Alphaios was troubled. Since the day the prior had given it back to him, the portrait had been sitting, still wrapped, behind one of the wooden cabinets in the scriptorium. He didn't know what else to do with it.
As a restorer of the artistry of others, he was accustomed to his work being anonymous and having a limited audience. In fact, there was a certain congruence of his vocations as illuminator and monk. His vows called upon him for near anonymity of self in a relentless search for salvation. That was the life he'd chosen as a youth, though back then he couldn't have had any conception that he'd find himself here today.
His portrait of a monk in prayer would be anonymous as well, but the painting tugged at him. It had been a very long time since he he'd vested as much of himself, tried to convey as much in a single work. He wanted to do something with it, not just hide it away.
Perhaps it was so important to him only because he had so few opportunities to express himself—not in the form of some forebear, but as himself. Maybe if he were to do fifty original paintings instead of just this one, it would have less value to him. Then again, this one had been born of a challenge not just to his skill but to his very view of the world. There was much of him to be discovered in it by the discerning eye. That was why the prior had kept it as long as he had. Given the amount of discord it had caused, he certainly could have directed Alphaios to remove it immediately.
Instead, after the turbulent chapter meeting, Prior Bartholomew had taken the portrait to his cell and kept it there for seven days. On the eighth, he'd wrapped it in the heavy brown paper used for shipping shoes and solemnly given it to Alphaios. "Find it a home."
The feelings expressed in chapter had not entirely gone away, but most of the monks had settled back into a general sense of goodwill. Even if he hadn't won agreement among them, perhaps he had at least earned a measure of respect for his work. That did not extend to Brother Simon, of course, nor to his closest allies. There had been no further incidents, but they stayed watchful of him. If they wished again to ignite their deliberate indignation, they would do so and it would be beyond his control. He would not constrain himself so far as to gain their approval, which would be churlish even if granted.
One Thursday afternoon, rather than going to the patio café, he took up the painting and walked to the Green River Bar and Grill. The wooden screen door slapped closed behind him when he entered. Oddly, its sound made him feel welcome.
Jess wasn't there, and Jack, the barman, wouldn't speculate as to when she might return. Alphaios chose the window table he remembered so well, and leaned the painting against the wall. For a moment he stood and watched the flow of traffic and smiled at the memory of that first, unpredictable conversation with her. It had been like chasing fireflies, but in the end more substantive than most.
Jack had a crooner on the sound system—opera seemed to be Jess's taste, not his. Alphaios went to the bar and asked for a cup of coffee. His offer to bring payment on the following day was refused, and he returned to the table with the steaming white mug.
He didn't know exactly why, but now that he was here, he found himself relieved that Jess was not. Now she could look at the painting, study it, and like it or not without him there to watch her reaction. Her response was important to him, yet he felt shy about observing her form it.
Jess didn't know he was going to bring the portrait by. She didn't even know he was capable of such a painting. He didn't expect her to hang it in the café—that would be presumptuous, and beyond him. Anyway, it wouldn't fit in among the vast, spare landscapes that rooted the café in the American West. Not this work, its exploding colors its only topography.
He'd thought about hanging it in the scriptorium, but it carried emotions he didn't want to face every day. He could offer it to Inaki, but then faced the possibility the archivist would feel obligated to hang it in his office. It could go to someone on the commission for disposition, but its members were not associated with his personal life at all, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Jess, more than anyone he knew, had a grasp of the emotions around the creation of such a painting. She took herself into the paintings on her walls as if they were life itself. Her high steel, she had called them.
Alphaios sat for half an hour, watching people walk by. Second only to the serendipitous encounters he sometimes had with the citizens of this city, this was his favorite pastime.
Finally he roused himself. He asked Jack for a pen, and wrote "I'll be back" on the paper covering the portrait. He leaned it against the wall, nearly out of sight, and left the café.
For the next several nights, he speculated about what Jess's reaction might be. He wondered what she might suggest as a home for the portrait. And if she even thought it worth the bother.
On the following Tuesday, Alphaios returned. When he arrived, he was brought up short: the portrait, now framed, hung in the café's front window. Its bright colors were intense in the late-afternoon light.
He was stunned. He stood in front of it, bewildered; he didn't know what to do. His intensely private painting was being displayed for anyone and everyone to see.
After several awkward moments, he heard the screen door slap. Jess emerged from the doorway and stood beside him on the sidewalk, also facing the painting. He didn't so much see her as become aware of her presence.
"It was left inside," she said without preamble. "It's not signed. Not too bad, really, for an anonymous painter. It needed a frame, though. Looks a whole lot better now. Don't know why someone would just leave it here. Wrote a note, but didn't say who. Thought if I put it in the window, someone might recognize it."
She was playing with him, but he couldn't come up with a retort. He could barely put a thought together.
"Interesting composition, don't you think? Very fine detail in the guy kneeling, maybe a monk? Looks something like you, by the way, the what-do-you-call-it, tonsure? Extraordinary, really. Reminiscent of the early masters there in the corner. Vermeerish. Is that a word?" She swept her hand through the air. "But then there's this great radiant, modernistic, what? Universe? Is it what he dreams of? Is it his idea of heaven? Or is he hiding from it? What do you think?"
