A Nearly Perfect Copy (25 page)

“Oh, right, how was your trip?”

“Good. I saw the most beautiful Delacroix.” Colette drained her glass and refilled it, sipping quickly before it fizzed over the side. “It’s upsetting. These people in New York, these Americans, they don’t appreciate what they have.”

“I appreciate what I have,” Gabriel said, taking Colette’s free hand.

Colette patted his cheek and said in English, “So cute.”

The gallery space was exactly how he had imagined it would be. In fact, he thought he’d been in the space in another incarnation. Was it possible that it had been a punk club in the nineties? It was the perfect location for an up-and-coming gallery. Not so trendy that the rents were high, but trendy enough that
centre-ville
Parisians would feel safe sojourning there, and receive a taste of adventure while doing so.
Though small and low-ceilinged, the gallery had a nice flow to it, with plenty of interior walls and new track lighting. Colette came with him, standing so close to him as he paced the room, he could smell her strawberry shampoo.

She asked Paulette and Patrice a number of practical questions, and they had an animated discussion conducted so rapidly, with so many numbers, that Gabriel couldn’t follow it. It seemed almost like an argument.

But Gabriel trusted Colette. It had been so long since someone had been his advocate. It felt odd, improbable, yet Gabriel and Colette seemed to share a certain practicality that made Gabriel feel that as long as his and Colette’s interests were aligned—or at least, not competing—he could count on her.

He smiled as Paulette opened a bottle of champagne, and signed the contract willingly. When they clinked glasses, Colette’s bubbled up and over the rim and she brought it quickly to her mouth to save it. “Now, that’s talent,” Patrice said.

After work, still nursing one of the more vicious and perseverant hangovers he’d ever experienced (he swore never to drink champagne again), Gabriel shuffled home and got into bed, contemplating his luck. Could it be that it had finally changed? He permitted himself a fantasy in which he was the toast of Paris. He wore a tuxedo, a satin pocket square, shirt partway unbuttoned. Around him was a cast of characters like in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
. Women in beehive hairdos with long cigarette filters and men with highball glasses. The setting, though, was modern: a view of the Parisian skyline (from
in
Paris? his common sense asked him. Yes, a view of Paris from Paris). The lighting was perfect for his art and for people watching. Still fantasizing, he looked at the walls. His drawings were professionally mounted and framed. It took him a minute to realize that what he was admiring in the fantasy as his own were the forgeries he’d drawn for Klinman.

He sat up in bed and turned on the light, embarrassed. Could he really have thought that he achieved this show on his own merit? For all his posturing about his supposed talent and the art world’s prejudice, it was entirely possible that his work was inferior. Plus, he had to
reflect that the happiest and most fulfilled he’d felt in years was when he worked for Klinman. To produce so exactingly the work of a master created a greater sense of satisfaction than when he finished his own work. Was that because the drawings were accepted so enthusiastically? Obviously, praise was powerful motivation. And money. Maybe this show was what he needed to get the same commendations for himself. After all, being an art world darling was about opportunity, exposure.

A thought: Klinman set up the show. But, again, why? So that Gabriel would stay happy and continue to forge his pictures like a good little boy? Should he accept this charity? Should he feel offended? It was hardly life-changing, a small gallery in the Fourteenth on a low-rent block with two-euro wine and stale crackers at the
vernissage
.

Or maybe Colette had arranged for the show. Or Édouard. Or even, for all he knew, Didier. The possibilities were endless, and all pointed to the fact that regardless of who prodded the gallery to offer him a show, and regardless of the fact that a solo show was the first step to a career of any kind, Gabriel could only see the offer as further proof that he would never amount to anything. He turned off the light, rolled over, and pulled the covers up over his head, willing himself to sleep.

