by Elizabeth Bourne
Elizabeth Bourne is a painter whose work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. She has done work for NASA and SF fans can find her artwork in Mary Rosenblum’s collection Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities. She lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Mark Bourne, their dog Kai, about whom she writes Dogku incessantly; and occasionally their son, who is off exploring the greater world. This story is her first fiction sale.
* * * *
“Cadmium: a family of yellow to red colors, renowned for their brilliance and lightfastness. First discovered outside of Thebes, Greece in 1817. Named for the founder of Thebes, the ill-fortuned Cadmus. Due to their toxicity, cadmiums are being replaced by azo yellows and reds in artists’ materials.”
—The Artist’s Color Book
* * * *
Lloyd expected me at the gallery. I hated to go. I promised I would. I needed the cash during probate. The painting lay on the kitchen table by an old journal. There was one black garbage bag left from the trash to be hauled off. So much junk. My mother never threw anything away. After placing the painting in the bag, I went downstairs.
It was pouring. I hesitated at the door. Moon-colored leaves from the spindly maple splotched the sidewalk in front of our three-story brownstone. The streetlights made the drumming rain sparkle. Cursing, I ran for the subway holding the painting over my head as protection, wondering again why I’d come back to New York.
I pushed my way out at 57th Street, two blocks from the gallery that showed mother. More running. Shit. Water trickled cold tracks between my shoulder blades. The sign on the gallery door announced a private function. Invitation only. In my paint-spattered leather jacket, I didn’t look like anyone who should be at a private function.
Servers in black and white held trays set with glasses of wine and expensive tidbits. Julia Katz, my mother’s closest friend, beckoned through the rain-tracked glass. She pulled me into the antiseptic showspace. “Caddie child. Come in. Lloyd’s been going crazy waiting. Is that it?”
Julia’s pointed chin dug into my shoulder as she hugged me, ignoring my wet. Her perfume, Poison, smothered me in a memory of Julia and my mother laughing in our dirty kitchen, a bottle of wine between them, talking about things I couldn’t understand. My mother’s pigment-stained fingers tapping out secret messages on the table. Pots of brilliant color mixed in among the food. They were always talking about things I couldn’t understand.
Lloyd’s pink face gleamed with goodwill. His hands shook as he accepted the garbage bag. Whispers circulated as guests explained to each other who I was. Daughter, you know...the unknown painting...have her mother’s talent?...didn’t know Cassandra died.
Screw them.
Julia twined her arm in mine and snagged two glasses from a passing server. “The wine’s crap. It doesn’t matter. Drink up, baby girl. You’re paying for this.”
We trailed Lloyd to a spot-lit location. He reverently removed the painting from the plastic bag, then placed it on the wall where the lights drenched it. Beneath it he affixed the pasteboard sign, Cadmium, oil on linen by Cassandra Ross. Desire breathed out in his sighs. He stroked the canvas’s paint-splotched sides. You could still see her smeary fingerprints on the folded cloth edges.
The paying guests herded in front of the piece. I knew why. My mother’s masterpiece had existed only in whispers. Art critics had theorized about it for years. No one could view it unless I permitted it. Until tonight, I had always turned them down. It was mine, and mine alone. It was Cadmium, and it was legend.
I thought I should burn it. When she died, I swore I’d use it for firewood. It showed a beach laced by a strip of water with waves that seemed to roll. You could practically feel the sun crisp your skin. A little yellow boat had been dragged up on shore and footsteps dug into the sand until they disappeared behind dune grass. The images were razor sharp; real life wasn’t as clear. The path at the top of the dunes wandered into a mossy wood. It was hard to see under the trees, and believe me, I’d tried. I wondered what happened in the woods. Perhaps that’s what made me shove it in a corner with its face to the wall. It was the only thing my mother did for me. I couldn’t destroy it, but that didn’t mean I had to look at it.
Julia wandered me around the gallery. “When Lloyd told me you agreed to show the painting, I wondered what you were thinking. The painting’s never been in public.”
“She didn’t leave anything, you know. Just trash. What am I going to live on? Maybe this will start a revival. You know she hasn’t shown in years.”
Her lips thinned. “I’d help you. I was just thinking what a risk you’re taking.”
“I need the money. Lloyd’s paying well.”
Lloyd used this one-night showing to display the other of my mother’s paintings he still possessed, like jewels in fine settings. I’d seen them in the mine of my mother’s studio. The pictures glowed with that unique fire she provided. A preternatural beauty that hooked your soul. A second Turner, some said. A feminist Caravaggio. Her landscapes were mystical. But she painted sensuality too. Julia, always Julia. Made famous in paint. A smiling sphinx. A New York houri. Her lynx eyes holding unknown truths, and with her, so many men. Cassandra’s Adonises. One of them was my father. I have no idea which one.
