Karl
Jonathan heard the resort bus coming long before it pulled into the circular drive in front of the lobby and heaved its door open for the guests. He was first in line, on an early mission before Katie woke. “I need to find Karl,” he said, eyes searching for recognition of the name on the dark face in front of him.
“Yah, Mon. We find him.”
He sat on the left side, in the next to the last row, and fixed his eyes on the horizon, letting the patchwork of buildings blur into a single streak of color as the bus picked up speed. Seventy-eight humid degrees came in the bank of windows set open on the top, smells of salt water and stale sweat mixed with the breeze of forty-five miles an hour. The painter’s name was Karl; that’s all he knew for sure. He lived somewhere in town, but no one would give an address for the local master. He only worked now if you asked him yourself, or so they said.
The bus stopped in front of a shantytown area, crooked walls and corrugated tin roofs, more poverty than artistry, but the driver nodded his head at the unspoken question. “Fifteenth place down on the right, red paint with a porch.”
Jonathan handed the driver a generous tip, ensuring a quick return when he’d acquired his prize.
“Evry’ting Arie,” the bus driver said and closed the door.
Jonathan walked down the dirt road, counting the shacks where the artists showed their work. All the places had hand-painted signs and each gave an idea of what he might find inside.
Sister Love
Art & Craft
Nice ’n Easy
Welcome
Shop 62
Proprietors shouted to each other; friendly calls of "Yah, Mon," carried on the heavy island air. In the blanketing breeze, Jonathan felt strangely at home in a place he’d never been. He passed Alda’s Gift Shop, bright blue accordion doors opened wide to the tourists to lure them inside, to paw through shell and coral and wood art, or pass over necklaces and bracelets crafted by the boys behind the counter. Older women with their hair up in burgundy wraps sat outside the doors on plastic chairs and called out to those on the street to “come look.”
Fifteenth place down, right side. He sat on the porch with a young boy at his feet. Together, all knees and elbows, they appeared the contrast of age, one of coltish growth, one of waning might.
“Are you Karl?” Jonathan asked.
“Yah, Mon, I’m Karl. Whatch you want?” He turned toward the sound of Jonathan’s voice and from the few feet that separated them; Jonathan saw gray cataracts covering both of Karl’s eyes.
A blind painter. How would a blind painter create a portrait of Katie? He dropped his arms to his sides and stammered, “Uh, Um, Uh...”
The boy jumped up and motioned Jonathan into the shack, eagerly waving his hand. “Karl paint for you. I mix de paint for him, but he still as good as when he could see. Come and look. Start here.”
Jonathan stepped into the darkness and faced the right wall, waiting for his eyes to adjust, a single, naked bulb the only source of dim light. Portraits sat on the floor, tipped back and resting on the wall and hung all the way to the roof in no pattern or order, Black, White, Asian, and Indian faces rendered in all the colors of the rainbow which described humanity. He didn’t need to step in any direction, the room no bigger than his walk in closet. The boy talked about all the paintings and Karl’s great talent, which he could see for himself.
“Show me a piece he’s just done,” Jonathan said, afraid the boy would bring garish and unclear brush strokes on canvas.
“Here,” the boy pointed to a minor collection, set aside on the left. “Dey dry here.”
Jonathan drew in a quick breath, realizing he failed to consider a painting would have to dry. He would not be able to take it to Katie today.
The boy squirmed, smiling, while he showed off the pieces as though in a museum instead of a dirty, sad little shack. Jonathan’s cool hesitation began to melt as he looked at these newer works. A bit more impressionistic, more Van Gogh than Rembrandt, the likenesses were still real, the colors vivid. The portraits seemed alive.
“Karl paint for you?” The boy looked less like a little beggar and more like an usher, sure of where he placed a patron.
“Yes, please. A portrait of my wife.”
The boy brought an easel to where Karl sat and prepared the paints and brushes. Karl felt for the canvas and directed Jonathan with pointed finger and a nod of his head to sit on the porch rail in front of him.
“Tell me about her,” Karl said.
“I have a picture.” Jonathan offered it to the boy who dutifully took it to Karl, and held it steady until Karl turned back to the canvas.
