Russell Banks - The Reserve

Then the rain resumed, and she had a hard time seeing where she was going. The lane wound uphill a ways, first through oak and maple trees, then through spruce and old red pines. After a while it dipped back toward the river again, ending at a large, two-story, cedar-shingled house situated on a rise in a hemlock grove. It overlooked an oxbow loop where the river slowed and widened into an eddy the size of a large mill pond. She parked as close to the front door as she could, removed her gloves, and dashed from the car up the wide stone steps and onto the front porch. She shook the raindrops from her hair and knocked on the door.

Carefully tended flowers decorated the yard — perennials and rose-and lilac bushes and pale-faced hydrangeas and thriving herb gardens. There was a two-bay garage at the side of the house and down by the eddy in the river a building that looked like a boathouse and must be where he keeps his airplane, she thought. On the flood plain beyond the boathouse she noticed a large vegetable garden protected by a head-high deer fence. The house and outbuildings and grounds impressed her. It was clearly the center of a serious, hardworking country life. She assumed the large structure with the skylights at the back of the house was his studio. Smoke curled from a stovepipe chimney and light glowed from inside. She knew he was there — the famous artist ensconced in his skylit studio, working alone through the cold, gray afternoon making pictures — and was eager to see the man in his natural element.

But first Vanessa Cole wanted to present herself to the woman of the house. She had learned the woman’s name while in Manhattan these weeks since her father’s funeral, but little else, for the artist’s wife was rarely seen in New York. Vanessa was curious about her — she wondered what the woman looked like, her age, her personal style. She wondered what kind of woman held on to a man like Jordan Groves. Or if indeed it could be done at all.

The door came unlatched and opened in. A very tall woman, taller even than Vanessa and a few years older, stood behind the screened door. A country woman, she seemed, and strikingly attractive, with pale blue eyes and silken, straight blond hair cut shoulder length. Her plaid flannel shirt was open at the throat, with the sleeves rolled above her elbows, and her arms and face and neck had a gardener’s tan, not a sunbather’s. A pair of Irish setters paced restlessly in the shadows behind her.

Vanessa said, “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m Vanessa Von Heidenstamm.”

“How do you do,” Alicia said simply.

Vanessa hesitated, expecting the woman to invite her inside. Finally she asked, “Are you Mrs. Groves?”

“Yes.”

“I was hoping to speak with your husband. We met…he came out to my parents’ camp a few weeks ago. On the Fourth—”

“Yes. I know that. He told me,” Alicia said. Then added, “I’m sorry about your father.”

Vanessa thanked her. She had caught the slight accent and wondered if it was German or Russian. Probably Russian, she thought. And probably why the locals think the artist is a Red.

After a few seconds of silence, Alicia said, “Jordan’s in his studio. He doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s working.”

“I understand. I’ll come back another time, then. When would be a good time?” she asked.

Alicia looked at Vanessa Cole for a moment, as if taking her measure for the first time. Friend or foe? Neither, she decided. “The studio’s out back,” she said. “But it’s raining, so come inside. There’s a breezeway. You can get there from the kitchen without getting wet,” she said and pushed the screened door back, letting the woman into her house.

Vanessa followed Alicia Groves into a warm, brightly lit kitchen that smelled of wood smoke and baking bread, and the dogs clattered along behind. Two blond boys, looking more like apprentice horticulturists than artists in training, sat at the long table with colored pencils and sketch pads, making careful botanical drawings of the thatch of wildflowers scattered before them. Theirs was a household guided by firm and fixed principles. Maybe the accent is German, Vanessa thought.

Alicia opened the back door for her and pointed in the direction of the studio. “If he doesn’t wish to be disturbed, he will let you know,” she said.

Vanessa walked along the breezeway to the windowless door of the studio and stopped there. The smell of wild thyme perfumed the air. Above the sound of the pounding rain she heard music inside — Ethel Waters, a sexy Negro singer whose plaintive voice she recognized, having heard her perform many times in uptown clubs back during Prohibition. Her ex-husband, the count, whom she liked to call Count No-Count, had been a fan of Negro music and bootleg gin, and back then so had she. Her divorce three years ago she associated with the end of Prohibition and Harlem nights and the beginning of her passion for swing and a taste for champagne. She waited for the song to end, then knocked.

“Yeah?” Jordan called.

“It’s me. It’s Vanessa…Vanessa Von Heidenstamm.”

Silence. A few seconds passed, and the door swung open. A gust of dry heat from the big-bellied cast-iron stove in the corner hit her in the face. The artist wore an ink-smudged T-shirt and overalls and was smoking a cigar. He put the cigar between his lips and without a word turned away from her and went back to his bench, picked up his chisel and mallet, and continued working. He was carving into a large block of maple for a woodcut. Rain washed across the skylights overhead and drummed steadily against them. The large space of the studio was open to the roof and smelled of cigar smoke and burning wood and paint and turpentine. Vanessa inhaled deeply.

With his back to her, the artist said, “Well, Miss Von Heidenstamm, what brings you way out here on a day like this?”

Cabinets and counters and tool racks were neatly arranged up and down the length and width of the studio — everything orderly and squared and ready to hand. Drawings and sketches on paper were pinned to the four windowless walls and on easels and corkboards. Suspended above the workbench, paintings on canvas and board and boxes of prints had been carefully stored in a shallow loft. On a table next to the tin sink sat a hand-cranked wooden record player, one of the boxy new portable Victrolas, and racked stacks of glossy black records. An overstuffed red leather armchair and reading lamp and a tall shelf crowded with books and magazines took up a near corner of the studio. Vanessa walked to the armchair and sat down, crossed her long legs, and lighted a cigarette.

“My father’s ashes,” she said.

He turned and looked at her. “Say what?”

“In the backseat of my car there is a large ceramic jar. Chinese. Second-century BC. The Han era. The jar happens to have been one of my father’s most treasured and valuable possessions, and inside it are his cremated remains.”

“Very interesting,” the artist said. “A little weird, though, if you want my opinion. Carting your father’s ashes around like that.”

“Daddy was a little weird. Anyhow, that’s what brings me back up here. And brings me to you.”

“What does?”

“My father’s ashes,” she said. “By the way, is the town called Petersburg because you live here and you’re a Red, or do you live here because it’s called Petersburg and you’re a Red?”

“None of the above,” he said and smiled. “It’s only a happy coincidence. Once a year I urge the town fathers to change it to Leningrad. They always vote it down.”

“I wondered. Anyhow, I have a favor to ask.” She looked around the studio. “Do you have anything to drink? A little wine? I don’t suppose you have any champagne. I’d love a glass of champagne.”