The man in the starched collar told him that he’d personally made the object, that he’d been commissioned to make it, and that once he’d finished making it, he should deliver it to this address.
‘I never commissioned anything,’ Arno said, acting dumb.
‘You weren’t the customer,’ the man said. ‘You’re just the recipient.’
Arno asked if he could know what was inside the parcel. At this, the man took on a slightly more doleful expression and began to describe his purpose: ‘I never meant to get into this line of work. I was trained at the Berlin Academy. I had a future. I’ve sold my work to reputable clients. Doctors. Bankers. But these days, I find there’s more money to be made from forging. That’s what you’re holding in your hands, a forgery. I’m not proud of myself, but I have to say, the work is good. There aren’t many people who can produce a replica of this quality.’
Arno began to pull away the brown wrapping. Beneath it was a painting. It was a picture of a boy. Arno knew nothing about art and nothing about the difference between a good painting and a bad one. Still, the image was a startling one. It showed a young man with a great blossom of brown hair and a strange, frightened expression on his face. His arm was recoiled, his bare shoulder squeezed up against his neck. Looking more closely, Arno could see the hand of the boy was recoiling from being bitten by what looked like a lizard jumping up from a bunch of grapes. It was one of the strangest pictures he’d ever seen.
‘What is it supposed to be?’
‘It’s a Caravaggio,’ the stranger said, as if it was perfectly obvious what it was. ‘Boy Bitten by a Lizard. That’s what it’s called, this one.’
‘Caravaggio?’ Arno asked, struggling to repeat the word. It was faintly familiar – the artist’s name most probably – but beyond that, it meant nothing to him.
‘Caravaggio. He’s Italian. Very well-known, if you know your art.’
‘This is a fake? By that artist?’
The man nodded. His expression remained grave and aloof.
‘What am I supposed to do with it?’ Arno said. He was beginning to sober up, but still, he had that kind of loose-tongue curtness he enjoyed when he was drunk. It made him feel that nobody was above him.
‘Whatever you want to do with it. So long as I’ve been paid, it’s not my concern.’
Arno looked around him. They were still stood on the landing half-way up the staircase. He looked down through the gap between the bannisters to see if anyone was coming.
‘Is it from the police?’ he asked.
‘Turn it over,’ the man said.
Arno pulled back the wrapping some more. On the rear side of the painting was a sheet of typed paper fixed with tape. The paper was titled with a single word: ‘Provenance’. The text below appeared to describe some sort of history. It listed names and places, most of them Italian in their sounding. Cardinal so-and-so from Rome, Principessa so-and-so from Naples. Arno’s eyes skimmed over the list, unable to grasp its meaning.
The stranger explained it was a list of previous known owners. ‘That list is supposed to prove that the painting is genuine. That’s what historians like to get hold of, so they can be sure of the journey the object has taken. It’s meant to be proof. In my opinion, the painting itself is good enough.’ His words trailed off.
‘This is a history of owners?’
‘Correct.’
‘But a made-up history?’
‘In a manner. There is a real painting in Italy that looks just the same as this one, of course. And that painting has its own history. Only, this one has been given a new twist.’
Arno’s head was beginning to clear. He knew he had to get to grips with the object. He knew it would be significant. He felt he wanted to invite the art forger into his attic to quiz him further on what it all meant, but the man was already descending down the staircase. He seemed to want to escape. Arno called after him but he was already on the floor below and trickling downwards at a pace. Arno waited a few moments, then went up to his attic room carrying the canvas under his arm.
He began to think back to his alter-ego as described in the paperwork from the police. He went straight to the written biography and found a passage that he’d previously skipped over. Just like at school, he never managed to get to the end of anything:
I have established myself as an art dealer with a special interest in the Jewish question. Many great works of art lie within the private collections of Jewish families across Europe and are also subject to this dilemma. I have made it my purpose to liberate these paintings from the clutches of Jewish collectors for the greater public good and the cultural benefit of the German people.
