Portrait of a Married Woman

by Sally Mandel

  He remembered her standing in the doorway of Eliza’s studio illumined by tangerine light. There was an extraordinary tension emanating from her slender body. She was clearly afraid, yet seemed determined to master her fear. The light flickered off the hollows and curves of her face as she spoke with Eliza. David had wished she would stand still so that he could sketch her.

  Maggie had walked toward him like a dancer, head high, back straight, yet somehow liquid. As she shifted her shoulder to shrug off the strap from her handbag, he could see the shape of her breasts under the cotton sweater. Her stomach would be a long curve slipping into the shadow between her legs.

  Close up, her face was almost severe. But when she spoke, her mouth was soft and curled up at the corners in a child’s smile. She was hesitant, self-conscious, and brave. She was unaware of her own courage, but David found it immensely moving.

  When class began, David had watched Maggie freeze. Suddenly she was a George Segal sculpture, lifelike in all respects except for the dead eyes staring at the easel. At once, he understood. Every artist experiences that particular numbing horror. That it is gone. Whatever the mysterious impulse that makes it possible to create something out of nothing, whatever the elusive power that connects an artist to his environment through his mind, his eyes, his hands, that it has vanished forever. David went to Maggie at once, took her hand, and warmed the terror out of her fingers.

  Once loosened, how they flew, darting, diving, trailing bold streaks of charcoal. There was nothing tentative about this woman’s art, no restraint, no apology. She had already forgotten him, absorbed in a kind of ecstasy. David had felt he should shield such naked joy from the others.

  In one evening, Maggie had engaged every crucial part of him: his creativity, his intellect, his sexuality. But she escaped from him that night. He looked for her in the groups of people on the street outside, by the bus stop, in front of the museum that stood ghostly and secretive in the dark. Finally he had walked home and telephoned every Hollander in the book until he heard her voice.

  The rough approximation of shoulders began to emerge from the stone. David was sweating heavily now, and he could feel the dust collecting in the back of his throat. It was curious that he had never asked Sharon to model for him. Eight years of living together, and the notion never occurred to him. Perhaps it was because in some essential way, Sharon had remained outside his art. He remembered how she would wander among his sculptures in the apartment, touching them cautiously, her small face bewildered. Her questions irritated him. “What does this bulge here mean? Does it represent something real?” She never asked him why he needed to carve, but the issue hovered in her eyes. David was continually on the defensive. Either he found himself defending Sharon to his carvings, making excuses for her obtuseness, or else apologizing to her for their ubiquity and even occasionally talking of getting rid of them. Such discussions always left him feeling sick with himself.

  When Sharon had moved out, the silence she left behind seemed sunny and clean. He felt unaccountably elated. For the first time in eight years he was alone with his most intimate friends—his carvings. But after a few weeks, desolation settled in. David began to miss her so profoundly that the inside surfaces of his arms tingled with the need to hold her. He could not sleep. He wadded his quilt up into a ball and hugged it in a futile attempt to fool himself into unconsciousness. He fought with himself about asking her to move back in. He knew she would come. He also knew that ultimately he would want to cast her adrift again. Sharon had been beautiful, bright, articulate, but so haunted by her nightmare childhood that she required perpetual comforting. David had ministered to her the way he attended the choking plants in the courtyard beneath his studio window. While he struggled over telephoning her, he began to realize that he had used her. He needed someone to care for, a family, children, and Sharon had been a sponge to soak up the overflow of nurturing impulses he sometimes felt would drown him. Once he understood the basis of his need for her, the longing began to dissipate and he was saved from the cruelty of reaching out for her again.

  The truth was, David had always been rather indifferent to women. They interested him sexually, but by the time he met Sharon, he was over thirty and had never been deeply attached to anyone else. At one time, he had considered the notion of homosexuality, and when his good friend Evan, a fellow sculptor, made subtle overtures toward David, he decided to give it a try. But after the first embrace, David had begun to laugh, not out of discomfort, but because the entire procedure seemed so awkward and comical. He was profoundly apologetic to Evan, and the two men had remained friends.

  In the first decade after David’s arrival in New York, the only apartment he could afford had been a roach-infested hole in the East Village. Congregations of junkies murmured and nodded in front of abandoned tenements while David hurried past trying to avert his eyes from the incessant assault of ugliness. He missed the intimate, drowsy atmosphere of New Orleans, the scents of tropical flowers, sweat, decaying garbage, strong coffee. But once he entered the artist’s world, he believed he would never settle anywhere else but New York.

  It began with the chaotic shop on Nineteenth Street where David bought his supplies. The owner, Ben Ginsburg, was a hulking lumberjack of a man. He took David on a tour and watched carefully as the young sculptor watered down particular stones and ran his fingers over their surfaces. Afterward, Ben invited David into his office, which was a wild collage of invoices, checkbook stubs, tax forms, calendars, and bills here and there disciplined into piles by paperweights that were carvings made by Ben’s many friends. Ben pressed a buzzer on a half-buried telephone, asked to be left alone for an hour, and he and David talked, about art and whose work David should see, about New York, and loneliness, the philosophy of work versus leisure, and Chinese restaurants.

