The artist painted a man with yellow hair. She woke up at night and a man with yellow hair was seated at the edge of the bed. He said, “Paint me a woman, a woman with yellow hair. I’m lonely.”
The next day the artist began on a woman with yellow hair. The canvas progressed over two days. The night she finished, she came awake to the sound of a closing door. She rose, followed the hall to the door and out into the garden.
She saw in the moonlight the man with yellow hair and a woman with yellow hair walking hands held into the trees. The two walked to the pond, waded through to the image of a partial white moon and disappeared under the water.
The following night, unseemly movement disturbed the artist from her dreams. The man with yellow hair was seated on the edge of the bed. He said, “Paint me a woman with black hair, hair like crow, hair like night. I’m lonely.”
The artist said, “What happened to the woman I painted for you? She was lovely; I painted her that way. She had yellow hair, a frame like trees at dawn. She was exactly what you asked for.”
“I murdered her,” the man said, without much emotion. “It was an accident.”
“That’s impossible,” the artist said. “That’s impossible.”
The man showed her his hands and on those hands he wore gloves made of dried blood.
“I won’t paint you another,” the artist said. “I won’t paint another woman for you to accidentally kill. I’m not going to ask you how it happened but it’s not going to happen again.”
“I’m lonely,” the man said. His eyes sparkled in the dark. He moved closer to the artist. He kissed her on the lips.
The artist slapped and kicked the man away and rolled off the bed. With her back against the wall, she said, “If I paint you a woman with black hair, will you leave me alone and never return?”
“Yes,” the man said. “Yes. It’s a promise.”
The next day the artist got to work. She painted a woman with hair like crow, with hair like night. The canvas progressed over three days. On the second night, the man with yellow hair inspected the figure on the canvas, who was not quite whole, having only one eye completed in oils. “Make her obedient,” he said. “Give her a voice like violets. Make her eyes the color of wine.”
The artist said yes, but secretly she knew. On the third night, she applied one last detail to the surface. Behind a pocket, she painted a knife.
