The Painting

by Alison Booth

  He continued, ‘What I’m now fascinated by is the global market for stolen paintings.’

  ‘Like, my painting could be sold outside Australia, is that what you mean?’

  ‘Sort of.’ He finished his glass of wine and looked at it in some surprise, as if he’d expected it to hold more and was now regretting not ordering a bottle.

  ‘I haven’t told my parents it’s been stolen yet.’

  ‘Is that where you got it from, your parents?’

  ‘Yes, just before I left Budapest.’

  ‘Are they likely to give you another one?’ Jonno raised his empty glass to the waiter.

  ‘I very much doubt it.’

  ‘Do they have any more paintings?’

  ‘No.’ Her heart began to thump so hard it must surely have been audible. Uneasily she thought of Nyenye’s flat, with its shabby large rooms with lofty ceilings, and her living room walls filled with pictures. Pictures that no one was supposed to know about. She wondered if Jonno knew more than he was saying, or at any rate suspected more than he was letting on.

  Jonno finished his meal and nodded at the waiter as he put a glass of wine in front of him. ‘Do you have any idea of where your oldies got the Rocheteau from, Anika?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Avoiding his eyes, she picked up her waterglass and took a few sips.

  ‘They’re introducing reforms in Hungary.’

  ‘Yes, it’s been on the news.’ Only now did she make the connection, that if the Iron Curtain were lifted, her family might easily be able to sell some of the collection.

  ‘Look at this.’ He pulled a newspaper out of his attaché case. It was yesterday’s edition that had been folded so that the article about Hungary was immediately visible.

  ‘I’ve read it,’ she told him. ‘They reckon the borders will come down in a year or two, and there’ll be free mobility of people.’

  ‘There’ll be free mobility of paintings too.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ she said carefully, and wondered why Jonno was talking of free mobility of paintings. A coldness gripped her, as if her body had been suddenly packed in ice, and it was only with the greatest effort that she prevented herself from shivering. There was no way Jonno could know about Nyenye’s collection. Anika had never mentioned it to him or to anyone else. Perhaps his words were another hook that he’d baited and tossed into the waters, in the hope that it might provoke some reaction. The iciness abruptly left her body and she began to feel unnaturally hot, her cheeks tight as if with sunburn. Her appetite gone, she put down her spoon and fork.

  Her family were honourable people, she told herself, and she was proud of them. Her grandparents had resisted the Nazi occupation and the Russian occupation, that’s what she’d always thought, and her parents had struggled against the communist regime in their own quiet way. But could she be wrong about them? After all, Nyenye’s flat was crammed with paintings. How did her grandparents get hold of them?

  Jonno was looking at her closely. He’d be marking her reaction, you could bet on that. She moved her chair to escape a spear of sunlight that was slicing through the palm trees outside the window and threatening to blind her. There was no way she could talk to Jonno about Daniel, let alone Daniel’s idea that her painting was stolen by the Nazis. Clearly that was Jonno’s view too. This was why he wanted to get friendly with her. He would buy her lunch and see what more information he could extract. Well, she would let him pay for her pasta but he was not going to get any more information out of her. Not today or any day.

  Chapter 19

  It was the third week of the semester and Professor Smythe was about to give a history of architecture lecture. He was a remarkably tall man, and stooped with it, as if for too many years he’d been ducking his head to get through doors. Soon after he dimmed the auditorium lights and the slideshow began, Sally – who was sitting next to Anika – whispered, ‘Wait for the soundtrack.’ A few seconds later they heard gentle snoring from the rows at the back of the hall.

  Professor Smythe didn’t notice, so caught up was he in Gothic architecture and those glorious stone cathedrals with the flying buttresses and huge windows, a miracle of construction out of heavy stone. This was history of architecture on the comparative method, he reminded them. This was how cathedrals were built in Northern Europe, and he flashed up a few pictures. This was how they were done in the south, and a few more images appeared on the screen. Climate and available materials, that was what guided builders and architects over the millennia.

