Dark Mural

by Rick Homan

  I poured tea for both of us.

  She stared out the window again. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with irony. “Or Chillicothe could suddenly rival Pittsburgh as a financial center, and she could get a job down here as an analyst. Or we could break up and I could take my pick of all the single lesbians on the faculty. No, wait, I forgot: There aren’t any.”

  “When you put it like that, it sounds hopeless.”

  She faced me. “Sorry, Nicole. I just clouded up and rained all over your Sunday morning.”

  The timer went off. I got the cookies out of the oven and put them on a plate. “Here, these will bring you good luck.”

  She bit into one. “Mmm! Worth eating even without the good luck. How are things with Lionel?”

  “We went to Yellow Springs yesterday.”

  Abbie stared at me with smirk on her face. “And?”

  “We had a good time.”

  She chuckled. “Are you going to make me beg for details?”

  “As we were on our way there, we talked about the president’s speech at convocation. Lionel thinks the change to emphasizing career preparation is more serious than the name change.”

  “He’s right about that.”

  “Then we walked around Antioch’s campus, and he said they’re re-emphasizing liberal arts. They can do that because that’s been their tradition since the place was founded, therefore the alumni will support it.”

  She nodded. “That’s an interesting point. I’m not sure where that leaves us.”

  “We couldn’t figure that out either. He mentioned Jacob is working on a biography of Fuchs. Of course, the business school will be operating before it’s published.”

  Abbie was staring at me again, and the smirk was back. “What else?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  She leaned across the table toward me. “You drove to Yellow Springs and back, had wonderful collegial conversations all the way, and . . . ? Did you finish off the day with a bang, so to speak?”

  I didn’t quite get my napkin up fast enough to catch the spray of cookie crumbs that exploded from between my lips. Abbie pounded on my back to make sure I wasn’t choking, and we sat back and laughed like a pair of lunatics.

  Once I caught my breath, I said, “Let me be clear about that. It’s not on the menu.”

  “Oh, Nicole! Tsk, tsk, tsk. We’re not getting any younger.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  I poured more tea and we ate the last of the cookies.

  Abbie looked serious. “You said on the phone you crossed paths with a student this morning, and it was a little scary.”

  “Devon. Kate’s boyfriend.”

  “The one who beat up his girlfriend in high school?”

  I frowned at her. “The one who was accused of doing that. Let’s not jump to conclusions. The sheriff questioned him about it, and he thought I had told the sheriff. We straightened it out.”

  “Straightened it out how?”

  “I made it clear I didn’t tell the sheriff anything he didn’t already know.”

  “So why is he stalking you on a Sunday morning?”

  “He wasn’t stalking me. We just happened to cross paths. Stop trying to turn this into something it wasn’t.”

  “Nicole, you have to be careful. Don’t go out running alone.”

  “Do you want to run with me?”

  The way Abbie looked at me suggested she was considering a mental health intervention. “I’ll walk you to the gym and you can use a treadmill,” she said.

  “I will if you will.”

  “You feed me cookies, and now you’re telling me I need to lose weight?”

  “No. I just hate treadmills. You may as well be on a hamster wheel.”

  Abbie stood up and stretched. “Just don’t take chances like that anymore. If something happens to you, there won’t be anyone around to help me feel sorry for myself. Thanks for the snack.”

  “Before you go, I want to ask you about something.”

  Chapter 18

  Abbie stood by the door, awaiting my question. “Do you remember last week I told you about Devon being accused of assaulting his girlfriend?”

  “Sure.”

  “I wanted to find out from her if that’s true, so I found her on Budstem, and she agreed to be my buddy because a couple of my students are friends of hers from high school.”

  Abbie started looking skeptical.

  I went on. “This morning I sent her an email saying I’d like to interview her for my show on NPR.”

  She looked very skeptical. “Your show on NPR?”

  “I lied.”

  “Why would you lie to her?”

  “So she’ll agree to meet with me. Once I’m with her, I can ask her about this incident with Devon when they were in high school.”

  Abbie took a breath and let it out slowly. “And what is it you want to ask me about?”

  “Assuming she agrees to meet with me, I’ll have to get myself to Ohio Northern University next Saturday morning. It’s in Ada, a small town near Lima, about a three-hour drive.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “I’ve never taken a long car trip like that. Before I moved here, I didn’t even have a driver’s license because I never needed to drive in San Francisco. The farthest I’ve ever driven was down here from Columbus when I picked up the car from the dealer last month. Is there anything special I need to do before going on a six-hour round trip?”

  “Are you up to date on oil changes?”

  “I think the dealer was supposed to take care of that.”

  “What about other scheduled maintenance?”

  “I don’t know. Where do I get the schedule?”

  “It’s in the owner’s manual.”

  “Does that come with the car?”

  Abbie laughed. “We’d better take my car and leave early.”

  “Aren’t you going to Pittsburgh next weekend?”

  “I seriously doubt it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but I’ll be glad to have your company.”

