Little Nightmares, Little Dreams

by Rachel Simon

  Paint

  He paints me.

  He lays me down on his drop cloth, dips his brushes into cans of paint, and runs the tip of the bristles up my legs, over my hips. The paint tickles as it goes on, like a fine tongue licking its way up my body. He coats me, front and back. It must be done in a single day, so dust doesn’t blur his designs before he raises the curtain that hides me at the university gallery. There, I stand on the pedestal. People walk around me, pointing at the amphibians on my breasts, the starfish on my thighs, the feathers painted in my pubic hair. I focus on the other works that surround me. And whenever he walks near, I focus on him.

  The figures on me are not like tattoos, because I can wash them off, and because, over the seven weeks that we are in this show, they will tell a story. For each installment, I will change; it is a show of works in progress, where each week the paintings and sculptures will be one step closer to completion. He thinks of it as similar to a seven-part TV series. I don’t; I think of it as the first step.

  I am his canvas, his art form, his ticket to fame.

  He is my provider.

  I am fifteen.

  For this first show, he paints shapes, fat clouds of turquoise and lavender outlined in black. He tells me they’re amoebas, and shows me a book that describes how amoebas reproduce; they split in half, making a child identical to the parent. You mean there’s no men and women? I asked as he painted me. I cannot imagine that. I can, he said.

  Now, during the cab ride home from the show, my long white hair and its painted designs sprayed against the back of the seat, I watch him sip wine from his flask. He settles back into the cushion and says, The amoebas are over. What’ll I do for the next installment?

  You have a whole week, I tell him. Didn’t you make a movie once? You can come up with something.

  I just hope I can keep up the energy.

  I tell him, Look, why not try this, and I pull a scrap of paper and a pen out of his coat pocket and draw creatures I learned about in the amoeba book.

  He mulls over my scribble of jellyfish and coral, rubbing his chin. You can do it, I say, You could paint history.

  He sighs, turns to me, pats my head. You are the perfect model, he says. Gorgeous. Inspiring.

  He leans his pale cheek against the window and gazes out. A stoplight tints his black hair red, making his straight strands look dyed. I curl the ends of my own hair in my fingers, remembering I have only another six weeks with him. After that the show will be over and he won’t need me anymore.

  He does not know my age. He does not know my past. He does not know that I used to live in another city with my mother, or what I left behind in the streets of my old neighborhood.

  In that city, I left behind a pride of boys, clustering in the dark alleys between apartment buildings, in the space where the skeletons of stairs were drawn up high and windows flashed white and blue from the safe world of television. The boys met there and counted their money, smoked dope, laid their weapons on the ground for trade or show.

  Girls hid in the apartments above. They knew that the alley was not their world. A girl was afraid to look down from her window in case boy eyes traveled up the side of the building, reading each row of dark glass until they locked onto her face. If she was pretty, the boys would glance at each other and nod. Then she was lost the next time she went out alone.

  My mother told me I was too beautiful; she said to stay inside at night. But she went out whenever she pleased, and left me alone. I cannot stand to be alone. So I kept the lights off in my room and hid behind our curtains and looked down; I could see the boys, but they couldn’t see me. For months I watched them. Finally I climbed onto my fire escape. You’d better look out, baby, they yelled up. I’m looking, I said, Look out for me.

  I did not know if my mother was in the arms of an old boyfriend or the bed of a new. I stepped back inside, then skipped down the stairs and into the alley. The boys were at the far end; as I shuffled in from the street all I could see of them were the tips of their cigarettes and joints bobbing in the darkness, all I could hear were their murmurs. In the back of the alley I made them out, boys with fingers hooked into belt straps, blowing ripples of smoke out of their mouths. I faced them with my whole five feet. I was thin enough to be carried off by wind, a David facing Goliath. Hey, I said, I want to join, can a girl join? They looked at each other and said, Only one way a girl can join. I walked up to them. One I grabbed, pulled him to me, slid his hands up my dress. Like this? I said. He kissed me. I leaned against the wall and spread my legs. The bricks dug into my back. All around the boys clapped and hollered. It was a big show and I was the star.

