A Nearly Perfect Copy (23 page)

Gabriel nodded glumly. He still felt irrationally guilty. Everything Klinman had said made sense. Hadn’t people overlooked him just because he was Spanish? Because he didn’t know how to manipulate the right people? Art should be judged on its own merits, but that wasn’t the world they lived in. Hadn’t being on the planet for forty-two years taught him anything? But he had just earned ten thousand euros, more than he’d ever made on all his art put together. Ten thousand euros was several months of salary at Rosenzweig’s gallery.

He followed Klinman out the door, past the still-disapproving eye of the
portière
, who scowled equally at Klinman. Maybe that was just her default expression.

He called Colette to see if she wanted to join them, but there was no answer. In the restaurant, a nice bistro on the Rue des Ecouffes, Klinman ordered them a bottle of wine, and the
menu fixe
. When their salads came—frisée with lardons for Gabriel, a pâté terrine for Klinman—Gabriel finally asked him: “Where will you say you got the drawing from?”

“That,” he said, wiping his mouth, “requires a story, which I will tell you over coffee.”

After their main course, Klinman sat back and pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket. “My story …” He paused to drop a sugar cube into his cappuccino. Then he lit his cigarette, puffing occasionally as he spoke. “I’m German. And Jewish. My family escaped just before the war was starting, through Switzerland to Italy, then on a boat to China. I was born in China and we lived there for four years. When the visa came for England we settled in Leeds. That’s where I grew up. Did Colette tell you all this? No?

“My parents’ passion was art. Their apartment had paintings and drawings hung so closely together they said it looked like a frame store rather than a living room. When the war started they hid their art with friends, they buried it in vaults or tried to trade it for favors. Others had their art seized by the Nazis.

“Some of it was kept by the local families, impossible to claim after the war ended. Some of it was taken by looters. Some the Nazis hung in regional offices. At one point, they even found canvases that Goering tried to hide in a cave. Barbarians.”

Klinman paused for a long inhalation. He held the smoke inside his cheeks, savoring it. Gabriel was not sure if he was referring to the Nazis’ callous disregard for human life or to their ignorant neglect of art. He thought he could see where this line of argument would take them.

“In short, there is a lot of art out there that is still floating about, waiting to be reclaimed.”

Gabriel said, “So you fake the provenances.”

“I do not like the word
fake. Fake
makes it sound as though there were something real that the fake is imitating. This is not the case.”

Klinman leaned forward so close to Gabriel’s face that he could smell the thick coffee and the deep tobacco on his breath. “It was ours. It was ours and they stole it. This is just squaring the deal.”

“Well,” Gabriel said. “Wouldn’t returning the real paintings to their true owners or descendants really … square the deal?”

Klinman chuckled condescendingly. “Say you borrow twenty euros from someone. Then you pay them back. Does it have to be the same twenty euros? Of course not. You spent that twenty euros. It’s a different bill that serves the same purpose.”

Gabriel nodded. This reasoning did make sense, in a certain way.
Of course, it wasn’t a perfect analogy: money, after all, just stood for something. There was no value inherent in the particular piece of paper, so they were interchangeable. Art, however, was not a substitute for something else. It was itself.

Gabriel felt light-headed, the blood gone to his stomach digesting his large meal. “I don’t know,” he said. “It just seems a little bit … unethical? Illegal? Deceiving people like this?”

Klinman put out his cigarette. “I deal with some of the most important curators and dealers in the world. They have everything to lose by dealing with me and nothing to gain. Except exceptional art. Gabriel, I like you for the same reason all older men like younger men. I see myself in you. Your heritage has been taken from you. You have the goods, obviously.” Klinman waved his hand, palm up, stating the obvious. “Why won’t they let you use them? Why do you spend all day pushing papers for that poof Édouard? What works of Michelangelo might we lack now if he had to, I don’t know, tote water instead of being patronized by the Medicis? If they are going to try to keep you down, then you employ any means necessary to pick yourself back up, yes?”

