“You find me what?”
“Extraordinary!” exclaims Franck. “I’ve rubbed shoulders with neurotic millionaires, cunning mobsters, and psychopathic murderers. I’ve personally turned over a half-ton of garbage! I’ve stuck my nose into some bloody, juicy cases… And I’m something of an odd bird myself. Yet you’re my first frozen-pea thief!”
“I’m not going to stand—”
“I’m sorry, but the best part of all is that you didn’t turn a hair! Someone else, anyone, would have tried to justify himself, protested he hadn’t meant to, would have dashed outside, or produced his knife. But not you!”
From the pickup the woman is observing the scene with a gloomy expression. Finally she lowers the window and asks, “Is there a problem, Gary?”
“No, honeybun!”
“Honeybun!” exclaims Franck. “He calls her honey-bun!” He roars with laughter.
The Quebecker turns around, caught off balance. “Why don’t you just fuck off?”
“I’m sorry! But I’m feeling in a rare good humor. And it’s partly thanks to you!”
The Quebecker doesn’t reply. He hurries toward his pickup, gets in, and drives away.
Franck, back in the 300C, calls his secretary. She answers after a few rings.
“Good morning, Franck!”
“Mariella!”
“Well, you seem in excellent form!”
“You’re perfectly right!”
“The Boston air?”
“The Boston air almost killed me.”
“So, what explains such excessive good humor?”
Franck starts to drive off. “I just met a very siliconed Barbie and a frozen-pea thief.”
“A frozen-pea thief?”
“Frozen. That’s what I said!”
She seems to reflect for a moment. Franck is now driving along Crescent Street.
“But that wasn’t the reason why you called, right?”
“Let’s say it wasn’t the only reason…”
“Go on, then.”
“I’d like you to make an appointment for me with the principal of Watertown High School.”
“Where Ernest Caron used to teach?”
“The very place.”
“When?”
“Today.”
19
There is something intolerably barbaric about visiting museums.
MAURICE BLANCHOT
L’AMITIÉ
Parked in the lot of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Franck cuts a long line of cocaine on the back cover of The Supreme Vice. He snorts noisily, swallows, and wipes around his nostrils with his handkerchief. The speakers of the 300C are playing “Agnus Dei” from Fauré’s Requiem, recorded by Michel Corboz with the Bern Symphony Orchestra. Franck lights a cigarette, closes his eyes, and smiles. He feels the warmth of the sun on his face. What a lovely day! he thinks. Bliss depends on very little: sunshine, the right amount of cocaine, and a frozen-pea thief. So basic! Childish, almost. But here I am, carrying on like a therapist! A personal development trainer! How awful! Why not write a book about it? So much stupidity! But even stupidity is splendid this morning—
Someone knocks on the car window. He opens his eyes. An obese, mustachioed security guard. “Even stupidity is splendid,” Franck repeats out loud with conviction, and laughs.
He lowers the window. “What can I do for you, officer?” he beams.
“I’m sorry sir, but there’s no smoking on the museum precinct.”
“Not even in my car?”
The guard nods. “Not as long as it’s in the museum parking lot…”
Franck takes a puff, stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray, and the guard leaves.
Mankind may be ugly, and pitiful, but there’s no denying that there’s something comical about it! Franck savors a simultaneous appreciation of simplicity and the picturesque. Aware that he himself will never be caught stealing from a deep freeze, and that he will never wear the uniform of a museum guard (or carry the three hundred pounds of unhealthy fat that go with it), he locates his wonderment in the distance that separates him from such curious individuals, the way an intellectual waxes enthusiastic about the simple way of life of a primitive tribe, even envying them a little – though without wanting for a moment to be like them. What only a few hours ago he would have considered the acme of vulgarity now has the same effect on him as an elegant pirouette – man compensates for the misery of his condition by a perpetual burlesque, by a hearty roar of laughter. Except that they’re quite unaware of the spectacle they are providing, thinks Franck. Often they don’t even applaud one another! Far from it; they hate one another, suck one another’s blood!