  Long as I went outside after that, I didn’t have to worry and I didn’t have to be alone. They took care of me, let me in on their money and dope, kept a watch out when I passed by other gangs. This worked well, though when some of them, the older ones, the dropouts, pressed me into the bushes behind the school, laid me down in the dirt during lunch, I wondered if I’d keep liking it. I wondered if it’d always leave me feeling safe.

  When I shower after our first show, paint flows down my body and swirls into the drain. I turn off the water, and a trace of the images remains on me, as though his creatures are lurking beneath my skin.

  In his studio I stand wrapped in a towel, dripping on his drop cloth. A documentary about women in other parts of the world is on the television. It started before I stepped into the shower: pictures of bound feet, elongated heads. The sound was off so I couldn’t tell if it hurt to have these things done. I wanted to turn the TV up and find out, but he was sitting right there, so I left to take a shower.

  Now, wet and clean, I watch women in black pad through a city street. The veil, he mumbles.

  The women look as alike as ants. The only ones who stand out are those with glasses. That last film I worked on, he says in a voice like he’s dreaming, was about clothing that hasn’t changed for centuries. I did a section on veils.

  Do you know how to make them? I ask as I watch the women clutch one end to cover their faces.

  Sure.

  What did it feel like? What did they say it felt like?

  He pauses for a minute. I don’t remember. But I could wrap you, if you want to find out.

  What — put me in a veil?

  If you’d like.

  It might make him feel good to show off what he knows, and he needs that. OK, I say.

  He switches off the television, then goes to the window and unhooks the navy blue sheet that covers the glass. City light fills the room. Across the street in the junkyard are the silhouettes of cranes and the cars they were hoisting when the yard closed today. The metal dangles high, waiting to fall.

  I lay my towel on a chair. He tells me to hold one edge of the sheet, then he walks around me, threading it this way and that. There are different styles, he says, but as far as I know, the piece for the head is always separate. He pauses to scan the room, then scoops up the Indian print cloth that covers his pillow and drapes it over my head and neck.

  When he is done, I am covered everywhere except my eyes. I turn to see myself reflected in his window. There is almost nothing left of me at all; with my body hidden this much, I could be anyone. A panic rises in me, and I want to rip the whole thing off. I don’t like this, I say. I feel like I’m lost.

  Try closing your eyes, he says, see how it feels from the inside.

  I think it will be the same, but I close my eyes and take a deep breath and feel for a minute. It turns out not to be scary.

  His smell permeates the Indian cloth. It makes me feel like I am wearing his hair, his face, his sleep. It gives me a feeling of belonging.

  My mother used to say: You’ve got a fine body. Use it. That’s what it means to be a woman.

  The day I started menstruating, she told me to take off my clothes. Now stand here, she said, and she walked me to the mirror on her closet door. Look at yourself. This is all any girl’s got.

  My body was still c
oated with baby fat; it made a belt around my waist, a ring around my cheeks. You have to start taking care of yourself, she said. You’re a beautiful girl, but watch that fat. Boys want their girls skinny.

  She’d told me ever since I could remember that I was born with it all: perfect face, perfect eyes; perfect hair. Use it right, like I do, she said. Don’t blimp out; you’ll end up as lonely as other girls. You’ll have nothing. Go on a diet and you’ll have it made.

  Later that afternoon, I told her, Don’t bring home so much stuff from your boyfriends anymore. I’m just eating once a day from now on.

  In a few months, I leaned down to almost nothing. I stopped menstruating heavily. That was two years ago; I’ve bled lightly, and only once or twice, ever since. I guess that’s why I don’t get pregnant.

  Thanks to my mother, I can get men to take care of me, drive fifty miles out of their way to drop me where I ask, share their bed with me for the night. My looks let me get anything I want.