Klinman’s voice was rising. People in the emptying restaurant were staring. “I didn’t mean to offend you,” Gabriel said.

“Of course you didn’t,” Klinman said. “I know. I shouldn’t get so worked up. But when I see bogus bourgeois morality, invented precisely to restrain people, prohibiting creativity and progress, I get upset.”

Klinman paid for lunch and they stepped outside. While they were eating, it had grown overcast. Rain looked imminent. A cold breeze had picked up. Klinman turned the collar of his suit jacket up to cradle his neck. He handed Gabriel a thousand-euro bill. Gabriel had never seen one before. “We’ll work out the rest of the payments later. I’m off.” He shook Gabriel’s hand, and before Gabriel could reply, Klinman had turned his back and was walking away briskly.

Gabriel was certain he’d offended Klinman. He hadn’t meant to. He liked the man, respected him, and needed the money the man would provide. He just didn’t like making money off others’ ignorance.

He called Colette; again, no answer. She was probably out for lunch. She liked her independence, appointments he didn’t know about, “girls’ nights” where she and her friends dressed up and went dancing. Gabriel was racked with jealousy on those nights, managing to convince himself that she was picking up men. Sometimes he found the thought
erotic, even as he lay awake thinking about how much he wanted to be with her.

Suddenly, he was getting what he wanted—money, respect. So why did he feel rather like he’d been rejected yet again, from a fellowship or grant.
Don’t be stupid
, he thought, and went to spend his newfound wealth, but he discovered that a thousand-euro bill is not money that can be spent. He had to go to a bank to get change to buy an umbrella for the rain that was starting to fall.

When Gabriel emerged from the
métro
near his studio the rain was steady, thick gooey drops that seemed to hang in the air and then explode upon contact with the ground. Outside the front door, under the awning, sat Didier and Hans, a half-empty bottle of rum at their feet. In the gray light, Hans looked older; the lines around his eyes had increased. Did that mean Gabriel looked older too?

“Hey,” Didier said. “We’re celebrating. Join us.”

“What’s the occasion?” Gabriel pulled up a crate and sat down with them. He accepted the bottle offered to him and took a swig. The liquor made him feel like it was raining inside his gut as well as outside.

“It’s Friday,” Hans said. “We made it to Friday.”

“Thursday, I think, actually,” Gabriel said.

“Reason enough for me. Happy Thursday,” said Didier, and took a large swig, wiping his mouth on his paint-splattered sleeve. “But actually, we are celebrating that Brigitte’s pregnant.”

Gabriel received the news just as he tilted the bottle back. He lowered it while gulping. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, wild, right?” Hans nodded emphatically.

Didier said, “I asked him if he knew who the father was.”

Hans ignored him. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

“Of course, sorry. No one … I didn’t think … Did you mean …? Congratulations,” he finally said. He handed the bottle back.

“They’re not even married and the old lady wants his art out of the house,” Didier said, laughing.

“The fumes.” Hans shrugged. “So I took a space here.”

“Wow, a kid.”

Hans said, “You look like you’re smelling shit. It’s not a bad thing. We’re really excited.”

“Sorry,” Gabriel said.

Didier pulled a joint out of his cigarette carton. “This requires a little hash.”

Gabriel felt the liquor spreading its warmth. He hadn’t realized how much he missed this camaraderie, how good it felt to be talking, drinking, laughing.

Didier sparked his lighter and breathed in deeply. “So you’ll have to quit this shit once the baby’s born, huh?”

“Don’t see why I should.” Hans took his turn.

Before Gabriel could stop himself, he giggled, clapping a hand to his mouth to stanch it too late. The two men looked at each other and laughed, and then paused and laughed again. Gabriel took the joint and breathed deeply. The smoke traveled through him, a gritty hurt.

