The Painting

by Alison Booth

  When it was Anika’s turn for a stop on his tour, she hardly dared breathe. Recently he’d been guiding her through a 1:20 detailed drawing for the Mosman house. Now she waited for an outburst. Only two days ago he’d told her off for her draughtsmanship: she wasn’t holding the draughting pencil correctly and really, she should have been taught better. It was all very well having a few design skills and a bit of training with computers, he’d said, but between the idea and the reality fell the shadow. It was the quality of the draughtsmanship that mattered when you were working for an architect like him. And now that he was breathing down her neck again, she noticed that one of the measurements of the cross-sectional drawing was wrong by some millimetres. The individual dimensions didn’t add up to the total dimensions, a hanging offence. Yet even this didn’t register with Barry and he wandered wordlessly into his office, a glassed-in enclosure at one end of the space.

  For the rest of the morning, when it was necessary to speak, the other two draughtsmen and Anika whispered to one another. She carefully rechecked all the dimensions on her drawing and made several corrections. At lunchtime it was a relief to get out of the office and into the liveliness of the day, a breeze shifting the leaves around, the sky an enamelled cobalt blue, and the streets crowded with office workers, everyone laughing except for them. They went to the corner shop for their sandwiches and hazarded guesses as to what was wrong with Barry.

  ‘A prospective job must have fallen through.’ Tim, who was a few years older than Anika, had a wife and a six-week-old baby with colic. There were bags under his eyes from sleepless nights yet he’d found time to gel his hair so that there were little spikes on the top that made him look even taller.

  ‘Barry was hoping to get that contract for the new synagogue,’ Greg said, while managing at the same time to make eyes at the pretty blonde waitress at the far end of the counter. She was serving three sundried men in Visiglo tops, tiny shorts and dusty work-boots.

  ‘No, he got that,’ Tim said. ‘If he hadn’t, we’d have all been laid off before now.’

  ‘Not necessarily. He’s too soft hearted.’

  ‘Not that soft hearted,’ Anika said. ‘He’s got to eat. And eat well.’

  ‘And to keep his kid at that posh girls’ school.’

  ‘She won a music scholarship. He told me that the day I had my interview.’

  ‘Maybe his wife’s leaving him.’

  ‘Or he’s lost the lead role in La Traviata.’ Greg thought opera was a joke.

  ‘It’s only an amateur production. He’d be far and away the best. Years ago he had a role in Sydney Opera’s production of Aida.’

  ‘Maybe he just had a quarrel with his wife.’

  ‘He must be hard to live with. A prima donna at work and at play.’

  After lunch, as Anika was passing by Barry’s office, she heard him pick up the phone and tap in a number. When he asked for Howard Meyer, her design tutor, her feet stopped still. Howard had given her a reference for this job with Barry and it suddenly hit her that Barry might be calling to complain about her. Her mouth became as dry as a dam in a drought and she had trouble swallowing.

  Without any preamble, Barry barked into the receiver, ‘You’re an arsehole, Howard. You’re a prize fuckwit.’ And then he slammed down the receiver.

  Hurriedly Anika returned to her drawing board. Her heart knocked against her ribcage. How would she manage without this job? What would she tell Tabilla? She hadn’t got much. Only what her dressmaking business brought in and the small amount of board money Anika paid her. And part-time jobs like Anika’s didn’t come easy. Barry would never lay off Tim and Greg. They were both good designers and draughtsmen and had been with him for years. Tim had a young family to support and a mortgage to pay off. She was the marginal one, the one who could be easily dispensed with. She’d have to get work as a waitress. Or maybe go back to hairdressing. There was always a shortage of hairdressers. Hair just kept on growing regardless of the state of the economy, unlike jobs in the design and construction industries.

  All afternoon, anxieties swarmed in her brain. Maybe she’d have to sell the Rocheteau. At this thought, her concentration went to pot and she began to feel the thump-thump-thump of a headache. She rummaged in her bag for the wonder-tablet the doctor had given her that stopped a migraine in its tracks if you took it early enough. In the kitchenette she swilled down the tablet with a glug of water and drank two more glasses in quick succession. The contents of her stomach sloshed as she returned to her drawing board but neither Tim nor Greg raised their heads. She’d have liked to go home and sleep off the headache but she couldn’t afford to ask for the rest of the afternoon off. Barry had been so generous already with giving her time off and with her job on the line she shouldn’t give him further reason to sack her.

