LITMIR.BIZ

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something special had occurred, that had nothing to do with light or Art, but only with friendship. My visions of your impending age were not to be shared; wishing for crow’s feet to form and a coarseness in your hair’s texture to emerge so that I would have more to work with; that in my impatience for your youth to fade I was willing your decay. It was left to Vishni, whose voice carried overhead, calling us to the table while berating the boys for feeding the vermin what had been set aside for the salad.

      THOUGH BEN AND I spoke regularly, we had not seen each other for over three years. I was not ready to hold another show and he had other artists to attend. The Thanksgiving parties we held at the house were a thing of the past, and neither you nor I were particularly keen to spend the summer roasting in his clapboard house in Provincetown. Your remark after one of Ben’s many invitations arrived (Independence Day gathering, Memorial Day gathering; an endless list) never left me.

      – Beach parties hold nothing for you. Me neither. I can’t see you wearing funny hats and sipping on Rob Roys with sand up your ass. The fire will be the only thing that keeps you there; how it moves and what it shares.

      You could be overly protective then, taking pains to avoid those social events where I might be expected to sing for my supper. Ben’s entertaining never quite fell into that category, but his address book was a varied one and even in the most informal setting, an expectation to perform could still be felt. Your smart-aleck comment perfectly described my feelings toward seasonal laziness, though something in what you said only rang half-true. You were born and raised on the banks of the Hudson. When you felt suffocated and near violence, from arguing parents and the high, airless rooms of your cramped apartment, you jumped the subway to the Ellis Island ferry, where you looked out at the Atlantic. Being close to expanses of water, ocean waves rolling and crashing far beyond the horizon, rebalanced your shaken equilibrium and helped to make sense of your half-formed world. But you rarely spoke of it. They were stories that occasionally came out while I was painting; fragments of a past life that were left for me to piece together. A father, a brother in the navy; connected stories told years apart. When we traveled to London for my first retrospective over twenty years ago, we took almost all our meals at a restaurant you found near Chelsea Bridge. I took for granted that you wanted to look across the river at the landmarks, not realizing your interests were more localized than that; the trail of solitary rowers that passed, the water lapping the bank at our feet. Back home, the stream wasn’t directly in sight from the porch, a meadow and a dip in the hill away, but we could hear its gentle rushing as we ate; opened our windows and allowed it into our bedrooms at night, its hypnotic quality more powerful than the ticking clock in lulling us to sleep. In London, your anxiety was such that, at your instigation, we changed hotel rooms several times and then finally the hotel itself, until we found one that gave the view of the water that you desired. At the time, your basis for complaint was due to noise, how you didn’t want my sleep disturbed by the roar of traffic and passers-by. I had several important meetings with museum trustees, interviews with newspapers and dinners with long-standing patrons cultivated through Ben. You wanted me to be as relaxed as I could be under the circumstances. But now I see how agitated not being near the water made you. You were on edge for much of the trip. We argued constantly. Could I have taken the sting out of our frozen winters by accepting some or all of Ben’s invitations? What internal development was halted by keeping you away from the sea? What was it about these things that you cannot bring yourself to explain?

      – You look tired. Have you not been to bed?

      I feel Ben’s moisturizer rub off on my cheek as we kiss. The scent of something tropical lies thickly between us, the bitter intensity of lemongrass, mixed with citric acidity. As ever, he is immaculate; although he looks after artists, he is not interested in looking like one. This never brings out any self-consciousness about my own appearance, only a reminder that a more refined presentation exists for those that have the energy to invest in it. If anything, his narrow-fitting suit tailored in New York by English expatriates and shirts with their thick navy stripes, his pastel linen shorts cut above the knee and Breton tops are another kind of uniform. Your clothes were different, far removed from city fashion; most often an overcoat one of the farmers gave you. Yet the two of you together still look like kin.

      He tries again, his eyes gentle with teasing:

      – Getting a little old for all-nighters, aren’t we? Seventy-five is when you start to behave.

      – I was old when I did them first time around. Now I’m a fossil with a paintbrush.

      – Vishni’s making her chicken and potatoes with saffron. I forgot how the living’s good in the country.

      – So long as we can still afford saffron. The kitchen will fall into a slump otherwise.

      – John’s out, I hear?

      – I sent him into town for paint. I think he had some other errands too. He lets things accumulate.

      – You should have let me know. I could have brought whatever you needed from the city.

      – Almost everything we need is here.

      – Let me rephrase that: I would have asked you if there was anything you wanted had I been able to get through on the phone. After two days of getting the busy signal I actually called the phone company to check whether there was a fault on your line. When they told me that it was more likely that you had disconnected the phone I didn’t know what to think. It’s never bothered you before, has it? And considering so few people have your number; I couldn’t understand the reasoning behind it.

      His eyes shine with no let up. His lips redden, making the promise of their rosebud shape real; then the red spreads across his cheeks, as the blood rises through his face. The wisps of air that trail his last sentences suggest an exhalation of something that had been saved up since that time: frustration, bewilderment, worry. Ben is Manhattan-bred, used to having his questions answered. An open-ended mystery is fine for the work, but outside of that, there needs to be a concrete order of things. The artists he best represents are those who do not live their lives in total chaos; itself an exaggeration left for those of poorer talent who are only appropriating the role.

      – I thought about sending a telegram but was wary of its theatricality. Drawing you out from wherever you were with the painting. A four-word missive from New York, designed to jolt you to your senses. A joke and a nuisance rolled into one, delivered by a sweet-natured, breathless boy, whom you would have to tip handsomely for cycling all this way. I knew you would despise the rigmarole as much as me. That you would hold it against me once the paintings were finished. So the easiest thing was simply to take the train and deliver the message myself: Plug your telephone in!

      – It wouldn’t happen that way. We’re too old to be holding grudges.

      – You’re also too old to be turning yourself into a hermit, Anna. The telephone’s never bothered you before. You have all the solitude you want out here, without these gestures.

      – Takes too much energy, gripes and feuds. It should be left with the young where it belongs.

      – Do you understand how people can worry if they don’t hear from you, are unable to contact you?

      – People, as you call them, know where to find me. I’m always here. As for those that care, two of them are in the house as we speak. The other is buying paint.

      – I also hear that you’re not taking the oxygen as you’re supposed to.

      – I have as much as I need. Ignore what you hear.

      Ben pours tea and holds out a cup. I take it, well aware that I am still glaring at him; understanding also the heat generated in my body as I bat his invasiveness away. Something in our altercation makes me feel more alive than I have been for these last few hours in the studio. Always the boys who tap my spirit; one at the table, the other buying paint.

      THERE IS A SOFTENING over lunch; the saffron that colors and infuses the chicken and potatoes mellows me somewhat, until I feel as light and flyaway as one of those dark-red threads of spice. We share the wine that Ben has brought from one of his father’s vineyards, and he talks happily about what is happening

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