The Black Painting

by Neil Olson

  The corridor to the kitchen beckoned, but she was stopped short by something she had never seen before. The door to her grandfather’s study stood open. In all of Teresa’s time here that door had been a virtual wall. Locked when the old man was not inside, closed even when he was. Always closed. Now, just the glimpse of afternoon light falling across an ornate desk and a blue-and-red oriental carpet, thrilled her with fear and wonder. She took a deep breath and forced herself to walk through the door.

  It was a smaller room than expected, but otherwise exactly as she had envisioned it. Bookcases lined the walls, though there was space enough for one painting directly behind the desk. Did she only imagine the faint square where the cream paint seemed brighter? It had hung there a long time before some brave soul seized it. She looked away, as if even this outline might retain a lethal potency. A set of casement windows let in the mellow autumn light. The fireplace stood like an open black maw. Was that the same iron poker the thieves had used to clout Ilsa, or did Grandpa replace the set?

  On the near wall was a cracked leather sofa, and on it sat a man.

  Not sat, but sprawled, in a position that must surely be uncomfortable. One slipper dangled off the pale left foot. His dressing gown—dusky gold with red Chinese dragons—was badly rumpled. Teresa knew that dressing gown. Indeed, she would have said the man was her grandfather, except for his awful stillness. And the expression of abject terror which twisted his features. The dead blues eyes were fixed on the empty space across the room.

  “Teresa?”

  Audrey’s voice from the back stairs broke the spell. Teresa shuddered with an animal revulsion, then backpedaled. Until she struck a bookcase and fell to her knees. There had been a noise. A deep, guttural moan whose source she could not identify. The man? Had he groaned? Then she understood that she herself had made the noise. She tried to speak, but no words would come.

  “Was that you?” Audrey asked, rushing into the room. “Did you hurt yourself? What is the... Oh. Oh, man.”

  Teresa could not even look at her cousin. As much as she wished to, she could not take her eyes from the hideous gray face.

  “Okay,” said Audrey between deep breaths. “Okay, Teresa? Look at me. Don’t look at him, look at me.”

  She tried to obey, but could not move her head. She could not even close her eyes. She would be looking at that face for the rest of her life. Then something intervened. Audrey’s white T-shirt. Then her face. Those blue eyes. Like their grandfather’s, though bright and full of life.

  “Audie,” Teresa whispered. A frightened four-year-old girl again.

  “I know, sweetheart. It’s all right, let’s get you out of this room. No, don’t.” The voice went from compassion to anger in a moment, or maybe it was only panic. “Don’t you dare have one of your fits right now. Stay with me, Teresa.”

  It was no use. The hard edges of the world fractured into prismatic color. Her senses closed down, and she saw into the heart of the universe. For a bare moment she understood everything. Then a blinding light absorbed her. She felt her body go slack, go liquid, vanish. She gave herself up to the light.

  “Teresa. Teresa.”

  2

  For madness, no one could top Goya. Drunks, murderers, victims of violence. Lunatics beset by demons or witches summoning them. Gods destroying their children. The Spaniard had seen it all, in the war-torn landscape of his country or in his own troubled mind, and captured it on canvas. Including at least one thing he should not have caught.

  Francisco José de Goya. Teresa had known the name always. It was synonymous with fear. She was as easily scared as any sensitive girl who read too much, and the scariest things were those left to your imagination. Her grandfather, usually kind, was stern and absolute in one matter. Stay out of the study. Never go in for any reason. The fear could not be explained away as Teresa grew older because it was so obviously shared by her mother and uncles. They had also known of the painting all their lives, although only the eldest, Philip, had actually seen it. And he never spoke to his brother or sister about what he saw. Of course the old man saw it every day, and he was neither struck dead nor driven mad. There was a trick to it, or there was a type of person able to withstand the portrait’s awful gaze. More than withstand it, but learn and prosper from the contact. This was explained to Teresa by her father, Ramón, who counted himself among those so gifted. For he had seen the painting many times. Whether and how it had damaged him was anyone’s guess.

  There were many reasons Teresa could invent for her obsession with art. Because it was something she shared with her father and grandfather, who took her to all the best museums in New York and Boston. Because her impulse toward the mystical and curiosity about her Spanish heritage found their perfect union and expression in the artists she adored: El Greco, Zurbarán, Goya. Because she was so bad at the hard sciences that a humanities degree was her only choice. But she knew very well that the obsession had its roots in that first terror and fascination of childhood. The haunted self-portrait by Goya from his solitary days in the Quinta del Sordo. A painting that had left one man dead in Teresa’s lifetime, and carried the rumor of death and insanity in a long train behind it. A painting she had never seen, and never would.

  * * *

  The ambulance made its slow way around the drive and out of sight. No lights or siren. There was no need. A police cruiser escorted it, but the nondescript brown sedan that arrived later was still parked out there. The detective must be somewhere talking to Audrey, yet the house was quiet. Teresa was in the sitting room. She had been lying down, recovering from her migraine. But the settee was too hard, made for perching, not reclining. She was sitting up now, sipping from a glass of water Audrey had left for her. Everything that had happened since finding the dead man was vague and disjointed.

