← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
Work of Art
00:58:15
Host Meg Wolitzer presents stories of inspiration small and large. In these tales, writers investigate moments in which art inspires life, or life inspires art, especially in a visual medium. In Elizabeth Crane’s “Blue Girl,” read by Valorie Curry, a young woman's secret life is given an unusual public forum. In Jai Chakrabarti’s “Lessons with Father,” commissioned for our Small Odysseys anthology, a middle-aged child tries to connect with her late father through brushstrokes. The reader is Purva Bedi. And in William Boyd’s “Varengeville,” read by Dan Stevens, a young man strays from his famous family as he discovers himself on canvas.
Loading summary
Transcript68 lines
- [00:06]
Meg Wolitzer
You've stopped to look at a painting hanging in a gallery. But how did that painting come to be? I'm Meg Wolitzer. And on the next Selected Shorts, fiction that breaks down the process of making art. Stay with us for the aspiration, inspiration and perspiration that produced those all important brushstrokes. You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. Artists get asked certain questions over and over again. What's your daily routine? Who are your influences? And most common of all, where do you get your ideas? It's easy to see why these same questions arise so often. To onlookers, art can seem like magic and everyone wants to know what goes on behind the curtain. Even artists wonder about other artists. The idea of how someone got that story usually refers to journalism. But how, say, did Chekhov get his story a work of fiction, not journalism? Lady with Lap dog. Does a work of art start out a certain way and then suddenly change a lot? Grace Paley has a short story in a collection with the title Enormous Changes at the last Minute, which I suspect may be how some great art comes to be. The artist makes a change, finds a certain image or word or makes a particular brushstroke which somehow creates a way for him or her to see what this thing is about to become. For those of us who love art, it's a fascinating process. And sometimes the origin story of an artist is just as interesting as the art itself. On this edition of Selected Shorts, we're going to hear stories of inspiration, small and large. In these tales, writers find moments in which art inspires life, or life inspires art, especially in a visual medium. In one piece, a young woman's secret life is given an unusual public forum. In another, a middle aged child tries to connect with her father through brushstrokes. And in our final piece, a young man strays from his famous family as he discovers himself on canvas. The first story we'll hear is the funny, fantastical Blue Girl by Elizabeth Crane. Her books include the novel the History of Great Things, the recent memoir this Story Will Change, and many volumes of short fiction. On the surface, Blue Girl is about an involuntary brand of personal confession, but listen closely to the diction and artistic references. We'll talk more about it after the story. Performing it is Valerie Curry, an actor we're glad to have on our shorts roster. Her many series credits include the following and the Tick. And now Valerie Curry reads Blue Girl by Elizabeth Crane.
- [03:08]
Valerie Curry
When I was 4, years old, the word baloo appeared on my forehead in cerulean block print letters. At the time, I wasn't aware that this was anything out of the ordinary. I thought maybe my parents were trying to teach me how to read. My parents thought I had taught myself to write. Oh, honey. Yes, that is blue, they said. What's blue? I asked. I hadn't seen it yet. Silly. They said, on your head. I reached for my head. I didn't feel anything. They showed me a mirror. There were blue letters there, but I hadn't written them. Show us how you write, honey, they said. Can you spell the other colors? I bet you can spell red. They handed me a box of crayons. I knew my colors, and I could recite the Alphabet and even copy my name. But I didn't know how to write. Mommy, I didn't write it. Did you write it? Well, of course I didn't write it. Jimmy, did you write it? Why would I write on my daughter? Just a question, Jim. This conversation went on for a while and became somewhat heated and bizarre. There wasn't anyone else in the house. I had no siblings. Finally I said, maybe Bart wrote it. Bart was our cocker spaniel. No, honey, Bart can't write. They finally got tired of the debate. Well, let's go wash it off and get you ready for school. It didn't wash off. Not with soap, not with shampoo, not when they scrubbed really hard. And not with any of the things they brought in from the kitchen, which included olive oil, lemon and Clorox. My forehead was now cerulean with a very red background. At school, my parents apologized and told my teacher, Ms. Holly, that I must have used a permanent marker. Ms. Holly chuckled like it was no big deal and said she'd seen stranger things. Like when Bobby Millman put a button up his nose. And when Debbie Ross came in with the right half of her hair cut off. Ironic, then, that those two would be the ones to start the chanting. Blue girl. Blue girl. Blue girl. It was shortly after that that it changed. Unbeknownst to me, it now said, stew in a deep shade of pink. Miss Holly brought me straight to the principal's office. My word changed to a burgundy dirge on the way there. She explained to the principal that I was misbehaving and causing the other children to be distracted. I spent several hours there. Dirge stuck for some time. The principal also tried to wash it off, and I told them we already tried that at home. She sent me to the infirmary. The nurse rolled her eyes and said, I can't do anything here. I was sent home and asked to remain there until something changed. The only thing that changed periodically was the word. On the first day it read lamb, alabaster and nave, pistachio, and then back to blue