Cannibals and Missionaries (36 page)

The suspicion that someone had informed was inevitable. During lunch it was vacillating between Charles and Warren, the curator. Or so Beryl, who was in on their councils, reported. “Wouldn’t you know they’d want to hang it on a queer?” Beryl herself would have liked to hang it on “Simmie,” but there was no way: “The hag knows nothing about pictures.” The conchie minister, she said, knew about Lily’s collection, but that was from long ago: “Most of the things Ma had then have gone on the block.” The Economy class hostages had all been given a clean bill of health. “Ma pretends to be glad of it. Maybe she really is. Have you noticed that Henk likes her?”

But if Economy was excluded, it followed that the millionaires had to believe that the culprit was one of their own party or else that a tip had come from an outside source. You would have thought that they would have embraced the second theory, for their own peace of mind, but they were unreasonably slow in coming to it, said Beryl, and only through a process of elimination worthy of Sherlock Holmes. “The finger
can’t
point to Eddie and John. They don’t know any of us but Warren. And Warren, my God, is just an orientalist. How would he know about Johnnie’s stuff?” The logical suspect, among their own number, was Charles, of course. He had come back from his interrogation crowing that he had been “let off scot-free”; his own explanation was that he had persuaded the gang that the few porcelains he still owned were too fragile to be moved unless he packed them himself. Yet it could also mean that he had been “singing” for his supper. “Harold was all for ‘confronting’ him. Whereupon the others decided that they didn’t want to think that of him, really. You know why? ‘Because we’ve known him all our lives.’ That’s what they call ‘being fair.’” “Why don’t they suspect you, Beryl?” They ought to, in view of Ahmed, Sophie was thinking. Beryl shrugged. “Because they’ve known Ma all their lives, I guess.”

Anyhow, now they were leaning toward the “outside source” theory. It supported their faith in having been the sole motive for the hijacking. “This proves it to the hilt,” proclaimed Margaret. “Before we ever left our homes, these people knew down to the last brush-stroke what was in our collections. This was planned months in advance, as soon as some revolutionary read in the Museum bulletin about our tour to Iran. But they had to wait till we got to De Gaulle because the security at Kennedy was too tight!” “Idlewild,” said Harold. “But you’re right; this clinches it. How could they have got the nuts and bolts on my Cézannes in this godforsaken hole? No way. The only puzzler is why they waited so long to spring it on us.”

“Shouldn’t we be helping Helen to think now?” said Lily, looking at her watch. “She has to decide very soon. But there’s so much that she doesn’t
know,
that none of us knows. What are they plotting to do with the Vermeer, with all our lovely things? They can’t be thinking of bringing them here. I made bold to ask, but of course they wouldn’t say. All they said was that if I wanted to return to my family unharmed I must make a tape instructing them to carry out orders for the delivery of my Samuel Palmer and my Turners and Cotmans—they didn’t seem at all interested in Girtin, although he was so important. I had no need to know more than that, they told me. Just address the tape to a member of my family and precise instructions for packing and delivery would follow. But, as I tried to explain to them, since Joe died my only close family is Beryl. I wouldn’t trust my sister-in-law, dear that she is, to know a Cotman from—”

“Personally I think I’d go along, Lily. That’s the way I’m tilting myself. Play at being cooperative. I’ve pretty well decided to tell them that I accept. And with my Cézannes, I have more at stake. I’ll just make one stipulation. That I direct the tape to my lawyer. Whatever I instruct my lawyer, he’ll know that I’m under duress, so he’ll have the sense not to play for keeps. With a relative you never can tell. My lawyer’ll be smart enough to go through the motions of obeying instructions, in the interests of my and Eloise’s safety, all the time being damn sure that the government isn’t going to let him turn over a fortune in irreplaceable paintings to some reds representing these gorillas. The Treasury or the Attorney General will get a stay or an injunction or figure out some hokey-pokey. An agreement made under duress isn’t binding. What do you think, Carey? You’re a lawyer.”

“I can’t advise you,” Jim said, rather stiffly. “But I can tell you the law. It’s against U.S. policy to negotiate the demands of hijackers. If your lawyer starts negotiating at your instance, he will go to jail.” “But he wouldn’t
negotiate.
He’d fake and stall till the government stepped in.” “It’s not up to the government to do your lawyer’s duty for him. He’s an officer of the court. Of course he could arrive at some agreement with the FBI to seem to play ball with these folks, bait a trap with your works of art or reasonable facsimiles of them…. You’re familiar with the scenario, surely.”