  She was ashamed of her uselessness. She should be calling people, starting with her mother. She should be speaking to the sad-faced detective—it was she who had found the body, after all. Mostly she should not be falling to pieces like a fragile girl, leaving Audrey to handle everything. Audrey, who had been praising Teresa’s toughness only an hour ago. Who had kept her cool in the presence of death. Whatever her faults, the woman clearly had strengths which Teresa had been slow to perceive. Slow or unwilling. Her sense of Audrey as a person was trapped in the past, in a wounded child’s perceptions.

  Voices approached down the hall, and Teresa stood. She was unsteady, but did not want to seem meek or ill. Audrey’s voice rose sharply just outside of the room, then fell silent. One set of footsteps retreated, and a moment later the detective appeared in the door.

  He was tall and lean, though his face was puffy. Dark hair retreated from his forehead, and his hound dog eyes made you want to comfort him. It was a face you trusted, which must be useful for a detective.

  “Miss Marías. How are you?”

  “Fine,” she said, pleased by the firmness of her voice. “Call me Teresa.”

  “I’m Detective Waldron.”

  “You introduced yourself before,” she remembered.

  “Right, I wasn’t sure if you, ah...”

  “Was in my right mind?” she supplied, forcing a smile. “I really am okay now. Won’t you sit down?”

  Won’t you sit down! Who was she, a society hostess? This wasn’t even her house. But he did sit, and she did, too, which was a relief.

  “This shouldn’t take long,” he said, flipping through a small notepad. “Ms. Morse has filled me in pretty thoroughly. I wonder if you could run through your arrival here, and the um, the discovery of your grandfather’s body?”

  Your grandfather’s body, thought Teresa, reality hitting home. Not “the body” or “the dead man” but Alfred Arthur Morse. Arrogant, secretive collector of and dealer in European art, with a big house, a bad heart and three estranged children. A man to whom Teresa had once felt close, and for whom she harbored a
lingering affection. She had suppressed how deeply she was looking forward to seeing him, and tears welled up in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Waldron said, closing the notepad and beginning to stand. “Your cousin said it was too soon.”

  “Is this normal?” Teresa asked tightly. Humiliated by his sympathy.

  He slumped back into the chair.

  “Your shock? It’s absolutely normal, most people never have to—”

  “I mean you being here,” she corrected. “He obviously had a heart attack or a stroke or something. Why would they send a detective? Is it because he’s rich or, or what?”

  He nodded several times.

  “His prominence has something to do with it,” Waldron conceded. “That’s off the record, please. Also, there’s the matter of the housekeeper.”

  “Ilsa.” She had forgotten all about the woman.

  “Yes, um, Ilsa Graff. I understand that she lives in the house. For the last—” he consulted his notes “—thirty years or so?”

  “I guess that’s right,” Teresa said.

  “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “No, none. She was supposed to meet me at the train. Or I think she was. I don’t remember anymore what we agreed.”

  “But you didn’t see her at the station?” he prompted.

  “No,” Teresa replied, clutching the water glass nervously. Why was she nervous? “So I started walking. And I got about half a mile before Audrey pulled up.”

  “There was no understanding between you two beforehand? She simply appeared?”

  “There’s only one road,” Teresa said, annoyance creeping into her tone. “Whether you walk or drive.”

  “Nothing implied,” Waldron said, holding up a forbearing palm. “These are routine questions. I hope you understand.”

  “I don’t, to tell you the truth.” The headache was pulsing behind her eyes again. “You think Ilsa did something to my grandfather?”

  He puffed up his cheeks and exhaled.

  “I think her not being here when you two were expected is odd. But I have no theories at this time, and every expectation that it’ll turn out as you say. Older man, weak heart. We just have to be as thorough as possible.”

  “All right.”

  “So you were walking to the house when your cousin drove up?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Ms. Morse said you were standing off to the side of the road. She couldn’t say with certainty which direction you had been going before she came around the turn. I just want to confirm you were coming from the station.”

  As opposed to where? Teresa’s hands were shaking, and there was a buzzing in her ears. She could not tell whether she was stunned or furious or both.

  “Is this about my father?” she blurted.

  He sat back and gazed at her curiously.

  “I don’t know. Is there some reason it should be?”

  Idiot, Teresa scolded herself. That’s exactly what he wanted you to say. This is not a friendly talk, it’s a grilling. He thinks you did something.

  “I already said that I was coming from the station,” she replied slowly.

  “Apologies, my notes are a little messy. You mentioned your father.”

  “I don’t think I have anything more to say to you, Mr. Waldron.”

  “If we could cover one or two other points,” he said patiently, “then we’re done.”

  “Get out.”

  Teresa had not seen Audrey enter the room. She was standing very close to the detective, a murderous look in her eyes. Waldron stood and nodded politely at her, as if she had not spoken.

  “Get out,” Audrey said again, louder.

  “Your cousin and I were discussing the—”

  “I heard what you were discussing. I told you to leave her alone.”

