Fantastic Metropolis

If I had gone about things intelligently, I would have waited to meet my mysterious new patron before severing the agreements I had made with those already in line for my services. This was a bold move on my part; bolder than I had at first given myself credit for. With each missive I penned, gracefully disengaging myself from my promises, a new and stronger wave of doubt passed through me, and my hand quaked slightly as I signed the last of them. All I could picture was that hapless hotel waiter at the betting window, placing all his money on an oat-burning nag incapable of winning any race but the one to the glue factory. Still, there was a certain thrill that also came along with the act, and although I felt disaster hard upon my heels, the future swept open like a door before me. As I stepped through into a nebulous world of light, that which had a moment before been an entrance suddenly became the solitary exit. It slammed shut behind me, and all my nervous agitation was instantly replaced by a sense of calm, as though I were now floating among the clouds like a kite.

My tether, as it were, was my plan, if you could call it that. I would take Mr. Watkin’s employer’s commission, do the work to the best of my ability, craft any portrait the sitter required, and then collect the promised enormous payment. With the promised amount—triple what I had expected to receive over the next year—I would be free to pursue my muse without want for quite a long time. The prospect of overthrowing the tyranny of vanity, of actually painting something other than a face trembling with the exertion of proving itself worthy to future centuries, buoyed me up. I tell you, it even reduced the effects of my hangover. I daydreamed of traveling to an exotic location and taking my easel outdoors to capture the ageless visage of Nature or, more important, journeying within myself to find and release those images I had so long ignored.

After washing, shaving, and dressing in my best gray suit, I put on my topcoat and set out toward Seventh Avenue to catch the streetcar uptown. The address on the sheet of rose-colored paper undoubtedly belonged to one of those new monstrosities constructed in the last decade way up past where the city’s sprawl had by then extended. Designed and raised by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White, the residences of the upper reaches of Manhattan were a hodgepodge of classical styles melded with the novelty of a contemporary New York look—Byzantine meets Broadway, so to speak. Constructed with the finest imported marble and limestone, they were some of the most opulent monoliths in the country. I had visited quite a few by way of attending parties and in fulfillment of commissions. The address was a comfort in that it indicated my patron would certainly have the means to back up the outlandish deal Watkin had set before me.

Although the day had begun with sunshine, it was now growing overcast, and the cold wind that had blown into town the previous night seemed determined to stay. Scraps of paper and dead leaves scuttled along the sidewalk, and my breath came as steam. Others I passed were bundled up for the weather in scarves and mittens, and I had to check my memory to recall what had become of my summer. I relished the fact that painting was not like factory or office work with set periods of labor steadily reminding one of the disintegration of precious hours, but it usually left me with only a vague sense of what day it was. Most of July and all of August and September had been swallowed whole by what was to become the dissatisfaction of Mrs. Reed, leaving me only a faint impression of their suffocating heat. Prior to that, April, May, and early June, the delicate months of spring, were represented by the besotted Colonel Onslow Mardeeling, whose nose, with its eruptions and crevices had been a true study in lunar geography. All of my mature years presented themselves as a gallery of the faces and figures of others. I had to ask myself, “Where was I in all of this?”

It was well past noon when I finally arrived at my destination, a two-story edifice with marble columns, looking more like a downtown financial institution than a residence. In its white weight of stone it exuded the solemnity of a mausoleum. The amethyst skies had opened the moment I left the streetcar, and it was now raining rather fiercely. A huge maple tree standing before the house was losing its orange five-pointed leaves to the downpour, the brisk wind scattering them across the small lawn and the path that led to the front door. I stopped for a moment to doublecheck the house number. Then came a flash of lightning, and this prompted me to move.

I had barely withdrawn my hand from the brass knocker when the door opened inward. There before me stood Mr. Watkin, his head with its milky-white eyes shifting rapidly from side to side.

“May I help you?” he asked.

I did not speak immediately, waiting to see if the old man could again place me by my scent.

Just when I thought I had caught him off guard, he sniffed the air delicately and said, “Ah, Mr. Piambo. Good choice, sir. Please, come in out of the storm.”

I remained silent, wanting to give him no satisfaction.