  The hours crawled by. Barry stayed in his office all afternoon with the door shut and refused to come out even when it was time for afternoon tea. Anika took him a mug of his favourite: Assam with a slice of lemon. He barely glanced up when she placed it on his desk. A curt nod was the only acknowledgement she got. At five o’clock she left. Her migraine had gone, leaving behind only exhaustion. Tomorrow Barry would be driving to Queanbeyan to supervise the renovation of a bank and would be away for a few days, so that was a few more days that she’d have a job. But who could guess what might happen after that.

  * * *

  That evening Tabilla and Anika shared a pot of tea at the kitchen table. Anika’s chair looked down the backyard, and suddenly she noticed that there was something about the clarity and angle of the light that hinted at autumn. This made her restless, like she wanted to rush out and seize the day before the season changed and the day was gone.

  ‘After I’d gone to bed last night, I had an idea.’ Tabilla was smiling. ‘Someone I used to know runs an art gallery. I think I mentioned him to you before… I haven’t seen him for years but he’s a darling man, his name’s Julius Singer, and he’s very successful. He might be just the person to value your painting. I’ll phone him, shall I?’

  ‘Thanks. I’d love to find out what it’s worth. The sooner the better really. I can still go with Daniel next week to see his contact.’ Anika didn’t mention her anxieties about her job.

  ‘Of course,’ Tabilla said. ‘Two valuations are better than one, don’t you think? If Julius gives you an idea of how much it’s worth I can immediately add it to the house contents insurance.’ Her face was beaming. ‘It’s been ages since I last spoke to him. I’ll ring him at work, Wednesday’s his late opening. He’ll have his diary there.’

  After Tabilla had found the phone directory, Anika gave her some times when she’d be free. Tabilla said, ‘There are your lectures to consider, Anika, and also Barry Oreopoulous and Associates. Though Julius’s gallery isn’t so far from Barry’s office.’

  She jotted down notes on a scrap of paper and then keyed in the number. When Anika got up to go, Tabilla motioned her back. ‘You can listen too,’ she said. ‘In case those times you gave me don’t work out.’

  When the phone was picked up, she said, ‘Hello, Julius! It’s Tabilla Molnar here.’

  ‘Tabilla, is it really you? How lovely to hear from you.’ Julius’s surprise was unmistakable, and his voice so loud that Anika could hear his words even from a few metres away. She conjured up an image of him that would fit the sound. He would be tall like her boss Barry, with a long body and deep chest from which that powerful voice resonated.

  ‘I hope this isn’t a bad time to call.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘It must be years since we last spoke… Can I help you with anything?’

  ‘I hope so. It’s my niece Anika, you see. She’s got an oil painting you might like to take a look at.’

  There was a pause. Anika tried to imagine what Julius might be thinking. Probably that it would be some gaudy thing that the ni
ece had painted and he’d have to pretend to like it. He’d be drumming his fingers on the desktop and wondering how he could weasel out of this.

  ‘It’s not to buy,’ Tabilla said. ‘It’s to value. Anika got it from a distant relative.’

  Since when had Tabilla been a distant relative? She was Anika’s aunt, if only by marriage. And the painting had belonged to Anika’s uncle. If you asked her, that was pretty close as families go. She wondered what game Tabilla was playing. Probably she didn’t want to influence Julius.

  ‘Would you mind?’ Tabilla said. ‘It’s for insurance purposes. You’d be doing my niece a great favour.’

  ‘Who painted it?’ Julius said.

  ‘Someone called Antoine Rocheteau.’

  ‘It would be a pleasure,’ Julius said, his tone more enthusiastic now. ‘What about tomorrow afternoon? Or Friday, if she prefers?’

  ‘Friday’s good. Anika works not far from you on Fridays. Would two o’clock suit you? You’ll love the painting. It’s so nice of you to agree to see my niece. I’ve always known you to be kind.’

