Portrait of A Father
Katarina Romanoff had never really liked school all that much.
She had always felt out of place, and most of the information she was required
to learn seemed a mere distraction from the reality that surrounded her. She
saw the hypocrisy of her formal education, but because of her intelligence—particularly
her ability to apply things to short-term memory--it posed no challenge for
her. Art class was different, however. There, she felt inclined to challenge
herself, and everyone knew, from her art teachers to the administrators of the
school, that they were witnessing the budding of a special talent.
Outside of her art, her greatest challenge was in dealing with her
father. Alexander Romanoff, a politician who had once been mayor and whose
old-world style and mannerisms made him a celebrity in the city, was a strict
disciplinarian whose strictures were just as old-world as the rest of him. Katarina,
for instance, was not allowed to paint until all of her schoolwork was
finished, and, if Katarina ever received a grade lower than an A, her father
would confiscate her painting supplies for two weeks. Needless to say, Katarina
rebelled. She would stay out almost all weekend, partying and drinking, but
because she was so good at hiding this, her father had no proof against her and
could do nothing to stop it. Besides, Katarina brought home straight A report
card after straight A report card.
While Katarina had inherited her father’s fiery temper, she got
her artistic sensibilities from her mother, Sofya. Sofya was a soft woman,
quiet and pensive, and was a classically trained pianist who at one time had
performed with the Cincinnati Orchestra. As a child, Katarina had loved to
watch her mother play. She loved the way she swayed and her eyes closed and her
face became solemn as she played Chopin, the way she bent her face to the keys
and smiled while playing “Flight of the Bumblebees.” She would sit and listen
to her mother play for hours, then go to her room and record on paper all the
strange and exotic images she had seen in her head, imbuing her pictures with
the same immense longing that she had felt in her mother’s playing.
Because of her straight A’s, Katarina was valedictorian of her
class. During her speech at graduation, she spoke vehemently against the
administration, telling her classmates: “Forget what you have learned in this
institution. Seek out real life. You don’t have to be pawns like them. You can
be kings if you strive to be, kings whose dominion cannot be measured by gold
or property, but only by the lasting respect and awe of the subjects you earn
through true and meaningful work.” She had her choice of schools to attend, and
decided on the Rhode Island School of Design, to get as far away from her
parents as possible. When she left, her mother had wept, and her father had
warned her sternly that she had better live up to the cost of her education,
and that if she didn’t, she would be on her own from then on.
Katarina went away to school thinking everything would come
easily to her, but from the first day of classes she recognized that she was
not as prepared as she had thought. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the skills.
She was far ahead of most of her classmates skill-wise, and in fact, it was her
advanced development as an artist that was holding her back. She was instructed
by her professors to draw what was in her mind. She thought little of what was
in her mind. When she was a child, she had drawn what was in her mind, but that
was before she was introduced to the works of the Realists. Her goal since then
was to master drawing from life. But her teachers discouraged her from this.
The world, they said, had grown banal, and the only way to portray the world
was to capture that banality. But Katarina disagreed. She knew deep in her
heart that there was still much to be observed in the real world that was not
banal, even if it took extraordinary pains to find it. She became disdainful of
her teachers. Her classmates looked at her just as disdainfully, probably
because she was more talented than them (or perhaps because she thought she
was) and she in turn felt disdain towards them. She saw them struggling
desperately to fit into the moulds that the professors had presented them with,
saw the eagerness with which they destroyed all that was pure in their art, and
felt disgusted by it all.
Once, in her free-drawing class, her professor had singled her
out. She had been assigned to draw on the theme of “love.” She chose to draw
her professor looking over the work of a student. Her teacher stopped in front
of her, leaned over and said, in a kind of sneer: “And how does this exactly
fit our theme, Katarina?” When Katarina said that she was trying to depict the
professor’s love for art and her job, the professor replied, loud enough so the
entire class could hear: “The assignment was to be about what love means to you
personally, not what it means to me or anyone else. If you would, please start
again.” After this, Katarina stopped attending her free-drawing class.
