To A Musician. A Poem

On Not Facing Reality – As Usual

What then, if I should do this foolish thing
And leap into the gulf between gray earth
And all my yet unwrit eternity,
And what if plea of yearning spanless dearth
Of music pulls me unsupported on,
Preferring dissonance, some sound absurd,
Uncertain harmonies to dull accord,
To dry-cut unisons, too often heard?

What if I brace and step into the mist
To grasp a ghost unknown outside a dream,
And wide-eyed, bring a figure vaguely-drawn
To phantom view, and paint what it would seem
Aside from any cool reality?
And feel and touch what only in my mind
Has flesh and bone and solidness of light
And take to heart a thing of unsure line?

Oh God! what then? Could I not fail to fall
Into abyss sans dream, sans light, sans sound,
And would my folly be the only line
To noose me up, a slipped and tightened crown?

Or would I, credulous, go forth to live
These imaged lines, all treachery above,
Called forth from void to firm reality
And Heaven save the mark! find you to love?

by Catrin Lewis, March 1985

Free Souls, Chapter 9

“You look very nice,” he’d finally said.

Such a statement was prosaic enough to be borne, so Sandy had accepted it with equally prosaic grace. She tried to immerse herself in the study of Rembrandt’s portrait of his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels, though every cell in her body seemed to be a separate antenna picking up the frequency of Eric’s continued presence behind her.  There had been poetry in what he had said before, but she dared not credit that from him. Hers was too fragile a hope to be founded on such ephemera: she had miscalculated on men's feelings towards her before; she dared not risk error now.

The safest explanation was that something was going on.  Turning back to him she asked, "Has something happened since Friday afternoon that I shouldn't know about?"

"Absolutely not! I mean, yes, you should know about it." And he told her about the new commissions for the Ryersons' family room and the FirstCon Packaging building. "I won't know all the details till Tuesday night, and probably not then. But I'd say for sure they're ours."

"Oh, Eric, that's wonderful! And you say Mrs. Ryerson and Mrs. Felder and everyone got together and agreed to close down the rumor mill?"

"Seems that way. And if what Sheila told me later is any indication, that same mill might grind out still more little jobs for us!"

"I love it! Nick Hardt hoist with his own petard!" Her tone became confidential. "Eric, I wasn't sure how you'd feel about this, but it's my career at stake as well as yours, and I figured I should take the chance while I had it. Um, the president of the local AIA chapter, Mr. Byfield, goes to my church, and this morning after the service I spoke with him."

She paused, Eric made no comment, so she went on. "I explained that I knew he couldn't send out any edicts or decrees, but I asked whether he couldn't circulate the report, the truth, I mean, among the local firms that, well, that we're good upstanding little children 'in whom no iniquity is found' and so on, and ask that our colleagues treat us the way they'd like to be treated. He agreed to do it, and it may work. He's got enough influence."

Eric considered this. "He'll just drop a word here and there? No soapbox lectures against unfounded gossip?"

"Goodness, no! He'll do it discreetly, don't worry. He's not AIA president for nothing, and besides, he's a Christian gentleman."

"Hmmm," was Eric's initial reply to this last.  "Well," he said presently, "I'm glad you acted on your impulse. If things work out, we may be saved on both fronts."

"I hope so."

"Well, enough of this. Have you seen the exhibit?"

"Not all of it."

"Did you see that Raeburn in the other room? Come on, I'll show it to you."

She followed docilely and indeed, the portrait was very beautiful. He accompanied her through the rest of the exhibit, he elucidating the fine artistic points of the paintings, she illuminating him on the religious or mythical backgrounds of many of their subjects.

After awhile, they came to the Spanish gallery, where Eric was drawn away by a remarkable Velasquez. Sandy, in her turn, stood fascinated before a large canvas by El Greco.