again. On the second day it said in yellow, of course, taxi. On the third day it alternated between omelet and detour. And on the fourth day it said languid in gray and stayed that way for several more days until it changed to punk in black. And that's when my parents decided to take me to the doctor. The doctor took many tests and pronounced me perfectly healthy. My head said merge. My parents took me to a specialist. I still don't know what he was a specialist in. The specialist nodded a lot and said, hmm, quite a few times, and took more tests that were all inconclusive. He finally decided that it must be psychological and referred us to a shrink. Needless to say, more tests, Rorschachs that reminded me only of benign things like horses and butterflies and games involving pegs and holes and what do you think of when I say sky blue, sun, moon, night, day? All of which were also inconclusive until he finally said, well, there's one more thing, and pulled out a large book off the shelf and looked up Big Stanley Syndrome, the description of which more or less fit something about moods and the biochemical reactions, and no known treatment. Still, he suggested eliminating all color from my diet, an unpleasant week of mashed potatoes and milk, and prescribed something which resulted in a series of short stories printed on my head, which resulted in us going back to to the shrink, who then said, yes, that is a possible side effect. Several shrinks and dubious treatments later, my parents decided to cut my hair into bangs covering my forehead. This worked fine indoors, but once on the playground under the moderately windy conditions, my words appeared again. And so the torture resumed. Mood head is what they called me. Finally, we decided on a hat. I transferred to a new preschool and it was explained to the administration that I was a special needs case and I was to be allowed to wear my hat in class at all times. I didn't make a lot of friends. When I eventually got to fourth grade, there was another kid with a hat. He had leukemia. We made friends. When he died, the other kids wanted to know why I hadn't also died. I told them I didn't have leukemia and why. They said, do you wear a hat? I told them I just needed to. A bully took my hat and saw the word kimono on my head. I transferred Twice more before my parents decided to homeschool. Around 10th grade, I started to miss being around other kids my age, even mean ones, and decided to try going back again. I knew there were weirder kids than me in school, kids who were weird on purpose. They chose a progressive school where they hoped I might be better accepted. I went without a hat. I was accepted. They thought I was expressing myself. I let them think this. A boy named Eddie Forrest asked me to the movies. We smoked a joint and made out in his dart in the parking lot, and my word changed from itch to marvel right before his eyes. Whoa. How did you do that? He asked. Do what? He said. Change your head. You're stoned. Seriously? He said, nodding. I realized at this time that I was either going to have to get my date stoned on a regular basis or think of a new plan. I developed a mild marijuana habit, but by the time I got to college, I got tired of having to ditch all these guys before they figured out that something really was up with my head. I started telling people about Big Stanley Syndrome. I became a champion for the little known cause of Big Stanley Syndrome. There were leaflets. I got fewer dates. I lost my virginity to a drunken halfback in a moment when my head happened to say, go, team. Graduation was coming up, and once again I had no plan. Performance art seemed like an obvious possibility, but I felt like that would be cheating. I wasn't trying to make a statement. I had a condition. I was studying for a chem exam in the quad when a guy came over and sat down next to me. He was cute, but he smelled like he hadn't showered in a week. Hey, he said. I nodded. I'm in your chem class, he said. You live in Franklin hall, right? I nodded. By now I knew there was a small contingency of people who were into people with unusual conditions, like amputees and stuff. I did a fairly good job of avoiding them. Once I fooled around with a guy who seemed really nice in the first couple of dates, flowers or even pulling out chairs and all. But when he was at my apartment one time he whispered into my ear, I can love you, baby. I'll take care of you. Which wasn't what I was looking for. But chem class guy turned out to be okay. He was really the first one for whom my head was neither here nor there. I got him in the shower, if you know what I mean, and one day when he took my face in his hands, words appeared on his forehead. It said, I will fall in love with a French woman and move into her loft on the Seine. He seemed to have no knowledge of this because the way he was looking at me quite adoringly contradicted the message on his head. Nevertheless, it was as clear a message as I'd ever seen on anyone's head. My own had always been so random, and I pushed him away and got out of the shower and into a towel. What'd I do? He asked. It had already started to fade when I took his hands off me, so I quickly showed him the mirror. He was surprised to see such a message, of course, and didn't say anything for a minute, but finally he denied it. I don't know any French woman. I love you. He even started to cry because he could tell I was about to break up with him. I knew in my bones that he was both sincere and and that he would meet a French woman. Get dressed, I said. We went down the hall and started knocking on doors. I asked the RA to put her hands on my face. Her head said, I will enter a graduate program in social work and marry a client. I grabbed a guy in a study lounge who was nodding out with a bowl of chips on his lap in front of Wheel of Fortune. Rehab five times was all it said. The guy next to him said, rich wife.
- [13:57]
Purva Bedi
See?