“Well, fine. It adds up to the same, doesn’t it? If I accept, I’ve been a good boy, so far as the gorillas can see. And I’ll have gained time. They’re not going to shoot me as long as they think they have eight signed Cézannes in the bag. My lawyer’ll need proof that I’m alive before he agrees to deliver. Even if they start getting impatient, they’ll make up their minds to cool it.” Carey sighed. “If you want to address the tape to your lawyer, I see no objection that Jeroen and Company can have. But you’ll put your lawyer in a hell of a dilemma. He gets an instruction with your voice print on it. Is he supposed to carry it out or not? Either way, he’s placed in a questionable position. Your instruction tells him to break the law. As an officer of the court, his first duty, then, is to report it. At the same time, being your lawyer, he will feel bound to respect the confidentiality of the communication. If we assume that he’s scrupulous and reports it, not only does he ignore your express instructions, but he also, by the act of reporting it, frustrates any intention you may have of complying.”

The warning was clear, Sophie thought, but she was not sure that Chadwick understood. Jim was being cautious, for reasons of his own, and for the first time she saw in him the quality that had disappointed so many of his followers. Simmons saw it too. “He just won’t commit himself. Look at him, Sophie.” He sat lounging on the floor, with his back against a wall and his long legs stretched out, and was idly tossing a coin. Sophie admitted that this show of detachment must appear cavalier to the millionaires. Yet the very fact that their treasures were at stake—to say nothing of their lives, probably, if they refused—might excuse his reluctance to pronounce. She wished Henk would say something; Jim’s being a U.S. senator could be another element, not necessarily an admirable one, in his reluctance.

“What’s the difference between my lawyer and a relative?” Harold demanded in his customary suspicious tones. Carey caught the coin and with his other hand covered a yawn. “Only that the relative is under no obligation to report a criminal communication of this nature. Otherwise the position is the same.”

“So do you advise Helen to make the tape?” said Lily, anxiously looking at her watch again. “Sorry. I can’t advise you, Lily. It would be improper on my part. I’ll say this much.” Slowly he got to his feet. “Any of you who agrees to make a tape under the existing circumstances will
not
be regarded as an accessory to a criminal proceeding. On that score, you need have no inhibitions. On the other hand, it would be unwise to think that the making of the tape is the easy way out. Having made it, you may find that you are bound to it. Or that our friends will require a promptness in compliance that you don’t envision. Measures of an ugly sort may be taken to induce speed.”

“But if we refuse,” said Henry, “they’ll kill us, isn’t that the idea?” The collectors exchanged looks. “We had different impressions,” Lily said. “
I
certainly thought so, but some of us weren’t so sure. I don’t believe the word ‘kill’ was actually used.” “Not to me,” said Johnnie. “It was more of a vague menace.” Again, of course, no one had asked. “They left it to our imagination,” said Harold. “Depends on how much you have.” “They were
very
definite, though, about the deadline,” Lily put in. “Each of us has an hour from the time he was dismissed. I wonder why.” “Prolongs the torture,” Henry suggested. “And on our side of the fence, I don’t see the possibility of stringing the thing out, playing for time. We must give a Yes or a No.” Charles giggled. “Why, by the bye, is it always assumed that time is on the side of the angels?” “Let’s make the tapes,” declared Margaret, rising. “Where’s the harm in it? There’s many a slip…I shall direct mine to my butler. I’ve implicit confidence in his judgment. One’s children cannot be wholly objective. Remember that, Helen. Your eldest stands to inherit the lovely Vermeer, does he not?”

“No.” Helen, who had been pacing the carpet with short unsteady steps, plumped herself down like a stout little bolster on the sofa. “No to
what,
dear?” cried Lily in a voice of alarm. “No, I shan’t give them the Vermeer.” “Oh,
Helen
!” the ladies reproached her in wailing chorus. “No,” Helen repeated with a decisive wobble of her receding, indeterminate chin. “I don’t
care
what they promise. Jeroen swore to me that not a hair of its head would be harmed. But I’ve no right to take his word for it. Any more than if it were a child. The painting will stay where it is, Henry. They can have the Titian if they want.”

