Tales From Gavagan's Bar (44 page)

             
Gross breathed deeply and looked around with a certain belligerence. Nobody contradicted him, so he went on: "So this is where that nogoodnick Hershie, my nephew, comes in. I am telling him about this, and he says he has got the answer so that I will not have to lose all the money I spent on this television. He says he has got a very valuable picture which is painted by a Frenchman, only he can't sell it himself because he don't know the outlets, but it is about a even trade for a used television set. So I take him up on it. See?"

             
Gross looked around again. Keating, obviously anxious to get the worst over with, said: "And this is the picture?"

             
Gross emitted a kind of growl and applied himself to his second Boilermaker. "And you know what?" he said. "I take it to Irving Schelmerotter, he's the dealer that buys for the
Mimson Museum, and he takes one look at it and says it's saloon art and to hell with it. So now all I got for my television set is this picture, and the kids will be wild because the television set is gone, and my wife will be nuts on account I got stuck."

             
Before he could lapse into gloom again, Tobolka said: "What is it a picture of?"

             
"A knife," said Gross.

             
"A what?" said Keating. "Why should anyone paint a picture of a knife? Or for that matter why should they hang it in a saloon?"

             
"No, you don't get it," said Gross. "It's a woodknife, without no clothes on."

             
Mr. Cohan leaned across the bar. "You wouldn't be wanting to show it to us now, would you?" he asked.

             
"I have to cut the string," said Gross.

             
"String we got, and better than you have on it now," said Mr. Cohan.

             
"Okay, since you ast me," said Gross. He cut the string and peeled off the paper. Then he hoisted the picture in its ornate gilt frame on to the bar and balanced it, looking at it with an air of melancholy pride.

             
"Oh," said Keating and Tobolka in unison.

             
The painting was one of a wood nymph of extreme, not to say flagrant, nudity. She sat on her curled-up right leg, which in turn rested upon a tree stump. Her left leg was thrust out to the side and rear. Her body was upright, with her head tipped back and her hands clasped behind her neck beneath a coiffure of approximately 1880. She was gazing at a painted sunbeam with a smile of ineffable idiocy. A pair of gauzy wings, although absurdly small by aerodynamic standards, testified to her supernatural origin. They failed to balance a pair of mammae of transcendental size and salience.

             
"It's by a Frenchman, see?" said Gross, and indicated the corner where the signature "Guillaume" was visible.

             
Keating donned a pair of glasses with heavy black frames and said, "Reminds me of the old White Rock ad; the one they had in the magazines thirty years ago, before some advertising man
whittled her down."

             
"Whittled her down?" said Gross.

             
"Yes. I compared some of the old magazines with the modern ones, and Psyche used to be a hell of a lot more pneumatic."

             
"Okay," said Gross. "But what am I going to
do
with it?"

             
"Your art dealer was perfectly right, my friend," said Tobolka. "An unusually perfect example of saloon art, even though Guillaume is a recognized painter. I suggest you get Mr. Cohan to hang it behind the bar as a parmanent exhibit."

             
Mr. Cohan shook his head. "Gavagan would never stand for it," he said. "This is a family bar, this is, and he wants to keep it that way. Would you be wanting your sister to look at a thing like that while she was drinking her Whiskey Sour, now?"

             
"I beg your pardon," said the young man from down the bar. "May I see it?"

             
"Help yourself," said Gross.

             
The young man climbed down from his stool and came around to face the picture. He drew from the inside pocket of his coat an eyeglass case and with a flourish produced from the case a pair of glasses, which he hooked over his ears. They had frames and bows of thin, plain metal, oxidized black, and the thick octagonal lenses gave them an old-fashioned air. An air of satisfaction spread across his face as he contemplated the major features of the composition. He peered at the signature, then turned to face Gross.

             
"Sir," he said, "I am not a wealthy man, but I would be willing to give you eighty-five dollars for this painting."

             
In the background, Keating gave an audible gasp. Gross lowered the picture to the floor and said: "You couldn't make it a hundred, could you?" he said. "I got to do something for the wife and kids after that television—"

             
"Eighty-five," said the young man, the lines setting firmly around his mouth. "Take it or leave it." He produced a checkbook and riffled it slightly.

             
Gross said: "One man to another, this is practically highway robbery, but you got a deal, Mr.— " He extended a hand.

             
"Bache," said the young man, shaking it, "Septimius Bache.
             

             
How shall I make out the check?"

             
"Just make it out to Mr. Cohan here, and he gives me the cash, see?" said Gross. "My name's Gross, and these here are Mr. Keating and Dr. Tobolka."

             
There was more handshaking. Bache said: "In honor of a successful operation, I think you should serve out a round, Mr. Cohan. I'll add the amount to my check. And oh, yes, will you take care of the picture for me back of the bar for the evening? I'm expecting to meet someone. Gin and Bitters for me; the Hollands gin."