  “I believe,” Waldron answered, “that Miss Marías is best equipped to make that decision herself.”

  “Then you obviously know nothing about trauma,” Audrey said. “So listen to me. Our uncle, who will be here any minute, is a big-time attorney. And I will sue you personally and your entire podunk department for harassment, coercion, mental cruelty and anything else I can think of, if you do not get out of this house right now.”

  The detective shook his head like a man wronged, but not overly concerned about it. He tucked the notebook into the pocket of his baggy trousers and shuffled out of the room. Audrey followed him closely, a barely restrained violence in her posture. Waldron did not seem to notice.

  “I’m sorry again for your loss,” he said by the front door. “And I apologize for causing any distress during this difficult time.”

  “Save it for the judge,” Audrey growled.

  “It’s all right,” said Teresa, coming to her senses. They were both overreacting badly; the man was only doing his job.

  “There’s no tape on that door,” Waldron mentioned, speaking of the study. “But please do keep it closed and locked. I’ll be in touch if there’s any need to follow up. Oh, and please let me know right away if you see or hear from Ms. Graff.”

  “We’ll do that,” Teresa said, a moment before Audrey slammed the door. And they were alone. Audrey turned to her with such vehemence that Teresa stepped back. She could feel her cousin wanting to lash out, and Teresa was now the only available target. Yet the angry eyes seemed blind to her presence.

  “You okay?” Teresa asked.

  “He was trying to twist my words.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “He was trying to make it sound like I thought you were coming from the house. I never said that. I never implied it.”

  “Of course not,” said Teresa. Was that what upset her so much? Or was it shock finally kicking in? That seemed more likely. Teresa looked steadily into those blue eyes until the other woman met her gaze. A phrase popped into her head. “Mental cruelty?”

  Her cousin blinked rapidly. Then giggled, and just like that the old Audrey was back.

  “Okay, maybe I had a divorce proceedings flashback.”

  “It sounded good,” Teresa said, relieved. “I think you scared him.”

  “Nah, only embarrassed him a little. I’ve yelled at cops before. They don’t listen to most of what you say.”

  “Maybe just as well. But it’s weird, right? Him coming here?”

  “Not really,” Audrey replied, wandering into the sitting room and throwing herself down on the blue settee. “Ouch, how did you sleep on this?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Are you all right now? You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be taking medication?”

  “I do,” Teresa lied. In fact, she did, but not lately. “It doesn’t always work. So why do you think he was here?” she persisted.

  “Ilsa’s disappearing act, for one thing. And, you know. The history.”

  Her father’s face appeared to Teresa. Or her memory of it, she could no longer attest to the accuracy. Long nose, black hair to his shoulders, black eyes. An expression which said that he had seen things others could not see. That he knew things which he would impart, if you only had the means of understanding. Maybe when you were older.

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “A long time to you,” Audrey said. “You were just a kid. I doubt enough happens in this boring town that they’re going to forget something like that.”

  “They convicted Jenny’s brother.”

  “His name is Pete.”

  “I know his name,” Teresa said, though in truth she had forgotten. He was always simply Jenny’s brother, with his shaggy beard and crazy eyes, who helped out with the yard work. And helped himself to whatever was lying around. Silver serving utensils that no one used, fine china collecting dust in the cella
r. The occasional brooch or cigarette case. He had never touched any of the artwork before that day of the funeral. “He went to prison. What would that have to do with this?”

  “He’s been out of prison awhile,” said Audrey, letting the fact hang there a moment. “And a lot of people don’t believe he took the painting.”

  “I know what they believe,” Teresa snapped.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Audrey groaned. “God, you and your mother, so defensive.”

  “He was my father.”

  “So what? You can say what you like about my father, I don’t care. He bailed out on the two of you.”

  “He had problems,” said Teresa, barely above a whisper. Her throat was almost too tight to speak. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Anyway, it isn’t only the theft. There was that appraiser keeling over a few years before. You probably don’t even remember that.”

  “I remember,” said Teresa.

  “Right in front of the painting. On that same leather sofa! You don’t think that might seem odd to the cops?”

  “That an obese art historian and a sick old man had heart attacks on the same sofa twenty years apart?” she replied. Incredulous. “What should that mean? I really hope the police are smarter than that.”

  “Well,” said Audrey in a reasonable tone. “Maybe it’s just me that finds it odd.”

  “Even if you believe in fairy tales,” Teresa went on, wondering why she did, “like a portrait killing the appraiser, it still makes no sense. Grandpa looked at that painting for decades. And it’s not even here anymore.”

  “You don’t believe in the painting?” Audrey asked, eyeing her closely. “You used to.”

  “Like you said, I was a kid.”

  Teresa retrieved her water glass and sat in the chair the detective had used. She was twice as tired after her outburst. The chair was hard. The room was hard. You were supposed to look at it, not actually use it. One of those stupid customs of the rich.

  “I spoke to my dad,” Audrey said. “And Philip. I didn’t call your mom, I figured it would be weird me calling since you’re here. She may have heard from one of them by now.”