It became alarmingly clear that she intended to stick to her guns. Henry’s reasoning was useless, and Frank could not shake her resolution, though he was feeling it his pastoral duty to try. Like anyone who has arrived at an immense decision, she had a look of being at rest, serene as a rock in the midst of the storm around her. Bearing out the prophecy that they could be “bigger” for their experience, her dumpy form seemed to have gained a full inch and not only in moral stature. It was a matter of posture, doubtless; her small muffin head was drawn up and her chest thrust mildly forward as she sat unmoving in the “place of honor” vacated by Margaret on the sofa. Perhaps she felt proud of the dauntless stand she had taken or pleased to be the undivided center of attention, but, if so, it only showed in a vague, bemused little smile, which she directed at those around her benignly and sympathetically, as though, from her present modest elevation, they were no longer quite in focus.

She did not turn a deaf ear to their arguments and objections but listened politely, with an evident effort at attention, nodding from time to time to show that she was following, as no doubt she did at her club when a lecturer dealt with a topic that was “interesting,” although not directly to her. Facing her, Frank had drawn up a straight chair and kept hitching himself forward on it so as to be able to “reach” her. To the audience grouped around them he seemed to be giving a demonstration of his professional skills, like a doctor operating on a patient before a group of students. This was something he could not help, but the audience—or at least Sophie—could not help viewing it as a performance, that is, critically, forgetful of the earnestness of his purpose.

“Helen! You bear the same lovely name, ‘torch’ in Greek, as my own wife and daughter. Now let’s think a little about this Vermeer. In the last analysis, it’s a material object, isn’t it? Just oil and canvas handled in a certain way that you and I recognize as art. But that’s relative, don’t you agree? Depending on the culture we’ve been raised in. I mean, to an Eskimo or a Ugandan, the marks on that piece of canvas wouldn’t say a darn thing. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ as the old saw had it. Well, isn’t that pretty much accepted by art historians today? In art, we’re responding to a set of conventions, the way we do in our clothes and the food we eat. Some creative spirits want to overthrow those conventions, and I don’t say that I altogether blame them, even though I don’t always understand what they’re getting at. But that’s beside the point. The point is that in our society we’re making a shibboleth of art. We’ve learned that there’s nothing sacred or eternal in our dress fashions and food habits. We’ve lived through several revolutions in those departments, with women wearing pants and men carrying purses and our young people cooking in ‘woks’ and eating raw fish like the Japanese…. Well, you know what I mean. But our attitudes toward art are still as rigid as they ever were, paradoxical as that may sound. We reverence art as something sacred, when we ought to be using it for our enjoyment as we do today with our clothes. Modern art hasn’t succeeded in liberating man from the fetishism of Art with a capital
A.
We’ve come to worship a class of objects-paintings and sculptures—and we treat their creators as gods. If we all could be artists, as one day I hope we can, we wouldn’t feel that way any more. We wouldn’t look on art as precious property to be accumulated by any single person or society. Now, mind you, I think this totemism has a lot to do with the failure of organized religion. Despite church attendance figures, we’ve let ordinary humanity lose touch with the divine, with God. No wonder that the lucky few among us are tempted to put daubs of oil on canvas in His place. I say ‘daubs’ deliberately, Helen, to shock you. Remember, we’ve just agreed that to the Ugandan your Vermeer is no thing of beauty, and who is to say that he’s wrong?”

“Yes, thank you, Frank. Very interesting. I know you mean well. And I suppose it’s all relative, as you say. I’ve never cared much for African sculpture, though I know people who have a passion for it.” Frank hitched himself forward another inch and made a gesture of entreaty. “Helen! Do you still know your Ten Commandments?” She nodded. “Well, recite me the First, then. ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,’ is that what you mean?” “Yes, dear Helen. ‘Or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth.’ This terrible experience should bring home to us the good sense of that commandment. Of course what was being enjoined against at that time was the fashioning and worship of idols. Secular art was unknown to the ancient Hebrews and indeed to most of the ancient peoples. And the special genius of the Hebrew religion was that its God was invisible, that is, immaterial, not to be represented or imitated in any material shape or form. The Incarnation, of course, was a radical break with that view of Him. ‘And was made man.’ Still, I wonder whether the old ban on representation didn’t have more true wisdom in it than our own Church, reacting to the Puritan excesses, has been willing to admit. Did Moses foresee that the fashioning of images would be bound to lead to the worship of them? The story of the Golden Calf seems to point that way, doesn’t it?”