The Masterwork of a Painting Elephant
Page 7
TWENTY-FOUR
The Masterwork of a Painting Elephant
With his new career, shows, and interviews, Birch began to see his life as a busy garden filled with puddles of lovely rain. And he saw the acrobat as the moon. At night she glowed through his window and reflected in every pool. Hundreds of crescent moons, more than he could count, filled his world with light.
An elephant and an acrobat. No stranger than the owl and the pussycat, minus one pea-green boat.
The acrobat was by Birch’s side when he was on the news and the cover of Time magazine. She was there when he met the president and first lady and gave them a ride around the White House. The acrobat traveled with Birch to his art shows, and there were many: in Milan, Venice, London, Tokyo, and Sydney. And, of course, in Paris, where they made their home.
In winter, as the snow danced and the wind whooped and cheered, Birch painted a picture of the Ringleader. He painted a bronze statue, tall and broad with a pompous posture. And on the shoulder of the statue stood pigeons, disfiguring the dashing figure. “I think it adds a needed air of humor,” Birch explained. He also painted an old forest, with light sprinkling through the canopy and Spanish moss draped over branches. There, a set of wind chimes hung in an old tree. Rain and cold had made them rusty, so they echoed as if the forest were a temple and the chimes were locked far away in a tower. A great artist can capture sound on a canvas. This was his portrait of the Amazing Singing Hoboes.
By early spring water ran off the tips of icicles, and Birch covered his canvas in the most beautiful green color. A white rabbit could be seen hopping away and in the grass, where it had sat, there was a bunny indentation. The creature imprinted the grass just as Slim Spatucci had helped Birch imprint the world. “This one,” Birch explained, “I dedicate to Slim.”
In the summer the tree frogs sang in the night, and Birch created a picture of all the people in our too-small-for-a-name town. The picture showed the woods in early evening, when hundreds of fireflies glittered like children playing flashlight tag in a faraway land. Birch painted a pale, gauzy day moon over the town as a reminder that my parents, though gone, would never be forgotten.
And in fall, as the air buzzed with electricity, Birch walked along treelined streets. “The world is so beautiful,” he whispered, “I can’t concentrate to paint at all.” I imagine the old elephant thought of me as he gazed up at the leaves above him. Long ago a man had planted those trees, arranging the seedlings in two evenly spaced rows, one on each side of the street. It took almost two centuries for the moss-draped branches to find each other again and meet overhead.
* * *
One night at the end of autumn, in some distant tower a clock chimed at midnight, then stopped. I heard a tapping at my window. When I got out of bed, the floor felt cold and the dark furniture looked like large, slumbering animals.
“Hello,” I whispered out the window. “Hello?”
“Pigeon, is that you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“It’s me, Birch.”
“Birch!”
“Look how tall you’ve gotten,” Birch said when I stepped outside. He stood in the garden outside the house. The leaves on the trees were covered in holes left by hungry caterpillars and looked like demure doilies in the moonlight. Birch glowed among them. He looked older and smaller than I remembered, like a teacup made of china.
Birch set up an easel and paints. We stayed outside together for hours until Birch completed his final portrait. I began to wonder if it was all a dream until Birch said, “I am finished.” He gripped the edge of the canvas. “It was a bit of a rush job, but yes, I do believe I’ve captured you, young man.”
Birch held up the canvas, and there was a painting of me as a very tiny bird in the branches of a strong white birch tree.
“Yes, that’s exactly how I see myself in my heart,” I whispered.
I leaned against Birch and, for a brief and perfect moment, I was able to go back. Back to the day we met. Back to when my whole world rose and fell with Birch’s breath and the sound of his heartbeat. My elephant was right about feelings of love: that they float away on the wind, circling the earth forever and landing, ever so briefly, from time to time. I understood then that I’d always be loved, always be safe, always be the one true masterwork of a painting elephant.
We sat together talking all night, watching the night flowers bloom, and listening to the stars converse with the moon. Birch had grown quite old, too old for the world. In my heart I knew that night would be the last I’d spend with my friend. When his time to go did come, I imagine Birch simply became part of the wind, and that the wind was happy to have him, weaving through the circus of time, strolling across the sea, lifting the wings of birds, and falling quiet at the close of day to ponder how morning breaks.
Text copyright © 2011 by Michelle Cuevas
Pictures copyright © 2011 by Ed Young
All rights reserved
First edition, 2011
mackids.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cuevas, Michelle.
The masterwork of a painting elephant / Michelle Cuevas. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Pigeon Jones, abandoned as a baby, is found and raised by Birch, a white, former circus elephant who paints beautiful pictures, and through their travels and adventures they discover the meanings of love and family.
ISBN: 978-0-374-34854-0
[1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Elephants—Fiction. 3. Artists—Fiction. 4. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 5. Love—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C89268Mas 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010033108
eISBN 978-1-4299-6980-2