The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque Read Free Page B

and alternating cherub and demon faces decorating the legs. During one of his frequent visits, Shenz had said, "I don't believe I could muster the presumption to create upon that altar."
    The most remarkable aspect of the studio was the system of pulleys and gears that operated the overhead skylight. By merely turning a crank handle, I could draw back the ceiling and allow the fresh light of morning to flood the room. When lit by the sun, what with all the materials, the paintings lining the walls, the drips and puddles of bright color everywhere, the place appeared to be a kind of wonderland of art. That night, though, as I sat there sipping my whisky in the dim glow of the single taper, it showed quite another side. If it were possible to peer through the eye of a madman into the chamber of his mind, it might resemble the shadowed, cluttered mess I now beheld.
    The failed and refused portraits that hung on all four walls of the studio made up the family I had only recently so longed for in my midlife loneliness—a dozen or so of kin, framed, suspended by tacks and wire, glazed into stasis, and composed not of flesh but of dried pigment. The blood of my line was linseed oil and turpentine. It had never before struck me with so much force how poor a substitute they were for the real thing. My own dogged pursuit of fortune had brought me many fine things, but now they all seemed less substantial than the trail of smoke rising from my cigarette. My gaze followed its spiraling upward course, while my mind drew me back and back, rummaging through my memories of earlier days. I sought to recall the precise moment when those seeds were planted that would latently germinate and blossom into the present flower of my discontent.
    My family had come to America from Florence some-time back in the early 1830s and settled on the North Fork of Long Island, which at the time was little more than pas-ture and wood. The name
    Piambotto, my full surname, was well known as far back as the Renaissance as belong-ing to a line of
    artisans and artists. There is mention in Vasari of a certain Piambotto who had been a famous painter.
    Although my grandfather had been forced to take up farming when arriving in the New World, he had continued to paint gorgeous landscapes every bit as accomplished as those of Cole or Constable. Until but a few years ago, I would still see his work from time to time at auction or hanging in a gallery. He, of course, retained the name Piambotto, as did my father. It was I, now living in this whirlwind age of truncated moments with an emphasis on brevity, who shortened it.
    I signed my work Piambo, and to one and all I was Piambo. I don't believe even my intimate friend, Samantha Rying, knew I had spent my early years speaking Italian and that my first name was really Piero.

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    My family moved from the wilds of eastern Long Island to Brooklyn during the building boom that prompted some to think that eventually Manhattan would become merely an addendum to its neighboring borough. My father was an interesting fellow, reminiscent of the ancient Greek Daedalus in that he was a supreme artificer. He was a remarkable draftsman and an equally accomplished inventor who had the ability to give physi-cal form to the varied products of his imagination. I was too young at the time to remember exactly how things transpired, but during the Civil War, because of his renown as a machinist and engineer (he was completely self-taught in both fields), he was solicited by the powers in Washington to create weapons of war for the Union army. In addition to making some parts to, of all things, a submarine, he also designed and built a weapon called the Dragon. It was a kind of cannon that used compressed nitrogen to shoot a stream of oil that was ignited as it spewed forth. It could hurl flames at advancing troops from a distance of twenty yards. I remember having seen it tested and can tell you it was aptly named. This strange piece of