And the plane burst into flames on the runway” Delia mumbled under her breath. It was something she always recited at takeoff and landing, the most dangerous parts of airplane flight, she had read. Sometimes she would only say part of the sentence: “… into flames …” or even just “And the plane But this time she felt need of the whole thing, and even said it a second time, out loud, looking her seat-mate square in the eyes.
“And the plane burst into flames on the runway.” But he quickly turned away, stuffing his newspaper into the seat pocket in front of him. Then there was a gentle thump, a kindly voice warned them that items may have shifted during flight, and suddenly they were all on their feet, gathering packages and stirring up the smells of nervous, crowded people.
Delia had been in airports and on airplanes all day, making her way up the continent to the prestigious Birds in Art exhibit in Wausau, Wisconsin, where a painting of hers had been accepted. In fact, on this early fall day the air was filled with bird artists: from Sweden, Master Wildlife Artist Lars Jonsson flew in with a mysterious and fantastical icescape featuring six king eiders in the foreground; from Belgium, Carl Brenders flew in with a hyperrealistic gouache and watercolor of a rufous-sided towhee reflected in the rearview mirror of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle; and from Connecticut, Roger Tory Peterson flew in with a field-guide plate of flycatchers in profile, dutifully displaying their field marks. There were the old-fashioned gentlemen/naturalist artists and their Audubonesque bird portraits, there were the hot-blooded activist artists with their shocking pictures of dead birds and human filth. There were artists with tiny, precise watercolors of songbirds, and artists with life-size carvings of swooping fish eagles and mantling hawks.
But even in all this variety Delia was uneasy, and as she made her way through the airport she imagined a steady sibilance trailing behind her, one word spitting itself out of every sentence:
At Gate B-22: “Chickens!”
On the moving sidewalk: “She has painted chickens!”
At the baggage carousel: “Imagine! Chickens!”
“You have submitted a picture of chickens to Birds in Art?” Lou, the gallery owner back home, had said, standing back and looking at it.
“Dominiques” said Delia. “An old utility breed.”
“To the most important wildlife art show in the world, you have submitted chickens?”
“They are considered endangered by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy,” said Delia.
“Endangered chickens!” Lou said, and he flipped through the Birds in Art catalog, pausing pointedly at the John Felsing oil of roseate spoonbills in a south Florida sunset and the Guy Coheleach African fish eagle flying in front of Victoria Falls, its wings dramatically poised on the downstroke.
“Chickens!” Lou stepped back and held out his arms, palms up, to the picture of the two Dominiques scratching in the dirt. “Delia! Landsdowne will be there! Robert Bateman will be there! Hartsfield! Hartsfield himself could see this!”
But it was too late; a week later the letter came in the mail:
Dear Ms. Robinson:
We are happy to announce …
“I'm thinking about your reputation as a serious wildlife painter, Delia,” Lou said. They were having lunch together “to celebrate,” Delia had said.
“Chickens.” Lou began tearing his roll into bite-size pieces and smearing butter on them with slashing strokes. “Your title is Chickens, but what are you really telling the viewer with this painting, Delia? Is it about confinement? Man's dominance over avian life? Or is it simply a portrait of light? Which would be fine.” He laid down his knife and the last bit of bread, crossed his arms on the edge of the table, and leaned across his plate earnestly. “But in the changing world of wildlife art you must have the courage of your convictions. You must have convictions, Delia. … Do you?” He bit sharply into a piece of bread, cleaving it cleanly in two. It was almost a snap.
“It's just a picture of chickens, Lou,” Delia said bravely.
And as Chickens the painting had been crated up and shipped to Wisconsin, where it was carefully hung on a white wall in a glow of even light. “Chickens” had been crisply printed on a creamy card enclosed in a plastic sheath below the picture.
“Chickens!” a woman in a sable coat snorted, reading the title, and leaned in for a closer look. “I just don't know where wildlife art is headed,” she said to her husband, a bland, tall man with rimless glasses and an ascot, and together they glided on.
That night, at a Birds in Art fete hosted by museum patrons after the Friday evening private showing, Delia was seated beside Bruce Coulton, a painter of scenes of conquest and lavish sexual display in equatorial Africa. He had just stopped smoking, and jet lag and the longing for nicotine made him a trying companion.
“Mr. Coulton has torn himself away from his rain forest to honor us here with those magnificent flamingos,” announced their hostess, who had just donated a collection of Victorian crystal bird nests to the museum. “We do appreciate your leaving your exciting life and your work, which must be so consuming, Mr. Coulton. And you”—she peered around the Asian lilies to see Delia's name tag— “yours is the …”
“Chickens,” said Delia.
