Orchard by Larry Watson Page B

inexorably was her vitality draining away. But all those impressions were the result of seeing too much the spirit that held sway over her being. When her body came into play . . .
    Her breasts were round, heavy, her shoulders and hips wide. The shadows of muscles faintly wavered in her arms and legs, and he could see other signs of how a working life had marked her—a V of sunburn at her throat, tanned and freckled limbs—yet when she was naked she looked so eros-charged that any other use of her body—mothering, laboring—any purpose other than the pleasures of love was waste, waste, waste. Reflexively he made a fist, and his nails bit into his palm just as they had gouged his nightstand so many years before.
    Once she was seated again, and Weaver’s hand was scuffing charcoal across the paper, he said, “When most people look at one of my drawings or paintings, what they fail to see is the story. They see a scene. Lines and shapes. Something existing in space. A man or a woman. Objects. But everything I draw or paint has its own story. A past. A future. Never only the moment on the canvas.”
    Weaver sometimes talked as he drew, using his tongue to occupy his brain and thereby allowing his hand to work free of his mind’s judgments.
    “And what”—her speech came slowly, as though the model was concentrating harder than the artist—“is the story you’re telling now?”
    Weaver tore off a sheet and began another drawing, experimenting with a change of scale. “This will be the story of a woman who stayed away for a long time, but now that she’s here . . .”
    “Yes?”
    “Suppose you tell me. You never explained: Why did you finally decide to pose for me?”
    “It was as I said. For money. My husband couldn’t work. He had an accident.”
    “Is he working now?”
    “Some. But not like before.”
    “But there are other things you could have done for money.”
    “I didn’t wish to wait on people again. And you pay better.”
    Weaver ripped away another sheet. Perhaps he would try a series of drawings, all on the same sheet, but in each one she would be turned toward him a bit more. “It’s not that you like posing?”
    “I don’t mind.”
    “But do you enjoy it?”
    “You’ve had such models?”
    “Certainly.”
    “And what is it they enjoy?”
    “Oh, any number of things. Some simply like to be looked at. They might feel that no one has ever taken time to really look at them, to give them the attention that every human being needs and deserves. Some think I’ll make them beautiful, and that I’ll make their beauty available to the world. Some only want their likeness preserved, a record that says nothing more than ‘I was here. This is what I looked like.’ And some pose in order to seduce.”
    “Who is it they wish to seduce?”
    “Me. The viewer—anyone who looks at their image. It’s a kind of power.” Though her hair hung straight down, Weaver drew strands twining in and out of the slats of the chair back. “And some believe they will become works of art themselves. This has nothing to do with vanity. This is a wish for immortality.”
    “And that is not vanity?”
    “Could I ask you to turn toward the right a few inches? There. That’s good.” This movement brought the nipple of one breast into view.
    “These stories you draw and paint,” she said. “They are yours alone? Is this why you ask me nothing about myself?”
    All afternoon the gentle rain had made faint brushing sounds at the window, but now the drops, gathering volume, tapped louder. Weaver’s concentration did not falter. While he drew, her nipple grew erect, and the stiffening did not subside. For the time being, Weaver made no attempt to incorporate this detail into the drawing.
    “I could ask you as well,” he said. “Why do you volunteer nothing about yourself?”
    For a long time she said nothing. Then Weaver heard what might have been the softest laughter, followed by her voice. “Perhaps I want