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 part
icular 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.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Short Story: THE REAL MARTIAN CHRONICLES by John Sladek
(with apologies to George and Weedon Grossmith)
The late John Sladek (1937-2000) was one of the greatest parodists ever to work in the SF field. Your editor has it on good authority that Philip Dick's reaction on reading Sladek's “Solar Shoe Salesman” was to say, “Not bad. I wouldn't mind putting my name to that story.” We're happy to bring you a bit of high silliness now that was recently discovered in his papers.
Monday:
We spent the whole day unpacking our tea chests. Everyone seems to have suffered some loss: Edna found her grandmother's teapot smashed. I noticed that my musical saw was missing—no doubt stolen by the so-called workers of Botmore's Interplanetary Removals, PLC. Peregrine, our oldest, missed his acne medicine and his collection of early Bananarama records. The twins, Mandy and Jason, accuse me of having packed only one of the table tennis paddles. By the end of the day, we were all in a bad mood, discouraged. What a way to start off in our new home.
The landscape does not help. All those beautiful red mountains with pink streaks may look lovely in the brochure, but in reality they look ugly and lumpy. Like upended baboons’ arses, Edna remarked. I agreed, and added that the big volcanic one reminded me of a baboon with piles.
She said there was no need to be vulgar. If I was going to start making crude jokes in front of the children, I could just pack my musical saw and go back to Earth. I said that I sincerely wished I could do just that. There were some tense moments and a few exchanges of harsh words.
Still, we managed to get a fire going in the barbecue set, and after a supper of beans on toast followed by Instant Whip, we all felt much better. I called a family council round the smouldering fire.
"After all,” I said, “things aren't so bad. We've got tools, we can always make new paddles for the table tennis. We've got glue, we can mend the teapot. There are probably natural acne cures all about us, if only we look for them. I expect I can always order a new musical saw. So chin up, everyone."
Peregrine sulked. “What about my records?"
I opined that such music was bad for his character anyway.
Everyone else brightened up. The twins went off to look for an acne cure, they said, and Jason fell into the canal. Must get some swimming lessons organized.
* * * *
Tuesday:
The neighbours came to help us put up our new home. None too soon for me. Last night I discovered that Mars is alive with insect life, much of it blood-sucking. We've all got mosquito-like bites. It's a mystery to me what all these mosquitoes lived on before people came here.
Putting up a new home here is easier than it sounds, because virtually everything is prefabricated and self-raising. Still, our neighbours did help screw on the coach-lamps and install the musical door chimes. Everyone hereabouts seems to have these chimes. They can be programmed to play any one of a hundred popular tunes, but for some reason, everyone seems to prefer “Loch Lomond.” Not us. I've decided we'll have something quite different, “Colonel Bogey."
The neighbours are not all we'd hoped. There are Dick and Ida Twain, both of whom sell insurance, and their surly son, Zero. Zero is just Peregrine's age, but somehow I don't think they'll be friends. Perry is a bright, honest lad interested in hundreds of things—model aeroplanes, the Scouts, train-spotting—while Zero is a shifty, seedy lout who seems to have but one interest, working on his hideous American car. He has dirty fingernails, and I would not be surprised to learn that he smokes.
Then there are the Bleriots, Jack and Jenny. He works for the government, monitoring religious broadcasting I believe. She's a guide on canal tours. They both seem very cheerful, good-natured people. Almost too much so. I wonder if they drink in secret.
There is also an older couple, Harold and Denise Pratt. They run a novelty and gift shop, or should I say shoppe, in the High Street. Harold has evidently never got over being in the service. He asks everyone to call him Wing Commander, and he's very keen on civil defence. Offered to help us plan our shelter.
I declined politely, saying we had quite enough to do without worrying about that. For one thing I had to teach the kids to swim. Jason fell into the canal again today. I don't see why the council can't put up a fence or something—what do we pay rates for?
Wing Commander Pratt persisted, however. I let him go on about his shelters for a few minutes, then I said, “If they ever do bomb Mars—which I very much doubt—I just hope I am squarely in the middle of it, at Ground Zero. Who wants to survive a thing like that?"
The Pratts went off in a huff. I wonder if it was they who nipped into our larder and made off with half a dozen fresh eggs and a tin of salmon. Someone did.
* * * *
Wednesday:
Jack Bleriot came over to help us set out the roses and the gnomes. He said, “A word to the wise, squire. Lock up your larder. Certain items are worth their weight in radium out here you know."
"Like eggs?” I said, at once on my guard. “Like tinned salmon?"
"Right. Tin of salmon fetches fifty quid on the black market these days—pilchards even more. Pineapple chunks are very buoyant too, ditto Marmite-flavored crisps. Ditto Boots beer kits."
"Really?” I said coldly.
"As for custard powder, you can name your own price, squire."
I said, “You seem to know all about it."
"Everyone does. You will too, once you've been here a few months. Oh and by the way, if you have a lot of duty-free to unload, just say the word."
"A lot of duty-free?” I was surprised at the idea. “Of course not. We brought only our legal limit—two bottles of South African sherry, twenty Peter Stuyvesants and a pair of Levi-style jea
ns made in Russia."
He groaned. “They never check, you know. You could have got away with a couple of cases of Hong Kong scotch, anyway."
I was about to explain that I have never in my life found it necessary to “get away” with anything, nor break the rules of my King and Country. Indeed, I was the last person on Earth to continue paying his TV licence.
But I said nothing, because at that moment I was called away to fish Mandy out of the canal.
* * * *
Thursday:
Peregrine is spending a lot of time with Zero Twain, though they obviously have nothing in common. The two of them spend hours pottering about with Zero's huge, vulgar American car. It's pink and purple and covered with chromium gewgaws, and when they start it up, the noise is equally hideous. I can't think what Perry gets out of it. He seems to have lost all interest in the Scouts. If only we had some trains he could spot! I'm worried about the lad.
Mending the coronation teapot turns out to be a tougher task than I'd anticipated. It's been in the family for generations—dates clear back to the coronation of Charles III. We used to have the set of assassination mugs to go with it, but they all got chipped and I threw them out before they could harbour any germs. Later I learned that even chipped mugs were worth a small fortune. So it goes.
After a few hours of failing to mend the pot, I took it round to the Pratts’ shoppe. Denise Pratt promised to try mending it.
"Splendid,” I said. “If you succeed, you might even try selling it for us, in your shoppe."
"The e isn't pronounced,” she said. “It's just ‘shop.’”
"I know that,” I was about to say, when she moved off to wait on another customer looking for Toby jug. Denise Pratt seems to have no sense of humour at all. Her husband, the Wing Commander, popped his head in, saw me and waved.
"Ah, there you are, Broxbum. Been meaning to show you my shelter. May as well have a squint at it while you're here. Here, give me a hand with this case of tins, will you?"
I helped him carry the case down the ladder into a stuffy little cellar. “It's very heavy,” I said. “'What is it?"
FSF, May-June 2010 Page 10