Its subject was a young Spanish saint, a soldier by his dress, with that peculiar attenuation of the bone structure so characteristic of the artist’s work. The young man stood on a high, weather-shrouded hill, the relics of his martyrdom in his hand, and on his face an expression as of the hope of eternal joy mingled with an awareness of the futilities of the world. It took her breath away: as a work of art, certainly; but also because if he had been born a 16th century Spaniard while yet remaining himself, she would have sworn the young soldier-saint was Eric Baumann. It was all there: the face, the hands, even the attitude of the body. The only thing missing in Eric was the look of spiritual assurance, something she knew the Lord alone could supply. In that moment if it had been proposed that Eric had been transported to the late 1500s and sat for the artist, or that El Greco had time-travelled to the 20th century that he might paint him, she would have accepted it without doubt or question.

A hand was laid gently on her shoulder. She turned and in a kind of delicious shock recognized the seeming original of the painting. “I’m not the only one who looks like an Old Master . . . ,” she murmured with soft recklessness.

If Eric heard he gave no sign. “Do you like this El Greco?”

“Yes, I do. Very much.”

“If I had the money I’d buy if for you.”

“My God, he’s serious,” she thought. She rummaged through the ragbag of her social experience to find something appropriate to say, but against his confusing onslaught could muster no defense but levity.

“Well, yeah,” she laughed, “but if you had the money you’d probably live in a château in France and never would’ve known me anyway!”

“Yes,” he continued with what she decided to label maddening obstinacy, “but if I lived there I’d probably have tours. You might come over, I’d meet you, and then I would certainly give it to you.”

“This is not working,” she thought. Congratulating herself on her control of the situation, she asked steadily, “What did you think of the Velasquez?”

The treacherous mood was broken. “Oh, yes, come and see it!”

He pointed out its salient features with proper enthusiasm, but after her appreciative responses had died away silence closed around them. They did the rest of the exhibition with hardly a word, marking each other’s reactions only by the curving of a mouth, the widening of an eye, the gesture of a hand.

He did not touch her again, but she was ever conscious of the impression of his long hand upon her shoulder. Increasingly distracted from the masterworks, she resolved to come again, alone, for now her rebellious energies demanded leave to flow out to the man at her side, and it was fear and pride, as much as prudence, that with difficulty kept them dammed in.

Eric for his part threw himself headlong into the paintings, trying to disregard the odd sensation that had so inexplicably come upon him. Ah, yes, here was one of Moses and the burning bush. But it offered him no security. He recalled his mother’s Bible stories in that drab little walk-up in Bismarck: “‘I will turn aside and consider this great marvel . . . ’” What great marvel? Just an ordinary bush, the kind you see every day, the kind you take for granted (and almost against his will he glanced down at the young woman standing next to him) . . . take for granted, until you notice it’s on fire, but not burned, and that it has the voice of God or at least of an angel sounding forth from it.

When they were through Eric asked quietly, “How were you planning to get home?”

“I thought I’d get the bus, as usual.”

“On a Sunday evening? Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll be standing there in the cold for an hour. Come on, get your things. I’ll drive you home.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied in a tone that was an almost perfect counterfeit of her normal workday voice. Eric started at the slight difference, then forced himself to put it out of his mind.

* * * * * * *

They rode mutely through the still November dusk, till he suddenly said, “You know, if we have these new jobs we’ll have to hire some new people in the office.”

Oh,” thought Sandy, feeling the point of the knife to her ribs, “so this is it. I’m losing my place and privileges as his sole assistant and he’s being nice to me to make up for it.” She lectured herself roughly: “Listen, girl, you knew this day was going to come from the word Go. It’s part of the profession and all you have is a professional relationship, understand?”

He was still speaking. “We have time yet before the office building project will start. I’ll interview a few people and submit them to your judgement. If you find anything wrong with them, they’re not hired, ok?”

“Eric, look, you’re the boss,” she replied ungraciously. “You know better than I do what you want in an employee!”

“Sandy, you know I respect your opinion! What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry. I’m tired, I guess. Long day.”

“Long weekend,” he agreed. “But you’re right, I do know what I want in employees, and one of those things is that they be agreeable to you. I also know what I want in an associate.”

The blade began to explore her vitals. “Oh,” she tried to say evenly, “you have an old college friend or something who’s coming back to join the firm?”

“No,” and he looked at her curiously. “I thought you’d just assume. You don’t think you can handle a promotion?”

“What– me?”

“Well, yes!” He grinned. “With a raise and all the rest of it, providing the office building goes through. The room next to ours is empty; I’ll see if I can rent it. We can put the catalogs and the help back there.”

