The Fountain of St. James Court; Or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  I half wish that a wheel would roll away from the carriage and that it would kneel down on one side, and then I could jump out and run away. But where would I run? The only place is back to my stepfather’s domain. We pass the mighty Notre Dame, with its unfinished square towers, and I pray, “Let this day and this deed also remain unfinished, for I am content as I am and need no marriage spires to point heavenward.” I think of how in medieval times one could run into such a church and shout “Sanctuary!” and no one would be allowed to drag you away into the street. But a church is not a painter’s studio, and perhaps no one would bring me canvas or paints or brushes there—I imagine a pitying dove winging her way to me, sequestered in one of those high towers of Notre Dame, with a paintbrush in her bill.

  All the while my mother coos and soothes me as best she can and tells me she is proud of me and what a doting husband M. Le Brun will prove himself to be, for Is he not also a worshipper of art? and Do not you and he have the same household gods? My pious mother blushes at invoking a pagan image, and she quickly rearranges the idea to ask is my groom-to-be not devoted to the beauty of art? None of the paintings he owns, she says, is as radiant or pretty as I will be, at the altar of Saint Eustache in my bridal gown.

  When I see my soon-to-be-husband standing at the rail, I do think how stalwart and well he looks, a charming alternative to my stepfather. Most reassuringly, at the moment our eyes meet, M. Le Brun’s face shows affection and admiration and also, somewhat disquietingly, the look of rapturous pleasures anticipated. Nonetheless as the nuptial questions are being asked to me, still I debate with myself, “Shall I say yes, shall I say no? Shall I, must I, now say yes?” And I do.

  I do say yes.

  AT HOME, OUR HOME, in flickering light, I see myself as I must appear to him, my new and ardent husband.

  He sees me propped against a wall of pillows, each with a wide band of lace to embellish the open end, and the high, dark headboard of his bed (for he has taken me to his own large bedroom). The headboard is carved, with a row of Gothic points across the top. My gown is gleaming satin with a graceful curved scoop neckline setting off the top of my bosom and my neck and face. I know my lips are parted and a little cloud of breath hovers and passes back and forth across my lips, sometimes outside, sometimes warm against my tongue and the arch of my mouth. I know this because he makes me wait while he stands there, his hands reaching toward me.

  And then I see him as he is.

  There is scarcely any residue of wine on his lips, for he wants no incapacity of body or consciousness to mute the experience; with wide and bright eyes he approaches, fully relishing his own alert eagerness to pluck the flower of my maidenhood. His clean and blazing white nightshirt with gathered sleeves fits him loosely and is open at the throat, and his bare forearms and hands stretch happily toward me.

  We study each other’s faces for a moment, like the painters we both are. In the light from three tapers, I am satisfied with his manly face: his cheeks with their ruddy glow. A little fire burns in the grate, for it is January. His pleasant nose; his lips that smile a little at me with tender encouragement and friendship; but above all the expression in his eyes makes me feel seen and appreciated. So this is marriage, I think, this warm, unguarded intimacy!

  And at that point we do but look at each other! But looking is not a casual activity for either of us.

  He calls me his love, his charming bird, the mistress of his heart and life. I gulp in his words and realize I have raised my arms in answer to his and stretched my fingers, flattening them back to make my receiving palms the outposts of my welcome. My hands are almost pink in the light, and immediately he names me to be his pink rose, his delight, and he speaks of the rich chestnut of my hair. It is a courtship of colors, but every color is a code for the yearning and hope for happiness that we feel.

  As he takes a slow step forward, I notice his knees beneath the hem of the short gown (he wears no lace, his linen is smooth and plain). I have never seen a man’s bare knees before and have not imagined their rounded strength, for his posture is crouched a bit as he advances. I am so stirred by his body that all in one gesture, I throw aside the comforter and quilts and bedsheet that have been covering me as high as my waist and at the same time feel myself kneeling on the bed and opening my arms yet wider and lifting my bosom toward him. I care nothing for demure waiting propped up like an inert doll but become alive and animated by love and call him my splendid spouse, my divine M. Le Brun. My voice drops to a whisper and I tell him that I want him, that I am nearly dead for wanting him to claim me.