He ushered me into an antechamber off the foyer and instructed me to wait there while he announced my arrival to the lady of the house. To my amazement, what was hanging over the divan on the wall facing me but an original Sabott. I recognized the piece immediately as one I had worked on while an apprentice in my mentor’s studio. It was called At Sea—a fanciful portrait of Mr. Jonathan Monlash, a well-known ship’s captain of the seventies with a famous predilection for the effects derived from smoking hashish. I had been no more than twenty at the time the work was done, and I could still recall the old sailor’s high spirits and unfailing sense of humor. If I remembered correctly, I had painted some of the demons dancing in a dizzying whirl around the head of the long-faced subject. At Monlash’s insistence, Sabott had rendered him with the nozzle of the hookah between his lips. Though made of pigment, the billows of gray-blue smoke issuing from the side of his mouth were so airy they seemed to be rolling and rising. I shook my head at the sight of this long-lost friend, knowing the piece must now be worth a small fortune. So distracted was I by the discovery of the portrait, I forgot where I was and did not notice Watkin’s return.

“This way, Mr. Piambo,” he said.

“Where is your violet suit today, Watkin?” I asked as I followed him out of the chamber and down a dark hallway.

“Violet?” he said. “I don’t recall owning a violet suit. Perhaps you are thinking of the puce.”

He led me through a sumptuously decorated dining room with crystal lamp fixtures whose reflections sparkled in the mirrorlike gloss of a long table. The walls were hung with paintings I recognized as originals by renowned artists, old masters as well as contemporaries of mine. We passed through a study lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes, and then down a hallway paneled with aromatic cedar, no doubt from Lebanon.

Finally we came to a room at the very back of the house. My guide opened the door and stepped aside, motioning with his hand for me to enter. As I did, it struck me that Watkin had navigated the entire journey through the heavily furnished rooms without a hitch. I didn’t remember so much as one of his fingers touching a wall to find his place.

I found myself alone in a large, nearly empty space. There were no adornments here, and there was hardly any furniture to speak of. The ceilings were at least fifteen feet high, and there were two arched windows on either of the side walls. The left-hand view was of a fading rose garden in the rain, a few pale yellow petals still clinging to stems. The opposite view showed a piece of the neighboring house, its architecture silhouetted against the drab sky. To the very left at the back, there was an open door, revealing a shadowed stairway leading up. The floor was magnificent, of a pale maple inlaid with arabesques of a darker wood and waxed to a high sheen. The walls were papered with a green and gold floral design on a cream background. At the very center of the room there stood a screen, five feet tall, consisting of three panels in hinged cherrywood frames. On these panels, the color of old parchment, was depicted a scene of falling brown leaves.

Positioned in front of the screen was a simple wooden chair with a short back and wide armrests. Watkin, who had stepped into the room behind me and shut the door, said, “You are to sit in the chair. My employer will be with you momentarily.” I walked forward, my steps echoing as I went, and did as I was told. The moment I sat down, I heard the door open and close again.

I was excited at the prospect of finally meeting my patron, and concentrated on gaining a modicum of composure so as to better represent myself when she appeared. The item I focused on in order to effect this was the subject of what price I would ask for the commission. If Watkin had spoken truthfully, she was willing to part with an extraordinary amount of money. I smiled at the great sums that slithered through my thoughts like eels, and practiced whispering one to see if I could speak it in a voice that would not betray my awareness of how ridiculous it was. The first sounded convincing enough, but when I tried a number a few digits higher, I was startled by a vague noise from behind the screen in front of me.

“Hello?” I said.

There was no response, and I was beginning to think that the insubstantial sound of someone clearing his throat had come from my own conscience, directed at my plan of artistic piracy. As I was about to return to my prices, the sound came again.

“Hello, Mr. Piambo,” said a soft, female voice.

I froze for a moment and then spoke loudly enough to indicate my embarrassment. “I didn’t know anyone was there.”

“Yes. Well.” She paused slightly, and I leaned forward. “You may call me Mrs. Charbuque,” she said.

I tried to recall if I had ever heard the name before, but nothing came to mind. “Very well then,” I said. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Watkin tells me that you have agreed to paint my portrait,” she said, the panels of the screen lightly vibrating the sound of her words.

“If we can make the appropriate arrangement, I am quite interested,” I said.

Then she mentioned a sum that was far beyond even the most dazzling I had dared to consider.

I couldn’t help myself. Taking a deep breath, I said, “That is a lot of money.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I don’t want to seem impertinent, Mrs. Charbuque, but may I ask why we are speaking with this screen between us?”

“Because you may not see me, Mr. Piambo,” she said.

“How then am I to paint you if I cannot see you?” I asked, laughing.

“Did you think I would offer you such a great amount of money for an ordinary portrait? Money I have, sir, but I am not a fool with it.”

“Forgive me,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

“Surely you do, Mr. Piambo. You must paint me without seeing me,” she said.

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This is an excerpt from The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque by Jeffrey Ford, (c) 2002 HarperCollins Publishers. Used with permission.