Framed

by Tonino Benacquista

  *

  This morning, when I was only half-awake, I rushed over to my billiards cue; I wanted to touch it, tighten it up, see it. I realized I was still asleep and my head was spinning from getting up so quickly. The telephone rang and, in my sleepy haze, I recognized Nico’s voice, although I didn’t understand much of what he was saying. I collapsed back onto the bed.

  Two hours later it feels as if I dreamed all that.

  I haven’t even waited for the change from the taxi driver before running to the office. Véro, still with a cup of coffee in her hand, is watching Nico packing some framed engravings.

  “You’re pretty quick,” he says.

  “So are you,” I reply.

  He takes me off into the hangars. I wonder what Véro can be thinking about our little game.

  “I spent all night thinking about your yellow thingy. Because when you showed it to me, I also thought. . . Follow me.”

  He gets asked for connections like this three times a week. It usually happens when he is having his lunch or breaking for a cup of tea.

  In the third storeroom, the one where they keep rolled up pictures without frames, he kneels down. I felt him hesitate for a moment, thinking of asking me to help.

  “It can only be one roll, I know all the others. And I never look through the things, they make me sneeze.”

  Some of them are easily more than a century old, and every time I take one out it sends up a cloud of dust and makes me cough. Now I can see why they waited till July to get me to restore some order in the place.

  “I used the size as a reference. The Morand one and this one are both eight figures.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Eighteen inches up by fourteen across.”

  I look at it, laid out on the ground. And the shooting pain in my stomach suddenly starts up again.

  “So? What do you think? Pretty good work, hey?”

  My memory is doing pirouettes.

  I’m hypnotized . . .

  He waits, anxiously, for my reaction.

  A bright red. Treated in exactly the same way as the yellow in Attempt 30. I might even be able to remember when I saw this red. It was the first time I came to work here, in the early days I couldn’t resist unrolling everything I laid my hands on, just to have a good laugh at all this old stuff. I liked the absurd possibility of chancing across a forgotten masterpiece. But the Ali Baba cave very soon turned into a wasteland. I remember a rat hurtling out of one particular roll.

  “It’s like it, isn’t it?”

  I can’t take my eyes off it. The paint is a little cracked but there is exactly the same academic application in the way the subject is drawn; this time, though, it isn’t a spire but the capital of a column. Everything has changed, the design and the colour, and yet it features the same system, it’s from the same mindset. Nico grumbles a bit when he sees me dusting it down carelessly. There is an inscription on the back of the painting. I read it with almost no sense of surprise: Attempt 8.

  We both stay there, dazed, crouching in a cloud of dust.

  “And have you seen this?” he says.

  “Yup, it’s the eighth in the series.”

  “No, no, this, at the bottom, on the back.”

  In tiny letters, in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture there is another inscription that we have missed. Given the position, it could be the signature.

  “The Objec . . .”

  “What’s that there? Is it a T?”

  “The Objec . . . tives, is it? It looks like . . .”

  I think I have made out the whole of the signature. That’s what it says, but is it really the signature?

  “The Objectivists.”

  “Yes!” says Nico. “Objec-ti-vists. But what are they . . . ?”

  First and foremost we need to work out how this painting landed up here. I sit on the ground with my back up against the metal upright of the shelving. And I take a deep breath.

  “Was it bought?” I ask.

  “Of course it was, how else would it have got here? There’s even the inventory number: 110 0225,” he says, reading the ticket dangling on an elastic band.

  I close my eyes for a minute. Just long enough to recover, and to formulate some more questions.

  “Right, Nico, can you give me some idea of how much information we can get on something in this place?”

  “Hmmph . . . it depends when it was bought. In this particular case I can tell you right away what’s on the label: Attempt 8, Name of artist: The Objectivists, Size, Type, Date: 1964. If I look through the registers for the inventory number I might be able to come up with more details.”

  I still haven’t opened my eyes.

  “Are you pleased with this, Antoine?”

  He is proud of his find. But I’m feeling something quite different, something strange. Like a starting point.

  I could still walk away.

  “Yes, I’m pleased . . . I’m pleased.”

  I feel a need to get out, just for a moment, to be back in the fresh air, and – more importantly – to buy a Polaroid camera so that I can keep some proof on me that I’m not on the wrong track.

  An hour later the photo is in my pocket. Nico doesn’t seem all that happy with this precaution.

  “Right, okay, now we can really talk seriously. Véro and I are responsible for the depot, we have to know everything that happens here and definitely have to account for everything that happens here. And, to be honest . . . we don’t want any trouble. This isn’t easy to say but, basically, you can take your photo, get the information that you want today and then that’s it, I’ll roll up the picture, put it back where it came from and shut it away. Now if anyone asks me to find article number 110 0225, I’ll get it out for them on the spot. Okay? I don’t want to know what’s going on, why you’re looking for all this and what you’re thinking of doing with it. I do know that . . . that you had a hard time back there . . . but it’s none of my business. I don’t want to worry Véro. Next time you come to the depot, you’ll just be coming to say hello. Got it?”

  A starting point. Nico has just confirmed that for me.

  “Got it.”

