The day of death had come.
The staff received the generous bequests they had expected, and Isabel was quick to point out to Patricio that her inheritance was several times the amount of his. The last will and testament set up the house and studio as a foundation with the staff to be kept on indefinitely. There was a coming and going of lawyers, accountants and gallery people. Carlos was not mentioned in the will at all, and no provision was made for his staying on with the Brompton Foundation. To this he showed no reaction.
Isabel felt sorry for him, but not sorry enough to share any of her own bequest. After a month in the mourning household, Carlos left Santa Fe and returned to New York. He got work in a Soho gallery, helping with installations and doing light sales work.
Months passed and he went forward with his life, planning to paint again himself. He thought of renting a studio, but waited with prudence until his commission check from the gallery grew larger.
Then one day a messenger arrived at the gallery with a personal letter for Carlos. It was a blank paper folded around an invitation to the opening night of the latest exhibit at the Tray Gallery. The printed card read “Cecily Brompton, The Final Work. (Numbers Four Ninety through Four Ninety-Five). Opening Reception by Invitation Only.”
Carlos was puzzled about this exhibit. Brompton had told him that they were sold and found a good home. So what was this exhibit all about? He showed up at the appointed hour and viewed the paintings, the six of them widely spaced on the walls of the gallery space.
A crowd started arriving as he studied each painting in turn. He thought back to the mornings in Santa Fe in the light-suffused studio and the happy progression of days as each of these canvases came into being. Perhaps it was time for him to spend a year at the easel himself.
At first he did not read the card beside each of the paintings, remembering each as they were painted. The motif of the frontier in the center of each painting was a bold departure from her earlier work. Carlos heard the words “frontier,” “border,” and “divergence” in the conversations around him. Clearly her collectors understood the importance of these last canvases.
After an hour in the gallery, he bent down to read one of the cards. It said: “Number Four Ninety-One, Collection of Carlos Barrington, Not For Sale.” He checked the other cards and they all attributed his name as the collector.
“Brompton asked me to list these paintings this way,” said the gallery owner when questioned by Carlos. “She said that they are yours but she wished to have this exhibit, nevertheless.”
“But surely they are part of her estate,” Carlos said.
“No,” the gallery owner replied. “On my last visit with her in Santa Fe, Brompton gave me a letter of intent clearly passing title to you. She instructed me to issue a sales receipt and to pay the necessary taxes immediately on my return to New York, which I did. As the last and probably best work, the paintings will demand a premium price should you decide to sell.” The gallery owner’s eyes glistened with anticipation.
Carlos paused a long time before answering. “I don’t believe I do want to sell.”
“These six paintings are an amazing burst of final genius. A super-nova of concluding light from Brompton. You are a very lucky young man.”
Carlos nodded his assent. Beauty had, in its own curious way, survived death. He politely took his leave of the gallery owner and walked through the jostling crowds of a snowy Madison Avenue.
Tokyo, of Course
Because her studio sign is small and overgrown by a neighbor’s shrub, people looking for Marian Yamaguchi sometimes get lost and end up knocking on my door seeking direction, so I draw a small map and send them off back down the street. Marian is a friend and a dedicated painter who lives and works in Santa Fe. She is a widow of many years and her work, somewhat Japanese, vaguely modern, is well received by an international following of admirers.
Her long-time studio gallery is a block away from mine, around the corner on Delgado Street. If someone buys a canvas or drawing at the Yamaguchi Studio because of my map, she sends an assistant with a gift for me wrapped neatly in rice paper with raffia. It is a small piece of pale green porcelain, something crafted from black bamboo or one of her smaller unframed sketches. At home I have a shelf devoted to Marian’s offerings from the sales that my maps generate.
She surprised the artist community by marrying Lewis Goldfarb, a widower from Trenton, New Jersey. This is a curious, intercontinental match; she is small and deliberately graceful, moving with quiet, inborn elegance and he is tall, raw-boned and cheerily awkward. The top of her head is the on level with his elbow. Maybe because of this disparity, the union agrees enormously with them both. Lewis adopted with enthusiasm all things Japanese in honor of his new wife, selling his poultry business in the East and moving with gusto into a life as the artistic spouse.
While Marian works in the studio, he now tends the incipient moss garden at the side of their house and, following months of experiment, prepares very acceptable sushi and teriyaki. His bonsai collection grows and after a year of searching catalogs he orders from Kyoto several pair of gray cotton gardener’s pajamas and two-toed clogs. I see him in the side garden attired thus almost every summer morning with his special bonsai secateurs and straw peasant’s hat. Marian’s friends consider her a very lucky woman, and for their anniversary she presents Lewis with an elegant black kimono with white piping around the collar. He has a broad smile of pride on the ceremonial occasions he wears it.
Lewis is tireless in the promotion of the works of his wife, whom he still refers to as “Mrs. Yamaguchi.” Since her studio is several houses away from the moneyed crush of Canyon Road, Lewis spends hours at the corner, hoping to lure a collector off to Marian’s secluded establishment. His tall stature in Nipponese regalia seldom fails to enchant the passing tourist and if the victim shows even minimal assent, Lewis drags him in an excitement of chatter to her door. Marian’s calm determinism takes over from there. Many a visitor leaves with a canvas under the arm and smile on the face.
The fourth autumn of my stay in Santa Fe, Marian Yamaguchi is harvesting yellow pears from a tall ladder when she falls to her death. Our group of artists is stunned. Lewis reverently performs a Shinto ceremony for the gathered friends, then instructs us in the launching of the paper boats with candles on the reservoir up Canyon Road. He grieves for many months and I don’t see him again until the following summer.
At my studio door appears Lewis with a small package wrapped in rice paper with a raffia tie. I had earlier drawn a map to the Yamaguchi Studio for a prosperous-looking couple and this must be my reward. The package is even more expertly composed than Marian’s were, as if sent by courier from an exclusive shop in the old country. He is tired and drawn.
“I want to thank you ever so much for sending customers by, like before,” he says. “You know, things have been hard since Mrs. Yamaguchi passed on. People still love her work, though. She left so many unframed and unfinished pieces. They’re much harder to sell than the finished ones.”
“I understand, Lewis. I have some extra frames in the back. Would you like . . . ?”
“No, no”, he interrupts. “I can manage. Thank you all the same.”
He looks around my studio with an attentive eye. “They say you are doing quite well here, and you haven’t been here really all that long”.
“Yes, I’ve been lucky, Lewis. Collectors seem to like what I do.” I wonder