  Usually Anika loved Professor Smythe’s lectures but tonight she was so distracted she could barely take in his story. A worm of anxiety had for days been burrowing through her brain. If only she could have talked to Nyenye about where the painting had come from and a hundred and one other matters but that was impossible. Not by phone, not by letter. Anika was stranded here, with Tabilla her only connection to home, and a tenuous connection that was too. The loneliness she suddenly felt was more than the familiar little ripple of isolation that sometimes washed around her. Rather, it was like a large wave that could crash down on her in the shallows. Her family was too far away. She’d give anything to go home for a visit. Anything to find out if they knew about provenances. Anything to know where all those paintings came from.

  After the lecture ended, Anika and Sally were descending the staircase when Anika saw, in the side corridor, their design tutor Howard Meyer talking to a striking woman. Her grey hair was cut very short and gelled up into little peaks on the top of her head, and she was wearing an elegant black shift with a deliberately irregular hemline that would give Aunt Tabilla the horrors.

  ‘That’s Judith Armstrong,’ Sally said. ‘I saw her picture in Architecture Australia.’

  Armstrong was an architect with a one-woman practice and a penchant for sun-control and designing imaginative houses made out of corrugated iron. She was talking animatedly to Meyer, who nodded from time to time, his head a metronome to mark her progress. Though Armstrong’s voice was low, Anika distinctly heard her mention the name of Barry Oreopoulous.

  In response, Howard said, ‘I don’t get on with him.’

  ‘Why ever not? He’s a lovely man.’

  ‘Maybe to you but not to me. Now, Judith, when are you going to give me your answer? You said it would only take a day or two to come to a decision and that was over a week ago.’

  They moved away and Anika heard no more. Sally said, ‘Do you think it was a proposal of marriage?’

  ‘Howard’s already married and anyway she’s at least ten years older.’

  ‘Age is just a number, that’s what my mum always says. About her own age and her own birthdays, I should say, not about mine.’

  * * *

  When Anika got home just before ten o’clock, the house was in darkness apart from a light in the kitchen. On the kitchen bench there was a note in Tabilla’s large looping hand and weighted down by a bunch of nasturtiums packed into a jam jar. Daniel rang and wants you to call back.

  For an instant Anika felt such a longing to hear his voice, such a regret that she’d missed his call, but that was before her head stepped in and decided that enough was enough. She was beginning to feel shallow-rooted, as if she might be blown away in any breeze that might spring up. The trouble was that Daniel was undermining her origins, she decided. He was undermining who she was.

  She put the kettle on and rummaged in the pantry cupboard for the can of Milo. The shrill ringing of the phone made her jump. It would be Daniel again. Quickly she picked up a cushion and pressed it down hard over the handset. She could feel it vibrating through the feathers. After eight rings it stopped. There was the sound of footsteps down the stairs and Tabilla appeared, her hair dishevelled.

  ‘Don’t look so concerned, the phone didn’t wake me,’ she said, doing up the buttons of the old green cardigan sh
e was wearing over her nightie. ‘Was it a wrong number?’ When Anika nodded, she continued, ‘I can’t get to sleep. Besides, I heard you come in and wanted to make sure you saw Daniel’s message.’

  ‘I did.’ Anika washed her hands in the sink and wiped them over her eyes and face. ‘I’m too tired to call anyone now.’

  ‘You look dreadful,’ Tabilla said. ‘Dark rings around your eyes. You’re not crying, are you?’

  ‘No. That’s just water and mascara.’ Slowly Anika patted her face dry with a paper towel and inspected the black marks. ‘Tabilla, can you do me a favour?’

  ‘Ask away.’

  ‘You’ll think me ridiculous.’

  ‘Don’t I already?’ She smiled and ruffled Anika’s hair.

  ‘Can you ring your friend Julius Singer and ask him if he knows Daniel’s uncle?’

  Anika watched Tabilla’s expression closely. It remained unchanged, although she didn’t reply immediately. Then she said, ‘What’s his uncle’s name?’

