The Painting

by Alison Booth

  ‘Do you know where the friend got it from?’

  ‘I think my grandmother said he bought it from the Hungarian state auction house. I’m not sure when though. My uncle died in 1956 so it must have been sometime before that.’

  ‘Does your grandmother know any more than that?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’ The picture had been one of the many hanging in Nyenye’s flat. Anika’s euphoria shrank a bit, for her family didn’t speak about the paintings and no one apart from family ever saw any of them. The room in which they hung was dark and gloomy, though when the lights were switched on the pictures glowed and Anika could never see enough of them. But Nyenye didn’t let anyone who wasn’t family beyond the entrance hall. Families kept to themselves, everyone in Budapest knew that, and Anika and her brother Miklos had grown up avoiding questions. But Anika thought that her father didn’t much like Nyenye’s collection. Probably he preferred still-life artworks and she had none of those. Or maybe he thought that all the paintings would be better off in a museum. Anika was guessing though, for she never really knew what he was thinking.

  The elegant curator scrutinised Anika over the top of her spectacles. ‘Make sure you keep it out of direct sunlight,’ she said. ‘And do try to track down its provenance. If it belonged to your uncle, someone in your family must know where it came from.’

  ‘I’ll try to find out. Do you know its worth?’ Anika coughed to clear her throat.

  ‘I can’t comment on that. We don’t do valuations.’

  ‘I know a few art dealers,’ said Mr Black Eyes. ‘I could introduce you.’

  ‘Don’t let him race off with you,’ the silver-haired woman said, smiling to show that she thought this was unlikely.

  After Anika thanked her for her help, she said, ‘Not a problem.’ Anika filed this away for Aunt Tabilla, who hated this expression. Once she learned that gallery curators used the term she might become a convert. Not a problem, Tabilla. Not a problem.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll give me your phone number.’ Mr Black Eyes was Anika’s best buddy now he’d learned she was related to a discerning art collector. She was happy with this transformation; he was very handsome in his even-featured sort of way and she wouldn’t mind seeing him again, especially now he’d shown he could be useful as well as decorative. He handed her a pen and notepad, and she wrote down Tabilla’s number. When she gave it back, he asked for her name.

  ‘Anika Molnar.’ She watched him form the letters. His fingers were long and the nails square-cut and very clean. His hands looked younger than his face, as if he had never done with them anything more arduous than turning pages of books and making notes in his elegant slanting script.

  ‘I’m Daniel Rubinstein,’ he said, fixing her with his dark eyes. ‘We’ve got lots of Impressionist paintings in our collection. I especially love the Sydney School ones. Those beach scenes and views of Mosman Bay.’

  Suddenly she warmed to him. She loved those paintings too: all that golden light and the undeveloped foreshore and those brilliant colours that made your soul sing.

  ‘They’re a bit earlier than your Antoine Rocheteau though. I’ll be in touch, Anika.’

  There was now a string of people waiting behind Jonno and the kind-faced woman. As Anika headed towards the escalator, Jonno winked at her and the woman smiled. The perving attendant had gone from the cloakroom; Anika collected her wrapping materials from a beaming woman who wished her a good day as she handed over the tatty bundle. A good day? This was an understatement. So far it couldn’t have been better. Anika was feeling as light as a balloon and as fortunate as if she’d just won the lottery.

  Outside, she sat to one side of the top step to rewrap the parcel. The sunlight was too bright and the glare hurt her eyes but she barely noticed as she grappled with the bubble wrap and brown paper. A party of school girls, in green-and-white checked uniforms and panama hats, chattered past her, oblivious of their shushing teachers.

  Tenderly Anika refastened the string around the wrapping paper and thought of her family in Budapest. They still didn’t know that Tabilla had insisted she keep the painting, and she wondered what they would think about her taking it to the gallery. If only she could phone to let them know the painting was a Rocheteau.

