Page 3

“It’s your choice,” he says. “But the painting is worth tens of millions of dollars, and you’d need insurance that would run you at least fifty grand a year, if not more.

It also needs a controlled environment. Temperature, humidity, things like that.

Old paintings are fragile, easily damaged, so you’d have to figure out a way to provide these kinds of conditions. ”

“You told me that the Nazis stashed it in a salt mine in some mountain in Austria during the war,” I argue. “That it’s been in a crate in the basement of a museum in Brazil ever since then.”

“The other thing is that you’re not in a secure location.

Again, I’m not going to tell you what to do, but if the media discovers you have an original Manet—which they inevitably will—the lure for thieves would be overwhelming, endangering both your safety and the painting’s.

Not to mention that you live in a building with apartments, not condos.

More turnovers, less scrutiny of residents, unknown people who sublease. ”

I don’t know what’s more annoying, that he knows what kind of building I live in or that he keeps telling me that it’s my choice, that he’s not going to tell me what to do, and then does exactly that.

The latter being something I’ve been averse to since I was a child. I also don’t appreciate being spied on.

Before I can respond, he adds, “There’s a small museum outside of Philadelphia, the Columbia, that has a wing devoted to recovered Holocaust artwork, and you could send it there on a temporary basis—until you make your final decision.”

“Condos or no condos, Tremont245 is extremely safe,” I tell him testily. “Twenty-four-hour security, long-term employees, cameras everywhere. And discretion is paramount. A senator and a star Red Sox pitcher live there—and it’s safe enough for them.”

“Do either of them have a multimillion-dollar painting?”

“It’s quite possible,” I counter. “I’ll check with the building and my insurance agent and see what I can arrange.”

I’M GOING TO keep the painting here until I figure out my next best steps, just for a short time, a few weeks maybe.

Definitely not long enough to warrant buying insurance or sending it to that museum.

And, really, if it withstood decades inside a mountain and in a basement, how much destruction could a modest sojourn to my apartment do?

A week later, an unmarked truck pulls into the service bay behind Tremont245.

Alyce, the building manager, texts me, and I go down to meet her.

Two guards, guns perceptible under their uniforms, lift a green crate from the back of the truck.

It has to be at least four times the size of Party , far larger than I imagined, vaguely reminiscent of a giant’s coffin.

Under the harsh gaze of the truck driver, who I assume is also armed, the guards carefully position the crate on a dolly and roll it into the service elevator.

The four of us ride silently up to my apartment.

Alyce bows out as the men place it on the floor between the two windows.

Then they proceed to put on gloves and remove it from its coffin, which takes no time at all.

The top is easily unhinged, and inside, the painting is fastened in place, encased within layers of what looks like hard plastic.

The guards carefully twist the bolts securing it, and Party on the Seine is free. They lean it gently against the wall.

“Is this where you want it?” the taller of the two asks.

I can’t take my eyes off the painting—my painting—can barely speak. “Y-yeah, yes, perfect.”

“Centered on the wall?”

“You’re going to hang it too?”

For the first time, he smiles. Then the other one pulls out a drawer in the side of the crate and removes a drill and a half dozen hooks so heavy-duty I don’t think I would have recognized them as hooks under different circumstances.

“Please, yes,” I stutter. “And, and, yes, centered. Please. Thank you. Thanks.”

This goes as quickly as the unpacking did, and soon it’s just me and Party on the Seine .

I sit on the couch, try to take it in, my head and my body and my mind buzzing.

No focus, no frame of reference. I flash hot.

I flash cold. When I belatedly realize that this was created by my very own uncle times five, all I can do is grin. Unforeseen consequences be damned.

WHILE IT’S TRUE that I don’t know much about art, I do recognize that Party on the Seine is extraordinary.

Even a small child could see that, and I find myself spending more time than I should sitting on the living room couch, just looking.

Instead of working at my desk, I stare through the open French doors, lost inside the painting, losing time in its swirl of life, communing with my kite tail of ancestors—my family—many of whom probably sat as rapt as I am before this masterpiece.

It’s so vibrant, sunshine jumping from a necklace, to a cheek, to an eye, to the rippling river, illuminating a moment of spontaneous fun.

I want to plumb its depths. There are fourteen discernible faces behind a lone woman looking out over the river to an unseen bank, her back to the others.

The partyers closest to her are more detailed, while the farther away the people get, the more indistinct they become, although somehow still radiating their personalities despite the soft edges.

I need to know what they’re talking about, what they’re thinking, how they happen to be on this boat together. Who they are.

While I’ve read a little about the painting, so far I haven’t come across any specifics on the people in it—whether they were actual friends or models or just figments of Manet’s imagination—so I’m kind of at a loss here.

Why is that dark-haired woman at the railing so melancholy?

Is the pretty blonde in a red-striped dress and a straw hat flirting with the guy sitting across from her or the one leaning in from behind?

And that man in the top hat with the pointing finger and flashing eyes, is he arguing with his girlfriend or his wife, or maybe, given the deep V at the neckline of her dress, with a prostitute?

I have no idea why these questions are suddenly important to me.

Maybe it’s the bright colors or the way the people are positioned so intimately.

I stand less than a foot from the canvas, close enough to see individual brushstrokes.

Some appear to have been painted with a wide brush, loose and kind of messy, while others, particularly around facial features and the women’s clothing, have clearly been put there with a much smaller and finer tool, graceful and refined.

I presume this was done with intent, but I wonder why.

So now I want to understand more about brushstrokes? I’ve never considered a brushstroke in my life. It’s almost as if I’ve fallen in love, greedily lapping up all the stories, all the minutiae, needing to know, to bond, to intertwine. Riding a bike without a helmet. Wind in my hair.