Artist's Daughter, The: A Memoir Read Free Page B

pleased to know that I almost always have a child at arm’s reach and my fridge is full of Diet Coke.

iii Apartment
    B efore our good-bye at the café, my father had invited us to his apartment the following week for a birthday lunch.
    “I will make paella,” he said with a confidence I would later call arrogance. “You will like it. I am quite good at it.”
    My mother nodded. “He is a good cook.”
    I was surprised she knew this. Why hadn’t she ever shared this critical fact before? I had heard almost nothing about my father from her, which made the comment even more surprising, like I was just learning they’d had any kind of relationship. As long as I can remember, my mom was matter-of-fact about the birds and the bees. At nine I knew where babies came from, or at least how they were conceived, but I was still shocked at this familiarity that suggested a relationship. I had never really thought of my father in terms of my mother. And I never really would. My relationship with him would remain separate from her. Theirs was a thing of the past that my mother saw no reason to talk about.
    A week after our first meeting, my mother and I stepped into the cool, stone-tiled lobby of my father’s eight-story apartment building. The lobby was a modern contrast to the musty castlesand dark cathedrals I’d spent the last year touring. We were greeted by a rotund doorman sitting on a stool behind the desk. Other than characters in books and movies, I didn’t know anyone who had a doorman and was instantly impressed.
    The doorman pushed down on the desk to hoist himself up and escorted us to the elevator. Pulling back the black iron accordion gate, he stepped aside for us to step inside. The antique gate he pulled closed behind us was a reminder that we were still in the Old World. We peered at him through the gate’s bars like inmates at a jailor who had just locked their cell. He smiled at us and disappeared from view as the elevator went up. We watched in silence as the floors scrolled past us one by one.
    Walking into my father’s apartment was like walking into an art gallery. The stark white walls and floors and black leather furniture showcased the artwork displayed on the walls and underfoot. These were not pieces he’d collected from exotic travels; these were ones he’d created with his own long-fingered, age-spotted hands. It turned out the dirt I’d noticed under his fingernails days earlier was actually paint. Paintings in the entry had random objects I recognized protruding from them: razors, women’s underwear, satin gloves. Stepping into the living room, I saw tapestries hanging from floor to ceiling. There were no landscapes or women standing next to lakes with parasols—what I pictured when I thought of artwork. More like blobs of fabric and yarn with swirly strands protruding. On the floor were bushy mounds of woven rugs. I wasn’t sure if they were meant for walking on.
    “This is where I sleep . . . the bathroom . . . the kitchen,” he explained as he gave us a quick tour of the apartment. I pictured him eating breakfast at the table in the living room. I wondered what he wore when he sat there. Did he read the newspaper? Drink coffee? Was he alone?
    “Let’s go downstairs,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I have something to show you.”
    He took us down a few floors in the caged elevator to see another apartment, his studio. As we stepped into the huge room, the natural light flooded in from a wall of windows. We stepped around drop cloths and half-completed pieces on the floor as he talked, and his tone became much more animated than it had been upstairs.
    “This one,” he said as he pointed to a painting on the floor with red and yellow vertical stripes, “has the colors of the Catalan flag.” He led us to the second side room dominated by two looms used to create the tapestries he was known for. Spools of yarn taller than me leaned against the walls. The paint