“They say some dinosaurs had two brains,” said Novak. “One up here.” He touched his temple. “And one in their tails.” He held up his hand. “Let us develop a brain in our hand.”
Novak brought in models. Rarely were they beautiful. There was a scarred and fat old man with a long beard, a withered female junkie who shivered and scratched, a body builder, an elderly woman who fell asleep, a native woman with beaded hair to her hips and who, afterwards, strolled behind them in a black and red robe inspecting their work. She paused behind Cyril and stood there for what seemed an eternity.
“Huh.” Then she moved on.
He evaluated that huh. It was not a harumph, or a sceptical hunh, but a bemused and perhaps even intrigued sound. He had focused on the drapery of her hair as if it was a theatre curtain.
When Novak looked at Cyril’s sketch he did not say Huh he sucked his teeth. “Well, you know which end of the pencil to use.” Cyril was familiar enough with Eastern European bluntness to know that while it was not exactly a compliment neither was it a complete dismissal. “You are drawing what you think is there not what is there. I’ll give you a trick. If your drawing is going well you don’t need it. But if you’re stuck, this can help. Look for images. You understand? Maybe you look at our lovely madonna of the forest and you see that where her arm meets her shoulder there is a chicken.”
“Not the chickens again,” she said, overhearing.
Novak ignored her and spoke louder. “A chicken. Or tree. Or boot. You draw that chicken or tree or boot and in that way you build up the whole from the parts, and each part is its own shape.”
Cyril discovered that his drawings began taking on what Novak termed interior architecture. He was excited. He began imagining a route forward, maybe even a show, a career. Yet why did a guy with Novak’s talent have to teach? One evening he asked whether Novak could make a living on his art.
“Ah, the honourable sir has enquired if I, Novak, could survive on the avails of my art alone. I could. But I choose not to. Why? Because I do not wish to become a bitter and loathsome creature. I prefer to remain the sweet boy you see before you now.” His mock beatific expression fell. He frowned. He had many frowns. He could frown musingly, sourly, angrily, whimsically, sadly, even joyously. He could laugh and frown at the same time. Now he frowned reflectively. “You must have talent. A thick skin. And, most important, luck. Luck, luck, luck. So much luck. To make luck you must be clever, or blessed. I know I am not blessed and I suspect I am not so clever, but I believe I have the sweet sad soul of a melted popsicle.”
Cyril had no idea what any of that meant, but he was inspired.
Sunday evenings Cyril visited his mother. Paul and Della would be there, and after helping with the dishes Della would dry her hands and inevitably discover her wristwatch and remember how early she had to get up in the morning and they’d escape, leaving Cyril and his mother to Ed Sullivan. She didn’t watch the Ed Sullivan Show so much as gaze at it the way she looked at the cemetery, with a distant and somewhat disdainful curiosity. She regarded José Feliciano as doubly handicapped because he was both blind and Puerto Rican. She liked Liberace’s sequinned outfits and rhinestone rings, though Victor Borge was her favourite because he’d made fun of Hitler in the ’30s.
She had developed the gravity of a brick. There was some latent danger in her that put Cyril in mind of an unexploded shell that had sat buried for decades. It might go years more or blow within the hour. He knew she had friends, other widows from church, yet he feared that by driving Darrel off he’d condemned her to misery.
At the next class Cyril spent as much time looking at Novak as he did at the model, evaluating Novak through his mother’s eyes: the narrow shoulders, the slack hair, the flat feet, the sarcasm—a quality they shared—and the fact that they were from the same end of Europe. Of course, Novak was blithely irreverent when it came to religion while Cyril’s mother attended church and took more and more solace in her icons. There was also the little matter of him being Hungarian. They’d fought, however reluctantly, alongside Germany in the war. No, his mother and Novak were not a good match. But wasn’t that for them to decide?
At first Novak didn’t understand. “A party?”
“Supper.”
Novak pushed his lips up under his long nose and asked after Cyril’s father, and learning that he was dead began getting the idea. He frowned his exaggerated frown, each end of his thin-lipped mouth hooking downwards and his coat-hanger shoulders rising in a shrug. “Okay.”
At first Cyril’s mother was equally sceptical. “Magyar.”
“Canadian.”
“Magyar.”
“So?”
She regarded him with horror. “They fought alongside the Germans.”
“Dad fought with the Commies.”
“They think they’re—” Her hand flapped like a torn flag. “They think they’re better.”
“He’s a good guy.”
She sniffed as only she could sniff, nostrils wide, mouth down, implying disinterest and disdain. “Bring him, don’t bring him.”
Come Sunday the bright blue skirt and yellow blouse and red lipstick and cornflower clip-on earrings said Helen Andrachuk was not so indifferent. On the dining room table were new cloth napkins with red trim, and from the kitchen came the smell of roast pork and apple sauce. Paul and Della were eager to meet this Novak. Dinner was at six. At a quarter to seven Novak still hadn’t shown and Paul, deep into the rye, said the guy must be on Budapest time. At seven o’clock Novak arrived carrying a large bottle of Hungarian red whose label depicted some sort of medieval wood furnace being fed by trolls. He was smartly dressed in a charcoal suit and open-collared cream shirt.
Paul said, “You’re late.”
“I missed the bus.”
“You don’t drive?’
“I drive when I have a car.” Novak turned and waited to be introduced to Cyril’s mother, taking her hand in both of his and regarding her with a decorum nothing short of courtly. Cyril could see by her expression that she was charmed by such graciously Old World manners. When it was Della’s turn Novak asked if she would model for him.
“No,” said Paul.
Della, angered, said she’d love to.
Paul, angered, said she wouldn’t.
Novak, amused, asked if Paul would like to model and Della said he’d love to.
Paul gulped his rye in one go and said he was hungry and took his spot at the head of the table. Cyril saw Novak discovering the collection of Virgin Marys as well as the view out the window of the cemetery. Cyril offered to close the curtains but Novak said no, it was a very entertaining vista.
“It’s depressing,” said Paul, filling their glasses with red wine.