“What a marvellously dehumanizing way of speaking of them! ‘The catalogs and the help’!”

“Well, you know me!” he answered cheerfully. “A regular Simon Legree. We’ll put the huddled masses of whatever type back there; I think it’s best you and I stayed up front for the time being. At any rate, we won’t know for sure until I speak to the Ryersons and Delkirk Tuesday night.”

“I think it’ll work out . . . ,” she said, as much to herself as to him.

"I was hoping to do this for awhile," he went on, "but we didn't have enough work.  I think this FirstCon project once it gets into the building phase should give you some good opportunities to get out of the office and get some good experience in construction management."

"I guess so," Sandy replied, a little flatly.

"You don't seem all that enthusiastic," he said with some surprise.  "I thought you'd like being more independent.  And if your portfolio was any indication, you've got a lot of ideas under that hat that I'm sure you're dying to bring to light.  There will be new projects, I'm sure, that you'll be able to handle on your own.  I can't see you playing second fiddle forever."

"Oh, Eric, I am excited, I really am.  It's just that, well, I'm-- "

"Tired," he concluded for her.  "That's all right.  And it's a big step.  I remember how I felt when I was first made associate.  It can be overwhelming.  You'll feel clearer about it in the morning."

But Sandy wasn't sure she would ever feel more clear about the matter than she did right now.  It was one thing to gain a promotion with all the powers, privileges, and emoluments pertaining thereunto.  It was another thing to be convinced that the duties of that new position were inevitably going to separate you from the one whose presence you valued more than anything else in the world, and to feel that he somehow had planned it that way.

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by Catrin Lewis, 1983, revised 2013, all rights reserved)

Free Souls, Chapter 8

Eric returned to the Civic Museum Sunday afternoon: maybe today, unlike Friday night, he'd actually be able to concentrate on the paintings.

Passing into a gallery hung with 17th century Dutch works, he came upon Sandy Beichten contemplating a Rembrandt.  She was dressed in a dark plum-colored velvet jacket over a soft sprigged navy wool skirt that swirled gracefully around her calves in their black stockings.  He had never considered his assistant beautiful or even pretty in the conventional sense of the term.  Her features were too irregular and her petite figure did not satisfy either classical or modern ideas of beauty.  To him she was nice enough to look at, but in a pleasant, comfortable sort of way.  But today she struck him as surprisingly attractive.  Was it the outfit?  She turned at his greeting and he marked how the ivory blouse with its ruff of lace enhanced the line of her slender throat and how the wine-colored felt hat gave her brown eyes a luminosity he'd never thought to notice before.

"Enjoying the Old Masters?" he asked her gravely.

"Yes, immensely.  I feel rather guilty about it.  I feel I'm supposed to like the Moderns better."

"You look like an Old Master yourself," he commented.

She laughed awkwardly and glanced down at her attire.  "Oh!" she said.  "You mean the spattered smock, the paint in the hair and under the fingernails, the general odor of the garret?"

"No," persisted Eric, "like one of their paintings."

"Oh," she rejoined, still refusing to take the compliment.  "Like that?"  And she pointed towards a genre study of a madwoman begging in an Amsterdam street.

"I swear, you're impossible!" His unsuppressed laughter caused several other museum-goers to turn their heads in shocked admonishment. "Oh, you know.  You look very nice."

She flashed him an indecipherable smile, sketched the semblance of a curtsy, then turned back towards the painting she’d been examining when he walked in. Watching her, Eric was both astonished and intrigued. He’d meant nothing by his initial compliment, he was sure: nothing more, at least, than he’d mean by commending a fellow-architect on a well-designed building. So why had she found it so difficult to accept simple praise on having put together a becoming outfit? The moment the subject was herself, her defenses had gone up. In someone ordinarily so very open and enthusiastic, it was strange.

It occurred to him that though over the course of their friendship they had talked literally for hours on various topics, never had she revealed to him much about her personal life and history.  He knew a great deal about the firms she had worked for, the trips she had taken, and the books she had read; he knew she was a Christian and could be relied upon to act on Christian principles, but hardly ever had she volunteered anything of what it all meant to her deepest soul and heart.

