30 Pieces of a Novel

The Paintings

HE’S COME TO like Bolling’s painting so much that he wants to get another one. Lots of people have also told him how much they like it. They’d walk into the living room for the first time and see it on the far wall above the piano and say, “My God, that’s fantastic!” “Exciting” is another word they’ve used; “Takes my breath away” a typical expression. “The colors, those lines, the strength. The whole thing looks as if it’s about to soar through the ceiling.” “Saw? To cut? I don’t understand.” “To rise or fly through it. It has that kind of winged quality, in addition to some mystical or spiritual one where it can go through something without breaking it. I don’t know what the painting means or is supposed to be of, but I love it. Is it as good up close?” and whoever was appreciating it this way would approach it and always say it was. “Who did it? Where’d you get it?” “It’s a long story.” He didn’t like to go into it. “It looks very expensive.” “Maybe it’s the way it’s framed.” “Do you mind my asking what something like this would go for?” someone once said, not a friend of theirs but someone who came with one. “It was given to me by the artist.” “You’re so lucky. You didn’t even have to pay for it? I can see why you did such a nice job framing it.” “That was Sally’s — my wife’s — idea. If it had been up to me I would have done the cheapest job possible, which means the simplest. Four wood strips and that’s it, or not even that but just getting it stretched.” “If I was interested in buying one this size, or a little larger, where would I go, to the artist or his gallery or agent?” and he said, “I’m sure the painter’s wife would be happy to sell you one, since I don’t think the painter had a single sale — you see, he died — but she’s in New York. I can get you her phone number, even call her for you to set up a meeting. She’s right in the city,” and this person said, “Nah, I hardly ever get up there, and when I do it’s always rush rush.”

It had been nailed to his New York apartment wall for about a year after Bolling had given him it: “For all you’ve done for me, I want you to have any painting of mine you want.” Gould said, “Come on, let me give you something for it. An artist should be paid. But a little painting, one I can afford,” and Bolling said, “Not a cent, and take the biggest if that’s the one you pick. I’ve come this far in not selling one, don’t spoil my legacy for the future. Who knows? Maybe being tagged with that — like Van Gogh, minus one, since Theo sold one of his and could have sold others if brother Vincent had been more cooperative or sent him more…. I forget what the circumstances were, or if I meant ‘minus’ or ‘plus one’ then. I’m losing my memory and figuring-out head, as you can tell. I used to know that art history junk backwards and forwards. But what I think I was saying was that maybe being tagged as a never-ever-seller will help the sale of my paintings after I’m dead.” Gould said, “What’re you talking about, you’re not dying,” and Bolling said, “Who said I was? I said ‘after I’m dead.’ You can say that about anybody alive.” “So you have plenty of time to sell your paintings,” and Bolling said, “Okay, joking’s over, we all got a big laugh out of it. Now choose a painting and then give me my pain shot so I can get back to my nap,” and Gould and Bolling’s wife unrolled about twenty oil canvases on the furniture and floor—“Don’t be afraid to step on them,” Bolling said, “the paint’s so thick, nothing could hurt them”—and Gould pointed to the one he liked most. “You sure that’s the one? You’re not choosing it because it’s the second smallest? If you got to know, it’s among my three top favorites of those, but I didn’t want to say anything to influence your decision against it. Before you change your mind, give me your pen. I’m going to do something usually only reserved for book authors, which you should appreciate,” and with his wife guiding his hand, Bolling wrote an inscription in the right bottom corner.

Gould nailed it to his wall that day. Bolling died a week or two later, and a year after that the painting fell off Gould’s wall and he tried nailing it back up and it fell again with even more plaster coming off, and he tried to stick it up with duct tape but the painting was too heavy and he didn’t want to put more tape on because the painting’s paint came off with it, so he rolled it up and stuck it in a closet. When Sally and he got married and moved to Baltimore four years later, she said she wanted to get the painting framed. He said maybe they could just nail it to the wall — his New York apartment walls weren’t made out of the right kind of plaster for that and there were already nail holes in the painting’s corners — but she said, “You’ll see. It’ll look better stretched and with a relatively simple wood frame. It’ll also be good for the painting: fewer creases and cracks, things like that.”

The painting’s of the sea, sky, mountains, and a huge waterfall, or that’s what the plunging blue and white looks like, of one of the Balearic Islands. Or one of the Canaries. He’d have to look at an atlas. But how could he find which group of islands it is if he also doesn’t know the island’s name or the name of the town the scene was painted from? It starts with an N, the town, or a D, and he thinks it ends with an A. It’s the one Robert Graves lived on for many years. So he supposes he could get the names of the island and the town from a book about Graves. Anyway, Bolling lived there with his wife for two years, same time Graves did but he didn’t know him, he said, small as the town was, or know him enough to say more than a passing hello when he saw him out walking or in a store or café, “and by then the man may have been demented, or that’s what some people said, though he was living with, and no doubt screwing — because you could see by his swagger and look what a lusty guy he was — some young attractive American gal. So of course all the expatriate male writers on the island, no matter what nationality or how they felt towards him, wanted to screw her too because she’d done it with Graves. And if he won a Nobel, which some literary chiefs were predicting, an even greater feather in your cap and maybe more luck in your writing….