Alphaios still couldn't speak, and kept staring at the painting. He hadn't been ready for such a display, let alone such penetrating questions.
"Captivates you, does it? Me too. Not my style, though. Have to say I thought twice about hanging it, but I wanted whoever left it here to know where it was. Still don't know, nobody's come by for it."
He was drawn to Jess, her straightforwardness and unassuming ways. He'd enjoyed her intelligent playfulness the first time they met, but it was even more disconcerting today. He didn't quite know how to take her. She kept him off balance.
"Cat got your tongue? Come on in and have a cup."
Not knowing what else to do, Alphaios followed her into the café. She got them both a cup of coffee and led him to the table immediately behind the painting. As soon as they sat down, she turned serious.
"So, when did you paint it?"
"About two months ago. It's the first painting of my own I've done in years."
"Why'd you bring it here?"
"I don't have a place for it. It can't stay in the monastery, it disturbs my brothers. I hoped you might have some idea where it could go. I don't mean here. I mean...somewhere."
"You left it so I'd discover it. Why?"
Alphaios blushed. "At first I hoped you'd be here, and I could ask you about it. But then you weren't, and I decided I'd rather have you look at it without me. I figured you'd know whose it was, even if Jack didn't tell you. How come you put it in the window?"
Jess grinned widely. "'Cause I knew you wouldn't expect it. 'Cause I figured it'd make you uncomfortable."
"Touché."
"What do you mean it's the first painting of your own in a long time? Last time, you said you paint small pieces. What's that mean?"
"I'm an illuminator. I'm helping make a copy of a very special book that's irreparably damaged. That's what brought me here."
"So..., why don't you paint more of your own stuff?"
"I'm a monk. The only reason I did it at all was because some of my brothers questioned my credentials. The only way I could prove my capability, my usefulness to the chapter, it seemed, was to paint a picture. They chose the subject—they wanted a monk at prayer. And I promised them I'd use only the colors I found inside the monastery."
Jess laughed in delight and gestured toward the vivid portrait. "So you gave them this?"
"I kept my promise. But it did cause a commotion."
"You think?" She laughed again.
"The prior asked me to take it away for the sake of calm. I've had it in the scriptorium—my workshop—wrapped up and sitting behind a cabinet ever since."
Jess looked at him closely, as if she could see inside him. But this time she didn't make fun. "A couple of customers have commented on it. And a woman who said she was an art dealer came in yesterday. She insisted I take it down so she could look at the brushwork more closely. Asked me who the artist was. Told her I didn't know. She gave me her card in case he came back in. Here, I'll get it for you." She got up and went to the bar. In a moment she was back. "Want it?"
He was nonplussed. He'd only wanted Jess's idea of what to do with the painting and, if he were honest with himself, her opinion of it. Now it hung facing the street with people of all kinds seeing it, and Jess was pushing him into territory where he didn't want to go.
Alphaios looked at the card. It was from a gallery. "I'm a monk. I can't sell a painting."
"Didn't think so. But she thinks it's good. Real good. So, what are we going to do with it?"
Alphaios took Jess's "we" as a signal she was willing to help. "I don't know. I thought you might give me some ideas."
"I'm not exactly the art agent type."
"I don't want an agent. Just to figure out a good place for it."
"Okay, so you can't have it in the monastery. How about where you work?"
He blushed again. "It's personal. It reveals things about me that I don't want to mix with my colleagues."
Jess snorted. "Of course it reveals things about you. That was obvious as soon as the wrap came off. Why else would you paint?"
Again, he found himself without words.
"What it reveals to me," she said, "isn't the full extent of what you put into it. I'm willing to bet your brothers didn't take from it everything you thought you were revealing."
"Many of them didn't see at all. If they even thought about it, they saw me mocking their beliefs. They didn't see my expression of those same beliefs, albeit shown—" He stopped, suddenly aware he had revealed more than he should.
She looked at him shrewdly. "So, you share the same beliefs as these brothers of yours? Then tell me again why it can't stay in the monastery?"
Alphaios reddened once again. This time he chose not to respond.
"Get over yourself, Al." She was all business now. "You value this painting. You should. But other people won't see into your very soul just because they see it hanging on a wall. They're more likely to see what's in themselves, not what's in you. If they even bother to look. As many paintings as you see in your work, you should know that by now. So hang it where it can be seen. It's good. Exceptional, maybe. If you don't want it in your workshop, there's got to be somewhere else in this library of yours."
"I suppose so..." He was still smarting from Jess's insights.
"I'll take it down and wrap it back up. Come by tomorrow on your way to your library, and you can take it with you. The frame's on me. Improves it, don't you think?"
Alphaios stood to leave and, still flustered, thanked Jess for the coffee.
He'd taken just a few steps down the street when Jess called out behind him. "Hey, Al! You oughta paint more often!"
He grinned as he often did in response to Jess, and waved.
The next day, he carried the painting to the private library. After ringing himself in, he went directly into the scriptorium. A few minutes later, he emerged, carrying the unwrapped portrait. He found a hammer and nail in a housekeeping closet, and took it all to a little-traveled place in the first floor corridor that caught the afternoon light. There he hung the portrait of a monk in prayer.
Newly added in tiny brush strokes, in Greek letters, was his signature.
~*~*~