Office at Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

with her intellect, that is to say her intuition, as the sole master, can in her own way create an exceptionally accurate record of the boss’s emotions. Just look at my filing system. It is aesthetically sensitive. New technologies have been invented, but there is no replacement for a secretary’s ability to read the boss’s emotions. Just what technical discoveries can do to assist interpretive power is not clear. And the question of the value of nationality, as it pertains to my job, is perhaps unsolvable.

 

     
    M r. C. only uses lead white now, never zinc white. As to pigment, the maker is Winsor & Newton. He can’t remember all the colors exactly. There are about twelve or thirteen of them. He tries to keep them organized in his apartment. Mr. C. gets the best Winsor & Newton linen he can acquire. He trusts Winsor & Newton and paints directly upon it. He doesn’t make his own stretchers. JJ used to make them down in the basement (at work), but now he acquires them elsewhere. He has a very simple method of painting: It’s to paint directly on the canvas without any funny business, as it were, and he uses almost pure turpentine to start with, adding oil as he goes along until the medium becomes pure oil. He uses as little oil as he possibly can, and that’s his method. It’s very simple. It should be taught. However, none of this will ever be known. Only the light ever will know it.

 

     
    “W e haven’t yet heard enough about Marge Quinn, we know almost nothing about her,” says the Frame.
    “Nor about Hester Chan’s brother,” says the Canvas.
    “What’s this about Chelikowsky painting? He doesn’t look like a painter,” says the Pigment.
    “What does a painter look like?” says the Frame.
    “What did he do or not do to JJ, and why did his marriage to Gladys break up, and why does he think someone wants to kill him?” says the Canvas.
    “We’re a painting,” says the Frame.
    “But not right now,” says the Canvas.
    “Right now we’re words,” says the Pigment.
    “Words, words, words.”
    “Which means what exactly?”
    “Does it mean we have to tell the whole story?”
    “What’s the whole story? How would you recognize it? What would the whole story be?”
    “Who is we here?”
    “Yes, who is we here?”
    “And weren’t we stretched and painted and framed long ago?”
    “Aren’t we all long since dead?”

 

     
    I n the file drawer “C,” Marge finds a thick packet of files tied with a string—dirty, like a used shoelace. Chelikowsky/Cat 1, Chelikowsky/Cat 2, Chelikowsky/Cat 3, and so forth. And inside each file an unfinished charcoal sketch of a cat. And under each drawing a handwritten name in looped, almost feminine letters—in cursive that is, but a specific kind of cursive, like a man would write on a valentine to a secret lover or to conceal his identity, e.g., when requesting a ransom. Marge counts one hundred files containing one hundred drawings of cats, all tied together with that dirty string. Marge Quinn rummages through these. Marge Quinn stays very late doing this, after Mr. C. leaves, for a few nights. With little difficulty she identifies favorites: Jorge , Piggy , Louis Armstrong , Cordelia , Tiffany , Liliana , Susan , and Helen .

 

     
    W hy is he drawing pictures of cats? Why do you assume that he drew them? I drew them. I, Hester Chan, drew the cats. After he told me about throwing the cat across the room—which come on, is really horrible of him, unforgivable, completely, who cares that he tries to redeem that little story by saying he caught the cat before she went down?—after he told me that, I knew that I was in danger. But he told me in such an embarrassed, ashamed, horrified way that I think I overlooked something—I know that I did, because I often go along with things, because I want things to be easy.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Later, he threw me. He threw me, and he didn’t catch me, and I got hurt. It wasn’t just once. I lied about that.