“I don’t know, man,” Hans said, breaking a silence. “It’s going to be weird, being a father.”

“Hmmm,” Gabriel said. Didier examined the end of his shoelace.

“My father was such an asshole, you know? I barely knew the guy. Bavarian and cold, like … like …”

“Yesterday’s weiner schnitzel,” Didier provided. Hans glared at him.

“I only went to his funeral for my mom’s sake.”

“Hmmm,” Gabriel said again. He thought about his own father’s funeral. His mother, weeping copiously, leaning on the employees of the funeral home for support. And Gabriel in a suit too short for his long legs, embarrassed for a thousand different reasons, wanting to feel sadder than he did, but mostly angry.

Without thinking, Gabriel asked, “If you guys could fuck over the art establishment, would you?”

“Yes,” they both answered at once.

“What if it was kind of illegal?”

“Are you thinking of something in particular?” Didier upturned the bottle and shook it over his mouth to get the last few drops.

“No, it was just, like, a question.”

Hans looked at him curiously.

“Not that shit we did for the hotel guy?” asked Didier.

“No, it’s just … forget it,” Gabriel said, shaking his head violently, as if clearing water from his ears.

“No, what?” Didier said.

“You brought it up,” Hans said.

“Fine.” Gabriel paused. “I was reading about this guy who forged old master paintings.”

“The Italian guy?” Didier asked.

“I think he was English,” Gabriel said.

“I heard about him,” Hans said. “Hepburn or Stubborn, or something. Didn’t he go to jail?”

“He forged paintings and made them look old and then sold them. They’re all over museum collections.”

Didier said, “Did he claim they were Rembrandts or whatever?”

“I don’t think so,” said Gabriel. “I think he just brought them into auction houses.”

Hans said, “They decide who painted it.”

“He just copied a painting and everyone thought it was a real Rembrandt?” Didier still didn’t get it.

“No,” Gabriel said. “He didn’t copy anything. It was an original painting, but in the style of the master.”

“Wasn’t that the guy who snuck into the Tate and planted a false catalog, or doctored the records with an X-Acto knife and some school glue?” Hans asked.

Didier brushed ash off his lap. “If those fucking bastards are too stupid to tell a Rembrandt from their assholes, then I think they deserve to get taken.”

“Very fancy, coming from someone who’s showing at de Treu.”

“Exactly my point,” Didier said. “They have shit for brains.”

Hans shook his head. His hair flopped into his eye, and he brushed it back, using his fingers as a comb. “Intent to deceive is deception.”

Gabriel and Didier looked at him. Didier said, “The whole art world is completely fucked up. It rewards youth because it’s novel; it rewards simple art because it’s palatable and it discriminates against innovation. It’s almost our duty to infiltrate and expose the hypocrisies.”

“That’s a really juvenile justification,” Hans said. “That’s like pulling the fire alarm at school.”

“How is that like pulling the fire alarm?” Didier’s voice rose. He was getting angry.

“Lashing out at authority figures because you’re frustrated with the establishment.” The stubble from Hans’s beard showed in relief in the light cast by the entryway as he leaned forward.

Gabriel remained silent, watching the two men. This was how he
thought he’d feel in art school. Slightly stymied by the language, more stymied by the sheer education and intellectualism of his peers. But as it turned out, art school was actively anti-intellectual. Emotions were privileged. If you overthought your art, you weren’t naturally talented. But then you were supposed to come up with some sort of artist statement that, through the gobbledygook of art-speak, would shed light on the intellectual process behind the art that you were supposed to create
without
intellectual process. No one’s French was that good, not even Flaubert’s.

But here he was, eavesdropping on a conversation he’d started about ethics and creation of art, and he felt like it was pretentious and a waste of time. Maybe the hash was making him feel impatient, but the theoretical argument seemed more like posturing to him. Hans was justifying his conventional, moral life, and Didier was trying to attack him for it. It was the same old shit, with art as the weapon.