The Last Painting of Sara de Vos Read online

  When he eventually stands, halfway through their second glass, there is no pretext or subterfuge. He’s driven from his chair in the middle of her scrambling sentence about Sunday country drives to the Blue Mountains. It’s ungainly, an unchecked impulse, and he almost knocks over his glass in the process. Then she’s craning her head up awkwardly as he kisses her from above, his winy breath in her mouth, his hand with the dead woman’s wedding band cradling her head. Nobody tells you how to kiss him back while convincing him through some unvoiced nuance or telepathy that he’s throwing your neck out of joint. She tries to stand, but he seems to be pinning her in place. Eventually, when the kiss peters out, he puts his hand down inside her blouse, straining against the buttons, and she can feel her heart drumming into his hot palm. Again, there’s something odd about the timing, something forced and off-kilter. To break the moment, she takes hold of his wrist and he goes slightly limp, straightens, and walks back to his easy chair and his wine.

  These erotic sorties—if there are more of them coming—already seem exhausting. She’d prefer to just be done with it, to meet the change of season at the door. She drains half her second glass of wine and says, “You asked me that first night in my apartment whether I had much experience with men.”

  He brings his gaze back from the window but says nothing.

  She forces herself to look directly at him. “Well, the truth is, if you really want to know, I’ve never been with a man. Not properly, anyway.” She’s eleven again, her pruned hands trembling in the bathtub as Mr. Darcy dances with Elizabeth Bennet for the first time. “You’ll be the first.”

  He looks into the tightly woven rug instead of her eyes, blinking and nodding soberly, like he’s just received news of a distant cousin’s death. “I had no idea,” he says, sitting up straight. “It makes sense, though. You’ve never been married, so…”

  The earnestness kills her and she can feel the mortification like a wave of nausea. She has to sip her wine and let it rest against her tongue for a few seconds before she can talk. She’s looking at the darkening wallpaper behind his head when she says, “Most of the women I know lost their virginity before now. I’m late to—what’s the expression?”

  “The races? The party?”

  “One of those.”

  A gash of darkness at the window. She wishes now they’d lit a fire. At least they would both have something to look at. An enduring silence guts the room. Eventually, she says, “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, no, I’m glad you did. It means a lot to me.”

  He seems to consider saying more, but his thoughts trail off and now he’s looking over at the blackened window and scratching the side of his neck.

  She wants to scream.

  Instead, she says, “I think I’m going to take a bath and freshen up before dinner.”

  “Excellent idea,” he says. “I might take a walk around the neighborhood.” He gets up out of the chair, pushing himself with both hands. “Will you be ready in half an hour?”

  They both know what he’s asking and she feels the question fall through her. Is it a look of resignation or tenderness on his face and why can’t she tell the difference?

  Against all her impulses, she says, “I’ll be ready.”

  He walks gingerly over to the bed, grabs his anorak, and heads for the door. From the lamplit hallway he turns to look at her one last time before closing the door.

  Over at the bed she opens her battered suitcase and lays out the negligee and lace underwear she bought in Manhattan the day before. She’d carried them back to Brooklyn on the train, neatly folded in tissue paper in a thin white cardboard box, certain her fellow passengers knew what was inside. I’ve kept it as long as I care to, she’d wanted to tell them. She takes her satchel of toiletries into the bathroom and runs the water into the tub. It takes forever to warm up, but soon she’s soaping herself and rinsing off with a metal bowl the housewife downstairs, the woman of frozen cherries, keeps by the basin. She stands naked in front of the steamed mirror, finding her reflection with the watery wipe of her hand. She didn’t wet her hair so she brushes it out, cleaning the brush into the toilet bowl and remembering to flush. Wrapped in a towel, she walks out into the room and closes the curtains. She puts on the negligee and feels it cool against her skin. The lace underpants, on the other hand, are immediately uncomfortable, riding up in the back. She wishes now that she’d brought her paint-spattered bathrobe to cover up at the beginning of things. The truth is, every time she imagines sex it’s with a big window behind her lover, blurring out the lines of his body in an impressionistic starburst.