  After Tabilla put down the receiver, she sighed. ‘Poor Julius is run around by his wife,’ she said. ‘But she won’t be at the gallery. Julius will do anything for her but she doesn’t appreciate it.’

  When Anika went upstairs that night, she began to wonder if it would be possible to borrow some money using the Rocheteau as collateral. She’d have to see a bank and she had no idea of the procedure. Maybe Daniel would be able to give her some advice. But she was getting a bit ahead of herself. Sometimes it was best just to wait and see.

  Chapter 7

  Friday was like any other day in late March. Hot and humid mostly, with only the barest hint of autumn in the morning before the sun fully rose and again in that coolness at the end of the day. Clutching her securely wrapped painting under one arm, Anika stood outside the 137 Gallery in Paddington and peered through the plate glass window. Inside would be air-conditioned; a man in a black and unseasonable turtleneck sweater and black trousers was standing in front of the reception desk.

  Mr Turtleneck, a sturdy man in his mid-thirties, had a round oversized face and steel-rimmed glasses perched halfway down his nose. Opposite him, towards one side of the gallery space, were a couple of black leather chairs. Five or six patrons were viewing the exhibition. Two were looking closely at a very large canvas. With its vibrant colours – yellow, orange, crimson – it gave the impression of glowing from within, like a fireball or the sun in a bushfire. The other visitors were meandering around the space as if it were a promenade and they were there to see and be seen. Anika’s arm holding the painting was going to sleep; she shifted it to the other hip and pushed open the door.

  ‘My name is Anika Molnar,’ she told Mr Turtleneck. ‘And I would like to see Mr Julius Singer.’

  ‘Mr Singer is very busy.’ The slight displeasure in this man’s voice was almost certainly because he didn’t like the look of her. For the niece of a dressmaker, she was rather shabbily dressed. She wished she’d picked her outfit more carefully but she’d been in such a rush that morning, focusing more on wrapping the painting than on what to wear. Though her cotton shirt was neat, it was tucked into the waistband of dark blue jeans that were frayed around the ankle, and on her feet were canvas sandals of the versatile sort that could be worn hiking as well as tramping around the upper reaches of Paddington. The man took off his glasses, as if seeing her blurred might improve her appearance, and checked in the mirror behind her that the strands of his thinning hair were arranged neatly across his scalp.

  ‘My aunt Tabilla Molnar sent me.’

  At this moment a man in his sixties stepped out of the back office. He said, in a deep and resonant voice that she recognised from Tabilla’s phone conversation with him, ‘I’m expecting you. Your aunt called me.’

  His appearance didn’t accord with the volume of his voice and the image Anika had constructed from listening to Tabilla talk with him on the phone. He was short and slightly stooped and you wondered where the reverberation in his speech could come from. ‘Mr Singer?’

  He nodded, his smile illuminating his face, and held out his hand to shake her hot and clammy one. ‘Would you like a tea or coffee? My assistant James could get you one.’

  ‘Thank you, I won’t. My aunt told me you’re very busy and anyway I have to get back to work. Thanks for agreeing to look at my picture.’

  ‘Let’s view it, shall we?’ His tone was hearty. He might have been a kindergarten teacher at a show-and-tell morning. As they walked across the gallery to a table at the side, the soles of her ugly sandals flapped on the timber floor: if you were unable to see how slender she was, you might have thought a heavyweight had marched into his gallery.

  Carefully Anika unpicked the string, before peeling back multiple layers of brown paper and bubble wrap.

  When Mr Singer saw the woman in the blue dress, he gasped and took several steps back, before sinking into one of the black leather chairs. After a few deep breaths, he looked at Anika in a befuddled way, as if expecting someone else to be standing in front of him. His perplexity lasted only a few seconds, before excitement, and an expression that you could only describe as aversion, danced across his face like scraps of paper tossed hither and thither by a strong breeze. And he’d gone such a funny colour, she thought, his face a mottled maroon and white. Maybe she should get him a glass of water. Only now did she notice that the gallery had emptied, apart from the assistant Mr Turtleneck, who was busy doing something at the front desk. Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ began to play, the notes reverberating through the gallery.

