He took the subway to Passaic and walked down a long-still traffic
beltway to his studio, almost the only building alive in the slums near
the rusting railroad freightyard.
A sign that had once said "F. Labuerre, Sculptor--Portraits
and Architectural Commissions" now said "Roald Halvorsen; Art
Classes--Reasonable Fees." It was a grimy two-story frame building with
a shopfront in which were mounted some of his students' charcoal figure
studies and oil still-lifes. He lived upstairs, taught downstairs
front, and did his own work downstairs, back behind dirty, ceiling-high
drapes.
Going in, he noticed that he had forgotten to lock the door again. He
slammed it bitterly. At the noise, somebody called from behind the
drapes: "Who's that?"
"Halvorsen!" he yelled in a sudden fury. "I live here. I own this
place. Come out of there! What do you want?"
There was a fumbling at the drapes and a girl stepped between them,
shrinking from their dirt.
"Your door was open," she said firmly, "and it's a shop. I've just
been here a couple of minutes. I came to ask about classes, but I don't
think I'm interested if you're this bad-tempered."
A pupil. Pupils were never to be abused, especially not now.
"I'm terribly sorry," he said. "I had a trying day in the city." Now
turn it on. "I wouldn't tell everybody a terrible secret like this, but
I've lost a commission. You understand? I thought so. Anybody who'd
traipse out here to my dingy abode would be _simpatica_. Won't you
sit down? No, not there--humor an artist and sit over there. The warm
background of that still-life brings out your color--quite good color.
Have you ever been painted? You've a very interesting face, you know.
Some day I'd like to--but you mentioned classes.
"We have figure classes, male and female models alternating, on Tuesday
nights. For that I have to be very stern and ask you to sign up for
an entire course of twelve lessons at sixty dollars. It's the models'
fees--they're exorbitant. Saturday afternoons we have still-life
classes for beginners in oils. That's only two dollars a class, but you
might sign up for a series of six and pay ten dollars in advance, which
saves you two whole dollars. I also give private instructions to a few
talented amateurs."
The price was open on that one--whatever the traffic would bear. It had
been a year since he'd had a private pupil and she'd taken only six
lessons at five dollars an hour.
"The still-life sounds interesting," said the girl, holding her head
self-consciously the way they all did when he gave them the patter.
It was a good head, carried well up. The muscles clung close, not
yet slacked into geotropic loops and lumps. The line of youth is
heliotropic, he confusedly thought. "I saw some interesting things back
there. Was that your own work?"
She rose, obviously with the expectation of being taken into the
studio. Her body was one of those long-lined, small-breasted, coltish
jobs that the pre-Raphaelites loved to draw.
"Well--" said Halvorsen. A deliberate show of reluctance and then a
bright smile of confidence. "_You'll_ understand," he said positively
and drew aside the curtains.
"What a curious place!" She wandered about, inspecting the drums of
plaster, clay and plasticene, the racks of tools, the stands, the
stones, the chisels, the forge, the kiln, the lumber, the glaze bench.
"I _like_ this," she said determinedly, picking up a figure a
half-meter tall, a Venus he had cast in bronze while studying under
Labuerre some years ago. "How much is it?"
An honest answer would scare her off, and there was no chance in the
world that she'd buy. "I hardly ever put my things up for sale,"
he told her lightly. "That was just a little study. I do work on
commission only nowadays."
Her eyes flicked about the dingy room, seeming to take in its scaling
plaster and warped floor and see through the wall to the abandoned slum
in which it was set. There was amusement in her glance.
_I am not being honest, she thinks. She thinks that is funny. Very
well, I will be honest._ "Six hundred dollars," he said flatly.
* * * * *
The girl set the figurine on its stand with a rap and said, half angry
and half amused: "I don't understand it. That's more than a month's pay
for me. I could get an S.P.G. statuette just as pretty as this for ten
dollars. Who do you artists think you are, anyway?"
