Very Best of Charles de Lint, The (65 page)

If it wasn’t for how much Kathy would rag her, she was almost tempted to just forget about it and go to the class she was skipping. But now that she knew it really was Rushkin, she couldn’t not go. He might throw her out, he might laugh at what she could do, but if he didn’t, if he actually did let her study under him …

Shifting her knapsack into a more comfortable position, she stepped off the porch and back onto the pavement. Turning down the lane the woman had indicated, she found the coach house situated behind the house. Set beside the old carriage lane that ran behind Stanton Street, the building had a fieldstone foundation, wooden siding and a red shingled roof that was covered with vines. It made such a pretty picture, with its unruly tangle of a garden out front and the old oak that stood south of the building, that Izzy had to stop herself from pulling out her sketchpad and making a drawing of it on the spot.

Resolutely, she made straight for the fire escape and went up to the landing, where she knocked softly on the door. There was no reply. Izzy looked nervously around, then knocked harder.

Remembering what the woman had told her, she gave the door a couple of good hard bangs with the heel of her fist. She had her arm upraised and was about to give it one last attempt when the door was suddenly flung open and she found herself staring into the glaring features of yesterday’s troll.

“Yes?” he shouted, voice still deep and gravelly. Then his gaze rose to her face. “Oh, it’s you.”

Izzy lowered her hand. “You … you said I should –”

“Yes, yes. Come in.”

He took her by the arm and as much hauled her as ushered her inside. Sniffing, he wiped his nose on the sleeve of his free arm. His shirt was as dirty as it had been yesterday, his trousers as patched and threadbare, and he still looked as though he hadn’t had a bath in weeks, but Izzy found herself viewing it all differently now. He really was Rushkin. He was a genius and geniuses were allowed their eccentricities.

“You’re prompt,” he said, letting her go. “That’s good. A point in your favor. Now take off your clothes.”

“What?”

He glared at her. “I’m sure I told you yesterday how I don’t like to repeat myself.”

“Yes, but … you said you were going to –”

“Teach you. I know. I’m not senile. I haven’t forgotten. But first I want to paint you. So take your clothes off.”

He turned away, leaving her at the door, and Izzy finally got a good look at where she was. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest. The studio was as cluttered and shabby as the artist himself, but that made no difference whatsoever because everywhere she looked were paintings and drawings, a stunning gallery of work, each of which bore Rushkin’s unmistakable touch. Along the walls, canvases leaned against each other, seven to eight paintings deep. Studies and sketches were tacked haphazardly onto the walls or lay scattered in unruly piles on every available surface. She couldn’t believe the way such priceless treasures were being treated and was torn between wanting to pore over each one and to straighten the mess so that the work was stored with the respect it deserved.

Rushkin had crossed the room to stand by one of the studio’s two easels. Northern light spilled through the large window to the left of his work area and from the skylight above him, bathing the room with its remarkable glow. He had a window open to air the room, but the smell of turpentine still permeated every corner. In front of his easel was a battered recamier upholstered in a faded burgundy brocade. The wall behind it was covered with a cascade of deep blue drapery, and to one side stood an Oriental screen.

“Have you ever posed before?” Rushkin asked as he began to squeeze paint onto his palette.

Izzy still stood by the door. The recamier, with the light falling upon it and the drapes behind it, was too much like a stage. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting in coming here this morning, but posing for Rushkin hadn’t even remotely entered into her imagining.

Rushkin looked up at her. “Well?” he demanded.

Izzy’s throat felt as though it was coated with fine particles of sand. She swallowed dryly and slowly closed the door behind her.

“Not really,” she said. “I mean, not, you know, without any clothes on.”

She’d often wanted to augment her meager finances with modeling fees, but somehow she’d never found the courage to do so in front of her own classmates the way some of the other students did. Her friend Jilly didn’t have that problem, but then Jilly was beautiful and didn’t seem to know the meaning of self-consciousness.

“Nudity bothers you?” Rushkin asked, plainly surprised.