“One story, though, I can tell you firsthand,” Bolling said, a few weeks before he died, when Gould was wheeling him across Central Park to the Met. “It’s a good example of the moronic, worshipful following Graves had attracted to the town and which ruined it for us, to tell you the truth, even if most of them had got there before us. We came for artistic stimulation and intelligent communality (besides cheap living), but these louts just hung around, drinking and soaking up the sun and waiting for some new sign from the great man or duty to do for him, like accompanying him to the local bar. They never produced art or letters the way Graves had and which he was still doing in abundance. I know from the island’s telegrapher that he was sending out reviews and articles once a week, so how demented could he have been? Now it’s too late, but why didn’t I think that then and say something to those loafers and spongers who claimed he was addled? But this neighbor of ours came running into our little cottage, waving a pair of men’s Jockey briefs. You guessed it: ‘They belong to Graves,’ he said. ‘I was walking past his house, peered through his bedroom window, hoping to catch him humping his newest concubine, and saw these lying on his bed. I climbed through the window and swiped them. One day they’ll be worth a bundle. They even have R.R.G. written on the label in laundry marker. You’ll see, a collector will buy this from me and frame it behind glass and hang it on his most visible library wall. Bob had probably taken them off,’ this guy goes on, ‘tossed them on the bed, and put on a fresh pair before he left the house, or maybe he took them off to put on swimming trunks. I’m thinking if I should wash them, since they have a shit stain on them’—toilet paper was a precious commodity on the island, I want you to know—‘or keep them as is,’ he continued, ‘because they’d be more of-the-person and so more valuable that way.’ I told him to get them back to the bedroom without Graves knowing they’d been stolen, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Of course this idiot probably forgot whose underpants they were a week later and either put them on himself without washing them or his wife, after wondering where they had come from, used them to swab the kitchen floor.”

Fifteen years after Gould was given the painting, he says to his wife, “This thing’s really grown on me since you got it framed. And Bolling had a lot of them, and I’m sure his wife—” and she says, “You want to buy one?” and he says, “If it’s all right with you, since you’ll have to live with it too,” and she says, “I like the idea, so long as it doesn’t cost a fortune.” “No chance. They were very fair and modest-living and ungreedy people. It’s even possible she’ll want me to have it for nothing because of what I did for them then, but which I won’t let her do. Anyway, good, settled, I’m about to purchase a painting for the first time in my life; before, they were always given to me by the artist, and that lobsterman drawing from you,” and she says, “Won’t it be odd, though, phoning her after so many years, but to buy something rather than to ask about her and her son and maybe even, after so long, to invite her out for lunch?” and he says, “How do you think I know she’s still in the city in her old apartment? When I’ve gone up to see my mother — same neighborhood — so I bumped into her on the street a number of times.” “You never told me,” and he says, “I’m sure I have. Or else I forgot by the time I got back or didn’t think it worth mentioning, since you never met her,” and she says, “Of course I have. In a restaurant once, when we were with your mother, or right outside it on the street, and then at the memorial for Bolling a year after he died,” and he says, “Six months,” and she says, “Six months, not that she’d remember me from that, she was so distraught,” and he says, “Funny, but I can’t remember her as ever being even a little emotionally upset,” and she says, “Crying her eyes out. Just crying them out. Though you were pretty shaken up too,” and he says, “That I think I recall, which I guess is why I don’t remember how she was at that particular event.”