She began a painting of her father on a large canvas. She knew
it would not be for any of her classes. It was entirely for her. She had had a
dream about her father. He had been screaming at her, angry that he had put his
money to waste. His breath had felt hot on her skin, so hot that she burst into
flames and jumped into an old, Gothic fountain nearby. In her painting, she
tried to capture the look of wrath she had seen on her father’s face during the
dream. He was dressed in a green suit and a red bow tie, and his standard black
bowler hat, and his finger was pointed accusingly at the viewer. She became
obsessed with the painting, staying up long into the night to paint. She
neglected all of her class work, and gave up entirely on going to class. All of
her energy went into the painting.
The quarter ended and her report card was sent to her parents.
She had failed all of her classes. Her father called her and reminded her what
he had said. She was forced to withdraw from school and come home to live with
her parents.
When she came home, her mother sensed immediately that something
was wrong. Katarina looked like a skeleton. She had dark circles around her
eyes and there was a haggard, cockeyed look about her. But every time her
mother tried to talk with her, Katarina snubbed her. She spent almost all day
in her room, working on the painting. She ignored her friends’ calls, and when
she sat at the dinner table with her parents, she hardly spoke. Finally, one
night, things blew up. Katarina was not eating her food. Her father had noticed
that she had lost a great deal of weight. “Why aren’t you eating?” he said.
“I’m
not hungry,” was Katarina’s reply.
“You’re not hungry. Or maybe
you just don’t want to eat to torture your mother and I. Which is it?”
Katarina
shrugged.
“Damn
you!” cried her father. “God damn you! Leave the table, now!”
Katarina went to her room and lay on her bed. Violent thoughts
stirred in her brain. She looked at the painting, which sat on an easel in the
corner of her room. She saw it and a cruel, ironical smile crept across her
lips. That night, she worked feverishly. She took new pleasure in refining the
monstrous appearance of her father’s face. After adding an especially vile
touch to the corner of his mouth, she observed the portrait carefully. She
looked into the menacing eyes and let her own eyes glaze over. Then, she heard
a voice. It was the deep commanding voice of a man much like her father’s, only
different, as it seemed to be due reverence. “Kill him,” it said. At first, she
was startled. Where was the voice coming from? From the painting? “Kill him.”
The idea seemed to seep into her mind like a sweet poison. “Yes,” she thought.
“That is what must happen.” She left her room and went downstairs to the
kitchen, where she took up a large knife. She climbed the stairs, wondering why
she was doing what she was doing. She couldn’t make sense of it. This voice she
had heard had been so real, so clear. It must have been the voice of God
himself. She reached her parent’s bedroom and knocked on the door.
“Hello?”
her father said.
“Dad.
It’s Katya. I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
her father replied, tremulously.
“I...I...I
think I need to kill you.”
She heard her mother cry out and her father yelling, “What?” Then
he got up and, as if large boulders were rolling across the bedroom floor, loudly
came to the door. When he opened it, dressed in a red velvet bathrobe and a tee
shirt that read: “King of the City,” he looked down at the knife in his
daughter’s hand, which was trembling, then at her face, in horror. She looked
pitiful, on the verge of tears. She dropped the knife and collapsed to the
floor, crying. “Sofya,” her father said, turning to his wife. “Call the
police.”
Katarina was taken to the emergency room, where she waited over
ten hours to be admitted to the psychiatric ward. While waiting, she paced the
room, thinking obsessively about her painting. She wanted to get back to it as
soon as possible, and she vehemently let the staff know this. She only tried to
sleep once, but the image of her painting was so prominent in her mind, and was
filling her with so much turmoil, she could barely keep her eyes closed for
more than a few seconds.