             
The picture was passed across the bar, there was the exhilarating sound of liquor making contact with glasses, and Tobolka raised his drink in salute.

             
"Pardon me a perhaps very personal question," he said. "But if you're willing to tell, I'd like to hear why you bought that picture. Not that the price you paid for it was extravagant. I'm no expert, but from what I understand, this is about the market price for a^picture of the period. But why this particular one?"

             
Bache fingered his glass, glanced around the bar as though to see whether anyone else was listening, and then gazed at his drink. "I'll tell you," he said. "The same thing that brought me in here tonight. You see, I'm—" He hesitated, and sought strength in his Gin and Bitters. "Well, I suppose you'd say I'm a sort of a fetishist."

             
Mr. Cohan frowned. "There'll be none of that in here, young fella," he warned. "Not since that Englishman that me brother Julius arrested outside this very bar for molesting."

             
"But I don't molest. It's just that—"

             
"Him and his mackintoshes . . ." Mr. Cohan added darkly.

             
"Oh." Bache seemed a little brighter. "Mine isn't that sort of thing at all. It's what you might almost call a
normal
type of fetishism. Are you a psychiatrist, Doctor Tobolka?"

             
"No. I'm not even that kind of doctor. I'm a biologist."

             
"Oh. Well, I—I'd thank you for another Gin and Bitters, Mr. Cohan.—I've been to see one. I was getting worried and run down, and after seeing a Marilyn Monroe movie I couldn't sleep very well, and after I saw Gina Lollobrigida—"

             
Keating said, "And this makes
you
queer?" He started to sing
an approximation of a tune, which seemed to have the words, "I'm a fetishist, aren't we all?"

             
"Better you should go across the river and see some burlesque," said Mr. Gross. "Tempest Storm and you'll never sleep!"

             
"Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Cohan. "True enough there's no ladies in here at the moment, but—"

             
"But the trouble," Bache went on awkwardly, "was that I couldn't get interested in other girls, and I thought there must be something wrong with me. Well, this psychiatrist gave me a lot of tests and asked me some questions, and after a while said there was nothing abnormal about it, and I might as well recognize the fact and let it contribute to my own happiness. Only if I picked out a girl to marry, I had better see that she was—well-endowed, because I wouldn't really get along well with any other kind."

             
Gross drew in his breath noisily. Tobolka motioned for another round, gave a little laugh, and said: "It seems rather like a—er, a counsel of perfection. That is, unless you go to an art school and ask one of the models to marry you on the spot. I understand that even bathing suits are fitted with artificial aids these days."

             
"Falsies," said Keating. "That's what they call them."

             
"True," said Bache, "and you'd be surprised at the number of women who use them. However, I have an unusual advantage." He smiled slightly, took off the spectacles, returned them to their case, and tapped it with one finger before restoring the case to his pocket. "I have my ancestor's spectacles."

             
"Your ancestor's?" said Tobolka.

             
"Well over a hundred years old. In fact, about a hundred and seventy. In my state, I wouldn't part with them for anything."

             
"I should think glasses that old wouldn't be very good," said Tobolka.

             
"Oh, my eyes need only a slight correction for close vision, as when I was looking at that picture, and they're all right for that. But that is only the minor use to which I put them. As tonight. You know a Mrs. Jonas?"

             
"Ain't been in yet tonight," said Mr. Cohan.

             
Bache said: "I know. I'm waiting for her. She was going to bring in this Marian Marks who, she says, is just the girl for me. That's why I came prepared."

             
"I don't see—" began Keating.

             
"It's a rather long tale," said Bache. "But I'll tell you. I'll tell you while I'm waiting. Only it's a rather dry tale, too, and I think we ought to have something in the form of a libation to see us through it."

#
★
#

             
You see [Bache went on] about 170 years ago there used to be an old spectacle-grinder somewhere in the Vogelsberg mountains in Germany, named Hein Weissenbroch. This Weissenbroch was not only a craftsman; he was close enough to the court at Erfurt so that some of the enlightenment came off on him, and he wanted to make what were thought of as scientific experiments in those days. One of his ideas was that of making spectacles out of rock quartz.

             
["But," said Tobolka, "quartz has such a low index of refraction!"]

             
Exactly, doctor, exactly. You have to make the lenses so thick to get a major correction that it isn't worth while. Not to mention that clear rock crystal is expensive and hard to find. But in the first place, Weissenbroch didn't know this, and in the second, he wouldn't have cared anyway. He was interested in experimenting, not in proving what everyone knew already. And rock quartz has a better transparency than glass, and gives you less chromatic aberration. I've looked it up.