  Mr Singer croaked out some words that Anika could barely hear. She had to ask him to repeat them.

  ‘This is not possible,’ he said. ‘It can’t be yours.’

  It was a couple of heartbeats before she understood what he was implying. ‘Yes, it is mine.’ Her voice sounded too loud in her ears.

  Through clenched teeth he hissed something that she couldn’t understand. There was now no mistaking the antipathy in his expression. Her breathing became ragged and she began to feel lightheaded. Julius must have heard that the picture belonged to her aunt, although Tabilla certainly hadn’t said that when she phoned him. A distant relative, that’s what she said. Anika was about to explain how Tabilla gave her the painting when a tiny worm of distrust squirmed into her brain. Quickly she shut her mouth and watched Julius’s curling lips as he hissed, ‘Can’t be yours.’

  ‘It is mine,’ she told Julius, hastily fastening the wrapping paper round the painting. Perhaps he was suffering from the early stages of dementia. Keeping her tone as cool as possible, she said, ‘It was given to me.’

  ‘Do you have the provenance?’ Julius looked almost pleased when she winced at the sarcasm in his voice. The skin under her left eye began to twitch. ‘That’s the ownership history. The painting’s worth nothing without that.’ He stood and took a few steps towards her. He wasn’t much taller than she was but she felt frightened. ‘In other words,’ he said, as slowly as if she were an obtuse child who had trouble understanding English, ‘where did it come from?’

  After this reaction she didn’t want to tell him it was Tomas’s, the uncle whom she never knew, nor did she even know how he’d acquired the painting.

  ‘You heard what Mr Singer said, where did the painting come from?’

  She looked around. The assistant was standing right behind her. Her warning system was revving up. Tell them nothing, it was saying. Protect yourself. Protect Tabilla. Losing her husband was bad enough without having to face these questions. Get the hell out of here and don’t tell these ghastly people any more.

  ‘Don’t you know where it came from?’ Julius’s brows were lowered, the forehead scowling, the mouth thin-lipped and grim.

  The assistant moved from behind Anika and stood next to Julius. His
expression was more than unfriendly; she could almost be facing the security police again. As her alarm intensified, her heart started to thump too hard. She wanted to take the painting and run. Julius asked the question once more and, although she didn’t have a clue, in her panic she improvised, words bubbling from her mouth. ‘My father said the painting had been bought from the consignment store or a state auction, I can’t remember which.’ Afterwards, she paused, rationalising what she’d just said, rationalising what she’d just made up.

  She didn’t see why she should tell Julius that it had been Nyenye who’d said it came from an old friend, Sebestyén Tinódi and that he’d got it from a state auction. Her grandmother was old and needed protecting. And what she’d said about the consignment store or the state auction was probably right, though she didn’t know for sure because they’d only briefly spoken of Tomas’s picture.

  ‘Is your father alive?’

  ‘Yes. He’s in Budapest.’ Beads of perspiration gathered on Anika’s upper lip. The armholes of her shirt felt too tight and sweat was beginning to pool in her armpits.

  ‘Is he a collector or a dealer?’

  ‘He’s a butcher.’

  ‘A butcher who likes paintings?’ The assistant looked as if he might laugh.

  Anika began to hate the snobbery of this man. Suddenly he lunged towards her and seized hold of one corner of the picture, tearing the brown paper. ‘Let me have a look,’ he said.

  Shaking him off – he was a big man but not agile – Anika turned tail and raced out of the gallery. For a moment she was blinded by the harsh sunlight, before adrenaline kicked in and she took off along the street.

  Somehow, she made her way back to the office, confused and with her head reeling. She spent the afternoon bent over her draughting table. But the working drawing engaged only part of her brain and the scene with Mr Singer just wouldn’t let her alone. It didn’t help that he was Tabilla’s acquaintance and Anika didn’t know how she was going to tell her aunt about his reaction and his words. Could he have known that legally speaking the painting was Tabilla’s? Not possible, Tabilla hadn’t said that, and Anika had heard every word of their phone conversation.