  Finally Ben had stood up, held out a huge paw for David to take, and said, “Hey. A bunch of folks show up here on Saturday nights. Carvers mostly, but a few painters, too. We put away a six-pack or three and sort out the world. Come along if you feel like it.”

  David had left feeling that he had passed some important test. Over the years, he watched Ben measure other newcomers, and the fact was, each person Ben introduced to the inner circle had some contribution to make to the group. Someone with an abrasive personality would turn out to produce work of such monumental genius that the brash package no longer mattered. And Ben was always there to extend advice and credit. “Pay when you sell something,” he’d say, which could be never. He had even found David his teaching job at the West Village School for the Arts. In those early years, David rarely missed a Saturday night at Ben’s. David had gravitated hungrily toward the gifted. Artists with special vision electrified him, and he felt their influence upon his own work in a new intensity and willingness to experiment.

  Maggie Hollander’s breasts appeared under the steady blows of David’s chisel. The need to possess her was so powerful that it frightened him. If there had been no white stone waiting for him here in the studio, he wondered if he could have controlled himself with her this afternoon in the apartment. He thought of that soft skirt brushing Maggie’s legs as she climbed his stairs. An erection pulsed against the stiff fabric of his work pants. The hammer struck, beating rhythmically, tiny bits of rock flew about him, and he was past happiness into a kind of rapture.

  It was dawn when David finished blocking out the torso. He was aching and covered with dust. The insides of his mouth and nose were thick with it and his eyes burned. But he liked what had emerged under his hands. The torso rested on its hip and curved upward with breasts pressed forward, shoulders back. There was energy and powerful sensuality in the rough stone. David was too exhausted to clean up. He snapped off the fan and the lights, stretched out on the gritty floor where he could see the outline of Maggie’s body, ghostly through the soft dust clouds, and slept.

  Chapter 13

  Matthew loaded the car early Friday morning in anticipat
ion of holiday traffic. The Fourth of July was traditionally spent with Maggie’s parents, in part because Maggie’s birthday fell on the third. Until two summers ago, it had been a hectic trip, transporting the two children. Maggie had spent the hours refereeing disputes that began somewhere west of Bridgeport and continued all the way to Stafford. She had not yet accustomed herself to the simplicity of traveling as a couple.

  Nevertheless, she enjoyed long trips in the car, particularly when she was not required to drive. She liked to look out the window and let the colors blur together. She would play tricks on her vision, first narrowing her eyes, then widening them quickly. Telephone poles, woods, houses alongside the road, leapt and squatted and contorted themselves into fantastic shapes.

  Today the interior of the car was hushed. But the inside of Maggie’s head was whispering, shouting, chortling, arguing, and carrying on lengthy discussions with itself. What if she were actually to embark on an affair with David? The word “affair” seemed so crude, so ordinary. Entering a relationship with him would be to plunge into a mysterious wonderful world. A few short hours with him and already she had begun to discover hidden pieces of herself, as if she were a diver upending encrusted old rocks to reveal the sunken treasure beneath. She imagined them submerged together, twisting, arching, curling in the shining light, coming together to embrace with long slick limbs, kissing and slowly rising to the surface.

  Matthew slammed on the brakes as a battered station wagon veered suddenly into their lane. Maggie stared at him. His reflexes, as always, were quick and sure, a quality she admired in Matthew. In fact, he had many commendable traits. Shouldn’t admiration be sufficient? Why did her heart keep stretching to accommodate David Golden?

  Matthew glanced at her. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “Do I need a haircut or something?”

  “No, you look just fine.”

  “Phooey, I bet you say that to all the guys.”

  My Matthew, she thought. Her mouth moved; she almost said it: Matt, there’s a man named David Golden. He thinks I’m beautiful. Isn’t that something? Instead, she said, “La la.”

  Matthew grimaced. “What was that?”

  “I’m singing,” Maggie said. “La la la.”

  “You can’t sing. You’re tone deaf.”

  “She’ll be comin’ round the mountain …”

  “Spare me,” Matthew said. But he smiled at her.

  I won’t do it, Maggie thought.

  Her lightheartedness began to falter as they got off the highway and drove through the Stafford town square. It was a neat village, like an eighteenth-century New England town fabricated by Walt Disney Productions. The fringe of grass along the sidewalks was perfectly trimmed. The little gazebo that sat on the green was freshly painted. No litter, no sprawling drunks. Even the old shade trees appeared to have been pruned. There was not a dead limb or drooping branch to be seen.

  They passed the high school, a pristine Georgian structure with white columns. The scent of cut grass struck the car like a soft green wave.

  “Far cry from P.S. 102?” Maggie said, thinking of the graffiti and broken windows that blemished the junior high on Seventy-fifth Street.

  Matthew turned off onto Barnstable Road.

  “Oh, dear,” Maggie sighed.

  The Herrick home was set far back off the road. The groomed lawn was untroubled by weeds or patches of garden. Two maple trees of nearly equal height loomed one to each side of the brick walk. The house itself was a handsome white colonial. It stood unperturbed and cool in the sun, as permanent and unyielding as some great gleaming boulder deposited by the glaciers twelve thousand years ago.

