The Center of the World

by Thomas van Essen

  All the furniture had been made especially for the room. Living wood had been twisted into easy chairs and sofas. Sitting in these chairs, surrounded by these walls and decorations, Rhinebeck had the pleasant sensation of being embraced by Nature in her very womb.

  Rhinebeck opened the large cabinet that Durant had made to his particular specifications. He felt the familiar shudder of pleasure. He concentrated on the ships which sailed on the perfect sea. He had a vivid sense of the baskets of spices and the amphorae of fragrant wine that filled the ships’ holds. He had never noticed them before. How odd that there, far out on the sea, the sailors and merchants went about their business, while the great warriors fought the greatest battle the world had ever known. The towers of Troy were surely a landmark that guided them on their way. What could they see? The towers and the plain before them, perhaps the smoke from the invading army’s campfires, perhaps the fleet of Greek ships pulled up upon the shore. Perhaps they had heard about the quarrel and they were staying as far away from the Trojan coast as they could. Just merchants going about their business, trying to stay out of harm’s way.

  He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes had passed. He wondered how many hours had disappeared in front of his painting. It was a wonder that he still found the time to make any money at all.

  He took it out of the cabinet and laid it on the billiard table. He wrapped it carefully in a piece of canvas, tying the bundle up securely with a stout cord. It pained him, but it just wouldn’t do for his wife to see it. He went to a closet and took out an identically sized painting. It was a Renoir, one of his plump pink nudes, although a bit more risqué than most of them. The look on her face was more lustful than languorous, and there was a hint of pubic hair visible through her parted legs. The sense of moisture down there, Rhinebeck suspected, was not on account of the bath. Of course she was nothing like his Helen, but she would do for the purpose he had in mind. Closing her up in the cabinet, he thought it was almost a sacrilege to allow her into the space that had been built to contain his Turner.

  He called for Mr. Kircum, the head groundskeeper at Birch Lodge. Kircum and his wife lived in a small house next to the main property. They had had a child, but she had died. He was a silent man who had seen things in the Great War that he would not speak of.

  “Is everything in order?” Rhinebeck asked. Kircum nodded. “Will you go pick up the ladies at the station or will you send someone else?”

  “I go in about an hour.”

  “Good. Take that bundle on the billiard table and bring it down to your barn. Be very careful with it. I’ll come with you.”

  Kircum picked up the painting. He carried it with ease in spite of its size and the weight of the gilt frame. They crossed the stone bridge that connected the keeper’s house with the main property and walked up the gravel path to the barn. Opening the door, Rhinebeck went ahead. He pushed against the back wall. There was a slight click and the door to the compartment opened. Kircum put the bundle inside and Rhinebeck closed the door. He stepped back to look at the place where his treasure was concealed.

  “This will do nicely. Throw some old tools and lumber up against that wall before you go.”

  . 8 .

  THE PART OF HER WORKDAY that Gina liked best was the evening, after all her colleagues had gone home. First Tracey, who sat by the door and answered the phone, said good-bye at a little after six, and by seven she usually had the downstairs room at Madison Partners to herself. Often she would turn off the overhead lights and sit in the cone of light that emanated from her desk lamp. With the incessant telephones finally quiet, she felt she was in a sacred circle, alone with her catalogues and auction announcements, doing difficult work that was beautiful and good. She liked to listen to the sounds of the brownstone as it settled down for the evening: Rosaria cleaning up or preparing Mr. Bryce’s dinner, the faint notes of an opera recording from the library upstairs, or the solitary whir of the fax machine as it spat out some paper that would be dealt with tomorrow.

  Sometimes Bryce would pass through on his way out for the evening and might compliment her on her outfit or ask what was keeping her so late. Once or twice he asked if Rosaria should bring some coffee or perhaps a sandwich. He seemed pleased that she took her work so seriously, and Gina delighted in his pleasure, although she knew that his approbation probably meant more to her than it should.

