Frowning, she hears a door open behind her. “Rashka. I told you. You must leave Eema alone,” she calls to her daughter. But she does not turn until the fat yellow cat at her feet stands and runs to the intruder. Angelika scoops him up, slowly scratching the scuff of his neck as he begins to purr like a drill bit boring into wood.
“Am I your muse?” Angelika asks her. She is wearing hand-stitched Ferragamo heels and a fashionably cut frock from Paul Kuhnen. Proof that Fritz Landau maintains his accounts in all the best shops and with all the best designers.
The artist does not speak a word at first, but her expression is a complex mixture of pain, shock, and relief. “You’ve cut your hair.”
“Yes.” Her long red tresses have been bobbed.
“Was that my
“No. Don’t be cross. I did it for you. I thought you might like me more modern.” The girl touches the straight line of bangs that frames the arch of her eyebrows. “Do you approve?”
Lavinia stares. “What choice have you given me?”
Angelika approaches the easel, cradling the cat in her arms, as she gazes with deep fascination at the painting. “
Lavinia pets the feline’s head. “She speaks like a slum girl,” she informs her cat. Is it possible to say this affectionately? Only then does the artist raise her head to meet the muse’s eyes, and there she lets them settle for a deep moment before returning her brush to the canvas. “Hurry,” she says. “Shed those glamour rags you’re wearing and take up your pose. Before I lose the light completely.”
13.
Aaron is still asleep after a late-night closing, the blanket drawn tightly over his shoulder. His face scrunched up as if he’s dreaming of walking on nails. Staying quiet is easy for Rachel, of course. Living life as a U-boat, she learned to walk as quietly as a cat. At the kitchen table, she turns down the ankles of her socks and slips on her pair of saddle shoes. She lights a cigarette and sticks the rest of the pack in her sweater pocket. She’s on the way to pick up Naomi’s dress from the dry cleaner’s on West 23rd, slipping on the kid leather gloves with the silk lining from Gimbels.
From out in the hall, she hears children, overlaid by a firm but lyrically maternal voice, and when she opens the door, she finds that it’s Daniela Weinstock, who else? Maneuvering her hugely pregnant belly down the stairs with her three-year-old twins, one boy, one girl, and a toddler in a red metal stroller. The toddler, also a girl, is playing with the stroller’s ring of wooden beads. The twins gaze up at Rachel with their mother’s deep, dark eyes.
“Well, look who it
“
“Hello, Josh,” Rachel replies to the boy, smiling, positioning her cigarette away from the child so that the smoke drifts up toward the ceiling. She cups her hand around the crown of Josh’s silky hair. Josh has his father’s myopically squinted expression—he’ll be wearing glasses by the time he’s five—but unlike his poppa, he is always full of joyful hellos, full of dimpled smiles and inquiries.
Rachel cupped his head because maybe she hoped to snatch some of that from him. Is that a crime? No, he has so much he could hardly miss it. A small bit of childish joy stuffed in her pocket, who would know? But perhaps it’s that covetousness that Daniela detects and instinctually guards against as she absently presses the boy to her side in Rachel’s presence. The girl, Leah, on the other hand? She’s always unsettled Rachel. Those watching eyes, as if the child can look through skin and see the interior schemes of a skeleton at work.
“So how are you doing? How are things?” Daniela is asking. “Haven’t seen you in a bit.”
“I’ve been busy,” Rachel explains. “Things are crazy.”
“Really?” Daniela lifts her eyebrows with interest. “Crazy how?”
Rachel swallows. She thought she had learned by now to field these hallway chitchat questions. And
Daniela’s brows knit. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” She sympathizes.
“And how are things with all of
“Fine. Except Ezra’s caught a cold,” Daniela reports.
“Oh?” Rachel asks, sounding concerned.