  But that was not possible, and of course it was her fault their line was tapped. Four years since she’d jumped Hungary after that trouble about the Danube Bend, and still the secret police were listening to their phone calls.

  Chapter 2

  ‘I thought you’d gone.’ Jonno was standing on the gallery steps next to where she was sitting. ‘Let me buy you a coffee to celebrate.’

  ‘To celebrate? Did you have good news?’

  ‘Not really. The painting I brought in is just a copy. My mother will be disappointed. She’d hoped it might be valuable.’

  He didn’t look as if he came from a background where money was scarce. It was in the way he spoke, the way he looked. There were some tiny golden hairs below one cheekbone that he’d missed when shaving and they glinted in the sunlight. At that precise moment Anika remembered the name of the man Nyenye told her had given the painting to her uncle: it was Sebestyén Tinódi, who’d got it from the consignment store or auction house. Anika secured the string around her package with a double bow and decided it was too late to go back into the gallery and let the curators know and anyway, there was no reason why it would mean anything to them.

  ‘There’s a café over the road that’s open.’ Jonno gestured to the low building in the Domain opposite. Surrounded by a canopy of Moreton Bay fig trees, it looked cool and inviting.

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to see your painting,’ he said, when they were sitting on the café terrace, with the Rocheteau on the spare chair.

  She thought of her mother’s advice. View life like a game of cards; always put on a mask before you begin to play and never let anyone know what’s going on behind it.

  Jonno continued, ‘The lady behind me was absorbing most of my attention. But I did hear that it was by a French Impressionist.’

  Surreptitiously Anika felt for the picture, secure in its wrapping. What was the English phrase for an unexpected positive outcome? A windfall. She looped the fingers of one hand through the string of her package and decided that Jonno’s comment didn’t need a response.

  After a brief pause, he said, ‘Do you have any more paintings like that?’

  ‘This is all I’ve got.’

  ‘Did someone give you the painting?’

  ‘Yes, my parents.’ This was easier than explaining that it had belonged to her uncle whose widow didn’t want it.

  ‘They’re generous people.’

  ‘Yes, they are.’ Anika’s words emerged in a sad tone that she hadn’t intended. ‘They’re wonderful people.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘You didn’t. I just miss them a lot sometimes. They live in Budapest.’

  ‘Behind the Iron Curtain.’

  ‘We write quite often. And sometimes we talk.’

  ‘Speaking on the phone isn’t the same as seeing someone,’ Jonno said.

  ‘That’s true. You miss out on all those other messages.’

  ‘Those things that the face and the eyes show. Do you know that saying about the eyes being the windows into the soul? You know, when you look at someone and feel you’ve made a connection.’

  ‘I haven’t heard that expression before but I know what you mean.’ Anika stared at the grass rather than meet his eyes.

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Rozelle.’

  ‘I live in Kings Cross but I’ve got a friend in Rozelle, a mate I went to uni with. He lives in Reynolds Street.’

  ‘Rozelle’s a nice suburb. A little like a village, with good transport too. I live not far from Vi
ctoria Road so there are lots of buses to hop on to.’

  ‘Must be a bit noisy there though.’

  ‘It’s not too bad. It’s a terraced house with thick stone walls.’

  ‘There aren’t that many stone houses there.’ He smiled as if to show he was teasing her. ‘What street?’

  Anika chose to ignore this question. She said, ‘It’s my aunt’s house.’ Over the time she’d been living with Tabilla she’d discovered this was a useful turnoff for men who were trying to chat her up.

  ‘You’re living with your aunt? I put you down as the independent type sharing with a bunch of friends.’ His tone was flirtatious.

  ‘I’m a student.’ For some reason she added that she was mature age, and he laughed. Her cheeks began to feel hot; she blushed too easily. The abrupt movement of her hand knocked her water glass over and water spilled out on to the table top. They each made a grab for their paintings first and the paper napkins afterwards.

  ‘Take these.’