Halvorsen debated with himself about what he could say in reply:
_An S.P.G. operator spends a week learning his skill and I spend a
lifetime learning mine._
_An S.P.G. operator makes a mechanical copy of a human form distorted
by formulae mechanically arrived at from psychotests of population
samples. I take full responsibility for my work; it is mine, though
I use what I see fit from Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle Ages, the
Renaissance, the Augustan and Romantic and Modern Eras._
_An S.P.G. operator works in soft, homogeneous plastic; I work in
bronze that is more complicated than you dream, that is cast and
acid-dipped today so it will slowly take on rich and subtle coloring
many years from today._
_An S.P.G. operator could not make an Orpheus Fountain_--
He mumbled, "Orpheus," and keeled over.
* * * * *
Halvorsen awoke in his bed on the second floor of the building. His
fingers and toes buzzed electrically and he felt very clear-headed. The
girl and a man, unmistakably a doctor, were watching him.
"You don't seem to belong to any Medical Plans, Halvorsen," the doctor
said irritably. "There weren't any cards on you at all. No Red, no
Blue, no Green, no Brown."
"I used to be on the Green Plan, but I let it lapse," the artist said
defensively.
"And look what happened!"
"Stop nagging him!" the girl said. "I'll pay you your fee."
"It's supposed to come through a Plan," the doctor fretted.
"We won't tell anybody," the girl promised. "Here's five dollars. Just
stop nagging him."
"Malnutrition," said the doctor. "Normally I'd send him to a hospital,
but I don't see how I could manage it. He isn't on any Plan at all.
Look, I'll take the money and leave some vitamins. That's what he
needs--vitamins. And food."
"I'll see that he eats," the girl said, and the doctor left.
"How long since you've had anything?" she asked Halvorsen.
"I had some coffee today," he answered, thinking back. "I'd been
working on detail drawings for a commission and it fell through. I told
you that. It was a shock."
"I'm Lucretia Grumman," she said, and went out.
He dozed until she came back with an armful of groceries.
"It's hard to get around down here," she complained.
"It was Labuerre's studio," he told her defiantly. "He left it to me
when he died. Things weren't so rundown in his time. I studied under
him; he was one of the last. He had a joke--'They don't really want my
stuff, but they're ashamed to let me starve.' He warned me that they
wouldn't be ashamed to let _me_ starve, but I insisted and he took me
in."
Halvorsen drank some milk and ate some bread. He thought of the change
from the ten dollars in his pocket and decided not to mention it. Then
he remembered that the doctor had gone through his pockets.
"I can pay you for this," he said. "It's very kind of you, but you
mustn't think I'm penniless. I've just been too preoccupied to take
care of myself."
"Sure," said the girl. "But we can call this an advance. I want to sign
up for some classes."
"Be happy to have you."
"Am I bothering you?" asked the girl. "You said something odd when you
fainted--'Orpheus.'"
"Did I say that? I must have been thinking of Milles' Orpheus Fountain
in Copenhagen. I've seen photos, but I've never been there."
"Germany? But there's nothing left of Germany."
"Copenhagen's in Denmark. There's quite a lot of Denmark left. It was
only on the fringes. Heavily radiated, but still there."
"I want to travel, too," she said. "I work at La Guardia and I've never
been off, except for an orbiting excursion. I want to go to the Moon
on my vacation. They give us a bonus in travel vouchers. It must be
wonderful dancing under the low gravity."
Spaceport? Off? Low gravity? Terms belonging to the detested electronic
world of the stereopantograph in which he had no place.
"Be very interesting," he said, closing his eyes to conceal disgust.
"I _am_ bothering you. I'll go away now, but I'll be back Tuesday night
for the class. What time do I come and what should I bring?"
"Eight. It's charcoal--I sell you the sticks and paper. Just bring a
smock."
"All right. And I want to take the oils class, too. And I want to bring
some people I know to see your work. I'm sure they'll see something
they like. Austin Malone's in from Venus--he's a special friend of
mine."
"Lucretia," he said. "Or do some people call you Lucy?"
"Lucy."
"Will you take that little bronze you liked? As a thank you?"
"I can't do that!"
"Please. I'd feel much better about this. I really mean it."
She nodded abruptly, flushing, and almost ran from the room.
_Now why did I do that?_ he asked himself. He hoped it was because
he liked Lucy Grumman very much. He hoped it wasn't a cold-blooded
investment of a piece of sculpture that would never be sold, anyway,
just to make sure she'd be back with class fees and more groceries.