But this reservation doesn’t prevent him from concluding, as the “Libera Me” is ending, Why should I care? It’s a lovely day! And the rest of it will be lovely too!
Electrified by the sunlight, the drug, and the pea thief, Franck bounces rather than walks into the main foyer of the Museum of Fine Arts. This institution opened its doors in 1876, and has been in its present location since 1909. It is one of the great art museums in the United States, with several dozen galleries and more than 450,000 works. Noted for its large collection of Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings, the building also houses hundreds of Greco-Roman relics, a considerable quantity of Carolingian jewelry, illuminated manuscripts, and, of course an impressive range of painting and sculpture from the modern and contemporary periods. Franck’s last memory of it dates from about ten years ago. At the time he visited the complex room by room. He had haphazardly devoured hundreds or thousands of works, from high antiquity to the most daring contemporary art. But the whole thing had left him cold. The paintings and sculptures ran into one another. It became merely an agreeable overview of human genius, nothing more. Since then, Franck has not visited any museums – or at least none of those great souks devoted to the fine arts which are above all a display of pride, though what they offer our admiration is not so much the works or the artists, but the city or country. It gives me infinitely more pleasure to look at a reproduction, Franck thinks. And art books have the advantage that you can consult them whenever you feel like it, outside opening hours, in the middle of the night, and on your own – thank God, on your own! Free of the heterogeneous conglomeration of tourists that park themselves in front of you, exclaiming, sneering, or incriminating, free of the ecstatic yells of tour guides from midday to four, free of the blasé or belligerent gaze of the guards, and finally free of the excess that telescopes six thousand paintings into one, leaving you only with a grotesque feeling of stupefaction.
But in spite of all this, there is something agreeable about the sight of hundreds of tourists swarming into the entrance hall, and Franck, leaning against a classical-style column, savors the spectacle of the new arrivals who, depending on their mood (and culture), are bellowing, roaring with laughter, or photographing one another.
Oh! Look at her! That big fat woman! Wouldn’t she make you weep with joy! German, or Swedish maybe! In her canary yellow dress, chirruping away! But no husband in sight… He’ll have sobered up after his night on the town and, hey presto, he’s hanging himself from a light fixture. As the cocaine takes effect, Franck feels a desire to go up to some tourist or other and tap him on the shoulder, introduce himself, and initiate a discussion – but he has no idea what they could talk about.
Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Cézanne have a place of honor in this Bostonian pantheon of the fine arts. The gifted Post-impressionist trio have individual rooms devoted to them, and their names in gold on the plaque are enough to excite the tourists, who rush to be immortalized by standing next to it (and then go on to do endlessly likewise before Van Gogh’s and Cézanne’s self-portraits or Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From?). Some seem to be there only because of a hastily drawn cross in their guidebook, others because an acquaintance back home had advised them to spend at least an hour or two in the museum, and others to see some work they have heard praised to the skies since they wer
e children; some have actually come out of genuine interest. Franck notices a group of students gazing around them as they trot along with a thrilled expression, armed with notebooks, ballpoint pens, and smartphones loaded with the app put out by the museum; a group of young adolescents led by a hysterical teacher braying out information about the artists loudly enough to be heard all over the gallery; an old woman on the verge of fainting, so moved is she at the prospect of finally seeing Monet “for real”; and a couple of overweight, erudite Americans who maintain to whoever wants to listen that the French and Italians would be better off reviving their economies instead of making sketches. Yet here and there a young man or young woman is sincerely moved. “Ah, now there’s a wonder!” exclaims Franck, as a female hunchbacked dwarf in an artificial leather miniskirt enters the gallery. “What a glorious variety of human beings! What abundance! I’ll see a few thousand like that in the day! And all of them seemingly so different, but all so fundamentally ordinary!”
