Masterpiece (11 page)

“I
’m so glad nothing happened to you, little guy,” James said as he placed the paper in front of Marvin and shook the bottle of ink. “I mean, I kept thinking, ‘What if he got stepped on?’ Or, ‘What if the janitor came and swept you up in the garbage?’ ”

Marvin thought this sounded like something Elaine would say.

But James continued happily, “I hope you can do this! I mean, she’s totally counting on you. You know what this is like? This is like that fairy tale, the one with the girl and the straw. What’s it called? . . . ‘Rumpelstilt-skin?’! Remember? Where the girl’s locked in that room of the castle and she’s supposed to spin the straw into gold or else they’ll chop off her head?”

Marvin shuddered. No wonder human children found it entertaining to pull the legs off beetles, hearing stories like these. He crawled over to the drawing paper.

“And then that little elf or something comes and
helps her, and nobody knows it,” James finished. “Like you’re helping me. Except it turns out the elf’s kind of mean, and I can tell you’re not mean. You’re really, really nice.” He took a deep breath.

“Okay, ready? Here’s your ink.” He unscrewed the cap, setting it down next to Marvin. “And what I’ll do is, I’ll put the book up like this”—he propped the huge volume upright, arranging other books on the table to hold it open—“so you can see it while you work, you know? Otherwise it’d be too hard; you’d have to crawl back and forth while you’re drawing. This way, it’s kind of like looking through the window in my room. Do you think you can do it?”

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it? Marvin gazed at the drawing. James was right, it wasn’t so different from looking through the bedroom window at the city street. Everything was there, in proportion; all he had to do was transfer it to the page.

But it was a drawing by a brilliant artist, made hundreds of years ago! How could he copy something like that without messing up?

It didn’t help to think that way, Marvin decided . . . just like it didn’t help to think about the dark water in the drain, or what might be floating there when you were about to dive in. Your only hope was to stop thinking and do it.

He took a deep breath, dipped his front legs in the ink, and went to work.

The blank expanse of paper was overwhelming, but
Marvin focused on an area the size of the drawing, marking the corners of an imaginary three-by-three-inch square with microscopic dots of ink. Then he began to draw. He concentrated on making his strokes as crisp and firm as Dürer’s, without sacrificing the delicacy of the line. He started with the girl’s tightly curled hair. Then he moved to the curve of her face.

James sat at the table with his arms crossed in front of him, his chin resting on them. Mostly he was silent, but sometimes he whispered encouragement: “Hey, good job,” or “That part is tricky . . . . You can do it.” Marvin nearly forgot James was there, so intent was he on the drawing. The girl took shape, her sturdy, muscled limbs
bulging through the cloth of her gown. The lion was easier somehow, its body held tight in the circle of human arms. Carefully, Marvin added the cross-hatching over its flank, then the flourish of its curling tail.

“That’s
great
,” James said in a low, breathless voice, as if afraid to break the spell.

Marvin discovered that if he copied individual parts of the drawing too mechanically, his lines seemed stiffer than Dürer’s. So he tried to capture the flow of the whole image. The hardest part was making his lines fluid and sure, as if he were drawing something new, all by himself, for the first time.

“Hey,” James said suddenly, looking at the clock on Christina’s desk. “It’s almost five-thirty. They’ll be back soon. Can you finish it?”

Marvin worked faster, slipping into the strange trance he’d felt when he first started sketching the scene outside James’s window. It was a way of settling deep inside himself, lost to the outside world. He had no sense of anything but the page in front of him, the lines of ink blossoming into a picture.

Finally, the drawing was complete.

Marvin backed off the paper, holding his ink-stained legs aloft.

James nodded slowly, barely breathing. “It looks just like the other one!”

Marvin stared at it. It was all there: the crouching girl and her lion, every detail faithfully reproduced on the page. But was it as good as Dürer’s? Marvin felt
so much less certain of it than he had of his window drawing.

James, however, seemed perfectly confident. “They’re not going to believe this,” he said, grinning.

Minutes later, Karl, Christina, and Denny walked through the door. James had already secured Marvin in his jacket pocket to avoid a repeat of yesterday’s scare. Marvin gripped the flap, anxiously watching Christina’s reaction.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Oh, James!”

