The Goldfinch (123 page)

“What?”

“Well—Horst definitely didn’t know the painting was in Amsterdam, nor that Sascha was trying to get a loan on it, not until Sascha panicked and called him when we took it. Of that? I am confident. But: did Horst and Sascha collude to make painting vanish in the first place, to Frankfurt, with bad Miami deal? Possibly. Horst liked that picture very very much.
Very
much. Did I tell you—he knew what it was, first time he saw it? Like, off the top of his head? Name of painter and everything?”

“It’s one of the most famous paintings in the world.”

“Well—” Boris shrugged—“like I said, he is educated. He grew up around beauty. That said, Horst does not know that it was me cooked up the folder. He might not be so happy. And yet—” he laughed aloud—“would it ever occur to Horst? I wonder. All the time, all this reward sitting there? Free and legal! Shining in plain sight, like the sun! I know I never thought of it—not until now. Worldwide happiness and joy! Lost masterworks recovered! Anton the big hero—posing for photos, talking on Sky News! Standing ovation at the press conference last night! Everyone loves him—like that man who landed the plane in the river a few years back and saved everyone, remember him? But, in my mind, is not Anton the people are clapping for—really is you.”

There were so many things to say to Boris, I could say none of them. And yet I could only feel the most abstract gratitude. Maybe, I thought—reaching in the bag, taking out a stack of money and looking it over—maybe good luck was like bad luck in that it took a while to sink in. You didn’t feel anything at first. The feeling came later on.

“Pretty nice, no?” said Boris, clearly relieved I’d come round. “You are happy?”

“Boris, you need to take half this.”

“Believe me, I took care of myself. I have enough now that I can not do anything I don’t feel like for a while. Who knows—maybe go into bar business even, in Stockholm. Or—maybe not. Little bit boring. But you—that’s all yours! And more to come. Remember that time your dad gave us the five hundred each? Flying like feathers! Very noble and grand! Well—to me then? Hungry half the time? Sad and lonely? Nothing to my name? That was a fortune! More money than I had ever seen! And
you—” his nose had grown pink; I thought he was about to sneeze—“always decent and good, shared with me everything you had, and—what did I do?”

“Oh, Boris, come on,” I said uneasily.

“I stole from you—that’s what I did.” Alcoholic glitter in his eyes. “Took your dearest possession. And how could I treat you so badly, when I wished you only well?”

“Stop it. No—really, stop,” I said, when I saw he was crying.

“What can I say? You asked me why I took it? and what can I reply? Only that—it’s never the way it seems—all good, all bad. So much easier if it was. Even your dad… feeding me, talking with me, spending time, sheltering me in his roof, giving me clothes off his back… you hated your dad so much but in some ways he was good man.”

“I wouldn’t say good.”

“Well I would.”

“Well, you would be the only one. You would be wrong.”

“Look. I am more tolerance than you,” said Boris, invigorated by the prospect of a disagreement and sniffing up his tears in a gulp. “Xandra—your dad—always you wanted to make them so evil and bad. And yes… your dad was destructive… irresponsible… a child. His spirit was huge. It pained him terribly! But he hurt himself worse than he ever hurt anyone else. And yes—” he said theatrically, over my objection—“yes, he stole from you, or tried to, I know it, but do you know what? I stole from you too and got away with it. Which is worse? Because I’m telling you—” prodding the bag with his toe—“the world is much stranger than we know or can say. And I know how you think, or how you like to think, but maybe this is one instance where you can’t boil down to pure ‘good’ or pure ‘bad’ like you always want to do—? Like, your two different piles? Bad over here, good over here? Maybe not quite so simple. Because—all the way driving here, driving all night, Christmas lights on the motorway and I’m not ashamed to tell you, I got choked up—because I was thinking, couldn’t help it, about the Bible story—? you know, where the steward steals the widow’s mite, but then the steward flees to far country and invests the mite wisely and brings back thousandfold cash to widow he stole from? And with joy she forgave him, and they killed the fatted calf, and made merry?”

