The Art Forger (32 page)

Chantal’s out front with a customer, of which there have been many since the arrest, and Kristi’s coming back to help me unwrap the paintings as soon as she’s off the phone. We pretend that Aiden’s at a meeting or getting lunch, gone for only a moment. We avoid mentioning his name.

Under normal circumstances, I might have already unwrapped the paintings, leaned them up against the wall, carried a few to the front to see how they might fit. Instead, I sit in a wobbly chair with one arm thinking about Virgil Rendell blackmailing Belle. If I’m right, then his family might have the original
After the Bath,
which they may or may not know is a real Degas. If he’s got a family.

My phone rings. “How you doing, Bear?” Rik asks.

“I’m fine,” I say, but my words come out a little raggedy.

“I’m here for you. You know that, don’t you?”

My throat closes up and, for a moment, I can’t speak. “I know that,” I finally whisper. Would he be there for me if he understood the part I’d played in Aiden’s debacle?

There’s a hollow emptiness on the line, then Rik asks with false cheerfulness, “Have you bought a dress yet?”

I know he’s trying to be kind, to distract me, but this is the last thing I want to talk about. “I took a cruise down Newbury Street the other day.”

“And?”

“I didn’t see much.”

“Did you try anything on?”

I dread the reinstallation without Aiden. A hole at my side. “There’s still time.”

“Like four days. Not including Thanksgiving.”

“I’ll go when I leave here.”

“If you want to wait until about eight, I’ll go with you.”

I don’t want him to come with me. He’ll just be going on about the rich and famous guests, the celebrity-chef food, Yo-Yo Ma on the cello, the Dutch tulips. Just as the media’s been doing all week. There’s never a mention of the reinstallation without a mention of Aiden, and I’m thinking about him enough as it is. And about how stupid we’ve both been.

“No thanks,” I say. “I’m at Markel G now, so I might as well do it while I’m down here.”

“Have you seen Aiden?”

I lower my voice. “We’ll talk later.”

Rik hesitates. “How about a hot haircut to go with the new dress?” he asks in another misguided effort to lift my spirits. “You never got to go to Canyon Ranch, so how about I treat you to a new do at Salon Arnaud? If you want some PR attention for your show, there’s nothing like a great haircut to make you stand out.”

My eyes fill with tears, an event that’s become increasingly common. It’s only an art show. As Isaac once said:
We’re not curing cancer here.
“Please. Rik. I’ve got a lot my mind, and—”

Kristi comes in, and I jump at the excuse. “Got to go,” I tell Rik. “Got a meeting.”

“The limo will be at your place around seven on Saturday,” Rik says, and I click off.

Kristi grabs two pairs of scissors, slides one across the table to me, and says, “Let’s see what Templeton’s magic has done for these puppies.”

And, indeed, I almost can’t believe that these extraordinary paintings are mine; like a good haircut, framing makes all the difference. For a moment, my troubles vanish, and pure joy overpowers me. I created this. And this. And this. My babies standing proud, bursting with life and beauty, graduating into the world, their future unknown but full of promise.

I
’M ON THE
floor in Sandra’s living room with the last of the boxes. I’ve been at it for almost an hour with no luck. Nothing more about Belle or Amelia in Rendell’s journal, nothing else belonging to him. But I’ve found a few photos of Sandra as a girl. She’s one of those rare women who have improved with age.

Last night, I scoured the Internet for information on Rendell, but aside from what I’d already found, there wasn’t much. Nothing on whether he was married or had any children, nothing on a painting career other than that of a forger who committed suicide. I know the chance of finding anything belonging to him is beyond remote, but remote is all Aiden and I have.

“Anything?” Sandra calls from the other side of the island, where she’s chopping vegetables for Thanksgiving soup.

I shake my head. “I figure I need solid information on at least five artists to write the book proposal, and I’ve only got three, maybe four. I was really counting on finding another one here.”

Sandra’s smile is warm with understanding. “Who are your others?” she asks.

“Like I said the other day, Whistler, Singer Sargent, and Ralph Curtis. I’ve found some information on Dennis Miller Bunker and your aunt, but not nearly enough. And nothing much on her personal relationships with Smith, Cram, or Martin Mower.”

“Maybe you can pad the proposal with marketing materials,” Sandra suggests. “If it looks like it’ll sell, the publisher will probably be satisfied with an annotated table of contents and three strong chapters.”

“Spoken like a woman who’s written a book proposal.”

“When you get to be my age,” Sandra says, “you’ve done just about everything at least once.”

I pull the last carton to me. Every item, folder, stack of ribbon-tied letters is from the 1930s and 1940s. In the beginning, I was more curious about each box’s contents, but now I could care less about pressed flowers from the courtship of some unknown girl who’s probably been married to the old fart for fifty-plus years by now. I pull each item out of the box and toss it on the carpet, then feel guilty that Sandra might think I’m not being respectful of her family’s history, and lay them down more carefully. But Sandra’s so engrossed in chopping vegetables, she doesn’t appear to be aware of me.

And then I see something that looks like a sketchbook. I remind myself that, so far, everything in this box is after Rendell’s time, that there’s no reason to expect something else of his to turn up among Sandra’s memorabilia. But still. I pull the book out, wipe the dust from the cover; a small “VR” is written on the top corner, just like the journal I found before. I press it between my hands, glance up at Sandra, who’s dicing onions with Julia Child–like energy, and open it.

The first quarter of the book is filled with landscapes, the next dozen or so pages contain sketches for a portrait of an older woman and four younger ones, most likely her daughters. Then there are nudes. The earliest ones are finely drawn, voluptuous and beautiful. But as I turn the pages, the bodies become more sturdy and coarse-looking.