  “It’ll be better for me than hanging out here by myself. I’ll see you later. Those quizzes aren’t going to grade themselves.”

  I managed to come up with a handout for my art history class and gave it to them Monday morning. It told them the purpose of the assignment, specified the length of the paper, defined thesis statement, evidence, and conclusion, gave examples of each, listed the dates when class would meet in the chapel, and ended with a brief bibliography. This was like giving coloring books to students in a drawing class.

  Ursula Wilmot pulled a hole-punch from her backpack, punched the necessary three holes in my assignment sheet, added a reinforcement around each hole, and clipped the sheet into her binder behind the appropriate index tab. I’m all for keeping things tidy, but she could have done it after class.

  Back in my office, while lunching on a cheese sandwich and tea from my thermos, I thought about my situation. Through all those years of college and graduate school, I poured my heart and soul into becoming a scholar, but I didn’t learn to be a teacher.

  Not that I couldn’t teach. Give me a room full of students like Kate, and I could take them on a journey of discovery through the world of art. But, faced with a room full of students with differing abilities, diverse attitudes about learning, and contrary reasons for going to college, I didn’t know where to start.

  I wanted to continue teaching as I had on that first day when I met my class in the chapel, showing them how to observe, how to research, and how to write about their discoveries. But with Kate gone, there was no one in class to set the standard, to prove to the others that the work can be done by people just like themselves.

  Surely I was not the first assistant professor to go through this in her first semester of teaching. Others must have struggled with the same problem. Abbie had started her teaching career only three years earlier. I could ask her.

  Byron Hawley appeared in my doorway, wav
ing the handout. “Thanks for this,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” I replied.

  He sat in the chair beside my desk, and ran his eyes over the page. “This looks very interesting. Looks like a lot of work. It’s clear, though. I see what you’re getting at.”

  I wished I could say the same for his mumblings. “Do you have any questions about the assignment, Byron?”

  He pursed his lips and hummed. “I’ll probably need some help with this.”

  “I’ll be glad to help you. Does anything come to mind as a topic?”

  “Mmm. Not yet. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “All right. Look over your notes and the sketch you did when we met in the chapel. You could think about it this way: Are you more interested in the artist’s technique or in his subject?”

  He chewed on that for a moment. “I see what you mean. I’ll do that and get back to you. I just wanted to stop by and make sure we have an understanding that I will need some help on this.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I replied.

  He grinned. “Good. Thanks.”

  He left and I could only wonder why he thought we needed to reach understanding that I would help a student with the paper I assigned.

  Tuesday and Thursday were my days to breathe easy at lunchtime because I had the afternoons free for preparing classes, grading, and getting back to my research. All of that was delayed on this Tuesday by a meeting of the art department.

  The four of us settled around a table in one of the seminar rooms in the Arts and Humanities Building. I unpacked my lunch of fruit, yogurt and rye toast. Wilma Halberstadt had a sandwich from the snack bar in the Student Center. Irving Zorn had brought a pizza in a cardboard box, the “meat-lover’s special.” Within moments, the room reeked of garlic and pork sausage. Frank was keeping it old school with a PB&J and an apple.

  “Career preparation. Great opportunity,” said Frank, opening the meeting. “On board with this. Real game changer for the school and for us. Ideas?”

  Halberstadt, our specialist in art education, was the first to speak. “Well, of course, we have been preparing students for careers in teaching all along.” When she said, “we,” she meant, “I,” but it was nice of her to take the rest of us along for the ride.

  “Emphasis on that,” said Frank. “Other ideas?”

  Zorn was preoccupied with his pizza, so I decided to put my oar in the water. “I’m a little unclear on whether this means we emphasize careers in art history or that we show how art history is relevant to lots of careers.”

  “Excellent thinking,” cried Frank. Apparently, he missed the gist of my remark, which was that I didn’t know what to think.

  Halberstadt turned to me and said, in a tone that did not invite discussion, “It means careers in art history.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.” Frank paused to wash down the last of his sandwich. “For my own part, painters. Since the Greeks. Lascaux. Prehistoric. Basic human impulse. Still relevant. Several alumni with promising careers.”

  I decided to try again. “I see what you mean, Frank, but I’m also thinking that a lot of students have taken your painting classes over the years, and they might be willing to write letters saying how things they learned from you are relevant to whatever career they chose.”

  Halberstadt rolled her eyes and checked her watch.

  “Absolutely.” Frank nodded. “Alumni, as I was saying.”

  “Frank, I mean not just the ones who have careers as painters, the others as well.”

  “Of course. Contact them all.”

  He turned and looked at Zorn, who had eaten the last of his pizza and announced his accomplishment with a partly stifled belch.

  Zorn saw that we were all looking his way and took a moment to gather his energy. “Career. What does that mean? We do things for money, sure. But what about vocation? What about the things we do for love? That’s the original meaning of ‘amateur.’ The word has a negative connotation these days, but it didn’t always. So, I’m a little unclear on all this. I think the president needs to be more specific.”