As we paced, Julia nodded to the sharply dressed people, promising dinner here, a phone call there. I’d forgotten she was a somebody. Married to an important someone. “What are you going to do now?” she asked.
“Finish school here. Clean up the house. I knew she was messy, but my God, the place is disgusting.” My wine was red. It was impossible not to admire the color. The color of garnets.
Julia said, “Cassie lived by her own rules. Her last days, she only wanted to paint. Nothing else mattered. She was in such pain.” She drank her straw-tinted wine like water. Maybe it was to her.
“Where are the rest of the Rare Earth canvases? I found an old painting journal. It was in bad shape, but still legible.”
Julia snatched another glass of wine. The server offered one to me, too. I took it. He had pretty eyes. Lloyd was doing business with a bald Asian man. That was good.
“She meant to.” Julia sloshed her wine, as if that would improve it. “Then you were born and babies change things.” She shrugged her scarlet, silk-draped shoulders. “She started on the Cloud Set series instead.”
We’d circumnavigated the gallery. The freshly painted white walls bounced the chatter of the carefully dressed guests. The noise rattled in my head along with the garnet wine. We stood before Cadmium. Julia said, “When she painted this she was round as an orange with you kicking inside. She told me about the Rare Earth series, but she only painted Cadmium. She got that wicked smile, you know what I mean.”
I did. She got it when she thought of a particularly good Christmas present, or when a new man came into her life. She got it when she loved a painting, before she forgot the painting in making the next one.
Julia tugged my tattooed earlobe. “She was a mystery to me too, Caddie. I loved her. A genius. She held nothing back, ever.” Julia scanned the painting. “I remember the beach being bigger. I think the water was more pthalo green, and the woods, did there used to be woods in this picture? I can’t remember.”
I gave her a look. “It’s Cadmium. What do you think?”
* * * *
When you grow up, you have your own life. You don’t think about your parent’s friends. You’re busy with what you want to do. Julia phoned occasionally, but we moved in different circles. She made a name as my mother’s high priestess and her husband was important. It wasn’t my world.
I was interested in my husband Dev’s career. He invested, or mortgaged, or something. We did the things young married couples do. We went to good shows and had select parties in the brownstone house.
When Julia called me, of course I was glad to see her. She’d practically been my aunt. Besides, Dev said knowing Julia and Frank was good for his career. I hadn’t thought of that. Julia wanted to borrow Cadmium. She was opening her own art gallery, separate from Lloyd. A display of Cadmium would guarantee success.
Age had made Julia more birdlike. It had made me more contented. I brought her up to the old brownstone’s third-floor studio. It was tidy. No jars of pigment spilled across tables in streams of color. No sticky swathes of varnish dripped from the shelves. No conté crayons rolled along the floor, to be found later, broken-backed and reproachful.
I’d had the floors sanded to remove the stains. The room smelled of clean earth. Julia sat in my studio, her brown eyes examining the changes, while I slapped a lump of clay on my wheel. She said, “If you put the house in both your names, he’ll have a right to half of it. This place is a piece of art history, you should be careful.”
The clay slab was cool under my fingers. I kept a steady push on the pedal to keep the wheel turning evenly. The pot was coming along nicely. It had a good form. The utilitarian comforted me. Julia didn’t know Dev. He was a good man. “Of course you can borrow the painting. You were my mother’s friend. My husband wouldn’t do that.”
Julia crossed her legs. “At least arrange it so he only gets any post-marital value. Property in this part of the city has gone way up. Think about it. Are you showing any of your work?” She stood, flattening her dark skirt along her thighs to walk about. She drummed her fingers on the shelves holding the finished vessels. She wouldn’t care for my work. Julia loved my mother’s paintings. Fragments of sky and sea. Secret words. Splintered music. These were nothing like that. Julia picked up a rounded shape. “I like the female features of these constructions. What attracted you to pottery?”
My fingers slipped into the clay. I spent a few moments repairing the error before I answered. I thought about what I liked. The rootedness. The common voice of clay. Pottery reaches into civilization’s earliest moments. I feel I can touch the first people who molded a shape from sticky red stuff. I sense their art. When you work in clay you speak to earth and fire. “Pottery is practical. And it’s not painting.” I snapped my lips shut.
Tipping a round-bellied pot back in place, Julia walked to the corner where Cadmium rested. I pinched in the clay, shaping it into a new form as an idea crystallized under my hands. The potter’s wheel whirred as I watched Julia examine the picture. An image flashed in my mind: Julia and my mother kissing a man by the window. Alberto? Frank? Their hands smoothing the line of his jaw to his shoulder, down his muscled chest, the three of them whispering, until they spotted me in the doorway. How old was I? Nine? Ten?
