The Catswold Portal

She let Braden discover her outside the art store. He saw her through the glass and came out shouting, flustered as a boy. He grabbed her hand as if she would vanish. He told her he had done a painting of her and asked her name. Sarah, she said. Sarah Affandar. He asked her to pose. He offered her union wages; he wanted her to pose for several weeks. She listened gravely. She loved his eagerness and his fear that she would refuse. It was hard to keep from howling with laughter. He told her he had a show scheduled soon at Chapman’s. He said she could call Chapman’s to check on him, call the Art Institute in the city where he sometimes taught. “I’m not making a pass, you’re just—I simply want to paint you. I’d like the whole show of you—a series—your face caught in reflections, the planes of your face—you’ll see. Before you say no, will you come back to the studio and take a look? I’m not making a pass, I promise.”

“Your wife won’t mind?” she asked, delighted with the game.

“I live alone. My wife died several years ago. But she wouldn’t have minded; she brought models home, too.” He grinned, making a joke. “Her models were dogs and cats.”

She looked at him, questioning.

“She was a printmaker, etchings and drypoint, lithos. Alice Kitchen—the name she worked under, her maiden name.”

She stared at him, sick, faint. The street seemed insubstantial, as if she would fall. Alice…Alice is dead, Alice… She saw Alice suddenly. Alice’s face exploding back into consciousness so alive, her delicate features, her wry smile, her long, pale hair…She saw Alice walking up Russian Hill, her peasant skirt blowing…My wife died several years ago…Alice—Alice died…Alice…

She was so faint, so sick, shaking with the pain of Alice’s death.

She didn’t remember clearly walking back to the studio. She didn’t want to go in. She wanted to run away, curl up somewhere, and try to deal with Alice’s death. He watched her, puzzled.

She moved on in woodenly, through the door he held open, and stood uncertainly, looking around her. “You—you both painted here?”

He nodded, motioning to the left. “That part was Alice’s studio, where the paintings are stacked. Would you like some coffee or tea?”

“I—tea would be nice.” She wanted to sit down; she wanted to be alone; she wanted to cry and was too shocked to cry.

“Are you all right? You’re so pale.” He led her to the model’s couch and got her settled, then stood looking down at her, concerned.

“I’m fine. Just—just—some tea will make me feel better.”

When he had gone she touched the marks on the orange velvet where her wet cat feet had stained it. She ran her finger guiltily over the little holes she had made with her claws. One of her stiff white whiskers was caught in the velvet. She listened to Braden putting cups on a tray and tried to think about Alice, was afraid to think about her.

Her thin face, her warm, gentle eyes. Pale hair, long, pale hair. Long, full skirts. The smell of charcoal and fixative. Clear, beautiful skin.

And there had been another house. They had lived there, not here. She and Alice and Alice’s parents. A tall house with jutting windows. She and Alice could see the bay from their bedroom. Her father was a painter, that’s why the scent of paints and turpentine was so familiar.

Braden carried the tray out to the terrace and dried off the table and chairs with a towel. He had sliced some shortbread onto a blue ceramic plate. “Did you look at the painting?”

“I like it very much; it’s beautiful. Rich.” She saw that he was pleased. She said, “It’s—it makes me feel like I’m swimming in color and light, like I’m made of color and light.” But she could not, adequately, describe the way the painting made her feel.

He watched her, delighted with her. He thought maybe he had harbored a fear that she would turn out to be crude and unfeeling, because now he felt relieved. As the low sun threw amber light across her hair, he thought her brown hair wasn’t the right color for her skin and light brows. Her lashes were dark, though, and so thick he had thought she used a black liner. But when she looked down, he decided she didn’t use any makeup. He had a strange feeling of familiarity, watching her. As of someone he hadn’t seen since he was a boy: a face he had known well, but which now was so changed he could put no place or time with it. He said, “Could you start posing today?”

She had been toying with her shortbread. When she looked up, he found it hard to look away. “I—yes, I could start today.”

He left her to finish her tea while he got his sketching things together, stuffing charcoal, pastels, fixative and a sketch pad into a canvas bag.