And Sandy Beichten's deepest soul and heart were none of his business. He knew that. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help wondering what depths lay concealed behind that velvet-jacketed façade. And he couldn’t help thinking it might be worth his while someday to find out.

____________________________________

by Catrin Lewis, 1983, revised 2013, all rights reserved

Free Souls, Chapter 7

But it took no effort on their part to come to conclusions; conclusions leapt upon them like grasshoppers on ripening grain. 

In the next few weeks, they received calls from Eric's clients from his years with Richardson & Greene, ran into people in stores and on the street, were subjected to "meaningful" looks from building materials representatives, all bearing some delightfully shocking if unsubstantiated tidbit that reflected badly on Eric and Sandy's professional reputations. None of their current clients cancelled their agreements, but neither did the firm seem to be getting anything more in. Perhaps a month's worth of drawing remained on the Weisman cabinetry, but after that, who could tell?

There was nothing to prove a Nick Hardt connection with the rumor campaign, and Eric felt it'd be like tracking a ghost, or a demon, to try to run him down.

He felt better in anticipation of a travelling exhibition of Old Masters from the National Gallery in London. Though a fine connoisseur of the moderns, he bore a lively enthusiasm for their predecessors, and as a member of the Civic Museum's Fine Arts Guild he was invited to attend the inaugural reception the night before the exhibit officially opened.

The November night was cool without being cold and he decided to walk over and prolong his sense of expectation.  He thought of Sandy: Should he have asked her to accompany him to this? But no, it wouldn't be a good idea, going out with one's employee. 

Still, there had been that evening with Bach at his place. They'd heard the Magnificat, most of the Brandenburgs, some organ fugues, and at last, neglecting the turntable, they'd discussed the music until the lateness of the hour had been laughable. Where, he wondered, had she developed that knack of expressing his very thought, not parrotlike, but even before the idea had coalesced into English in his own head? And wasn't it remarkable how her serious Christianity breathed new life into the religious works and made him better appreciate Bach's intention in the music? "Soli Deo gloria . . .  "  He was an agnostic, certainly, but, as he reflected now, that meant "I don't know, not "I won't know."

His meditations scattered like birds at a shot as he entered the Museum's reception hall and Sheila Ryerson descended on him with a look of satisfied accomplishment in her eye. "Eric!" she trumpeted. "I was wondering if you were coming! Let's get you some wine and some of these nice sandwiches, and then I have something to tell you!''

"What?" he said drily. "Somebody's hundred-year-old foundation has caved in and it's all my fault?"

"No, you silly boy! As for that, I got together with a group of my friends, who are also your clients, and we compared notes. We'd all heard the most disastrous stories about each others' houses, and as you may expect, not a word of any of them was true. We agreed that somebody is spreading pernicious gossip about you and resolved not to let them get away with it.''

"That's very good of you all.''

"You don't know who it could be?" Sheila inquired narrowly.

"No. Yes. Well, we have our suspicions, but they can't be proven.  Don't worry, Sheila, it's nobody in your circle."

"Well, that's a relief! Oh! What was I going to tell you?  Oh, yes!   You know that family room we'd just had redecorated when you started working for us and we wouldn't let you touch?"

"Yes, what about it?"

"Well, Jacob and I enjoy your part of the house so much, we feel so comfortable in it, that frankly, we hate going into that room.  It's hardly been used for six months. The kids play in there occasionally, but even they complain that it's gloomy. We've even moved the TV to the spare bedroom."

Eric knew that family room well and winced to remember it.  It was the sole blaring sour note in the finely-tuned symphony of his redesign: monstrous and dark with its over-stained panelling, ponderous brick fireplace, shag carpet that could have been the progeny of an English sheepdog outraged by a Las Vegas stageset, and black fiberboard beams traversing the oppressively-low dropped ceiling.  He wondered why it'd taken them so long to be repelled by it.

"Well," Sheila went on, "I've talked to Jacob, and especially after all this vile gossip, and knowing how painful that room is to you-- no, don't deny it, I know-- we decided you deserved a chance to bring it up to the level of the rest of the house."