  Today he did not feel like working. He slept late, and first thing when he woke up poured himself the wine he hadn’t finished last night. Now he wants to pick up more. He drinks too much, but I’m not going to say that. Finish what you’ve got slowly, I tell him. Let’s get some painting done first.

  It is the practice session for the second show. He is working on colonies of corals and long-stemmed sea plants. This was my idea; when I took off my clothes today, he couldn’t decide which of his drawings to work on. I picked up his sketch pad and flipped through. Do the corals and the crinoids, I told him. He glanced at me for a second, and I wondered if I’d pronounced them correctly. But then he spread the drop cloth without a word and we went to work.

  Where did you get such white hair? he asks. It’s whiter than paper.

  Genes, I say. But that’s not true; I got it from a box. It’s still down to my waist, but white, so no one can recognize me now. But he doesn’t know that and he never will.

  He sips wine from a jelly jar. And your lips — they’re what fashion writers call petulant — do your parents have them too?

  My mother does. Not my father. She told me his are as thin as pencil marks.

  You don’t see him?

  He hasn’t been around since I was a baby. But there’ve always been guys. She has lots of boyfriends.

  I’ve got an ex-wife, he says, trailing the brush across the divide between the cheeks of my ass.

  You got bored with her?

  No, she kicked me out. She says I’ve got to get my act together before she’ll even talk to me again.

  You want her back?

  I don’t know. He places his hand on my hipbone, turns me so I’m angled away. You know, he says, some people accuse me of not finishing things. My marriage, my films, my whole goddamn career.

  What’s wrong with you? I want to ask. You have talent, after all. You have ideas, you have me. I glance at the jelly jar, and I hold myself back. I must play these cards right.

  He glances up then. Any chance you’ll get disenchanted with modeling before the seven weeks and move back with your mother?

  No, I say. This is one thing you’ll finish.

  He nods, his eyes wet and big. He lowers his gaze to my hip.

  Before I turned up he did a little of everything. Performance art, film. He came close to finishing the clothing movie but never edited the final print. Why don’t you edit it now? I asked. Oh, he said, it’s been so long, I couldn’t concentrate on it anymore.

  What he did finish were paintings of action, where he tried to present people in motion. Their arms and faces are blurs. We think we’re here forever, he said, but life is so transitory. I asked what that meant, and he pulled out his dictionary and read the definition to me. That’s how I learned how to look words up. But I don’t feel right doing it in front of him. He might think it’s weird.

  When I first came to this city, my hair newly white, my shoulder bag dusty from the cabs of trucks where I’d slept, I found one of his ads on a bulletin board at the university. Artist model wanted, it said. That I can do at least as well as anyone else, I thought. I walked to his house; it was far out on the edge of the city, across the street from a junkyard. I waited on his steps as the air grew crisp and the reflections of sun on the mangled fenders softened into darkness. It was night by the time he showed up, but in the light from the junkyard I could see his face: cute as a boy, with eyes as deep as an old man’s. My mother once told me, You can see everything in their eyes — if they can love, if they have disease. His eyes were special, a mix of sweet and sad, and somehow I knew before he said a word that he was a man I would wait for. I’m a model, I said. Let me come in and show you how I look.

  Inside, he poured himself some wine, then studied me. I was wearing a pink dress, one of my mother’s I’d taken from her closet. You look so young, he said. I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable painting you nude.

  Oh, I lied, in my family everyone looks young. I could vote this year, if there happened to be an election.

  He said, Balthus couldn’t ask for more. Only, I’ll be honest with you — I don’t have much money, so this isn’t a full-time job.

  That’s OK. My mother pays the rent on my apartment, I said. More lies.

  He sipped his wine and told me what he paid an hour. And I’ll feed you when you’re here, he added.

  I asked him if he thought he’d ever make a name for himself. A few galleries like my work, he said, but in the art world you have to promote yourself. I guess sometimes I lose my drive, can’t finish or don’t push what I do.

  I’ve got loads of drive, I said. Maybe some can wash off onto you. He smiled and raised his glass to his lips.

