Via Dolorosa(15)
It was something he had done his entire life. It was a talent he had been recruited to know, that had transferred to him from his own father, who had not made a living as a painter or an artist—he was too practical a man for that, as he had raised his son to be, as well—but who had enjoyed painting on canvases in the cellar of their Pittsburgh home after he’d retired from the police department. The love and respect of art, as well as the ability to create it, were the only things Nick and his father had truly shared. He recalled a painting his father had done of an old steam engine, bulky and black and sturdy-looking, chugging up a mountainous hillside high above the embrace of a tiny, nondescript village. Painting, creating—it seemed the only time his father was ever truly at peace. The same could be said for Nick, too. He had carried the ability with him throughout adolescence, never willing to let it go, and it was possibly the only thing in this world that granted him ultimate peace. His sketches in the old notebooks were therapeutic while in Iraq, as well, and both the fighting and the art had, at least for a brief period, become one in the same—had become intertwined and inseparable. The art made the fighting bearable and it seemed the art was too powerful to ever be corrupted by the fighting. So it was safe. But that was a long time ago and, anyway, what did it matter? Painting for him now was something completely different than it had ever been. He could no longer find that proper solace in it; it was no longer that vehicle for escape. Moreover, it could not function as a medium through which he could exorcise his own personal demons, as he so often thought his father capable of through the same act. He had become a changed man this past year and with that change he had, somehow and somewhere along the way, lost sight of the appreciation he had once had for the art. It bothered him to realize this on some level…yet, at the same time, there was a stronger, more prominent and forceful part of him now that did not seem to even care at all, and that was the part that bothered him the most. How do we discard the very thing we once cherished the most? Had the war taken it from him, raped him of art’s innocence? Had he left it there, lost and forgotten among a wasteland of desert and diesel and smoke and tanks? Lost—like a small child? He did not know. None of it made much sense to him, and being a practical and sensible person who preferred all things to remain practical and to make sense, he did not spend much time pondering such an enigma.
He painted now and lost track of time. He tried to lose himself in the painting itself—in the actual physical action of painting, as he had always done in the past—but it was different now. And then, just when it seemed like he would actually be able to lose himself again, just barely teetering on the precipice of horrible reality and blessed, sanguine fantasy, his right hand stiffened up on him and went stupid.
“Oh, you bastard,” he muttered.
There was no pain—just a dull throb and the sensation of complete and utter uselessness. He set his brush down and attempted to flex his fingers. They flexed but he could not feel himself doing it. As the doctor had taught him, he systematically touched each fingertip to his thumb, but he could not feel that, either.
“You lousy goddamn son of a bitching hand.”
He set the palette down on the step of the ladder just below the crescent of his jaw and, with his left hand, gingerly rolled up the sleeve of his right arm all the way back past the elbow. He had seen his arm a thousand times before—a thousand times in a single day, at least—and, even when he kept it covered, he knew what it looked like. The images of both his hand and his arm were forever burned into his brain. Looking at his arm now and following it with his eyes to his hand, he felt nothing for it, and certainly felt no self pity. It was just an arm and it was just a hand, a lousy arm and a lousy hand, and the only thing he felt was anger, was frustration. Uselessness. Why couldn’t it have been the left? Why the goddamn right hand, the goddamn right arm? Why not an ankle or an ear? He would have gladly given piece of an ear for the use of his hand, his right hand, his goddamn ugly useless ruined right hand…
He continued to flex his fingers, working the feeling back into them. They were tingling now, pins and needles. Aggravated, he slowly climbed back down the ladder and stepped back to see what he had painted. He had worked a good portion of the morning—it was nearly lunchtime now—but he had covered little ground.
A shadow fell across the floor and Nick turned to see the bell captain standing admiringly behind him.
“It’s good to finally see some color in it,” the bell captain said.
“Yes,” Nick said, quickly dropping his right hand down to his side.
“This is the perfect place for it, too. Right here. This way,” the bell captain said, “when people come into the hotel and go to the front desk, they will have to pass this corridor on their way to their rooms, and this is what they will see. It’s brilliant. I’m happy we were able to get you to do it.”
“I appreciate the opportunity.”
“How do you like the island?”
“Oh, it’s great. The hotel is great, too. Everything’s been wonderful. Thank you.”
“It’s a crappy thing to have to work on your honeymoon. Even if your work is painting, something you love, it’s a crappy thing—”
“No, not at all. Really, I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“Likewise,” said the bell captain. Then he extended his hand and held out a small, silver key. “It’s for the storage closet. Erich said you wanted to keep your supplies in the closet at the end of the hall.”