Corpus Christmas (5 page)

As Dr. Peake spoke of the Breul House’s financial problem’s, Rick unobtrusively moved his camera toward Francesca Leeds. Lady
Francesca had turned thirty-seven that year, but there was nothing in her clean-lined profile to suggest it. Her golden complexion
was as clear as a girl’s, her dark red hair glossy and natural, her slender body at the peak of its physical powers, with
a lithe sensuousness that was the birthright of certain fortunate women.

Her companion was five years older and if one looked closely at his straw-colored hair one could see gray at his temples.
He had an outdoorsman’s face, yet it took expensive tailoring to disguise the fact that his muscular body had perhaps spent
too much time behind a desk instead of at the helm of his racing yacht.

Søren Thorvaldsen was a Danish entrepreneur who had parlayed a boyhood romance with the sea into great wealth by refurbishing
aging transatlantic liners into luxurious West Indian cruise ships. After years of hard work, he was ready to start playing
again and Lady Francesca’s proposal had amused him and appealed to both his financial and aesthetic appetites.

“Why don’t you explain your idea to Mr. Munson and Miss Kohn?” Peake said smoothly, turning the floor over to Francesca Leeds.

She smiled. “It’s really very simple. The Erich Breul House has a serious image problem. Is it a historical house or is it
an art museum? Some of the pictures in this collection are first-rate. No one questions that. The others—”

A graceful half-humorous shrug of her shoulder indicated that she did not intend to speak uncharitably about the bulk of the
founder’s collection unless pressed.

“The Breul Collection is highly regarded by scholars world wide,” said Jacob Munson, who chaired the board of trustees. “Even
now, Dr. Roger Shambley is writing a new book using examples from the house.”

“But is it the general public who’ll be reading it?” There was a charming hint of Celtic lilt to the lady’s British accent.
Her father supposedly owed his title to one of those tumble-down Irish castles.

“Jacob, it’s imperative that we find new sources of revenue,” reminded Benjamin Peake.

“
Ja, ja.
This is why we have lent you Richard.” He unwrapped another piece of hard candy and popped it into his mouth. The fragrance
of peppermint wafted through the office anew.

“And we appreciate the loan,” said the director, smiling at young Evans, who looked back at him through the camera’s range
finder. “But there’s no point in taking photographs for a new brochure or a larger collection of souvenir postcards if no
one comes in to buy them.”

“We think people have forgotten what serendipitous treasures the Breul House owns,” Lady Francesca said coaxingly. “We must
remind them—bring back not just the true art lovers but potential donors, too—the people who support what is chic to support.”

Francesca Leeds described herself as a free-lance publicist but she was actually a matchmaker between money and the arts.
She maintained a small one-room office in her suite at the Hotel Maintenon and new business came through personal recommendations
of satisfied clients. As one of the four most highly regarded party planners in the city, she had a flair for matching corporate
donors with charitable fundraising events.

An importer of Italian shoes, for example, could be persuaded to help support a fashion show to benefit a convent founded
by a Sicilian nun. The importer’s shoes would be featured throughout the show while the Santa Caterina Sisters of Charity
would net several thousands to further their good works.

The parent company of an expensive line of camera equipment might sponsor a movie premiere to help fund further research in
retinitis pigmentosa.

For every worthy cause, Lady Francesca Leeds seemed to find a moneyed patron.

Her dark red hair glinted like polished mahogany as she tilted her head toward the heretofore silent Dane. “As a ship owner,
Mr. Thorvaldsen recognizes a natural affinity for the Erich Breul House.”

Rich Evans’ camera followed her eyes, then swept the group as Hester Kohn gave a muffled snort.

Hester was puzzled by her inclusion in this informal planning session. She was not a trustee and she was much less interested
in Benjamin Peake’s career than Jacob was.

She regarded her partner with fond uneasiness. He couldn’t possibly last more than another year or two and then what would
happen to the gallery? She had grown up speaking the specialized jargon of the art world and she was quite comfortable managing
the gallery’s finances. But Hester Kohn knew her limitations, knew that she was no judge of artistic merit. One could be cynical
and say that given the current state of visual arts in this city artistic merit hardly mattered; yet ultimately, she knew,
it
did
matter.

Although Jacob spoke halfheartedly of educating his slow-talking grandson, who had suddenly appeared full-blown from the Louisiana
bayous this past September, Hester soon realized that the boy—he was only twenty—was even less intuitive about art than she
herself. Her eyes lingered on him thoughtfully. Momentarily unshielded by his camera, he caught her gaze and turned away in
self-conscious confusion. A tractable lad and willing enough to follow—she knew
that
better than anyone else in the room. Yet anything that couldn’t be captured through a camera lens seemed difficult for him
to grasp.

Jacob must see this, she thought, but would the ties of blood outweigh his devotion to Kohn and Munson’s impeccable reputation?
Or would he leave his share of the gallery to one of his protégés, someone like Benjamin Peake for instance?

She could keep Peake in line if she had to, she knew, shrewdly measuring his familiar, well-proportioned body with her hazel
eyes. Despite his Ph.D. in modern art, she doubted that he was as sharp as Jacob wanted to believe, but allowances were made
because Peake had been a close friend of Jacob’s son. They had met as fellow students at one of Meyer Schapiro’s seminars
on modern art at Columbia, and after Paul Munson’s plane crashed, Jacob bad transferred his paternal interest to Peake’s career.
Indeed, Ben Peake owed his present position here at the Breul House to Jacob, who had persuaded the other trustees to hire
him after that fiasco up at the Friedinger left him out on his ear. Jacob would not stand idly by and watch this place go
down while under Ben Peake’s direction if there was something he could do to help.

