Page 34

TWENTY-ONE

J onathan calls a couple of days after Party arrives. “Did the delivery go okay? How does the painting look? Any damage?”

“So many questions,” I tease.

“Are there any answers?”

“No damage that I can see—and, let me tell you, I’ve checked.

Pretty sure it’s the same as when it left.

” But I’ve got to confess I do feel a little differently about the painting.

I haven’t forgotten my imaginings about Berthe’s gestures.

Or about the three sole survivals. The latter like God saving the firstborn Jewish sons.

Could have been a miracle. Could have been a bizarre coincidence. Could have been total fantasy.

I’m betting on the fantasy explanation for both the pass-over and the gestures, but it’s not as easy to dismiss the whole emerging-unscathed-from-a- flood-and-an-earthquake-and-a-fire thing.

Put this way, it sounds almost biblical itself.

I checked into the incidents after Jonathan told me about them, and all three actually occurred. No fantasy there.

“I have a favor to ask,” Jonathan says tentatively.

“Seeing as how I owe you about a zillion, whatever it is will be difficult to refuse.”

“I’ve, uh, I’ve never seen the painting, and I was—”

“Anytime,” I tell him, happy to be able to return even a splinter of his kindnesses. “I’m usually at the office until seven or eight, but you name the day and I’ll meet you here whenever it’s good for you.”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, so that won’t work. But any of the next few nights after that are open.”

“Do you get Christmas Day off?”

“Even we conscientious Jews at the Conference don’t have to work on Christmas.”

“How about you come here late afternoon. We’ll hang with Party for a while and then get some Chinese. Good place not far from me.” It’s a long-standing secular tradition among Jews to go out to Chinese restaurants on Christmas, which used to be the only places open on the holiday.

Jonathan chuckles. “Excellent,” he says. “See you around five.”

THE CALLIOPE OFFICE is closed for four days, and although I have more than enough work to fill eight, I’m distracted by the prodigal returned.

Not too much of a shocker there. How can I concentrate on the boring stuff scrolling down my computer screen when I can just raise my eyes and see her in all her glory?

And how can her presence not spark guilt?

A multimillion-dollar painting in my humble abode? I have to get her somewhere safer.

Wyatt left on a ski trip out west with his sister and her kids so I’ve had time to resume copying Party .

When I drop into her, into the arms of my family, I’m overcome by the thrill of being together again.

Even after I come out of my fog and see what a horrible facsimile I’ve produced, I’m still comforted. How can I let her go?

I’m looking forward to Jonathan’s visit tomorrow, to having another person in the apartment.

I’ve got to be honest here—being alone with her frightens me.

Well, maybe “frightens” is too strong a word, but it definitely makes me uneasy.

If I hallucinate that Berthe moves again, I’m going to have to see a shrink, an event that could reveal a problem that will overshadow everything else I believe is a problem now.

When Jonathan knocks, I’m so happy to see him that I give him a hug. He hugs me for a quick second, then extends a bottle of wine. “Hope you like cabernet,” he says self-consciously, probably taken aback by the hug. We’ve never had any physical contact beyond a handshake.

I think about apologizing, but that would make it even more uncomfortable, so I take the bottle. “Cabernet is my favorite. Perfect choice.” Much more to my taste then Wyatt’s fancy martinis.

He looks around the apartment, which is essentially one open space, with my study off the living room and a short hallway leading to two bedrooms. He sees Party on the wall and turns to me expectantly.

I bow with a broad sweep of my arm toward the living room. “Come. Look.”

He stops about six feet from Party and stares at it, as I suppose he’d gawk at the Grand Canyon when seeing it for the first time. I stand next to him, equally enraptured, and neither of us moves for many minutes.

“Want to sit?” I ask. He nods, and without taking our eyes from the painting, we move to the couch. I put on my glasses, and more minutes pass. I wait for him to speak, not wanting to disturb his moment.

“Now I understand why you didn’t want to give it up,” he finally says. “I don’t remember the last time I saw a piece of art this powerful—and I’ve been to many of the great museums.”

About five minutes pass, and I go to the kitchen, fill two wineglasses, and return to the couch. Wordlessly, we raise our glasses in a toast to Party , then we sit there and revel in her.

“Whoa,” Jonathan says, and then begins to laugh at himself. “Now how’s that for a sophisticated response to a masterwork?” He stands and steps close to the painting, steps back, then comes closer again. “I’ve seen a lot of Manet’s work, but this is beyond his usual. Maybe even his best.”

“My great-great-great-great-great-uncle was clearly a genius.”

He points at Berthe. “And your great-great-great-great-grandmother was no slouch either.”

“Good genes, I guess. But unfortunately, they’ve been watered down through the generations, as my lack of artistic genius attests.”

“Have you tried?”

I shrug. “Not really.”

“Not really?”

I’m embarrassed to confess to my childish colored pencils, and then I do. “I sketch it, Party , sometimes. Always very badly. In an effort, I suppose, to get to know it better. To get closer to it.”

Jonathan nods at me thoughtfully, respectfully. “I can see how you’d want to do that.” And, to his everlasting credit, he doesn’t ask to see the sketches.

We have a nice dinner in a Chinese restaurant, noisy with families—mostly Jewish, we suppose.

We talk about our childhoods, Jonathan’s much more noteworthy than mine, with his Jewish father and his Haitian mother, who converted and became far more engaged than her husband in her adopted religion.

He asks if he can come by to see Party again, and I tell him he’s welcome anytime.

All in all, a very nice Christmas. Even if I didn’t receive any presents or get to go on an extravagant adventure with my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents.