Fiddling with the brochure handed him by an attendant at the information desk, Franck wonders which paintings he will look at. A few are enough. Once you cross the critical threshold of a certain number of works, art becomes a fool’s game, a social diversion, an obligatory genuflection before human genius. Just like going to bed with two, three, or four partners is fun, but beyond that consumption wins out over sensation, and it becomes just a big meat market. For the same reason, a conversation with ten or fifteen participants is seldom of any interest: numbers kill personality (and in a place like the Jaguar Club that annihilation is at a maximum).
Although some amateurs stubbornly overlook the fact, a work of art always comes garbed in its own legend. This may be rooted in nostalgia for a certain period (the effervescence of the 1910s in France or in Austria, for instance), in a political event (the advent of Francoism in the case of Guernica), or in certain outstanding events in the life of an artist (Van Gogh cutting off his ear) – unless it simply consists in the prestige it acquires by belonging to the “art world” and by being hung in a famous institution. So a lot of visitors go around clutching a plan with a finger firmly on Van Gogh’s or Picasso’s name, falling into raptures only when they are absolutely sure that the merest sketch they have before them was drawn by the same hand that painted Starry Night or Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. They aren’t being dishonest, just expressing their respect for history, culture, and the institution. It is also quite possible to appreciate a period without liking the works produced by its artists. The enthusiasm and abundant production of artists in the 1910s and 1920s are striking, but never, good Lord never, has a single goddam canvas by Mondrian or Léger managed to elicit the slightest tremor of emotion from me, or awaken my interest, thinks Franck. People rarely look at a painting for its own sake. That can only happen at certain moments, in certain circumstances. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult for those special moments to be accommodated by opening hours, long lines awaiting admission, and the bacchanalian surfeit typical of major galleries. Once we have sincerely contemplated a half-dozen works we usually keep going borne along solely by our fascination for the notion of Art – or perhaps simply by the thought that we have paid the full shot for our ticket.
“You’re looking thoughtful, Franck!”
Franck turns around and smiles at Lyllian. “And you’re late!”
They shake hands.
“My dear Lyllian, you seem strangely in form after the night you’ve just spent! Can it be the famous privilege of youth?”
The flutist laughs. “Maybe, Franck. You too, by the way! Last night you seemed… a little tired. And I still have no idea what brought you to that club!”
“Yes,” answers Franck, maintaining the lighthearted tone. “I behaved badly toward you, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“But no—”
“I’m serious! What I said to you did have some truth, though it was exaggerated, overdramatized. But my tone was inappropriate. My behavior wasn’t horrible, but… I was lecturing! Yes! You called it preaching; I call it sermonizing. There’s nothing worse. In my defense, I’d barely slept, I was overcome by angst, and I’d snorted too much coke. In addition, I’d got my hands on a musclebound rapist who confirmed my suspicions—”
“Your suspicions?”
“Yes!” (Franck winks.) “I think I’ve cleared something up…”
“Related to what?”
“I can’t say any more for now. But maybe a little light has been cast on the mystery behind the murder of that old drunk that the press is having such a field day with—”
Lyllian is startled. “Franck! Really?”
“Yes, but that’s not so important. What really matters is that you be convinced that my apology is sincere.”
“Maybe we should call the police and—”
“Am I forgiven? I’d understand completely if you still bore me a grudge… After all, I didn’t show myself in a very good light. Will you let me try to justify myself? But maybe I’d just be adding to my uncouth behavior…”
Lyllian, taken by surprise, doesn’t answer.