  *

  The light has just gone off automatically while I’m still halfway between two floors, and it throws me off balance. I hang on to the banister rail as best I can and climb up slowly, bent forward, with my left arm across my body. Sounds of keys, the light going back on, my neighbour coming down the stairs.

  “Do you need some help?”

  “No.”

  “If you need anything, you can always knock on our door, Monsieur Andrieux.”

  “Thank you.”

  I have a nasty way of saying “thank you”; it sounds like “who cares?” I’ll have to watch that. I don’t want the doctor to be right, I don’t have any grudge against the rest of the world.

  The date on the painting and the date of purchase are the same: 1964. It doesn’t mean anything to me except that it was the year Morand left for the United States. Nico looked through the register for that year and didn’t find anything else, apart from the month it was bought: September. Which month did he leave French soil? The artist’s name has been recorded only as “The Objectivists”. He explained that you didn’t always get the real name if the artist liked to use a pseudonym. In this instance it must have been a group, although there was no way of knowing how many members it had. There too, you couldn’t be sure, it could be a pure invention. You get that with painters, you have to view everything as a bit suspect with them. Morand’s name doesn’t feature. I don’t know whether he might have been a member of “The Objectivists” or just picked up on one of their themes, or perhaps he wanted to pay homage to them. Or maybe he just created them. With contemporary Art you have to be careful. From what I’ve read on the subject, you get every possible scenario: people who never sign their work, people who sign for someone else, groups who make a name for themselves by trying to stay anonymous. . . It’s hard to tell wher
e the profession of faith ends and the publicity stunt begins. I went back to the pages that talk in detail about these groups and reread them in a different light; and it’s quite a scrum. They started appearing in ’66 or ’67 with weird names like the Malassis, Surface-Supports, BMPT and Panchounette Presence. But these “Objectivists” are never mentioned, and I’m not all that surprised because if they had been well known or even minor figures Coste would have said something about them straightaway, she would have made the connection with Morand. But no, we know nothing about his life from the time he left the Beaux-Arts to when he set off for the United States. And yet the nation has bought one painting by these “Objectivists”.

  What sort of time-span was there between Attempt 8 and Attempt 30? Twenty-two days, twenty-two years, or just twenty-two attempts? Each of them in a different colour, with a new subject every time, perhaps a staircase surrounded by orange, perhaps a door handle in a sea of white. I would have done a billiards cue on a green background, with a couple of white smudges. But I’m not an artist. No one has asked for my opinion. Still, I would have found that much more appealing than the others. The hardest part would have been creating the impression of movement, and you can’t improvise that sort of thing.

  4

  Tourists marvel at the brightly coloured tubing and the visible framework of the Pompidou Centre, but when I come out of the library on the second floor it’s Paris that I look at. Those same tourists are happy they can make out Notre-Dame not far away; and tomorrow they will be over there making out the Pompidou Centre with the same enthusiasm. If they climb enough landmarks they might end up establishing a point of view. In the Contemporary Art section of the library I have looked through more books but my research techniques were a bit half-hearted compared to the avidly note-taking students gathered round the table. The Objectivists sailed through history without leaving the least little anecdote for posterity, without the tiniest nota bene. I’ve ended up thinking they didn’t exist and that the painting at the depot is a hoax by a student from the Beaux-Arts, perhaps Morand himself. This could be the story: Morand spends six years learning his trade at his college on the Quai Malaquais. To cloud a few issues he invents a group and a concept, just to impress the authorities on the subject he paints an Attempt, and it goes down well, he’s taken everyone in, one of his paintings is bought and he signs it “The Objectivists”. Then he goes to New York because everyone in Paris dreams of SoHo. He forgets France for twenty years, then he goes back to his roots, to Burgundy, where he whiles away the time with a blowtorch. Right at the end he paints another Attempt, a reminder of the days when everything still lay ahead of him. That could be his life, this Etienne Morand, artist, stirrer, exile . . . who still remembers the past.

  I also looked for books by one Robert Chemin, a former inspector of works of art who has now retired. I found Chronicle of a Spontaneous Generation, which I flitted through just so that I would have something to say before meeting him. He agreed to meet me at his own home, at half past twelve. He made quite a point about punctuality, adding: people who have nothing to do with their time are always the latest. To get hold of his name I asked Liliane, she hasn’t been able to refuse me anything for a few weeks. She found me the complete list of inspectors who voted on the national acquisitions committee in 1964. Of the twelve names on that jury, seven are still working at the Ministry and the others have retired, and I wanted one of the latter – to try and avoid direct contact with official channels. No one must know that I’m snooping around the national collection. You never know. Delmas might be worried by so much initiative.

  On my way down the escalator I remember the media circus when the Pompidou Centre first opened. For or against? Major event or scandal? No one could get away from the subject. The market porters from Les Halles made a rapid exit to Rungis rather than confront such a tricky question. Like everyone else, I was quick to form an opinion . . . which I’ve subsequently forgotten.