  It was Mr Black Eyes – Daniel, she should say – standing next to their table and holding in one hand a bunch of paper napkins and in the other hand a takeaway coffee.

  ‘We don’t need them,’ Jonno said at the same moment that Anika thanked Daniel and used the napkins to mop up the last of the water.

  Daniel pulled out his wallet as if he were going to shout them both another coffee to celebrate his timely arrival. It turned out not to be bank notes that he was removing but a business card. When Anika took it, Jonno glowered, miffed for some reason that she did not understand.

  Daniel looked pleased with himself though. ‘Ring me,’ he said. ‘The home number’s best. I wrote it on the back of the card.’

  After nodding to them both, he strode off towards the gallery. He was taller than he’d looked when he was standing behind the curator’s counter.

  The business card was in a tasteful font, Garamond perhaps, and Anika ran her fingers over the embossed lettering: Daniel Rubinstein, Curator, Art Gallery of New South Wales. It showed his office telephone number but no home number. She turned over the card and found that her fingers, still damp from the mop-up, had smudged the writing and she couldn’t make out the digits. The regret she felt was irrational: she had his office number after all.

  ‘Are you going to call him?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘About a valuation?’

  ‘He knows some art dealers.’

  ‘What about me, will you call me if I give you my number?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Her answer sounded rather rude, so she added, ‘You don’t have anyone doing valuations in your family, do you?’

  ‘I can evaluate essays,’ he said, laughing. ‘And beautiful women too.’

  This statement made Anika cringe. Then he did that staring-into-her-eyes thing, as if trying to use her eyes as a portal to her soul when she suspected it was really her body that he’d like to get his hands on.

  The waitress brought the bill. Jonno squinted at it before taking out a pair of glasses with tortoiseshell frames. Anika preferred the new look, it was much more intellectual than that blonde-headed surfer-boy appearance. But he took them off again once he’d read the bill and they stood up together.

  ‘Would you like to meet up for a drink or dinner next Friday?’

  ‘Possibly but I haven’t got my diary with me.’ Anika sometimes spent Friday evenings with fellow-architecture students at the Hero of Waterloo, an old sandstone pub in The Rocks area. But if she declined right away Jonno might suggest another day and she wanted to have time to think. ‘Give me your phone number,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you. I get it.’ But he found a scrap of paper in his jacket pocket and scribbled a number on it.

  After stowing it in a pocket, she thanked him for the coffee and headed off along the path bordering the gallery side of the Domain. Jonno asked too many questions, she thought, and it was a relief to get away.

  Before she had reached the bus stop, Jonno had been driven out of her head by thoughts of the portrait of the beautiful auburn-haired lady. The day seemed to expand around her and she started to feel lighter, as if she were shedding weight, losing density, and filling with buoyant gas – helium perhaps – that lifted her above the pavement of this sun-drenched city, which began to vibrate with possibilities. Passing a council bin, she pulled out the scrap of paper Jonno had given her and dropped it into the bin.

  Chapter 3

  Anika got home that evening to find that her aunt had cooked chicken paprikash for dinner. The smell of it made Anika feel slightly homesick, for it was a dish her mother was passionate about and one that she made for special occasions – and today had been a special occasion – always with paprika from the Kalocsa region of Hungary. Anika could almost hear her mother saying, in her low and husky voice, how incomparable those paprika were, how rich their flavour and colour.

  Tabilla was surprised when Anika told her, over the chicken paprikash, that the picture was by a well-known French Impressionist. ‘Who could have guessed?’ she said. ‘It meant a lot to Tomas but I always thought the painting wasn’t up to much.’

  Interrupted by her aunt’s frequent questions, Anika explained what had happened at the gallery. When she’d finished, Tabilla said, ‘I wonder what it’s worth.’

  That was one of the things Anika had been thinking about ever since her visit to the gallery. She said, ‘It hasn’t been valued yet. If it’s valuable I’ll give it back to you.’

