Mary Clark: A Cry In The Night

The shades were drawn; the house had a shuttered look as though it had not been open for a time. The chimney was snow-covered; no lights shone from within.

Had she really dared to hope that when she came upon it, that chimney would be smoking, lamps would glow through the curtains, that she’d be able to go up to the door and open it?

There was a metal shingle nailed to the door. The letters were faded but still readable: ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. It was signed Erich Fritz Krueger and dated 1903.

There was a pump house to the left of the cabin, an outhouse discreetly half-hidden by full-branched pines. She tried to picture the young Erich coming here with his mother. “Caroline loved the cabin just as it was,” Erich had told her. “My father wanted to modernize the old place but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

No longer aware of the cold, Jenny skied over to the nearest window. Reaching into the knapsack, she pulled out the hammer, raised it and smashed the pane. Flying glass grazed her cheek. She was unaware of the trickle of blood that froze as it ran down her face. Careful to avoid the jagged peaks, she reached in, unfastened the latch and shoved the window up.

Kicking off her skis, she climbed over the low sill, pushed aside the shade and stepped into the cabin.

The cabin consisted of a single room about twenty feet square. A Franklin stove on the north wall had wood piled neatly next to it. A faded Oriental rug covered most of the white pine flooring. A wide-armed, high-backed velour couch and matching chairs were clustered around the stove. A long oak table and benches were near the front windows. A spinning wheel looked as though it might still be functional. A massive oak sideboard held willowware china and oil lamps. A steep stairway led to the left. Next to it, rows of file baskets held stacks of unframed canvases.

The walls were white pine, unknotted, silk-smooth and covered with paintings. Numbly Jenny walked from one to the other of them. The cabin was a museum. Even the dim light could not hide the exquisite beauty of the oils and watercolors, the charcoals and pen-and-ink drawings. Erich had not even begun to show his best work yet. How would the critics react when they saw these masterpieces? she wondered.

Some of the paintings on the walls were already framed. These must be the next ones he planned to exhibit. The pole-barn in a winter storm. What was so different about it? The doe, head poised, listening, about to flee into the woods. The calf reaching up to its mother. The fields of alfalfa, blue-flowered, ready for harvest. The Congregational Church with worshipers hurrying toward it. The main street of Granite Place suggesting timeless serenity.

Even in her desolation, the sensitive beauty of the collection gave Jenny a momentary sense of quietude and peace.

Finally she bent over the unframed canvases in the nearest rack. Again admiration suffused her being. The incredible dimensions of Erich’s talent, his ability to paint landscapes, people and animals with equal authority; the playfulness of the summer garden with the old-fashioned baby carriage, the…

And then she saw it. Not understanding, she began to race through the other paintings and sketches in the files.

She ran to the wall from one canvas to the next. Her eyes widened in disbelief. Not knowing what she was doing, she stumbled toward the staircase leading to the loft and rushed up the stairs.

The loft sloped with the pitch of the roof and Jenny had to bend forward at the top stair before she stepped into the room.

As she straightened up, a nightmarish blaze of color from the back wall assaulted her vision. Shocked, she stared at her own image. A mirror?

No. The painted face did not move as she approached it. The dusky light from the slitlike window played on the canvas, shading it in streaks, like a ghostly finger pointing.

For minutes she stared at the canvas, unable to wrench her eyes from it, absorbing every grotesque detail, feeling her mouth slacken in hopeless anguish, hearing the keening sound that was coming from her own throat.

Finally she forced her numbed, reluctant fingers to grasp the canvas and yank it from the wall.

Seconds later, the painting under her arm, she was skiing away from the cabin. The wind, stronger now, gagged her, robbed her of breath, muffled her frantic cry.

“Help me,” she was screaming. “Somebody, please, please help me.”

The wind whipped the cry from her lips and scattered it through the darkening wood.

It was obvious that the exhibition of paintings by Erich Krueger, the newly discovered Midwest artist, was a stunning success. The reception for critics and specially invited guests began at four, but all day long browsers had filled the gallery, drawn by Memory ofCaroline, the magnificent oil in the showcase window.

Deftly Jenny went from critic to critic, introducing Erich, chatting with collectors, watching that the caterers kept passing fresh trays of hors d’oeuvres and refilling champagne glasses.

From the moment she’d opened her eyes this morning, it had been a difficult day. Beth, usually so pliable, had resisted leaving for the day-care center. Tina, teething with two-year molars, awakened a half-dozen times during the night, crying fretfully. The New Year’s Day blizzard had left New York a nightmare of snarled traffic and curbsides covered with mounds of slippery, sooty snow. By the time she’d left the children at the center and made her way across town she was nearly an hour late for work. Mr. Hartley had been frantic.

“Everything is going wrong, Jenny. Nothing is ready. I warn you. I need someone I can count on.”

“I’m so sorry.” Jenny tossed her coat in the closet. “What time is Mr. Krueger due?”

“About one. Can you believe three of the paintings weren’t delivered until a few minutes ago?”

It always seemed to Jenny that the small, sixtyish man reverted to being about seven years old when he was upset. He was frowning now and his mouth was trembling. “They’re all here, aren’t they?” she asked soothingly.

“Yes, yes, but when Mr. Krueger phoned last night I asked if he’d sent those three. He was terribly angry at the prospect they’d been lost. And he insists that the one of his mother be exhibited in the window even though it’s not for sale. Jenny, I’m telling you. You could have posed for that painting.”

“Well, I didn’t.” Jenny resisted the impulse to pat Mr. Hartley on the shoulder. “We’ve got everything. Let’s get on with hanging them.”

Swiftly she helped with the arrangement, grouping the oils, the watercolors, the pen-and-ink sketches, the charcoals.

“You’ve got a good eye, Jenny,” Mr. Hartley said, visibly brightening as the last canvas was placed. “I knew we’d make it.”

Sure you did! she thought, trying not to sigh.

The gallery opened at eleven. By five of eleven the featured painting was in place, the handsomely lettered, velvet-framed announcement beside it: FIRST NEW YORK SHOWING, ERICH KRUEGER. The painting immediately began to attract the passersby on Fifty-seventh Street. From her desk, Jenny watched as people stopped to study it. Many of them came into the gallery to see the rest of the exhibit. Not a few of them asked her, “Were you the model for that painting in the window?”

Jenny handed out brochures with Erich Krueger’s bio:

Two years ago, Erich Krueger achieved instant prominence in the art world. A native of Granite Place, Minnesota, he has painted as an avocation since he was fifteen years old. His home is a fourth-generation family farm where he breeds prize cattle. He is also president of the Krueger Limestone Works. A Minneapolis art dealer was the first to discover his talent. Since then he has exhibited in Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Mr. Krueger is thirty-four years old and is unmarried.