The Portrait by Sarkis Antikanjian

She entered the room and lay on the sofa, a book in her lap cupped by her slender veined hands, her tired blue eyes fixed on him.

The northern light through the window fell on her face accentuating her paleness.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked as he had done every time she entered the room.

She nodded offering an unspoken steadfastness.

Ten feet from her he stood a shadow holding a brush dripping with glistening paint. Soft music permeated the expansive room—his studio, his retreat. He stood still for minutes facing a 3’x5′ canvas, his eyes focused on her, and then as if in a frenzy he slashed at the canvas smearing paint that to an observer may have appeared a senseless act of desperation; for him, it was a meticulously calculated application of spots of color.

 

They had come home to evaluate the grave options the oncologist provided. He stated the verdict in plain words. ” I’m sorry to have to tell you, Catherine, X-rays and blood tests indicate that the disease has spread much faster than we anticipated. It’s imperative that we start the treatments immediately.”

She glanced at her husband and then at the oncologist, “How long do I have?”

“It depends on how well the treatment slows it down.” Then he added, ” We can’t tell for sure, two to six months, but let’s be optimistic. Many times we’ve been proven wrong in cases like yours.”

They drove home in silence. She took off her coat and shoes, knelt down to hug the dog that ran to her wagging his tail, then stood to face her bewildered husband. “Edward, I need to be alone for a little while. Please don’t call Alice. Let’s not burden her with this news . . . not just yet.”

She had not seen Alice for over ten years since they flew to Germany to meet her German husband and their grandchildren—at the time a 5-year-old granddaughter and 3-year-old grandson. ” She had often told her husband,  “Living so far away, our grandchildren hardly know us.”

Every day she needed to make important decisions. One was not to inform her daughter, Alice. “No need to alarm her prematurely,” she told her husband.

The chemo left a devastating stamp on her psyche. A recurring thought that dwelt on her mind impelled her to look in the mirror; her sunken eyes and hollow cheeks betrayed how she inwardly felt. She wrapped the red scarf that he gave her over her head and tied a knot in the back. “Now I look like an old gypsy woman in a Spanish painting,” she smiled. She put on her favorite white cotton blouse over her bottle green skirt and entered her artist husband’s studio—something she had rarely done before. He stood with a brush in his hand gazing at the canvas on the easel. “Edward, I want you to do me a favor,” she said.

He placed the brush on the palette, took her hand, and walked her to the sofa.

“I want you to paint my portrait,” she said.

She smiled at the look of surprise on his face. “I know you always wanted to paint a portrait of me. Over the years, I felt in awe of paintings you did of others, yet I never said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ Now I wish I had.”

“You sure you want to do this, Catherine?” he asked, perplexed.

“Yes, I do,” she said emphatically, ” It could be only days or weeks that I have left. Our grandchildren whom we haven’t seen in ten years do not know us. I want to leave a part of you and me for them to remember us by.”

 

Day after day she entered his studio with an assuring smile and lay on the sofa, her eyes fixed on him. Through the back of the linen canvas, she glimpsed a vague form materialize like an apparition as his brush loaded with paint flew in a frenzy with swift strokes.

She never asked to see the portrait in progress and he never offered to show it.

Except for the meals they took together, the rest of the day she lay in bed in her room with her puppy beside her. In the evenings after dinner, they sat side by side, she a book in her hand and he with closed eyes deep in thought.

He stood with the brush in hand agonizing over her fragile state. He had to make a decision and it had to be now. For an hour he frantically transformed with decisive strokes all that he had done before. Then he laid the brush on the palette and with a cheerful voice said, “Catherine, it’s done.”

Her strength almost depleted, she eased off the sofa, walked to him, and stood by his side her eyes fixed on the image. A smile formed on her face. She held his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” she said and with an uncertain gait walked to the sofa, lay down with her head on the satin pillow, and closed her eyes.