The Space between Atoms 37

 She was a few years younger, but the portrait was a nude Lindsey.

Vince followed his gaze.  “Maybe not in the best taste, given our lifestyle, but to hide beauty is a lie of the vilest kind.”

Terah had to know more about her.  “And Claresta consented?”

“It was summer.  She’d been here quite a few months by then.  In fact, she was just about to leave.  I hadn’t had a live subject since my old life ended.”

Terah’s heart was vibrating like a smartphone.  He knew he could ask no questions of her past life.  “Did you see her?”

Vince nodded at the charcoal portrait, “Claresta?”

“No.  The wood nymph.”

“Ah, our spirit guide.  You know, that question rests on the boundary between our past lives—against the rules—and our lives here.  I don’t mind saying I did, though.  That disappearing road leading to Dickinsheet.  Although it’s overgrown and derelict, it’s beautiful.  I was just standing there thinking how if I’d still had my paints I’d have set up right there and broken out a canvas.  I must’ve stood there an hour, drinking in the details, trying to store them away for when I could get back in the game.  Start again somewhere else.  It was a pipe dream, but I can’t ignore beauty.  I simply can’t.

“She’d been watching me, I think.  Course, I hadn’t met any of the others yet.  I was a lost wanderer and she was there like a Wyeth painting.  I couldn’t believe, when she stood up, that she was nude.  I mean, not a hint of awkwardness.  She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and I’d been teaching privileged undergrads for years.  I think I somehow knew she wasn’t really human.  She was pure form.  Beauty itself.  Offering itself.  It was only then that I noticed the buildings beyond.  I hadn’t even realized I’d been walking, following her.

“Hagrid was working on this house at the time.  He and Moby didn’t doubt my story.  We fixed this place up and for the first six months I went out that road every day hoping to see her again, if only for a second.  She was the last female I saw until Claresta showed up.  But I can’t tell her story.  Even free spirits respect the rules here.”

The aging artist paused.  “Art is all about being human.  Even at Grove City College they understood that.  There’s a tension in the air when a nude is in the classroom.  The guys over in the sciences might try to deny it, but you could feel it if you were human.  I’m not talking about sex.  I’m talking about something mystical.  An artist catches that tension in their work.  Vulnerability, trembling beauty, ineffable longing.  Claresta gets art.  She understands.”

That single charcoal sketch had drawn Terah away from all the other artwork, arresting as it had been before he saw the portrait.  He felt what Vince meant.  Being in the presence of art was transcendent.  He recalled when Danielle had taken him to an art crawl in one of the many small, industrial towns that had Phoenixed themselves into artist enclaves.  Factory workers now holding delicate brushes, writing poetry, learning to sculpt.  A day spent away from the worries of part-time employment, grocery shopping, and paying bills.  A day gazing into the souls of others.  All because a steel mill closed down.  “Art’s what happens when you take money out of the way,” Terah said.

“Sometimes,” Vince agreed.  “There’s also the matter of simple survival.  Art is stylized.  I tried to reflect that with my students.  In a college class you’ve got to stylize your words.  ‘Charge your vehicle with the hue and draw it across the substrate,’ I told them.  I’d used live models, only with fourth years.  It was pretty unusual for a kid to be so dyed in the wool that he’d be Fundamentalist after three years of studying art.  But it happened.”

Terah realized he needed to stop staring at the charcoal sketch.  But not yet.  “Do you have other sketches?”

Vince let him into what was probably once a dining room.  Apart from Claresta there were other sketches, mostly of Dickinsheet.  How Vince had managed to capture seasons in only grayscale was remarkable.  The water in the stream seemed to flow in his renditions.  She, however, was the only human subject.  “Might look impressive,” Vince mumbled, “but most our time is spent in simple survival.  Speaking of which…”

Terah was surprised at the angle of the sun when they returned outdoors.  Vince coached him on how to split the wood, but Terah felt enveloped in creativity.  It was an almost dreamlike state.  A trance.  Wielding the axe, he reflected on how these men had known Lindsey before he did, and far better.  Terah had an intense week alone with her, but at least one of these men—old friends—had her undressed.  How had Vince put it?  Vulnerability.  Trembling beauty.  Ineffable longing.

Despite the cold air, Terah felt the dampness in his underarms.  Sweat forming on his back.  His right leg still ached.  “Don’t overdo it, Cal.  You’ll catch a chill.  There’s an art even to chopping wood.”  Terah realized he was right, he’d been somewhere else.  The light was beginning to wane as they carried the wood to Hooper’s.

“It’s almost time for the gathering,” Vince said.  “It’s not a rule, but we mostly eat together and then the gathering just happens.”

Moby was standing with Queequeg.  Although he didn’t have sharpened teeth, Queequeg had harpooned numbers as an accountant.  His story must’ve been interesting. The other two more recent arrivals, Heron—an engineer, and Nietzsche—who goes without saying, were conversing in a corner of the mill.  A quick glance told Terah that Lindsey was still with Hagrid and Beethoven and Cicero seemed to be debating something.  Rumi was by himself, scribbling.  They had each found something to eat in Mr. Hooper’s and Heron stepped outside to get the fire started.  Terah joined him.  He wouldn’t have to see Lindsey paired off with someone else that way.

“Aren’t we afraid,” he asked the engineer, “that an open fire will draw outside attention?”

“I used to wonder that myself,” Heron responded.  “I’ve never had a good sense of where exactly we are.  Engineers, you know, focus on numeric solutions to all kinds of problems.  I found this place in a way I still can’t accept and I have no clear idea where it might be.”

“I wandered here two days from Stroudsburg with a bum leg; it can’t be that far out.”

“I suppose local authorities could break this up, but I can’t see them spending the resources to do it.  There’s less than a dozen of us, and the place is difficult to find.  Still, I’ve got to wonder if it isn’t too good to last.”

Terah had a feeling, building up the fire, that Heron was right.  Wherever he’d come to fit in had never been permanent.  What he didn’t realize was just how quickly his feeling would become reality again.