“Have you looked at this painting since its last showing?” Out the window behind her were silhouettes of water towers, fire escapes, laundry fluttering like Buddhist prayer rags.
I could tell from the corner of my eye she was tilting Cadmium to catch its glitter. The path through the woods was forked. The sky had darkened, giving the colors of the meadow flowers a violent intensity. There were small animals too. I tried to identify them. Squirrels? Rabbits? Once I thought I recognized a fox. “No. I put it away. I’ve been too busy for Mother’s old things. I threw out all her stuff.”
“Pity.” I heard Julia put the painting into the case she’d brought. “Some art student could’ve used her paints. You probably could’ve sold her brushes on eBay to a collector. You’re invited to the opening, of course. You’re always welcome. The beach is gone now, did you know that? I can hardly see it, except in the distance.”
My attention dropped from work to Julia. I was ruining this pot. Damn. I’d have to scrap it. “Really? Was there much of a beach? I’ll pass on the opening. Dev and I are pretty busy in the evenings. Aren’t you taking a risk? In showing it, I mean.”
“What color are the Mona Lisa’s eyes? I couldn’t tell you. If anyone says anything, I’ll just smile and make cryptic comments. After all, it’s only been seen the once, years ago at Lloyd’s. Are you sure you won’t come?”
Now I was just pretending to work. At least the touch of clay on my flesh relaxed me. “I’m sure. I’m glad you called, though, and we’ll talk more when you return it. You’ll have to tell me how things go.”
The warmth of her hand on my arm startled me. Julia said, “I’ll let myself out. Try painting them, and maybe add some glazes. Don’t bite me. Just try it and see. It’s good work. Your mother would be proud of you. I’m proud of you. Don’t be such a stranger. You’re the last breath of Cassandra Ross, and that’s a dear and precious thing. Think about my advice.”
She squeezed my arm and was gone. I heard her clopping down the stairs, then the dim rattle of the door. I wished for music to drive away the ghosts. How had my mother stayed on alone? I slumped the pot.
The clay forms stood in their serried ranks. I considered them with color. Earth tones would pull out an ancient feel. I wanted that. I had to hand it to Julia. All those years of being with my mother. She had the eye. I needed a little cobalt, some umbers, and of course, orange and red. The cadmiums.
That night Dev and I agreed to sell the house. It was too big for just the two of us. We’d move to Jersey. A third-floor studio was impractical for pottery anyway and the money would help him out in the deal he was working on. We were married and that meant we were partners.
* * * *
There’s no place like Vermont. It has an edge, just like blue M&Ms taste better than the other colors. Every fall, the dying leaves shout in my colors. Cadmium orange. Cadmium red. Cadmium yellow. Sometimes I go out in the yard of my house in Colchester, rake the rufous leaves of the big sugar maple into a pile, then roll in them.
It gives me a witchy look when I teach my classes at UVM with bits of twigs and tattered leaves stuck in my frizzled hair. Fortunately, I don’t think anyone cares what the sculpture teacher looks like and I don’t care if I get tenure, so everyone’s happy.
Except Julia. She wasn’t satisfied with her “I told you so” moment. She said my mother wanted me to have the brownstone. It was wrong for it to be sold. It was a, what did she call it? An historical artifact, and now it was lost.
Even though annoying, Julia was helpful. Her husband was able to pull enough important-people strings to keep Dev from escaping with every penny, and property in Vermont is relatively cheap. At least it is if you’re buying a rundown farmhouse with a sugar maple out front and a barn that can be turned into a sculpture studio. Julia also discovered some drawings Mother made of me in childhood. She said they should be mine.
I sold them, every one. The Cadmium series. For more money than Dev will ever see from the house.
Now I’m almost thirty-five. My vessels, or rather Cadmium Ross’s post-feminist explorations of power in a gender-transitional world, which is what Art in America calls them, have their own reputation.
Occasionally I flip Cadmium over. I see that I’m past the fork in the road. The path leads through a field of ripening wheat. Which is appropriate since I’m pregnant. I never asked about my father. I doubt Cassandra knew. I know who my baby’s father is. It doesn’t matter. He has another family. Besides, I’m a post-feminist explorer in a gender-transitional world. It’s not his business.
Gravel crunches in the driveway. Julia promised she’d come see me. I open the door. Her skin has the parchment look of one gone old, or very sick. She must read it on my face.