- [13:57]
Valerie Curry
I said to my boyfriend. What does that prove? It just means you can make your words show up on other people. I don't think so. Take a better look at that rehab guy. A dark haired girl who had been watching came over. Do me, she said. She had a faint accent I couldn't place with just the two words. I put her hands on my face. I will take your boyfriend to my homeland, it said. I looked at my boyfriend. Guilty. I was somewhat disappointed about the loss, but as I said, I'd had no plan until then. I got one of the guys from the computer lab to build me a website. I taped a commercial and bought some cheap airtime on the local cable channels in the middle of the night. 1800 m o o d h e d. I tried not to overdo it. Like Ms. Cleo, I just gave a brief demonstration and said call or whatever. I could not take all the calls. I gathered pretty quickly that Miss Cleo must not have been working on her own. Of course I had to meet the people in person and even though the readings were quick, I could not meet the demand and I tried to hire out. But only one other big Stanley guy showed up and he didn't have the gift. His readings produced nothing but smiley faces and the occasional four leaf clover. Nevertheless, I had quite a career on my hands. I quickly amassed a huge fortune. I bought a beautiful home on the beach, I was on magazine covers and I was consulted by presidents. There were attempts at exposes, but every single one of them was convinced after I read their own heads. Even the ones who were uncertain about their readings were easily convinced that it wasn't a trick. My love life still sucked on the book tour. A guy in a baseball hat came up to the podium. I reached across the table to sign his book, but he didn't have one. He took off his hat. He had Polaroids on his forehead. White border color Polaroids in the same place as the words were on mine. They changed a couple of times when we talked. I guessed that some of them were from his childhood. He told me they were often random, with pictures of people he didn't know at all appearing occasionally. I asked if he would put his hands on my face. Granted, I was curious to see what would happen, but he was also pretty cute. He said he was hoping I'd ask. I saw a slideshow of works by great artists, mostly still lifes, Sunflowers by Van Gogh, some Wayne Thiebaud cakes, and Still Life with Biscuits by Picasso. It was a nice show, but it didn't give us anything concrete. I didn't know that much about art, so any ideas I could come up with about the subject were open to interpretation. Still, it was worth a conversation. I like biscuits.
- [17:06]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Valerie Curry reading Blue Girl by Elizabeth Crane. Well, did you hear it? Secret feelings becoming words. All the artsy words for color, the paintings on the boy's forehead. Even if our protagonist isn't yet hip to what's happening to me, she's a writer like Crane, and her new love interest just might be a visual artist. It might be all metaphorical, sure, but. But to my ear, it's the origin story of two creative people. Our next story about artwork and the work of art comes from the writer Jai Chakrabarti, author of A Play for the End of the World, which is in fact a novel that was long listed for the Penn Faulkner Award. In addition to writing, he's also a math loving computer scientist, which makes him the rare artist whose left brain is as well developed as the writing. Chakrabarti wrote this story Lessons with Father for selected shorts anthology Small Odysseys. The piece was read by actor Purva Bedi, whose credits include Sully and the Surrogate. Alongside her real life husband, Beatty co created the Amazon series Shrinkage it's an exaggerated play on their lives together in therapy. Now here's Poorva Bedi reading lessons with Father by Jai Chakrabarti.
- [18:25]
Dan Stevens
I wanted to know something about my father's art, though by then he was already dying. His last days were as simply weaved as any of the days after my mother had passed and I had come to his house to assume his care, which meant, as I remember it now, two cooking a lentil and tomato soup that would last him several meals and replenishing his supply of comics, Tintin and another series that was surely inspired by Melville, because for years the same crew had been adrift at sea, searching for an island that would give them power and a reason for having devoted their lives to the search. My father was a painter at a time when art was central to our country's fight for independence, and I supposed my own entry into music had as much to do with the communities of youth who'd barged into our flat at all hours. That sense always that my father, wild haired and loose tongued and smelling of his sandalwood cologne and all the others, Satyendra, Bosh, Jyotin, Shonyal, Triveni, Chatterjee were knocking on the door, and by their knocking alone would freedom be possible. I suppose I grew up with the sense that oppression was always temporary. By the time I entered school, my father's paintings had been displayed in London, New York and Madrid, and India was a free country. When I told him I wanted to learn painting, I had turned 50. Behind me, and ahead of me I could see the great repetition of my life. But what did he know of my unhappiness? He only said that I should stick to my music, that at this age there was no reason to learn anything difficult. It takes courage to be angry at a dying man, especially if that man is your father. But I loved him well enough to be angry with him. Then for days we were cold to each other. A week passed and I did not trim his fingernails, a ritual I knew he secretly enjoyed the taking of his hands, the studying of the tremulous lifeline. At his age the nails had brittled, become glass like, but still they grew like weeds. Were it not for my ministrations, they turn into claws. In response he stopped bringing me the paper, which he'd usually open to the cinema section, tolerating but never quite understanding my love of a good Bollywood number. I explained all this to my husband. He appreciated my paintings at least he complimented them in as many ways as he knew how, which was not a great deal. But still, when learning something new, any encouragement will suffice. Ever since we'd given up trying to conceive almost 10 years ago, he'd encouraged me in areas great and small. Our childlessness brought out in him a desire to praise in his way, to