Black Mirror (7 page)

But today I felt awkward. My usual eagerness to see Ms. Wiles was tempered by what had happened yesterday at the Unity meeting. The fact was—I had to face it—I’d felt a little
disappointed by her. I’d have thought she’d understand, immediately, what I felt when Patrick Leyden made his suggestion. In my mind’s eye I could still see her face, hear her silence. James, Andy—even George de Witt, that Unity flunky—had said something to help me. But the woman I admired most in all the world had just sat there. Had said
What an opportunity!

On purpose, then, I arrived at the art studio only after other kids had gotten there as well, so that there would be no opportunity for private conversation with Ms. Wiles. She gave me her special encouraging smile, as always, but my own returning smile felt stiff.

Still, just breathing in the air of the studio made me feel better. I pulled the unmistakable mix of fragrances deeply into my nose and lungs and identified each of them lovingly. The wood-like perfume of the drawing boards and easels, which were always being sponged off. The plastic smell of the old yogurt containers with their splotches of dried paint or tempera. The cold metallic tang of the sinks, mingled with a certain soapy-towel and turpentine odor. The wet-dog stench of one particular brand of watercolor paper, and the weirdly clean scent of wet clay. Finally, overlaying the whole room, the sneezy bouquet of charcoal and graphite.

For me it smelled like home.

I busied myself taking the wrappings off my fledgling sculpture. I could feel my hands simply aching to work the clay.

We were modeling a large bone—a plaster cast of an elephant’s
femur, to be precise. It sounded dull, but once you looked closely, once you saw how the bone flowed and changed as you walked around it, how precise and yet individual was each curve and surface and angle, you realized how extraordinary a thing it was. How impossible to replicate in clay, working in all three dimensions—infinitely more difficult than working on paper, in two. And yet how irresistible it was to try.

I squinted at the model femur, and then at my own copy. My femur was coming along, I thought. I was behind the rest of the class—the week of sitting shivah for Daniel had of course cut into all my schoolwork—but here, at least, I’d have no trouble catching up.

Ms. Wiles was walking around the room, pausing at each student’s shoulder to observe and make suggestions, and then raising her voice to talk more generally to the rest of the class. As I listened, as I worked, I felt myself soften toward her. She was always so fascinating.

“Working with sculpture, you can really begin to understand that making art is all about seeing clearly. Look, people.
Look.
That’s the key to everything. The young Picasso was told he should break his right hand, so that he would be forced to rely more on his eyes, not on his hands. An extreme idea, but you get the point. If you don’t
look
, you can’t
do.
”

Earlier in the year Ms. Wiles had shown us pictures of some of Picasso’s work. Comparing his early paintings to his later stuff, it had been a little hard not to think that Ms.
Wiles was crazy. In those early pictures Picasso not only saw well, but it seemed to me that in a way he saw better than he had later, when he was so acclaimed, when he took to drawing blue cubes, to stacking facial features vertically. His early portraits were alive with realism, with accuracy. I loved them.

And yes, as Ms. Wiles pointed out while showing us slides, Picasso’s
Guernica
screams the agony of war—but that was emotional truth on the canvas, not physical.

I said that to Ms. Wiles privately. That was the first time we’d ever talked alone; I’d crept up after class, unable to resist. “Ms. Wiles? I don’t really get what you were talking about.”

She’d smiled at me. “Frances, is it? What didn’t you get?”

“Just … about seeing. What’s wrong with Picasso’s early stuff? I mean, I get what you say about
Guernica.
I really do. But I’d say that
Guernica
was done with the heart, not the eyes.” She’d listened so attentively that, despite myself, I found I was growing more and more passionate. “I mean, if we’re going to talk about body organs. Art …” I stumbled a little, trying to explain my thoughts. “Art should be done with hands and heart, not hands and eyes. That’s what
Guernica
is. Because nobody else could see what Picasso saw. Right?”

“Well,” Ms. Wiles said, “until he showed us all how to look.” And as she smiled at me, I had a glimmer not only of what she meant, but, more importantly, of the pleasure of being able to discuss such things, seriously, with an adult who also cared about them.