But what?

In accent-free English, Søren Thorvaldsen leaned forward to explain the similarities between his acquisition of a fleet of
cruise ships and the first Breul’s fleet of canal barges. They were kindred spirits, it would seem, and like called to like
even after a century and a half.

“As I understand it, your endowment has been much eroded by inflation and maintenance,” said Thorvaldsen, his keen eyes flicking
from Benjamin Peake to Jacob Munson.

“
Und?
” asked the older man. “
Und
I would like to help. If Dr. Peake and your board agree, I could underwrite the expense of mounting a major retrospective
of an important artist.”

“The Breul House doesn’t do that sort of thing,” Jacob Munson snapped, yet curiosity piqued him. “Who?”

“Oscar Nauman.”

The old man smoothed his thin gray beard and shook his head. “He will not do it.”

“He might if
you
asked him,” said Lady Francesca.

“My dear lady, I
haf
asked him. Many times.”

“Miss Kohn?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Hester Kohn. “I’d love to mount a comprehensive retrospective of Nauman’s work, but Jacob’s right.
He won’t even discuss it seriously.”

“But why?” asked Thorvaldsen.

Munson gave a palms-out gesture. “I think he’s superstitious,” said Hester Kohn. “Some artists are. They think a retrospective’s
the kiss of death, the beginning of the end, an official assumption that they have nothing more to say.”

“Nothing more to say?” exclaimed Thorvaldsen. “But this is a man who has found a dozen new voices in his lifetime.”

Hester Kohn uncrossed her trousered legs and sat more erectly in her chair. “Are you by any chance represented by Dansksambler
in Copenhagen?”

Thorvaldsen hesitated, then nodded.

“‘Autumnal’ and ‘Topaz Two,’” she told her elderly partner.

“So, Mr. Thorvaldsen, you own two pictures by Nauman?” asked Jacob Munson.

“Actually, I own eleven of his works and I’m told there are things in his studio that have never been exhibited.” It was not
quite a question and there was a touch of wistfulness in the big Dane’s voice.

“What do you think, Jacob?” asked Benjamin Peake and he, too, sounded wistful.

“Hester is right,” Munson told them with Teutonic finality. “Oscar will not agree to this.”

Lady Francesca stretched an appealing hand toward him and her soft brown eyes melted into his. “Dear Mr. Munson! Have you
not been Oscar Nauman’s dealer for over thirty years? And if you were to explain to him the situation here at the Breul House
and entreat him for old time’s sake—?”

Munson considered and Peake rushed into the lull. “If you approached him, too, Lady Francesca,” he said gallantly. “I’m sure
you could make him agree. I’ve always heard that Oscar Nauman responds to beautiful women, right, Jacob?”

Her smile did not falter, thought Jacob Munson, and the old man gave her full marks for self-control. Nauman tried to keep
his personal life private, but the artist was a public figure and rumors did get around. Jacob was under the impression that
Oscar’s affair with Lady Francesca Leeds had ended more than a year ago. He seemed to recall that there was a fresh rumor
making the rounds now. A lady fireman, was it?

Or dog catcher?

Something unusual anyhow. Leave it to Oscar.

Sunday, December 13

E
VEN BEFORE SHE WAS FULLY AWAKE, SIGRID
sensed a difference in the December morning light. And it wasn’t just the difference between rural Connecticut and urban
Manhattan either. She snuggled beneath a down comforter with her eyes half focused on one of Nauman’s early oil paintings
and drowsily noted a new clarity in the shifting planes of color, a new vibrancy.

A part of her brain cataloged the variance. The other part was still too drugged by sleep to care or analyze.

She yawned, turned over in the king-size bed, and abruptly caught her breath at what lay outside.

Oscar Nauman’s house sprawled along the edge of a steep, thickly wooded hillside. With no near neighbors on that side, he
had replaced his bedroom wall with sheets of clear glass so that nothing blocked her view of a tree-filled ravine that had
transformed itself into a Currier and Ives print.

Yesterday’s heavy gray sky was clear blue now and last night’s thin flakes must have thickened sometime during the early morning
hours because snow capped each twig and limb, softened the craggy rocks, and shone with such dazzling purity that sunlight
was reflected inside to intensify Nauman’s paintings and light up the room from unfamiliar angles.

A thoroughly urban creature, Lieutenant Sigrid Harald, NYPD, knew almost nothing about nature in the raw and, on the whole,
rather mistrusted unpaved lanes and trackless forests. She cared little for wildflowers or for knowing the identity of birds
hopping mindlessly around in treetops. An occasional
National Geographic
special on Channel 13 was her nearest link to wild animals.

Moreover, snow was usually an annoyance, dirty slushy stuff that got inside her boots or lay too long in messy heaps and,
by alternately melting and refreezing, made city sidewalks treacherous for walking.

But to gaze out for the first time in years upon a virgin snowfall unsullied by any footsteps filled her with unexpected wonder.

She pushed herself upright in bed with Nauman’s down comforter wrapped around her bare shoulders and watched a small black-capped
bird try to perch on an ice-crusted twig just outside the window. It misjudged the ice’s slickness and seemed startled when
its feet slid out from under its first attempt at perching; but it recovered, settled onto the twig, and hunched into its
gray feathers much as Sigrid hunched into the bedcovers.

Her breath puffed in visible little clouds and she felt a momentary twinge of solidarity with the bird. If it was cold in
here, what must it be out there? And how did birds keep their unfeathered feet from freezing anyhow?