Finally, when she was admitted to the psych ward, she threw a
tantrum. It was two in the morning and many of the patients were woken to the
sound of her screaming. They came out of their rooms to watch as Katarina
demanded to the staff that they bring her her painting. When they told her it
was impossible, she began throwing chairs at them. Finally, security was called
and she was restrained and drugged. She slept for two days, and then met with
the psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist was a young woman, pretty, with long dark curly
hair, and skin the color of mocha. She asked her the routine questions, to
which Katarina answered honestly, if not impatiently. The psychiatrist prescribed
her an antipsychotic, which Katarina only accepted to expedite her leaving. The
overall impression the psychiatrist had left upon her was one of abundant
intelligence, and perhaps, cunning. Katarina barely left her room the first few
days. She spent most of the time sleeping on account of the drugs. On the fifth
day, she attended a meeting with the her parents and the psychiatrist. They sat
in a circle in the psychiatrist’s office, Katarina right across from her father
and the doctor sitting up straight on the edge of her luxurious leather office
chair beside her. The psychiatrist spoke briefly about Katarina, as if,
Katarina observed, she was not even in the room. Then Katarina was given a
chance to speak. She said that she had been confused, that indeed she had heard
a voice but now clearly recognized it as a hallucination caused by lack of
sleep. She felt herself again, so she said, and was looking forward to going
home and continuing her education, this time on her own dollar. When she was
done, she looked at her father’s face. It was stern—the look of a man who was
trying to appear stolid but was in reality full of fire and conviction. The
psychiatrist asked if he had a response. Her father spoke passionately, vehemently
even, saying that it was obvious Katarina was not prepared to be independent,
and that, after what had happened, he did not feel comfortable having her back
in the house. Her mother wept, and Alexander did not so much as even look at
his wife to try and comfort her. Katarina did her best to remain unemotional,
but at the sight of her mother’s weeping, tears began to well up in her own
eyes. “I’m so sorry,” her mother said through her tears, “I tried my best. I
should have tried harder!” Katarina kept her cold gaze focused on the
gold-rimmed clock on the wall, its long hand quietly ticking around the white
face, from number to ornately drawn number, without cease, as the psychiatrist
explained in a calm voice that she would be moving into a group home.
The day her mother came to pick her up at the hospital, with all
of her belongings packed into the car, Katarina had a brief but meaningful
conversation with an elderly patient on the ward. She had never spoken a word
to the woman before, but when the woman found out Katarina was leaving, she
approached her as Katarina was sitting at a table, waiting to sign some forms.
“You are leaving today?” the woman asked. Katarina nodded. “Good for you. You
have a fire surrounding you. Did you know that?”
Katarina smiled.
“Don’t let it burn you, sweetheart. There are others who are
freezing. Use it to warm them up.”
Then, the woman continued on her way.
Katarina’s mother arrived and after signing the requisite forms,
they left. Her mother assured her that she had packed all of her belongings,
including the painting of her father and all of her art supplies, and they
began the drive into the city. There was not much to talk about, but a piece by
Mozart came on the radio, and Katarina sat back and let the sounds carry her
worries away, assured that her mother was doing the same. The group home was a
small brownstone house in the middle of the city. Eight girls lived there, and Katarina
would be sharing a room. The house was run by a social worker named Christine,
a pretty, bubbly blonde with a pinched nose and an effervescent personality.
She was very warm and inviting towards Katarina when she arrived, and Katarina
did her best to return the kindness. “I hear you’re an artist,” she said as
they walked up the staircase that led to the second floor, where her room was.
“It’s always such a pleasure to have artists in the house. We’ve been lacking
for a while. I am sure the other girls will be thrilled.” Christine led
Katarina and her mother down a bare wood-floor hallway lined with bookshelves
to the room Katarina would be staying in. In the room, a short, plump, blonde
haired girl was seated at a desk watching a movie on her computer. “Hi,
Cassie,” said Christine. “This is your new roommate, Katarina.”
“Oh, hi!” Cassie practically leapt up from her chair and came
over with outstretched hand. Katarina took it. It was moist. Cassie’s big, smiling
face, with her big plump cheeks and low, speculative brow, and the lilting way
she walked (she obviously had some sort of nerve condition), along with her
greasy blonde hair and old red Mickey Mouse sweatshirt, made it apparent to
Katarina that here was a person who’s utter lack of sophistication only added
to her genial charm. Cassie shifted her weight back and forth, with that same
giddy smile on her face, unable to decide what to do. “Oh, why not?” she said,
and gave Katarina a full, warm, if not awkward embrace.
