Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem

Author:Jonathan Lethem [Lethem, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-79177-1
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Hugh Merrow had been drinking. His house was like a tableau arranged to produce that impression, littered with bottles and glasses and laundry, shades pulled down against the light, a twice-bitten sandwich rotting on a plate, and the artist himself slumped in a chair in the center of the room, his forehead braced against his palms. The easel was empty, the sketch for the portrait of Truth Renowned down, facing the wall. The self-portraits on the walls glared into the middle of the room accusingly now, and the rosy landscapes seemed to mock the sealed windows.

The painter barely looked up as they came in. First Truth Renowned, pushed ahead roughly by Efram and Doug Grant, then Clement and Joe Kincaid. Next, trickling in silently, came Ben Barth, Hiding Kneel, Morris Grant, Bruce and Pella. Jammed into Hugh Merrow’s cluttered, solitary space they seemed an invasion, an explosion of bodies, though the studio was no smaller than the cleared-out schoolroom they’d been in a few minutes before.

The fading daylight shone too harshly on this scene. Pella closed the door behind her, and it seemed a small act of mercy.

“Here you go, Merrow, here’s your beautiful Archbuilder,” said Efram, thrusting Truth Renowned into the middle of the room. The Archbuilder stumbled, righted itself, a distant look in its eyes.

“What’s that supposed to prove?” said Hugh Merrow in a soft voice. He didn’t lift his head from its crutch of hands. “Truth is my model. Bringing—it—back here to me doesn’t mean anything.”

“You didn’t say it last night.”

“What’s this all about?” said Clement.

“Linguistic dissension—” began Hiding Kneel from behind Clement.

“Wait, Kneel,” said Clement, waving his hand. “I’m asking Efram.”

“We were at Wa’s, last night,” said Efram. “Me, and Ben, and Merrow here. Having a drink. Wa’s little general store turns into a place for drinking, after hours.” He spread his hands to indicate the counter in Wa’s shop. “I don’t know if he’d let you family men in on it. Can’t imagine you’d bother with it if he did. It’s for us lonely types. But after Merrow got in his cups last night he started talking like he wasn’t really all that lonely.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Merrow burst out, looking up angrily at Efram.

“Going on about how beautiful she was, tearing his hair about it—”

“I was talking about my painting, the difficulty of capturing in a portrait—”

“You were talking about a hell of a lot more than that and you know it. And so does the native beauty here.”

The accused Archbuilder stood helplessly between them, fronds depressed against its head.

“He was baiting me,” said Hugh Merrow, turning to Clement. “He was feeding me drinks, first of all, and planting this idea, this thing he wanted to think—”

“Baiting and planting, now debating,” said Hiding Kneel.

“Yeah, and next comes mass debating,” whispered Morris Grant to Bruce and Pella. Bruce shoved him, so hard that he stumbled forward and jarred a palette-table. Several thin tubes of paint fell and scattered on the floor.

“Morris,” said Joe Kincaid.

“It was Bruce!” Morris said plaintively.

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