nurture. The next week I told my father that if he didn't teach me, I would seek the help of his juniors. Over the years he'd apprenticed nearly a dozen painters, a couple of whom now held their own fame. No, he finally said. Let me. I grew up in a country accustomed to death. It was no special privilege. So many of us witnessed riots. Mothers dragged by their braids, skull caps burned, so many heads lifted onto pyres, and with all the vigor of public ceremony set to flame. Still, it is different when you see the slow unraveling. Today, when I was drying him after his bath, my father handed me a tooth. It had come undone in the night, but he plied it in place for as long as he could until finally he surrendered it into the warmth of my palm. A bit of his gum tissue still stuck to the dulled enamel. We began our lessons on a Thursday afternoon. I made him his milk tea. I brought out a couple of my own brushes. Using his would have felt too familiar, and set the colors in a row. A few examples of my drawings, landscapes mostly, I put on display. He reviewed my landscapes, studied them with that expression he wore when touring the National Museum, an expression that suggested indifference, amusement, and alternately, a deep curiosity. So it was impossible to know what he thought of any piece of art in, including mine. He assembled the canvas by the window and put my brushes in order. Then he said, wait. I pulled my chair close to the window, where I could see what he saw every day, the light over the family across the lane. In this part of the city, the streets were wide enough to allow bicycles, no cars, and often we could see every detail of what happened in their house as surely as they could see in ours. They were a young couple with a daughter, the woman rather pretty, the child with pearl drops in her ears, though she could not have been older than six months. For hours the mother, a housewife, would hold the child in her arms on the old colonial roof, which was leaning dangerously every few weeks another piece of stonework gone missing. What is the difference between this light, my father said, and the light when we began, I tried to remember. There was the wind, there were the baby's cries. At one point the mother had brushed her own hair, and it seemed like black gold. Now close your Eyes, he said, and paint the difference. When my father passed away, there was a great deal to do. Much of it concerned money, with which he'd never been proficient. I handled his most pressing debts, and I left his studio intact for days. I returned to that window to spy on the young mother and her child. By now, the child could balance on the mother's thighs at the edge of the balcony, open her pink, impish mouth and peek over the gulf. Yesterday I found the painting my father made. It was behind the gramophone somewhere I wouldn't have thought to look. Maybe he wished to keep it from me. Maybe it was a gift he never completed. It's the face of a woman, or rather, half of her face, drawn with a few brushstrokes. Was it the woman next door who kept my father company each day? Or was it me? Or was it no one that I knew? I painted where his hand had been. I made the lines whole.
- [26:45]
Valerie Curry
Thank you.
- [26:52]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Purva Bedi Performing Lessons with Father by Jai Chakrabarti. There's such a nice duality in that story. While the immediate action is intimate and revolves around death, the larger context of the father's life and art is just at the edge of the piece. Chakrabarti won't let us forget the larger world beyond the father's home, the inspiration for the art and what will help the narrator move forward once her father is gone. We caught up with Beatty backstage after her reading during an epic day of performances from our anthology, Small Odysseys. She said the story resonated with her as both a parent and an actor.
- [27:29]
Dan Stevens
It was a really beautiful and moving story on so many levels for me because it's about the loss of a parent and also about being a parent or not having the chance to be a parent. So for me, in that sort of generation, between caring for one's parents, but also in my life, I am a parent and have children. It's sort of this place where you feel squeezed and you have to navigate through that squeeze. And so the story really resonated for me.
- [28:03]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Porva Bedi speaking backstage at Symphony Space about Lessons with Father by Jai Chakrabarti. When we return, a story about early creative inspirations featuring Dan Stevens. I'm Meg Wolitzer. You're listening to selected shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide. Welcome back. This is selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. We're listening to stories inspired by visual art and the process of creating it. If you're angling for a little more auditory input, head to selectedshorts.org there. We've got many more episodes to stream or download. Click the subscribe button and you'll find links to favorite podcasting platforms. Plus, while you're there, you can find out about the Selected Shorts Writing Contest. So if you're at home writing a story about Monet's water lilies or that schmaltzy watercolor of the family poodle, send it in. The story, not the picture of the poodle. I'm afraid we don't have an inch of wall space left. Submissions are now open for the 2025 selected short story Prize, judged by writer Ottessa Moshfegh. The winning work will be performed by an actor in spring 2025 and published on Electric Literature. And the winning writer will receive a cool $1,000 and a free 10 week course with Gotham Writers Workshop. We know if you're listening to Selected Shorts you love a great story, so why not tell us yours? Go to selectedshorts.org to find out more. Our final piece in this show, Varangeville, is by prolific Scottish writer William Boyd. Boyd is the author of novels including Any Human Heart and Restless, as well as his latest, the Romantic. While the scale of this short story is much smaller by design, it still carries with it Boyd's careful attention to period detail. Performing the piece is Dan Stevens, who first garnered attention in Downton Abbey and has starred in everything from Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, a play in part about painting and perspective, to Disney's live action Beauty and the Beast. Now here's Dan Stevens reading Varangeville by William Boyd.
