Read a short story from ‘The Lincoln Highway’ author amortowles’ new book, 'Table for Two'
Mr. Sarkis took the ensuing silence as an encouragement.
In spite of Ezekiel’s industry, or perhaps because of it, he and his wife produced only one child over their thirty years together, a son named Valentine. Valentine, who was raised in a house not two hundred yards from his father’s first mill, joined the family business after attending Harvard and then took the helm when Ezekiel died of influenza in 1880.
At this point, nothing would make me happier than to confirm for you, gentle reader, that a painting is just a painting—and thus, whenever the Annunciation is mentioned hereafter, you can simply insert whatever grandiose work of art you vaguely remember from your last visit to a museum or church. But I’m afraid the subject matter and format of the Annunciation have direct bearing on the events of this tale, and possibly its themes.
Needless to say, in tackling his Annunciation DiDomenico followed form. Thus, when great grandpa had his painting quartered, one son ended up—more or less—with an Italian landscape, one with a detailed interior, one with the Archangel on his knee, and one with the Virgin in repose. For a man in his sixties who is no longer a man of means, the university clubs of Manhattan provide an oasis. The finer clubs in the city like the Union and the Knickerbocker are rather sticklers when it comes to matters of membership; and their doormen—like the doormen in the best apartment buildings—generally hold their positions for decades and pride themselves on knowing the names of everyone who passes through their door. “Good evening, Mr. Stuart.
Certainly, we are all shaped by that first decade of our youth, but the first decade of our youth is shaped by the decade which preceded our arrival. Thus, while I was born in 1940, my upbringing was heavily influenced by the Depression; and while Peter was born in 1971, his upbringing was heavily influenced by the Summer of Love, Woodstock, and the landing on the moon—which is to say, the era of fairy tales.
A date was set for the following Saturday. As it turned out, Sharon needed to take Lucas to a music lesson, so Peter came with his second born, the three-year-old Emma who was named, I kid you not, for Emma Goldman. With uncombed hair, a runny nose, and no respect for other people’s property, Emma would have made her namesake proud.
As I’ve mentioned, Peter and I were of the same generation: great grandsons of Valentine. But where I was one of four children descended from four children, he was one of two descended from two. As a result, his fragment was four times the size of mine. More importantly, the luck of the sequential bisections was such that his fragment showed the face of the Virgin Mary inviolate, as if from the very beginning the painting had been intended as a portrait.
Lucas blushed again, this time out of humility. One got the sense that his father had brought up the essay in company before.“No,” said Lucas. “I wrote about how an object that has been handed down can connect you to the past.”In anticipating this visit, I hadn’t imagined that my ten-year-old nephew would prove the sticking point to my plans.
After we reviewed Lucas’s upcoming project on the Atlantic Ocean for his environmental science class, the conversation turned, naturally enough, to Windward, the rambling house on the coast of Maine where the Skinners had gathered every summer for generations—until the place was sold off in 1995, for all the normal reasons. Lucas, who had spent his summers visiting his maternal grandparents in Wellfleet, wanted to know what it was like.
After we loaded the dishwasher and set it running, Peter and Lucas took Emma upstairs to read her a book, and Sharon put Emma’s bedtime bottle in the microwave. But after counting down from 1:00 to 0:55, the microwave went black, the dishwasher went silent, and the lights in the kitchen went out. Sharon released an exasperated sigh.
These sudden thoughts of my cousin and our shared shenanigans all those summers ago almost made me regret having taken the $60 off of him.“This is Skinner. I think I may be able to help you, after all.”“It’s a fragment. But I think you will be pleasantly surprised by its size, its condition, and its subject matter.”“The Mother of God.”“But there is one small complication.”“What complication is that ... ?”“I see.”“Yes, of course.
“Hold on a second.” In the background I could hear Peter conferring with his son, then he returned to the phone. “He says the sooner the better.”There is some measure of anxiety to be expected when one is on the verge of attaining a long-held dream. One cannot help but worry that the physical reality will fail to live up to the splendors of the imagination. To wit, as Lucas and I walked from the subway toward the Met, I noticed he was becoming less and less talkative.
“Shall we start with the mummies?” he suggested, while pointing with impressive accuracy to the north wing.Lucas could not hide a sense of disappointment. Born at the end of the 19th century, Robert Lehman made a fortune on Wall Street at the helm of his eponymous investment bank. In the grand old tradition, as Lehman aged he applied his wealth to wives, thoroughbreds, and art—but especially the latter, building a collection of nearly three thousand works with a focus on the Italian Renaissance.
When I concluded my little speech, I was not particularly surprised that the middle-aged Japanese couple standing nearby applauded. And I was pleased to see that the skeptical wrangler in denim from the ticket line, who had followed my lead and come to this hidden corner, now smiled in deferential appreciation of the collector’s beneficence. But my nephew, he looked uncharacteristically glassy-eyed.We dined in the sunlit café that is just beyond the European sculpture court.
On the following day, images of the painting, the purchaser, and the price tag appeared in every major newspaper and broadcast around the globe. But what was not generally reported amidst all the fanfare was the small matter of self-collateralization. In the years preceding the sale, you see, as prices began to rise, the venerable old firms of Sotheby’s and Christie’s had instituted a new policy.
The bill paid, we donned our jackets and passed through the tables with Lucas leading the way. But just as we were reentering the sculpture court, a rather commanding voice sounded from behind.Assuming I had forgotten something at the table, I turned to find an elderly woman barreling toward me with a righteous posture, a stern expression, and an outfit that Jackie Kennedy might have worn, had she been a hundred pounds heavier and hopelessly out of date.
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