Remembering their brief meeting yesterday, and considering how she’d been treated so far today, she realized that Rushkin was one of those people who always had to be in control.
She watched him as he drew. Getting to know her, she thought. Right. He was entirely ignoring her as a person; she’d become no more than a collection of shape and form to him, areas of light and shadow. The only sound in the room was the faint skritch of his vine charcoal on the canvas as he worked on his understudy. At length she couldn’t stand the silence anymore.
“How come you live like this?” she asked. “I mean, you’re so famous, I can’t understand why you don’t have, you know, a more posh sort of a studio.”
Rushkin stopped working and glared at her. With him looking the way he did, it was hard to imagine him capable of getting any uglier than he already was, but the glower in his features would have put to shame any one of the gargoyles that peered down from the heights of so many of Newford’s older buildings.
“Can you remember that pose?” he said, his voice cold.
Izzy didn’t think she’d ever forget, but she gave a small nervous nod. “Then take a break.”
Moments ago, Izzy would have given anything to hear those words, but now all she wanted to do was to reel back time until just before she’d opened her mouth. Better yet, she’d like to reel it back to before she’d ever decided to come here. Rushkin looked as though he wanted to hit her and she felt terribly vulnerable. She sat up slowly and wrapped herself in the crocheted shawl she’d brought with her when she’d first come out from behind the screen. Rushkin snagged a stool with the toe of his boot and pushed it over the floor until it stood near the recamier. Then he sat down and leaned forward.
“Is that what art means to you?” he growled. “A ‘posh studio,’ fame and fortune at your beck and call?”
“No. It’s just, you’re so famous and all, I just thought ...”
“We’re going to have a rule when you’re in this studio with me,” he told her. “You don’t ask questions. I don’t ever want to hear the word ‘why’ coming out from between your lips. Is that possible?”
Izzy drew the shawl more tightly around herself and nodded.
“If I feel you should know the reason behind something, if I think it necessary to whatever we happen to be working upon at the time, I will tell you.”
“I ... I understand.”
“Good. Now, since you weren’t aware of the rules we follow in this studio, I will allow you your one question.”
He sat back slightly on the stool, and it was as though a great weight had been lifted from Izzy’s chest. His pale gaze was no less intensely upon her, his glower hadn’t eased in the slightest, but that small bit of space he gave her suddenly allowed her to breathe again.
“You want to know,” he said, “why I live the way I do, why I dress like a beggar and work in a small rented studio, so I will tell you: I abhor success. Success means one is popular and I can think of nothing worse than popular appeal. It means your vision has been bowdlerized, lowered to meet the vague expectations of the lowest common denominator to be found in your audience.
“It’s my belief that elitism is healthy in an artist—no, required. Not because he uses it to put himself above others, but because it means that his work will always remain challenging. To himself. To his audience. To Art itself
“I can’t help the success of my work, but I can ignore it and I do. I also insist on utter privacy. Who I am, what I do, how I live my life, has nothing to do with the one facet of myself of which I allow the world a view: my art. The art speaks for itself; anything else is irrelevant and an intrusion. To allow a view of any other part of myself relegates the art to secondary importance. Then my work only becomes considered in terms of how I live my life, what hangs on my own walls, what I eat for breakfast, how often a day I have to relieve myself
“People want to know those details—I’ll grant you that. They think it gives them greater insight into a piece of art, but when they approach a painting in such a manner, they are belittling both the artist’s work and their own ability to experience it. Each painting I do says everything I want to say on its subject and in terms of that painting, and not all the trivia in the world concerning my private life will give the viewer more insight into it than what hangs there before their eyes. Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, even titling a work is an unnecessary concession.
“So,” he concluded. “Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“And do you agree?” he asked. What passed for a smile stole across his grotesque features.
Izzy hesitated for a moment, then had to admit, “Not ... not really.”
“Good. It’s refreshing to see that you have your own ideas, though you will keep them to yourself so long as you are in my studio. Understood?” Izzy nodded.
At that Rushkin stood up and kicked the stool out of the way. It went clattering along the floor until it banged up against a canvas. Izzy shuddered at the thought of the damage it might have done to the piece.
“Now,” Rushkin said, “if you will reassume the pose, perhaps we can salvage what remains of the morning light and actually get some work done today.”
V
Izzy had plans to meet Kathy at Feeney’s Kitchen for tea later that same afternoon. When she finally arrived at the cafe after her session with Rushkin, she found her roommate sharing a table with Jilly Coppercorn and Alan Grant, who were also students at the university.
Jilly always reminded Izzy of one of Cicely Barker’s flower fairies, with her diminutive but perfectly proportioned form, the sapphire flash of her eyes and the wild tangle of her nut-brown hair. They were in most of the same classes at Butler U. Jilly was a few years older than the other students but all she ever said by way of explanation was that she’d been late finishing high school. Like Kathy, she never spoke of the past, but she was willing to hold forth on just about any other topic at great and entertaining length.
Alan, on the other hand, was quiet—a gangly, solemn young man who was an English major like Kathy. Unlike Kathy, though, he had no aspirations of becoming a writer. His dream was to have his own small literary press—“Because someone’s got to publish you people,” he’d told them once—which frustrated Kathy no end, since she thought he was one of the better writers among their fellow students.
For proof positive, she’d point to The Crowsea Review, a little photocopied journal he’d produced over the summer and managed to place in the university bookshop on commission. “His editorial’s the best thing in it,” she’d say to anyone who cared to listen, an opinion bolstered by her own modesty since she herself had a story in the magazine.
Izzy waved acknowledgment to their chorus of hellos and went to the counter to get herself some tea and a muffin before joining them at their table by the window.
“So?” Kathy asked as soon as Izzy drew near. “Was it him?”
Izzy nodded. She set her tea mug and muffin down on the table and took the free seat between Jilly and Alan.
“Was it him who?” July asked, then laughed at the way her question sounded.