The Mayor's Official Portrait

The town council voted unanimously to commission a portrait of Mayor Bell. The unanimity lasted until somebody asked what she should be holding.

A book suggested education. A spade suggested public works. A baby suggested a future voter and presented insurance difficulties. After three meetings, they selected a rolled document, which could represent almost anything without promising it.

The artist, Pavel, charged by the sitting. He watched the debate with professional calm.

Mayor Bell arrived in her ordinary brown jacket. The council chair handed her a borrowed ceremonial robe, three medals and a hat last worn at the opening of the sewage works.

“People should recognize the office,” he explained.

“They recognize me at the market,” she said.

The first sitting produced a face that everyone approved. The background caused trouble. The new bridge was popular but over budget. The old bridge was picturesque but closed. The council proposed a neutral landscape. The neighbouring village immediately claimed the hill in the sketch.

Pavel painted a curtain.

The curtain’s colour resembled the opposition party’s election leaflets. Pavel painted it another colour. That resembled the football club whose stadium roof the council had refused to repair.

He painted it grey.

At the fourth sitting, Mayor Bell fell asleep. Pavel continued working. When she woke, he had painted the council chair leaning over a plate of biscuits, the treasurer checking his watch and the clerk laughing at something outside the window.

“Those people aren’t part of the portrait,” the chair said.

“They kept sitting in front of the curtain.”

The council demanded that they be removed. Mayor Bell asked to see the bill first. It included four sittings, seven background studies and the hire of a hat stand.

“We cannot afford to remove anybody,” she said.

The portrait was unveiled in the entrance hall. The rolled document had slipped from the mayor’s sleeping hand. In the foreground, the clerk was passing a biscuit to a small child who had wandered in during the final sitting.

The newspaper called it an unusually candid record of local government. Visitors spent several minutes identifying the biscuits. Nobody discussed the curtain.

At the next meeting, the council proposed a smaller portrait for the mayor’s office.

Mayor Bell brought a photograph from a market stall. In it she wore the brown jacket and carried a bag of potatoes.

“It cost two coins,” she said.

Pavel, invited as an adviser, thought it showed an excellent understanding of municipal finance.