Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

“We’ll have her back tomorrow and see what she says,” Claire said firmly.

Freddie squinted at Claire like he couldn’t quite see her. “Do what you want. I won’t be a part of it. And I’m not paying her, either. This is not what we’re paying her for.” He paused, softer. “You’re already pale as a feather. I mean ghost. I don’t know what I mean. You should eat.”

Freddie let go of the drape, brushed by Claire, and sank into the couch where she’d posed only hours before. It was dark now and Claire saw she’d forgotten to shut the curtains. She pointed, and Freddie leaned over the arm of the couch and closed them quickly. At least he still had that kindness left in him. She was afraid to leave the windows open at night. He always said her fear was irrational and she said it was her grandmother’s fear — unexplainable, and deeply, deeply German. You look out the window on a moonless night and see what your grandmother saw.

She sat down beside Freddie on the couch and let him run his hand up and down her arm. She imagined it was black and moonless outside and the neighboring buildings were crumbling floor by floor. She didn’t look to find out.

Nicolette kissed Claire’s cheek as she stepped through the door at exactly eleven o’clock on the morning of their fourth session. Claire felt the autumn cold on Nicolette’s lips. She stood stiffly, not leaning in to return the kiss. She wished she’d formed a plan before being bombarded by Nicolette and her lips, parading in as if nothing were wrong, as if she hadn’t painted a devastating, insulting — but perhaps it was best to wait.

Nicolette rolled and lit a cigarette, then set to work at the easel, barely acknowledging her. The painter hadn’t smoked in the house before, but perhaps Claire telling her Freddie hated it had changed that. She wore tight black pants and a black blouse tailored just above her waistline. When she reached up, the pale skin of her waist showed. She was so tiny. Claire was not large by any means, but she could squash her.

“I’m going to get us something to eat,” Claire said through a clenched smile. “You don’t need me here.”

“I need you,” Nicolette said absently. She held her cigarette in the same hand as her palette. The room hummed with tobacco and turpentine.

Claire fetched a tray of seasoned carrots and a pimento cheese log their girl had fixed the other day, then mixed herself a drink, early as it was. She opened the breakfront to choose from her collection of forks: at least half a dozen from every restaurant in the neighborhood and several from farther uptown and other boroughs entirely. It was very simple: after finishing a meal at any given café, Claire would wipe her fork with her napkin and slip it into her purse. She did not consider this stealing. Stealing had a damaging connotation. No one was hurt in these small exploits, and she never once helped herself to a spoon. All these years and no one had ever noticed, especially Freddie, who couldn’t tell the difference between china and glass if his life depended on it.

Claire was stalling, and hated that she could let herself be afraid of Nicolette. She chose two hors d’oeuvre forks once belonging to a bistro on Fifth Avenue. Carefully, she set the tray, the forks, her martini, and a glass of lemon water for Nicolette on the coffee table in the den. She added a vase of cut flowers. The stamens dusted her fingers and clothes, leaving a trail behind her. Finally, Claire settled back on the couch, holding the stem of her glass as if an extra finger would shatter it.

The artist was not looking at her, or her forks. Nicolette could have been painting in any den, in any city or decade. She really did not need Claire.

The painter poured more turpentine from a jug into a dish set in her easel and some of it splashed on the carpet. Freddie would be livid. Freddie would say that was the last straw and throw that jug of turpentine in Nicolette’s pretty face.

But he wouldn’t, and Claire sat perfectly still on the couch, as if posing, flexing and unflexing her fingers.

Nicolette smiled at Claire. “You seem more relaxed today.”

How comfortable Claire had felt in this very room only yesterday; she could have been sitting with an old friend, someone who had seen her naked. But now, Claire’s shoulders had shoulders. She was aware of every muscle in her face. But she was proud to learn that she could act, that she had the power to fool even Nicolette.

“Did I ever tell you about my father?” Nicolette said more to the canvas than to Claire. “You remind me of him. But then, everyone does.”

Claire said nothing, glared without glaring. How dare she finally give Claire something in return. She should tell her to leave now, that she never wanted to see her again. But even now, perhaps that wasn’t true. Claire held her tongue, wishing very much she didn’t care what Nicolette had to say.

“I lost him in the war,” Nicolette said. “They brought his body home, but they wouldn’t let me see it. They wouldn’t tell me exactly how he died. We only saw him in uniform, in the open casket. But it was a private viewing area. So when it was my turn, I unbuttoned his shirt and peeked. I’d never been so afraid. I thought he would wake up right there and grab for me. But I had to see.” She said this unapologetically, rather obstinately, like she was still that little girl at the casket. “There was a giant red slit down from his right shoulder across his torso, nearly splitting him in two. I don’t know what weapon would have sliced him so precisely. I never asked.

“I shared that story at an opening once, and now every critic reads that into my paintings, especially my last show. Did you see it? Every time someone has something wrong with an arm or there’s a body in the landscape, they say it represents my grief.” Nicolette wiped her black hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. “I hate their explanations.”

“They’re wrong?” Claire asked.

“Like all neurotic artists, it’s my own death I’m obsessed with, not his. There are so many ways to die, and even more ways to imagine it. For that reason alone I’ve never understood boredom.”

Nicolette smiled slightly and moved her brush over the lower portion of the canvas. Claire could almost feel the paintbrush on her own neck — no doubt that was the part Nicolette was detailing at that moment, where Claire came to lay dead on the street below the bridge, her neck exposed. Claire ran her fingers over the small imperfections on her throat, the nearly imperceptible bumps rising from her skin like Braille.

“Do you ever imagine dying?” Nicolette asked without raising her eyes or her brush.

Claire chose a carrot slice from the tray, held it aloft like a wand. “We’ll see it today, won’t we? Freddie nearly peeked last night.”

Nicolette shrugged and mumbled an answer.

“What?” Claire said, a little too loud.

“It’s not quite ready,” Nicolette said. “It’s always more difficult than I remember. It is difficult to finish anything. And to start. The middle doesn’t exist.”

“Oh? I thought you were on the last touches.”

“I can see now how it might never be finished. Even the last touches could take weeks. I could take it—”

“What?” Claire said. “I can’t hear you.”

“I said I could take it with me to my studio to finish. I don’t need you to pose after today. It’s all detail work now, which could take a very long time. It will be worth the wait.”

“No,” Claire said. “We don’t want that. No, we must see it today.” Her voice caught.

Nicolette closed her eyes. Barely above a whisper: “You’ve seen it.”

Claire bit quickly into the carrot. She chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed and chewed and all the while felt the girl’s eyes burrowing into her cheeks, X-ray vision spying the pulp in the cavities of her teeth. It took her forever to chew that carrot.