We Are Water Read Online Free PDF

madness yourself.”
    “Madness? Perhaps. Who’s to say?”
    Miss Arnofsky points to The Dancing Scissors and says she recalls Annie Oh telling her something similar—that she began creating her collages and assemblages without really knowing why or how she was doing it.
    “That was true of Joe Jones, too,” I tell her. “As I said before, he told me he had begun painting because he had to. That something was compelling him. All I know is that at such heightened moments of creativity, I feel as if my work is coming not so much from me as through me. From what source, I can’t say. The muse, maybe? My father’s spirit? Or who knows? It could even be that the hand of God is guiding my hand.”
    “So your talent may be God-given? Is that what you’re saying?”
    “Well, I’m afraid that sounds rather grandiose.”
    “Quite the contrary,” she says. “I’m struck by your humility in the face of all you’ve accomplished.” For the next several seconds, we stare at each other, neither of us speaking. Then she smiles, closes her notebook, unplugs her tape recorder. “Well, Mr. Agnello, I shouldn’t take up any more of your time, but I can’t tell you how grateful I am. This has been wonderful.”
    “I’m just relieved to see that you still have both of your ears. I was afraid I might have talked them off.” She laughs, says she could have listened to me for hours more. “Oh, perish the thought,” I say. She rises from her chair, tape machine in hand, and I tell her I’ll see her out.
    “No, no. I can let myself out. You should get back to your work.”
    I nod. We thank each other, shake hands. From the doorway of the studio, I watch her disappear down the stairs.
    But I do not return to my work as I’d intended.
    The sun and the conversation of the past hour have made me sleepy. When I close my eyes, the images I evoked for my guest play on in my head: Rufus Jones, bereft at his brother’s funeral . . . Papa’s cartoon drawings coming to life before me at the piazza with the Fountain of Gaia gurgling nearby, water spilling from the mouth of the stone wolf into the aquamarine pool . . . Annie Oh’s strange collages that day when I first came upon them. Suddenly, I remember something else about that day—something I had forgotten all about until this moment. I had been wavering about whether to give the top prize to Annie or to an abstract expressionist whose work was also quite impressive. But as I stood there vacillating, a gray-haired Negro appeared by my side—a man who looked eerily like an older version of Josephus Jones. It wasn’t Joe, of course; by then, he had been dead for years. “This one,” the man said, nodding at Annie’s work. It was as if somehow he had read my mind and intuited my indecision. And that had clinched it. The “best in show” prize was hers. . . .
    “M r. Agnello? . . . Mr. Agnello?”
    When I open my eyes, my housekeeper is standing before me. She says my lunch is ready. Do I want her to bring up a tray?
    “No, no, Hilda. I’ll be down in a minute.” She nods. Leaves.
    Half-asleep still, my eyes look around, then land on the unfinished painting resting against my easel. It confuses me. Why does Fanny have angel’s wings? When did I paint those? I rise and go to her and, on closer inspection, realize that her “wings” are only the clouds behind her. . . . And yet, winged or not, she is my angel. Seventy-odd years have slipped by since I spotted her that day in Chicago, and yet she continues to skip rope in my mind and on my canvases, raising her dark, hopeful face to the sky, innocent of the depth of people’s cruelty toward “the other”—those who, for whatever reason, must swim against the tide instead of letting it carry them. . . .
    Well, that’s enough deep thinking for this old brain. My lunch is ready and I’m hungry. I get up, balance myself. On my way out the door, I turn back and face my easel. “I’m too tired to do you