Arno sat on his bed and read the passage over several times. He began to take note of its peculiar thrust, its defiant tone dressed up in moral purpose. He’d not noticed it before – or at least had not wanted to notice it anyway. He’d not seen the mention of ‘the Jewish question’, or if he had, he hadn’t thought to dwell on it.
He took the forged painting and did his best to wrap it back up in the brown paper. He slid the parcel beneath his bed and covered it with a blanket. Then, as he lay back on his lumpy mattress and allowed the spiral of drunken tiredness to take hold again, he began to think of Monika. Where in God’s name was she? Nobody seemed to know. After ten minutes, he was fast asleep.
22
The following morning, Arno took a tram to Mulackstrasse, clutching the wrapped-up painting in his hands. He held it in front of him like he was holding a pane of glass.
He’d dressed as best he could. He had a special pair of shoes his parents had given him for his birthday one year, shoes that were actually too small for his wide feet, but for today’s occasion he squeezed into them.
He would have preferred to save the shoes for a more important day in his life, like marrying Monika or going to his mother’s funeral. Maybe today was important enough, he decided. He looked down at his mustard coloured footwear with the laces fashionably set to one side, with brightly coloured stitching and short, floppy tassels. He stepped between puddles on the pavement to avoid any early scarring, but the Berlin rain was attacking him from every direction. By the time he arrived at the gallery, the shoes, along with the paper parcel, were pockmarked with damp.
Then he noticed the window of the gallery. It had a sign saying New German Art. He was in half a mind to turn around and go home. It was the last place he wanted to step foot into today.
As he opened the door, a lady greeted him. She was middle-aged, had thick eyebrows and was wearing a dress with seagulls printed on the fabric. In her hair she had a large pin in the shape of what looked like a swallow or a house martin.
‘I’m here to see Herr Lassner. Is he around?’
‘Do you have an appointment?’ she asked politely.
‘No, but he should be expecting me.’
‘Herr Lassner has had to leave the premises for a short time,’ came the reply. ‘But you are welcome to look around our new exhibition.’ She handed him a diagrammatic guide to the current show. Her sharp eyes and vivid red lipstick gave her away: highly-educated, enterprising, bird-loving, expectant of great things in her life but maybe a little too old to achieve them. Arno felt sorry for her immediately. Perhaps he should have told her she deserved better than to be handing out floor-plans to indifferent guests like him; but then, what did he know of her ambitions? She was probably following her dream.
With an open palm she directed him towards a pair of frosted glass doors that slid open on invisible wheels, parting silently in a smooth, modern way. On the other side of the glass were paintings by some two-dozen German artists. The brightly coloured works hung in their simple dark-wood frames like lanterns in a long winter, intense packets of colour along a snowdrift of white wall.
Arno toured in silence. He was too self-conscious to stop and look at anything in detail. He realised he had adopted an awkward pace of walking that was not him at all. It was a mournful, irregular step, stopping
and starting, like he was walking around a graveyard.
He was not alone in the gallery. His companion for the exhibition was a tall, well-dressed man with narrow shoulders and a morbid way of stooping in front of every painting for prolonged periods. Arno could see only the back of his head. He moved about quietly and correctly, shifting from one picture to the next as if the strange gallery-step was highly cultivated in him.
After a while, Arno began to notice another odd thing about the stranger: that he liked to stand extremely close to the paintings. So close, his face was sometimes less than an inch from the canvas. Daringly close – Arno grew nervous for him. If he sneezed he would certainly be arrested for vandalism.
Their rhythm around the gallery was unintentionally matched. Every time Arno tried to walk in the opposite direction, the other man seemed to walk in that direction too. Before long, Arno found it easier simply to follow. It was fascinating to watch, anyway; the way the man approached each picture, loitering at a distance at first, then slowly stepping closer and closer still. His shoes, two glistening bullets rubbed almost golden about the toe, clopped across the floor with the usual step-step-step-pause. Arno’s soft-soled shoes trailed shortly after, the pad and peel of rubber on slick gallery floor.
