He wiped his mouth with his napkin, paid up, and left Spivey's.
“Any mail for me?” I asked Romeo the next afternoon in his store. The
Aunt Ivy Barnacle
had tied up that morning. Enoch was over to visit Margaret.
“No,” said Romeo. “But Enoch brought a visitor, come all the way from Halifax to see you.”
“I can't imagine.”
“He's gone to Spivey's to freshen up, then was going to look for you. That's what he said. A gentleman from the city.”
I walked to Spivey's and asked Bridget about my visitor, and she said he was resting up in the spare room, where he would spend the night.
“Can I knock?” I said.
“I don't see why not.”
But before I could, the man appeared in the restaurant. “Fabian Vas?” he said.
“That's me.”
He was, I would guess, in his early sixties and wore a black overcoat partly open at the collar. He was neatly dressed. Though this was my first glimpse of him, his face looked ravaged by poor health. He had thick white hair combed to one side. He had dark pouches of skin beneath his eyes. It struck me as a very tired, proud, dignified face.
“I am Isaac Sprague,” he said.
“I don't understand.”
“I'll say it slowly. Isaac Sprague. From Halifax. You wrote me of late. I'm here in person to answer.”
“Do you want me to go upstairs?” Bridget said.
“No, we'll step outside,” I said.
On the porch I said to Isaac Sprague, “My letter, IâNothing much in it was true. The wing was not too high on the shoulder.” I hesitated, then looked at Sprague. “You can't imagine how much I relied on yourâcorrespondence.” It wasn't easy for me to say.
He looked at the harbor. I looked to see what bird he might have seen, but the harbor was empty of birds. He buttoned his coat at the collar.
“The most recent kingfisher you sent,” he said. “The one above the pond. It was adequate. But the bird's reflection itself too closely resembled the actual bird's face. It was not even slightly distorted on the surface, so the texture of the water wasn't at all represented. There's no such thing as a perfectly still watery surface. I once saw a kingfisher dive right into its own face on the waterâit was on a branch as low as the one you drew. Though usually a kingfisher prefers a higher branch.”
“I'll draw that over again, then.”
“Yes, well. Let's sit down, shall we?”
We sat on the porch step.
“Why am I here, you asked. You see, Mr. Vasâlook closely at my face. When there's little time left, one perhaps tends to say things even more bluntly. I am dying. It's not important from what cause, but is important to me how I
spend my remaining days. My painting is completed, my teaching almost. In perhaps a moment of delirium and weakness, I decided to visit certain of my students. I agonized over the names. I didn't want to visit the utterly hopeless ones, simply because they are hopeless. So many of those over the years, it makes me shudder to think of it. And I didn't want to visit my one or two geniuses, who really didn't need me to begin with.
“Let me put it this way: where you are concerned, Mr. Vas”âhe began coughing, then righted himself, slouching only slightlyâ“I don't exclude potential. I've come to see your work. May I?”
“There isn't much of it of late.”
“On the contrary. Enoch Handle told me about an extensive mural.”
“Well, there are birds in it.”
“Let's have a look.”
The church was empty. I sat in the rearmost pew. Sprague walked slowly to the mural. Much as Sillet had, he inspected it closely, though he used a monocle as well. He sat down in a pew and continued to study the mural.
“I've never been a sentimentalist, Mr. Vas, as you know from my letters. Especially when it comes to bird art. And I won't start to be one now,” he said.
He stood, thought better of it, and sat down. He spoke while looking at the mural.
“Overall, I'd say there's been improvement.
“Now, I realize that a wall is not as useful to bird art as a canvas or a white piece of paper, except to certain geniuses
throughout history, particularly in Europe and the Orient. But, yes, I'd say there definitely has been an improvement. Especially with the petrels, kittiwakes, and most of all the sandpipers. The teals and mergansersâexcellent, within your limitations.
“The cormorant, while perhaps your best thus far, is pitiful. That species is simply too much for you, Mr. Vas. I once had a student for whom owls were an insurmountable torment, more to him than to me, I imagine. Mr. Vas, do them a favor and leave cormorants alone.
“I won't bother to remark upon the people you've represented here. I don't know this village, obviously. And I don't care. For the purposes of my visit, I'll simply block out certain scenery. I don't much care for people anyway, in painting or in life, truth be told. That's my failing and I've relied on it for much of my happiness. I'm sixty-seven.
“The ibis is splendid. The owl working over the trout with its talons has a proper ferocity, and I'd recommend that you put birds into action more oftenâhave them
doing
something.
“Now, over there, that teal-blue-winged-though the hazy blue is slightly off. The veins on its webbed feet can be seen from too far away, which is inaccurate. And yet, at the same time, you've managed to reveal the pattern of its feathers as one would see it from the same distance, and a more detailed feather-pattern close up. That's highly commendable. A difficult accomplishment.