“I think that’s maybe not all the same story.”

“Well—Bible school, Poland, it was a long time ago. Still. Because, what I am trying to say—what I was thinking in the car from Antwerp last night—good doesn’t always follow from good deeds, nor bad deeds result from bad, does it? Even the wise and good cannot see the end of all actions. Scary idea! Remember Prince Myshkin in
The Idiot
?”

“I’m not really up for an intellectual talk right now.”

“I know, I know, but hear me out. You read
The Idiot,
right? Right. Well, ‘Idiot’ was very disturbing book to me. In fact it was so disturbing I have never really read very many fictions after, apart from Dragon Tattoo kind of thing. Because”—I was trying to interject—“well, maybe you can tell me about that later, what you thought, but let me tell you why I found it disturbing. Because all Myshkin ever did was good… unselfish… he treated all persons with understanding and compassion and what resulted from this goodness? Murder! Disaster! I used to worry about this a lot. Lie awake at night and worry! Because—why? How could this be? I read that book like three times, thinking I wasn’t understanding right. Myshkin was kind, loved everyone, he was tender, always forgave, he never did a wrong thing—but he trusted all the wrong people, made all bad decisions, hurt everyone around him. Very dark message to this book. ‘Why be good.’ But—this is what took hold on me last night, riding here in the car. What if—is more complicated than that? What if maybe opposite is true as well? Because, if bad can sometimes come from good actions—? where does it ever say, anywhere, that only bad can come from bad actions? Maybe sometimes—the wrong way is the right way? You can take the wrong path and it still comes out where you want to be? Or, spin it another way, sometimes you can do everything wrong and it still turns out to be right?”

“I’m not sure I see your point.”

“Well—I have to say I personally have never drawn such a sharp line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ as you. For me: that line is often false. The two are never disconnected. One can’t exist without the other. As long as I am acting out of love, I feel I am doing best I know how. But you—wrapped up in judgment, always regretting the past, cursing yourself, blaming yourself, asking ‘what if,’ ‘what if.’ ‘Life is cruel.’ ‘I wish I had died instead of.’ Well—think about this. What if all your actions and choices, good or bad, make no difference to God? What if the pattern is pre-set? No no—hang on—this is a question worth struggling with. What if our badness
and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can’t get there any other way?”

“Get where?”

“Understand, by saying ‘God,’ I am merely using ‘God’ as reference to long-term pattern we can’t decipher. Huge, slow-moving weather system rolling in on us from afar, blowing us randomly like—” eloquently, he batted at the air as if at a blown leaf. “But—maybe not so random and impersonal as all that, if you get me.”

“Sorry but I’m not really appreciating your point here.”

“You don’t need a point. The point is maybe that the point is too big to see or work round to on our own. Because—” up went the batwing eyebrow—“well, if you didn’t take picture from museum, and Sascha didn’t steal it back, and I didn’t think of claiming reward—well, wouldn’t all those dozens of other paintings remain missing too? Forever maybe? Wrapped in brown paper? Still shut in that apartment? No one to look at them? Lonely and lost to the world? Maybe the one had to be lost for the others to be found?”

“I think this goes more to the idea of ‘relentless irony’ than ‘divine providence.’ ”

“Yes—but why give it a name? Can’t they both be the same thing?”

We looked at each other. And it occurred to me that despite his faults, which were numerous and spectacular, the reason I’d liked Boris and felt happy around him from almost the moment I’d met him was that he was never afraid. You didn’t meet many people who moved freely through the world with such a vigorous contempt for it and at the same time such oddball and unthwartable faith in what, in childhood, he had liked to call “the Planet of Earth.”

“
So—” Boris downed the rest of his wine, and poured himself some more—“what are your so-big plans?”

“As regards what?”

“A moment ago, you were tearing off. Why not stay here a while?”

“Here?”

