The Last Painting of Sara de Vos (17 page)

“That's terrifying,” Marty says. “My anxiety dreams are run-of-the-mill. Patent attorneys dream about filing the wrong paperwork or missing a deadline. It's the saddest thing in the world. I used to wake up in a cold sweat before I made partner. I saw myself wheeling one of those coffee carts down the hallways at work and delivering mail. My boss sometimes pissed in the coffeepot in that particular dream.”

Boyd says, “I'm no Freudian but these are all very revealing, gents. In my dream I'm watching television and one of my ads comes on but it's in a different language. It sounds like Swahili or pidgin and so I hit the side of the TV set as if that will correct the language of transmission. The thing starts buzzing and warping but eventually the picture comes in and there are scenes of the Midwest scrolling by.”

“What's happened to your advertisement?” asks Frederic.

“Sucked out the back of the tube. Every time I hit the set the scenery changes—a little wooden farmhouse and a red barn and a scratch of dirt with a tethered horse. And then I realize it's my childhood being depicted, back to the farm in Illinois and the horseshit town where I grew up.”

“There's no way that's an actual dream,” Marty says.

“Tell that to my superego.”

“I think it would be your id,” Frederic says matter-of-factly.

Marty raises his beer bottle in the air. “I'd like to motion to change the subject.”

Boyd says, “Unless it's about an Angus steak so rare it has a pulse, I don't want to hear it. I'm hungry enough to eat the leather hide off this booth. When that classics major comes back here I'm going to order food. How old do you think she is anyway?”

“We made a pact to our wives—snacks only,” Marty says.

Boyd says, “Read history: pacts are designed to be broken.”

“Well, while you're sitting with that moral dilemma, I have an update on the missing painting.”

Frederic says, “Go on.”

“As you all know, I retained this slob of a private detective who lives in a houseboat over on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Anyway, after months of digging around and eating hot dogs on street corners, he finally delivered me a name and some photographs. Apparently an art restorer who might also be the forger behind the painting that's now sitting on the floor in my study.” Marty digs through his pockets and places the business card on the table.

Boyd says, “Were we expecting this? A woman art restoration expert?”

“I don't know what we were expecting,” Marty says.

Will picks up the business card, studies it under the blown-glass wall sconce, and hands it to Frederic. Marty notices how perfectly manicured Kriel's fingernails are as he turns the card over and then waves it in the air. Frederic says, “This is very nice paper. It has heft.”

“That was my thought as well,” says Marty.

“Are we saying the quality of the paper suggests a legitimate enterprise?” Will asks.

“No, we're not saying that quite yet,” answers Frederic. “So what are your next steps?”

Marty puts a few almonds in his mouth and chews meditatively. “Well, I suppose the right thing to do is to give the name to the police or the insurance firm. But part of me wants to know who this woman is before I hand her over.”

“And why would you want to know that?” asks Will. “If a burglar comes into your home and steals everything in sight do you want to read his memoirs?”

“I would,” offers Boyd.

“The other thing,” Marty says, “is that I have this sneaking suspicion that my life has only gotten better since the painting was stolen. I feel stronger somehow.”

“Your squash game hasn't gotten any better,” says Boyd, smiling. “I just had an epiphany—I'm ordering a steak. The iron levels go down in my blood and I get mean-spirited. A steak at this point is for the sake of my fellow humanity.”

The waitress eyes the table again and Boyd waves her over. She smiles and begins to make her way across the room.

“Are you saying the stolen painting is cursed?” Will asks.

“That sounds melodramatic,” says Marty. “Although none of its previous owners lived past the age of sixty.”

“That's because they were living in a malarial swamp called the Netherlands and didn't have flushing toilets,” says Boyd.

“I mean since then,” adds Marty.