  She peeks through the curtains to see a rind of purple and orange against the western sky. She straightens the beds and pours the remaining wine into her glass. Now she tests out a number of positions for his entrance—sitting on the edge of his bed, reclining in the easy chair, standing over by the window. The wine has blotted out her initial humiliation, but she can’t imagine feeling actual desire. All of the positions seem rigid and pretentious. She sits back in the chair with her wine and wishes she hadn’t noticed that her toenails need trimming, or that the hairs on her arms have darkened now that summer is gone. On hot sunny days, she sits out on the fire escape with lemon juice rubbed into her arms and scalp, bleaching herself. She drinks down the wine and waits. The darkness outside has bloated against the windowpane and she can see herself framed and looking back into the room. This slightly baffled doppelgänger is always following her. She realizes he’s been gone at least an hour. The thought of dressing again to go find him, of putting her coat over her negligee, demoralizes her beyond belief. Hasn’t she already offered herself up like a bag of peaches at the tail end of the season? No, she’ll wait, she’ll wait, until he walks through the door.

  When he comes into the room thirty minutes later, he brings the scent of the night with him, a smell of wood smoke and damp leaves. He makes no apology and instead walks over to her in silence and takes her hands. She stands, and it’s immediately clear that he will take control, that he’s worked out some strategy for her deflowering while walking under the first evening stars. He kisses her forehead, then her mouth, then gently slides the straps of her negligee over her bony shoulders. It drops at her feet with a soft ripple. He kisses her collarbone and then her breasts, gently, one then the other. She closes her eyes while he trails his lips down her stomach and removes her underwear, the lace scratching against her thighs. She wants to undress him, but she doesn’t, because she’s not sure if she’s supposed to. Taking her by the hand, he leads her over to the bed and settles her on the edge, tenderly, while he peels back the lavender bedspread and reveals the shock of white sheets. His hands on her shoulders as he leans her back, her body flat and exposed. There’s an instinct to curl up and face away but she doesn’t, she keeps her legs relaxed while he undresses beside the narrow bed. It’s a child’s bed, she thinks, in a dormer room with windows, perfect for a daydreamer or a girl with hobbies. She brings herself back, trying to keep everything relaxed and visible. She’s conscious of her knees and her cold feet. Her mother’s feet, a little big and flat. He leans over her, naked, his mouth on hers, one hand pressing into her. After a minute or so, she reaches up to take hold of him because frankly she needs a job to do, something besides this waiting, half in terror and half in love, her heart like a swollen hand balled in her chest and her throat like burning metal. But he brushes her hand away gently, his other hand tight between her thighs. When he finally lies down on top of her she feels his weight and then everything seems to happen at once. He says nothing the whole time and she wishes there could be a moment of levity, some acknowledgment of the strangeness of him on top of her, her legs splayed like a frog’s, her wrists pinned to the bedsheet, but there’s no joke or kind word of encouragement. She had hoped, or imagined, that they would still be themselves during sex, and perhaps that will happen, but for now he’s a stranger, a sinner in church with a look of grim devotion on his face. />
  When she wakes some hours later, the room has been swallowed by nightfall and Jake is gone. By the clock on the nightstand it’s still relatively early, before nine, but it feels like the middle of the night. They never ate dinner, she realizes. She has the sensation of coming to in a strange house, unmoored, finding herself inexplicably—at least for a few seconds—naked and lying in a twin bed. When the recent past flares up again she rubs her forehead where a hangover has already taken root. She gets up and turns on a lamp. Her outfit from earlier is draped across a chair and she notices how comforting the rough twill of the skirt is against her thighs, how reassuring she finds the tension in her bra straps. She wraps herself in her coat and goes out into the hallway and down the creaking wooden stairs, trying to favor the strip of carpet in the center. A din of pots and pans comes from the back of the house. She looks in the living room and the den, half expecting to find Jake Alpert reading the newspaper or playing checkers with a fellow hotel guest. But there’s nobody to be found. She drifts back toward the kitchen and sees the aproned wife drying some dishes with a hand towel. The woman turns and seems startled to see Ellie in the doorway.