Denny laughed out loud.

Marvin couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. Did they like it?

“Wow,” said Karl, approaching the table.

James stepped backward, fiddling with the zipper on his jacket. Marvin looked up and saw the same pink flush creeping over his cheeks.

“James, this is
excellent
,” Christina said, lifting the paper. “I can’t believe it. I have to confess, I thought it was worth a try, but—Denny, look! Did you ever imagine he’d be able to do it so well?” She turned excitedly to Karl. “Did you?”

To his surprise, Marvin saw that the dynamic between them had entirely shifted, the prickly short-temperedness gone. Karl smiled at her, his face mirroring her enthusiasm.

“No! I thought he could get the line right, but copying something requires a different skill altogether. The proportions are really good here, James—the way you’ve got them in space. Hmmm. I think the overall effect in the Dürer is not quite so crowded, though. Do you agree?” Karl said this to Christina, who looked more closely at the image in the book.

Marvin saw what he meant. In the original, despite its miniature size, the girl and the lion formed a broad triangle in space.

“True,” said Denny. “But it’s very fine work. The technical command is extraordinary.”

Christina nodded. “And this is his first try.
And
it’s from a reproduction in an art book, not from the original drawing.” She paused, shaking her head. “I’m almost afraid to say this, but it’s given me hope.”

Marvin glanced up at James, who clearly shared his bewilderment. What was she talking about?

“Hope for what?” Karl asked.

“Yes, Christina, do tell,” Denny added. “Your plans have been a mystery long enough. Why a copy of
Fortitude
? Still smarting because I outbid you on it at auction?”

Christina laughed at him. “No, no, I got over that a long time ago.”

“Why then?” Denny persisted. “Why do you need a copy of
Fortitude
?”

Christina’s eyes sparkled. “Because,” she said slowly, her voice barely containing her excitement, “it’s about to be stolen.”

“W
hat?” cried Denny and Karl simultaneously. Marvin poked his head farther out of the pocket, almost toppling to the floor.

Christina smiled. “Not the real drawing! Don’t worry. James’s copy of it.”

“I don’t understand,” Karl said.

Denny frowned, raking his hair back with one hand. “Nor do I. And since the real one belongs to the Getty, I think I’d better hear the details of this. Perhaps we should sit down.”

Christina pulled out a chair and sank into it, placing the drawing in front of her, her slim hands flanking it on the table. Denny and Karl sat down on either side of her, but James remained standing.
So I can see
, Marvin thought gratefully.

“Well,” Christina began, “Denny’s familiar with the background of all this, but I doubt you two are.” She turned to Karl. “Know anything about art heists?”

“Sure,” Karl said. “The famous ones. The
Mona Lisa
. The Gardner Museum in Boston.”

“What?” asked James. “What are those?”

Christina took off her glasses and set them on the table, staring at the drawing. “The most famous art thefts of all time. The
Mona Lisa
was taken in 1911. An Italian workman took it from the Louvre, planning to return it to Italy. It was missing for two years, but they got it back.” She rubbed her forehead. “The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum wasn’t so lucky. The biggest single art theft in history—in 1990, two men dressed as police officers arrived in the early morning, saying they were responding to a call. They handcuffed the security guards and stole three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a Manet, and five Degas paintings, among others. The whole lot was worth almost four hundred million dollars. They’ve never been found.”

“Wow,” said James. Marvin thought of all those paintings, gone.

James looked at Christina. “But why do people steal them? What do they do with them?”

Christina sighed. “Usually, it’s for the money,” she said. “But of course the paintings are often so well known, they can’t be sold openly, at auction.”

Denny nodded, rubbing his forehead. “The market in stolen art is a difficult one. Thieves can’t sell to museums or reputable dealers. Any private collector who buys a stolen painting can’t display it publicly. He’d have to want it for its own sake—just for the art—and be willing to enjoy it in private.”

Christina nodded. “So it tends to be a black-market business. . . . Criminals trade the paintings for other forbidden things, like drugs or guns.”