The Blue Hour (46 page)

When Jasper rang the next night he was no longer masking his excitement.

“You have given us a treasure trove. The brilliance and uniqueness of the composition, the absolute assurance of his line, the exceptional density of detail, the fascinating contrast between the representational and the abstract . . . and, dare I say, the tragic nature of his story, which will be a fantastic selling point when it comes to generating great press and critical interest in the exhibition we plan to mount of these final works . . . I think we are looking at a major public triumph, and one which will, of course, translate into a significant escalation of our asking price per drawing.”

“Any sense of what that asking price might be?”

“At this juncture, I would probably be conservative about it and say, once we have drummed up the journalistic and collector interest I know we will generate . . . perhaps forty thousand per drawing.”

I sucked in my breath. Fifty drawings at forty thousand apiece . . . two million dollars. Fifty percent to the trust set up in the name of Paul Leuen.

“That's impressive,” I said.

“Might there be more of Paul's work left behind?”

“There must be a good sixty to seventy drawings in his studio upstairs.”

“Could you get those packed up and dispatched to us immediately, please? And were I to offer you a flight and a hotel room and an excellent dinner, might you be willing to come down and meet with me early next week?”

I had my iPhone out and was already scrolling through my calendar for next week.

By the time I flew down on Thursday afternoon to meet Jasper, I already had in place a Manhattan lawyer whose specialty was art contracts. Morton, meanwhile, having been fully apprised of this windfall in the making, had found a supersmart trust and estates attorney who was finding a wholly legal modus operandi by which the funds from the sales of Paul's work could be made accessible to me. If, as suspected, I could be coming into close to at least a million dollars net of Jasper's commission, besides setting up a trust for the child growing within me and perhaps moving house, I wanted to honor Paul's desire to buy an apartment for his daughter in Casablanca. Only, this time I would be sidestepping Ben Hassan when it came to everything to do with this sale.

But talk is cheap. And talk about serious money coming your way is even cheaper. Until all the work started to sell, I was not doing or promising anything. As the Town Car sent to collect me from LaGuardia Airport emerged from the Midtown Tunnel and cruised into Manhattan, I thought about Paul and his posthumous emergence as the major American artist I always knew him to be. He had such exceptional talent. But when it came to that other crucial ingredient—having the talent to have talent—he was living proof of a great truth: the greatest impediment we all have in life is our very own self.

I was checked into a hyperstylish boutique hotel located across from Jasper's gallery. The room was a monument to minimalistic chic. There was a bottle of champagne awaiting me, which I would bring out as a gift to Ruth tomorrow.

I surveyed the room and the cityscape panorama beyond its immense windows. I thought, He should be here, reveling in the fact that after decades of silently accepting his status as a creative also-ran—someone who had never achieved the critical and commercial status he knew he deserved—the door had finally swung his way. He was now being summoned inside with all the attendant fanfare accompanying his entrance into the realm he had so craved.

But instead of being in this room with me, he was out there, in the endless void that is the Sahara. The beckoning infinity into which he had run. A vanishing act from which there is no return.

I blinked and felt tears. I went into the bathroom and washed my face, reapplied my makeup, grabbed my leather jacket, and headed out into the Meatpacking District. Once I reached the pavement, I could see Jasper's gallery just yards away on the far corner of the next street. I walked to the corner, awaiting the changing of the traffic light. And that's when I saw him. On the other side of the street. Dressed in a white shirt, loose canvas pants, his gray hair cascading to his shoulders. I gasped. I told myself, This is not real, this is not him. I blinked again. Several times. And then focused my sight even more acutely on the man standing on the pavement directly opposite me. A man in his late fifties, six foot four inches tall, lanky, with a distinctive French pencil in one hand, a sketch pad in another. Without thinking, I shouted his name.

“Paul!”

He turned and stared directly at me. And smiled. So happy to see me.

Out of nowhere a cab shot between us, blocking my view for a second or two. When it raced away, Paul was gone.

I stood there, scanning all four corners of the immediate horizon. No sign of him. I dashed across the street, thinking he might have ducked into a shop or an apartment building. But there were no immediate entrances into which he could have vanished. Again I visually raked through every niche and recess of the area, running back to the hotel in case he had crossed when I wasn't looking, then racing across diagonally to see if, indeed, he could have headed down the street, or into Jasper's gallery.

I ran right into the gallery. There was a woman at the reception desk: hip glasses, a too-cool-for-school demeanor.

“Did someone just run in here?” I asked her.

She surveyed me wryly. “Not unless it was a ghost,” she said.

“I'm here to see Jasper.”

“Oh, really?” she said. But when I told her my name her attitude shifted.

“I'll be back in a moment.”

I rushed outside, certain that as soon as I was back out on the street, he'd be there in front of me. Smiling. So happy to embrace all the good that was about to happen to him, to us.

But the street, though brimming with an early evening crowd, was not harboring Paul. I looked east, west, north, south. Only a minute ago he was in front of me. And now? Back into infinity.

It wasn't a delirium. An apparition. A mirage. He was there. I'd seen him. With my eyes wide open.

But when do we ever fully open our eyes?

THE
BLUE HOUR
is my twelfth novel. And if there is one thing that links the disparate fictional terrains of those narratives, it is the realization that a novel is, in the end, the work of many people. Yes, writing is a singularly solipsistic métier. But only until you finish the last line of the first draft. At which point you truly need the canny critical eye of a brilliant editor. Which I certainly have in Sarah Branham at Atria Books.
The Blue Hour
marks our fourth collaboration—and Sarah could not be a better advocate for my work, not to mention so perceptive and astute when it comes to getting the best out of this writer. I owe her my great thanks. Just as I also owe a great debt to the head of Atria, Judith Curr, for publishing me so well.

At Atria, I would also like to tip my hat in the direction of Adene Corns, Suzanne Donahue, Jin Yu, Kathryn Santora, Arielle Kane, and Hillary Tisman. Just as, in Antony Harwood and Grainne Fox, I have two of the best literary agents imaginable.

All writers live with a personal demon (it's the nature of the profession). I am also fortunate to live with Dr. Christine Ury, my ever extraordinary and brilliant wife. Just as I would also like to acknowledge that my two children, Max and Amelia—now in training for creative careers of their own—are the best raison d'être imaginable.

Finally, a gentleman named Mohammed drove Christine and me in his 4x4 through the wild expanses of the Moroccan Sahara. He also got us out alive, becoming a friend during the journey. As such he served as a reminder that travel is not just about the otherness of the foreign. It is also about discovering a key truth: despite evident socio-economic-political-theologic disparities, we all share so many of the same dilemmas that comprise the human condition.

D.K.

Wiscasset, Maine

February 2016

ALSO BY DOUGLAS KENNEDY

F
ICTION

Five Days

The Moment

Leaving the World

The Woman in the Fifth

Temptation

State of the Union

A Special Relationship

The Pursuit of Happiness

The Job

The Big Picture

The Dead Heart

N
ONFICTION

Chasing Mammon

In God's Country

Beyond the Pyramids