“That lagoon, or inlet, with all its birds in close proximity! We're in Eden, are we? Ridiculous.
“In this mural the ibis, sandpipers, and ring-necked ducks are your very best. Clearly your strength is shorebirds and ducks.
“My best guess is that you'll continue to contribute. You'll place your ducks, sandpipers, crows perhaps, and a few others in journals. For practicality's sake, you might specialize in those.
“You've got a knack. And while you may never wholly earn a living from bird artâdifficult for anyoneâyour mergansers, teals, all of your ducks, and if you work at it, a garganey or two, may secure you some small reputation outside of Witless Bay. I'm sure, anyway, you're highly valued at home.”
He stopped talking and we sat for perhaps half an hour in silence. I thought that he was working more ideas and comments around in his mind, yet when I stood and approached, I saw that he was asleep. I sat in front of him and said, “Mr. Sprague,” in a loud whisper.
Blinking, coughing a few times, he said, “Yes, wellâ”
“Mr. Sprague, how long do you expect to stay?”
“I've arranged with Mr. Handle to go on to student numberâI think it's seven on my list. In a Canadian city. I'll leave tomorrow afternoon.”
I walked arm in arm with Isaac Sprague out of the church, then to Spivey's, where he took a nap.
The next afternoon I found him at the wharf. “I studied your harbor here, on my way in,” he said. “I was surprised to see even one duck this far north so late in the season.”
“Each year is slightly different. One year, I forget which, a few teal were here till mid-December.”
Isaac Sprague nodded. He looked as if he had not slept all night. “We had a Siberian plover in the harbor in Halifax this summer,” he said. “How remarkable, to be carried so far off course, and where could it have thought it was going? And how did it manage to cross the Atlantic? Let alone the mass of Russia. No one but God can answer this. Just my luck. So, the plover in the harbor where I've spent my entire life is the mystery I'll take to my grave, to puzzle over in eternity. Do you think that's a foolish notion? I don't. No matter. It
was
a Siberian plover, of that I'm certain. I sat hours and matched my sketches of the plover to paintings from Siberia, which I found in books. And it was indeed the same bird. I lived to see it visit my harbor. And seeing it, I was suddenly inspired to travel, to die en route. I think that will happen.”
He coughed deeply.
“I was so certain I wouldn't see my harbor again,” he said, “that I closed up my house in Halifax. My sister will look after it.”
Enoch walked up and said, “Mr. Sprague, your bag is on board.”
Enoch continued on down the dock and climbed onto the
Aunt Ivy Barnacle
.
Isaac Sprague and I shook hands.
I stayed on the dock until the mail boat was out of sight.
The next year's spring issue of
Bird Lore
contained a photograph of Isaac Sprague, and his obituary. He had died
of tuberculosis in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, on March 4, 1913.
I tell all of this in summer 1923, twelve years after I murdered the lighthouse keeper Botho August. Since his retirement last year, Enoch has been to St. John's twice, but Margaret and I still have not been at all. In fact we have not left Witless Bay. Our daughter, Claire Helen Vas, was born on July 17, 1913. Typical, I suppose, but we keep saying, “She looks like Alaric,” or Orkney, or me, or Margaret or Enoch, though this year, Claire has looked more like Margaret than ever, I think. She knows one grandfather, Enoch, and that is some consolation. But there are no photographs of Alaric, Orkney, or Margaret's mother, Claire, whom our daughter is named after. Someday I will try sketching those faces. As far as I know, Mekeel Dollard has the only photograph album in Witless Bay to speak of, but none of the Vas or Handle family is in it. I think that I should have a family portrait taken. Who can take it? Perhaps Romeo Gillette. I think he learned how to take photographs in London. Mekeel Dollard just might lend him her camera.
There has been steady work at the dry dock. As for painting, it has not been poor fare; I have already sold drawings of an ibis and a merganser this year, and it is only July. I am hardly in demand, though, and last year there were no requests at all, and only one the year before that, a kittiwake for a private patron in Halifax. I imagine life will go on like this, when it comes to birds. On his last run,
Enoch brought home a new journal,
Canadian Naturalist.
I intend to try it unsolicited with murres, red knot, and teal.
We have become friends with Odeon and Kira Sloo. Their daughter Millie looks after Claire now and then. We have eaten at Spivey's together, and at each other's houses.
I am a bird artist.
Just yesterday Isabel Kinsella hissed, “Slieveen!” near the orchard. Yet I have to say this was a rare occurrence. Isabel was just out for a walk, I imagine, lost in thought, when she saw me and was overcome.