“No—I didn’t mean
here
here—not in Amsterdam—I will agree with you that it is a very good idea for us probably to get out of town, and as for myself I will not care to be coming back for a while. What I meant was, why not relax a bit and hang out before flying back? Come to Antwerp
with me. See my place! Meet my friends! Get away from your girl problems for a bit.”

“No, I’m going home.”

“When?”

“Today, if I can.”

“So soon? No! Come to Antwerp! There is this fantastic service—not like red light—two girls, two thousand euro and you have to call two days in advance. Everything is two. Gyuri can drive us—I’ll sit up front, you can stretch out and sleep in the back. What do you say?”

“Actually, I think maybe you should drop me at the airport.”

“Actually—I think I should better not. If I was selling the tickets? I would not even let you on a plane. You look like you have bird flu or SARS.” He was unlacing his waterlogged shoes, trying to jam his feet into them. “Ugh! Will you answer me this question? Why—” holding up the ruined shoe—“tell me why do I buy these so-fancy Italian leathers when I wreck them in one week? When—my old desert boots—you remember? Good for running away fast! Jumping out of windows! Lasted me years! I don’t care if they look crap with my suits. I will find me some more boots like that, and then I will wear them for rest of my life. Where,” he said, frowning at his watch, “where did Gyuri get to? He should not be having so much problems parking on Christmas Day?”

“Did you call him?”

Boris slapped his head. “No, I forgot. Shit! He probably ate breakfast already. Or else he is in the car, freezing to death.” Draining the rest of his wine, pocketing the mini-bottles of vodka. “Are you packed? Yes? Fantastic. We can go then.” He was, I noticed, wrapping up leftover bread and cheese in a cloth napkin. “Go down and pay up. Although—” he looked disapprovingly at the stained coat thrown over the bed—“you really need to get rid of that thing.”

“How?”

He nodded at the murky canal outside the window.

“Really—?”

“Why not? No law against throwing a coat in the canal, is there?”

“I would have thought so, yes.”

“Well—who knows. Not very widely enforced law, if you ask me. You should see some of the shit I saw floating in that thing during the
garbage strike. Drunk Americans puking in, you name it. Although—” glancing out the window—“I am with you, rather not do it in broad daylight. We can take it back to Antwerp in the trunk of the car and throw it down the incinerator. You’ll like my flat a lot.” Fishing for his phone; dialing the number. “Artist’s loft, without the art! And we’ll walk out and buy you a new overcoat when the shops are open.”

vi.

I
FLEW HOME ON
the red-eye two nights later (after a Boxing Day in Antwerp involving neither party nor escort service, but canned soup, a penicillin injection, and some old movies on Boris’s couch) and got back to Hobie’s about eight in the morning, breath coming out in white clouds, letting myself in through the balsam-decked front door, through the parlor with its darkened Christmas tree mostly empty of presents, all the way to the back of the house where I found a swollen-faced and sleepy-eyed Hobie, in bathrobe and slippers, standing on a kitchen ladder to put away the soup tureen and punch bowl he’d used for his Christmas lunch. “Hi,” I said, dropping my suitcase—occupied with Popchik who was pacing round my feet in staunch geriatric figure eights of greeting—and only when I glanced up at him climbing down from the ladder did I notice how resolute he looked: troubled, but with a firm, defensive smile fixed on his face.

“And you?” I said, straightening up from the dog, unshouldering my new overcoat and draping it over a kitchen chair. “ Anything going on?”

“Not much.” Not looking at me.

“Merry Christmas! Well—a little late. How
was
Christmas?”

“Fine. Yours?” he inquired stiffly a few moments later.

“Actually, not so bad. I was in Amsterdam, “ I added, when he didn’t say anything.

“Oh really? That must have been nice.” Distracted, unfocused.

“How’d your lunch go?” I asked after a cautious pause.

“Oh, very well. We had a bit of sleet but otherwise it was a good gathering.” He was trying to collapse the kitchen ladder and having a bit of a problem with it. “Few presents for you still under the tree in there, if you feel like opening them.”