The Prize (4 page)

“Murray's work? Is that what the two of you were huddled over? That should make Nate happy,” Alex interjected.

“Why Nate?” Gerhardt wondered.

“He credits himself for her success.”

“Instead of her gallery?” Gerhardt groaned.

Edward glanced at Julia. Her face broke into a grin, and they locked eyes. She slipped out of the gallery. Edward excused himself and quickly followed.

“Smoke?” Edward met her on the sidewalk and offered her one from his pack.

“Sure. Why not?”

He tugged at his collar. “Don't they believe in air-conditioning?”

“We
are
in Europe,” she said, fanning herself with the handout and rolling her eyes. She nodded toward the gallery. “Such pretentiousness.”

“The Germans take themselves seriously.”

She nodded in agreement. “Is Alex Savan a friend of yours? He looks to you for approval.”

“Everyone knows Savan. He makes it a point, you know.”

“He's very successful, isn't he?” she said, rather wistfully.

“If you call it success.”

“What would you call it, then?”

“I'm not sure there's exactly a word for it.” He paused. “Horse's ass,” he said, and they both laughed. “Really, though. Once you get to know him, he's not that bad.”

“All that nonsense about Nate Fisher? The art world whore. He'll do anything for attention,” Julia moaned. She leaned against a lamppost on the sidewalk beside them and stretched her arms, revealing her soft curves. He looked around and thought to himself that in that moment he was in love with the city, with the old-world architecture, the steins of dark beer and sausages and little turnips and white beans he'd eaten the night before. With the ornate black railings in front of townhouses and the harsh, guttural sounds of the German language he heard from passersby on the street. With the utter foreignness of it all.

“Alex Savan. I don't know,” Julia continued. “He's a little too slick for my taste.” She shook her head, as if she took it personally. “How does he do it? He enters a room as if he owns it.”

“He listens carefully. That's his gift.”

“You're more brilliant than you appear,” Julia said, with a slight grin.

“Is that a compliment?” Edward lifted his chin, uncertain.

“Of course it is. You sound glum. Or jaded. I'm not sure.”

“I'm not. That's my problem. I still hope to be moved.” The pavement darkened and then the sun came out from behind a cloud. “We met once. Do you remember? After you got the Rome Prize.”

She raised her eyes and nodded. Then she put her cigarette out in the planter. Edward noticed the understated gold wedding band on her finger.

“Why did you come?” she looked up to ask.

He put his hands in his pocket and stared at her. “To the fair? I suppose I wanted to escape for a while.”

“What are you running away from?”

“It's good to have a break from the gallery. I realized on the flight over that I'm not sure I've ever known how to enjoy myself. I only serve,” he said, and heat rose to his cheeks and he laughed awkwardly.

“We'll have to make sure you do. I mean, enjoy yourself. Why shouldn't you?”

He looked at her and smiled. Maybe Berlin would be okay after all.

“I suppose we should get back.” She looked at her watch. “They'll be starting lunch soon.”

They pushed through the revolving door, Savan, lingering, watching. Edward excused himself for the men's, and Savan swooped in and escorted Julia toward the group awaiting them. Her value had gone up once he saw that Edward had taken an interest in her. He'd probably woo her over to Reinstein before the seven days were over, Edward thought, shaking his head.

Returning a few minutes later, he canvassed the room for Julia. Savan had left her side to chat up Gerhardt. Julia strolled toward the garden behind the gallery. He threaded briskly through the crowded hall to catch up with her.

“Has Savan won you over? I saw the two of you talking.”

Julia smiled. “It's amazing what flattery will do. What's more amazing is how desperate we are for it. I doubt he knows my work.”

“I'm sure he does. He knows a great artist when he sees one.”

“Or when someone else deems her so. I think he's lonely.”

“Savan? Maybe. His clients are his best friends. Or at least he'll tell you so. And not really friends, if you ask me, since there's a contract between them.”

Julia nodded. “Before. Back there. What did you mean by ‘serve'?”

“I didn't mean it the way it sounded. At the gallery I'm either serving the artists I represent or the clients we're selling to. I'm not complaining about it. It's what I do best.”

“You need someone to serve you.”

“I don't know why I'm telling you this.”

“I have that effect on people,” she sighed. She thrust out her chin and shook her head, as if uncertain of whether or not she liked being a person others confided in.

They walked through the gallery doors into the courtyard. Julia's cell phone rang. She excused herself to take it and walked toward the rosebushes.

Berlin was the largest city in Germany, home of the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, and the atrocities of the Third Reich. He felt its power, its magnanimity, its horrors and destruction as he looked up at the stone façade of the building and at the sharp angles and strong heights throughout the city. He thought about the birth of the German Expressionist movement before the First World War as a reaction against industrialization and about how history influenced art and that somehow he was a part of it all, or wanted to be. For years he had been waiting to lay his claim on it and thought that perhaps with the stable of artists he had invested in, artists like Agnes Murray, he was at the edge of achieving it. It
was a grandiose thought, but you couldn't be good in the business without a bit of ego, and it was a rare moment when he gave himself credit for his accomplishments. He gazed at Julia huddled into her phone and smiled to himself.

He lit up another cigarette, and waited for her while the others strolled toward the garden for lunch. She was a breath of fresh air among the megalomaniacs, the seekers, wishers, and climbers.

When she returned she looked shaken. He asked if everything was okay. Her eyes filled.

“I'm fine, really,” she said. “We should go.”