Cassie helped Katarina and her mother move Katarina’s belongings
into the room. Cassie seemed very interested when she found out Katarina was an
artist. She asked her if she ever did portraits. When Katarina replied in the
affirmative, Cassie asked if she would do hers sometime.
“Sure,” said Katarina, “but I’m working on something major right
now, so you will have to wait.”
“Oh, I can wait,” said Cassie. “Waiting adds character, and who
couldn’t use more of that, right?”
When
Katarina was all moved in, she had a couple of hours before dinner, so she sat
in her room in her newly made bed, looking at the painting of her father, which
was sitting on her easel in the corner. Cassie came in and waved, perking up
and smiling with exaggerated excitement. “What’s this?” she said, noticing the
painting and stopping dead in her tracks. “Wow! It’s amazing you did this?”
Katarina
nodded.
“Who is
it?”
“My
father.”
“It’s
beautiful.”
“Thank
you.”
Katarina
looked at Cassie’s face as she looked at the painting, her profile exposed. It
was a rather profound looking face, with a low, projecting brow; large, bovine
jaws; and sharp, deep-set eyes. Her thin lips were drawn together tight, giving
her an expression of uncertainty, but also resolute curiosity. Katarina looked
back and forth at Cassie and the painting, and suddenly felt the desire to
draw. She pulled out a pencil and sketchpad from her backpack, which sat on the
floor beside her, and began to sketch Cassie as she looked at the painting.
Cassie, noticing Katarina drawing her, turned and smiled. “Oh, you don’t have
to draw me if you don’t want to,” she said.
“I
want to,” said Katarina. “You have an interesting face.”
“I
do?” said Cassie. “I always thought I had a plane face.”
“Not
at all. It’s the face of a Russian poetess.”
Cassie’s
eyebrows shot up, wrinkling her forehead.
“Are
you a poetess?”
“Nope,”
said Cassie, shaking her head. “I am Russian, though.”
“Good
enough. I’ll still draw you as a poetess, if you like.”
“Ooh!
Yes! Draw me as exotically as you can. Wait!” Cassie ran to her dresser and
pulled out a red silk scarf. She wrapped it around her neck and struck a
dramatic pose.
Katarina
laughed. “That’s perfect,” she said, and began to sketch.
After
dinner, Katarina and Cassie went outside to continue their drawing session. The
light of the evening sun was gilding the maple tree and the grass-covered lawn.
Cassie sat on the picnic table, and Katarina drew her as she shifted her
position to form various poses. Katarina showed Cassie her drawings, and Cassie’s
jaw dropped. “These are incredible,” she said. “Do you think you could paint
me?”
The next day Katarina began to paint Cassie’s portrait.
They set up outside beside the maple tree, and many of the house members came
out to watch. Donna, a mild-mannered old lady with deep, black eyes, said that Katarina
“must be a genius,” and that she should show her work at the art studio up the
street. That night, Katarina looked at the painting of her father. She felt
that it was nearly complete. But something about it bothered her, something she
couldn’t quite place. She lay in bed that night thinking about it, asking
herself what could be wrong, but then she thought of her time with Cassie and
fell into a deep sleep.
When Katarina’s portrait of Cassie was finished, Donna asked Katarina
if she would do hers, as well. After a time, she had done multiple portraits of
everyone in the house, even Christine, who she painted in tones of pink, yellow
and sky blue. She continued to work on the painting of her father, but only
sparsely, as her focus had changed. Something else had changed, as well. For
the first time in a long time, Katarina felt that she and her artwork were
truly appreciated, and that she had a group of people that she could call her
friends. She had grown particularly fond of Cassie. Every painting—indeed every
sketch—that Katarina produced, Cassie was there to praise and comment upon.
Cassie was no expert in art, but this didn’t matter to Katarina. Cassie’s
enthusiasm for her artwork was born of a genuine, childlike curiosity that for
Katarina was as pure as any great Renaissance work. With Cassie around to
support her, she began to forget about all that had happened, and lived fully
and presently. She no longer thought of herself as a “great artist” (though
those around her often said she was). She no longer distrusted art that was not
her own. She even had begun to amend her relationship with her parents.
