I look from Satie’s face to Brancusi. In all Brancusi does there is a gentleness. Even carving the largest of stones there is an insistence of faith in the goodness of things. As his work progresses, he will stand face-to-face with some potential that only he can yet see. And when the work is finished and his sculpture stands in the room, the potential that he saw, now revealed to be the one—will be more real than all the others.
Satie looks at the younger Brancusi, who is focused intently on his seemingly perfect and finished sculpture.
* * *
For a long time that evening, when we are alone, a fire in the hand-built stove, Brancusi sits in a chair near my bed of woodchips just patting my head and thinking.
“Satie’s music,” he mumbles. “It’s like a river flowing to all of his feelings. He is almost incapable of keeping it inside. That opera may lock it away. Satie is capable of showing us ourselves, what it is like to be here, alive, right now. But this opera will take much effort, and bring forth…”
Brancusi looks at me very seriously. “Polaire, what becomes of an artist when the necessities of the world drive him sane?”
The next day Satie visits. He brings biscuits. He has dropped the commission and will continue to work on his own music.
This is the effect Brancusi has on artists.
The Portrait
Brancusi is looking at me seriously. His sculpture of the magic bird—Maiastra—is behind him, framed against the bright window. It is too intense. I have to look away. He paces this way and stops. He paces that way and stops, never looking away from me. I show him my good side.
“What?! Master, what?!” I yip.
“Polaire,” he says, “chisels cost money.”
I sneak a look at him.
“Axes, saw blades, hammers, all cost money.” He starts to walk around the room, rubbing his beard, woolgathering. “Not to mention food,” he says.
“It’s okay, mention food,” I woof.
“True,” he says, gesturing around the studio, “I can make most of the tools.…”
“And the food,” I think.
“And I have made all of the furniture we need.”
It’s absolutely true, I think, looking at the large plaster table and the wooden stools and that comfy pile of woodchips.
Brancusi sits down heavily, as if he has been sentenced to the gallows. “We could use some money, so I am going to do a portrait bust,” he says.
I’m not sure why, but I lay my head down in sympathy. I feel as if someone should come and tie a black veil over my head.
“Portraits are so difficult,” he says sadly, looking at his shoes. “A portrait is an invitation to failure for an artist.”
“Yes,” I think. I put my head in his lap. “It is … wait, why?”
“We can never love the subject in the way the person asking us to do the portrait would want. If we are very lucky, we will succeed on the lowest level—it will resemble the subject.” He says the word resemble like it tastes bad. His thick fingers stroke my white fur. “If we attempt the impossible, if we try to find a universal beauty underlying the distractions of outer appearance, if we try to capture some timeless essence, we will not be understood.”
“Maybe you should stop complaining. Just do the bust, and see what happens,” I think.
He looks at me. Marble dust flecks his eyebrows. His tiny eyes sparkle in a smile.
So the lady from Paris comes to our studio.…
I try to make her feel welcome once I realize she hasn’t brought a bizarre and lazy animal with her. She is wearing a fur coat. She is a strange woman. I think she worries she is being followed. She keeps looking into all the mirrors. I want to tell her that I once barked at mirrors because I too thought something was there. Of course I was a pup then. She is a full-grown woman and should know by now there is nothing in a mirror!
* * *
My Brancusi is very charming, and in a few minutes, she is laughing and very comfortable. When she doesn’t accept my offer of the bed of wood chips, I decide enough is enough, and I take my afternoon nap.
* * *
Weeks later, when Brancusi finishes the bust, even I am surprised. He has captured all that strangeness in just three beautiful, simple shapes.
* * *
Saturday night is when we have visitors. I am near the fireplace helping to lick up the splashes of a very tasty stew, called gulyás, which Brancusi kindly sloshed over as he stirred the pot. There is a sharp rap on the door, and Marcel Duchamp’s face appears.
“Maurice!”—this is what Brancusi calls all his most pure-hearted friends—“You have been away too long! How was America?”