  He is upon me in an instant, kissing my face and smelling of pear water, his clean-shaven cheek a novel texture brushing now and then against my cheek. Then he halts in this mad rush of passion and simply holds me dearly and tenderly against him. I can feel his heart beating, the very life of him, and he holds me close and strokes the top of my head and lets his fingers play in my hair till I am impatient for his passion to come to me again. How artfully he leads me to renounce virtuous restraint, to leave that girl behind and to be filled with the desire to be made fully a woman and his wife. I feel myself becoming the slave of this carnal desire that never before has possessed me to any degree whatsoever. I almost want to beg him to take me, to take me now.

  But he is kind and patient and artful: that I realize and fully appreciate as we embrace, and tumble, and cast off even my slippery satin negligee and final shift (he makes a moment of untying the white ribbon at the neckline of my gown), trusting him to choose when I should be complete. I know nothing but mad joy and admiration for this large male body (how strange and enlightening to touch a man flesh to flesh and experience his full strength and weight, his bone and muscle). Almost I feel that I am some classical maiden, and he a god in glorious human form.

  I have never been an accomplished dancer, preferring to sit and listen to music in its purest state, but on this wondrous night I have no thought about how to move my body or when. All is natural, and in everything I follow him with grace and pleasure. Beneath him, I seem to glide from one side of the bed to another, and to find myself on a pillow or on my side, or the two of us rolling weightlessly, as though we are finding our bliss on the clouds. Only our own bodies are real to us; everything else, even material objects, seems to have disappeared. Ah bliss, ah bliss!

  My husband gives me pleasure unbound, and it is as beautiful as any symphony. It roars through me like the deep tones of a pipe organ, like the breath of God.

  And the moment itself! That moment when he enters me and makes me fully wife is the crown of my joy. If there is pain, I do not feel it. I want with all my being to get for my own pleasuring exactly the pleasuring I have gotten.

  AFTER HE HAS CROWNED ME with our success and joy, he whispers, Only a moment now of sleep for me, and I will quickly return to you. And so he sleeps. His breathing changes into something of strange depth in his unconsciousness, and for not more than five minutes, admiring him and loving watching over him, my eyes are fixed on his face and closed eyes. I feel both trusting and trusted so that it seems an honor to wait, and those few minutes are delicious ones. True to his word, he awakens, opens his eyes as though his mind is still lost in slumberland, then slowly smiles at me. He reaches up his hand to caress the curve of my face and says, My beauty.

  Soon he is kissing and caressing all of me again, to my delight, and I exchange my own touches for his, but to my surprise he draws us to a pause. He says we should eat and drink a bit, and he gestures toward a tray covered with a white cloth that sits in front of the fire. I agree. (I would agree to any suggestion he might make.) Quite efficiently he dresses me so that I will not be cold and flips his own nightshirt over his head so expertly that I laugh as his head emerges and the gown settles on his shoulders. So we are concealed from each other again, and already I understand that this is a good stratagem for us both, for it sets up a desire again to rid ourselves of any clothing and for flesh to have no barrier between flesh and fles
h.

  But for now, sitting across from each other in front of the fire, other appetites arise. He unveils a dish of beautiful fruit, some cut and some intact, including a spray of grapes; and two cut-glass goblets of red wine—how those two glasses please the eye as their facets flash and glitter—and a board of cheese, including the blue-veined variety from Ambert, made of cow’s milk, that is my favorite. Even the shining knife for cutting the cheese seems enchanted as he prepares an oval of bread for me. I reach my fingers to take it but he stops and shakes his head and carries the dainty to my lips. When a crumb of cheese sticks to my lower lip, he pushes it inside my mouth with the end of his large finger, and even goes deeper inside to rub the tip of my compliant tongue. So I understand that as husband and wife we are to feed each other.