- [30:38]
Purva Bedi
Oliver frowned darkly and pushed his spectacles back up to the bridge of his nose, taking in his mother's suspiciously bright smile and trying to ignore Lucien's almost sneering, almost leering grimace of pride and self satisfaction. Lucien was his mother's friend. Oliver had decided he did not particularly like Lucien. What exactly is it? Oliver said, Playing for time. I believe people call it a bicycle, lucien said. Oliver noticed his mother thought this Sally was amusing. I know that, oliver said patiently, but why are you giving me a bicycle? It's a present, his mother said. It's a gift for you. You can go exploring. Say thank you to Uncle Lucien. Really, you are intolerably spoiled. Thank you, Lucien, oliver said. You are most kind. The bicycle was solid, a little too big for him, black with three gears and lights, and possessed. Oliver admitted he was pleased by this gadget, a small folding down support that allowed the bike to stand free when it was parked. However, it did not take long for the real purpose of the gift to become evident. Oliver wondered if his mother thought he was really that stupid. Every time Lucien motored over from Deauville, always after lunch, always leaving before 6, his mother would turn to Oliver and say, oliver, darling, why don't you cycle into Varoungeville and post this letter for me? She would give him 100 francs and tell him to have a diable mont at the cafe in the square. Explore, she would further enjoin vaguely waving her arms about. Wander here and there. Wonderful countryside, beaches, trees, the freedom of the open road. Fill your lungs, my darling, fill your lungs. And Oliver would wearily mount the big black bicycle and pedal off down the road to Varangeville, the letter tucked into his belt. He had a good idea what his mother and Lucien would be doing in his absence. He knew, in fact, he was absolutely convinced, that it would involve a lot of kissing, and he was sure his father would not be pleased. He had discovered his mother and Lucien in a kiss on one occasion, and had watched them silently, slightly disturbed at the violence, the audible suction with which their mouths fed on each other. Then they had broken apart and his mother had seen him watching. She took him at once into the next room and explained that Maman had been unhappy and Uncle Lucien was simply being kind and had been trying to cheer her up, but that it would be best if he didn't tell Papa. They were both instantly aware of Oliver's eyes narrowing, that this explanation was laughably inept, that it did not even begin to undermine the blatant deceit. So she changed tactics and instead made him promise to her. She extracted one of her most severe and terrifying and implacable promises from him. Oliver knew he would never dare tell Papa. Lucien came two or three times a week, always in the afternoon. Once he came with some other friends on a Sunday for lunch, accompanied by a nervy, febrile woman with strange coppery hair who was introduced as his wife. It was early August, and Oliver was beginning doggedly to count the days before he would go back to school in England, to count the days before he would see his father again, conscious all the while that the summer was only half done and there would be many more cycle trips into Varengeville. It was on his sixth or seventh journey into the village that he spotted the old painter. Oliver always took the same route, up the sloping drive to the gates turning down the farm lane to the road. Then there was an exhilarating swift downhill freewheel along the hedgerow to the D75, then right along the cliff road towards Varangeville, with the bright ocean restless and refulgent on his left, his eyes screwed up behind his spectacle lenses, half blinded by the glare of the afternoon sun. It was the odd shape of the canvas that attracted his attention first. It was long and thin, almost like a short plank screwed into a small easel. The old painter sat absolutely still on a collapsible canvas stool, his arms folded across his breast, staring out to sea, his brushes and paints resting on his knees. Oliver noticed his shock of completely white hair, neatly combed, and even though the man was sitting he knew he must be tall and thin in Varncesville. He posted his mother's letter and then went to the cafe for his Diablo. The cafe was always quiet in mid afternoon and the surly young waiter with a new downy moustache on his top lip listened to his order, served him his drink, accepted his payment, tossed down the change, tore a corner off the receipt and wandered off loudly straightening already straight chairs without a word. Oliver looked out at the little square and thought about things, his mother and Lucien for a start, then the scab that was hardening nicely on his elbow, his desire to have a pet of some sort, mammal or reptile. He couldn't decide the film that his father was making in London. Then he would observe covertly but closely the rare customers that came and went and from time to time admire the perfect stolidity of his parked bicycle, cant it over somewhat but resolutely firm on its stand, and note how the slightly elliptical shadow version of it angled flat on the pavement, shadow wheels touching real rubber wheels was both absolutely exact and yet undeniably distorted. The phrase as faithful as a shadow came into his head and he thought how true it was, but then wondered, where did your shadow go when the sun wasn't shining? How could something be faithful if you couldn't see it? And then he found his thoughts were returning to his mother and Lucien and decided he would cycle back as slowly as possible, hoping Lucien would be gone by the time he arrived home and he would not have to encounter him mysteriously washed and perfumed, a permanent smile on his lips, and full of an unfamiliar and repugnant affection for Oliver. The old painter was still sitting motionless in his field, still staring out at the sea and the coastline. The afternoon had turned hazy, the sky full of spilled milk clouds but still glaring and dazzling. Coming from the other direction, Oliver could now see what was on the canvas, but as he approached he was surprised to note that it seemed almost black, full of murky blues and dark greys. For an absurd second, as he glanced at the silvered sea with its vast backdrop of sunlit cloud, he wondered if the painter might be blind, and then he wondered if he might be dead. People could die like that, suddenly, sitting up, just stiffen into a posture like that. They could. He'd read about it. Are you all right, monsieur? Oliver asked softly. The painter slowly turned around. He had a big rectangular face, its features powerfully present, the nose, the eyes, the thin wide mouth, the absolutely white hair. Yet in no way was it distinctive or handsome. Just a strong, simple, oblong face, but somehow oddly memorable.
