Portrait of a Man (7 page)

Do you recall? You left for Paris the following morning. You came back here. Jérôme was dead. He was your master. He was a forger. You were a forger and you would die as well. One day you too would rot away in a deserted house. You went down to the laboratory. Here. You drew back the canvas drape protecting the Condottiere. You'd been working on it for a year …

Then one day you started drinking, straight from the bottle. Madera found you in the small hours, dead drunk and half strangled by your necktie. He said nothing. He did not ask any questions. He called Rufus on the telephone. Rufus came to get you. He took you to Gstaad. You spent three days with him and went skiing. You remembered Altenberg. But you couldn't even remember what had made you so happy. You got back to Paris in the middle of the night. You called Geneviève. She didn't answer. You went back to Dampierre … That was three days ago.

A few more blows of the hammer. Five four three. Two? One. Five more. Cuckoo! Watch the little birdie. Open Sesame. Over and out. Solemn Overture. Music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Fugue. One more go, with a bit more energy, and bingo, you've caught the ashlar like it was just a rugby ball. So that's that. Take a breather? You wipe your hands like a true stonemason. One stone. Another stone. And now. A hole in the wall. There's a bit of earth in front of you, all dirty and grey. The tiniest trickle of dusky light. Very poetic. But that doesn't mean you aren't in a right mess. No point in thinking Otto
has gone back to his usual routine, or that by some miracle he's suddenly become as deaf as a doorpost. Therefore he has heard you. Therefore he knows roughly where the tunnel is. He is out there. If you stick your neck out you'll see him right in front of you. He'll tell you very sweetly, “Meester Gazpa, get ze fock pack in ze lap.” So your tunnywunnel is useless. You don't give a damn. You'll find another way out. One way or t'other …

You get off your pedestal. You walk around the laboratory. Otto, my Otto, where art thou? Do you not see Milord Koenig coming down the lane? Did you get through to the aforementioned Switzerman? Did he tell you he would be with you forthwith? Are you expecting him at this very instant?

Very funny. Side-splitting. You look at your watch. It's a quarter to seven. There's still no reason why Rufus should be at his hotel at this time. Otto must have left a message … All you can do is carry on with your gamble. If Otto is on his own when you are completely ready to emerge, then you should be able to get away with it. For instance, if he's waiting for you at the exit from the tunnel, you could escape via the door. Clever. But like the man says it's not that clever. If Otto's waiting at the hole in the ground, he'll already have barricaded the door. And how will you know whether he's here or there? See? You'll put your mind to that later. At the moment what matters is finishing your tunnel. But Mr Otto Schnabel must not see it, otherwise he'll set a trap to catch you. So?

Your imagination is soaring, is it, dear sir? So let's have a look. Deeds follow words. Take a sufficiently wide and long plank, easily
found among the panels used as try-outs for the Condottiere. Scrabble around until you find two large nails. They are found. Drive them into the masonry with the mallet you see before you, set just a little further apart than the width of the plank. Bend aforementioned nails. Slide plank between them. Push. The plank hits the soil, the nails hold it in place like pegs. Dig out the soil that's just underneath. As you dig, the plank advances. And the tunnel, thanks to man's genius, is now sheltered by just a thin layer of soil – as long as you've reckoned it right – supported by the plank. Otto sees nothing. And when you've decided it's time to emerge, you retract the plank. The soil collapses. An ocean of light floods into the room. A gaping hole appears.

An hour will go by. And in an hour's time? Mr Gaspard Winckler, you are free. A feeling he will never have known, something unlike anything else … He'll be lost in his freedom. He'll drown in it. He'll walk the roads. He'll be a vagrant. He'll be totally bewildered …

What do you look like as you do it? You raise your arm, you bring it down, you drag a small amount of soil and a bit of mud towards you, you push the plank forward an inch, you slide along, you wriggle about like an earthworm, like a snake in the grass. What do you look like, half naked, with something like a cake-slicer in your hand, making mud pies like a boy on a beach. An uncomfortable position. It's hot. You must be very dirty. What a busy day you've had! Do you remember Jérôme? Do you remember Rufus? Do you remember Madera? Do you remember Geneviève? Mila? Nicolas? Do you remember Split, Geneva, Paris? Do you remember Giottino,
Memling, Cranach, Botticelli, Antonello? Do you remember the Three Magi, the Madonnas and Child, the Christ the Kings, the Resurrections, Donors, Princes, Princesses, Fools and Retinue, the Bremen Burghers, the Knights of the Sepulchre, the
Déjeuners sur L'Herbe
, the Bridges near Blois, the Three Peaches on a Table, the Boats at Saint-Omer? Do you remember the Masonic chests, the totems, the Upper Volta wood carvings, the Jamaican Three Pence Brown, or the sesterces of Diocletian? Do you remember Gstaad and Altenberg? Do you remember your life?