“Well, you see, I have an ideal: purity. But it’s a holdover from a different age – no, I’m sorry, all ideals are holdovers from a different age! I just want to say that it’s a nocturnal ideal, an anguished ideal that signifies nothing more than the neuroses of whoever professes it. The other evening, when I was so hard on you, I was spaced out, fraught with the absolute. How could you have understood me? After all, you’re not an angel, just a little bargain-basement succubus, if you’ll allow me!” (He laughs.) “If I’d been in my right mind I wouldn’t have expected anything of you that was beyond your ability. It’s just that I got carried away… And my angst won out over my manners. I was alone, in that vulgar nightclub, where people descend to the level of beasts, of machines. And there I was, saying to myself, ‘Lyllian is here! Among them, with them! He’s not here to collar a murderer, nor for the pleasure of observing like a naturalist, nor to mock, criticize, or despise, no, he’s here to enjoy himself! He’s making common cause with these people! He’s one of them!’ At that moment I hated you. Disappointment can make you more acerbic! You weren’t doing anything wrong, but it was worse: you were doing the same as everyone else. And instead of toning it down – for I went tone-deaf (ha ha) – and asking myself, ‘Franck, what are you doing?’ (But right then I was no longer sure my name was Franck.) ‘Why don’t you just leave him alone? Come on! He’s no worse than the next man: far from it (he’s more elegant)! He’s a young man like a thousand others. And he’s from Texas! From Texas! Of course that’s a handicap… But he’s not doing so badly… He plays the flute! Maybe that’s the source of your disappointment! – an artist, what a stroke of luck! But what’s a flute player? A fool full of wind. A windbag with a purpose, basically. Don’t hold it against him! Go instead and wish him good evening, enjoy yourself, and leave him in peace.’ But instead of saying that to you, I lambasted you, made you my whipping boy, and buried you under my psychopath preacher’s – no, sermonizer’s! – raving.”
Lyllian is stunned. He frowns, trying to understand. Finally, he stammers, “If I understood you properly… you despise me…”
“More than anything, I’m asking for forgiveness,” Franck protests.
“Yet you—”
“Now, now!” Franck answers with a laugh. “The greatest philanthropists only become so out of contempt. If people were strong, if they were great, what excuse could they find for them?”
Lyllian, eager to bring this conversation to an end, answers, “Don’t worry, Franck, I forgive you willingly.”
“Oh!” cries the detective with tears in his eyes. “Thank you!”
“I’d just like to add that I have a guilty conscience toward you too … It was really a bad time for us to meet.”
“It’s nothing! Anyway, we didn’t come to the Museum of Fine Arts to act out a soap opera. Where do you think we should begin?”
“What would you say to Manet?”
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Before heading up to the level where the Manets are exhibited, the two men pass through the security check. A huge, ruddy-faced guard scrutinizes visitors, searches the occasional bag, and pats down a few men. “Anything dangerous in your possession?”
“Anything dangerous?” Franck repeats.
“Any blunt instruments, anything with a cutting edge, inflammable liquids?”
“No, just a machine gun,” he answers with a smile.
The guard laughs and waves them through.
The Manet gallery is vast, and sober. Well, thinks Franck, at least they didn’t have the bad taste to do it up in nineteenth-century style!
The Parisian painter’s pictures are spaced out, well-lit, without an excess of documentation. The visitors, although they are relatively numerous, are considerate enough to whisper and not exclaim too noisily when they spot the Olympia or Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (except for one fat Dutch or Flemish lady who is a frequent visitor to museums and wants everyone in the room to know it).
“Do you know Manet?” asks the flute player.
“Just to see!”
“Manet was born into a family belonging to the wealthy French bourgeoisie: he had everything he needed to become a somebody, a notary. But he chose painting, and scandal along with it. It happened almost in spite of himself. The poor man wanted to be a respectable painter, the glory of the Salons. But he made a false step with his Olympia” – Lyllian points to the painting – “and he was launched into a bohemian existence, punctuated with scandals and brandished walking sticks.”
“That’s very well put!”
“Do you know this painting?” (He is still pointing at the Olympia.)
“I do, but by name only!”
“Well, it’s one of the very first paintings of modernity, hailed as it deserved by Baudelaire, whom we both admire.”
They come to a halt in front of the painting.
“Look. For us, at first sight nothing seems especially shocking. But put yourself in the context of the time: a woman, almost a girl, not just nude, but truly naked, devoid of any of the usual mythological trimmings. You’re not looking at a goddess; no, this girl is a prostitute. And underage, into the bargain! And the cat…!”
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine Page 11