- [39:10]
William Boyd
But of course, young men, the painter said. Many thanks for asking.
- [39:17]
Purva Bedi
Oliver had parked his bicycle and climbed over the fence and approached the painter without seeing any movement in him, aware now that he wasn't in fact dead, of course, but still curious about the man's impressive immobility. I thought, Oliver said, because you weren't painting that.
- [39:34]
William Boyd
No, I was just refreshing my memory, the painter said. I just needed to come out here again in case I had got something wrong.
- [39:50]
Purva Bedi
Oliver looked at the murky canvas, which showed, as far as he could tell, a ship washed up on a shore in the night. He looked up at the bleached blinding sky and back at the dark, thin canvas.
- [40:05]
William Boyd
This happened a long time ago, the.
- [40:08]
Purva Bedi
Painter said in explanation, pointing at his painting. He began to ask Oliver polite questions. What is your name? Oliver Feverel. How old are you? Almost 12. Where do you live? Chateau Les Pruniers, but just for the summer.
- [40:25]
William Boyd
You speak very good French, but you have an English name, the painter observed.
- [40:32]
Purva Bedi
Oliver told him that his mother was French and his father was English. His mother was an actress. She'd appeared in half a dozen films. Perhaps he knew of her. Fabian Fahd, the painter confessed. He did not. Perhaps you've heard of my father. He's a famous film director. Denton Feverel.
- [40:51]
William Boyd
I rarely go to the cinema, the.
- [40:54]
Purva Bedi
Painter said, beginning to pack away his brushes and tubes. As far as Oliver could tell, he hadn't added a stroke of color to his grimy canvas. Just come outside and stared at it for a couple of hours. They walked back to the gate that led to the coast road. The painter admired Oliver's bicycle, admired the efficacy of its folding down stand. Oliver tried once more. It was given to me by a singer. Famous singer. He's in Deauville for the Summer at the Casino. Lucien Navarro.
- [41:29]
William Boyd
Lucien Navarro.
- [41:33]
Purva Bedi
Lucien Navarro, the painter repeated, holding his forefinger erect on his right hand as if calling for silence. Oliver waited, then after a while, no.
- [41:48]
William Boyd
Never heard of him.
- [41:51]
Purva Bedi
Oliver shrugged, wondering what kind of reclusive life this man led, never having heard of Fabien, Fahd, Denton Feverel, or Lucien Navarro. They shook hands formally, and the painter wished Oliver a good end to the afternoon and thanked him again for his solicitude. Oliver looked back as he cycled away and saw the old man striding down the road, his canvas and easel under one arm, the afternoon sun striking his silver hair, making it flame with light. Lucien had a new car, a Lancia with a roof that came down. Lucien and his Lancia, Oliver thought, a note of disgust coloring his reflections as he cycled off to Varenjville with his mother's letter. Lucien and his Lancia. Lucien had not visited for some six days, and Oliver had noted his mother's mood steadily deteriorating. One morning she had not descended from her bedroom at all. Only the maid was allowed access, bringing up all manner of curious drinks. Even Oliver's soft knock on her door in the afternoon produced only the moaned response.
- [43:06]
William Boyd
Darling, Maman has one of her migraines.
- [43:09]
Purva Bedi
And he did not see her at all. He calculated for a further 37 hours, and then Lucien was coming, and she was alert and agitated, changing her clothes, shifting vases of flowers about the drawing room, her perfumes noticeably more pungent, her affection for Oliver falling upon him suddenly, with brusque sore hugs and alarming cannonades of kisses and caresses. Oliver looked impassively out the library windows as Lucien's midnight blue Lancia crunched dustily to a halt and for the first time felt relieved that he had to go to Varangeville and post a letter. But in the village, standing in front of the pale yellow postbox, he felt a sudden flow of anger at his ritual banishment. He tore open the letter, always to his mother's sister in Paris, and as he knew he would, discovered three perfectly blank sheets of paper. He folded them up deliberately, slowly, and dropped them in a litter bin by a set of traffic lights. He cycled south out of Varangeville towards the plateau, heading for Longueuil. Not wanting a diabolo month, wondering how he was going to survive the two and a half weeks of August that were left, wondering how he could go through this pretense, this silly game each time Lucienne arrived. Why didn't she just say she wanted to be alone? He didn't care how long they kissed each other or whatever else they got up to. He simply wanted summer to be over. He wanted to get back to school. He wanted his father to finish filming Daughters of Dracula. The painter was walking along the road with his usual light burden of easel, folding stool, and long, thin canvas. Oliver slowed to a halt and they greeted each other, Oliver noticing that although the day was hot, the painter was wearing a tweed jacket with a shirt and tie and a curious knitted waistcoat. Old men felt the cold, Oliver remembered, even on the warmest days.