  For Gina, Madison Partners was an oasis of class and perfection in an ugly world. Bryce dressed beautifully and was devoted to his work. She felt fortunate to be paid so well for participating in that work and sitting in such a lovely room. She had been raised in affluence in New York, but she felt she had grown up in the circus of her parents’ screaming fits, divorces, and love affairs. College had been better and graduate school better still, but nothing had ever been as satisfying as Madison Partners.

  On Fridays most of “the young people,” as Bryce called Gina and her colleagues, went home early, so Gina had been alone for longer than usual when she left at eight. She hoped that Bryce would come through and see that she was still there, but he seemed to have no evening plans. Eventually she took her bag of gym stuff from under her desk, turned out the lights, and made her way to the subway. She had stayed so long that she found herself on a bike in the last row in the corner of her spin class. She missed being able to lock eyes with the instructor as she tried to keep up, but she was so tired that she was happy enough to let herself disappear into the exercise.

  There were three messages on her phone when she got home. The first was from her father. She could hear airport noises in the background. “Hi, Baby. On my way back to L.A. I wanted you to be the first to know, but the damn rags never leave you alone and there was a screwup with Megan’s publicist. I keep telling her to fire the fucker, but she’s got her own ideas. Anyway, we’re getting married. Not sure of the date yet, not sure where. We’re thinking Napa, but maybe something a bit more fun. Tahiti, Iceland—we’re still working on it. Morocco. But listen, I’m going to need you there, so stay tuned for the details and be ready to party. Gotta go, they’re calling my flight. Love ya.”

  Her father was like a character in a bad movie, who also made bad movies in real life. He had been an entertainment lawyer in New York when Gina was young but had started producing films in Los Angeles while she was in middle school. Since his divorce from her mother, he had had one more marriage and a string of affairs with younger women, mostly actors. Gina had met Megan only once, when her father introduced them at a restaurant as they were passing through New York. She seemed nice enough, was certainly pretty enough, and although she was younger than Gina, she was, fortunately, a year or two older than the second Mrs. Bolton.

  The next message was from her mother. She sounded drunk. “So Romeo is at it again. I don’t know why he calls me; he thinks I care. He said he already left you a message—Mr. Sensitive. I’m sorry you have to deal with it. He’s getting more and more pathetic. He just got all his teeth done—shiny white like a shark. Said it makes the world of difference, said I should try it. He’s unbelievable. Give me a call when you get a chance. Love you.” Gina decided that if her mother was still awake she would be too far gone to talk to. She would call her in the morning.

  The third was from Mr. Bryce. “This is Arthur Bryce. Please come back to the office. Never mind how late, I’ll be up until two or three. No need to call, just come as soon as you can. It’s important. Take a cab.” Gina was still in her bike shorts. She listened to the message again and got into the shower.

  Although it was twenty minutes before midnight when she got back to the office, Bryce was dressed as if it was just time for lunch. His tie was perfectly knotted and his shirt perfectly pressed. She was glad that she had changed back into an office outfit, although she was aware that her hair was still wet.

  “Do sit down.” Bryce waved her into a leather chair in front of his desk. “I’m sorry to have called you back so late. I came down to see if you were still there, but you wer
e gone. Can I at least offer you a cup of coffee? I have prevailed upon Rosaria to wait up until your arrival, so I’ll have one whether you do or not.” Gina declined the coffee. She had not had any plans for the evening other than a bowl of soup, some television, and sleep. Coffee at this hour would ruin the possibility of the latter. She asked for water. She was starving.

  “While we are waiting, let me show you one of my favorite possessions.” Bryce moved deliberately and beautifully, as if his movements had been designed to show how well his suit was cut. He took a watercolor landscape of a Swiss lake from the wall. It was a small thing that more than held its own against the gilt-framed oils that filled the room. There were mountains in the background, a village below, and a small sailboat crossing the blue-gray water. Flecks of color suggested cows in a meadow.