He calls and says, “Grace, hi, it’s Gould Bookbinder, how you doing?” and she says, “Hello, Gould Bookbinder,” and they talk about her and her son and his family and mother and then he says, “Listen, another reason I’m calling is because of Bolling’s paintings. I have one, you might remember, and I’d like to get another, but to buy it this time,” and she says, “I’d be delighted. But what was the arrangement before — he gave it to you?” and he says, “And inscribed it. It’s almost as if you both did, since you held his writing hand.” “Your memory’s too good,” and he says, “I’m sorry,” and she says, “No, no, but I haven’t sold one since he died and I’ve tried like the dickens, believe me, and I could use the extra money. How’s the one you have doing?” and he says, “I got it framed. Looks great. People are always marveling at it. It’s above our upright piano at the far end of this long living room, the perfect place for it, as you can see it from about twenty feet away when you enter the connecting dining room.” “Which one did you get again?” and he says, “It’s hard to describe. If it has a title, I don’t know it,” and she says, “All of them did,” and he says, “Then if you told me, I either forgot it or never heard it. But it’s kind of small, first of all — one of the smallest of the I-don’t-know-how-many you spread out for me there — maybe three feet by two, but three feet across. It’s of the mountains — you know, the Spanish island — and lots of dramatic sky and sea, very bright colors — the blues and yellows, anyway — and I think a waterfall in it,” and she says, “Couldn’t be. None on the island, and I don’t think Bolling ever saw one in his life. He lived there, and here in different boroughs, and two years in the army on an ice cap, and before that at an army base in New Jersey not far from here.” “He must have traveled around Europe or just Spain before he got to the island,” and she says, “Both times he went it was by ship from New York to a large Spanish port and from there a ferry or small craft of some kind to the island, and the same when he returned to the States. That island was everything to him — in imagery, inspiration, ties to a particular spot on earth, you name it — which he knew before he got there, and he didn’t want any other setting interfering in his memory of it. He used to say — actually, he said he thought along these lines way before he went to the island. It was a movie theater travelogue of the island when he was a young man that first prompted him to think this and eventually bore him to the island — that he only needed this one landscape and he’d paint it and dream of it and be reminded of and recharged by it for the rest of his life.” “Then I don’t know. Because how do you explain this plunging blue-and-white thing and what looks like raging water foam at the bottom of it?” and she says, “More crashing sea, probably, or a stormy sky. You sure you hung the painting right side up?” and he says, “Yeah, the mountains. It wouldn’t look like anything recognizable upside down, and I never thought of him as a pure abstractionist.” “Now the painting’s coming back to me. Does it have two large pointy mounds that are unmistakably mountains as you said but could also be mistaken for a woman’s enormous breasts?” and he says, “Right, two, of equal size just about, but I never saw them as anything but mountains,” and she says, “That’s what they are, but breastlike mountains, and what he called the painting, in a way: New Peaks. He was fascinated with the idea of taking old mountains and turning them into young breasts. He loved breasts more than any other part of the woman’s body, just as he loved mountains more than any other part of the land, so it all fits, and naturally the younger the developed breasts the better,” and he says, “By the way, what was the name of that Spanish island town where he did all those paintings?” and she gives it, and he says, “And the name of the group of islands it was part of?” and she says, “What group? It was just an island, Majorca, and near it were a couple of smaller islands, but no big group and certainly not a chain,” and he says, “That’s what I meant, and I actually knew but just wanted to make sure. But the town I always forget the name of, though knew it started with a D, and I bet I forget it again next time someone asks what place the painting’s of or where the painter lived on Majorca and so on. My mind … I don’t know: drink, age, something scarier? But I once wanted to — let me see: thirty-five, almost forty years ago? — wanted to live there too when I fashioned myself a would-be painter and writer. I heard it was dirt cheap, lots of wonderful free-thinking and — living women of various European nationalities, and it just seemed like the best thing to do for a while right out of college … sun, beaches, jug wine, all of which I stay away from today,” and she says, “You should have gone. That was the time. Now the island’s expensive, overcrowded, with rich tourists, grand hotels, and topless beaches — though I hear Deja hasn’t been touched as much — so the natives probably aren’t as hospitable and pleasant to you in a genuine way as they were then, but imagine what Bolling would have done in his work with the nudie scene. He was there with his first wife around the time you said you wanted to be, and it was such a small English-speaking community you almost certainly would have known them and become fast friends. She was supposed to be very nice.” “Wait a second. I thought you were the wife he was with there,” and she says, “I only went for a month about ten years after, a sort of rekindling-the-memory trip for him. But I can remember Bolling telling you of his years there with her and even, I think, you saying how you had once wanted to go there to paint or write, and he saying how you then would have met him and Sally there,” and he says, “Sally? That’s my wife’s name,” and she says, “I know. In fact you came over for coffee with her once — this was another time, much later — and Bolling pointed out the coincidence of the names. He also said he hoped that your Sally — you were talking of getting married and I’m not sure if he said this more for my benefit than yours, since he had eight good years with her before he deserted her when he somehow got hooked on me — anyhow, that your Sally would be your first and only wife. He really liked her and it had nothing to do with her large breasts, since by that time, with all the painkillers and pain and the tumor behind his eyes fouling up his vision, none of that meant anything to him.” “I don’t remember taking Sally to your place. On the street, yes, you and she met, but after Bolling’s death, and she also came to the memorial, though which of those was the first time you saw her I don’t know.” “Gould, believe me, I can even remember where we all sat: you two on the love seat, I was in the rocker across from it, at an angle, and Bolling was directly across from you in his wheelchair, to my left. You ended up switching from coffee to wine and Sally stuck with her herb tea, and after a while I not only had cookies out but crackers and cheese. But I’ll tell you, if you had gone to Deja it’s possible you would have written or painted something but more likely have become a terrific young wino, café habitué, and wife swapper — or girlfriend swapper, in your case — as that’s what almost all of them did. Bolling said that most of them were big fools, or became ones there, when before they had been responsible family men and executives or staff writers or chief graphic artists on magazines like Time and Business Week or some oil company newsletter, et cetera. There to paint the great Mediterranean painting or the literary equivalent with the three-act domestic drama or thousand-page novel or epic poem. But in a year or two, once their funds had run out, they were back in their old high-rolling jobs and cushy living. Bolling was the anomaly, eschewing most of the fun and games to get some real work in while he had the chance and which he had depleted his savings for, and only sleeping with his wife. Did he tell you the story of Robert Graves’s underwear?” and he says, “That someone stole a pair and he told this guy to put it back?” “One person stealing one pair? Please, it became the principal recreation of the expatriate community there; even friends visiting for a week tried to land a pair. For years people were sneaking into Graves’s home for one or ripping one off his washline or out of the maid’s laundry washtub while she was siesta-ing, and one jerk even got a week of dirty underwear out of his bathroom hamper. Word was that Graves was unamused by all this but had boxer shorts shipped in by the dozens to keep the thieves supplied so they wouldn’t steal more valuable things like letters and manuscripts and books and works in progress.” “It’s funny but I never took the story quite seriously, and I also had heard it was a pair of Jockey briefs that were stolen,” and she says, “Boxer shorts. Bolling was there and he told me. And in all his time on the island he never found the activity anything but deplorable, and anonymously he returned by mail a pair to Graves that had been given to him as a birthday gift.”

He tells her he’ll be in the city in a month to see his mother and if it’s all right he’d like to come by to choose a painting. She says to call her a week before so they can make a definite appointment. “I don’t want to pretend I’m a busy person or that dealers are batting my door down to get his works, but occasionally I do see a friend for lunch.” Three months later she calls him. “I got your number from the woman taking care of your mother. She said you were in New York last month. If you were, it’s possible you called and I missed you,” and he says, “I’ve actually been there twice since I spoke to you, but only for a day — in and out, by train. I’m sorry, I forgot. But we’re all coming in for two weeks in June. I’ll call before we drive in, or just get me at this number in New York,” and gives it and the day they’ll be there. She says, “Incidentally, you never said what you were interested in of Bolling’s: the drawings, pastels, satirical pen and inks — they’re of Lyndon Johnson and his cronies; I don’t think he was ever better, satirically, than with those — or his Majorca watercolors: the sunrise series, the sleeping cat sequence, another one of just beach stones — there were these enormous boulders along the shore, some like the Easter Island ones, though not carved — and of course the oils.” “The oil paintings. Something like what he gave me, since the last time we spoke you said you hadn’t sold any for a long time,” and she says, “What I said then was ‘never.’ Not one. Not in his lifetime or mine. Not even a single drawing. Whatever he did that’s not here has either been given away or donated to a school’s art sale, but I think even those came back.” “So,” he says, “one of those, the oils. I hate to sound dumb about it — because, you know, I really admire most of them — but one to sort of complement, for another wall in the same room, the one I already have of the sun and sky and such of that island and town … I can never remember the damn name. I know it starts with a D—the island, of course, is Majorca — but the town. I know I also said the same thing one of the last times we spoke — that it starts with a D and I can never remember its name. But my mind can’t be that bad off if I’m able to remember almost verbatim, and maybe even verbatim, what I said about not remembering the town’s name and that business about the initial that last time, some — well, I don’t know how many months ago, but several,” and she says, “Deja, De-ja, D-E-J-A, though the Spanish spelling of it is different and not just with a little diacritic,” and he says, “Don’t tell me it; one’s enough, and I wouldn’t want to confuse things even more. I should write it down, but I know I’ll lose the paper I write it down on. That has less to do with memory loss than absentmindedness. In my address book, under your name and number, I’ll put it, and then I’ll just hope I remember it’s there when I want to recall the name, if I don’t from now on recall it automatically. As for the address book, somehow it just turns up whenever I look for it. Anyway, I’ll call you the day after we get in.”