Frederic says, “We've all read
The Picture of Dorian Gray
, Marty, so you're not the first to imagine that a painting has supernatural powers. Every time I auction off Renaissance art I think that I'm going to burn in hell or that I'm getting secret, coded messages from God. Let me tell you something … it's oil and pigment on scraps of linen or hide and sunlight passing through prisms of color. What we're trying to buy, when we buy art, is ourselves. So if you ask me, part of you was stolen with that painting and you should feel outraged. And, of course, if you no longer want the painting after it's retrieved, Sotheby's would be only too happy to auction it for you.”

Marty says, “I was thinking I might flush her out. Call her up and pretend to engage her as an art consultant or something.”

“That would be foolish and risky,” says Will.

“I think that's an interesting idea,” says Boyd. “Like that waitress, you have my full and undivided attention.”

Marty says, “I might have to use a false name. She might know who I am.”

“Or know what you look like,” says Will.

Boyd is glued to the approaching waitress, but he says, “Yes, but what's the worst thing that can happen?”

“I don't know. She leaves the country with his three-hundred-year-old painting,” Will says.

The waitress finally arrives and Boyd orders a steak, rare, and a baked potato. He deliberates over the menu, enunciating his words, asking about the soup of the day and the seasonal vegetables. The other men look on with moral outrage. The waitress is wearing a black vest that gives her a certain authority, despite her age. She asks the others what they would like to order, the sound of certainty in her voice. One by one they fold. Marty orders the porterhouse and another beer. There's a moment of quiet defeat.

“How about this?” Will says. “When my wife files for divorce because I don't eat her lasagna tonight how about I just put Boyd's name on the decree.”

They all laugh and sip their beers.

Frederic picks the thread back up: “Here's what you do. You know the auction house over on Fifty-Seventh, Thornton and Morrell?”

Marty nods.

“They're having an Old Masters auction next week and they've got everything out on display. You invite this supposed art restoration expert to meet you there. You see what she knows about that period, start asking probing questions. You decide whether it seems plausible.”

“Do I use a false name?”

“Why not have some fun with it?” says Boyd. “A little undercover operation, some recon. We need to think of a really good name. And if on the off chance she acts cagey when she sees you then you know the jig is up and she knows your face. You abort the mission if that happens. This is sounding like Hitchcock. I like it.”

“You should be writing cheap novels,” Will says, “not 7-Up commercials.”

“Why wouldn't I bring her to Sotheby's?” asks Marty.

“If it ever came out that I let a potential forger into the auction house they would send me to the basement archive and change my name to Clause. We call those people down there archive monkeys.”

“But you're fine with me taking her to a competitor?”

“Thornton and Morrell are a niche market.”

Boyd says, “I've got a fake name for you! Oliver Kitwell.”

“Sounds like a London barrister,” says Frederic.

“Sam Iris,” Boyd counters.

“An eye doctor from Connecticut.”

Marty says, “I've always wanted to be called Jake. My father's name was Jacob. How about Jake Alpert? The last name still has a Dutch ring to it and I might convince her I'm building out a family collection.”

Will says, “I still think you should just call the cops or the insurance investigators. What happens if they find out you had information and never passed it along?”

Boyd replies: “This is why I want you to operate if I ever have an aneurysm, Will, because you think of every contingency. I'd like to have my capillaries in your hands.” Boyd looks around the room. “Now, if my steak doesn't get here pretty soon I'm going to have the aforementioned aneurysm.”

Marty laughs and drains his beer. The conversation takes a new turn and he quietly mutters, “Jake Alpert, Jake Alpert,” letting it play out in his mouth.

*   *   *

When Marty arrives home, his harrowing vision is realized—Hester has made a full meal and Rachel is carrying the dinner plates from the kitchen. With Carraway scampering for attention at his feet, he pours two glasses of wine and sits down at the table. Overcompensating, he says, “I'm famished.”

Rachel smiles and whisks her napkin into her lap. “Hester made beef Stroganoff and green beans.”

Within the hour, Marty has eaten a steak the size of his terrier. Hester appears with the laden plates and the thought of more beef, mixed with cream, puts pressure on the back of his throat.