  “I’m just doing the last of the dishes. Your husband said you were feeling unwell.”

  Ellie can feel herself blinking in confusion.

  “Have you seen him?” she says.

  “Your husband?”

  Ellie stares at her, nodding.

  “No, but I did hear that exotic car of his popping and rumbling in the driveway. He went out quite a while ago. Seemed to be in a hurry.”

  “Thank you,” Ellie says.

  She moves through the rooms of the house, the tartan furniture marooned in lamplight.

  Back in the room she turns on the overhead light and it makes the gritty feeling behind her eyes flare up. He must have left hours ago, she thinks, and her mind ticks over with possibilities and speculations, the drugstore run or the engine trouble out on a country road. But why didn’t he wake her or leave a note? She’s a light sleeper, so he must have dressed silently or in the bathroom, not turning on a single light. She slumps down on the unmade bed and stares at his suitcase on the other bed before she moves toward it and unzips the lid. She begins to go through his things, thinking at first that she’ll put his clothes in the dresser. Do you put things in the dresser for an overnight trip? She has no idea what the proper etiquette is, so she just arranges everything neatly out on the bed. The leather shaving bag is kidskin, so soft and smooth it feels like an organ being removed from a warm body when she takes it from under the cashmere sweater. With everything laid out she runs her hands through each compartment and sets a few pennies and a stray button onto his pillow. Inside the cashmere sweater is a label hand-sewn into the collar. At first she thinks it must be the name of a European menswear store in Manhattan—Martijn de Groot—because there’s also a 212 phone number printed on it. But then she finds the initials MdG monogrammed onto a pajama shirtfront and realizes that Martijn de Groot must be a person, not an uptown menswear store. She stares at the name and number for a long time, deciphering each letter and digit.

  She walks back downstairs with the number written on a piece of paper and asks the housewife if she can make a long-distance call to Manhattan. The woman says she’ll have to time it and can only guess at the charge, but she shows her into the office where a big black phone sits on the desk. Ellie picks up the receiver and asks the operator to connect her. After a few rings an older woman with a Southern accent answers—“De Groot residence.”

  Absurdly, Ellie says, “I’m looking for Jake Alpert.”

  The sound of a dog barking in the background, then: “You must have the wrong number, miss.”

  “I’m terribly sorry. Who lives here? I may have written down the wrong number.”

  “This is Marty and Rachel de Groot. Good night.”

  The line goes dead, the receiver still in her hand.

  * * *

  She barely sleeps, waking every few hours to stare at the ceiling. She feels numb, hollowed-out. She sleeps in her clothes on top of the bedspread beside the emptied suitcase, her coat still on. All of his things have been thrown onto the floor, but she can’t remember doing it. In the morning, she carefully packs up both suitcases and trundles them downstairs. She pays for the room and the phone call in cash and asks the wife if she would mind driving her to the train station. The woman is consoling and discreet, has her husband bring around the station wagon but insists on driving on such a delicate occasion. Her manner suggests that either Ellie’s husband has run off or he’s shown up in a morgue overnight. Ellie wants to tell her He’s not my husband. Outside, it’s pouring, and the woman drives to the train station ten miles under the speed limit, confiding her own marital burdens. “Sometimes he goes a week without speaking to me, a blue streak or whatever, but then he comes around. In the beginning you don’t know everything and then, by the middle, you know too much.” She hugs Ellie on the platform, tipping a porter to make sure both bags get safely on the train. In Ellie she has seen her own narrow escapes from marital oblivion. She waves goodbye, one hand clutched at her stomach with a crumpled tissue.