She calls him in New York. “Damn, how’d I forget?” he says. “I won’t even say I was going to call you. I mean, I intended to but we’ve been so busy: my mother, whom I see every day, and taking the kids around — movies, museums, shopping sprees, you name it. When they’re out of school and too old for day camp — they think — it’s ‘What’re we gonna do today, Daddy?’” and his older daughter, who’s beside him, says, “I don’t talk that way, Daddy. And you don’t let us shop.” “If you’re no longer interested in buying one of Bolling’s paintings,” Grace says, “that’s all right too, Gould. People are allowed to—” and he says, “No, I want one, very much so,” and to his daughter, with his hand over the mouthpiece: “Only kidding, sweetie. Just making talk…. When shall we meet? Tomorrow at one, maybe? I think I can be free then,” and she says, “No good. I’m a dog walker now — a professional one; I have no animals of my own — and I’ve four dogs to walk between one and three.” After that, she’s busy too. “Thursday?” and she says, “I’ve dog-walking jobs from eight to twelve, and the last one, for an hour, is five at a time, so would two o’clock be okay? I need some rest, and also a shower, after a long spate of walks — picking up all that doodie, and they can slobber over you when they get playful. And it’s hard sweaty work, getting pulled forward, holding them back, really straining at the reins when some outside dog barks or jumps at them. But I’ve got to make money somehow; I’m really short.” “Two, then,” and gets her building number — the street he knows, since he had once lived around the block from them and it was how he’d met them more than twenty years ago: in the stationery store at their corner on Columbus where Bolling bought most of his art supplies and he bought things like typewriter ribbon and reams of paper, and he said, when they were on line to pay, “You must be an artist,” and Bolling said, “And you? It’s obvious what you do too, unless you have an unusually extensive correspondence going and you mail all your letters in those manila envelopes,” or something like that.

He’s at his mother’s when the phone rings. It’s Grace: “Your wife told me you were there — I’m not following you, I want you to understand. You don’t remember we had an appointment at two?” “Oh, my God”—and looks at the wall clock—“it’s twenty to three and someone’s picking me up here at three-thirty. How can I be such a dunce. I’ll be right over, should take me no more than ten minutes if I run,” and she says, “You won’t have time to look at the paintings.” “I’ll have time, don’t worry; I know what I want and it won’t take long,” and she says, “Really, we can make it another day,” and he says, “No. I don’t know what the hell our schedule is the next few days before we leave, and I want a painting and won’t let my being a forgetful blockhead stop me. Are you free now?” “Yes. I set aside two hours for you to look at his artwork,” and he says, “Good, then we have enough time; just tell me your building number again.” He finishes making his mother coffee, puts it in front of her with some cookies he brought over, apologizes that he has to leave early but he’ll see her tomorrow when he’ll take her out for lunch, gives Grace’s name and address to the woman who looks after his mother, and says, “Tell him to ring the vestibule bell for me there — it’s only six blocks away — and I’ll come right down, or in a few minutes, and he can stay in the car,” and she says, “I can’t remember all that, can you write it?” and he says, “Just tell him to ring the bell and ask for me,” and runs and walks fast to Grace’s building, rings her bell downstairs, and she says, “Gould?” and he says, “Yes, at last, I’m sorry,” and she buzzes him in.