  I found out about other projects, the few he’d finished, the many he hadn’t. I asked him about them until cars stopped passing on the street and the room broke apart into shadows. It’s late, he said. I’d hate to have you waiting for the trolley now. You can stay on the couch if you want. I took off my clothes as he stood there, stripped down to nothing and lowered myself onto his sofa. He turned and climbed the stairs to his studio, where his bed was, and shut off the hall light. I waited till I heard his mattress sigh, then went upstairs and lay down beside him, fitting my legs between his. You don’t have to do that, he said, sliding away. I like you, and you can stay here tonight. But that’s not necessary.

  Right from the start, even before the show, he painted me constantly. He thought I was an experienced model; I could hold poses with barely a twitch. It was his fatigue, the cramps in his body, that made us stop at night. Then he would suggest I sleep over. Nothing funny, he’d say. But it’s too late for you to go home.

  Most nights went like this. Those that didn’t, when instead of painting he met with gallery owners or rich people or friends at a bar downtown, I found other places to sleep. That meant, always, looking into eyes and saying words I didn’t believe, letting my hair be touched, my breasts cupped, my thighs parted by the hands of a face I would never see again. I am lucky this way: the genes that made me up were a perfect mix. The bones go just so far, and no farther — right to where they should be. I should have nothing to fear; I should do well in life.

  We are watching TV. The news is on. I never watched it before, but he likes to at night.

  I look down. My knees poke out from the opening of his bathrobe. Even though I have just showered, I can see all the paintings that have led up to today layered under my skin. He tells me my flesh is recording time, like the earth.

  The Cambrian period, he says, pointing to the remnants of the amoebas during a commercial.

  The Silurian, I add, outlining the coral from today.

  He blinks. You’ve been reading my books? he says, glancing toward the corner, where the entire Life Nature Library is heaped. Each book is open; the glossy pictures of prehistoric creatures, fertilized eggs, transparent fish, have lain on the floor for weeks. I didn’t know you liked to read, he says.

  I don’t, I say, though it’s hard to know; books wer
e not something I ever had at home. Just because I look at pictures, I say, doesn’t mean I like to read.

  He nods. His bottle of wine is empty. I can find stronger soap, if you want, he says.

  I don’t mind, I tell him. I smile and let the robe fall open. He smiles back at me, then turns and faces the television.

  Three days till the second show, and the review of the first comes out in the paper. There is one review for the whole show, but our piece, me, is the subject of two small articles to itself.

  One is a regular review. It says we are innovative, that my painted body evokes the beauty of a primeval sea. The writer compares me to Gaia, a mother-goddess, a life source. “Some would call it a throwback to the body painting of the ’60s, but this is different,” he writes. “This body penetrates to our collective unconscious, and with its careful strokes and evolving story it is far from the stagnant though pretty wallpaper that was painted on women’s bodies years ago.”

  The other is an article about the reactions of groups at the university. Some claim we are indecent; others claim we are exploiters. “Women have stopped defining themselves strictly by their bodies,” one is quoted as saying. “This show suggests that such a change never occurred; that women are and will forever be objects. What we have here is a public celebration of misogyny.” Another group says, “Art can encompass many things, but live nudity belongs in the domain of the pornographer, not the artist. We are appalled that this university is funding such a flagrant display of decadence. Parents who care about morality would do well to think twice before writing that next tuition check.”

  He snaps the newspaper closed. Censorship, he says. They tried it with that guy who used body fluids. They’ll try it with anyone who challenges their run-of-the-mill conceptions. Fascists.

  I glance toward the dictionary. This is all getting so involved I suddenly feel over my head, but from the tone of his voice I figure out what to say. It’s a free country, I blurt out. If we want to say something, we can say it.

  He sits back in his chair, staring at the table.

  I go on, though I’ve never thought about this before: If I want to define myself by my body, that’s fine. Because if we don’t do what we want, we risk being forced into something else.