It was only after a while that Arno realised he’d seen the man before. When he turned, it was obvious. It was the soldier from Café Bauer, the one he saw when he was with Käthe and Thomas. He was dressed in military uniform that day. Today he was in civilian clothing. But it was unmistakably him. Most of all, it was the proud, confident expression that gave him away. The lights in the gallery had hidden it; now he turned to face Arno, his noble arrogance rang out like a bell.
At around the same time, Arno began to see more clearly what the paintings around the gallery depicted. He had expected to find pretty countryside scenes and children playing with puppy dogs. Instead, the paintings were far more ugly. They showed bawdy jazz bars with venal-looking men counting money, prostitutes murdered with knives, old naked lovers in wrinkled embraces, doctors holding up sinister syringes, war-wounded men on homemade crutches, indoor pot-plants with feral leaves, people with big yellow teeth and hairy warts on their chins, and lots of people smoking. And, most of all, there was a great deal of nakedness. It was really quite an unsightly selection of paintings.
And it was with these details that the other man in the gallery was most fascinated. Every time he went in close, he glared at the naked organs, fixing his attention on all the most flesh-rich passages with more vigour than Arno had ever looked upon a work of art. He began to wonder if he had fallen into step with a pervert.
Arno placed him at about forty-years-old. Perhaps a touch older. He was smartly turned out in respectable bourgeois dress. He had blue eyes and a prideful way of holding his head up high. Or it might have been mere disdain, barely concealed, for when he looked across at Arno, he gave a surly, hostile expression.
Finally they reached the last painting in the room and the exhibition came to an end. It was a relief. As the man left, they shot glances at each other one last time. The man went, and a few minutes later, Herr Lassner took his place.
23
‘That was one of them,’ were Lassner’s first words. ‘That man. He’s usually here with Göring, but he’s one of them. Remind me to make a note of that.’
‘Who is he?’
‘It’s a mouthful. Count Hermann Graf von Hessen. Or Hessen for short. He’s an aristocrat turned General. You remember the Brownshirts from the meeting yesterday? He’s their leader in Berlin. Hitler recruited him to make an army out of that bunch of louts.’
‘I recognise him. I saw him a couple of days ago in Café Bauer. I’m sure I did.’
Lassner smiled, his false teeth sliding to one side. ‘Yes, he likes to socialise. In public too. No shame.’
‘No shame?’
‘He prefers to live outwardly, if you know what I mean. Gambling. Horses. Boys. That’s not unusual of course. What is strange is that he doesn’t mind admitting to it.’
‘And he likes art too, by the looks of it.’
‘I doubt it. He’s never bought anything, not in all the times he’s been here. He doesn’t buy, he just stares at it. At the nudes especially. I keep expecting him to grab one of the paintings and run off with it. No, he comes here for the party meetings. Come with me.’
Herr Lassner led Arno through a door and into a back room. They passed into a further room, which had the feel of some sort of kitchen or annexe. There was a ceramic sink in the corner, and in the middle of the room, a wooden table with three glass ashtrays on it.
‘This is where they do their talking. I’ve seen all sorts around this table. Göring. Hessen. Röhm. Others. Never Hitler, mind you.’
‘What do they talk about?’
‘I’ve no idea. The door is locked and I’m not allowed inside. I’m just Göring’s art dealer, so why would I be? Now, what have we got here?’ Lassner spotted the parcel beneath Arno’s arm. ‘Looks like you’ve brought me a gift.’
Arno lifted the parcel onto the table and began to peel away the paper. Lassner was fixated. When all the paper was removed, he picked up the canvas and brought it close up to his face. He sniffed the surface, then examined at the edges before returning to the front again, holding it at arm’s length. He seemed pleased and impressed.
‘This is good,’ he nodded, his eyes flicking left and right. ‘This is very good. Whoever did this is very talented.’
‘It’s genuine,’ Arno said, trying his luck. ‘It’s the real thing.’
Lassner glanced across at him. ‘You’ll have to do better than that.’
‘Is it not good enough?’
