concerned, he had seized an opportunity, as what self-respecting artist would not, faced with the hypocrisy and callousness of the art scene in the city. He had decided early on to enter the fray, by bombast or seduction, or whatever it took, marketing himself as an artist who would not be denied.
Maria had narrowed her life to thankless drudgery and Anspach. She had given up her dance classes, she had few friends, and she had never been much given to confiding her difficulties to others. She was, as Yvonne had observed, already in despair. However she heard it, the truth about Anspach’s golden opportunity was more than she could bear. Anspach told the police that they’d had an argument, that she had gone out the door in a rage, that he assumed she was going to weep to one of her friends. Instead she climbed the interior fire ladder to the roof, walked across the litter of exhaust vents and peeling water pipes, pulled aside the low, rickety, wire-mesh partition that protected the gutters, and dived headfirst into the street. It was a chilly day in October; the windows were closed in the loft. Anspach didn’t know what had happened until the Sicilian who owned the coffee bar on the street level rushed up the stairs and banged on his door, shouting something Anspach didn’t at first understand.
There was no funeral in New York. Maria’s father came out from Wisconsin and arranged to have her body shipped back home. It was as if she had simply disappeared. I didn’t see Anspach; I purposely avoided him. I knew if I saw him I would try to hit him. Anspach is a big man; he outweighs me by sixty pounds, I’d guess, and he’s powerfully built. So I may have avoided him because I was afraid of what would happen to me.
Paul told me that a few weeks after Maria’s death, Anspach moved in with Mrs. Rite, and that he’d sold two of the nine paintings in the group show. At his one-man show the following year he sold everything but the four biggest, proving his theory that the public was intent on hanging their pictures over the couch. Paul Remy saw the show and reported that Anspach’s blue period was definitely over. The predominant hue was a shell pink, and the repeated image was a billowing parachute. This irritated me. Everything I heard about Anspach irritated me, but I couldn’t keep myself from following his career, stung with frustration, anger, and envy at each new success.
In the spring Yvonne and I moved a few blocks south, where we had more room for the same money and a small walled-in yard, which soon became the rabbits’ domain. They undertook amazing excavation projects, after which they spent hours cleaning their paws and sleeping in the sun, or in the shade of an ornamental beech. I kept my promise to Maria; I took good care of the rabbits for many years. They lived to be old by rabbit standards, nearly fourteen, and they died within a few weeks of each other, as secretly as they could, in a den they’d dug behind the shed I’d put up for Yvonne’s gardening tools and our daughter’s outdoor toys. After Yvonne finished school she moved from job to job for a few years until she settled in the ceramics division at the Brooklyn Museum. I took what work I could find and kept painting. Occasionally, always through friends, I got a few pictures in a group show, but nothing sold. Storage was a continual and vexing problem. My canvases got smaller and smaller.
Paul and I were offered a joint show at a new gallery on the edge of Tribeca, an unpromising location at best. The opening was not a fashionable scene: very cheap wine, plastic cups, a few plates strewn with wedges of rubbery cheese. The meager crowd of celebrants was made up largely of the artists’ friends and relatives. The artists themselves, dressed in their best jeans and T-shirts, huddled together near the back, keeping up a pointless conversation in order to avoid overhearing any chance remarks about the paintings. I was naturally surprised
Maria had narrowed her life to thankless drudgery and Anspach. She had given up her dance classes, she had few friends, and she had never been much given to confiding her difficulties to others. She was, as Yvonne had observed, already in despair. However she heard it, the truth about Anspach’s golden opportunity was more than she could bear. Anspach told the police that they’d had an argument, that she had gone out the door in a rage, that he assumed she was going to weep to one of her friends. Instead she climbed the interior fire ladder to the roof, walked across the litter of exhaust vents and peeling water pipes, pulled aside the low, rickety, wire-mesh partition that protected the gutters, and dived headfirst into the street. It was a chilly day in October; the windows were closed in the loft. Anspach didn’t know what had happened until the Sicilian who owned the coffee bar on the street level rushed up the stairs and banged on his door, shouting something Anspach didn’t at first understand.
There was no funeral in New York. Maria’s father came out from Wisconsin and arranged to have her body shipped back home. It was as if she had simply disappeared. I didn’t see Anspach; I purposely avoided him. I knew if I saw him I would try to hit him. Anspach is a big man; he outweighs me by sixty pounds, I’d guess, and he’s powerfully built. So I may have avoided him because I was afraid of what would happen to me.
Paul told me that a few weeks after Maria’s death, Anspach moved in with Mrs. Rite, and that he’d sold two of the nine paintings in the group show. At his one-man show the following year he sold everything but the four biggest, proving his theory that the public was intent on hanging their pictures over the couch. Paul Remy saw the show and reported that Anspach’s blue period was definitely over. The predominant hue was a shell pink, and the repeated image was a billowing parachute. This irritated me. Everything I heard about Anspach irritated me, but I couldn’t keep myself from following his career, stung with frustration, anger, and envy at each new success.
In the spring Yvonne and I moved a few blocks south, where we had more room for the same money and a small walled-in yard, which soon became the rabbits’ domain. They undertook amazing excavation projects, after which they spent hours cleaning their paws and sleeping in the sun, or in the shade of an ornamental beech. I kept my promise to Maria; I took good care of the rabbits for many years. They lived to be old by rabbit standards, nearly fourteen, and they died within a few weeks of each other, as secretly as they could, in a den they’d dug behind the shed I’d put up for Yvonne’s gardening tools and our daughter’s outdoor toys. After Yvonne finished school she moved from job to job for a few years until she settled in the ceramics division at the Brooklyn Museum. I took what work I could find and kept painting. Occasionally, always through friends, I got a few pictures in a group show, but nothing sold. Storage was a continual and vexing problem. My canvases got smaller and smaller.
Paul and I were offered a joint show at a new gallery on the edge of Tribeca, an unpromising location at best. The opening was not a fashionable scene: very cheap wine, plastic cups, a few plates strewn with wedges of rubbery cheese. The meager crowd of celebrants was made up largely of the artists’ friends and relatives. The artists themselves, dressed in their best jeans and T-shirts, huddled together near the back, keeping up a pointless conversation in order to avoid overhearing any chance remarks about the paintings. I was naturally surprised
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