Midnight Call
"Eben's Portrait"
Without asking my preference, Claudia mixed us each a plastic mug of instant coffee, black. Then she explained, "The room upstairs is all ready for you. You can go on and get set up. We'll bring Eben in a few minutes." I sipped the bitter lukewarm brew and she made herself clearer. "You can take that up with you. I have to start making lunch now."
I gathered my materials and left the token of Yankee hospitality on the table. Claudia instructed me to go up the back stairs as I left the kitchen, and it was the first door on my right. "Don't you want your coffee?" she asked as I trudged out. I said no thanks. "Oh well, someone will drink it," she said.
The house was silent as I climbed the unlit steep stairs. At the top I caught my breath and listened. Down the hall of closed doors a toilet flushed. I waited a minute, but nobody came out.
The first door on the right opened onto a southwestern exposure, bright enough despite dust caking windows. This room was bare. The varnished floorboards had been swept clean. They creaked with every step. The floor sloped none too subtly between doorway and windows. Heavy pine spray scent made me take short breaths.
No sooner was canvas on easel than doors began to slam and hushed talk filled the hall. Only Claudia's voice came through clearly. "Now Grandfather, don't you fret about it. I know the name sounds French, but she isn't any foreigner."
Claudia entered, pushing Eben in a wheelchair, while half a dozen Finsters milled in around them. The others didn't register at first. Not with Eben at arm's length. Shock and nausea hit me at the same time. Eben must have been dead some decades, judging by tea-colored mummy skin, eyes at the bottom of well-deep sockets, mouth gaping open, cobweb strands of shoulder-length hair, arms like grape vines rattling loose in depression-era morning jacket. A fresh white orchid graced his mauve lapel. The pine spray made scant dent in mildewy odor.
"Miss Levasseur!" Claudia called. "Say hello to Mr. Finster! Or he'll think you're one of those snooty artists. His ears aren't what they once were, but he can still hear you."
Without asking my preference, Claudia mixed us each a plastic mug of instant coffee, black. Then she explained, "The room upstairs is all ready for you. You can go on and get set up. We'll bring Eben in a few minutes." I sipped the bitter lukewarm brew and she made herself clearer. "You can take that up with you. I have to start making lunch now."
I gathered my materials and left the token of Yankee hospitality on the table. Claudia instructed me to go up the back stairs as I left the kitchen, and it was the first door on my right. "Don't you want your coffee?" she asked as I trudged out. I said no thanks. "Oh well, someone will drink it," she said.
The house was silent as I climbed the unlit steep stairs. At the top I caught my breath and listened. Down the hall of closed doors a toilet flushed. I waited a minute, but nobody came out.
The first door on the right opened onto a southwestern exposure, bright enough despite dust caking windows. This room was bare. The varnished floorboards had been swept clean. They creaked with every step. The floor sloped none too subtly between doorway and windows. Heavy pine spray scent made me take short breaths.
No sooner was canvas on easel than doors began to slam and hushed talk filled the hall. Only Claudia's voice came through clearly. "Now Grandfather, don't you fret about it. I know the name sounds French, but she isn't any foreigner."
Claudia entered, pushing Eben in a wheelchair, while half a dozen Finsters milled in around them. The others didn't register at first. Not with Eben at arm's length. Shock and nausea hit me at the same time. Eben must have been dead some decades, judging by tea-colored mummy skin, eyes at the bottom of well-deep sockets, mouth gaping open, cobweb strands of shoulder-length hair, arms like grape vines rattling loose in depression-era morning jacket. A fresh white orchid graced his mauve lapel. The pine spray made scant dent in mildewy odor.
"Miss Levasseur!" Claudia called. "Say hello to Mr. Finster! Or he'll think you're one of those snooty artists. His ears aren't what they once were, but he can still hear you."
Jonathan Thomas
Reprinted by Permission, Hippocampus Press 2008
