Corpus Christmas

”

Francesca Leeds pushed back the heavy auburn hair from her face and turned her wrist to consult the small gold watch. “Can’t, acushla. My hosts are expecting me back with their vehicle.”

She smiled up at him as she reached for her brown suede jacket. “I’m not giving up, though. A retrospective’s nothing like a ninth symphony, Oscar, and the Breul House really does need you.”

She turned to Sigrid, who echoed the formulas of “so nice to meet you; perhaps we’ll see each other again,” and both were pleased to realize the formalities weren’t totally insincere.

Exchanging comments on road conditions, icy patches, and the infrequency of snowplows through these back roads, Oscar and Sigrid followed Francesca out onto the deck. Oscar had cleared it earlier, as well as the steps leading down to the drive; but except for Francesca’s single line of boot prints curving up from a borrowed van parked beside the road, the crusted snow around the house was unbroken.

“Driving’s not bad,” said Francesca. “The van has chains and four-wheel drive.”

Even with all identifying landmarks blanketed by the snow, she seemed to know exactly how the drive curved, and walked confidently out to the van without tripping or putting a foot wrong. It was something Sigrid noted without actually considering as Francesca waved good-bye and called back, “At least you didn’t say no.”

“No!” Oscar grinned.

“Too late, ” she laughed and drove away in a flurry of snow.

Circling his studio to the rear deck, Oscar thoughtfully contemplated the ravine, where snow lay deep and crisp beneath tall pines and hardwoods so thickly branched that winter sunlight barely penetrated.

“The surface is too soft for conventional sleds,” he observed.

Over the years, various visiting children had left plastic sliding sheets behind in the garage, and Oscar had discovered them while searching for a snow shovel.

His assertion that their appetites needed building sounded ridiculous to Sigrid even as Nauman bundled her into a jacket and boots. Minutes later, she found herself alone upon a sheet of plastic, careening downhill on her stomach, half terrified and wholly exhilarated.

It was like being eight years old again-pushing off, oaring herself along with mittened hands, that slow gathering of speed, crashing through ice-coated grasses, dodging tree roots and low-lying branches, a belly- dropping sense of doom as she crested a small ridge and became briefly airborne before thudding back to cushioned earth again. Another straight shoot down the hillside and she hurtled toward a creek bank lined with dormant blackberry bushes and huge granite boulders, trying to judge exactly when she should come down hard with a braking foot to land in a laughing, tangled heap beside her companion.

Delighted by the sheer physicality of the experience, Sigrid unhooked her leg from Nauman’s elbow and kissed him exuberantly.

By their fourth trip down, Oscar had a long briar scratch across his forehead and Sigrid had jammed her right index finger. Climbing back to the top of the ravine each time left them winded, wet, and red-cheeked, yet both were somehow reluctant to end this brief return to childhood pleasures and go inside.

On the other hand, warmth and the expectation of good food did offer certain inducements. Not to mention the adult pleasures of stripping off their wet clothes and rediscovering other physical joys.

“What are you smiling about?” Nauman asked suspiciously.

“I was thinking about raw clams on the half-shell.”

“You want to eat first?”

“No.” Her slender fingers touched the red scratch on his forehead, caressed his left ear, then slipped to his bare shoulder. “I was remembering my cousin Carl. One of my Southern cousins. He bought a cottage down on Harker’s Island and it took him more than ten years before he’d even taste a raw clam. He’s been trying to make up for lost time ever since.”

“I don’t know that I like being compared to raw clams,” Nauman grumbled.

“But they’re so delicious,” she murmured wickedly, running her hand down his muscular flank.

Lunch was just as leisurely, and afterwards, Sigrid curled up in one of the large chairs before the fire in Nauman’s studio and opened the Times to the puzzle page. The large crossword appeared to contain a humorous yuletide limerick, and she became so absorbed in penning in the answers that she didn’t notice when Nauman, perched on a tall stool at his drawing table, began to sketch her, his pencil moving rapidly across the pages of his notebook.

He hadn’t done a figurative portrait in years, not since his student days, probably, but there was something about her eyes, the line of her long neck, the angularity of the way she sat that intrigued him. If he could catch her on paper-

Sigrid glanced up. Nauman’s eyes were a clear deep blue and the intelligence which usually blazed there had become remote and fathomless. She moved uneasily and saw the remoteness disappear as his eyes softened.

“What did Francesca Leeds mean when she said a retrospective isn’t a ninth symphony?” she asked, abandoning her puzzle.

Nauman closed the notebook before she could become self-conscious and began to relight his pipe. “It’s something that seemed to start with the composer Gustav Mahler.”

He looked down at the elaborately carved pipe in his hand as if he’d never before seen it. Today’s was shaped like a dragon’s head and fragrant smoke curled from the bowl.

“Mahler noticed that Beethoven and Bruckner had both died after composing ninth symphonies, so he decided nine was a jinx. Tried to cheat-Das Lied von der Erde after his eighth. Said it wasn’t a symphony-was, though. Decided he was being silly, wrote his ninth. Died before he finished tenth. Dvorak and Vaughan Williams, too.”

“But surely that’s a coincidence?” From the way Nauman’s speech had suddenly become telegraphic, Sigrid knew he was absorbed by parallel lines of thought. “By the time a composer reaches his ninth symphony, wouldn’t he be old and near the end of his life anyhow?”

“Like an artist with a retrospective,” Nauman said bleakly.

“Then you are superstitious?”

“And you’re avoiding the issue. I’ll be sixty goddamned years old next July, old enough to be your-”

“How many symphonies did Mozart compose?” she interrupted.

“Hell, I don’t know. Forty or fifty.”

“And he was thirty-five when he died. How many retrospectives do you think Picasso had before he kicked off at the tender age of-what was it? Ninety? Ninety-one?”

“Okay, okay.” Nauman smiled, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ll do it.”

“Only if you want to,” Sigrid murmured demurely, and suddenly they were no longer talking about art exhibits.

BURRIS BROTHERS DRY GOODS

806 Broadway

Aug. 25th, 1900

To Acct. of:

Mr. Erich Breul

7 Sussex Square

New York City

Parasol, blue silk…$1.25

Hamburg edging, 2' wide

20 yds. @ $0.06 per yd…1.20

2 silk glove cases @ $0.55 ea…1.10

Linen napkins,

3 doz. @ $0.50 per doz… 1.50

$5.05

“We allow 3 per cent. discount for cash.”