Ninety Francs
Basel
Carol at Boesner art supply. Bought all their cadmium yellow. Eighty-three francs seventy.
Dr. Hoffman: "Why yellow."
"It's happy."
"Are you happy."
"What do you think."
Derek brought her to Switzerland. Novartis job. Senior researcher. Fucked Nadine from his lab January 15th. Hotel Euler. Ninety francs. Used their joint UBS card. She knew because she did the banking.
Started with one canvas. Then ten. Then couldn't stop.
Yellow paint. That's it. No shapes. No forms. Just yellow.
Derek came for golf clubs: "Looks like piss."
"Nadine's twenty-three."
"Twenty-four next month."
Took the driver. Left the putter.
Paintings everywhere now. Kitchen. Bedroom. Hallway. All yellow. Getting thicker. Angrier. Still just yellow.
Wednesday therapy, Hoffman's office near Marktplatz:
"What do you see in them."
"Paint."
"What else."
"Yellow paint."
Saw: the miscarriage. 2011. March. Ten weeks. Saw: Derek's dick, curves left, circumcised badly. Saw: Mom in Tampa forgetting everything. Saw: herself at thirty-eight in Basel painting yellow.
Added orange. Construction orange. The kind on the vests of the SBB workers.
Frau Keller from downstairs: "You're artistic?"
"No."
"But all the paintings—"
"Just paint."
Standing in the hallway looking at six-foot yellow-orange thing leaning on the wall. Wet.
"Makes me happy to see," Frau Keller said.
"Does it."
"So cheerful!"
Cheerful cheerful cheerful.
Tampa
Mom dying. Had to fly. EasyJet to London, British Airways to Tampa. Carried three small canvases. TSA suspicious.
"What's this."
"Art."
"What kind of art."
"Bad art."
Let her through.
Morton Plant Hospital. Mom didn't know her but said: "Sunshine."
Looking at the yellow canvas.
"Sure Mom."
"Hate sunshine. Shows all the wrinkles."
Painted in parking lot. Florida sun. Everything worse in that light. Added red down the middle. First time red. Like a zipper. Like an opening.
Mom died Tuesday. Carol painting in the car. Nurse had to come find her.
"She passed."
"When."
"About an hour ago."
Missed it. For yellow paint.
Basel
Derek gone. Took coffee machine. Wine glasses. Left papers.
Painted everything gray. Then yellow over the gray. Could see the gray through. Then more gray. Then yellow. Layers.
Storage unit in Dreispitz. Forty-seven canvases now. Eight by six feet most of them. Hundred ten francs monthly.
Hoffman: "Different now."
"Same paint."
"But underneath—"
"Gray paint."
"What does gray mean."
"Hundred forty francs an hour is what it means."
Frau Keller's friend saw them. Banker's wife. "I'll buy one."
"They're not—"
"Three thousand francs."
"For that?"
"Reminds me of something."
"What."
"Don't know. That's why I want it."
Sold it. Bought more paint. Cadmium. Lead white. Poisonous ones.
Added black dots now. Small. Like periods.
Derek's lawyer email: "Client requests one painting for Zurich apartment."
Gave him the first one. Just yellow. Before the orange. Before the gray. Before the red split. Before the black periods. Pure dumb yellow.
Derek texted: "Perfect. Matches everything."
Course it matched. Yellow matches everything. That's the problem with yellow.
Still painting. Fifty-three now. Maybe fifty-four. Lost count.
Frau Keller: "Gallery show?"
"No."
"But why make so many."
Didn't answer.
Because: Tuesday afternoon at Hotel Euler ninety francs. Because: Mom saying "who's this?" Because: miscarriage on a Thursday. Because: thirty-eight years old in Basel with nothing but yellow paint.
Woman bought another one. Four thousand francs this time.
"Price went up," Carol said.
"Worth it."
"It's just paint."
"Everything's just something."
True.
Or not true.
Didn't matter.
Yellow paint on canvas. Three thousand francs. Four thousand francs. Ninety francs at Hotel Euler. Hundred forty francs for therapy. Eighty-three seventy for paint.
Numbers.
All of it numbers now.
Plus yellow.
Always yellow.
Cheerful cheerful cheerful cheerful until you died.
