What kind of painting was that? And wasn’t it
upside down?

It appeared on the wall at some point between 3 and 6 a.m. the night Levine’s son got married. An old picture of Kever Rochel had once occupied that spot on the rusty nail before the frame gave out, and it had been unceremoniously disposed of two Erev Pesachs ago.

No one lingered long enough on the ground floor to actually notice the new piece of art hanging on the old nail. People generally hurried in or out, especially in this blessedly wet winter weather. Also, both fluorescent light bulbs at the building entrance had burned out, and because Levine was in charge of the building’s maintenance, they weren’t replaced for the next ten days.

The first person to notice the painting was old Geveret Yankelevitch. She was fiercely independent and took great care to trek down the stairs daily with the garbage, although any of her numerous offspring would have deemed it a privilege to help out.

There was nothing wrong in stopping for a break, though, so she pushed her slipping bifocals firmly in place and painstakingly adjusted her knitted beret. Pulling her wool sweater tightly around her, she suddenly found herself staring at the medium-sized canvas with haphazard splashes of color under some disturbingly black scribbles. There was just no accounting for people’s tastes nowadays, she tut-tutted to herself. What happened to a nice painting of a vase of flowers? Abstract, shmabstract. With one last tut and a shake of her head, she braced herself for the upward climb.

Next to take a look at the painting was Chayuta Stern. Her cell phone rang just as she was tucking it under her chin so that she could tie a loose lace.

“Cha…ta, sorry! Down…five min…ing late…” was all she could hear from Shifra. Reception was horrible on the ground floor.

She was always the one waiting for Shifra to get her act together for their nightly power walk. Not that she was judging, chas v’shalom. With a lively brood of ten, not to mention Shifra’s Elky who needed all that extra help, there were bound to be last minute hiccups. Still, she sighed to herself, it would be nice if Shifra would call to say she was delayed before she left the house. With eight of her own, kein ayin hara, it wasn’t like she had time to waste. At least Levine had fixed the lights so that she didn’t have to — oh. What was that monstrosity?