At first they had begun by talking on the phone. Her mother
could hardly say a word without bursting into tears at first, and Katarina was
obstinate about talking with her father, which only upset her mother further. Finally,
however, her father called her one evening, and she answered. He sounded
detached over the phone, asking her coldly if she had been following the
program and if she was eating enough. Katarina answered in the affirmative to
all of his questions. When it came time to say goodbye, her father hesitated
and said, “I love you,” before hanging up the phone. Katarina was astonished.
Her father never told her that he loved her. She thought about this for a long
time. Why would her father, who didn’t even trust her to stay in the same house
as him, suddenly come out with this unprecedented display of affection? Had he
perhaps taken on some of the blame for what had happened? Either way, Katarina
and her father began to talk more regularly. She kept him abreast of how she
was doing, and Katarina was even surprised to find that her father was taking
new interest in her artistic pursuits.
Katarina painted every day. After a while, she took Donna’s advice and had a
show at the art gallery down the street. It was a huge success. Everyone
came—friends, housemates, even an art critic from the local paper. She sold
almost all of her paintings. But none of that would have meant a thing if her
parents had not come. Seeing them enter the door, Katarina walked over to them,
smiling. Her father embraced her, and kissed her on the cheek. “I am so proud
of you,” he said. Katarina looked at her mother. She looked calm, and wore a
subdued smile on her face, and Katarina knew that the wound that had been
causing her mother such grief had finally started to heal.
That
night, as she lay in bed with the lights on, basking in the memory of her
success, she suddenly thought of the painting of her father, which still sat on
the easel in the corner, covered in a plastic wrapper. She got up, went over to
the easel, removed the wrapping, and looked at the painting carefully. She
found herself surprised by its overbearing nature, and remembered her father’s
smiling face from earlier in the evening. She wondered at how she could have
seen her father in such a light. She took the painting and went downstairs,
where she made a fire in the living room. Using the spoke to tend the fire, she
convinced herself that there was an aspect of ritualism to what she was doing,
and as she placed the painting on top of the fire, she felt filled with
religious fervor. But as the painting began to burn, panic struck her and all
of that religious fervor disappeared, and a new kind of fervor took its place—a
fervor of earthly love, of familial pride. She reached in and took the painting
out of the fire. She looked at the wrathful face of her father and knew what it
was she had to do. She went back upstairs and put the painting back on the
easel, took out her paints and brushes and set to work. She worked long into
the night. By the time she was finished, her father’s portrait no longer
displayed wrath and condemnation, but love and solemnity. She went to sleep
just before dawn, completely at peace.
The next day, she got up earlier than she had expected, and even
felt refreshed. It was Saturday, and she was determined to bring the painting
to her father. Taking the painting, she caught the bus and rode to her parent’s
neighborhood. She hadn’t been back home in many months, and as she walked down
her street, under the branches of the oak trees that climbed from the lawns of
the beautiful nineteenth century houses, with their grand facades, red brick siding
and slate roofs, everything seemed a tad less familiar than they had in the
past, and she herself more detached. Perhaps this was what it meant to feel
like a grownup, she thought. She reached her parent’s house and looked through
the window into the living room. She could see her father’s head, buried in a
book, no doubt. She went up the walkway, climbed the three stairs to the porch,
and knocked on the door. She held up the painting, so that her father would see
it right away. Her father answered the door. “Katya,” he said, looking first at
his daughter’s face, then at the painting in her hands. Katarina waited for him
to speak, but he was at a loss for words. Tears were welling up in his eyes. He
looked to be in awe.
“What do you think?” she finally asked.
“It’s amazing,” her father said, sounding almost short of
breath.
“It’s for you.”
As Alexander smiled through his tears at his daughter, Katarina
saw her reflection in his eyes. She was so young and so beautiful. So talented
and so compassionate. And as her father looked at her, somehow Katarina knew,
by the way he smiled, that her father saw all of these things in her, and more.
Never had she known herself better than when her father looked at her this way.
He was proud of her. She knew it. Proud of her for all the wonderful things
that deep down she had always suspected made her special and unique. And now,
her father knew that she was proud of him, too.
