“I’m a whirling dervish in the studio. No one can stop me.” The usual bravado came out forced.
“I don’t believe you.”
He made an exasperated sound, like a horse fluttering its lips. When he spoke, the words were so soft she had to strain to hear them over the din of the streets. “That photograph, the one of my mother and me. I can’t seem to get the painting of it right. I finish one and then immediately start on another.”
“Can I come see?”
His face darkened. “No. I don’t let anyone come to my studio anymore. I’m not ready.”
She remembered how she’d been stymied until Oliver had lent a hand. “You’re stuck. Maybe I can help.”
“You’ll have me put a bottle of soda in my mother’s hand, is that your answer?”
“Don’t be petty. You’re a great artist. Are you sleeping?” The dark circles under his eyes told her what she knew already.
“Not really. I can’t finish it; it will never be right, and I’ll keep going on and on and I’ll never be able to afford bread and tea again.”
They were both propelled by childhood memories of hardship, Levon’s far more ghastly than her own. Which was probably why she had been able to overcome the fear of failure, while Levon was succumbing to it. “There’s plenty of work out there; times are good. Don’t do this to yourself. Is Nadine a help?”
“She went off and got engaged to a stockbroker. I don’t blame her. How’s your lapdog?”
For a second, she was unsure what he was talking about. “Stop. That’s not kind. Oliver is a sweetheart.” They passed a bench, set back from the street in a shady spot. “Do you mind if we sit for a moment?”
He sank onto the wooden bench like a puppet released from its strings.
She angled toward him, one arm draped over the back of the bench. “Your work is strong, Levon. Why not let others see it? What if they think it’s wonderful?”
“What if they don’t?”
“It’s worth the risk, trust me.”
“You wouldn’t know.”
She did her best to maintain an even tone. “What do you mean by that?”
“What I do, I do from my heart. What you do, well . . . it’s business.”
She remembered their debate that night in the Village, in front of the students. There was no reason for him to have changed his mind. Not Levon. “Oh, for God’s sake. I won’t apologize for my success. I won’t apologize for my ambition. Why fight me on this?”
He tensed with a catlike ferocity. For a moment, she thought he was going to leap into the middle of the street, end it all under the wheels of a passing car.
Instead, his head dropped onto her shoulder. “I’m done for, Clara.”
She bent her arm around him, averting her eyes from curious stares of passersby. What a sight they must make, a pietà of giants, all long limbs and wide shoulders, the man silently weeping.
CHAPTER TWELVE
June 1929
As she’d hoped, Mr. Bianchi offered Clara the chance to reinterpret the interior of the Dictator, as well as take the lead on the advertising campaign. She immersed herself in the job, stopping by the factory twice more, staying up all night sketching out dashboard designs and advertisement ideas. Even though her schedule was packed, Clara made a point of stopping by Levon’s studio every few days, dropping off some bread and cheese or soup, waiting until he’d eaten it all before heading back out. From what she could tell, he still hadn’t made much progress on the paintings, but she made a point of not speaking about art, either his or her own.
Today she’d brought an apple and some cold chicken drumsticks, wrapped in brown paper. A lazy heat had settled over the city in the past couple of days, and she didn’t want to have to turn on Levon’s stove. Striped awnings kept her own apartment cool, but she knew his top-floor studio would be sweltering.
She knocked twice before letting herself in with the spare key, which she’d pilfered after he’d refused to answer the door one day. She’d had to pound away until he finally let her in, looking morose and surly. This week had shown signs of improvement: He’d had other visitors one day, and on the others, she’d found him reading a book or newspaper instead of indulging in his melancholy.
“Here. Eat this before it spoils.” She laid the bag on the table as she unpinned her hat.
Levon wore a white undershirt and blue serge trousers. He reached for his shirt, which lay over a chair, sweeping it about him like a cape and tucking one arm through.
“You don’t have to do that for me. It’s too hot for long sleeves.”
“I’d never be so gauche as to eat in front of a lady with my arms bare. I may have been raised in a dirt hut, but even peasants have standards.”
She laughed. “You’re about as far from a peasant as any man I know. You’re a secret member of the aristocracy, no? Russian, perhaps? I’ve always suspected that accent wasn’t quite right.”
“If only. My father was a cobbler, not a duke.” He sighed, hiding a smile.
“What was he like?” She’d found that getting him to reminisce often lightened his mood. Which was especially odd, as most of his memories were sad, bordering on grim.
“Simple, but strict. He fled before the worst of the persecution began. I remember once, a few months after my father was gone, a Turk tried to steal from one of my neighbor’s homes. In the darkness, he hit his eye on a nail, blinding himself, and was caught. The Turk went to court and insisted that my neighbor was responsible for his accident, and the judge agreed. They pinned him down and gouged out his eye as well.”
When he ranted like this, it was best to stay neutral. “How biblical.”
Levon burst into peals of laughter. “That is why I adore you, my Clara. You are not afraid of anything. You don’t cower like the rest of them.”
“What happened to your father? Did you ever find out?”
“He started a new family in the States. When my sister and I finally came here, she wanted to try to find him. But what was the point? He had left us behind in that morass. I wanted nothing to do with him.”
“How did you manage, when you first got here?” If she could remind him of his resiliency, maybe he would break free from these doldrums, return to the passionate man she’d first met.
“I found work in an art store. I’ve always drawn, even when I was young. I made paints from whatever I could find, pear juice and peels, from egg yolks. You’re the same way, no?”
“I suppose.”
He lurched over to the painting of his mother. “What if I can never finish it?”
She stood behind him. Sections of the canvas shone like porcelain, from the application of multiple coats of paint, followed by scraping and sanding until only a reflective layer remained. While arduous, the technique worked—the finish showed depth that she’d seen before only in the work of Vermeer.
“Who says you have to finish it, anyway? Why not keep on painting for as long as you like?”
“You’re saying that so that I do the opposite, right? That I fight back and say that I must finish it.”
He was impossible. “Do whatever you must, Levon. It’s too hot to argue with you today. Let’s go out.”
“Where?”
She opened her leather satchel and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “The Heckscher Building. Three society ladies are creating a museum of modern art there later this year, and I was asked to stop by and give my opinion on some works they’re considering.”
“Which artists?”
“Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, and Van Gogh.” She handed over the list.
He scanned it voraciously. “So many.”
“They’re aiming for a hundred artworks. Can you imagine? We can see them firsthand, right here in New York, and they already have a dozen at the gallery. It’s an exciting prospect. You should come.”