He held out his arm and escorted her to the beer garden where Gerhardt was hosting lunch. He sat across from her at the long table, draped with a white cloth and enlivened by a centerpiece of freshly cut flowers. Once seated, Julia's mood brightened. A debate had begun about whether artists like Koons and Hirst were responding to the media-saturated culture or simply creating sensational work that would please the public. Julia mentioned that she thought it was too easy. After the plates of tender bratwurst and sauerkraut had been served, Edward watched her become intensely swept up in the conversation. Her cheeks turned pink and she talked excitedly, gesturing with her hands.

She said she'd read that Koons had hired a consultant to create an image for him. She wondered whether Fisher had, too.

“Koons has stated that there is no meaning behind his work,” Gerhardt said. “Is that the case for Nate Fisher as well?”

“I'm not sure,” Julia pondered. “His work strives for meaning. But it's unclear whether he's aware that the meaning is . . . well, Edward said it earlier. It's banal. You might admire it if you like kitsch.”

He looked at Julia again. Her sincerity moved him. He breathed in the sharp scent of pollen and fragrant roses, sipped his wine, and leaned back in his chair. His eyes drew toward her again.

The waiter poured the coffee, and Julia stood up and excused herself. When she returned, her red lipstick was restored and her face again seemed composed. There was no sign she'd been upset earlier. She sat next to Gerhardt, instead of across from Edward, and though there was no particular reason why she would return to sit across from him, he was disappointed.

3 BERLIN

A
FTER
G
ERHARDT
'
S
LECTURE
and lunch, the Americans had a few unscheduled hours. Edward slowly walked to the Neue

Nationalgalerie. Under the glow of the September sun, the air was warm and pleasant and the violet and blue pansies in the windowboxes shimmered. He admired the elaborate cornices and lead-glass windows of the prewar architecture, and as he took in the pleasing sensations he told himself it was okay to enjoy himself. Away from home, flying overseas, taking solitary walks, he had to remind himself that he was lucky to have a full life at home: a career he enjoyed, and a beautiful wife and daughter.

As he walked he thought about his father, who had spent many summers in Europe doing research. He was approaching the age at which his father died, forty-two, and it left him unsettled. Sometimes when he thought of his father tears sprang to his eyes. He had dreams in which his father was handsome and youthful, unlike the last years of his life, when his illness destroyed his mind. The medications made him lethargic and withdrawn. He couldn't work anymore. He'd studied painting in college and had put it aside and when he couldn't work he'd taken it up again. He painted the same landscape over and over again from the window in his study. He said that when he looked at his hands he didn't think they belonged to him. Eventually he left the house only for psychiatric
appointments. That first winter he was ill, Edward was seventeen. He promised himself he'd do well on his final exams and be nicer to his mother if his father would return to the way he'd been before he got sick. Ice coated the windows of his bedroom, the steps to the house. The wooden floors were cold. The faint odor of sickness filled the chilly air. He refrained from putting on heavy sweaters to keep warm, and stopped hanging out with his friends, unable to find joy while his father was suffering, but none of the bargaining worked. When he was twenty-one his father died from an overdose of lithium. He could never quite put it all together.

Years before he'd gotten sick, his father took him on a trip to New York to view a collection of Keats's letters in an exhibition at the New York Public Library. He'd been working on a book about the Romantic poets, and after three years of research and writing was frustrated by his lack of progress and his inability to articulate his thoughts with the precision and clarity that had once come easily. After a long morning at the library, they took a cab to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His father's dark hair was unkempt, and wire-rim glasses shadowed his eyes. He was an elegant, sensitive man with a thoughtful expression and delicate hands. He ranted about his department and not having enough time to work on his book but once he was taken out of himself, coming upon a painted urn in one of the Greek galleries, he brightened. He believed that there were those who sought freedom through wealth and attainment, and those who sought it in art and literature, and he hoped Edward would be in the latter camp. The urn reminded him of Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” His father had been obsessed with Keats. He quoted from one of the letters he'd read at the library earlier that day. “‘The
excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth.' This, my son, is the reason for my living,” he'd said. Edward knew, as children of brilliant parents do, that his father was not ordinary. He was an enigma; he wondered if all parents were to their children.

His father's ideals became Edward's benchmark for judging a work of art. In college he studied art history and painting. He wanted to immerse himself in art. But the solitude required was oppressive. After a few hours of painting he couldn't wait to burst out of the studio and take a walk in the fresh air, or see a friend. During critiques he was more excited by his classmates' work than his own. Artists and the inspiration behind their subjects, their choice of medium and material, fascinated him. By his senior year he came to realize he didn't have the constitution and talent necessary to make a livelihood as an artist, and that it wasn't so much the making of art that moved and excited him, anyhow, but being in the presence of it. When he first began working at the gallery he couldn't believe he was being paid, pitiful as the salary was, to be around art that thrilled him and to work with artists who believed he could help them.

He walked the wide streets dotted with maples and lindens, thinking about his father's passion for poetry and art, the ability of writers and artists to express the inner life and elements of life itself, and wondered what his father would think of the work he was doing. He stopped to check the map he'd picked up at the hotel and soon reached the Neue Nationalgalerie, where, inspired by Gerhardt's lecture, he hoped to view some holdings of Munch, Picasso, and Klee.

He stood on the steps before entering the museum and checked his phone. Georgia, his assistant, had sent him a message that Agnes Murray had called. He punched in the gallery number.