  Coming from a painter who collected nice sums of money turning out abstract canvases beloved by interior designers, this was ironic to say the least.

  Frank was nodding. “More to come. Just the beginning. Get our ideas out there. Your best thinking in writing. On my desk next week.”

  Halberstadt was already halfway out of her chair when he finished speaking. Zorn was right behind her.

  As I stacked my food containers, Frank asked me, “Good semester so far?”

  This didn’t seem like a moment to talk about Kate, so I put on a happy face and said, “I think so.”

  “Teaching the mural. Wonderful idea. Very creative.”

  “Thank you. The students have responded very well to it. Bringing them face to face with a real work of art means so much more than showing them slides, which are only pictures of art works.”

  He nodded. “So true.”

  “My problem is, there aren’t any other works of art on campus except for a painting here and there in someone’s office. I’m not sure what I can do for an encore.”

  “Hmm. Good point,” said Frank, squinting at the far wall.

  “I wish I could put them all on a bus and take them to the Columbus Museum of Art for a day.”

  “Worthwhile. Yes.”

  “Is there funding for that kind of a trip?”

  “Possibly.”

  “If so, I’d like to make plans so I can build on our momentum.”

  “Scheduling problems, of course.”

  “That’s true. They would have to miss their other classes.”

  “Still, good thinking. We’ll talk more.”

  I walked back to my Rabbit Hutch to pick up my art-historian tools. Along the way, I thought about careers related to art history. Museums have curators, but those jobs are scarce, and the pay is low. People who own and work in galleries have to know some art history, but they have to know more about sales and marketing. Of course, there’s always teaching, but teaching teachers to teach teachers is in the end a Ponzi scheme. The best justification for art history is that people have communicated with pictures as long as there have been people. To ignore the medium is to ignore a large portion of human experience.

  Under the circumstances, my best strategy was to write a memo about careers in museums, galleries, and schools, and then to start my own research on alumni in other fields. If I started right away, I might come up with something in time to make a difference.

  It felt good to lock myself away in the chapel for the afternoon. I needed time to exercise my mind by doing the work I had shared with Kate.

  Chapter 19

  I resumed my study of the mural by searching the crown of the tree for other clusters of coffins and found several, as I had expected I would. On a new page in my sketchbook I drew a rough outline of the crown of the tree, mapped the location of each cluster, and numbered them. There were seven.

  I looked at the cluster I had discovered on Thursday and confirmed what I had seen: five coffins, three containing men, two containing women. On a fresh page in my notebook, I wrote “Coffin Clusters” at the top, and below it, “1. Three men, two women.” Nothing else to say, really.

  Clusters number two and three were essentially the same, with two men and two women, and four men and three women, respectively. I recorded them too on the “Coffin Clusters” page.

  In cluster number four I found something different. It had four men and two women, and one of the women had a smile on her face. Why had the muralist given this one corpse a personality? Maybe she was the muralist’s wife. Maybe she had some special function in the community. It crossed my mind that she might have been happy to die, but that seemed too macabre.

  On a hunch, I scanned the scenes in the middle row of the wall. There was no Smiling Woman among the congregation outside the church, but I found her singing in the choir. The hymnbook she held covered
half her face so only half her smile was visible. It was easy to overlook, but once spotted it was unmistakable. I also found her in the cooking scene in the bottom row, cradling a mixing bowl in one arm. Her head was turned to the side so her face was seen in profile, but the little bit of her mouth that was visible turned upward. I felt my blood pumping as I recorded all this in my notebook.

  In cluster number five, with one man and three women, I found another individual. This man had several parallel lines drawn on either side of his head and no ears visible. This seemed like a simple way of indicating long hair. I looked for him elsewhere in the mural and didn’t find him, but in the process I found another recognizable individual, Smiling Man, in the orchard.

  By this time, the afternoon light was dimmer, and my eyes were starting to ache from looking through the binoculars, drawing, and taking notes. I was happy to quit for the day because I had new information to ponder. Apparently, the muralist had had more in mind than depicting the life of the community and identifying Felix Fuchs as the leader. He had also identified three others: Smiling Woman, Mr. Longhair, and Smiling Man. I needed to find out who they were and why they were important enough to be identified in the mural.

  I still didn’t know what Kate meant when she wrote on the day she died that she had “some good ideas about what one of the coffins in the mural might mean.” I now had questions about what several of the coffins might mean, but I couldn’t imagine which one she had in mind. Still I was encouraged. Doing the work felt good. I felt closer to Kate for having worked through the images she had studied during her last days. And I still had two clusters to go. One of them might contain a coffin that had a singular interest.

  Although I couldn’t read the archived documents of the commune, I could skim back through Jacob’s book, Tree of Life, and see if there were an especially cheerful woman and man in the history of the commune, or if there was a man who was opposed to haircuts. If all else failed, I could take it up with Jacob. Though he hadn’t come up with a good theory about why there were coffins in the treetop, he might know something about these individuals I had discovered.