  ‘Rubinstein. Jake Rubinstein.’

  ‘Why do you want to find that out?’

  ‘It’s just something Daniel said about his Uncle Jake knowing Julius Singer. It was when we went to Clifton Gardens last Sunday. He said Julius and his Uncle Jake were old friends and I wondered if that was true.’

  ‘You don’t trust Daniel?’

  ‘I don’t trust anyone at the moment.’

  ‘You need to have faith in people, Anika. You should open up a little, like Hungary is beginning to. You don’t need to be so suspicious any more.’

  ‘I trust some people.’

  ‘But not Daniel. I suppose that’s fair enough, you hardly know him. Yet he was good enough to offer to introduce you to a valuer and he’s obviously keen on you if he’s asking you out. He sounded really nice on the phone. We had a very pleasant chat.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Just small talk, you know the way it is. He has lovely manners.’

  ‘You can’t judge a man on the basis of one phone call.’

  ‘I know that, Anika. It was quite a long phone call though. He sounded a bit reticent at first but I drew him out and we talked about the heat and Bob Hawke and the advantages of having a fan in a heatwave. And we bonded about Fred Williams – Daniel loves Fred Williams’s paintings too.’

  ‘Would you like some Milo, Tabilla?’

  Tabilla shook her head and continued talking. ‘I never liked that boyfriend of yours, that Frank. I disliked him right from the beginning but I knew you’d hate me to tell you that. What turned me off was that comment he made the afternoon you introduced us. His father worked in construction, he told me, and he hated architects poncing around on building sites, poofters the lot of them.’

  Anika remembered that comment well. It had hurt at the time and had resonated for days afterwards, and at first she’d blamed Frank’s father not Frank. It had taken longer than it should have for her to realise that Frank had chosen to report his father’s words that he could have kept to himself. Months later, she’d understood that he was belittling her because she’d got accepted into architecture.

  Tabilla said, ‘So what’s wrong with Daniel?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘And you’re not going to tell me why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I trust you, my darling. I’ll phone Julius tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Before I go to work?’

  ‘If you wish. I suppose that’s so you can listen to the conversation.’

  ‘Please don’t tell him that I asked you to call.’ Anika’s mouth was dust-dry and she knew her words sounded strangled. She prayed that Tabilla wasn’t going to ask why she wanted this information concealed.

  Tabilla sighed. ‘I expect that one day you’re going to let me know what this is all about.’

  ‘I will, I promise.’

  Anika hoped that this was a promise she could keep.

  * * *

  That night Anika dreamed of Daniel, as a boy of no more than nine or ten. She would have known him anywhere. It was in the shape of his head and his profile and the set of his shoulders. In the dream she was sitting on a sofa next to him; her adult self whom he was trying to shock. He was slowly turning the pages of a book about Hieronymus Bosch, the mediaeval painter, looking at the grotesque images that Bosch specialised in.

  She turned away for the barest instant and, when she looked back, Daniel had metamorphosed into an elderly man whom she recognised right away, Julius Singer. Julius remained sitting on the sofa while Anika began to drift around the room like a phantom listening to what he was saying. His voice was raised as he told her that her past was not hers, it belonged to someone else, a woman with half her ambition but twice her talent. His words became louder and louder and more accusatory. Details about how she was about to be sacked and that by rights her position at Barry Oreopoulous and Associates belonged to him. She had stolen it from him and left him with only an aching emptiness. But one day soon the tables would be turned and justice would be meted out and her life would become his life. The words came faster and faster, louder and louder. She put her fingers in her ears but still the noise escalated. So frightened did she feel that she wrenched herself awake, breaking through the fragile dome of sleep into the reality of her bedroom. She realised then that it was her voice and her screaming that had woken her.

  When she stood up too quickly, the room began to spin. She knew what the dream meant. That she was going to lose her job. She would lose her job as well as her painting. Catching hold of the wall, she navigated her way to the drawing board but misjudged where the stool was and banged her shin hard on one of the metal legs. Her annoyance found an outlet in Hungarian expletives as her fingers fumbled to switch on the planet lamp. After throwing open the window, she listened to the distant swish of traffic. Though the sky was whitening, a lopsided moon still shone faintly. Her watch showed six o’clock. There was no point in trying to sleep again. Not when she had a bad case of the jitters.

