Nicol – Pavratelli looked out of the window that faced the bay. His model sat lazily in the soft chair almost asleep

The artist had not worked for almost an hour

He just stared at the vivid waters of the bay totally ignoring the village girl. Her outline filled the canvas but it was not full

Nicol -Pavratelli was holding a calf notebook. On the first page he had written:

Yellows

Brilliant Yellow

Neapolitan Yellow

Chrome Yellow

Yellow Orchre

Siena Earth

The breeze that was coming through the open window was chilled although the sun was high. At that moment it was passing through a cloud whose shape suggested the county of Cornwall

Nicol – Pavratelli gestured for the model to resume her position. She was eating an apple taken from a display an act of defience the artist ignored

He asked her for nothing but her idle pose

 

In the bay a small sailboat moved rapidly away from the shore. It was the only sailboat to be seen

The sailboat was called Victoria and was owned by Nicol -Pavratelli. It was crewed by his wife who liked to sail in the nude

But as the breeze was stiff she was wearing a yellow shirt and faded jeans. In her pocket there was a handwritten note which read:

Reds

Vermilion

Red Ochre

Burnt Siena

Crimson Lake

Carmine Lake

Burnt Lake

The artists wife was called Siena although this was not her birth name

 

On the jetty on the opposite side of the bay, the mother of the village girl was mending a fishing net owned by her husband

She too had modelled  for the artist and on that very day many miles away her portrait was being sold by Nicol – Pavratelli’s Romanian dealer

The painting was called

The Fisherman’s Wife

She looked at the artist’s house where her daughter was posing for a painting which would be called

The Fisherman’s Daughter

 

As the sailboat crossed the bay the artists wife was reading stories by Sholem Aleichem. She had found the book in her husband’s studio. Inside it cover was written:

Greens

Veronese Green

Emerald Green

Terre Verte

Nicol -Pavratelli had asked her to buy his paints as he was running low because as always he applied them too thickly

He said that this enhanced the light

His wife painted with water as her brush was thinner

She was a delicate artist

 

Four hours passed, but nobody had noticed the loss. The fisherman’s wife was still mending his torn nets. From the jetty she could see the artist’s wife on her return voyage

In the sailboat towards the stern a bag full of paints lay partially hidden under a spare piece of sailcloth

Only the black paint leaked and was staining the wood around it

His wife was singing a song that she had heard in the village but did not know its name

She threw the leaking tube overboard for the fish to use

 

Nicol-Pavratelli had worked without a break for each of the hours. Yet the feminine canvas still seemed naked to him but he did not despair as this often happened

He had let the model go two hours previously as she had complained of cramp and she was now swimming in the shallow waters of the bay ignoring the coolness of the early water

She was being watched by a young boy who was sketching her. His name was Paul and he was the son of the artist and his wife

Working mainly in charcoal, his style resembled that of his father although his hands were as delicate as his mothers who he could see from his vantage sailing towards the house

On the last page of the pad that he was using his father had written:

Blues

Cobalt Blue

Ultramarine

Prussian Blue

Noir de Peche

As she emerged from her swim, the artist’s son enjoyed the full figure of the fisherman’s daughter. He sketched quickly as she walked towards her clothes which were hanging from a tree

He would show his sketches to his father as he knew that his father considered the boys talent to superior to his own

 

That evening, the artist, his wife and son were seated at a shabby wooden table. The charcoal sketches had been praised and were pinned against a hanging door

The fisherman’s daughter was dancing in the evening breeze as the trio ate their meal. The artist’s wife had brought back fish freshly caught by the fisherman which tasted of the sea

As she poured him a glass of wine Nicol-Pavratelli looked up at the decaying day and wondered where the Cornish cloud was. He imagined it over Africa on its journey south but knew that only the Yiddish book knew the answer