She has cheese and crackers out, grapes, two wine glasses on a tray, and in the center of it an unopened bottle of Burgundy. There are stacks of sketchbooks of different sizes on the same table. When she opened the door he kissed her cheek, apologized again. She says, “You know, for a while there I thought you were only saying you were interested because you wanted me to think someone still wanted Bolling’s work.” “No, I am, very. You have sketchbooks out. For me, or you just keep them here?” and she says, “You said you liked the mountains and seacoast of Deja. Some of his best watercolors of those scenes are in these. And some have words he wrote on the bottom of them — reflections, some of it real poetry, I feel, but his own, the only time he ever wrote it — and sometimes all around the edges like a frame, so are sort of mixed media. I thought because he used words in a literary way on them that you’d be especially interested. They could be expensive, though, compared to his other watercolors, since I think they’re his most innovative work in any medium, or at least unique for him, which should count for something in an artist’s body of work,” and he says, “Probably, but I only came for the oils; is that all right?” “Oh, those. I don’t think I’ve had them out since you chose one. It means burrowing into the long closet, pulling out a whole bunch of things first to locate them, and then untying and unrolling them and they’re no doubt dusty … who cleans the back of a closet like that one? I know I should have looked after them better, wrapped them in a way that would have best preserved them, making sure nothing hard or jagged was against them so the paint wouldn’t flake or the paintings themselves get punctured…” and he thinks, What’d he get himself into? This could take an hour and he doesn’t have the time. She has crackers and cheese out. They’re for him, unless they’re for someone coming later. But then the cheese wouldn’t be here now. If she just wanted it at room temperature she would have left it in the kitchen. Putting it here she’d have to think he’d think it was for him, and then the wine with it. Two glasses. Of course it’s all for him. But what’d he expect, all the oils would be spread out and waiting for him on the floor and furniture and taped to the walls and he’d just look at them quickly and hit on one and say, “That’s it,” and pay up and carefully roll it up and put some twine or a few rubber bands around it and help her get the rest of the paintings rolled up and back into the closet and then kiss her goodbye right after his friend rings and leave? And there must be fifteen of them, twenty, because she hasn’t sold any and that’s about the number there were before, though she might have given some away since then … he hopes so. He says, “I’ll get them. I’m not afraid of work and dirt, and I swear I have good quick taste and judgment and I know there are — know from the last time … my memory’s perfect on that, with maybe the most minuscule of lapses — but what was I saying? Oh, yeah: that there are a few oils of his from that period that I truly loved, but all, of course, of the ones shown me from the closet and the two from the Deja period you still have on the walls — I’m just guessing they’re the same ones,” and she says they are and he says, “But that I liked.” All this is a lie. He forgets what he felt that last time. No, he remembers: a few were awful — half of them, maybe; amateurish, almost; paint slashes here, there, drips, drops, lots of splashed-together flashy colors meaning and representing or just plain doing nothing to him, or maybe a few hints of mountains and sea. What he remembers most is that he didn’t want one too big. What he remembers before that is he didn’t want one at all, from what he’d seen of Bolling’s works on the walls from all his periods, but he knew he couldn’t say so once Bolling said he wanted him to choose one for himself. And now he remembers there weren’t just Deja scenes in the closet but portraits, self-portraits, nudes, a few cityscapes. Bolling and Grace thought he’d like the cityscapes best because he’d lived in the city most of his life and they’d never heard him have a good thing to say about the country or beach, and he said something like, “I’ve had plenty of it, thank you; last thing I want to be reminded of when I’m in my apartment is the city outside.” So they brought all the oils out and unrolled them on the furniture and floor, and there were so many, and there was so little space — some of them were so big and all of them were large — that there were usually two or three lying on top of each other, and he’d peel one off without saying anything but inwardly rejecting it and underneath was usually another big splashy nude or Deja scene or self-portrait or very dark cityscape, so dark he almost couldn’t make anything out in it but a few lit windows. Till he saw a Deja painting he liked, and that it was the next to smallest of all the paintings must have helped his decision. The light colors were bright but not flashy, the dark colors weren’t that dark, and he could recognize mountains and sea and what he thought was a waterfall without absolutely recognizing them as such, so it was both realistic and abstract and he liked that, or impressionistic or expressionistic and abstract — anyway, not absolutely one thing or the other, or he at least thinks that’s what he thought then. And Bolling’s face lit up when Gould looked at the painting longer than the others and he said — after Gould said, “It’s all right if I pick this one, right?”—“It’s one of my favorites. Did things in that I never did anywhere else. So why isn’t it on the wall? I forgot, and now who cares? But I’ll let it go without a grimace because of how kind you’ve been to me and helpful to Grace, and I know it’ll be going to an appreciative and aesthetic home,” and then, “On second thought,” hoped Gould wasn’t just taking it because it was one of the smallest. “No, size meant nothing. You said to choose one and I took that to mean any one except maybe the very largest, which I’d also have a problem with since I wouldn’t want to seem like a hog,” and then Bolling asked for Gould’s pen—“I know you always have one, so hand it over, brother, though spare the paper”—so he could inscribe it to him.