I bit my lip. “Oh,” I said tentatively.

“Let me show you some other artists’ stuff,” Ms. Wiles said. “There are slides in the photography room that might make all this more clear—do you have time, or do you have to get to another class?”

I had had another class, but I hadn’t cared. “Oh, yes,” I’d said eagerly. “I have time.”

Now, as she talked, I built up the clay base of my sculpture, then slowly walked around the plaster model trying to
see
it. What you looked at straight on wasn’t what you saw when you tilted your head to the side. The shapes flowed into each other and then into something else … but it was all part of a whole. It all came together.

I went back to my own femur. I smoothed its long central line. I tried to shape the bumps of its connecting joints. I looked up at the model; down at my work. Up, down. Up, down. My hands moved.

You don’t watch your hands while you work. You watch the model. Your hands work on their own. And it’s best if you don’t think too much about what you’re doing. My mind drifted.

Seeing clearly. I thought I understood a little better now. In life I’d seen Daniel my way. I’d thought he’d been happy, but he had been unhappy enough to kill himself. If I’d looked better, I might have seen—
Guernica
in his face? Maybe?

Was that what Ms. Wiles had been driving at about Picasso? If you think you already know what you’re looking
at, then you can’t possibly see that something else is really there?

I worked on my femur. I felt its shape beneath my palms. I looked at the model, not at my clay.

Ms. Wiles came up behind me, and I felt myself tighten. Under her eyes I worked the clay. I smoothed out the central bone line again. Reshaped the joint that gaped open on top. Then I stepped back and looked.

Somehow my poor femur had gone all wrong.

“Frances?” said Ms. Wiles gently.

I turned.

Her voice had dropped to a level low enough that only I could hear it. “You’re angry at me?”

I shrugged.

“Please don’t be,” Ms. Wiles said. “Would you like to have tea with me later? This afternoon? My place?”

I realized in that second that I wanted nothing more. My mouth formed a real smile for her. “Oh, yes,” I said. “That would be great.”

J
ust before lunchtime I discovered Saskia waiting for me as I left my English class. She was leaning against the wall, backpack pulling her shoulders down. When she saw me, she straightened and said my name. With one hand she lightly brushed back her hair; then it fell into place, concealing much of her face. Towering over me by inches, she peered from behind the gleaming dark curtain as a harem girl might from behind a veil. It was just the kind of thing, I knew, that drove boys crazy with lust. And she was graceful even in her preppy duck boots. In the back of my mind I wondered why it was that she didn’t look ridiculous in them, especially paired with her—she had just nervously pushed back her hair again—diamond earrings. I blinked. Wait. Diamond earrings? No; they couldn’t be real.

Again I was nearly overwhelmed with rage at her for being so beautiful. For having, taking, so much.

“Frances,” she said again. “I just thought … I wanted to ask how you were doing. We—I feel bad about—well, you know. The Unity meeting yesterday. I don’t think Patrick meant to offend you.”

The corridor around us emptied as everyone rushed off toward the cafeteria for lunch. “I’m fine,” I said stiffly.

Silence. Then Saskia’s face hardened a little. “Okay. You can’t say I didn’t warn you that—”

I interrupted. “You warned me I wouldn’t be welcome.” The walls bounced my voice around. I lowered it. “I just want to know one thing,” I said rapidly. “You supposedly loved Daniel. Anyway, you fucked him.” I thought Saskia’s eyes widened in shock or anger, but with all the hair, I couldn’t be sure. And I didn’t care.

I said, “So, is that how
you
want to remember him, as some hopeless overdosing drug addict from a ‘disadvantaged background’? Is that what
you
think the truth is? Or don’t you care, so long as you can please Patrick Leyden?”

I stopped, a little horrified at myself. I hadn’t even known those words were in me, much less about to emerge. But I also felt exhilaration, as if I’d hurled a rock at a window. The window hadn’t shattered, though, and I wanted it to.

“Well?” I goaded. “I did notice one thing at that meeting, and that was how you wouldn’t say boo without first looking at Leyden to make sure it was okay. Like some little flunky slave girl. And—”

Saskia cracked. She reached out quickly, forcefully, with both hands and shoved me. I stumbled and nearly fell before I caught the wall.

