Circles of Confusion (18 page)

"So how do people know all this?" Claire asked. "Why aren't we still looking at his paintings and thinking, you know, thinking they are really Vermeers?" While she was still following what Troy said, it was getting harder to articulate her own thoughts.

"Because Van Meegeren got greedy and sold paintings to Hitler's general, GSring. Both Hitler and Goring were fanatical art collectors, but Goring had better taste. After the war, the Allies found a 'Vermeer' in Goring's castle and traced it back to Van Meegeren. Then they discovered he had sold other 'Vermeers' to Goring. He was arrested and charged with collaborating with the enemy by selling Dutch national treasures to the Nazis. After weeks in prison, he broke down and admitted that the paintings he had sold Giiring were not really Vermeers. In fact, he, Han Van Meegeren, had painted them."

"What happened then?" Claire's mind was whirling. Vermeers that were not Vermeers but that did end up having a little bit of truth in them.

"They laughed at him. Finally, to prove his point, he offered to create another 'Vermeer' right in front of their eyes. They brought canvas and paints to his cell, and he began to paint. When the authorities finally realized he was telling the truth, they dropped the collaboration charge."

"Did they let him go?" Claire became aware of Troy's knees grazing hers under the table.

"Are you kidding? Everyone was angry at being taken in by this bad painter with a drug habit. Instead they accused him of forgery. He died in prison. Just before he died, he told his daughter that there was another of his Vermeers that had never been discovered. I think he was talking about your painting. He could have sold it to Goring or another collector."

Claire tried to picture this, tried to see an embittered man creating the woman in her painting, not from love, but from a desire for revenge. Tried and failed. "But if that's true, then how did my Aunt Cady get it?"

"The art market during World War II was very, well, I guess the best word would be fluid. When there's a war on, things tend to get discarded or bartered or left behind. Your aunt could have run across the painting and picked it up. She might not even have known it was supposed to be a Vermeer."

"But what makes you think it's a Van Meegeren?" Claire still didn't understand why Troy was so certain.

"Four reasons." Troy spread out his fingers and began to tick them off. "One, my gut reaction to it as a forgery. Two, the complete lack of documentary evidence that Vermeer ever painted a painting that matches this description. Three, while your painting is a pastiche, it's a very accomplished one—just like the ones Van Meegeren did before he turned his hand to religious forgeries. And four, the time period in which it appeared—just when Han Van Meegeren was known to be churning out fakes."

The waiter had brought two slices of lemon meringue tart. Claire should have been full, but the sharp tartness of the lemon filling, enlivened by tiny pieces of zest, contrasted marvelously with the cloud of meringue. She ate every bite, then scraped her fork across the china to get a last lingering crumb of pie crust.

Troy had been watching her with a smile. "Would you like some of mine?" he asked, already turning his fork to cut off a piece for her. He leaned closer and slid the fork between her lips, then turned the fork aside, wiping his thumb across her upper hp to catch an errant crumb. His touch made her shiver. She wished she hadn't drunk so much. When she tried to think of Evan, his pale face seemed as insubstantial as a ghost's.

"You make a lot of noises when you eat," Troy observed.

"I do?" Claire felt her face begin to flush. God, she had drunk too much!

"These little moans of happiness. Don't worry, I like that in a woman. Someone who knows how to enjoy herself." He gave her a cat's sleepy smile, eyes half-closed.

Claire had had too much wine to keep her guard up, had even forgotten that she was supposed to be wary. Now she couldn't tell whether she still needed to be. Troy hadn't mentioned buying her painting at all. Was her painting really a Van Meegeren forgery? Thoughts formed and then slipped away.

She excused herself to go to the ladies' room. The walk down the long narrow room seemed endless, and her feet were so far away. Colors were brighter and bits of conversation floated past her. When she pushed open the door, she was surprised to see an old woman sitting in a plastic chair next to the sink, a basket of small white towels at her feet. Claire wasn't sure what protocol demanded of her, but her bladder was so full that she just gave the woman a swift smile and went into one of the stalls. With exaggerated care, she gathered up her dress and sat down. She pressed her fingers into her numb cheeks. How much had she had to drink tonight? There had been three bottles of wine—or was it four? Enough so that everything was slightly out of focus. She finished, flushed the toilet and went back out into the main part of the rest room.

"Am I supposed to tip you?" Claire had decided that she was no longer capable of pretending that she really lived this kind of life.

"Most people give me a dollar." The woman's voice had a trace of an accent, perhaps Russian, reminding Claire a little of the Ukrainian taxi driver who had picked her up at the airport—was that just two days ago? They regarded each other in the mirror. In her white-collared black polyester uniform, with her legs planted wide, the old woman presented a complete contrast to Claire. "You look like beautiful bride."

"Um, thank you." Claire fumbled for a dollar in the beaded purse she had also purchased at Filene's. She finally found one and exchanged it for a towel.

"I am half Gypsy. For another ten dollar I read your palm."

Claire wondered if the management knew about this money- making sideline. "I'm sorry, but I need to get back."

She was still holding the towel, uncertain of where to put it. The woman reached out, first taking and discarding the towel into another basket half hidden by her chair, and then grabbing Claire's palm and turning it over. Her fingers were surprisingly soft. Without even seeming to look at Claire's palm, she rattled off, "I see danger and opportunity, great wealth and true love. But only if you follow your heart."

Her heart? What was that supposed to mean? Claire felt that she had to give the woman something. She managed to find a five- dollar bill, dropped it into the woman's lap and left before she could demand more.

Troy was waiting for her just outside the door. He put his arm around her. She was grateful for the support. Unaccustomed to heels, her feet were having difficulty setting a straight course. In the car, he drew her to him without speaking and tried to kiss her. His mouth tasted of wine and lemon. Although desire washed over her like a wave, Claire put her hand on his chest.