“Excellent! And full of interest in your work,” says Duchamp.
I lick the final delicious gulyás droplets as Duchamp gives Brancusi a great hug. “Look who is joining us this evening!” he says. Then Duchamp, with a lovely smell of sausages, waves around his elegant new walking stick. Erik Satie and a friend of his who is a poet step inside the studio, followed by some young dancers and a painter. The mirror lady is there. She is very happy. The Russian painter who gave us the piano and his little girl. She is very shy. I do my best not to look at her right away. They all enter and take their favorite places. More and more people seep in, giving the all-white cathedral-like space intimacy and warmth.
Duchamp holds his new cane up. “You must admire my new whacking stick!” he says with a funny American accent.
“I think you mean walking stick,” says a guest with a slightly better accent.
Duchamp raises the stick, “No, no! Here, lean this way. I will demonstrate!”
I see the little girl cover her eyes with her hands, and I bark for the grown-ups to stop.
Can’t they see they are frightening her?
Satie sits down at the piano.
Soon Brancusi has the little girl dancing with him and everyone is laughing. When the dance has ended and her shyness returns, I gently pluck a warm roll from the cutting board and give it to her. We spend the rest of the evening curled up together under the table, fast friends, dozing off now and then. That’s how these evenings are.
* * *
And then, dawn at the windows; the night has gone. Most guests have left; stragglers are sleeping on couches and divans. I’ve finished eating the sausages and, sadly, most of Duchamp’s coat pocket. Staying up late could be a bad habit. It clouds the senses.
The sun is rosy across the rooftops. I can hear the hotel on the boulevard waking up, the windows opening, flowers being set out, everywhere fresh scents, coffee, newspaper boys calling out the morning headlines.
My Brancusi is, on the other hand, working on his magic bird, his Maiastra. He stayed up all night after the guests had either left or fallen asleep, and I can see he is very tired. He steps back from the marble and sighs. For many minutes, he doesn’t move. I hear someone snoring. Then Brancusi notices that Duchamp has left his beautiful new wooden stick. He loves working in wood. It’s a joyous material for him, I can see that. When I was a puppy I would chew the heavy scrap pieces. I think wood reminds him of when he was young. All the houses where he grew up were carved from wood. I’ve heard him tell this again and again to whoever will listen.
Then he looks at me with a grin and slips the walking stick behind his back. For a moment, he is young and mischievous. I think I see a young Brancusi’s foxlike cunning. A few hours later, I hear the sounds of a flute from the carving room.
The Beginning of the World
Today he lifts a white dustcover and it softly falls away from a great long, graceful piece of marble like a fin, resting on its knifelike edge. I sit and look at the shape, hypnotized. Brancusi pushes gently on one end and it spins slowly round. It is so big and yet so thin it almost disappears as it turns.
“When you see a fish, you do not think of its fins and eyes and scales, do you?” His bright little eyes are twinkling. “You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through water!”
> He sits down on the bench next to me and scratches behind my left ear. We look at the fish slowly spinning; its surface catches the light and flashes like polished silver as it turns.
“I want to express just that,” he says. “If I made eyes and fins and scales, I would trap the fish in a pattern or a shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirit.”
He holds my face and closes his eyes, touches his forehead to mine. “Do you understand me?”
What can I say?
Contributors
Margarita Engle (author of “Trail Magic”) is a poet and novelist whose work has been published in many countries. Her books include The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor book and winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Américas Award, and the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award; The Poet Slave of Cuba, winner of the Pura Belpré Award and the Américas Award; and Hurricane Dancers. Margarita enjoys hiking in California’s Sierra Nevadas, where she helps her husband train his two wilderness search-and-rescue dogs, Maggi and Chance.
Valerie Hobbs (author of “The God of the Pond”) has written many novels, including Sheep, a California Young Reader Medal winner. She lives in Santa Barbara and longs for a dog to walk on the beach. But Molly (aka Miss Bossy Cat) will not allow it.