His hands and his eyes. Anything by anybody from any period. All his own work. All of it, but nothing else. Gaspard the forger. Italian specialities. That dead crowd that had been robbed and betrayed. Cleaned out. Gaspard the forger. Roll up, roll up, the whole world is on show. Admire. The man who knows it all. The only person who managed to copy the Mona Lisa's smile, to unravel the secrets of the Incas, to learn the forgotten techniques of Aurignacian man. Come and see the history of art in one volume. Gaspard the forger. Gaspard Winckler. Period media and backing. Works on commission …

The rest would be lost in a guffaw. Forger.
Faussaire. Fausse ère
: wrong period. Bad times. Storm on the way. A forger's forger. Necrophagist …

Any answer? Anything certain? Anything obvious? No. Not yet. Not even an acceptable fact. Not quite a done deal. It's as if having been a prisoner for years in an underground cell far from light and life – in the cellars of Split and Sarajevo, and the studio at Dampierre – he'd been getting ready for his escape for months, years, centuries,
ages, by means of a tunnel, a passage through the earth, and that the coming moment would be the drawn-out unfolding of his own body in damp clay, dirt, fatigue, discouragement, obstinacy, and cramp. Then a hoarse breathing sound. Despair. For hours and hours perhaps. Then a layer of sod collapses, the sky appears, grass, wind, night …

Something that will not necessarily be called freedom, just something alive, a tiny bit more alive; something that will not quite be courage, but will no longer be cowardice. Potential at a stroke, because at a stroke age-old barriers will fall. Something that would be his, and only his, that would come only from him and would be his business and nobody else's. Himself, without the others: no more Jérôme, no more Rufus, no more Madera …

Because failure was born one day in acute and precise selfawareness from overweening ambition, because the Condottiere turned out to be nothing more than a bounder, a disarmed horseman, a sad country squire lacking all strength, the world had suddenly lost all meaning. What had he been expecting? What had he been trying to do? Had he never been free? Had he had to go through Jérôme dying and Geneviève leaving, had he had to see the Condottiere turn into a failure and see Madera die before he noticed? Did he know that? Could he see that? What had begun? What was more important? Did his conscience remember only to protect itself …

One by one your memories are wasting away. What? Who started it? Who joined in the game? Who put his head in the sand so as not to see what was going on?

The failure of the Condottiere, the death of Madera. Same thing? The same outpouring of hatred and madness …

He has reached the end of his plank. Everything is ready. One shove, and the earth will fall in. The way will be clear …

But Otto will be standing there, a few centimetres or a few metres away from you, and he'll be ready to fire, not to kill you, for sure, but to stop you getting away. You wonder what to do. If Otto is somewhere near the tunnel exit, he is sure to have secured all the doors. He can't not be at the tunnel exit, since he can't not have heard you digging. If you dig a tunnel it's to get away through it, so he'll be standing guard outside it. But as he's by no means so stupid as not to imagine there might be a trap, he will have bolted the door of Madera's study, at the top of the stairs. Suppose you went up to that door, taking down the barricade you've set up to secure the lower door, and made as much noise as possible in doing so? He'll come back in. And while he's on his way back inside the house, whoosh! You go back down at top speed, pull out the plank and off you go. No? No. There's not enough time. It's not precise enough. Let's think it through again. Point one: Otto is at the tunnel exit, or rather, because he doesn't know exactly where it is he's relied on the sound and having worked out that the tunnel is being dug under this wall has taken up position a few metres away so as to be able to watch the whole length of the wall. Otto must be near the tunnel. You have to bet that Otto is near the tunnel. Point two: Otto's looking out for you. He's expecting you to emerge from the tunnel, he's shut off the other exits, and he won't budge for all the gold in Peru. Point three: you
have to make him budge. It all boils down to that. You have to get Otto to budge. You've reached the age of thirty-three and the only issue on your plate – and if anything is a crucial issue, this is it – is to cause the man known as Otto Schnabel, age fifty, weight 80 kg, indeterminate nationality, formerly butler to Anatole Madera, to change his position for a few seconds, but a few minutes would be better. Yes. But how. You could call him. But he wouldn't respond. You could put a white sheet over your head and emerge and he might think it was a ghost, you'd go hoo! hoo! he'd panic and take to his heels and you'd been home and dry. But you're way off there. How? Come on. You can batter down the first door. But what if he's blockaded the garden gate? He'll hear you, he'll rush in and shoot you in the legs. He'll get you …

Can you feel the seconds ticking away, the minutes trickling past? Have you got your mind on it properly, Gaspard Winckler? You've got your grey matter up to speed, haven't you? Dura mater, pia mater, etcetera. Have you got the answer? You've got it. It's very simple …

Let's go over it again. Let's keep it short and logical. Order, precision, method. You are about to carry off your greatest coup.

