Portrait of A Father

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.