What Is Missing by Michael Frank

Author:Michael Frank
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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Vuillard et Waroquy, a rectangular canvas of about six by eight feet, hung in one of the smaller rooms that extended the Met’s story of Impressionism. Henry led Costanza to the picture, then took a step to one side, presenting it to her as a child might a prized toy. Rendered in a limited palette of grays, browns, and watery greens, it was a double portrait of the artist and his friend. Vuillard was standing in the foreground, with Waroquy just behind him, and they were looking into a mirror, which was actually the canvas, or what the canvas was pretending to be—only a bottle (of wine, or liquor) in the lower right-hand corner, reflected in the mirror/canvas, gave away the trick.

“Fantastic, isn’t?” Henry said. “He’s painting a painting of himself painting a painting of himself, while his friend watches. It’s almost like it’s happening in real time.”

“Fantastic, yes.” Costanza studied the painting. “Very imaginative. But…”

“Go on.”

“Quite honestly, something else stands out to me. This morning you talked about Isaac Schoenfeld. You gave the impression that it was a friendship that you’re still haunted by. Then you bring me to see this painting of two male friends looking at us—trying to say something to us—across time. Don’t you think that’s—curious?”

“Honestly, it never occurred to me.”

“But it seems so obvious.”

“Is this how it always is with you?” Henry asked lightly. “This constant examining?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“You want to know how I feel about that?”

She nodded.

“Excited.” He kissed her on the neck.

“Thank you, Henry, but I feel that you’re deflecting me.”

“Not at all. For years Judith didn’t seem interested in listening to me or understanding me. Now I want to be listened to, I want to be known. Especially by you.”

“Then you have to answer me. You have to show yourself to me.”

He looked back at the canvas. “Maybe bringing you to see this picture is a way of revealing something I myself don’t understand, how much this part of my past still—troubles me. There. Is that what you’re looking for?”

“What I’m looking for, Henry, is the truth.”

“I believe that is the truth. I’m just seeing it now…” He studied the painting for a few moments, then faced her. “Your turn. What is it that you’re not showing me?”

“That’s easy. How lost I feel.”

“Still, even now?” As he said this, he gestured, indicating himself, then her.

“Especially now. Questioning, or doubting things—it’s how I was born, Henry. And also, I’m afraid.”

“Of the cycle?”

She nodded. “From your point of view, I know, it’s routine. But not for me. I don’t know what it will feel like, whether it will work—even you can’t know that. I don’t know whether you and I will survive it. The quest for a baby finished off my marriage to Morton, you see.”

“But surely it wasn’t only that,” Henry said soberly.

“Not only. But mostly. At least that’s how I’ve come to think about it. Also I worry that if the treatment doesn’t work, I may fall into—into a state of mind, a darkness, like my father’s.

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