“Oh yes, the chickens,” cried the hostess, throwing up her hands. “I love your wonderful chickens!” She laid her hand on Bruce Coulton's arm and whispered, “I suppose we must paint what we know, and make the best of it, must we not, Mr. Coulton!”
Bruce Coulton started in his seat and sucked in air between his teeth. But smoking was not allowed in this restored Georgian mansion, and after coffee and dessert, Delia, seeking air, found him standing in the middle of a little sculpture garden lighting a cigarette with trembling fingers. He breathed in deeply, eyes closed, the cigarette cupped in his palm as if he expected it to be snatched away from him. The cold, the dark, the glowing cigarette, and the eerie modern sculptures of tortured-looking animals reclining on pads of white gravel gave a theatrical, almost sinister feel to the moment, and when Bruce Coulton barked out, “Is Hartsfield here?” Delia started.
“He always comes the second day, for the opening,” she said.
“A grand entrance,” he said, squinting his eyes and sucking on his cigarette. “Swooping down on us all in that gray cape.”
“It would be a grand entrance no matter when he came,” said Delia.
Hartsfield had not painted since the winter day ten years ago when he had fallen out of a small boat while sighting an Atlantic puffin off the coast of Maine. But every year he made an appearance at the Birds in Art exhibit, moving silently through the throng on the arm of his companion, his cashmere cape slipping off his gaunt shoulders. The crowd would part at his approach, making way for the great man, and the museum director would stop him at each picture with a gentle tug, whispering the name of the artist and the title of the work. He never commented, but sometimes he would fold himself over at the waist, peer at one corner of a painting, and say “Hmmm” before moving on.
“I don't know why he bothers to come,” said Bruce Coulton, viciously stubbing out his cigarette in the gravel. “His mind is gone, his work is passe, he drools, and he's blind as a bat.” He paused and glared at the sculpture, a smooth, almost featureless pair of panthers reclining languidly on their bed of gravel, their stubby, undifferentiated paws not quite settling down. “Jesus! They look like victims of thalidomide.” He poked at one of the cats with his toe. “Where are we headed in this genre?” he growled, and then he stalked off toward the light, leaving Delia with the white panthers and the last wisps of smoke, feeling uneasy. It was the second time today that that question had been addressed to her, more or less rhetorically. She thought about Hartsfield's magnificent body of work in the museum's permanent collection: mantling hawks draped in their own wings, eider ducks in an Arctic mist, an imperial eagle and its prey. Then she thought about her own painting of the two Dominiques, and how she had struggled and suffered with it through a whole summer. In the end it had come to this—just chickens.
The next day was gray and cold, with a low sky and a forecast of snow. The crowd formed a line in the icy sculpture garden, and slowly the galleries filled. The excellent lighting in the museum made it seem as if the people themselves were on display— their hair shone, their faces glowed, and their jewelry flashed and glinted. They flowed through the rooms like a viscous liquid, forming little stagnant pools near the works of the most famous artists and babbling with awe and admiration.
At ten o'clock sharp Hartsfield arrived. He paused for a moment in the open doorway to recover his balance after the dangerous work of stepping over the threshold, and a cold wind gusted into the museum.
Hartsfield's clothes draped off the angles of his gaunt old frame like plumage—the gray cape forming itself into long folds like primary feathers, a ruby scarf peeking through mufflers of brown and tan at his throat. His friends gathered around, and art was forgotten as everyone watched Roger Tory Peterson, Robert Bateman, and J. Fenwick Lansdowne greet the great man. No one touched him for fear of upsetting his balance, but one by one they nodded and bowed and smiled and murmured their greetings.
Then the methodical tour began. “Osprey and Atlantic Salmon, by Larry Barth. Sooty Shearwater, by Charles Greenough Chase. Purple-crested Loerie, Dino Paravano,” the museum director murmured confidentially, and “SOOTY SHEARWATER…that's CHASE, CHARLES CHASE,” Hartsfield's companion clarified, in a louder voice.
“Mmmm,” said Hartsfield, pausing and stooping. “Hmmm.”
“Chickens, Delia Robinson,” said the museum director.
Hartsfield stooped and peered. His lower eyelids had lost their elasticity, and they sagged away from his eyes, giving the illusion that at any moment both eyeballs might roll out of their sockets. Delia fought back an urge to cup her two hands helpfully at his cheeks. Slowly Hartsfield reached out and made a trembling, pinching gesture. “Dominickers!” he said in a voice that sounded like a gleeful squawk, and his companion roared, “CHICKENS!”