Transgressions

Ransome smiled. 'Corner deli. Three bucks a pop.'

Peter shifted in his seat. The lace collar of his tux was irritating his neck. 'Mr. Ransome—mind if I ask you something?'

'If you'll call me John.'

'Okay—John—what I'd like to know is, why all the detective work? I mean, you seem to know a h— a lot about Echo. Almost an invasion of her privacy, seems to me.'

Echo looked as if she would gladly have kicked him, if her gown hadn't been so long. She smiled a tight apology to Ransome, but Peter had the feeling she was curious too, in spite of the hero worship.

Ransome took the accusation seriously, with a hint of contrition in his downcast eyes.

'I understand how that must appear to you. It's the nature of detective work, of course, to interpret my curiosity about Echo as suspicious or possibly predatory behavior. But if Echo and I are going to spend a year together—'

'What?' Peter said, and Echo almost repeated him before pressing a napkin to her lips and clearing her throat.

Ransome nodded his point home with the confidence of those who are born and bred in the winner's circle; someone, Peter thought resentfully, who wouldn't break a sweat if his pants were on fire.

'—I find it helpful in my work as an artist,' Ransome continued, 'if there are other areas of compatibility with my subjects. I like good conversation. I've never had a subject who wasn't well read and articulate.' He smiled graciously at Echo. 'Although I'm afraid that I've tended to monopolize our table talk tonight.' He shifted his eyes to Peter. 'And Echo is also a painter of promise. I find that attractive as well.'

Echo said incredulously, 'Excuse me, I fell off at that last turn.'

'Did you?' Ransome said.

But he kept his gaze on Peter, who had the look of a man being cunningly outplayed in a game without a rule book.

With the party over, the gallery emptied and cleanup crews at work, John Ransome conducted a personal tour of his latest work while Cy Mellichamp entertained Stefan Konine and a restless Peter, who had spent the better part of the last hour obviously wishing he were somewhere else. With Echo.

'Who is she?' Echo asked of Ransome's most recent model. 'Or is that privileged information?'

'I'll trust your discretion. Her name is Silkie. Oddly enough, my previous subjects have remained anonymous at their own request. To keep the curious at arm's length. I suppose that during the year of our relationships each of them absorbed some of my own passion for—letting my work speak for itself.'

'The year of your relationships? You don't see them any more?'

'No.'

'Is that at your request?'

'I don't want it to seem to you as if I've had affairs that all turned out badly. That's far from the truth.'

With her lack of expression Echo kept a guarded but subtle emotional distance from him.

'Silkie. The name describes her perfectly. Where is she from?'

'South Africa. Taja discovered her, on a train from Durban to Capetown.'

'And Taja discovered me? She does get around.'

'She's found all of my recent subjects—by 'recent' I mean the last twenty years.' He smiled a bit painfully, reminded of how quickly the years passed, and how slowly he worked. 'I very much depend on Taja's eye and her intuition. I depend on her loyalty. She was an artist herself, but she won't paint any more.

In spite of my efforts to—inspire her.'

'Why can't she speak?'

'Her tongue was cut out by agents of one of those starkly repressive Cold War governments. She wouldn't reveal the whereabouts of dissident members of her family. She was just thirteen at the time.'

'Oh God, that's so awful!'

'I'm afraid it's the least of what was done to Taja. But she has always been like a—for want of a better word, talisman for me.'

'Where did you meet her?'

'She was a sidewalk artist in Budapest, living down an alley with whores and thieves. I first saw her during one of my too-frequent sabbaticals in those times when I wasn't painting well. Nor painting very much at all. It's still difficult for me, nearly all of the time.'

'Is that why you want me to pose for—a year?'

'I work for a year with my subject. Take another year to fully realize what we've begun together.

Then—I suppose I just agonize for several months before finally packing my pictures off to Cy. And finally—comes the inevitable night.'

He made a weary, sweeping gesture around the 'Ransome Room,' then brightened.

'I let them go. But this is the first occasion when I've had the good fortune of knowing my next subject and collaborator before my last paintings are out of our hands.'

'I'm overwhelmed, really. That you would even consider me. I'm sorry that I have to say—it's out of the question. I can't do it.'