  Norma Herrick came down the front steps to greet them. She was nearly six feet tall with no excess flesh to pillow the no-nonsense architecture of her frame. Her kiss felt bony. Standing near her mother always made Maggie feel insignificant. It was an illusion that Maggie had to stand on tiptoe to kiss her, but it seemed true enough.

  “Hello, children,” Norma said. Maggie shrank another inch. “Good trip?”

  “Yup,” Matthew said. He and Norma did not kiss. Matthew had gone straight to the trunk to unload.

  “Your father’s at the airport picking up Joanne. They should be here any minute. We’re barbecuing, so as soon as you’re settled in, come down to the yard.”

  “Ah, the scene of the crime,” Matthew said. Maggie knew he meant their wedding. She grabbed her overnight bag and went into the house.

  She paused in the living-room doorway. Sure enough, her mother had redecorated again. Every two or three years, Norma reupholstered the sofa, the side chairs, and bought new curtains. This time, the colors were predominantly peach and green.

  “What do you think?” asked Norma next to Maggie’s elbow.

  “Very pretty. The nicest, I think.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure it does what I hoped it would do.”

  “Well, Mother, you never give up anyway.” Maggie understood that Norma was trying to achieve some measure of warmth. But the immaculate room with its perfectly restored antiques and polished floors spoke with a cool voice. Maggie thought of Robin Brody’s apartment and smiled. Robin’s place was so warm it made Maggie sweat; her mother’s house gave her the chills. Next to Robin, Maggie was a hypothyroid freak; next to her mother, she was a dwarf. Suddenly it struck her that other people might not measure themselves this way, by using the rest of the world as a yardstick. It seemed a revelation. She wished David were here. It was the kind of observation that would interest him.

  “How was it for you, being tall, when you were growing up?” she asked her mother.

  “In what way, dear?” Norma asked.

  “Being the tallest girl. You must have been, straight along.”

  “Oh, yes.” Maggie watched her mother’s face as it went on a long-unaccustomed journey into the past. After a moment Norma said, “I made it a point never to slouch.”

  There was a tray of liquor and mixers on the table in the backyard. Matthew was showering, Norma was in the kitchen, so Maggie poured herself a gin and tonic and lay down in the lawn chair. Unlike the front of the house, the backyard was wild with the sight and scent of flowers, as if it was important to keep this excessive display of color and aroma hidden behind an austere facade. The rhododendron bushes made Maggie think of Phyllis, who had once announced that she thought of her friends in botanical terms: Robin a buttercup; Hilary a calla lily; Maggie a rhododendron. Maggie had inquired how she classified herself, and Phyllis replied without hesitation, “Venus’s-flytrap.” Phyllis understood them all so thoroughly. How outrageous to have David Golden billowing like sea grass just beneath the surface of her life and Phyllis knowing nothing of him.

  Maggie and Joanne’s Snow Tree still stood beneath Maggie’s bedroom window. One Sunday morning in early May there had been a freak blizzard. Maggie had awakened to see two inches of snow like vanilla frosting on the lilac bushes, the daffodils, the tulips. Below her, the little cherry tree glistened. Among its dazzling branches sat a pair of cardinals, some sparrows, a blue jay, and a finch. Maggie ran to fetch Joanne and together they gazed at the magical tree with its bright chattering decorations.

  Maggie let her eyelids droop. Soon her father would arrive with Joanne and there would be no peace. Her thoughts drifted like the dandelion fluffs floating above the lawn. Her very first memory of life emerged on a day like this. Maggie remembered being on her back and looking out through golden pillars at something soft and green. She had felt comfortable and happy, and yet tantalized by the greenness beyond her grasp. She theorized now that she must have been in her playpen gazing out at the wooded area past the toolshed.

  She took another sip of her drink and heard the dreamy buzz of ladies’ voices, the clink of ice in glasses, laughter. Norma used to hold her bridge-club parties out here in the early summer. Maggie had liked to help set up the chairs and place the decks of cards o
n each table with their score pads and stubby pencils. There was always the picnic table with goodies on it, too: cool drinks, limes, lemons, and little cakes. Maggie enjoyed the sight of the bright-colored summer frocks, even sometimes broad sunhats with ribbons.

  One July day just after her ninth birthday Maggie was reading in her room upstairs when she heard great hilarity explode on the lawn below her window. She leaned her arms on the windowsill and looked down to investigate. Her mother seemed to be the focus. She had paper in her hands, lots of white squares which she was passing around. Suddenly Maggie felt her face burning. Norma had found her drawings, her secret collection of cartoons that were hidden on the top shelf of her closet behind the shoeboxes. There were drawings of her parents, of Joanne, of her teachers, even of some of the women present. Most of them were unflattering, but they were her diary, her method of releasing outrage, irony, even adoration. There was a cartoon of her favorite teacher, her beloved Miss McAdams. It hurt Maggie the most to imagine those women laughing and pawing at her movie-star rendition of that kind young lady.