  Twenty past eleven. Chemin lives in the Rue Saint-Merri, very close to here. I have time to wander round the National Museum of Modern Art for a bit, for the first time since I came to Paris. I have the choice between the permanent exhibition on the fourth floor and a retrospective on Narrative Figuration on the mezzanine. On the ground floor, behind a notice saying “new exhibition coming soon”, I can see two picture-hangers laughing out loud as they turn a painting every which way, trying to distinguish the top from the bottom.

  I’ve moved over towards them, out of curiosity. I heard the older one say to his friend: oh, hang it all, I suppose I have to do this!

  It reminded me of some good times.

  As I go up the stairs I waggle my right sleeve slightly and push it down into my pocket. You see I don’t want to be taken for what I am – a man with a missing hand – even at the risk of being taken for what I’m not – plain rude. I realized rather late that my infirmity was the best visiting card to leave in people’s memories, an absolutely first-class distinguishing feature. Not to mention my face, which even I find disturbing, or even my general appearance, like a second-hand clothes dealer who’s lost three quarters of his bodyweight. Everything is designed to make me unforgettable.

  In an almost simultaneous movement I ring the bell and bend over so that I can put my hand round my left ankle. The door opens, I look up and there he is, surprised to have to look down.

  “I twisted my foot slightly on the way up . . . it’s nothing,” I say, rubbing my ankle.

  “Um . . . Come in, sit down . . . Do you need any help?”

  “No, no, I’ll be fine, I just gave myself a fright, that’s all.”

  The hall is a sort of sitting room, like a waiting room, with a sofa and some armchairs in faded pink, arranged in a circle. I limp a little as I go over to one of them and sit down to take off my jacket.

  “Oh, those stairs . . . they’re terrible! And I really can’t face them any longer with my old legs,” he says. “You be careful on your way back down.”

  The room is very overheated, almost oppressive. I can see a writing desk in a corner with three plaster models of jaws acting as paperweights. A coffee table overrun with magazines, National Geographic and Geo Magazine; there are even some on the floor, open, spread-eagled, gaping. Newspaper cuttings pinned to a corkboard, photos from the press, I’m too far away to see what they are about.

  He sits right opposite me on the sofa. I casually cross my left leg over my right knee, and it feels as if I am sheltering my bad side.

  “Thank you so much for agreeing to see me, it’s very kind of you . . .”

  I wait for a moment for an “it’s my pleasure” which isn’t forthcoming.

  “And . . . well . . . I’ve recently read your Chronicle of a Spontaneous Generation, and, to get a bit more in-depth information, I’d like to know whether the groups which emerged in the 1960s really –”

  “Have you read it?” he cuts me off suddenly.

  “The Chronicle? Yes.”

  “Are you a student?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to take any notes?”

  I get the feeling my visit is going to be shorter than I anticipated.

  “I’m interested in the groups, I’d like to base my thesis on the 1960s, seeing the decade through the emergence of these disparate groups of ‘angry young men’, sort of forerunners of 1968. You’ve written a book about it, and I wondered whether you could talk to me about it, I have a very good memory, it’s that simple.”

  Silence.

  “Yes . . . I see. . . Disparate and ‘angry young men’, you say. . . Groups like the ‘Wait-and-Seers’ in ’63 or the ‘Blue-Greens’, who came a little later.”

  “That sort of thing.”

  Silence.

  “Are you trying to make fun of me? You’re confusing Rock ‘n’ Roll with modern art. . . Neither of those groups ever existed. Who are you?”

  Now it’s my turn to be silent. I feel as if I have already run away. I stare at the pile of Na
tional Geographics for a while, then let my gaze slide over to the wall. Should I get up? Should I stay? Before I would have shuffled out looking at my feet, but now . . .

  “Well?”

  I remember some particularly dramatic matches at the academy. Those gloomy fifteen minutes when you stay pinned to your chair while your opponent succeeds in imposing silence on the room, patiently, and then – just when he consents to leave the floor to you – you get up and do something really hideous and hand it straight back to him.

  “Right, okay, I’m not a student, and I don’t give a damn about modern art. To me you’re not the author of that chronicle, you’re a former inspector of works of art, and you were on the acquisitions committee in ’64. I went about this the wrong way, I wanted to get you to talk in general terms for a bit, and then to nudge you softly, softly onto the acquisitions committees so that I could squeeze out some information on one or two particular things that I’m genuinely interested in. I don’t give a damn about the rest.”

  “And what is it that you’re genuinely interested in?”

  Alternating the silences with quick responses, that’s what I’d like to be able to do. They must have had slick, tight discussions in those days.

  “One group, ‘The Objectivists’, who produced a painting something like this.”

  Rather than going to great lengths describing it, I show him the Polaroid – which requires a pretty ungraceful contortion of the whole left side of my body. He reaches over to his writing desk for his glasses and holds them over the photograph like a magnifying glass. He stays bent over it like that for a good while, motionless, screwing up his eyes. I let my gaze wander again and almost forget that I’m here with my quaint lies and my arm ineptly hidden behind my back. In the distance, in the open doorway to the next room, I see a small painting hanging on the wall. It is no larger than the average seascape, with little colour but, in the darkness, it is impossible to make out the image.

  “Where did you get this from?”

  Instead of answering I hand him the reproduction of Attempt 30 so that he can compare them. He needs less than a minute.