Gabriel took great pride in announcing to Édouard that he would no longer be working at the Rosenzweig Gallery in order to prepare for his solo show. Édouard didn’t look impressed, nor did he seem upset to hear that his employee would be leaving him. There were a dozen recent grads who would be glad to take his place. Édouard insisted that he stay two weeks to train a new hire, but Gabriel refused. Only then did Édouard show emotion. They fought, and it escalated to the point where Gabriel told Édouard exactly what he thought of him and his gallery. Édouard responded in kind, hurtling insults that sounded just like the characteristics about himself that Gabriel already knew and hated: his attitude, his intractability, the suspicion that if he hadn’t made it in the art world by now he never would.

But going to the studio at ten the next morning, Gabriel was elated. This was what an artist did, got up, drank oodles of coffee, and hit the studio early. He practically sauntered from the
métro
. He was not the first one there; Marie-Laure was an early riser. Still, Gabriel felt virtuous, pumped from caffeine.

Over the weekend, Gabriel had cleaned out his area in the studio, considering canvases and putting aside those he could re-gesso and paint over. He made a list of possible titles for his show. But after stretching two canvases and priming them, he was at a loss as to what to paint. It might help if he had a theme for his show. But he couldn’t really develop a theme until he’d painted something. A vicious circle. He paced; he ran out of batteries in his tape player and switched their places to eke out a bit more power. Then he went outside.

Didier was having a cigarette. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, you know,” Gabriel said.

“Christ, when I first found out about my show,” Didier continued, “I couldn’t do anything. It’s like all my ideas had been sucked out of my head. Do you feel like that?”

“No,” Gabriel lied. “I’m painting like they will cut my arms off tomorrow.”

“Nice image,” Didier said. “Lucky. It took me like a month to settle down and produce. You got a title yet?”

“Still thinking,” Gabriel said.

“Don’t think too hard,” Didier warned. “Thinking makes for bad art.”

Lise was impressed by Gabriel’s sudden success. She was full of questions. He did not tell her about having to tailor his paintings to the Picluts’ requests, because he knew she would disapprove. She would wrinkle up her little French nose and scold him like a child. Why was he compromising himself that way? Why had he been true to his art all these years, only to sell out now? What did that make him?

Gabriel was aware of her arguments, because he was making them himself. Why should it matter to him what she thought, this artist-turned-housewife? Except it did.

Sitting in a café near Ambrosine’s, Lise had dedicated her lunch break to brainstorming a title for his show with him. They were talking about Gabriel’s interests, how alienation was always a theme in his works, and they discussed the possibility of the title
aliénation
, then two words in English,
alien nation
, and they laughed that they were filming a sci-fi movie. Then it came to Lise. She had to write it down so Gabriel could see the wordplay.
“Dé/placement, Dé/plaisir.”

“ ‘Dis/placement, Dis/pleasure.’ I’m happy,” he blurted out. He blushed. He was happy that Lise was his friend, happy to be having a show at last.

Lise laughed. “I’m happy too.”

When he told Colette the title, she scoffed. “It sounds like some sort of Derridean circle jerk.”

“Well, I like it,” Gabriel said.

“You would.”

He was sleeping poorly, partly because he was often at Colette’s and her bed was lumpy. She also generated so much heat when she slept that he awoke sweaty and breathless. Every night he had anxiety nightmares.

One night he dreamed that his painting had made the cover of
Art Forum
, only to realize, to his horror, that he had copied the
Mona Lisa
. He awoke panting.

“What is it? Tell me.” Colette stroked his back as Gabriel fought to regain his breath.

“Am I doing the wrong thing?” he asked her.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I feel like … I feel like I’m pretending to be someone else.”

“Because you’re accepting direction?”

“I guess.” He turned to her. “Doesn’t it seem strange that they want to capitalize on my connection to Connois?”

“Why?” Colette lay back down on the bed. Her breasts pointed opposite ways, like contradictory directional arrows. “I mean, you exploit it.”

“Yeah, but. Wait, I do?”

Colette laughed. “You have his name, though it’s not your true name. You like to sketch like him, I’ve noticed.”

Gabriel froze: was it possible she knew about the work he did for her uncle? But Colette continued on. “Just do what they want. Now is not the time for principles. You don’t catch flies with vinegar.”

Part Two
Summer 2007