"What about him?" she whispered. She imagined the driver's flat, acne-scarred face watching them in the mirror.

"Who? The driver? Forget about John." Troy took her hand, turned it over and kissed the palm. "He's there to drive. He's not paying any attention." He pulled her to him again, only this time she let him kiss her.

The car came to a stop, and outside the window, made dreamlike by the tinted glass, she recognized the outline of the Farthingale. "Can I come up to your room?" Troy murmured in her ear. Part of her could imagine them strolling through the lobby, hips bumping together, their arms around each other and the crowds parting before them. But the spell had been broken. She couldn't imagine them lying down together in her small room, couldn't even picture them on the elevator. And was it her he wanted—or just to be in the same room again with the painting? Claire shook her head. "I'm sorry, I just can't."

"Why not?" Troy's green eyes narrowed a bit. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

She nodded in agreement, but instead of picturing Evan, Claire found herself thinking of the painter she had met, Dante with his pirate's grin.

In her room, she went to her hiding place and pulled out the painting. The woman regarded her with her mysterious, serene expression. Who was she? A patchwork cribbed from other Vermeers, created by a failed painter fifty years before in the hopes of making a fortune? Or had Vermeer himself captured her image, magically creating an arrested moment of stillness in what must have been a chaotic household overrun with children?

The woman's face revealed nothing and everything. Whoever she was, Claire decided, she had been painted with passion.

She put the painting down and went into the bathroom, where she regarded herself in the full-length mirror. The lighting in here was bright and harsh, not really the kind meant to be softly reflected by satin. Her face held none of the inner stillness of the woman in the painting. Her eyes were wide, her lips a little swollen from kissing, her hair a wild halo half sprung from her pins. Still, part of her approved of this woman in the mirror, this other version of Claire Montrose. If nothing else, this trip to New York had revealed to her a new side of herself, a woman who could talk about art and turn a movie star's head and make her way around a city of seven million people on her own. She carefully removed the dress and hung it up, but she was too full of unexpelled energy to sleep. Finally she took Aunt Cady's diary from her suitcase and began to read.

June 20,1945

Rudy has a room he rents from an old lady at the edge of town. He keeps things in it. Me, for instance. There are simply times when we have to be alone. He pays for it in cigarettes, and the woman he rents it from is glad of the occasional American dollar he tosses her way. We went there last night to be alone, never minding the holes in the roof. We took a bath together. He has hair on his chest and belly, which seems unusual for a blond man. I played with it as it dried from the heat of the fire, combed it with my fingers until it was the shape of a butterfly. Afterward he showed me how underneath a piece of oilcloth he keeps pistols and rifles, cameras and binoculars still in their carrying cases, an antique ornamental sword. His pride and joy is a newly acquired motorbike, an almost brand-new German Ziindapp. Everything he has is expensive and beautiful, the best in the world.

I see it all around me. People take what they want, just pop through a hole in the side of a house and survey the ruins. If they don't take it, someone else will, so what's the point of leaving it? If no one took it, it would be ruined by the weather. Even the ambulance drivers and medics and nurses did their own share of appropriating, took things from men who lay wounded on stretchers, and then neglected to return them.

Still, it doesn't seem right to me. Rudy does not regard it as stealing, and it's true that he says he bought a lot of what he has. Although how much he paid and whether the seller ever really owned it are other matters. He says all the occupying forces are looting. The army does look the other way. We're permitted to mail home captured enemy equipment provided there is no "military need" for it. Technically we're not supposed to send home things that come from German homes or public buildings, but no one seems to care. At least, no one enforces it. To prove his point, Rudy brought up the Reverend Joiner, who sends home more than anyone. Rudy has a friend, an officer, who will scribble his signature on a package without looking inside. An officer's signature means that a package will arrive home intact, unexamined.

He tells me I shouldn't worry about such things, that worrying will give me wrinkles and ruin my beautiful face. No one has ever accused me of being beautiful before. Of course, Rudy is much more beautiful than me, as a man is sometimes beautiful. His eyes are such a pale blue they are almost silver. He reminds me that mine are blue, too, but it's an ordinary, washed-out blue, nothing like his.

***

July 2, 1945

Rudy was drunk when he came to pick me up last night, drunk and amorous. My body has need of him always, so when we were out walking and found an abandoned house I didn't protest when he pulled me in after him. The house was remarkably intact, looking as if whoever had lived here had fled less than 30 minutes before. Rudy systematically went through the cupboards in search of something useful-—i.e., something edible, drinkable, burnable. He found some noodles in the cupboard, and then gave a cry of triumph when he discovered three bottles of wine stashed underneath a loose floorboard behind the stove. I cooked for us. Although it wasn't much of a meal, the wine made it go down easier. It was as if we were already married, in our own home with nice things. We hadn't even finished eating before he took me into the bedroom. He pulled me into bed with him, just as we were, with our dirty uniforms and muddy boots. The sheets were fine and smooth and cool beneath us.

Afterward, it all began to be spoiled. I was lying beside him, and we were laughing at something, I don't even remember what. I felt almost giddy, imagining us a year from now, lying at home on our own sheets on our own bed. I was smoking a cigarette and for once so was Rudy. When he was done he threw the butt onto the carpet. I didn't really notice what he had done until the smell of smoke began to fill the room. I got up and found my shoe and pounded it on the place where smoke was curling from the rug. There was enough moonlight to see that it had left a burn mark in the middle of the line deep pile.

"Maybe it can be mended," I told him. The carpet was an oriental pattern, so it could have been rewoven without the new patch standing out.

He laughed and called me a Miss Priss. "You don't get it, do you? These people are the enemy. They don't deserve all this. Look around you. Think these people should be living the good life when so many of our boys are dead?"