- [45:22]
William Boyd
Where are you going?
- [45:24]
Purva Bedi
The painter asked. He gestured at the flat, baking landscape. Inland in the enormous sky, a fleet of huge, burly white clouds moved slowly along northward, pushed by a warm southern breeze. A heavy flight of crows crossed the stubbly field beside them.
- [45:43]
William Boyd
It's hot out there, the painter said.
- [45:47]
Purva Bedi
I'm not going anywhere in particular, oliver said, feeling unfamiliar tears sting his eyes.
- [45:55]
William Boyd
Is everything all right?
- [45:58]
Purva Bedi
Yes, absolutely.
- [46:01]
William Boyd
Come home with me, the painter said. Have a cold drink.
- [46:07]
Purva Bedi
The painter showed Oliver into his studio. It was a large, tidy room with a Persian rug hanging on the wall. On an easel was a sizable painting of a blue bird shape against a slate grey sky. On tables and on the floor were rows of clean brushes laid on pallets and others stuffed into ceramic pots. Small tables held neat rows of tubes of oil paint as well as jars of flowers, many of them dried. Oliver was impressed. You must have hundreds of brushes, he said. Thousands. You may be right, said the painter, smiling, placing his small canvas on an empty easel and stepping back to contemplate it. Oliver circled round to stare at it, glancing at the picture of the bird and thinking that he, Oliver Feverel, could paint a better looking bird than that. The small canvas portrayed what looked like a sodden field beneath winter skies, three uneven stripes of brown, green, and grey, the paint thickly smeared but quite dry.
- [47:16]
William Boyd
I am having real problems, the painter said. I don't know what to do. I did one like this before and put a plough in it and it seemed to work.
- [47:31]
Purva Bedi
What about a man?
- [47:33]
William Boyd
No, no, I don't want people in these pictures.
- [47:40]
Purva Bedi
What about some crows?
- [47:43]
William Boyd
It's an idea.
- [47:47]
Purva Bedi
As they were going outside to the terrace to have their cold drinks, Oliver heard a woman's voice call out, george, are you back? The painter excused himself and went upstairs, returning a minute later. It's my wife, he said.
- [48:01]
William Boyd
She thinks she is getting flu.
- [48:05]
Purva Bedi
They sat outside at a metal table under a small canvas awning, which provided a neat square of shade, and sipped their cold drinks, fetched for them by a plump, smiley housekeeper. Oliver was introduced as Monsieur Oliver, my English friend, and his hand was shaken. The painter drank mineral water, Oliver and Orangina, and they both sat there silently for a while in the relentless afternoon heat, staring out at the big solid clouds steaming toward them northward. Oliver thought that the painter had a sad face and noticed how the lines that ran from his nose to his mouth were particularly marked, casting, even in this shade, dark sickle shadows.
- [48:49]
William Boyd
It's an interesting idea that, the painter said. Crows.
- [48:57]
Purva Bedi
He turned to Oliver and continued.
- [49:00]
William Boyd
So when is your birthday?
- [49:03]
Purva Bedi
Next week. Wednesday.
- [49:07]
William Boyd
Come by, we'll have another drink. I'll drink your health. No, I mean it, if you have nothing better to do.
- [49:15]
Purva Bedi
Oliver thanked him. Wednesday was usually a Lucian day. Wednesday and Friday. They were silent again for a while together. Do you know what a love affair is? Oliver asked.
- [49:31]
William Boyd
Yes, the painter said, I certainly do.
- [49:38]
Purva Bedi
Do you think that if you're married you should have a love affair with someone else? I don't know, the painter said. Isn't it wrong?
- [49:52]
William Boyd
It depends.
- [49:55]
Purva Bedi
The painter sipped at his mineral water. He held up his glass as if to look at the sky through it.
- [50:02]
William Boyd
Sometimes water is the best drink in the world, isn't it?
- [50:10]
Purva Bedi
He walked Oliver to the road and watched him as he crouched to undo the padlock on the chain that Oliver had threaded through the rear wheel as an anti theft device.
- [50:19]
William Boyd
Do you think someone will steal your bike?
- [50:21]
Purva Bedi
The painter asked. We can't be too careful in London. I've had three bikes stolen.
- [50:28]
William Boyd
But this is Baron Vie, not London. Still, it is a splendid machine, isn't it? Wonderfully built.
