It was in Gallery 244, for
European Painting and Sculpture: The Girl
by the Window by the Window by Edvard Munch. Mama had not liked it,
saying “Oh, Vivi, she looks so alone in the picture. Let’s go see Monet with his yellows and
orange haystacks”.
But I liked the colors of
blues and grey and the girl…what was she seeing in the shadows, what was she
feeling?
Now, as I gaze at it, I know
she is me at twelve years old. I am
looking out my bedroom window in our neighborhood of Little Italy, seeing the
man in the street. He wears a dark suit
and fedora and his watch and cigarette shine in the street light. I knew him
then, and now, as Mr. E. He is there to
protect me from Papa’s enemies. I didn’t
understand what Papa did that makes men angry at him, but I do now. Papa manages millions of accounts for
businesses all over the world, especially in Chicago, New York, and these days,
Russia.
Back then, when I was twelve,
I knew only this—Papa was downstairs as Mama lay in her bed they rolled in from
the ambulance yesterday. I could hear
Papa weeping, but my tears were roped tight in my throat, my neck still
bandaged.
A few weeks before, I was in
the car with Mama as it crashed into a wall, glass shattering into my
neck. They say the car brakes were not
working, even though it was a new car Papa had bought for her in the late spring.
Mama was driving me home from a symphony concert and she was happy; I was
happy. But all that changed with the
crash. Mama’s head slammed into the car
door. The doctors at the hospital said her
brain was bleeding and they couldn’t stop it.
So she came home to die.
“Amazingly evocative, don’t
you think?”
A voice startled me. I turned
and saw a man with glasses, hands drawn across his back, revealing a blue and
grey striped tie. I noticed it was
knotted European-style, like Papa’s with the skinny end of the tie hanging
longer than the front-facing wider side.
For years, I would watch Papa make his tie before going to work, before
going to Mass, and I often tie my scarves in a similar fashion. I look at the man’s face: blue eyes, dark
brown hair with reddish natural highlights, slightly tussled under a blue knit
cap. His face is still flushed from the outside
cold. It is a nice face with a smile
that turns down a bit at the edges, as if he is practicing it.
I nod, but remain silent.
“Yes. I like this one by Munch very much,” he
continues.
“Well, maybe ‘like’ is too
strong a word for it. But it’s one of my
favorites in this wing. I also like
Monet,” I add, as if to bring Mama into the room.
“Sure. Monet’s good.
But Munch goes deeper, finds a way to suggest a feeling, usually with
shadows. I get that.”
I am surprised he does.
