Illness excerpt

Carl crumpled the paper, squeezing it like clay. The rejection was no surprise; he had received dozens over the months of his illness, but this was the first to allude to his divorce. No amount of mashing the words together in his fists would create anything more than a damp ball of ugliness. He could not risk Madonna finding it, knowing the world was now against him and everyone blamed her. He flung the wad into the fire. Watching the paper crackle and curl, he imagined the flames melting his former friend’s self-righteous smirk.

He knew someone would eventually inquire about Emily. Hector’s article announcing Carl’s return to the city offered no explanation for her absence. It was a calculated decision on Hector’s part, meant to buy Carl time to integrate back into society, secure a dealer, and sell a few paintings before the scandal broke. It worked. For months no one mentioned either Emily or Madonna, likely assuming him a widower who quickly remarried due to illness.

Wyly Grier was the first to offer quiet condolences. Grier knew his marriage to Emily had been nothing but a sea of quicksand; he need not pretend grief.

“She’s not dead, Grier, merely out of my life.”

Soon after Carl’s declaration, Grier badgered Carl into attending an Ontario Society of Artists’ dinner. He dressed for it reluctantly, exchanging comfortable shirt and trousers for a worn yet lovingly pressed suit and tie. It hung from him after his illness, making him appear frail, weak. As he frowned at himself in the mirror, Madonna skimmed her hands over his back. Shivering as she pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades, he felt five years younger in an instant.

“I don’t want to spend an evening with a bunch of men and their egos. Can’t we just have an argument about art over supper and call it a night?”

She sent him out the door with a lingering embrace and a scented handkerchief in his breast pocket.

These dinners had once been intimate affairs. Groups of men and the occasional woman clustered around small round tables smoking and arguing the merits of Paris’ Academie Julian over Madrid’s Prado. Even the most prominent among them struggled financially; the food was simple, the rooms modest. He and Lucius O’Brien used to exchange snide notes if the debates dragged; neither had studied abroad. The Ahrens Academy of Art is vastly superior to those hoity-toity institutions in Europe, Carl would write. Our students learn by doing, instead of being forced to paint alike.

What if the student desires the true European experience? Lucius would reply.

For a small extra fee the instructor will place a clothespin on his nose and shout in a French accent.

Tonight the arguments were the same, only exponentially louder and fought in actual French over gourmet food served on fine china. Lucius was gone, several years in his grave; Carl doubted his clothespin comment would be appreciated by anyone now. Scanning the room, he noted many familiar faces, but only one made him groan aloud. Edmund Walker conversed with George Reid beneath one of Reid’s recent canvasses.

Carl may not have left Canada if it weren’t for Walker. He warned his friends that no good could come of it when a banker is elected president of the board of trustees for the new Art Museum of Toronto, when careers are made or destroyed based on the opinion of a man who never lifted a paintbrush.

Carl nudged Grier, nodding towards Walker. “What’s he doing here?”

“Edmund’s an honorary guest. He just donated several pieces from his personal collection to the new gallery.”

Carl took a gulp of wine. “He’s inflicting his personal taste on the city and declaring it representative of Canadian art. How generous.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Really? Which artists are represented?”

“Frederic Bell-Smith.”

“Born and trained in England.”

“John Forster.”

“Studied in France for years.”

“George Reid.”

“Studied in France and Spain.”

Grier sighed, hesitating. “Me.”

“You’re the worst of the lot, Grier.” Carl shook his head, clapping his friend on the back. “Born in Australia, raised in England.”

“Only until I was fourteen.”

“Trained in England, France and Italy.” He took a drag on his cigarette. “You paint as though you never left.”

“As do you.”

Carl choked, coughing so loudly that all conversations stopped. “I’ve never been to Europe.”

“Yet you paint like Millet.”

“Who the hell is Millet?”

The older painters snickered, all in on the joke. Early in his career a critic compared one of his exhibition pieces to the French painter. When Carl read of it in The Mail and Empire, he stormed into George Reid’s studio, waving the newspaper in front of his mentor’s face, and shouted those exact words – who the hell is Millet?

His ignorance plagued him for years, of course, but he accepted the jabs with grace. While studying in New York he learned of Millet, Rousseau and Corot, all painters he had been compared to at some point. Other artists may have considered the remarks high praise, but Carl felt compelled to disprove them. Tell him he painted like Millet and he would banish all peasant farmers from his work for at least a year. If the melancholy of a particular piece reminded someone of Rousseau, Carl’s next painting would be a sunburst of yellows, oranges and reds leaping out of the canvas.

“If we don’t draw our influence from Europe, what do we draw upon? Surely not America.” Grier’s expression soured as he said the word.

“The forests of Waterloo County don’t resemble the Barbizon forests of France. Why should they be made to look alike? Do Canadians have such an inferiority complex that we can’t bear for someone to look at a painting and say, ‘that’s Georgian Bay’ or ‘that’s Algonquin Park?’”

“Fine words, Ahrens,” Walker said from across the room. “I assume you refer to your own work.”

“Sure. Why not?”

“A European collector will forgive Grier being Canadian if his portraits are rendered in a classical style. Even you sold a few pieces when you painted like Rousseau or even Inness. Nationalist pride alone won’t help you sell one of those sentimental tree studies.”

“This from the man you’ve put in charge of promoting Canadian art.” Carl scanned the room, pausing to meet the eyes of Reid, Forster and Grier.

“I don’t have to like you to be a patriot, Ahrens.” Walker stroked his beard.

Carl considered pointing out that the abundance of hair made his head appear as large as his ego. “I don’t give a damn what a banker thinks of me.”

Walker smiled. “And I don’t give a damn what a bigamist thinks of me.”

The room fell deafeningly silent. Carl eyes flew first to Walker, then to Grier, who dabbed a handkerchief to his sweating forehead. “If you’re determined to gossip about me, Grier, at least get your facts straight. I’m divorced, you pathetic little man.”

The whispers were like a thousand ants crawling on his skin at once, far too many to slap away. Most were an annoyance, their bites nothing beyond a twinge, quickly forgotten. Only Grier’s contained poison.

Carl seethed through dinner, wishing Madonna were beside him. She would know his thoughts, would make polite excuses for them to leave before he could unleash the venom boiling within him. But there was no calming hand on his arm. His fury intensified as Grier and Walker whispered to each other over the filet mignon. The after dinner speeches would begin soon, but any delight Carl would have had over offending the stuffier members with a humorous yet slightly risqué story vanished. When Carl’s turn came, he stood, grinned, and took his revenge.

“I dreamed last night that I was at the Gates of Heaven. I knocked loudly and St. Peter came to the gate and said to me, ‘Who are you and what do you want?’ ‘I’m Carl Ahrens and I want to come in,’ I answered. ‘What do you do?’ said Peter. ‘I’m a painter.’ St. Peter shook his head. ‘Really you should know better. Of course you can’t come in.’”

Grier and Walker glanced at each other and snickered.

“’Why not?’ Carl continued. “’I’ve not been a bad sort of fellow. I don’t see why I should be kept out of Heaven.’ Peter sighed. ‘You’re exasperating. Surely you know painters aren’t allowed in Heaven.’ Just then I caught sight of someone I recognized through the pearly gate. “But there’s a painter here.” I pointed to the man. St Peter laughed. ‘Everyone knows Grier’s no painter.’”