  While we delight each other with the small combinations of fruits, nuts, and cheese, and even hold the goblet when the other is to drink, we talk. We talk of paintings, and once he gets up to fetch a scarf to tie around my hair as it was done in a certain painting. And then he puts my arms into other pieces of clothing that happen to be around, and shawls on my shoulders, and ties about my waist till I am almost a mountain of clothing. How my body laughs against that swaddling of fabrics of various textures and types, either artfully draped or tied in a clumsy, masculine way. Finally he stands up and takes off his own nightshirt and puts it over my head.

  With no more shame than Adam stood before Eve, he stands naked before me, the firelight flickering on his flesh from nose to toes and toenails. Then he pulls me to him and encircles me and all those wraps and waist scarves and his own shirt, and kisses me first tenderly and then rapaciously till his chest is heaving under its thatch of virile hair. Still he is in complete control. Standing back a bit, suddenly at arm’s length, he remarks that now he is naked and wanting, and I must be made so, too.

  When I reply, “Please,” the timbre of my own voice, suffused with desire as it is, shocks me, for I have meant to make a decorous utterance. But he smiles at me with the kindness of a brother, and I am swept with a greater longing that has a feeling of warm safety in it. Though I start to lift his nightshirt over my head, he stops me, and explains that it is for him to disrobe me, as he has placed the garments on me.

  Ah agony of waiting, for he is very methodical, as we stand beside the little fire and the table with the remains of our picnic, and he kisses and teases each part as though it alone were enough. Sometimes I moan with pleasure. Once I giggle and push him away a little but quickly bring his hand back to that place. Every gesture pleases, as though it all were a dance.

  He saves my breasts for last, and then I think I will faint for the joy of his lips upon me. While I am half swooning, he tells me to stand on his bare feet, and together we make our progress to the bed. I feel the arch of his foot under mine, and then our whole lengths press together, though my height is not equal to his, flesh against flesh, as he slowly walks us across the carpet to the bed, I rather clinging to my god.

  And so we celebrate our wedding night, on and on, with one theme and many variations, and with fun and good talk, too, and plenty of rest to allow our already satisfied bodies to rekindle themselves. I hardly know whether I sleep first or he does, but he lets us sleep long and fully. He brings yet another glass of wine to my lips while I lie drowsy in bed. He may have put some potion in it, so thorough, long, and replenishing is my sleep.

  Thus we are eager and refreshed when we have slept and awaken yet again to bright glimmers of noonday sun coming through the cracks in the drapery. It is a new step in our pleasure to see each other in steady sunlight after the flickering, shadowed night. Yes, there is blood, the badge of my virtue, staining the sheet. We care nothing about unsightliness. For my part, there is no blush of embarrassment. Ah, he covers the place with a lacy pillowcase so that he may lay me down now against clean linen. That pleases me, too. And it pleases me to receive him again.

  BECAUSE OF THAT HONORABLE RUSTY STAIN, I feel I have graduated to a more real understanding of what it means to dwell alive within the house of human flesh. And all the colors and textures to be seen about me please me. This nuptial morning, I am happy to be an artist who is a passionate wife. I feel all my powers increase tenfold, including my prowess as a painter.

  VI

  A CELLO IN THE AFTERNOON

  FOUNTAIN

  HAVING HEARD A CHURCH BELL bong once, Ryn assumed that it was one o’clock, or one thirty, and the first day-after-completion was half over. She remembered a time when she lived in the Highlands, opening her car door back then and finding the air was full of the clangor of church bells. Something awful had just happened (she couldn’t remember just what), but she had taken the church bells as though they were a force of nature sympathetic to her mood. The pathetic fallacy: she knew the literary name of such a delusion, but still the church bells battered her heart in a way that seemed appropriate and made her feel less alone. Was it grief over her mother’s Alzheimer’s, or over something Peter had confessed? Or even a death? Perhaps a young friend of Humphrey (she thought of her own youthful horror and disbelief at the loss of Giles). She couldn’t remember. Just the clangor of bells through the magnolia leaves.

