“Who’s this lady?” he says.
“Just some lady,” the Brother says.
Julian draws his mother’s face over the lady’s face, and when he is done with that one, there are more. He draws and draws. If he draws enough, she will see them, he knows.
Engales sees her, his sister, coming to life around him. There is Franca in the bathtub when they were small, her tiny hands scooping water. There is Franca riding her bike in a bird-like way, her elbows flapping at her sides. There is Franca making a mud pie in the backyard and serving it to him on a red plastic plate. There is Franca in her embroidered tunics with the stitches running around like ants on the fabric. Franca standing under their mother like a small version of their mother. Franca getting chased by a bigger girl down an alleyway off Calle Bolívar. Hitting the bigger girl with a stick to protect her and then feeling bad because he had hit a girl. Franca screaming that she hated him because he cut off a chunk of her hair in the middle of the night. Franca learning pastries from their grandfather. Franca not being patient enough for the pastries at first, wanting to run around outside. Franca growing breasts that first came out like little whipped-cream peaks and then became big round cakes that he hated. Knowing what Franca was thinking, even when it was private. Reading Franca’s journal, even when it was private. Franca saying tits. Franca laughing. Franca moaning with Morales in their parents’ room, how hearing her moans was like feeling his parents die again. Franca with a stomach, large and round, coming out of her like a watermelon. Franca in a blue coat, being thrown into the back of a Ford Falcon. Just one whoosh of the car’s engine, and she was gone.
She is gone. But she is also here, in the room, smiling atop all of Engales’s unfinished paintings. Franca had sent her son here. She had chosen Raul. She had trusted only the Brother to save her, and to save her son.
Suddenly Julian stands up on the bed in the middle of the pictures, which tilt a little bit when he walks over the mattress to the Brother. He puts the Brother’s head into the place where his arm meets his body. He puts his arms around the Brother’s head and rocks the head.
“You’re going to have to be quiet for this to work,” Julian says.
“For what to work?” the Brother says.
“I’m stirring your head,” says Julian.
“Okay…”
“And I’m going to tell you the story.”
“What story?”
“I said you’re going to have to be quiet.”
“Lips are sealed.”
“There were a brother and a sister who loved each other as much as infinity.”
“How do you know such a big word?” the Brother says.
“I just do know,” Julian says impatiently.
“Quiet,” says the Brother. “Being quiet now.”
Julian tells the whole thing. The cakes, the ESP, the drawings. The sister pinning the drawings up all over the house, because she loved them so much and she knew her brother had made them just for her.
“So why did the brother leave?” the Brother asks, just at the moment when you are supposed to ask that.
“How did you know the brother left?” Julian says. “I haven’t gotten to that part of the story.”
“Just a guess,” says the Brother. Then the Brother pulls his head from the bowl of Julian’s armpit and looks at Julian in the face. Engales wants to tell this boy everything he never told Franca, to make him feel good and safe. “You’re a smart kid, Juli. Like your grandpa Braulio. You would have liked him. He had a funny nose. And you’re a good artist, too.” He pauses, takes the boy’s face in his hand. “Did you know that?”
“Yeah. My mom tells me that all the time. And James told me.”
The Brother smiles a little bit but still looks sad.
“Did you make these?” Julian asks.
“Yes, I did.”
“You’re a good artist, too.”
The Brother laughs, and when he does the whole year floods through him — Times Square, Lucy on Jane Street, the squat and its demise, Winona’s art horoscopes, James Bennett, this boy. Looking back on it, the year felt as distinct and tangible as one of Tehching’s years: bound up tightly into one little bundle of time. He wonders how Tehching feels when the years are over, when he can start sleeping inside after being outside for 365 days, when he can stop waking up every hour to punch his time clock. Does he miss the project for what it provided? A structure inside of which to live a life? Does the ending of the project mean the stripping of some kind of shield? The year will end in just a couple days, Engales thinks. Winona will have her party, people will cheer and drink champagne, she’ll whisper to each of them their art fortune for the New Year. What will his be? He thinks he has an idea. His chest feels light and his heart swollen and purposeful.
This is him picking up a paintbrush with his left hand. This is him dipping his brush into the paint. This is the sensual suck of the paint’s resistance. This is the way it peaks on the brush. This is him painting for Franca.
The canvas in front of him is an unfinished portrait of Lucy. He erases her face with a yellow stroke. He hopes she’s okay. He will call her to see if she’s okay. He will take her to coffee at Binibon, say he’s sorry. He will kiss her on the cheek. He will mix in the tiniest bit of blue.
“This is how you make real skin color,” he tells Julian. “You add the tiniest bit of blue.”
“No way,” says Julian, who is still working diligently on painting out a fishmonger’s neck with bright orange.
Engales laughs again. Here is a boy with Franca’s big, funny eyes. Here is a boy who is learning how to be in the world, with the whole world in front of him. Here is a boy who wants to make a hundred pictures in one night. It is absurd. It is impossible. It is absurdly, impossibly beautiful. Here is an impossible, beautiful chance.
They spend the whole night finishing the pictures. They don’t go to sleep. Engales helps Julian count, to make sure there are one hundred. When they are done, they look out at the room, which has brightened with smooth winter light. There are a hundred Francas. A hundred sisters and a hundred mothers.
They are tired. They have succeeded. Julian lifts up his hand.
“What’s that for?” says the Brother.
“You’re supposed to high-five me,” Julian says. “James does it when I finish a picture. James loves art.”
Engales smiles. James does love art. He thinks of how James will be here tomorrow at noon to pick up Julian, how James will look around this shitty apartment full of crudely rendered Francas and smile, and understand. Relief overcomes Engales, as if it is only now — when he imagines someone he loves loving it, seeing in it what he sees — that this room full of paintings can become beautiful, or valid, or real.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book began and ended with a Claudia — Bernardi, whose powerful teachings enlightened me to Argentina’s history and sparked Franca’s character into being; and Ballard, whose guidance, editorial vision, and belief in this project turned it from a dream into a reality. Thank you for being the strongest and smartest and steeliest of women.
My parents, Nikki Silva and Charles Prentiss, are not only my biggest inspiration but also my unfailing support system. Mom and Dad: your boundless creativity, intelligence, kindness, and love are the reason why this book (and everything else I’ve ever made or been) exists. I admire you completely.
My brothers and sisters — whole, half, in-law, and commune — are the very best humans I know. I am so grateful for the way you make me feel, think, and laugh.
To the commune and its members: thank you for the way you raised us, the many examples you set for us, the dinners you cooked for us, and for letting me take over the breakfast table when I needed to write. Thank you to my families: Silva, Prentiss, Bennett, Baer, Becker, Bauer, Pruitt, Lewinger, Beckman-Dorr, and Paul. Also: Davia Nelson, Jo Aribas, Bobby Andrus, and Sue Struck.