What's the one thing that would make Otto shift himself? Rufus. Rufus, obviously. Rufus is not here. But Otto is expecting Rufus. Let's suppose Rufus goes back to his hotel. The concierge will certainly tell him that someone called Otto Schnabel has called several times. And left a message. Come to Dampierre fast. Obviously Otto hasn't said: Madera has just been murdered. That's not the kind of thing you say
out loud. What does Rufus do? He calls Otto. What's Otto doing now? He's keeping watch on you while waiting for Rufus to call back. So? So you take the phone and set it up on the workbench. Then you get a travelling bag and stuff into it the keys to your apartment, money, your electric shaver, a shirt, tie and sweater. You place it all on the workbench. You take the bag with you; as soon as you're out you'll clean off the dust and mud that'll be more or less all over you. Do you remember the route? Is everything clear in your mind? What have you forgotten? Check. Your papers? Cigarettes? Matches? You go back down. You go back up. You take a long deep breath. Are you in a panic? You are not in a panic …

Wind up the phone. Dring dring dring. You have to trust that Otto is outside at the tunnel exit otherwise he will have heard the office telephone going click as you make the call … Good afternoon, operator, this is Dampierre 15 on the line. I don't think my phone is working properly. One of my friends insists he called me three or four times this morning – he got here by car this afternoon – but I didn't hear anything … Can you call me back in ten seconds' time? Ten seconds, alright. Yes, operator, Dampierre 15. Madera is the name. Thank you, operator, speak to you soon.

Ten seconds. You hang up. Your heart is beating. You look at your wristwatch. Nine. Heads or tails? Eight. What are you betting on it working? My kingdom for a. Seven. Six. If logic is in charge then it has to work. Four. But then. I killed. Three. Madera. Two. Now time speeds up. Go in a flash. Zero. It's ringing. Far far far away. He's heard it. He's running. He's sure it's Rufus. Give him time to turn the
corner. One. Two three. Take away the plank. Pick up your bag. Put your head out. There you are. There you are. There you are! Run! One two three four five metres. Thank you and goodbye. Ten eleven twelve. Slide under the fence. There you are. Don't come a cropper in the grass. Run. Say hello to the Eiffel Tower for me. Don't look round don't look round don't look round.

But now everything was dropping and slipping away from him, perhaps as a rebound from a hope that had been nurtured for too long. The life that for a moment he had thought he held in his hands, that compact, dense sum of collected memories, his quest, had shattered into a million pieces, into self-directing meteorites, each with its own life from now on, maybe still connected to his own but ruled by mysterious laws whose constants he did not know. Once again memories sharpened and then suddenly exploded and split up into a myriad impressions, into fragments of life it would have been fruitless to try to make sense of, give direction to, or separate from each other. Splinters and shreds. As if the landscape of his past life had just suffered a cataclysm. As if he no longer had the world in his arms. Did not yet have the world in his arms. He had entered a new era.

This deep chaos was like the chords played by an orchestra before the conductor mounts the podium, with each instrument practising the first bars of its own part, tuning strings, reeds, valves, trying out scales, testing chords as if to underscore the inorganic caterwaul out of which, very soon, because they will all be under the direction of a conductor who will assert his presence, because they
will go back to and follow the coherence of the composer's score, there will spring, in reimposed silence and with the house lights down, the living work itself, the voluntary burst of the trumpets and horns, the plenitude of the quartet and the rhythm that the timpani extract from time and turn into a tempo. If that were so, if that should turn out to be so, then, because he would finally have plumbed the lowest depth of his own madness, his acknowledgement of chaos would finally give birth to a firm grasp of himself and of the world in all its splendour and strength. Has he won? Not yet. He's free and on an empty road. He's walking on without knowing where he's going. It's dark. It's just before eight o'clock. Madera is dead. In the laboratory, in a corner, the absurd, abandoned, already dusty
Portrait of a Man
is scowling. A useless gesture or a step in the right direction? He does not know. He nods his head. He is cold …