Rachel begins to tell him about her day chasing birds in the park. Recently she joined a social club, an offshoot of the Aid Society, and they meet once a week for book club, bird-watching in Central Park, or a cultural field trip of some kind. With binoculars around their necks and fastened sunhats, they try to spot warblers or migrating chickadees—Marty has no idea what—before sitting by the azalea pond to drink a thermos of English Breakfast tea. They're all women, as far as Marty can tell, led by a British expat in corduroys who's married to a federal judge. As ridiculous as this outing sounds to Marty, he's so grateful that Rachel is back among the living and finding distraction.

“Did you discover a new species out there today?” Marty asks.

“Don't be dismissive,” she says. “The park is on a major migration route.” She gives a little shake of the head. “In the afternoon I went to the travel agent. Do you remember we talked about the river cruise in the spring?”

“How could I forget?”

Beside her on the table she's stacked a small pile of travel brochures. The trip is a river cruise along the Seine, stopping at villages and towns in Normandy. Marty would rather take the train somewhere, through the Alps or across Spain, stopping at the Alhambra, but he's not about to complicate things between them. She opens a glossy brochure and reads some highlights between mouthfuls.

“On day three we stop at Vernon and travel into the town of Giverny, where Monet lived from 1883 until his death in 1926. Doesn't that sound fun?” she says.

A Kodachrome image of the iconic water garden with its lilies and Japanese bridge flashes through Marty's mind and he thinks there must be better ways to spend eight days and several thousand dollars. He says, “Wonderful,” choking down another bite of Stroganoff. When she's immersed in the brochure again, Marty puts another piece of beef in his mouth before pulling it back out under the cover of his napkin. He drops his hand beside his chair with the chunk of meat and feels Carraway's muzzle nudging it from his fingertips.

He empties a third of his plate in this fashion while Rachel steps him through the itinerary. He can feel his mind fogging over, so he takes a sip of ice water to brace himself back to attention. He stares at the painting above her head, a dour Flemish school portrait of a man holding his hat. Like so many of his father's paintings, it's dulled by age and in desperate need of cleaning. Jacob de Groot believed that cleaning paintings ruined their rustic appeal and diminished their power. There's part of him that wants to tell Rachel that he's got a solid lead with the private investigator, but there's a stronger part that's protective of this new information. For a month after they discovered the robbery, when the police and insurance investigators came through the house, she asked for regular updates, but now she's lost interest. He'll tell her once he knows something definitive.

Bringing his gaze back to Rachel, he says, “Impressionists from a slow-moving river, what could be better?”

“You hate the Impressionists,” she says, laughing slightly.

“Not all of them.”

“You once said to me, and I quote, ‘Monet makes me feel like I'm queasy and squinting outside on a hot day.'”

“Did I actually say that?”

“At this very table, my love.”

“Well, maybe I've changed my tune. And what better place to do it than in his old stomping grounds.”

“Well, I appreciate you being flexible with this trip. I just think it'll be nice to get away from the city for a bit.”

“I couldn't agree more,” he says, cutting a green bean into a dozen tiny pieces.

Rachel goes back to the brochures, which have been dog-eared and underlined. It strikes him that she's eager to make a fresh start, to leave the wreckage of two miscarriages behind her. In theory, they could try again, but they made an unspoken pact after the second time, a silent agreement to never subject themselves to the brutal forces of nature again. He feels a surge of tenderness toward her as she turns the pages of northern France, the way she's willed herself back from the brink of despair. For several years he stood to lose her; she was drifting down hallways with sad, sun-bleached novels in her hands. Not really thinking it through, he says, “If you ever wanted to, I would adopt. A whole tribe of them if you wanted.”

She looks up from her dinner plate, startled for a moment but then softening. She holds the brochure very still and smiles faintly. “I know you would. I just don't think that's right for us. For me.”

He reaches over and touches the back of her hand. “Of course.”