“No. Well, not in life drawing class. It’s just that I’m …” She took a deep breath. “I feel kind of embarrassed.”

Rushkin’s pale gaze studied her until she began to shift uncomfortably under its intensity.

“You think I’m trying to humiliate you,” he said.

“Oh, no.” Izzy quickly shook her head. “It’s not that at all.”

Rushkin waved a short arm in a grand gesture, encompassing all the various paintings and drawings in the room. “Do the subjects in these paintings appear humiliated?”

“No. Of course not.”

“If we are going to spend any amount of time together,” he said, “if I’m to teach you
anything,
I have to know who you are.”

Izzy wanted to disagree, to argue that you got to know someone through conversation, but instead found herself nodding in agreement to what he was saying. She hated the way she so often let anyone with what she perceived as authority or a stronger will have their way in an argument. It was a fault she just couldn’t seem to overcome. By the time she did stand up for herself it was usually so long after the fact that the source of her anger had no idea what it was that had set her off.

“And what better way to get to know you,” Rushkin asked, “than to paint you?”

He fixed her with the intensity of his pale blue eyes until she nodded again. “I … I understand,” Izzy said.

Rushkin spoke no more. He merely regarded her until she finally placed her knapsack on the floor by the door. Blushing furiously, she made her way behind the screen with its colorful designs of Oriental dragons and flowers and began to undress.

IV

Fifteen minutes into the pose Rushkin had finally decided upon, Izzy developed a whole new respect for the models in her life drawing classes. She lay on the recamier in what she’d been sure would be a relaxed position, but her every muscle seemed to be knotting and cramping. The arm she was leaning on had fallen asleep. She had a distracting itch that traveled from one part of her body to another. No sooner did she manage to ignore it in one place than it moved elsewhere. It was cold, too. And no matter how easily the people in the paintings that regarded her from every part of the room bore their nudity, she couldn’t help but still feel humiliated. Although that was perhaps too strong a word. Humbled was more like it. Which was probably Rushkin’s whole intention, she thought in a moment of cynicism.

Remembering their brief meeting yesterday, and considering how she’d been treated so far today, she realized that Rushkin was one of those people who always had to be in control.

She watched him as he drew. Getting to know her, she thought. Right. He was entirely ignoring her as a person; she’d become no more than a collection of shape and form to him, areas of light and shadow. The only sound in the room was the faint
skritch
of his vine charcoal on the canvas as he worked on his understudy. At length she couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

“How come you live like this?” she asked. “I mean, you’re so famous, I can’t understand why you don’t have, you know, a more posh sort of a studio.”

Rushkin stopped working and glared at her. With him looking the way he did, it was hard to imagine him capable of getting any uglier than he already was, but the glower in his features would have put to shame any one of the gargoyles that peered down from the heights of so many of Newford’s older buildings.

“Can you remember that pose?” he said, his voice cold.

Izzy didn’t think she’d ever forget, but she gave a small nervous nod. “Then take a break.”

Moments ago, Izzy would have given anything to hear those words, but now all she wanted to do was to reel back time until just before she’d opened her mouth. Better yet, she’d like to reel it back to before she’d ever decided to come here. Rushkin looked as though he wanted to hit her and she felt terribly vulnerable. She sat up slowly and wrapped herself in the crocheted shawl she’d brought with her when she’d first come out from behind the screen. Rushkin snagged a stool with the toe of his boot and pushed it over the floor until it stood near the recamier. Then he sat down and leaned forward.

“Is that what art means to you?” he growled. “A ‘posh studio,’ fame and fortune at your beck and call?”

“No. It’s just, you’re so famous and all, I just thought …”

“We’re going to have a rule when you’re in this studio with me,” he told her. “You don’t ask questions. I don’t ever want to hear the word ‘why’ coming out from between your lips. Is that possible?”

Izzy drew the shawl more tightly around herself and nodded.

“If I feel you should know the reason behind something, if I think it necessary to whatever we happen to be working upon at the time, I will tell you.”