Julia says, “I’ve brought you survival supplies from civilization. Decent coffee. The art books you wanted. I asked them to put together a Care package from Zabar’s. In the car, you can get it. I’m tired.”
When I come back with the bags, she’s sitting at the checkered table, sun warming her hands. Julia says, “This is a beautiful place. Your mother was never neat. If something fell on the floor, she’d leave it there forever. Maybe she knew her time would be short. I don’t know. But you, you look wonderful. Teaching agrees with you, Caddie. And congratulations on your show at the New Museum. It was a little out there for my taste, but I’m old-fashioned. It was very well received.”
Her eyes are polished amber embedded in a yellow face. They glisten with intelligence. She’s the last connection with my past. I look at her and see a distant land where two women laugh around a bottle of wine, talking of shows and handsome men while I play with oil sticks at their feet.
“Julia, I’m pregnant. I’ll have a baby in the spring. I’ve stopped work, for the baby, you know, because of the chemicals. I’m blogging and thinking about some big projects after he or she is born. Maybe some earthworks. Maybe something conceptual.”
A shadow crosses Julia’s face. “Wonderful news, Caddie. Wonderful. I’m happy for you. The father?”
I brush the air. “Who needs fathers? Where was my father?”
Julia closes her eyes. “The painting? Do you still have Cadmium?”
I take her hand. “Come with me.”
We go upstairs to the baby’s room. I hired my neighbor, Felix, who’s a carpenter, to build me a custom crib from native birch. It glows pale gold in the afternoon sun. Cadmium hangs above it squarely in the light from the bedroom window. In the landscape the beach is invisible. The woods are a green haze on the horizon. Glorious butterflies speckle the field. Rising cumulous clouds give a late-summer air.
Julia covers her mouth. “My God, I knew it was true.”
“She never left me.” I place my acid-stained hand on my belly. “Just as I’ll never leave my baby. She put herself into Cadmium. At first I was angry with her. I didn’t think she loved me. Not like she did you. I didn’t understand. I was wrong. She’s been with me every step of the way. That’s why she never finished the rest of the Rare Earth series.”
“I’m so sorry.” Julia’s eyes redden. “I’m dying. They say there’s nothing they can do. Caddie, I’m so sorry.”
She sat in the rocking chair I’d bought for me and the baby. “I loved your mother, from the second we met at art school. We connected, like magnets. Cassie believed that an artist was her art. It wasn’t just form and color, painting was life. It was breath itself.
“I told her to wear gloves, wear a mask, stop mixing her paint. She swore that grinding her own pigment was the only way to get such colors. I’ll never forget the day she showed me some sapphires she bought, sapphires, for God’s sake! She ground them down for a particular blue. Her methods killed her. They killed her baby.”
Lightheaded, I sat on the little stool I’d put in the room. “What do you mean?”
“We both got pregnant. It was okay, until Frank wanted to marry me. He said my baby had to go. Instead, I moved in with Cassie.
“She was working on the Rare Earth series. She lived it. You know what she was like. She became covered with paint and pigment. She was more color than woman. Cassie obsessed over her work. She painted Cadmium first, while I watched, both of us big as houses. One day her baby stopped moving. She went crazy. She painted Cobalt. She painted Viridian. It was a compulsion. She knew the baby was dead. Finally I got her drunk. Frank helped me take her to a hospital so it would be over. The stress put me into labor.”
Tears stream down my cheeks. My fingernails carve half moons into my palms. “And the baby?”
“She worked with that dead thing inside. It had been gone for a long time, poisoning her mind. I gave her you. Cadmium. Frank and I married. He bought her that brownstone.”
“My father?”
Julia’s yellow skin stretches over the bones of her face. Her lips tighten. Some things would not be spoken. “We were wild.”
“The paintings? Viridian, Cobalt?”
Now she weeps. “They were terrible pictures. No one could bear to look at them, to see what it was she saw. I burned them. It’s better they’re gone.”
My face is wet. I try to feel pity for the dying woman across from me. I can’t feel anything like that. “Get out.” I press my palms into my eyes until I see crimson.
I hear the chair creak as Julia pushes herself up. “I’m sorry. The child broke me. We kept our secret. Your baby will never need anything. I’ll see to it. I always have.”
Through the window, the late-afternoon light infuses the leaves with color. Cadmium orange, cadmium red, cadmium yellow. The house gets cold.
Things will be different for me. My knees creak as I stand. The doctor said my joints would loosen. The last light dances across the painting. It’s changed. A viridian sea shimmers against the cobalt sky. A cadmium yellow boat sails against the waves. I can’t tell where it’s going. White gulls dot the waves. From the empty shoreline an untrodden path leads through a tangled landscape.