His ingrained modesty compelled him to veil his excitement.  "Sheila, I'd be happy to make whatever improvements you like in your family room."

"Oh, improvements, shimprovements!  Rip the whole damn thing out!  It's moribund anyway!"

"What's moribund?" inquired Jacob Ryerson, strolling up beside his wife.

"Our family room," she informed him.

"Oh, yes, that. Absolutely.  Say, Eric, sorry about all those rumors flying about you.  Though I can't say if I'd be all that sorry if one of them is true, if I were you."

"Which one?" he asked equably, though with some apprehension.

"Why, didn't I hear you'd gotten your secretary pregnant?"

"That's ridiculous.  I don't have a secretary!"

"Well, then, What's-'er-name, your assistant, Miss B-- "

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Ryerson!" Eric could not forbear himself. "Alexandra Beichten is a fine Christian woman who would die before she'd do anything of the sort and I think it's disgusting you'd even insinuate such a thing!"

A bomb thrown in their midst could not have transfixed them in a more appalling glare. The Ryersons were Jewish and Eric was paralyzed, aghast at what his assertion had implied.

A voice was speaking, a woman's, saying sensible, commonplace things:  "Well, Eric," it said, "When would you like to come over and discuss the family room with us?"

"Oh, yes-- Sheila, next week, I'm-- Jacob,  I'm terribly sorry, that must've been extremely offensive to you."

"No," replied the older man heartily, "the offense was mine.  I had no business talking about that girl like that.  I mean, she may be a prude, but-- "  His wife shot him a warning look and he faltered.  "Well, Eric, let's call it even, both debts cancelled. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"And Sheila's right.  You must come to dinner and tell us what to do with that room.  It's unusable as it is," he went on, obviously still embarrassed.  "And oh, yes, I have something for you as well, as soon as I can run down Delkirk.  Oh, there he is!"

Jacob waylaid and led back to them a short man with reddish whiskers and a cheerful aspect.  "You know my partner, Sam Delkirk?  Sam, this is Eric Baumann, the architect."

Greetings duly exchanged, Jacob said, "Sam, you do the honors, all right?

"Certainly.  Eric, as you know, Jacob and I have run our firm, FirstCon Packaging, out of rented offices for many years now. Well, due to a merger with a smaller firm and some judicious financial dealings, we find that it's high time we moved into a building of our own."

"You have a building in mind?"

"No," said Jacob with great satisfaction.  "And that's where you come in. We have the land. The building we want you to design and build."

Eric was overwhelmed.  Their first large-scale project!  He knew he could do it: he'd managed other such jobs at Richardson and Greene.  But now, after the apprehension of the past weeks-- !

"It'll be only two or three storeys," Mr. Delkirk was saying, "but we think you could keep yourself busy with it.  I've seen your work, Baumann, and it's as good as any I've seen in New York or Boston.  Maybe better."

"It's settled, then!" said Sheila with cheerful finality.  "Eric, you and Sam come over for dinner Tuesday night and we'll discuss the great new inroads we're going to make in local architecture!"

They all laughed, a toast was proposed, and the bargain was sealed.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Walking home that night, Eric considered how amazingly things had turned around for them.  Perhaps he should call Sandy with the news?  No, it could wait till Monday.

He felt strangely elated knowing the danger he had run for her, risking the loss of a prime client by going to her defense.  He loved Architecture better than anything else on earth or in heaven, and to hazard it, for her sake, should have been a thing foreign to him.  Yet he had done it.  Absurd, how much it pleased him.

But of course, he finally decided, it was a debt paid.  He'd made up for not having challenged Nick Hardt when he'd called her that foul name a few weeks ago.  Nick Hardt . . . .  but in his mood the thought of the man was like the tail of a lizard that whips into a crack of a sunlit wall and is gone.  A benevolent if slightly idiotic spirit was dancing about his brain repeating gleefully, "Virtue is its own reward! Virtue is its own reward!"

But still . . . was that really why he had risked alienating the Ryersons in her defense? Somehow, the mask of beneficent paternalism kept slipping away, half-revealing the face of something unknown but decidedly intriguing. The matter bore thought, Eric concluded, a great deal of it.

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by Catrin Lewis, 1983, revised 2013, all rights reserved