  Chapter 20

  After showering and dressing for work, Anika took Tabilla a mug of tea in bed. Her bedroom door was wide open and she was sitting propped up on pillows, reading the Hungarian novel that Magda had lent her. In a barely focused way she peered at Anika over the top of her reading glasses and smiled when she saw the Clarice Cliff mug. After putting it on the bedside table, Anika perched on the end of the bed. Through the double doors leading on to the glassed-in back verandah, she could see the brilliant sapphire blue of another lovely day. It didn’t do much to cheer her though. She said, ‘You said you’d phone Julius Singer this morning.’

  ‘So I did and I haven’t forgotten. I’ll be down shortly. Just let me finish my tea.’

  Finish my tea in peace was what she really meant, so Anika returned to the kitchen to eat a slice of toast and honey. Not long after the clock in the lounge room chimed seven-thirty, Tabilla came downstairs wearing her royal blue kimono with the golden dragons embroidered on the front and back. She looked at Anika quizzically before punching into the phone the digits of a number that she had written on a scrap of paper in her hand. When Anika headed towards the lounge room, Tabilla beckoned her back so she was close enough to hear the conversation.

  After speaking a few nothing words to Julius, Tabilla said, ‘I was wondering if you know someone called Rubinstein. He’s probably about your age. Do you know anyone by that name?’

  ‘The only person I know of with the name of Rubinstein is Daniel Rubinstein. He’s a curator at the Art Gallery of New South Wales but he’s much younger than me.’ Julius’s voice was so loud that Anika could hear every word.

  ‘And does he have an uncle by the name of Jake Rubinstein?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Daniel’s a good man though, one of the best.’

  Abruptly Anika sat down.
It was as she’d suspected. Daniel had lied to her when he’d said on that Clifton Gardens walk that Julius and his uncle were old friends. Anika could see his expression as clearly as if he were right in front of her still, fixing her with his lovely black eyes as if willing her to believe him.

  ‘And you definitely don’t know any Jake Rubinstein?’ Tabilla said.

  ‘No,’ Julius replied. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  For one horrible second, Anika thought Tabilla was about to tell Julius about her request. But she simply said, ‘A friend was asking, that’s all. She couldn’t find his number in the directory.’

  ‘Sorry I can’t help. We must go to another concert, Tabilla, maybe when my wife is well again. We had so little time at the concert to talk.’

  The jab of pain in the palm of Anika’s hand made her realise she’d been pressing her fingernails into the soft skin there. She felt sure now that she was right to be suspicious of Daniel. On that walk to Clifton Gardens, his words about his mythical Uncle Jake had led her to blurt out the whole story of what had happened when she took her painting to Julius’s gallery. Her forehead started to hurt as adjustments were made in her brain. It was as if she could sense the neurons making connections, sending new messages, reorganising her consciousness. Although she recognised that Daniel was untrustworthy, she felt a deep sense of regret.

  Yet how could she regret something she’d never had? Maybe that was what regret was all about, thinking about someone as a possibility when really it was only a chimera in her head, nothing more than that. Daniel meant nothing to her, she decided, and she wouldn’t see him again. He was too unsettling; he was someone to be avoided.

  * * *

  That morning Barry didn’t come into the office. This didn’t help with Anika’s apprehension, for none of them knew where he was. To stay awake she had too many cups of coffee, which kept her alert but didn’t help with the jitters. When she got back after lunch, Barry was lounging in one of the Mies van der Rohe chairs in the waiting area. Sitting opposite him was the woman Anika had seen talking to Howard Meyer after Professor Smythe’s lecture. As soon as Barry saw her hovering by the door, he waved her in and introduced her to Judith Armstrong. Anika shook hands with her and asked if they would like tea or coffee.