Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

“A writer.”

Izzy nodded.

Rushkin lowered the painting and studied her. His fierce scowl did little to ease the unhappy feeling that had grown inside her. She felt sick and dizzy and all she wanted was to be anywhere else but here.

“You think me unfair, don’t you?” Rushkin said softly.

Izzy knew better than to reply.

“Did you ever stop to wonder why I would make such a rule? Did you ever think that I’m doing it for you as well as myself? Do you not think that a certain level of competency might be appreciated before you begin handing out your work to all and sundry? For the sake of my reputation, and that of my studio, if not for your own?”

“But, it’s just my friend Kathy,” Izzy protested before she realized what she was doing.

“Fine!” Rushkin roared.

He threw the painting at where she was sitting on the floor, looking up at him. A side of the small canvas caught her in the midriff. Surprise, more than the actual force of the blow, made her lose her balance and fall backward, gasping for breath.

“Take the painting!” Rushkin cried. “Take it and yourself and get out. But don’t you dare come crawling back to me. Do you understand me?”

Izzy lay where she’d fallen, arms folded over her stomach. Her body shook with an uncontrollable trembling.

“I ... I didn’t mean to—” she began.

“Stop contradicting me!”

Suddenly he was standing directly over her. She tried to scrabble away from him, but her hands and feet could get no purchase on the smooth floor and he was too quick. His shoe lashed out and he caught her in the side with its hard leather toe. Pain flared, white and hot. Tears sprang in her eyes, blinding her.

“How dare you contradict me?”

Izzy curled up into a fetal position, trying to protect herself from his foot, but he kicked her again.

And again. She heard a voice crying for mercy and only recognized it as her own when the blows finally stopped.

“Oh my god,” Rushkin said. “What have I done? What have I done?”

She tried to escape his touch, but he knelt on the floor beside her and gathered her close to his chest, stroking her hair, his voice choked and filled with horror until he could speak no more and all he could do was weep.

They seemed to hold that tableau forever, but finally Rushkin’s grip loos-ened and Izzy managed to extricate herself from his embrace. She moved away from him, but didn’t feel strong enough to get to her feet. Her torso and legs were bruised and every movement she made hurt. It even hurt to breathe. She wanted to get up and flee, but the most she could manage was to wrap her arms around herself and stare at the pitiful figure Rushkin cut, her vision still blurry with tears.

Rushkin knelt in front of her, head bowed down to the floor. He had stopped weeping, but when he finally lifted his face, his cheeks were glistening.

“You ... you should go,” he said, his gravelly voice strained with emotion. “I am a monster and I don’t deserve to be in the same room as you. God knows why you’ve put up with me.”

“Why ..... Izzy began. She paused, rubbed her nose on her sleeve and cleared her throat. “Why do you ... hurt me?”

Rushkin shook his head. “I wish to god I knew. I ... A blind rage comes over me, as overpowering as my need to paint. Sometimes I think it’s the dark side of my muse: the side of her that craves destruction and despair.”

His gaze fixed on Izzy, but she remained silent. What he was telling her only made her feel more confused than ever.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he went on, lowering his gaze once more. “I’m making excuses, rather than taking responsibility for my brutality. But when that rage comes upon me, I am no longer in control. It is as though I have been possessed. The monster rises up and I can do nothing but weep at what it leaves in its wake.”

Rushkin lifted his head. “I’m sorry. None of what I’m saying can alleviate in any way the repugnance towards me that you must be feeling.” He rose slowly to his feet. “You should go home. Let me call you a cab—or ... or do you need to go to the hospital?”

Izzy slowly shook her head. She was bruised and sore, but the last thing in the world she wanted was to have some doctor pushing and prodding away at her. And how would she explain what had happened to her? It would be so humiliating.

She flinched as Rushkin stepped toward her, but he was only retrieving her painting. He placed it in her knapsack, then closed the fastenings.

She didn’t flinch as he approached her again, but she rose to her feet under her own steam. Rushkin didn’t offer to help her up. He merely waited for her to put on her coat, then handed her the knapsack.

“That ... that painting,” she said.

“Please. Take it. It’s yours,” he said contritely. “It has a certain charm and I’m sure it will delight your friend.”

Izzy nodded. “Thanks,” she said. She hesitated, then added: “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Certainly.”

“Have you ... have you thought of seeing somebody about this problem you’ve got with your temper?

Like a ... a therapist of some sort?”

She almost expected him to fly into another rage, but all he did was slowly shake his head.

“Look at me,” he said. “I have the appearance of a monster. Why shouldn’t I carry one inside me as well?”

Izzy did look at him and realized then that her familiarity with him had changed the way she viewed him. She didn’t see him as ugly at all anymore. He was just Rushkin.

“That doesn’t have to be true,” she said.

“If you really believe that, then I will do it.”

“You’ll get some help?”

Rushkin nodded. “Consider it a promise. And thank you, Isabelle.”

“What do you have to thank me for?”

“For showing me the charity that you have after what I’ve done to you.”

“If you really mean it,” Izzy said, “then I want to keep coming back to the studio.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Rushkin told her. “A therapist might well not be able to help me and even if I should have success, there’s no guarantee that the monster won’t arise again before the process is completed.”

“But if you’re going to do this, I can’t just walk out on you,” Izzy told him. “I can’t let you go through it alone.”

Rushkin shook his head in slow amazement. “You have a spirit as generous as it is talented,” he said.

Izzy lowered her head as a hot flush rose up her neck and spread across her cheeks.

“I will phone my doctor this afternoon,” Rushkin said, “and ask him to refer me to someone as soon as possible. Still, I think we should take a break for a few weeks.”

“But—”

Rushkin smiled and wagged a finger at her. “You’ve been working hard and you deserve a rest. You can return in the new year.”

“You’ll be okay?”

Rushkin nodded. “With the faith you’ve shown me, how could I be otherwise?”

Izzy surprised herself as well as him then. Before he was quite aware of what she was doing, she stepped up to him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, Vincent,” she said, and then she fled.

II

Newford, May 1974

Feeney’s Kitchen was busy Friday night, crowded and loud. Smoke hung thick in the air and not all of it originated from tobacco. On stage a four-piece Celtic group called Marrowbones was ripping through a set of Irish reels, and the small dance floor was filled with jostling bodies attempting their own idiosyncratic versions of Irish step dancing, flinging themselves about with great and joyous abandon.

Izzy sat at a table near the back with Kathy and Jilly, enjoying the raucous mood for all that it made conversation next to impossible. It was only when the band took a break that they could talk with any hope of understanding each other. After the waitress brought them another pitcher of beer, the conversation got around to a discussion of the benefits of a fine-arts curriculum at a university such as Butler as opposed to an apprenticeship under an established artist. Izzy, being the only one of the three involved in both, found herself elaborating on one of Rushkin’s theories, which brought cries of elitism from both her companions.