The Art Forger (20 page)

“Authentication.”

I take a sip of the champagne; it bubbles nervously down my throat. “You really think it’ll pass?”

“What are you the most worried about?”

An interesting question. “I think we’re relatively safe on all the standard measures. But the newer tests like atomic absorption or mass spectrometry might be able to pick up something I didn’t control for. It’s like you said, it’s all going to depend on the sophistication of the buyer.”

“My plan is to use the same authenticator I did for the original.”

“Is that the best idea?”

“You look concerned,” Markel says.

“Not really. Or not any more than I’d be about any expert going over it. But what are you going to tell him? How are you going to explain why you need to test it again?”

Markel finishes off his champagne and pours both of us another glass. “I’ll just tell him I’ve got some concerns. That I want him to go over it one more time.”

“And he’ll buy that?”

“Why not? In a situation like this, anyone might want to double-check.”

“Right. Sure. I guess.” I run my fingers through my hair. “Sorry, it’s been a long haul. I’m pretty wrung out. Exhausted actually. I can’t even remember what we were just talking about.”

He puts his glass on the table and stands, smiling indulgently down at me. “Of course you are.” He holds out his hands to help me up. “What you need is sleep, not a lot of talk.”

I let him pull me to a stand. We look at each other for a long quivering moment, then he puts his arm around my shoulder and turns me toward the door. I slip my arm around his waist.

When we reach the door, he drops his arm and lifts my chin with a finger. “Is it okay if I come by tomorrow afternoon so we can pack them both up? I’d like to get your version to the authenticator and the original into safe storage as soon as possible. And I’ll bring you your money.”

I nod, thrilled. And not about the money, although that’s nice, too. It’s about having them gone. About regaining my studio, about coming out from under the shadow. A fall cleaning to make room for my own work to thrive.

W
ITH THE TWO
forgeries gone, the studio feels open, alive, truthful. And I feel that way, too. I have both my home and myself back. Not to mention another $17,000, which hopefully will be followed by the last installment of $16,000 when
Bath II
is authenticated. If it’s authenticated. What will Markel do if I don’t pass the test? Will he give up his Gardner idea and tell the owner he can’t find a buyer? Will he take back the money he paid me? Cancel my show? The truth is, I’ve no idea what he might do. I try to push these thoughts away. Just as I try to push away the memories of painting
Bath II.

I don’t always succeed. At times, the past months come rushing back at me in flashes I can’t control. Bits and pieces interspersed with the continuing nightmares of chasing and being chased. Sometimes it seems as if none of it ever happened, and other times it’s as if there’s an indelible stain that will never go away. If I catch myself washing my hands twenty times a day, I’ll know I’ve gone over the edge.

But there are gifts from my walk on the dark side: the oven and phenol formaldehyde. I’ve always been proud of my window series, viewing it as my best work, as the culmination of everything I’ve learned thus far. But adding in the phenol formaldehyde to achieve these otherworldly jeweled tones is raising my hopes.

A dangerous thing, hope, as I know all too well, but also a powerful motivator. Where my drive to finish
Bath II
was frenzied and hallucinogenic, preliminary work on my windows is surprisingly soothing. Like scuba diving off a coral reef. A slow-motion immersion into the exotically foreign, compelling, and breathtaking, heightened by the hint of peril.

And van Meegeren’s gift isn’t only the colors, it’s the time that baking will buy me. I need twenty paintings for my show, all realistic and all highly glazed with layer upon layer of diaphanous paint. I look at the dozen window paintings still hanging from Markel’s first visit. My original plan was to use six or seven in the show, but now that I’ve seen the range of color I can produce à la Han, I’m afraid they’ll pale in comparison to my new work. But they’re good, they’re why Markel offered me the show, and unless I’m willing to wait until spring, they’re in. So, thirteen new paintings.

I have enough preliminary drawings for at least thirty, although there are a number of new ideas, like one I’ve already named
Pink Medium,
I want to include. I’ll make the canvases and apply the sizing and underpainting assembly-line style, which will cut down on time. I glance around the studio. It’ll be tight to work on thirteen canvases at once, but there should be just enough space to pull it off. I’ll sketch out each of the new paintings in advance, then move quickly from one canvas to the next to render the underdrawings. And when I start in on the actual painting, I’ll have my oven to move things along. A daunting project. An incredible opportunity.

Twenty-four

I walk up the granite steps of Markel’s house with trepidation. I probably shouldn’t be here. Nonetheless, I am, standing before a nineteenth-century mansion facing the broad, tree-lined mall that sets Commonwealth Avenue apart from—and above—all the other tony streets of Back Bay. Plus, I’m on the Arlington/Berkeley block, which is set apart from and above all the other tony blocks of Comm Ave. There’s never been any gentrification in this part of Boston because it’s never fallen out of favor with the gentry.

Markel called early in the week and invited me to dinner. “Did you know I can cook?” he asked, when I answered the phone.

“You do?”

“Probably better than you.”

“That would mean you can make something other than mac and cheese.”

“Is that what you’d like for your surprise dinner?”

“Surprise?”

“Yup. Two actually.”

“Can you tell me more?”

“Nope.”

“Well then, if you’re going to all the trouble of cooking,” I told him, “I’ll take something a bit more gourmet than mac and cheese.”

“Done,” he said. “Does seven o’clock Saturday night work for you?”

I hesitate. “Sure. I guess.”

“See you Saturday.” Then he was gone.

I didn’t really have a chance to say no. Yet, I probably wouldn’t have said it anyway. I’m a fool for surprises. Has the painting been authenticated? Is it something about my show? Is he going to poison me with his soufflé because now he’s got the finished painting? A lesser woman would run. But not me. I want to see his artwork.

