopping, a grim business because his father was so upset about the dean's letter.

  Thomas said, My plans are to go to New York and learn how to draw.

  My God, his father said.

  I'm leaving school at the end of January. Madison doesn't have anything I want.

  God, Tommy.

  He said, Sorry. There's no other way. Madison's just an awful waste of my time and your money.

  What are you going to live on?

  I'll get a job, he said.

  His father sat for a long moment looking into his glass. Jesus, he said finally. New York. Why New York?

  New York has jobs, Thomas said. Restaurant jobs, driving a cab. The important thing is that New York is where the artists are. New York is where things are happening. Then Art Hodes began his set and they listened quietly for a while, neither of them speaking. His father finished his drink and ordered another and a beer for Thomas. Hodes, slender and hawk-faced, beautifully turned out in a tuxedo, was playing stride. The room filled up and they moved to the far end of the bar.

  It'll kill your mother, his father said.

  I don't think it will, Pop.

  Well, he said, and offered a hint of a smile. Maybe not right away.

  Thomas remembered laughing and touching his father on the arm. The old man could be droll.

  He said, What about Bernhard and Russ?

  They'll finish up, get their degree. A degree's important to them.

  But not to you, his father said.

  No, he said. Not to me.

  And what will they do when they graduate?

  Work for the government, Thomas said.

  His father looked at him blankly. The government?

  Yes, he said. The government. Our government. The Kennedy
administration.

  What do they intend to do for the Kennedy administration? It's all arranged, Thomas said.

  Government work, his father said, still trying to put things together. He had never known anyone who worked for the government except the LaBarre postmaster and the local Social Security administrator, both of whom were patients of his and good Republicans. Do you mean they'll work for the government in Washington?

  The Department of the Army, Thomas said, dropping his voice. Russ had told him that the Department of the Army was their official cover until they finished training at the place everyone called "the farm" and then sent abroad to work in a friendly advertising agency with offices in all the European capitals. They were NOCs, Russ confided, meaning they would be living under non-official cover, pronounced knock. But this information was strictly hush-hush. NTK, Russ explained, available only to those with a need to know.

  His father pulled a face. He said, That's just the damnedest thing I ever heard of. Why don't they simply enlist?

  It's a different kind of army work, Thomas said lamely.

  Are you putting me on, Tommy?

  No, he said. It's all arranged.

  I suppose this was Bernhard's idea.

  Russ, too, he said.

  Strange boy, Bernhard, his father said. He's a snooper. He pokes his nose into places it doesn't belong. I always thought you and Russ were at a disadvantage with Bernhard. He grew up awfully fast, too fast. And his father was no help. Hardheaded German, wasn't good with his wife or with Bernhard, either. But I think Bernhard gave as good as he got. He was a forbidding presence, even as a kid. That hair, like an animal's pelt. Thickest hair I ever saw, like a Labrador's, tight against his scalp. That strange golden color.

  Bernhard's all right, Thomas said loyally, turning from his father to listen to an especially silky Hodes riff. But he had a point about Bernhard's hair, woven as tight as a rug. Women liked it, according to Bernhard, when they weren't frightened.

  I hope those boys know what they're doing, his father said.

  It was impossible for Thomas to explain to his father how Bernhard had found his new purpose in life. The gears were set in motion by his German professor, who suggested that Bernhard meet an old friend, a historian who did special work for the government. I've told Mr. Green about you, the professor said, and he wants to get together for a chat. Bernhard agreed and when he asked what time, the professor said that very afternoon. He's eager to watch your match. Bernhard was a wrestler, heavyweight division, and the captain of the Wisconsin team. Hard to miss Mr. Green, Bernhard told Thomas later, he wore a Borsalino hat and a bomber jacket that looked as if it had seen thirty missions over Tokyo. He was big as a horse with hands the size of pie plates, bigger even than mine, Bernhard said. So I made short work of my opponent and went to meet Mr. Green. He wanted to speak German, so we spoke German while he asked me about myself, my family, my friends, my interests, and finally he asked me what I intended to do with my life. He said he could offer interesting work—second time that day I'd heard the expression—if I was willing to go to Washington for an interview and a psychological test, nothing very demanding but a necessity. Expenses paid. All this was in German, Bernhard said. Naturally I mentioned Russ and you, too, Thomas, but when I said you were an artist at heart he seemed to lose interest. Hell, I thought they could use an artist. But I guess not. Funny thing was, Mr. Green really was a historian, except his histories are all classified. But he liked the cut of Russ's jib—his phrase—so we're going off together to work for the government. Wish you could be with us, Thomas. They want us for overseas work and in the meantime we have a little apartment in Georgetown, around the corner from Kennedy's old house, arranged by Mr. Green.