  Ellie rides next to a window, stunned by the veracity of the moving landscape. Other people’s lives flicker by—headlights through the drizzle, a tractor swaying out in a sodden field, a couple wordlessly sharing a sandwich on a covered station bench. The same five white farmhouses scroll by. Every time she woke up in the night her fists were clenched, but now she feels weak with bafflement and hunger. She hasn’t eaten since lunchtime the day before—that scene in the rocking chairs by the stream is already receding, the lines soft as a Vermeer. The landscape floats by in her peripheral vision. Had it not been for the name tag and monogram she might have spent half the night calling every hospital and police station within fifty miles. She rubs the situation over in her mind, looking at it from different angles. She hadn’t yet fallen completely in love with him, but she was hoping to be dragged along in its wake. She sees herself standing behind a high window, overlooking a yew maze and trying to solve its inner passages. The whole thing has been put together with too much artfulness and care to simply be a married man cheating on his wife. It’s a thing she feels outside of, a shapeless configuration of larger forces and events.

  * * *

  At Grand Central, as she’s leaving the express train, she makes the conscious decision to leave both suitcases behind, and it gives her an odd sense of relief as she walks, unencumbered, under the enormous zodiac of the vaulted ceiling and makes her way to the subway. The lace underwear, the monogrammed pajama shirt, the tasseled zippers, all of it headed back upstate or into the storage catacombs below Grand Central. She arrives back in Brooklyn around lunchtime and has no recollection of the painting until she sees it leaning by the front door. Her future has arrived, wrapped in brown paper. Nothing has come together yet, but there’s a sidling premonition so that she approaches the painting warily. Placing the painting facedown on the Formica table, she untapes the corners so that it’s the back of her forgery that she sees first—the worn relining, the stained wood supports, the ghosting of insect frass that suggests an attic somewhere in the painting’s history. She can feel her pulse in her eyelids, feels it buzzing in her thumbs. She gently turns the picture over and studies her work, sickened but also relieved to have the copy back in her possession, to have solved the mandala that’s held her transfixed for eighteen hours. Slowly, she walks back into the bedroom and pulls the original from her closet and its case and brings it into the living room. Side by side, from a few feet away, they are absolutely painted by the same hand. But as you step closer the roughened passages are different and the yellows in the copy are not as vital. She thinks about Martijn de Groot’s careful restraint, the way he lured her one step at a time—the auction, the jazz, all that wine—and she can’t help admiring his cunning. Was this a jaunt of the well-heeled, to track down the forger and handle the entrails of her life? Was it her virginit
y that finally made him feel like enough had been stolen in return? She had left the door wide open for him to plunder her life and he did it flawlessly. When would she receive the call from an investigator or detective asking for information about the original?

  She sits there for an hour or so, studying the two paintings before wrapping the original in the fake’s brown paper. She calls Gabriel at the gallery. “I seem to have both paintings in my apartment.”

  “What exactly are you talking about, dear?”

  “The de Vos. The copy and the original.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “When you get here, the original is the one wrapped in brown paper.”

  “Stay there. I’ll be right over.”

  But she doesn’t stay there. She walks through the apartment, from room to room, taking a mental inventory of everything she’s going to leave behind. It shocks her to see how she’s been living. The blooming damp above her bed, the sprawl of dirty clothes, the towers of books that are slowly being mutilated by mold. It’s not self-loathing, exactly, because she hates this version of Ellie Shipley’s life with as much vigor as if it belonged to a separate person who’s wronged her. Whatever destruction she’s summoned from outside, she’s sure it will track her down. But for a month, or six, she will quietly go about the business of resurrection, of reclaiming the reasons she came here in the first place. She takes her passport and her bank account passbook from her dresser, puts a small photo album in her handbag, grabs her thesis manuscript, and packs the Remington into its travel case. A last look from the door at the two paintings, one concealed and one open-faced, before leaving the door unlocked and the key under the mat. She will write a letter to her landlord and a letter to her dissertation committee. In three months, she will come back to defend her dissertation about Dutch women painters of the seventeenth century. The only remaining question is where she will go in the meantime. The taxi waits while she goes into her bank branch and withdraws as much money as they will allow, an even ten thousand dollars. She doesn’t want to put the cash in an envelope so she sinks it to the bottom of her bag. And it’s not until she’s at the airport that things fall into place. She pictures a loft apartment overlooking the Prinsengracht, or a room in a house near the Kalverstraat, in the neighborhood where Sara de Vos lived and possibly died.