I have two more days of my so-called vacation and try to get some work done with Party across from me.

I go as far as taking my computer to Starbucks to avoid the lure, like an addict who can’t be anywhere near her drug of choice.

But I’m guessing abstinence is going to be tough when I’m addicted to a painting that’s hanging on my living room wall.

A painting I need to find a secure home for. Maybe I could hire a guard?

Wyatt returns with a tan that accentuates his eyes, and we have a hot-sex reunion at his place.

I tried to get him to mine, but he claimed that, as we were both so behind because of the holiday, it made more sense for us to be closer to our offices.

I, horny girl that I am, succumbed. Fun and casual, just the way I like it.

The next morning, as we’re sipping coffee in his kitchen and watching the winter-clad wildlife making their way down the snow-covered Southwest Corridor, he gets a text.

He shows me that it’s from Nova Shepard, the investigator he hired.

Or, more correctly, I hired. He texts her back with a blaze of thumbs and says, “Nova found an inventory of the Bernheims’ art collection from before the war. ”

“And Party is on it?”

“Damn straight it is.”

I lean closer. “Do you think this will do it?”

He hesitates. “If Damien Manet wasn’t so vindictive, I’d say it probably would. But my bet is he’s going to claim that until we have hard proof that the Bernheims’ ownership is legitimate, it belongs to him. I’d put money on it.”

“And that’s where we’re screwed by the no records of transaction,” I say glumly.

“There were other paintings by your great-greats on the list, which, based on what you told me about the flooded salt mine, were probably all destroyed there. Do you want me to have Nova look into that? See if any of them survived?”

While it would certainly be fantastic to inherit more masterpieces, especially if there’s one by Berthe, I can’t afford it.

Actually, I can’t afford what I’m already spending on this suit.

Maybe, if all goes well, I can have Nova do it later.

“Let’s stick with the one for now,” I say.

“But this is more proof, right? The fact that the Bernheims had a large collection? More Manets?”

“It helps, sure. But as far as the legal ownership of a single work is concerned, the fact that they owned other paintings by the same artist doesn’t say all that much. Most collectors do.”

WYATT IS AWARE that Party was found in a salt mine, but he knows nothing about the other two disasters or the triple-sole-survivor weirdness.

I haven’t felt the need to tell him, as he’s working backward in time from the Bernheims, not forward.

And, to be honest, he’s never asked me about its life between the salt mines and me.

For such a smart guy, he’s startlingly uncurious.

Between Christmas and the first week in January, the weather is bitterly cold, with a battery of snowstorms, the likes of which the city hasn’t seen in over a decade, which gives Wyatt even more ammunition to argue that we should stay at his house.

On the worst nights, I do just that, having no desire to forge through sidewalks narrowed by banks of snow that have nowhere else to go.

It’s so bad in places that only one person can get through at a time, and you have to wait at the end of the block for them to traverse the shoulder-wide passageway before you can do the same. Wyatt keeps talking about Bimini.

I hate to think of Party all alone and unprotected, so when it’s passable I sleep at my apartment, and Wyatt either does or doesn’t join me.

Mostly he does, which is making me nervous, as we’re spending more nights together than I’m comfortable with.

I was sure his young, beautiful self would be long gone by now.

“Nova is going to come up with what we need,” he says one night at my apartment. “She always does. So you should contact some auction houses. Start to put out feelers. Can that guy from the Conference give you some leads?”

“He doesn’t have anything to do with Party anymore.”

“I could get someone at the office to check into it. It isn’t good for that painting to be here.”

“I know this isn’t the safest place—and I’m going to start in on finding one—but I’ve got to admit that I do love having her here.”

“See, even the way you talk about the painting is weird. It’s a piece of artwork, not a person. No gender. Not a ‘her.’”

“ Party was painted by my uncle times five, and the central figure is my grandmother times four. It’s more than a piece of artwork to me—it’s family.”

This doesn’t seem to appease him, but he does back off.

Later that night, I have a dream about Berthe and Party , a scary one.

Berthe is standing on the boat’s railing instead of behind it, her fists punching out of the painting.

There’s this shadowy thing—an animal, a person, a ghost?

—slithering around the outside of the frame, gripping the gilded edges with its formless tentacles, seemingly intent on engulfing the picture whole, sucking it into itself, destroying it.

Berthe is fighting, trying to loosen its grasp, but she can’t dislodge the creature.

She’s losing the battle, and I rush into the painting to help her.

Together, we wrestle with the being, but as we tussle, it grows, expanding in every direction.

It’s surrounding not only Party but me. A thick goo fills my nostrils, my mouth.

A putrid stench of decay overwhelms me. I can’t breathe.

Then the creature rips Berthe’s fingers from the frame.

She flails her arms madly, trying to maintain her balance.

But it’s not working. She’s losing her footing. “No!” I scream and wake myself up.

My shout wakes Wyatt too, and he takes me in his arms, murmurs comforting words about it only being a dream, only a dream, to go back to sleep. But I’m not soothed. It’s absurd, but I need to make sure Party is okay, still hanging in the living room. That we saved it.

When Wyatt’s breathing slows, I quietly climb out of bed and go to the living room. Of course it’s there, and Berthe is leaning on the railing, back to her resting state. “We did it,” I say out loud. “We beat it back.”

Her eyes seem to shift from the far bank of the river to me, as if she’s heard me and wants to respond. Then—and again I’m far from certain—it appears as if she’s shaking her head at me. I moan and cover my face.

Wyatt comes in, glances from me to the painting. “You have to get rid of that thing. It’s turning you into a crazy person.”

And he doesn’t know the half of it.