Gould removes from the closet filled suitcases, boxes of clothing, old lamps, an easel with two legs missing, a crib mattress, and other things before he reaches the paintings. They’re rolled up like a carpet and he tries to lift the roll, but it’s too heavy so he pulls it out to the living room—“This a good place?”—and she says, “The light will be better for viewing over here. When Bolling was alive we had terrific light everywhere — he couldn’t live with a lot of dark spots, not even in the closets. But each time a lamp goes I don’t get it fixed or replaced and the ceiling fixtures, other than the kitchen one where I stand on a counter, I can’t reach.” He starts pulling the roll along the floor, and she says, “You can’t lift it? Dragging it like that won’t do the outer one any good and it might be the best of them all.” He hoists it to his shoulder and gets it to where she tells him to and gets on his knees to set it down: between the love seat and the rocker and chair. Cocktail table that was there is against the wall, a little scatter rug on top of it. This is going to be hard, he thinks, untying the roll, and they never talked price. He can’t afford much; was figuring on a hundred bucks. Thought she’d be glad to take it — as an incentive he’d wanted to give it in cash, and she can’t be doing well — and rid of a painting. But she’s put out for wine, cheese, and grapes and spiffed up the apartment for him. The setting’s a selling one and he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings or have her think he’s wasted her time by saying the one he chose is just too expensive for his tastes, and there might not be another he likes or would want to pay even a hundred for. Hell with the hundred. He’s here, he’s led her on, she’s put herself out for him, and he’s going to have to buy one. He flattens the paintings out best he can — there must be thirty or forty — and starts going through them. Top one he’s already dismissed: a small ugly nude, with a good arm and a withered arm and breasts that seem in the wrong place, though it’s a realistic studio portrait, and a belly-button hole wide enough to fit a nickel in, and some of the paint’s cracked and peeling. Looks as if it’s from Bolling ‘s art-school days, if he went to one; he doesn’t know, or forgets, how Bolling got his early training. Pulls it back to the next: a candlestick and Chianti bottle standing on a wrinkled red cloth, velvet or something shiny. This one probably means something, with a candle in the bottle but not the candlestick, and just barely lit, or maybe that’s an attempt at flickering. Then a still life of oranges and apples and an unidentifiable fruit, a lemon or kiwi or even a big walnut. It could be considered a good painting, light seems all right, oranges and apples look real, but he hates paintings of this sort — all still lifes except drawings — even by Cézanne. Or he doesn’t hate Cézannes but doesn’t admire them and by now just walks right past them in museums. Bolling would have said, “Your loss,” and they may have even talked about it, but unfortunately they never went to a museum together, except when he pushed him to the Met once, but it was quick because Bolling was incontinent by then and, he thinks, silent through the entire visit. Next are three self-portraits. He doesn’t remember putting them back this way fifteen years ago, by category. Maybe there’ll be a few straight Dejas. They aren’t good paintings or likenesses and he wouldn’t take one for sentimental reasons, even if she gave him it for nothing. Bolling was a nice guy, smart, generous, amiable, maybe a bit grouchy sometimes, and they had good conversations about politics and art and such, at the most saw each other twice a year for drinks and peanuts at this apartment but bumped into each other a lot in the neighborhood. He only became close to him — seeing him daily for weeks — when Bolling ‘s sickness got much worse and Grace had become exhausted from taking care of him and couldn’t push him in the wheelchair anymore or get him off the floor when he fell or slid off a chair or take him to the doctor or hospital alone and was never able to give him his painkiller shots, so he volunteered to do these things, since he was just around the corner and had given insulin to his father years before, but they were never friends. “I like these, some better than others; the self-portraits are especially — I don’t know what — strong,” and she says, “Aren’t they? People used to think me frivolous when I compared them in honesty — the whole exposed man — to some of the late Rembrandt ones and all of Van Gogh’s. But I couldn’t hang one here, for obvious reasons. I’d rather have the LBJs, much as I loathed the man — so shrewd and coarse and what he did to prolong the war. You knew him, didn’t you?” and he says, “I didn’t actually know him. But when he — this is what you must mean — put his arm around my shoulder — the news service I worked for then covered regional stuff for a few Texas radio stations, otherwise he wouldn’t have said boo to me — it was like a bear’s, which I think was how Bolling said he depicted him in his caricatures there. Or maybe that’s where I got my bear analogy from … I forget, it was so far back, reporting. But that’s how big Johnson was and maybe how thin I might have been then.” “Oh, my goodness, you just reminded me. Why’d I have them out if I wasn’t going to offer you? Glass of wine? You’ll have to uncork the bottle; I always bungle it,” and he says, “No, thanks, too early. And no cheese either; I’m stuffed. A grape I’ll take,” and she holds out the bowl and he pinches off a cluster and goes through fifteen to twenty more paintings while sucking and chewing grapes one at a time. “So, you haven’t seen the paintings you liked? There was a Deja landscape among the ones you looked at — one of the mountains, but from a different perspective, and no sea,” and he says, “There was? I didn’t catch it or recognize it. Was it very abstract?” and she says, “No, relatively realistic; about three back,” and he says, “I must be going too fast. Or else you sold the ones I remember or gave them away.” “I told you: no one’s looked at the oils since you. I would have shown them to art dealers, or anybody for the asking, but no one asked or responded positively to my hints or inquiries.” “That was in ‘seventy-nine, when I did that,” he says, and she says, “Bolling died on May sixteenth, so you saw them about a week before. You went through them exactly as you’re doing now,” and he says, “I thought they were all spread out on the furniture and floor, and after it you and I got them together and stacked them the way they are now,” and she says, “No, sir, they were in a big pile from the start. We got them out and unrolled them and you selected the one you liked and Bolling inscribed it to you. He even borrowed your pen for it, and when he saw it was a real fountain pen — a Sheaffer — he said this might ruin the nib and you said you didn’t care,” and he says, “I remember that. In the bottom right corner, and it didn’t ruin the point. I don’t have that pen anymore — I misplace, or they slip out of my pockets, about one a year; it kills me, they’re so damn expensive — but I remember it worked after. The inscription’s covered by the frame now, the canvas edges tucked under and probably stapled to those — what are they? — the stretching boards.” “The stretcher.” “Right. I didn’t want it to be and I specifically asked my wife — she brought it to this hotsy-totsy framer — to keep the inscription visible, it was very important to me, but that’s how it came back from the shop and, you know, I wanted to return it for them to do it right this time or just correct it, but never did, or it was too much bother and we wanted it on the wall more. I know the inscription said something personal,” and she says, “It said, To my dear friend Gould, who came to our rescue in this time of crisis and deep need, always our love and thanks, Bolling Sneeson.” She starts crying. Seeing her, or something else — what she said Bolling wrote — he does too. She goes on longer than he and he thinks, Should he hold her, pat her shoulder? but doesn’t want to. He says, wiping his eyes, “Listen, I’m sorry, but someone’s picking me up at three-thirty. Here. He’s going to ring downstairs. He was supposed to at my mother’s but I told the woman taking care of her—” “How is she?” and he says, “Fine, considering. No, she’s okay, no real health problems, ailments: just her memory — like us all, right? — though a little worse. But you see, this was before I knew or realized — seeing you, seeing her — because like a dope I forgot our appointment, and what I should have done was call this guy from my mother’s but I was in too much of a rush to get here,” and she says, “Then it’s impossible for you to choose a painting today. I know all about your taste and judgment, but something like this takes time. It’s like choosing a dog. You want to observe it first — it could be too vicious or frisky for you, and I’m not talking about puppies — or a cat or even a parakeet. To see if you want to live with it, and live with it you must. You don’t want to put all that money into framing a painting and then stick it in a closet because you now don’t like it,” and he says, “I made my decision that way the last time and I can do it now. Sometimes quick decisions — well, you know, and I love the painting he gave me as much today as I did then.” “You were wonderful to him, and to me too — I’ve told you. But to him you were a lifesaver those last months and he wanted to give you two paintings but you said — your characteristic modesty then, and I’m sure now too—‘One’s more than generous,’” and he says, “Two? I don’t recall that. Though it was true: one was more than enough. Not that I wouldn’t have appreciated two and known what to do with them, but as I told you on the phone — or did I say it here? — I didn’t want to be a hog. I also wanted you to sell the rest; that’s what I remember from then. That you didn’t? So, other people don’t know what they’re doing, only zeroing in on the latest young hotshot who’s made by … I don’t know, art entrepreneurs who have a stake in him and important friends. Anyway, I know in this pile is the one I would have taken if I had taken two. Of course, this time around I’m going to pay. And we never talked price, I’m afraid.” “Oh, that’s another matter. How much an artist deserves to be paid for his work. Does it involve how much time went into the labor, how much thought went into the conception, all the expenses that went into making the painting and keeping up a studio to work in and so forth. Bolling only used the alcove here, which had our son’s loft bed and dresser and no window and explains why his work became sort of somber, and because the room was so crowded and small he rarely did any paintings in it but tiny oils. But also how many prizes the artist’s garnered and critical praise he’s received and shows he’s had and who’s his current gallery and agent and how he does abroad and where and what museums and private institutions his works are in and the amount paid for them, though don’t make me laugh. If all these, or only some, are the criteria to price one of his works, I should be paying you to cart it off my hands. But there’s even more to it. Forget friendship and past good deeds and how much the potential buyer wants and loves the work — that’s just between you and me and which I know to Bolling meant a lot too. But how long the work’s been sitting around unsold and how many canvases the painter’s done overall, and is the one the buyer wants considered among his best in period and style and is the medium the work’s in supposed to be the best the artist has ever done?”