“I don’t know that I like being compared to raw clams,” Nauman grumbled.
“But they’re so delicious,” she murmured wickedly, running her hand down his muscular flank.
Lunch was just as leisurely, and afterwards, Sigrid curled up in one of the large chairs before the fire in Nauman’s studio and opened the Times to the puzzle page. The large crossword appeared to contain a humorous yuletide limerick, and she became so absorbed in penning in the answers that she didn’t notice when Nauman, perched on a tall stool at his drawing table, began to sketch her, his pencil moving rapidly across the pages of his notebook.
He hadn’t done a figurative portrait in years, not since his student days, probably, but there was something about her eyes, the line of her long neck, the angularity of the way she sat that intrigued him. If he could catch her on paper-
Sigrid glanced up. Nauman’s eyes were a clear deep blue and the intelligence which usually blazed there had become remote and fathomless. She moved uneasily and saw the remoteness disappear as his eyes softened.
“What did Francesca Leeds mean when she said a retrospective isn’t a ninth symphony?” she asked, abandoning her puzzle.
Nauman closed the notebook before she could become self-conscious and began to relight his pipe. “It’s something that seemed to start with the composer Gustav Mahler.”
He looked down at the elaborately carved pipe in his hand as if he’d never before seen it. Today’s was shaped like a dragon’s head and fragrant smoke curled from the bowl.
“Mahler noticed that Beethoven and Bruckner had both died after composing ninth symphonies, so he decided nine was a jinx. Tried to cheat-Das Lied von der Erde after his eighth. Said it wasn’t a symphony-was, though. Decided he was being silly, wrote his ninth. Died before he finished tenth. Dvorák and Vaughan Williams, too.”
“But surely that’s a coincidence?” From the way Nauman’s speech had suddenly become telegraphic, Sigrid knew he was absorbed by parallel lines of thought. “By the time a composer reaches his ninth symphony, wouldn’t he be old and near the end of his life anyhow?”
“Like an artist with a retrospective,” Nauman said bleakly.
“Then you are superstitious?”
“And you’re avoiding the issue. I’ll be sixty goddamned years old next July, old enough to be your-”
“How many symphonies did Mozart compose?” she interrupted.
“Hell, I don’t know. Forty or fifty.”
“And he was thirty-five when he died. How many retrospectives do you think Picasso had before he kicked off at the tender age of-what was it? Ninety? Ninety-one?”
“Okay, okay.” Nauman smiled, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ll do it.”
“Only if you want to,” Sigrid murmured demurely, and suddenly they were no longer talking about art exhibits.
BURRIS BROTHERS DRY GOODS
806 Broadway
Aug. 25th, 1900
To Acct. of:
Mr. Erich Breul
7 Sussex Square
New York City
Parasol, blue silk…$1.25
Hamburg edging, 2" wide
20 yds. @ $0.06 per yd…1.20
2 silk glove cases @ $0.55 ea…1.10
Linen napkins,
3 doz. @ $0.50 per doz… 1.50
$5.05
“We allow 3 per cent. discount for cash.”
May 6, 1901, from Wm. Fenton & Co.,
Agents for Geneviève Carlton:
“Maeve’s Gallop”…$200.
Frame… 12.50
$212.50
July 22, 1901, from Atwater & Sons:
Babbage engr., “ Running Sea ”…$22.
Frame… 6.
$28.
Miscellaneous bills and memoranda. (From the Erich Breul House Collection)
IV
Tuesday, December 15
Benjamin Peake arrived at the Erich Breul House shortly after ten to find his office invaded by Roger Shambley, Ph.D., scholar, newest trustee, and all-around bastard.
Shambley was shorter than his own five eleven by a good six inches and ugly as a mud fence with a dark, shaggy head that was two sizes too large for his small, stooped figure. As far as Benjamin Peake was concerned, expensive hairstyling and custom-tailored clothes were probably what kept children from throwing rocks whenever Shambley passed them in the street.
“Can I help you with something?” Peake asked sarcastically as Shambley ignored his arrival and continued to paw through the filing cabinets at the end of his long L-shaped office. He had to stand on tiptoe to read the files at the back of the top drawer.
“I doubt it.” Shambley paused beside the open drawer and made a show of checking his watch against the clock over the director’s beautiful mahogany desk. “I’ve only been here two weeks to your two years but I probably know more about what’s in these files than you do.”
“Now let me think,” Peake responded urbanely as he hung his topcoat in a concealed closet and smoothed his brown hair. “I believe it was William Buckley who spoke of the scholar-squirrel mentality, busily gathering every little stray nut that’s fallen from the tree of knowledge.”
“Actually, it was Gore Vidal,” said Shambley, “but don’t let facts spoil your pleasure in someone else’s well-turned phrases. I’m sure Buckley’s said something equally clever about academic endeavor.”
Annoyed, Benjamin Peake retreated through an inner door that led to the butler’s pantry.
Hope Ruffton was pouring herself a cup of freshly brewed coffee and she greeted him with a pleasant smile.
When Peake took over the directorship and was introduced to her two years ago, he’d returned that first smile with condescending friendliness. “Hope, isn’t it?”
“Only if it’s Ben,” she’d replied with equally friendly condescension.
“Oh. Well. Excuse me, Ms. Ruffton.”
“Miss will do,” she’d said pleasantly.
If he’d had the authority and if old Jacob Munson hadn’t been standing by, twinkling and beaming at them like some sort of Munchkin matchmaker, Peake would have fired her then and there.
He still did not completely understand how foolish that would have been although there were times when he uneasily suspected it. But he did soon realize that professionalism was more than semantics to Miss Ruffton. She had ignored his sulks and, with cool efficiency and tact, had deflected him from stupid blunders as he settled into the directorship. The irony of being trained for his position by a nominal subordinate went right over Peake’s head and Hope Ruffton was too subtle by far to let him see her own amusement.
These days, with Roger Shambley poking his nose into every cranny and making veiled allusions to certain lapses of competence, Miss Ruffton’s efficiency gave Peake a sort of Dutch courage. He might not always have a clear grasp of details, but Miss Ruffton did; and without articulating it, not even to himself, Peake trusted her not to let him make a total ass of himself in front of Shambley.
So he smiled at her gratefully, accepted the coffee she poured for him, and said, “You look like a Christmas card this morning.”
A Victorian card, he would have added, straightening his own red-and-green striped tie, except that he was afraid she might tartly remind him that most Victorian cards pictured only blond, blue-eyed Caucasian maidens. Her white silk blouse was tucked into a flowing skirt of dark green wool and it featured a high tight collar and cuffs, all daintily edged in lace. Her thick black hair was brushed into a smooth chignon and tied with a red grosgrain ribbon that echoed a red belt at her waist and clear red nails on her small brown fingers. She wore a simple gold locket and her drop earrings were old-fashioned garnets set in gold filigree that caught the light as she returned Peake’s greeting.