Thacher Hurd (author and illustrator of “Patty”) is the author and illustrator of many books for children, including Bongo Fishing, Mama Don’t Allow, and Art Dog. Among his many honors are a Boston Globe–Horn Book award and a New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Olga and Aleksey Ivanov (illustrators) immigrated to the United States from Russia in 2002. The husband-and-wife team received a classical art education in Moscow and have collaborated on more than eighty children’s books, including The Tall Book of Mother Goose and Charlotte’s Web. They live and work together in their studio near Denver, Colorado.
Ann M. Martin (author of “Picasso”) is the author of many novels, including A Corner of the Universe, winner of the Newbery Honor; Everything for a Dog; and Ten Rules for Living with My Sister. Ann lives in upstate New York with her beloved dog, Sadie, and several rescued cats.
Jon J Muth (author and illustrator of “Brancusi & Me”) is the author and illustrator of several books for children, including the Caldecott Honor winner Zen Shorts and Come On, Rain!, which won the Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators. He lives in upstate New York with his wife, Bonnie, and their four children.
Wendy Orr (author of “Dognapper”) has written more than two dozen children’s books, including the Rainbow Street Shelter series, Mokie and Bik, and Nim’s Island. She lives with her family in Australia, near the sea. Her dog friends Max, Harry, and Pippa all helped to inspire her story.
Matt de la Peña (author of “Things People Can’t See”) is the author of four critically acclaimed young adult novels: Ball Don’t Lie, Mexican WhiteBoy, We Were Here, and I Will Save You. He’s also the author of the picture book A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis, illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Matt lives in Brooklyn and teaches creative writing at New York University.
Pam Muñoz Ryan (author of “Because of Shoe”) has written more than thirty books for young readers, from picture books to young adult novels, including the award-winning Esperanza Rising, Becoming Naomi León, Riding Freedom, Paint the Wind, and The Dreamer. She has two dogs, Buddy and Sammie.
Mark Teague (author and illustrator of “Science Fair”) is the author and illustrator of many award-winning books. His most popular titles include the How Do Dinosaurs series by Jane Yolen and his own LaRue books. In 2009 he published his first novel, The Doom Machine. Mark lives in upstate New York with his wife, Laura, two daughters, two dogs, two cats, and several chickens.
Permission to reproduce the following is gratefully acknowledged: “Things People Can’t See” © 2012 by Matt de la Peña; “Trail Magic” © 2012 by Margarita Engle; “The God of the Pond” © 2012 by Valerie Hobbs; “Patty” (text and illustrations) © 2012 by Thacher Hurd; “Picasso” © 2012 by Ann M. Martin; “Because of Shoe” © 2012 by Pam Muñoz Ryan; “Brancusi & Me” (text and illustrations) © 2012 by Jon J Muth; “Dognapper” © 2012 by Wendy Orr; “Science Fair” (text and illustrations) © 2012 by Mark Teague.
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Compilation copyright © 2012 by Ann M. Martin
Illustrations © 2012 by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov (except those appearing here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Because of Shoe and other dog stories / edited by Ann M. Martin.—1st ed.
v. cm.
Summary: An illustrated anthology of stories about dogs and their relationships with humans, for readers of varying levels.
Contents: Dognapper / by Wendy Orr — Because of Shoe / by Pam Muñoz Ryan — Science fair / by Mark Teague — Patty / by Thacher Hurd — Picasso / by Ann M. Martin — The God of the Pond / by Valerie Hobbs — Trail magic / by Margarita Engle — Things people can’t see / by Matt de la Peña — Brancusi & me / Jon J. Muth.
ISBN 978-0-8050-9314-8 (hc)
1. Dogs—Juvenile fiction. 2. Children’s stories, American. [1. Dogs—Fiction. 2. Short stories.] I. Martin, Ann M.
PZ5.B388 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011033501
eISBN 978-1-4299-5498-3
First Edition—2012
Because of Shoe and Other Dog Stories Page 12