  ‘I don’t want it. How many times do I have to tell you? It’s yours.’ Tabilla lightly smacked Anika’s hand.

  Anika smiled with what she knew was relief. The painting felt like a part of her. Now she noticed that a gentle breeze was wafting through the open doorway, making the heat more tolerable, and carrying with it the faint sweet scent from some vine that Tabilla was cultivating. She said slowly, ‘I’m not altogether sure I want to know its value. I’m never going to sell it. Never ever.’

  ‘Paintings are lovely but they’re only things,’ Tabilla said. ‘Only stuff.’

  On the table in front of Anika now was a plate of chocolate pudding; Tabilla wanted to fatten her up and Anika wanted to thin herself down. She said, ‘This painting’s more than that.’

  ‘I’m glad you feel like that, Anika.’

  ‘The painting stands for home. And you gave it to me.’

  ‘It’s your little bit of Europe,’ Tabilla said.

  Her little bit of Europe? Anika thought it was more a connection to her family, and to the uncle whom she’d never met, a man whom she guessed had loved this painting at least as much as she did.

  ‘Your little bit of Europe,’ Tabilla repeated, smiling.

  Perhaps she was right. The painting was a symbol of the place Anika still thought of as home, a place whose absence hurt, sometimes viscerally. Her memories snaked back through the years, some fading, some growing in prominence. Family and friends and more than this: the quality of the light, softer than here, smoothing the edges of things. Or was she misremembering? If she were to go back now, she might find that everything was distorted, that the gap between her memories and the present reality had been widening all the time she’d been away. Yet nothing would alter the turning of the four seasons that she loved so much: the smells of chestnuts roasting in winter, of leaves decaying in autumn, the hot humid summers and the freshness of spring.

  ‘Are you making tea?’ Tabilla said. ‘I’d like the Clarice Cliff mug please.’

  She said this every time they had dinner together. Her friend Magda had given her the mug years ago. Me, Anika thought, smiling to herself, I’m not fussy about mugs; I’ll have whatever is going provided it’s plain white.

  Afterwards, Tabilla carefully washed the Clarice Cliff mug and dried it with the tea towel patterned with red and blue pa
rrots, before putting it away.

  ‘If I were to go back to Hungary after all these years,’ she said, finding a cover to put over the remaining chocolate pudding, ‘I’d see a very different country to the place I left. I understand that, Anika, but I’ll never go back.’

  Tabilla knew a lot about Hungary from all her listening to the BBC World Service and other radio programmes. She was right on top of current affairs in Central and Eastern Europe.

  She might have fled Budapest decades ago, Anika decided, but Hungary still had her in its maw.

  * * *

  A few days later, Tabilla asked Anika over breakfast what progress she’d made in getting a valuation.

  ‘I’m waiting to hear from Daniel,’ Anika said.

  ‘Daniel gave you his business card,’ Tabilla said. ‘He’s probably wondering why you haven’t contacted him. But if you don’t want to get a valuer through him, maybe you could get in touch with one yourself. There are plenty of galleries around and plenty of valuers too.’

  ‘I’ll try calling Daniel first. He might have lost my number.’

  The truth was that Anika was starting to feel ambivalent about getting the painting valued. If it were worth a lot, it would become more than a memento. It would become a liability that had to be looked after properly instead of a lovely picture that she saw each morning when she woke up. Yet with another part of her mind she wanted it to be worth a lot. A couple of thousand dollars, maybe. If it was, she could consider selling it. She began to fantasise about what she could do with the money. Not worry any more about whether she was going to lose her part-time job with Barry Oreopoulous and Associates. Or better still, give up the job altogether; those Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays would be better spent studying full-time. But perhaps it would be worth more than that – 10000 dollars even. If so, she could qualify as an architect years earlier and not have to watch every dollar. Maybe she could help Tabilla a bit more. Buy some nice clothes. Perhaps even set up her own practice in a few years’ time.