“I … I understand.”

“Good. Now, since you weren’t aware of the rules we follow in this studio, I will allow you your one question.”

He sat back slightly on the stool, and it was as though a great weight had been lifted from Izzy’s chest. His pale gaze was no less intensely upon her, his glower hadn’t eased in the slightest, but that small bit of space he gave her suddenly allowed her to breathe again.

“You want to know,” he said, “why I live the way I do, why I dress like a beggar and work in a small rented studio, so I will tell you: I abhor success. Success means one is popular and I can think of nothing worse than popular appeal. It means your vision has been bowdlerized, lowered to meet the vague expectations of the lowest common denominator to be found in your audience.

“It’s my belief that elitism is healthy in an artist – no, required. Not because he uses it to put himself above others, but because it means that his work will always remain challenging. To himself. To his audience. To Art itself.

“I can’t help the success of my work, but I can ignore it and I do. I also insist on utter privacy. Who I am, what I do, how I live my life, has nothing to do with the one facet of myself of which I allow the world a view: my art. The art speaks for itself; anything else is irrelevant and an intrusion. To allow a view of any other part of myself relegates the art to secondary importance. Then my work only becomes considered in terms of how I live my life, what hangs on my own walls, what I eat for breakfast, how often a day I have to relieve myself.

“People
want
to know those details – I’ll grant you that. They think it gives them greater insight into a piece of art, but when they approach a painting in such a manner, they are belittling both the artist’s work and their own ability to experience it. Each painting I do says everything I want to say on its subject and in terms of that painting, and not all the trivia in the world concerning my private life will give the viewer more insight into it than what hangs there before their eyes. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, even titling a work is an unnecessary concession.

“So,” he concluded. “Do you understand?”

“I think so.”

“And do you agree?” he asked. What passed for a smile stole across his grotesque features.

Izzy hesitated for a moment, then had to admit, “Not … not really.”

“Good. It’s refreshing to see that you have your own ideas, though you will keep them to yourself so long as you are in my studio. Understood?”

Izzy nodded.

At that Rushkin stood up and kicked the stool out of the way. It went clattering along the floor until it banged up against a canvas. Izzy shuddered at the thought of the damage it might have done to the piece.

“Now,” Rushkin said, “if you will reassume the pose, perhaps we can salvage what remains of the morning light and actually get some work done today.”

V

Izzy had plans to meet Kathy at Feeney’s Kitchen for tea later that same afternoon. When she finally arrived at the café after her session with Rushkin, she found her roommate sharing a table with Jilly Coppercorn and Alan Grant, who were also students at the university.

Jilly always reminded Izzy of one of Cicely Barker’s flower fairies, with her diminutive but perfectly proportioned form, the sapphire flash of her eyes and the wild tangle of her nut-brown hair. They were in most of the same classes at Butler U. Jilly was a few years older than the other students, but all she ever said by way of explanation was that she’d been late finishing high school. Like Kathy, she never spoke of the past, but she was willing to hold forth on just about any other topic at great and entertaining length.

Alan, on the other hand, was quiet – a gangly, solemn young man who was an English major like Kathy. Unlike Kathy, though, he had no aspirations of becoming a writer. His dream was to have his own small literary press – “Because someone’s got to publish you people,” he’d told them once – which frustrated Kathy to no end, since she thought he was one of the better writers among their fellow students. For proof positive, she’d point to
The Crowsea Review
, a
little photocopied journal he’d produced over the summer and managed to place in the university bookshop on commission. “His editorial’s the best thing in it,” she’d say to anyone who cared to listen, an opinion bolstered by her own modesty since she herself had a story in the magazine.

Izzy waved acknowledgment to their chorus of hellos and went to the counter to get herself some tea and a muffin before joining them at their table by the window.

“So?” Kathy asked as soon as Izzy drew near. “Was it him?”

Izzy nodded. She set her tea mug and muffin down on the table and took the free seat between Jilly and Alan.