The book falls open to two compositional sketches facing each other on opposite pages. Sweat scratches at my hairline as a full-body flush races to my face. I blink, sure that desperation, coupled with wishful thinking, is driving my vision. I blink again. It’s still there.

In the drawing on the right-hand page, Simone and a hefty Françoise are seated on either side of a standing Jacqueline, just as they are in Aiden’s
After the Bath
and my
Bath II.
But on the facing page, a delicate Not-Françoise stands next to Jacqueline with a hunched Simone at Jacqueline’s feet, just as they are in Degas’ sketchbook. My mind goes blank, and the room seems to slide away.

A
S IF WAKING
from a dream, I hear the sizzle of onions hitting hot oil, inhale the sharp, sweet odor, but can’t quite find my bearings. I look at the open sketchbook on my lap, dumbfounded, muddled, not sure what to do next.
Thunk-thunk
goes Sandra’s knife. More sizzle. Celery perhaps. I slowly put the scattered items back in the box but hold onto the sketchbook. Although the two drawings appear to confirm my theory that there was an original
After the Bath
and that Virgil Rendell painted the forgery that Aiden brought to me, I can’t be certain until I compare them with Degas’ compositional sketches.

My brain struggles for a way to take Rendell’s book with me. Clearly, Sandra would never know if I dropped it into my backpack, and the idea has some appeal. But despite my adventures on the wild side and my omissions to Aiden, I can’t do it. I stand and say in a tremulous voice, “Just as you thought, nothing in here.”

“Oh, Claire.” Sandra keeps chopping, but she looks at me sadly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. That’s the way it goes with historical research. Maybe this whole book proposal thing isn’t the greatest idea.”

She perks up. “If the Markel G show is a success, the last thing you’ll be thinking about is writing a book.” Then she frowns. “Such a shame. Such a handsome young man. Will any of this affect your show?”

“Everything’s moving forward as planned. He’s got some very talented assistants who are doing a remarkable job. Believe it or not, since all this happened, traffic at the gallery has doubled, maybe tripled. Sales, too.” I try to sound upbeat, but I don’t fool Sandra.

Her eyes fill with sympathy. “Take it from an old woman, if this doesn’t work out, something else will. Life is like that.”

I hold up Rendell’s book. “There are some interesting sketches in here,” I say. “No name or anything, but they’re quite nice.”

She throws some fresh oregano in the soup, tastes it, throws in some more.

“Would you mind if I took it with me? Just for a day or two. I’d like to study the drawings more closely.”

She squints at the sketchbook. “I don’t know . . .”

“I’ll take good care of it, I promise,” I plead, hoping her compassion will translate into consent.

She hesitates, then shrugs. “Sure. I guess. Maybe it’ll take the edge off your disappointment.”

“Great. Thanks.” I put the book in my backpack and leave before she can change her mind.

As I ride the T to Copley Square, I don’t open my backpack, just hold it tightly to my chest. I want to wait until I get to the studio, until I have Degas’ compositional sketches in front of me. The sketches of Not-Françoise. Of her altered position in the painting’s arrangement, of her altered body. I stare out the trolley window at the snarled traffic on Huntington Avenue and try not to think about what I may, or may not, have here. Whether it might help Aiden.

When I get home, I scramble through my book piles for
Edgar Degas: Sketches and Drawings, 1875–1900
and quickly locate the drawings I want. Then I open to Rendell’s two sketches. I place the books side-by-side on the floor and raise my eyes to the ceiling. I don’t know how I’ll bear it if I’ve only invented the similarities.

I lower my gaze to Degas’ compositional sketches. They are almost identical to the left-hand page of Rendell’s book: Jacqueline, Simone, and Not-Françoise. Not-Françoise, who is small, refined, and tiny waisted. Not-Françoise who is standing rather than sitting, shifting the composition from
Bath’
s symmetry to Degas’ preferred asymmetrical balance.

I look again. And again. There appears to be no doubt.

I’m holding my own personal Rosetta Stone. Aiden’s, too. I hope.

Forty

I told you not to come back here,” Aiden says, but he can’t suppress a slim smile.

I dare to look at his hands and see he still has ten fingers, although the one is still splinted. “How long do you have?”

He follows my eyes, and his smile disappears. “A week, maybe two,” he says, his voice flat and toneless. “That’s why you have to leave.”

A week.
“There’s something I have to tell you.” I’m sitting in a different bathroom-stall-sized room. I know because there’s a 22A instead of a 35A on the door; other than that, the overheated stuffiness, the broken clock, and the claustrophobic closeness of the walls are exactly the same.

“It’s good, possibly great,” I say. “I’ve found proof that the painting you brought to my studio was a forgery.”

“No, it wasn’t,” he says. “I know where it came from. It was authenticated.”

“So was
Bath II.
”

His jaw tightens. “It’s impossible.”

“Degas’ compositional sketches for
After the Bath
don’t match the painting you brought me.”

“So what? How many of your finished paintings match your initial drawings? Artists change their minds. Art’s changed by the process of making it. You know that.”

I choose my words carefully. “I have sketches by a known forger. One set that match Degas’ compositional drawings and another that match the finished painting.”

“What forger?”

“Virgil Rendell.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He knew Isabella Gardner. Was apparently on the outside of her circle. It appears they had a falling—”

“Claire, don’t lose it on me here.”

“I’m thinking Rendell either stole the original painting or blackmailed Belle or pulled some kind of sleazy revenge act, which forced her into hanging his forgery as her Degas. If that’s the case, then his family most likely has it. So if I can find it, it’ll prove your painting was a copy, and the one they caught Patel with was a copy of a copy. Just like he claims.”

“The painting I brought you was not a copy of anything.” Aiden grips the edge of the shelf; his knuckles are white. “It hung in the Gardner for almost a hundred years.”