  Bryce drew her attention to a spot of forest on the right-hand side. The artist had scraped the paper—perhaps with his fingernail—and his touch had created the breeze which brought the forest to life and drove the boat across the water. “It is the hand of the artist, in this case J.M.W. Turner,” Bryce said, “that brings life to the world. It is the hand of God that Michelangelo painted.” He went on talking about the sketch until Rosaria came in with the coffee. Gina was sorry to hear Rosaria say that she would be turning in, but glad that she lived in the building.

  “I have been thinking about the future directions of the firm in these sad days. Also thinking of you, of what your role might be,” he said. “I have been watching you, you know. Paying attention to the way you go about things. Quite impressive. That was nicely done with the Hassam.”

  A few weeks earlier Gina had negotiated the sale of a Childe Hassam seascape for much more than anyone in the office had expected. Both the buyer and the seller had professed themselves delighted with the transaction. She had hoped that Bryce would notice; but given the hour, his praise both pleased her and put her on her guard.

  “It must have pained you. Hassam is so vulgar. When I saw the thing I almost felt ill. I had a moment of despair; I thought we might have to hang it downstairs for a while. But you did well, my dear, very well. Mr. Ashford called the other day asking that I keep my eye out for any other such. His taste in art is hardly developed, but he admired you. You keep yourself fit. A nice complexion. Beautiful hair. A figure a man like Ashford might admire. He was most complimentary. He requested, in fact, that you take care of any future transactions between Madison Partners and himself. You might let him simmer a bit, but perhaps in a few months a visit to Santa Monica will be in order. Bring along a canvas or two. Dress well, but a bit more Hollywood, you know. Mr. Ashford will appreciate the gesture.

  “Now, don’t look so shocked. Madison Partners is everything you believe it to be, and, quite frankly, more, but it is also a business. We require the Mr. Ashfords of Santa Monica to purchase the kinds of things they do in order to make all of this possible.” His gesture seemed to encompass not only the room in which they were sitting but other realms that were beyond her grasp.

  It had been a matter of some pride to Gina that she was able to get such a good price for the Hassam. It was her enthusiasm for the painting, she thought, as well as its beauty, that had convinced Ashford. She was hurt by the suggestion that it was her looks and embarrassed that she might have been guilty of the same weakness of taste as Mr. Ashford. She wondered if Bryce was making fun of her or if he was paying her a compliment she did not deserve. Her sense of discomfort increased. An elaborate clock in the corner of the library chimed midnight.

  “Perhaps you feel uncomfortable? But you are young. You have much to learn. It is not all sweetness and light; the path to greatness is not always easy. Or nice,” Bryce said. “I watch all the young people I hire. I hire only the best. But I have noticed you above the others. You work very hard, which is the first thing. You still have, if you don’t mind my saying so, a young person’s appreciation of things, but that will change with time and experience.

  “But I did not ask you to come here at this hour to talk about a man from Santa Monica, nor even a small but perfect watercolor, though we shall come back to Turner in due course. I have, as they say, bigger fish to fry.

  “There is,” Bryce said, “the art history they teach you in school and the paintings one sees in museums. But there are other works, you know, that remain forever in private collections. Most of these are very bad, and they stay where they are for sentimental reasons or because no one wants them, but some are so exquisite they represent a subterranean tradition of excellence that very few are able to appreciate.

  “Opportunities to acquire such works come along but rarely. I spent a number of years pursuing a set of drawings by Michelangelo called The Allegory of Love. People had been whispering about them forever. They had spent the Second World War in Berlin. From there they had gone to Moscow. An opportunity to acquire them seemed to open up in 1993. The wall had fallen; the Soviet Union had crumbled. History had cracked open and a number of extraordinary pieces had become available, although The Allegory of Love was by far the greatest of these. I was hot on the trail, but at the last minute I was outmaneuvered and outspent. As a kind of recompense and in exchange for my silence, I was granted a few minutes’ look as they were in transit to Dubai. We were standing in a drafty hangar in Frankfurt. The light was appalling and the crew was impatient to take off. It is a complex allegory of Platonic or Grecian love in which the figure of Plato bears a striking resemblance to Michelangelo himself. Extraordinary lines, shadow beyond imagining. God the father and Socrates are merged into an ideal of perfect masculinity. I saw the transfer of the divine spirit into the ecstatic body of Plato in exquisite anatomical detail. I was in such a fever of despair that I could hardly see, but it was, nonetheless, as profound an experience as I have ever had.”