  The church gong was striking again? Open the door and there’s disaster. Time was the escort of death. Perhaps now it was only one o’clock; surely not one thirty already. These days it was not unusual for Kathryn to be unhinged in time. She didn’t wear a watch anymore, even though her mother had given her an easy-to-read nurse’s watch and Kathryn had treasured it for decades. Her iPhone had replaced the wristwatch, though she didn’t glance at the phone frequently the way she had with her watch. Her brother John, who was retired, had stopped wearing a watch. She admired his gesture greatly: unshackled, it meant.

  Growing up in Montgomery, Kathryn thought of her father as the keeper of time, for only he wound the mantel clock that now sat silently at the heart of her own house. Suddenly she vowed she would have the clock repaired. She wanted to hear it tick; she wanted to hear it clear its throat, just as she had as a child lying awake but very still in her bed. And then the resonant gong. Her young little body was restless. Was it twelve thirty, one, or one thirty A.M.? It was deep night in Montgomery and why couldn’t she sleep? No one must know. And so she would tell herself a story, a saga that had gone on and on throughout the years of childhood. Her body lay perfectly still, not restless, while she imagined. No one would guess she was a wicked girl whose conscience barred the door to sleep.

  She felt very stupid now: uncertain if Yves intended to visit or not. But yes, it had been quite definite. Yves had said he was coming today, and so he would. They were both mature enough not to have to check and recheck such a commitment.

  Once back in the kitchen, she saw that Peter had thoughtfully carried their lunch dishes to the sink. She looked at the place mats, russet and gold, and thought of Humphrey’s voice over the phone. He had sounded confident, happy, a bit in a rush. Things to do. A new series of clay sculptures. What she liked best about his idea was the size of the pieces: significant, about a foot tall, but not so large as to be difficult to box up or relocate within a home. Humphrey’s projected sculptures would be about the size (heavier, of course) of a short stack of good, hefty books. She had written a few like that.

  She bent to load the dishwasher. Didn’t everyone hate stooping to the dishwasher? She understood some dishwashers were now built like drawers, at a reasonable height. Probably someday a kitchen would be banks of drawers, all of which were dishwashers, and each set of dishes would have its own drawer and stay in it always, removed just to be used at the table, then returned dirty to the washer-drawer. Or maybe dishes would be invented with a surface that never got dirty; one to which no trace of food clung. Or dishes would be edible, and one would just eat them along with the rest of the food. She would be dead by then, she hoped.

  Actually she was in great physical shape. There was nothing that caused her trouble: she could bend or stretch or climb,
even run, at will. But she didn’t ski anymore or skate. If she fell, she broke bones. Both feet, a shoulder, even a finger, and that had been fifteen years ago. She had lost weight, but Peter was too heavy. Had the play director thought of that? But Lear could be a big man: a big wreck of a man—powerful, childlike, helpless.

  Peter! That wink! Cocky and happy! Shakespeare’s King Lear to be, no less. She hoped he wouldn’t mumble, mistakenly thinking that a low voice showed gravitas. But there was no way on earth she could warn him about this tendency. Acting was his bailiwick. If she tried to give him advice, he would be furious about it, even after the show. His resentment would smolder forever. She supposed a director would tell him, but then in the performance, Peter might be moved to play it his way. Surely not! She sighed and felt tired.

  And why not, she’d been up till midnight finishing the book. It would be a pity to be tired when Yves arrived. When one scheduled the day, tiredness was worth considering if one was approaching seventy, no matter how much younger than that she looked. (So people said. But less often now than they used to.) She wouldn’t go back upstairs; she’d already made that pilgrimage, faced the empty nothingness that her marriage to Mark had become.

  Oh for the wide, pale-green, down-filled sofa on the sunporch! How convenient and lovely it would be to nap there. Since the sunporch door was covered with a security grille, she wouldn’t feel the least vulnerable, even if someone could look in and see her asleep on the sofa. And she’d cover herself with the nice woolen throw that her dear friend, the second Nancy, had given her for Christmas, a piece of folk art made from sewn-together large patches of old sweaters, recycled. Casual and cozy. And what was it she had decided to wear for greeting Yves?