- [50:37]
Purva Bedi
I wish it had drop handlebars, oliver said. I think it looks a bit old fashioned. He kicked up the stand with his left shoe. I'd better get home, he said. My mother will be waiting.
- [50:50]
William Boyd
See you on Wednesday, the painter said.
- [50:56]
Purva Bedi
On his birthday his mother gave Oliver a very crumpled 10 pound note and promised him a proper treat when they returned home. Oliver said he was going to see a friend in Varangeville and set off up the drive a good half hour before Lucien was due. The housekeeper was watering some pots of geraniums by the front door as Oliver approached. Oh, he's not here, she said.
- [51:20]
William Boyd
They had to go back to Paris yesterday. Madame has bronchitis, we think.
- [51:27]
Purva Bedi
Oliver pursed his lips and pushed his spectacles up to the bridge of his nose. Damn, he thought. Bloody damn. He looked about him, hands on his hips, wondering resentfully what he would do with the rest of the day. Maybe he should just go to the beach.
- [51:43]
William Boyd
He's left a present for you, the.
- [51:46]
Purva Bedi
Housekeeper said, disappearing back into the house and re emerging with a long, thin brown paper parcel.
- [51:51]
William Boyd
He was very insistent. You should have this.
- [51:56]
Purva Bedi
Oliver sat on the beach below the small cliff and took his shoes and socks off. He looked at his watch. He'd better stay here for a couple of hours at least, to allow Lucien time to leave. It was annoying that the painter had been obliged to go to Paris. He'd been looking forward to the visit. It would have solved the problem of the day. Oliver allowed himself an audible sigh and looked about him idly. A stout girl in a yellow bikini sunbathed some feet away, her small Yorkshire terrier at her side, huddling under a bunched towel for shade. Farther along, a group of kids sat in a circle around a transistor radio. Toddlers studiously dug in the wet sand at the gentle surf's edge. Oliver thought about his birthday, what he could get for ten pounds. Maybe dad will call this evening. He's bound to give me £10, too. Maybe more. He mentally totaled all the potential fiscal gifts that he might receive from his assorted relatives and came up with a satisfyingly large figure. Not such a bad birthday after all, he thought, and unwrapped the painter's present. It was the Wet Fields painting, Oliver was not too surprised to discover. And just what was he supposed to do with it, he wondered. It wasn't particularly well painted, Oliver thought, and also the painter himself had seemed dissatisfied with it. He felt a slight surge of irritation that the painter had given him a picture that even he had been unable to finish properly. What it needed was something else in it, not just fields and sky. Maybe, Oliver thought, he should paint his bike in one of the corners, have it leaning over on its stand. The sunbathing girl in the bikini turned over suddenly and rolled onto her small dog, which gave an anguished yelp of pain and surprise. No, Oliver thought, inspired. If he painted the sky blue, then the field would look like a beach. Then he could paint the girl lying on the beach with her yellow bikini and her little dog. And then the painting would at least be finished. At least it would be about something. Oliver stared at the plump girl as she fussed and petted her discomfited dog. He found himself grinning, felt the laugh brim in his throat, and quickly covered his mouth with his hand. In case you should see.
- [54:46]
Meg Wolitzer
That was Dan Stevens performing William Boyd's Varangeville. In that story, the painter recognizes something special in the young protagonist Oliver, he intuits the best gift he can give Oliver is an invitation to see the ordinary world in a new way and an invitation to his own creativity. Whether we hear a story, look at a painting, or hear a story about a painting, good art invites us in, artists and non artists alike. None of us knows at the time how something is going to affect us us. We might see another work of art or have a certain experience and maybe it just percolates inside us for a really long time, quietly bubbling away and doing its work, until suddenly one day we understand that it made a difference in a way we couldn't have imagined. Maybe the difference is small and subtle. I sometimes think about a painting I saw as a kid when my parents took me to a museum. I think the Whitney Museum. It was called the Subway by the American artist George Tooker. It shows haunted, anguished people in a subway station. Everyone is on their own, looking around in fear or suspicion or despair. The first thing I thought as a kid staring up at this painting was, is this what riding the New York City subway is like? But then when I got older and was living in the city on my own and yeah, taking the subway every day, no big deal. I sought out that painting and still felt its power. But it had changed. When I looked into the faces of those haunted and isolated people, a larger sense of the world beyond any subway impressed itself on me. And those people impressed themselves on me too. The way now that I'd become a writer, I wanted fiction to do. I wanted to be quietly affected and changed by the depth of what I saw, the feeling of it, and that painting did just that. Whenever we get a chance to go into another person's vision deeply and then step back and return to ourselves, we have a chance to see the ordinary world in a new way. I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for joining me for Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimpkin, Vivienne Woodward and Magdalene Wrobleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles, are recorded by Phil Richards. Our mix engineer for this episode was Jennifer Nolson. Our theme music is David Peterson's that's the Deal, performed by the Deardorf Petersen Group. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.