—Then she goes on about Giacometti: His portraits or artist studio paintings? And if the portraits, then which should be considered more valuable, the ones of his mother or brother or wife or favorite non-family model—“Some adorable little girl the artist had an old man’s crush on late in life?” And should his sculptures be worth more than his paintings, if there’s a way of fixing a price on them competitively, because they cost more to make and have had a greater influence on other artists and have interesting anecdotes about some of them, like the matchbox figures, though those couldn’t have been too costly to make even if they were whittled down from much larger blocks? But then most of his sculptures are bronze, particularly the famous stick figures and that mangy dog, which means a number of the same ones came from one mold. So why shouldn’t the clay model be more valuable than its cast bronze? True, it’s clay rather than the more durable and expensive bronze, but it’s the original and singular … All this while he’s going through the rest of Bolling’s oils. Then he sees one, third from the last — he quickly flips through the final two and doesn’t like them — that’s a lot like the one Bolling gave him. He doesn’t remember it from before, but he sort of likes it. Not as much as the one he has but he doesn’t remember liking that one immediately either, just being drawn to it. Not even that; it was the best of a lot he didn’t much like any of and it was only after Sally got it framed that he started liking it and increasingly over the years till he liked it so much he wanted another of Bolling’s oils of a similar scene or something close. It’s worth a hundred. It’s larger than the one he has, though that’s not why, with more sky, less sea, same mountains but not as pointy. In fact they look more like a woman’s breasts than the ones in the other painting, but a mature woman’s rather than a mature girl’s, and there’s nothing in it that can be mistaken for a waterfall. It also has a large blue egg-shaped object on its side in a lighter blue sky to the right of the mountains. It doesn’t seem to belong there, looks unfinished as an idea and cheap, and what’s it supposed to mean: a sun with the color of a darkened sky? Maybe it’ll blend in better later on, but for now he can live with it because of the rest of the painting. No, this one’s the best of the bunch here, in his opinion, and since he feels he has to buy one, this one’s it. He looks up. She’s saying, “For instance, this work over here.” He looks at the wall she’s looking at. “That’s Bolling’s? I wouldn’t have thought so. Nothing in this group or on the walls even remotely—” and she says, “It’s by a cousin, on my mother’s side. He didn’t buy one in return, which kind of disappointed me,” and he says, “You bought it? Or Bolling did, years ago? I don’t remember it from then,” and she says, “That’s what I’ve been saying. I got it last year, the most extravagant present to myself ever. But that’s another matter, my cousin not buying one of Bolling’s works for even a quarter of what I paid for his — we won’t talk about true worth. There’s very little tit-for-tatism among painters. They mostly exchange works of comparable value, and what better time than when they’re both not selling anything? But when their art starts selling, then you have to buy and if you’re lucky they let you have it for half of what their gallery would charge. Since my cousin only started painting five years ago, there was no chance for Bolling to exchange anything with him. He only paints now and has begun to become one of your young hotshots. Being a professional and successful go hand in hand. Otherwise what goes hand in hand is elementary school art teacher and weekend artist, bartender, and intermittent painter. No, bartenders usually aren’t painters, nor are dentists. Plastic surgeons often are, in their spare time. But you get my point. And I paid sixteen hundred for it. I didn’t have the money and am paying in small monthly installments. I wanted to help support him because by doing so I was supporting all art in general, I felt, and I like the work immensely.” He doesn’t. Looks like some turn-of-the-century work. That’s not accurate. There were plenty of great artists then, though mostly French. But like an Audrey — Aubrey? — Beardsley drawing or poster of a beautiful young woman with wavy locks and sensuous lips and tiny waist and perfect bosom and long body in a long diaphanous gown looking as if it’s being blown by a wind machine. Pre-Raphaelite, that’s it — Dante Rossetti and others — but maybe he has the time wrong. The woman in the painting’s somewhat modern, see-through blouse and dreadlocks on a Caucasian and smoking a pipe, but she’s even barefoot and behind her is a thicket of curlicued trees. He says, “Sixteen hundred. That’s nowhere near to what I was thinking of paying — I mean, on the downside. I didn’t even think of it, how much. I should have because I should have assumed his works would be worth something by now,” and she says, “Didn’t I tell you? I don’t want to make things worse for myself here, but I had slides made of some of these to get them exhibited and sold, but no luck. So, selling one now at a more affordable price — remember, I said I would have taken a quarter of what I gave my cousin if he had shown any interest in one of Bolling’s — would be all right and might renew my energy to try and sell more.” “Shit, I feel like such a vulgarian, rushing through these and bargaining even before I tell you the one I like. Maybe, to give myself more time with all this, I should look at them again in September when we’re on our way back from Maine. But where you don’t go out of your way again with wine and cheese, and I promise I’ll keep the appointment and get here on time,” and she says, “You selected one? Then let’s see if we can settle on it now,” and he holds open the pile of paintings and says, “This one okay?” and she says, “You like that? I do too. So take it,” and he says, “It’s much larger than the last one I got, so a hundred dollars wouldn’t be right for it, would it? — just say so,” and she says, “Not from anyone else. Just as I wouldn’t have sold, if you hadn’t been given it, that last one for a hundred dollars to anyone but you … though a hundred then is worth about two hundred today, no? and maybe more. They say in the last twenty years the dollar has lost half its value every decade. But it’s going to a good home and a good person, and Bolling would love that you have it for a hundred. This very minute he’s probably even scorning me for selling it rather than giving it to you, but he’d also have to know I can use the money.” “So, deal then, great; I’m so happy, and thanks,” and takes it out and says, “Can I roll up the others for you?” and she says, “Better let me, there’s a special way,” and rolls them up and ties them and the buzzer from downstairs rings. She goes to the intercom while he carries the paintings into the closet. They seem lighter, which is ridiculous. “Yes?” and his friend says, “I’m here for Gould Bookbinder. My car’s double-parked, so can you tell him I’m waiting?” She turns to him, and he motions he heard. “Want me to …?” pointing to the other stuff, and she says, “No, I may want to throw some of it out. And it’s raining now so you’ll need to protect your painting,” and goes into the kitchen. He rolls up the painting and she comes out with newspapers and two shopping bags and says, “Oh, let me see it one more time, I feel I never will again,” and he holds it up and she says, “He did mountains and trees like almost no one. A real nature boy for a city kid,” and he says, “Trees?” and she says, “Here and here and behind these two a whole grove of them. They’re not brown or green and no little olives or white flowers on them, but that means nothing.” “Listen, I know the guy’s in a rush but can I put some ceiling lightbulbs in for you? I’m a half foot taller and have a long reach,” and she says, “I’ve nothing but sixty-watters for table lamps, so don’t bother.” He writes out a check, says, “Remember, cash it,” and she says, “Why wouldn’t I?” and he says, “If you’re anything like me you’ll keep it in your wallet till it’s ragged and unre- … in- … just not negotiable.” She rolls up his painting, wraps it in newspaper, sticks the bags at either end, and says, “There’s still some space in the middle where it can get soaked, so keep your arm around it there.” Intercom rings and she says into it, “He’s coming down now; give him a minute.” They say goodbye, kiss, she says, “If you and your wife have the time when you drive back—” and he says, “I don’t see how. Got to see my mom, Sally’s got to see hers, we’ll only have two days, but if we can we will.” Walking downstairs he thinks, Look at me: T-shirt and shorts and old sneakers, while she was smartly dressed. She’s probably thinking now, “The slob, Philistine. If I hadn’t caught him at his mother’s he never would have come here before he left for Maine. So insincere. And thinks he can choose in two minutes and offer me a hundred for it and that I’ll take the money because I need it and what he did for Bolling years ago. Oh, it’s sold, what’s the point of complaining? and his wife is nice and might like it and putting it in a frame will preserve it.” Or she isn’t thinking much of anything; just putting the wine and cheese away and clearing up the closet mess.