I press the doorbell next to his name, and when it buzzes, I step into a wainscoted, marble anteroom separating street and house. I push through a pair of etched-glass doors into a soaring, elegant space. In the late 1800s, well-dressed gentlemen and their ladies would have been received here. It’s quite likely Belle Gardner was, at some time or another, one of them.

A wide mahogany staircase dominates the foyer, turning two times before it meets the second-floor landing. I hesitate, not sure where to go, when Markel comes down the stairs.

“Welcome,” he calls. “We’re up here.” The lighting emphasizes his high cheekbones and square chin. He looks relaxed, boyish, comfortable in his own skin, pleased to see me. It’s a tough package to resist.

I walk up the stairs toward him, curtsy, and hold out my hand. “Charmed, sir.”

He takes it, turns it over, and kisses my palm. “Handsome lady.”

When we enter the apartment, I don’t know what to look at first: the exquisitely preserved architectural elements, the eclectic furnishings, or the artworks sprinkled liberally, but flawlessly, about. He shows me around. John Baldessari’s spider, Tony Feher’s sculpture of four jars with red tops, Sharon Core’s photograph of a coconut cake. There’s one from Zeng Fanzhi’s
Mask Series
and my favorite David Park,
Four Nudes
, a Koons, a Cottingham, a Warhol, a Lichtenstein, and, of course, a Cullion.

“Amazing,” I keep murmuring. “Wow. Great.” I don’t know what else to say. His collection rivals that of a small museum. Then he shows me his “Impressionist nook”: a Manet, a Cézanne and a tiny, perfect Matisse.

“No Degas?” I ask.

“An unfortunate hole in my collection.” He waves his hand to encompass all the works. “This is the advantage of owning a gallery. I get to buy what I love. At a much lower price than I would charge.”

His portion of the house is three stories. The living room, dining room, and kitchen form the first floor, with seventeen-foot ceilings, three fireplaces, original crown moldings and medallions. The second floor is a huge master suite with a separate office, clean and masculine, but not overly so. Everything is updated, yet it all fits perfectly within its nineteenth-century frame. We climb to the third floor, which has three bedrooms, one perfectly appointed guest room and two others for his children.

“Children?”

“Robin’s six and Scott’s four. They mostly live with their mother in Weston, but I get to see them a lot.”

“Oh” is all I can manage. I knew he’d married fairly young and had been divorced for a few years, but how could I not have known about the children? Why hadn’t Isaac ever mentioned it? Why hadn’t Markel?

We head back downstairs, and I catch artwork I missed on the way up: a Louise Bourgeois statue in a niche in the stairway, a William Kentridge drawing, a Calder mobile. He takes my hand and leads me back into the living room. We sit on the couch, in front of a low table on which a bottle of champagne chills.

“Seems like we’ve been drinking a lot of champagne.” I’m in such awe of his art collection I can barely get the words out.

He pours two glasses and hands me one. “We’ve had a lot to celebrate.” A dramatic pause. “And now we have even more.”

I hold my breath.

“Your
Bath II
has been authenticated. As far as anyone’s going to be concerned, she’s the real thing.”

A flood of relief washes over me. “Wow.” I knock back the glass of champagne, hold out the empty for a refill. “I can’t believe it.” But, of course, I know all too well that experts can be fooled.

“Were you that worried?”

“Of course I was that worried. I told you I was.”

“I’d have been shocked if it turned out any other way.”

“Then you’re made of sterner stuff than I am.”

He pulls an envelope from a drawer in the coffee table and hands it to me. “There’s a bonus included.”

“Thanks.” I quickly put the envelope in my purse. It feels thicker than the others.

“That’s not the real surprise,” he says.

“It’s not?” If
Bath II’
s been authenticated, could it be about my show?

“Well, I guess it’s actually a presurprise, or the first part of one because we have to wait for the second part.”

This doesn’t sound like it’s about my show. “You made macaroni and cheese for dinner?”

He bursts out laughing. “How’d you know?”

“You did?”

“With three kinds of mushrooms and tomatoes and herbs from my garden. Is that gourmet enough for you?”

I try to hide my disappointment. Although I like food as much as the next person, it would never fall into the surprise category for me. “Thank you. It sounds delicious.”

He offers me a tray of black olives. The tray is long and narrow and looks as if it was made specifically for olives. I’ve never seen such a thing. I pop one into my mouth. It’s perfect: sharp and dark, salty and oily. “Did you grow these, too?”

“There’s something else,” he says.

I eat another olive and wait.

“I sold it.”

I almost swallow the olive pit. “
Bath II
?”

“I’ve worked with this collector before. I set up a number of levels between us, put out a feeler. He grabbed.”

“He thinks it’s the original? The one stolen from the museum?”

Markel touches his champagne flute to mine. “What else would he think?”

I struggle to keep my breathing normal. I’ve no idea why I’m reacting like this. What did I think was going to happen? Selling the painting as the original was always the plan.

“Hits you kind of weird when it finally happens, doesn’t it?” he says.

Again, he’s reading my thoughts. There’s no denying the power of this experiential intimacy, especially when it’s ours alone. A chill runs up my backbone. “You’re sure he won’t know it came from you? That he can’t trace it back?”

“Too many people between us. And each one only knows the one who contacted him and the one he contacted,” Markel says with certainty, but I note that he didn’t directly answer my questions.

“What’s he going to do with it?”

“He’s a collector, Claire, a nutty bunch. But this guy’s nuttier than most, a complete fanatic. Totally blinded to anything but what art he can own, what he can possess. That’s why I went to him first with the Degas.”