“Tell me about her,” he said again.
Jonathan described his wife’s features, thinking Karl had only been able to see color and shape from the picture. “She has blond hair, five feet six inches tall. Square face and rounded nose. Blue eyes with long lashes. She smiles a lot.”
Karl laughed softly. “No, Mon, tell me about her. Tell me who she is, what she loves. Dat’s how I paint now. I paint de spirit, not de flesh. Dose t’ings are de black and white of people. Color comes from inside.”
Jonathan shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans as if he could find a single item to show him — this is her, this is how I feel about her, this is who she is. His arms hugged his sides and protected the part of him that feared he did not know her well enough. He started again, the words at first no more descriptive than arched brow and soft skin, but as the ideas came, he used hands and face and body to show Karl how she spoke and moved, expressive and charming.
He defined her as Karl painted. Above her desk hung a collage of strong women, in character and deed. She loved Mozart and Green Day, poetry by John Donne and Sara Teasdale. She spoke four languages, and she snorted when she laughed. She cooked dinner in stocking feet, wearing a black apron, with a glass of Merlot in her hand. Katie made funny faces at him in the middle of an argument.
Jonathan mimicked her voice and manner of speech, and Karl worked steadily, interrupting sometimes for a detail of her face, or requesting a color from the boy. “Mix pink like de lady near de mirror and a red like de dancing girl.” Karl spoke kindly to the boy, in a low and steady tone, warm as the island air. “Terrence is my nephew, my sister’s boy,” he said to Jonathan as the boy disappeared into the dark. “Why you come to Jamaica, Mon?” Karl asked.
“For vacation, to make her happy. Katie’s been, I don’t know, distant lately. People change over the years, and who’s to say because you’re married, you change along the same path? I’ve asked her what’s wrong, and she doesn’t know. She says she’s happy. I thought getting away, being able to pay attention to her would help.”
“Yah, Mon.” Karl’s eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.
“She seems content. But what if she’s slipping away from me?”
“Whatch you want from her, your Katie?”
“For her to be happy, I guess.” Jonathan wrinkled his nose as if giving a teacher an answer he was unsure of.
“Nah Mon, dat’s whatch you want for her, I asked whatch you want from her.”
“Just love. Love and understanding.” He stood up straight, words soft.
“So. Maybe dat’s all she want from you, too.”
“But I do love her and understand her.”
“It’s not de same, lovin’ and understandin’. Love is sometin you do. Understandin’ is sometin you give.”
And then he finished. It was . . . her. Jonathan touched his shoulder, then took Karl’s strong and remarkably soft hand in his.
“Tomorrow. Come back tomorrow, Mon. It be dry enough den. Bring Katie witch you.”
On the twenty-minute ride back to the resort, past businesses, more shantytowns, and beachfront houses, Jonathan saw them differently. They were all just things, the black and white of people.
When he entered their room, Katie was gone; her hat, sunglasses, and bag gone, too. He hurriedly changed into board shorts and jogged down to the beach. At the surf line, he headed west, seven miles of white sand meeting perfect blue water; it looked in real life as it did in the pictures. He walked on the edge of the tiny waves, breaking like bath water splashing over the sides of a tub. He knew Katie would recognize his Pennsylvania tan and unruly hair but he saw her first, reading in the now hot October sun, sipping a happy orange drink and tipping her head back to see out from under the brim of her sun hat.
“Where’ve you been?” She waved and pulled her glasses off. She always took them off when they spoke.
“I went looking for something for you, to make you happy, and instead, I found something from you.”
She cocked her head to the side and took a sip from her drink. “I didn’t know I was so powerful. What’d I get you?”
“Understanding.” He couldn’t say more.
“It fits.” Her smile said more than the words. She held out her hand, “Let’s go swimming.” They walked slowly toward the water, and she ran her hand up his arm, patting it lightly in reassurance. “Did you know your shorts are on backward?”
She threw her head back in laughter as his panicked face gave away his hurry to dress. When he looked down, he found the tie strings in perfect order. He giggled as she turned and ran, and he stood there, love-struck and laughing, watching Katie run full tilt to the bluest water in the world.