His friend’s in the building vestibule and says, “What’s that?” and he says, “Painting by some guy I knew and sort of helped out. I bought it from his wife.” “Very good, you’re buying paintings now, and it’s a big one and in oil, I can smell, so it must mean you’ve money,” and he says, “Not really. And you smell the oil? It is, but I don’t smell it,” and puts his nose to the newspaper, tears out a piece, and presses his nose against the canvas, but still doesn’t. “Your back door unlocked?” and his friend says, “In this city?” and he says, “Do me a favor and open the back door on this side, and I’ll run with the painting and put it inside? I don’t want to get it wet,” and his friend says, “But it’s all right for me to get drenched,” and he says, “Then give me the key and I’ll open the door and you run with the painting to it, but you know your car so I’m sure you’ll be able to get it unlocked faster than me,” and his friend says, “Only kidding. And for art, anything,” and gets the key ready and runs outside.

During the drive Gould says, “I feel like such a vulgarian. How I bought the painting, the little money I offered, how much she values his work — he’s dead, fifteen years ago, brain cancer, awful — and just that she was a friend too,” and his friend says, “Why worry over it? You got what you liked; you do like it?”—and he says yes—“and at a good price. And now others will see it on your wall — this artist have more?” and he says, “Plenty.” “So they’ll possibly want one of their own, and you don’t have to say how little you paid for it — for her sake, you could even inflate it — and she could wind up making lots of dough,” and he says, “I had the same thought, but it hasn’t happened so far.” “It could start. Word could get around, and buyers will trickle to her place and then flock to it in even greater numbers, and she’ll appreciate you in a way she never has before. And because of all this the value of the one you own will go sky-high,” and he says, “I hope so and am going to try and make it happen-not the last part; that I’ve no interest in. But I bet the next person to buy one, and this time I’m going to offer her much more for it. well, of course, will be me.”