Russell Banks - The Reserve

Even so, James Heldon was himself viewed as a man of the left — at least by the critics and general public. He had spoken out often in support of the workers and any number of Roosevelt’s domestic programs, but he had always been careful to avoid being connected with causes and positions taken up by the Communist Party, the Comintern. Which was not Jordan’s way. Though Jordan had refused to join the party — he was not a joiner, he often said, but as long as the battle was just, didn’t care who fought alongside him — he had donated a group of his most valuable pictures to the Soviet people and had painted several murals in Moscow honoring the workers’ heroic role in the revolution. He wondered where Heldon would come down on this Spanish thing. The Italians were in the war now, and in spite of getting thrashed in March by the Spanish Republicans at Guadalajara, they were spoiling for a second go-round. Bombing Ethiopia in May had bolstered their confidence and had probably improved their flying skills.

Dr. Cole led Jordan Groves from painting to painting. Hanging on the varnished plank walls of Rangeview were more than a dozen small Heldon landscapes that he had purchased over the years from the artist himself, with a dozen more hanging in his Park Avenue apartment and their home in Tuxedo Park. Vanessa followed the two men, but kept a few feet behind them, silent and watching and listening, like a reluctantly roused predator, operating more on instinct than need. She liked the artist’s hard concentration, how he stood before each painting and literally stared at it for long minutes, as if it were alive and moving and changing shape and color before his eyes; and she liked that he offered no comment, no praise, compliment, or critique; just looked and looked and said nothing and moved on to the next, until he had seen them all, then returned to three or four of the landscapes for a second long look.

Her father, to his credit, did not ask Jordan’s opinion or evaluation of the pictures, although he was justly proud of having purchased them and proud of his personal friendship with James Heldon — who was, after all, practically an Adirondack neighbor and a fellow second-generation member of the Reserve — and confident of the long-term value of the pictures in the art market. Dr. Cole collected paintings that he loved to look at, but he also made sure that they were sound investments. He owned three John Marin watercolors that had been painted when Marin visited the region in 1912 and ’13, a large Jonas Lie, two very fine Winslow Homers, and a landscape by William Merritt Chase that he had inherited from his mother. They were the nucleus of a small, but tasteful and increasingly valuable collection. He insisted that his focus was solely on paintings of his beloved Adirondacks, but in Vanessa’s view her father collected art in order to collect artists, because he himself was not one and wished he were. And now, apparently, he was collecting Jordan Groves.

She reached out and touched Jordan on the shoulder. “Do you want your jacket back?”

“Thanks, yes,” he said and watched her slip it off her shoulders and allowed her to drape it over his. “Wouldn’t mind another whiskey, either,” he said and handed her his glass.

She went to the bar, and he drifted along behind, enjoying that particular perspective, and Dr. Cole followed him. Without looking at him, Jordan said to the doctor, “Those are fine pictures. Heldon is a lousy painter, you know, but a wonderful artist. It’s probably lucky for him that he can’t paint,” he said, and instantly regretted it. He knew that he was showing off for the girl. He should have said nothing, but once begun, it was hard to stop. “If he could paint, he’d be a lousy artist and merely a wonderful painter. Lucky for him he can’t. Lucky for you, too. Since you’ve bought so many of them,”

“What do you mean, ‘If he could paint, he’d be a lousy artist’?” Dr. Cole asked.

“He’s religious. Heldon is a forest Christian.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“If he could paint, he’d lose his religion, and he wouldn’t have anything to replace it with, except technique. And technique alone won’t hold value.”

“Daddy,” Vanessa said, “you shouldn’t expect one artist to praise another. Especially when he’s afraid the other artist is better than he is. You are, aren’t you, Mr. Groves? A little?”

“What?”

“Afraid.”

“Afraid of you, maybe. But not James Heldon.”

“Come, come, Vanessa,” Dr. Cole said. “Don’t get started. Here, while you’re doing that for Mr. Groves, refill my drink, too, will you?” He handed her his empty glass and stepped between his daughter and his guest.

Vanessa obeyed, but glanced back at Jordan like a cat who’d been interrupted at her meal and would soon return.

Timidly, a little reluctantly, the others in the group, once the artist had taken a seat by the fire and appeared to open himself to them, gathered near him and one by one made a polite effort to draw him into light conversation. Red Ralston’s suggestion that he ought to paint the early sunset, catch the alpenglow here at the Second Lake, went nowhere, and Ralston slipped off to the porch to smoke a cigar in the gloaming. Jennifer Armstrong asked Jordan if he’d ever been to the Second Lake before, and he said no, and she offered him a canapé, which he accepted. “But isn’t it lovely?” she asked him.

“What?”

“The Second Lake.”

He agreed, the Second Lake was lovely.

“What about the Reserve?” she asked.

“What about it?”

“Isn’t it lovely?”

He said yes, the Reserve was lovely.

“We’re damned fortunate Carter’s held on to the old family homestead,” said Harry Armstrong.

Dr. Cole laughed at that. “Yes, the ‘homestead’! Not quite, Harry. That’s still the family farm in Greenwich, and as soon as my mother goes, it goes, too.”

“Carter, really,” Mrs. Cole exclaimed.

Harry Armstrong said to Jordan, “I mean, we’re lucky because, even though we’re members, we can’t build our own camps out here on the lake. Not anymore. Got to preserve the Reserve, I guess. But at least we get to use Carter’s Rangeview. The Reserve’s put a freeze on any new construction up here, you know.”

Jordan said that he didn’t know.

Bunny Tinsdale was curious about Jordan’s airplane, was it his own?

“It’s a 1932 Waco,” Jordan told him. He’d bought it new at the factory in Troy, Ohio, four years ago and had flown it to Lake Placid, where he’d had it fitted out with pontoons. Then he had flown to his home on the Tamarack River, where he’d landed on water for the first time. “Nearly dumped the damned thing.”

“Interesting,” Tinsdale said. And how long had he been flying?

“Since I was a kid,” Jordan said. He took a sip from his drink. He didn’t want to talk about flying with this crowd.

“And where did you learn to fly?”

“Well, I took the army flying course at Ashburn Airport on Chicago’s South Side.”

“So you were in the war?”

“Yes. Late. In 1918. I was in the Ninety-fourth Aero Squadron.”

“You flew under Eddie Rickenbacker?” Dr. Cole said.

“Briefly.”

“Did you shoot down any Germans?” Vanessa asked and smiled.

“Yes. Two. Both on the same day.”

“And what day was that?” she asked.

“April 4, 1918.”

“Must have been quite a day,” she said.

He didn’t answer, and she smiled.

Bunny Tinsdale wanted to know about flying a plane with pontoons. “Is it harder than flying a regular plane? You know, with wheels?”

In the air the pontoons were deadweight and slowed the airplane down, Jordan explained, but in the water it wasn’t much different from running a motorboat. Once you got the hang of it.