  That aroused Thomas's envy because he was so taken by the romance of the Kennedys, the thrilling rhetoric, the campaign that promised a new kind of government and a new generation to run it. Kennedy's people were idealistic but they were tough, too, animated by a kind of European fatalism. The other important thing was that they weren't from Wisconsin. They were eastern men from Boston and New York, widely traveled, cosmopolitan even, an altogether different milieu from provincial Madison with its earnest protest marches and student manifestoes. Kennedy's people were coastal as opposed to inland-bred, familiar with boats and oceans. They knew how the world worked but in their dissatisfaction were determined to change the rules. And there was one final important thing. Thomas had seen a magazine photograph of the president and his beautiful wife at a dinner party in New York. On the living room wall of the apartment was a portrait of a woman, a nude unmistakably drawn by the hand of Henri Matisse. Kennedy seemed to be looking at it out of the corner of his eye, a rapt sidelong look of admiration and deep respect. So the president-elect was an art lover as well, Matisse no less, the century's greatest artist.

  You're being evasive, Tommy. It's not like you.

  Thomas looked up from his reverie. Evasive about what?

  The boys, his father said.

  What about them?

  It's intelligence work, isn't it?

  I don't know what it is, Pop.

  Intelligence work, his father said again, and barked a laugh. God save the republic. Then he signaled for the check and after a moment of thought said, All right, goddammit. I'll stake you a thousand dollars. But that's it, not another dime.

  Good luck, Tommy. You'll need it.

  Thomas smiled at the memory of his father's slapping a twenty-dollar bill on the bar, dismounting from the barstool, reaching for his coat, and hurrying into the frigid Wisconsin night.

  He poured a thimble of cognac into his glass. Thomas knew he was drinking too much but could see no good reason to quit or slow down. Alcohol was an old and valued friend, most reliable, always ready to jog your elbow, recollecting hidden memories, specifically the pitch and swing of actual language, language as it was spoken: But that's it, not another dime. Good luck, Tommy. You'll need it, the old man's voice in his ear, a raspy voice from his three-pack-a-day cigarette habit, the vowels as uninflected as the surface of Lake Michigan on a still summer's day. His father's voice brought him out of his Camelot reverie. Probably the old man was reading his mind and that would account for his sardonic smile under the raised eyebrows. You always had the face but the trick was to put a voice to the face, and when you did you had a portrait and a story inside the portrait. Thomas had to know what the subject was thinking and the voice he was thinking in. Was that not the crux of Rembrandt's late self-portraits, the voice inside the rutted and disheveled head? Thomas thought that Matisse's portraits were not really portraits, they were expressions of Matisse himself, his own voice and whatever he was thinking at the time of composition. In the case of the portrait of the nude in the New York apartment, Henri Matisse was thinking what John F. Kennedy was thinking, and rapt would not be the word for it.

  Thomas's father had not lived to see his first show at the two-room gallery in Greenwich Village, sparsely attended, no sales, until an unexpected review appeared in one of the afternoon papers, so well written and provocative that people were drawn in. They wanted to discover an artist at the beginning of his career, things not fully worked out but the destination not in doubt. Portraiture was at the bottom of the food chain then, overwhelmed by abstraction and expressionism and finally abstract expressionism. Jackson Pollock was a kind of unruly god, no doubt as unhappy in Valhalla as he had been on Long Island, but still with vast supervisory powers, arbitrarily applied. In the end Thomas sold most everything and his prices were not low. He would have given anything to have been able to write a check for a thousand dollars and present it to his father right then, so he wrote one to his mother instead and discovered later that it had been endorsed over to her church. She had come from LaBarre for the opening and had been offended by the many nudes and embarrassed when he introduced her to Karen, braless and alluring, already tipsy on Almaden and weed. Isn't it great? Karen said. Don't you just l-l-l-love it to death? Isn't Thomas divin
e? she added, pointing proudly to the portrait of her own sweet self nude in bed. She had found the most wanton pose, enjoying herself in the voluptuous folds of a chalk-white sheet. My shroud, she said, and laughed and laughed.

  Thomas had tried many times to make a portrait of his mother but had never succeeded. He finished the pictures but they were no good because he was never able to see beneath the skin. They were stillborn. He was never able to settle on the expression, although he was attracted to the disappointment on his mother's face when she looked upon Karen's portrait and had pulled back from it as though she had been physically struck, her abrupt motion dramatic enough to have drawn attention from those around her—who leaned in to look at nude Karen to see what there was about her that had caused such a reaction. Thomas had seen the same expression many times, most often when his father had taken one bourbon too many and had said something coarse or unfeeling. Her son was unable to locate his mother in relation to himself or his father. She seemed to be a star in a distant orbit, now bright, now far away. Her orbit had nothing in common with his orbit or her husband's orbit, yet was studied meticulously by both, studied with the care of astronomers—amateur astronomers, it had to be said. Astronomers who reckoned her orbit in relation to their orbits, not as something unique in itself, and no doubt she did the same. Your mother is fragile, his father said to him once, yet to Thomas she did not seem fragile at all. From her distant location she seemed to rule things, though he reached that conclusion years later, when she was gone. The half-dozen times he had tried to paint her portrait he felt as if he were painting a stranger, but that was no explanation because he had successfully painted many strangers. Strangers were his métier, fifteen minutes' acquaintance and a series of snapshots all he required. But she refused to come to life on his canvas, still a distant star.