‘It’s excellent. Truly. It’s one of the best I’ve seen. But you must think, why would someone like you have an object like this? You’ll have to sound more commanding, if you understand my meaning. Still, let’s keep going. Why don’t you tell me who the artist is? It looks Italian to me.’
‘Yes, that’s right. Italian.’
‘How old is it?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Try the sixteenth century.’
‘And the artist?’
‘The artist’s name is Car-oo-vander. No, that’s not it.’
‘Try again.’
‘Camer-van-der-velt.’
‘Would it be Caravaggio, by any chance?’
‘Exactly!’
‘Repeat it after me. Caravaggio.’
‘Caravaggio.’
‘And again. Emphasise the middle. Cara-vaaaag-gio.’
‘Cara-vaaaag-gio.’
‘Good. We have a long way to go, but good.’ Lassner examined the painting once more. He seemed oddly excited by the object, his old face taking on a sprightly look. ‘We’ll find a safe place for this. When the time comes, we’ll have to make a big show of it. I hope you’re prepared. There’ll be no second chances.’
24
Arno’s initiation into the dealing of art was hasty and chaotic. It consisted mainly of a tour of the works of art hung on display in the gallery. Lassner took the initiate around every single painting and made a short statement about it. Arno was struck by the rather cold, businesslike slant of his descriptions.
‘This one is by Kirchner. German. He tends to appeal to the cosmopolitan type. Two thousand marks for him, if the right person walks through that door.’
Onto the next.
‘Karl Hubbuch. Almost impossible to sell. Don’t know why we bother. But I rather like him.’
And again.
‘Otto Dix. Prefers the savage side of life, but is surprisingly popular. Six thousand marks for this painting on a good day.’
After a couple of hours, Arno realised that these brief injunctions would account for his entire training in the art of selling paintings. Lassner rarely spoke about the subject of the painting directly, except in relation to the market.
‘This one. Slevogt. Only ever painted outdoors. For a work this size, fift
een-hundred marks. Nineteen-hundred if the wind is in our favour.’
There was only one painting that Lassner seemed to show any sort of emotional response to. It hung in his office-room at the back of the gallery. When Arno asked about it, the art dealer’s expression softened. ‘This one? This is perhaps my favourite. I don’t intend to sell this one. It’s by our very own Caspar Friedrich from Greifswald. Early ninetieth century. It is melancholy, yes, but spiritual. He was a painter alive to God’s presence in every rock, tree and sunrise.’
The image was of a series of boats on a body of water, lit from behind by a purple sunset.
Lassner said, ‘When it’s time for my retirement, I’ll sell this. It should keep me in robust finances for a decade at least. I’ve even taken the insurance of getting Herr Göring to verify the painting for me, in case there’s any doubt. I’m thinking ahead, you see.’
The other thing Arno learned was that art galleries were desolate places. For the six hours he was there, after Hessen had gone, there was not a single visitor. This was normal Lassner claimed. Things might pick up on Saturday, but on weekdays, the gallery could go a whole day without a customer. As he said this, Lassner appeared to sink into an awkward silence, giving the appearance of troubled contemplation. ‘Sometimes,’ he said with sudden inspiration, ‘we get three visitors all at once and the gallery seems very crowded!’
Arno decided to spend the rest of the day educating himself in the theory of art and its history. He had no idea if he could pass as an expert, but he would try. A connoisseur perhaps? It was not too far-fetched. Lassner gave him a few books to look at, and through them, Arno learned words like ‘composition’, ‘contrapposto’ and ‘Renaissance’. He committed these words to memory, determined he could make good use of them when the time came.
Late in the day, as he stood duty over the gallery reception, a lady came in through the door. She wore a big heavy dress with ruffles and lace, as if she’d just stepped in from the last century. She paused to look at a painting for about a second, then turned to Arno to make her intentions patently clear: ‘I’m here to buy something,’ she said, passing her eyes around the full panorama of the room.
Vanished in Berlin: Kidnap suspense mystery set in 1930s Berlin (Berlin Tales Book 2) Page 12