Charles De Lint - Memory and Dream

Put like that, Izzy thought, there might well be something to what Alan was saying. She certainly knew Kathy’s features better than those of anyone else in her life—better even than her own.

“But it’s not just the hair that reminds me of Kathy with this one,” Alan went on. “It’s more just a—oh, I don’t know. A Kathyish expression, I suppose.”

“I call it Annie Nin .”

“After Anaïs Nin?”

“Who?”

Alan smiled. “She’s a writer. You’d probably like her work.”

“I’ve never heard of her before. ‘Annie Nin’ just popped into my head the day I finished it.”

“Well, it’s beautiful. You know I like all your work, but I really love the movement of your brush strokes on this one—they’re so free and loose.”

“Actually, I did that with oil pastels. What you’re admiring is the marks of the pastel stick on the board.”

“Whatever. I still really like it.”

As he start to put it down, Izzy pushed it toward him. “Take it,” she said. “I’d like to see her go someplace where she’ll be appreciated.”

And besides, she thought, Alan’s apartment was the closest thing to a library without actually being one that Izzy could think of Annie would love it there. “I couldn’t just take it,” Alan said. “It must be worth a fortune.”

“Oh right. Like you haven’t seen what my work goes for in the gallery.”

“Not nearly what it’s worth,” Alan told her.

Izzy smiled, relaxing for the first time since the mail had arrived at the coach-house studio that morning.

“You’re being sweet,” she said, and then refused to accept no for an answer from him. It didn’t take much more convincing, and by the time they’d finished their beers and he was leaving, the painting was tucked in under his arm and went with him.

Later, Izzy had cause to be grateful for that moment of generosity, for that was how Annie Nin’s numena survived all the deaths that were to come, following Rushkin’s return to the city.

XIV

March 1978

Izzy was determined to ignore Rushkin’s presence in the city, but in the end she couldn’t stay away.

Because her numena were still unharmed and the awful dreams she used to have about them being hurt hadn’t returned, she let the old arguments convince her again that he meant neither her nor her numena any harm.

She thought of the helpful letters he’d sent, critiquing her shows. Of all she’d learned from him. Of all the good times they’d had, talking about art and all the strange and wonderful places he’d been. Of how he’d provided her with art supplies when she had nothing. Of how he’d allowed her the use of his studio for all the years he’d been away. It was easier to simply forget his towering rages. His need to control.

The fact that he really might be the monster that John insisted he was.

She remembered him with uneasiness and affection, both emotions milling about inside her in equal doses, until she knew she had to go see him to judge which was the most true.

She didn’t return to the coach house immediately. At first she mooned about the apartment, looked into getting a new studio, ran about the city with Kathy and visited all those friends she’d never seemed to have enough time to visit because the call of the studio was stronger. But eventually two weeks had gone by and she found herself trudging through a new Ell of snow that littered the lane running from Stanton Street to Rushkin’s studio.

It was a gloomy, cold morning, the sky overhung with clouds, her breath frosting the air, her feet already going numb in her thin boots. She’d left the apartment at eight, planning to get to the studio before Rushkin started work for the day, but instead she’d taken about as indirect a route as she could have managed, walking all the way downtown and then back up Yoors Street before finally finding herself on Stanton. It was going on nine-thirty when she turned into the lane.

Ahead of her, the lights spilling from the studio’s windows were warm and inviting, a golden glow that promised safe haven, a sanctuary from the bitter cold. But that promise was a lie, wasn’t it? She remembered trying to explain it to Kathy when Kathy got home that night after Alan had helped her move all her things back to the apartment.

“What happened?” Kathy asked, looking at the claustrophobic closet that Izzy’s bedroom had become with the addition of the stacks of paintings and boxes. “You get evicted?”

Izzy shook her head. “No. It’s Rushkin. I got a letter from him telling me he’d be back tomorrow.”

“So?” Kathy said, echoing Alan’s response earlier. “I thought he said you could use the place when he was gone?”

“He did. It’s just ... you know ....”

Izzy shrugged, wanting to leave it at that, but unlike Alan, Kathy wasn’t one to be easily put off once she had her mind set on knowing something. “Know what?” she asked.

Izzy sighed. “It’s my numena. I had to get them out of there before he came back.”

“You really think he’s after them?”

Izzy had never told Kathy about the death of the winged cat in her dream, or how Rushkin had tried to kill Paddyjack—would have killed him, if it hadn’t been for John. She hadn’t told her about Rushkin trying to buy one of her numena paintings for five thousand dollars from her first show at The Green Man Gallery. She hadn’t told her about how Rushkin seemed to have changed after she first met him, from troll to a normal man. There were so many things she’d never told anyone about Rushkin.

She shrugged. “You know what John said, that they keep him young. That they’re like a kind of food for him.”

He feeds on us, Izzy.

“Do you believe it?” Kathy asked.

“I don’t know. But why take a chance, right?”

Kathy nodded. “If you’re that uncertain,” she said, “then you did the right thing. And maybe you should keep on doing the right thing: stay away from him.”

“I will,” Izzy had promised.

Except here she was where she’d said she wouldn’t be, climbing the stairs to the studio, knocking on the familiar door. She’d left a key to the new lock in an envelope that she’d slipped into the mail slot of the apartment downstairs, but she still had a key to that door in her pocket, she realized. She should give it back to Rushkin. That would be her excuse for coming, she decided. To return the key and thank him for the use of the studio and then just go, because she really shouldn’t be here, she’d promised herself as much as Kathy that she would keep her distance from Rushkin. But then the door opened and all her good intentions were swept away.

“Isabelle!” Rushkin cried, his whole face lit up with pleasure at seeing her. “It’s so good to see you.

Come in, come in. You look frozen.”

He seemed different again, Izzy thought as she let him usher her inside. Not the grotesque troll she’d caricatured in that sketch at St. Paul’s Cathedral all those years ago, but not the quirky, stoop-backed man not much taller than herself that she remembered from just before he went away, either. The man who met her at the door was far more ordinary than that—he was still Rushkin, still unmistakably the odd bird with his too-bright eyes and his outdated wardrobe, but there was nothing either threatening or senile about him. He hadn’t grown any taller and he remained as broad in the shoulders as ever, but the power he exuded still came from within, rather than from any physical attribute.

“How ... how was your trip?” Izzy asked.

“Trip?” Rushkin repeated in a tone of amusement. “You make it sound as though I was on a holiday.”