“You ignorant bitch,” Saskia said. She turned away. Her boots stomped down the corridor. I listened to them as she disappeared from view around a corner.

Half of me wanted to run after her and apologize. The other half was stronger, though. That half meant what it had said. That half wanted her to be in pain.

The wrong-doer suffers
, Daniel mocked.
He is tormented to see his own depraved behavior.

I slumped.

After that, even though my feet took me automatically to the cafeteria, I realized as soon as I got there that I couldn’t possibly swallow anything. Still, I found myself looking around for James Droussian.
Don’t create opportunities for violence.
What would James think of the scene just past? Who had created the opportunity, Saskia or me?

My eyes skimmed past a table of jocks, then one or two of nerds, before I spotted James, stuffing fries into his mouth as rapidly as possible while listening to Margaux Burnett. Seeing him like that confirmed to me that I
had
been nuts before. Most definitely James was not an adult. Which, I realized, meant that there must have been violence in James’s young life that had taught him what he knew about it.

I suddenly longed to know what that might have been. But why would James tell me anything? I was no one to him.
I spun around and barreled through two sets of double doors, out onto the snow-covered campus.

I felt a little better once in motion. I sped up to a trot, almost a run, heading more or less randomly across campus.

Ten minutes later I recognized Andy Jankowski outside the science building. He was working on the far side of the wide steps, methodically attacking the remaining ice with a metal spade.

My feet slowed and then stopped. My mouth shaped itself into an involuntary smile. “Hey, Andy.”

He looked up, recognized me, and after a second moved his arm awkwardly in a wave before turning back to his work.

I went up the steps. “How are you today?” Ridiculous, I thought, that the entire width of the steps needed to be salted and cleared, when only the middle portion was really used. It just made extra work for Andy. For an instant I wondered if I could help, but Andy was nearly done.

“Good,” he said. The edge of his spade smashed the surface of the last expanse of salted ice. He had astonishing physical competence. I watched as he carefully cleared every last bit of ice off the steps. Then, as if it had taken all that while to find the right words, he said, “How are you, Frances Leventhal?”

There was the usual rote quality to Andy’s voice. But he looked at me quietly and waited, and somehow I couldn’t just say, automatically, “Okay.” I bit my lip. What was it about Andy that made me want to talk? “Not good,” I blurted.

Andy didn’t say anything.

“I really miss my brother,” I said. “I don’t know what to do. I thought maybe I could help Unity with the memorial project, but—well, you know. Yesterday. And just now, I—well, anyway.” I stopped. I ducked my head for an instant and then looked back up and shrugged.

Andy lifted the spade and gestured to the bag of salt. “I need to take these inside now, Frances Leventhal. I’m done with these steps.”

“I’ll help,” I said. I tried to reach for the spade but Andy shook his head and held it out of my reach. He wouldn’t let me lift the bag of salt either. Uninvited, I trailed him while he carried them inside the building. He stored everything meticulously in a big utility closet, and then swept some stray salt into a dustpan. He made no mention of what I had said; just didn’t respond. I was relieved. And, somehow, calmed. All at once I realized that I wasn’t alone, really. I was having tea with Ms. Wiles in a few hours.

“What do you have to do next?” I asked Andy conversationally.

“Go to the gym.”

“More ice to clear?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” I said. And then, impulsively: “Can I come? I could help.”

“No,” said Andy, his expression suddenly anxious. “You can’t help, Frances Leventhal. There are rules.”

“Oh,” I said again. “But—well, can I come just to keep you company?”

“I guess so,” Andy answered after a moment. He looked puzzled but said nothing more. He closed up the utility closet, and we began to walk together in silence across the campus to the gym. Andy walked slowly, deliberately, and it was easy for me to stay in step with him.

My feeling of calm grew as we walked, until I was able to say, “Andy? May I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“Why were you at that Unity meeting yesterday? Are you—do you—” I stumbled, trying to formulate the question. I’d wondered if Andy was one of the recipients of Unity charity, like me. But somehow I couldn’t find a way to ask.