  Bryce shuddered as the memory washed over him. Gina sat in silence and waited for him to recover. She saw that he was offering her a glimpse of a world that was greater and more beautiful than the one she lived in. She wondered if she would ever be able to see as clearly and feel as passionately as he did.

  “Time has cracked open again; I feel it in my bones. I aim to have that experience once more, but this time I will win. And you, if you are willing, are going to help me and, perhaps, share in it yourself. You have surely heard the story of Turner’s estate? When Turner died in 1851, at the age of seventy-six, Ruskin took on the task of cataloguing the large body of work the artist had bequeathed to the National Gallery. In about 1856 he discovered a body of ‘obscene’ works amongst Turner’s remains and, assisted by Ralph Wornum, the keeper of the National Gallery, he burned this material.

  “Now, what was this stuff that Ruskin burned?” Bryce went on to say that most scholars assume it was of a piece with the atmospheric and almost abstract oil sketches of copulating couples or those doodles of sexual subjects that survive, but he thought that among the material were some sketches or notebooks related to a lost painting. Bryce handed Gina the leather folder that contained Wyndham’s note.

  “I believe,” Bryce said, “that Ruskin burned material related to the ‘infamous painting’ mentioned there. Further, I believe that this painting still exists. I have asked you here tonight because I want you to help me find it.”

  She looked at him quizzically for a moment. Bryce did not seem unduly excited. He was as calm and perfectly groomed as ever. She was flattered by his request, she told him, but she needed to understand more.

  She was to move to England, he said; Madison Partners maintained an apartment near Sloane Square that would be turned over to her exclusive use. She would be assigned a number of important British clients. His secondary goal was to give her a broader experience of the business, but her primary task would be to find some evidence of Turner’s “infamous” painting.

  “One can only learn by doing. An object of the sort I am seeking,” Bryce said, “does not pass through the world without leaving traces. You see the wake from that sailboat in Turner’s sketch
, how it trails behind the stern? Turner understood these matters—he was a great sailor, you know. Each life, each thing, leaves some trace—a wave, a ripple, depending on its size. I firmly believe that traces remain of everything that ever was, of every action ever undertaken. They are merely too small and too faint, too far removed from their first cause, for our weak intellects to comprehend.

  “These traces—broken hearts, idle gossip, scraps of paper—can lead us to the thing itself, if it still exists. In this case, of course, the matter is a good deal more complicated because, I suspect, all those involved have made every effort to hide the trail. But those efforts themselves leave traces, the broken twigs, as it were, in the underbrush. You are perhaps too young to understand this, but everything is connected to everything else. This coffee cup I am holding leads back to the pillars of the Temple of Poseidon at Paestum and to the windows of Chartres. Everything is part of a vast network; one needs only to find the thread and follow it carefully back. In theory it is simplicity itself.”

  He went on to explain that she would receive a significant raise and could look forward to a sizable bonus whenever she made any discovery that seemed to advance his quest. He would give her his private cell phone number, and he expected her to come to New York once or twice a month to provide an update on her progress.

  “Are you interested?” he asked.

  She understood that if she were to refuse or show any sign of hesitation the door that Bryce was holding open for her would close, never to be opened again.

  “Of course,” she said. “You’re offering me an extraordinary opportunity. I would be a fool to say no.”

  “Good. I expect to hear that you are settled in London on Monday.”