The Collector's Apprentice

by B. A. Shapiro

  “I, ah, I also don’t know if this is the best time to sell,” Leo continues. “If, given Renoir’s rise in popularity, it might be best to wait it out to take advantage of the increasing value . . . even though waiting might prove problematic.” He drums his long fingers on the table. “And then there’s the matter of a possible auction. Would I get a fair return? Or would another method be more profitable?”

  “Is this something you need to do right away?” Edwin asks.

  Leo plays with his napkin ring. “There are also a few Cézanne watercolors, a Delacroix, a Daumier, and a Matisse bronze . . .”

  “Are they in Paris?” Vivienne asks.

  “I brought some of them with me. They’re at twenty-seven.”

  “I’d like to see what you have.” Edwin says. “I can give you my thoughts. Maybe find you some buyers. Even buy a few myself.”

  “I’m afraid you’re thinking they’re more important than they are. Most of them are small and slight. I cracked one enchanting nude by foolish handling and—”

  “Let me be the judge of that,” Edwin says.

  The next morning the three meet at Gertrude’s. They stand in the atelier and survey what Leo wants to sell.

  “You’re right,” Edwin tells Leo. “Some of this has little merit, but some are quite fine. I might be able to find you buyers in America for the more major pieces, where a few collectors, although not many, are beginning to appreciate modern art.”

  “You think so?” Leo sounds doubtful.

  “I’d also like to see the others,” Edwin says. “Particularly the rest of the Renoirs.”

  “I think maybe I could do that, but it might—”

  “Ship the whole lot to Merion,” Edwin interrupts. “We’ll be back there by the beginning of December, and that will give me time to make some inquires before everyone leaves the city for Christmas.”

  “Maybe this isn’t the right time, then,” Leo says. “The sales will take longer to complete because of the length of time it will take to get the paintings there. Especially if everyone is on holiday. And what if the collectors are less sophisticated than you think? Then I’d have to pay to have them shipped back and—”

  “Leo, stop.” Edwin points to a small Renoir nude. A woman stands in front of what appears to be a waterfall, her back to the viewer, wavelets lapping at her thighs. Not as lush as some, unfinished around the edges, but still lovely. Vivienne guesses 1890s, a period from which the Bradley has only a few Renoirs.

  “I’ll give you five hundred francs for it right now,” Edwin says to Leo’s astonishment. It’s a lot of money for a painting that size, but it’s more valuable to Edwin than most.

  Vivienne is taken with the study, with the colors and the curves of the woman’s body against the water. But she hates to think about it as part of an ensemble, within which it will be swallowed up, barely noticed. If the collection were hers, she would find a small alcove somewhere, a narrow spot near a bench or a chair, where its diminutive character could be truly appreciated.

  “Use that money to ship the rest,” Edwin is saying. “And I’m sure I’ll be able to find you some buyers by the spring.” He scribbles a check and hands it to Leo.

  Leo looks from Edwin to the check in his hand. “Thank you,” he says. “This will help a lot.” Although he makes an attempt at a smile, it’s clear from his eyes that it isn’t going to help enough. Edwin mentioned gambling debts.

  Edwin takes back the check, rips it up, and writes another. This one causes Leo’s eyes to water; he pretends to sneeze so he can use his handkerchief. Then he throws himself at Edwin and gives him a bear hug.

  Edwin stands stiffly and awkwardly pats Leo’s back.

  When Vivienne and Edwin leave 27, he’s exuberant. “I know he’s got a few more Renoirs in that batch that will work for me. The man may have fallen on hard times, but no one has an eye like Leo Stein.”

  She touches his arm. “It was generous of you to help him out like that.”

  Edwin briefly puts his hand over hers. “It seems that I’m a more generous person when I’m around you.”

  The news of Edwin’s munificence spreads quickly, and even Gertrude warms to him, praising his discernment and the breadth of his growing collection, inviting Vivienne and Edwin on her boating excursions down the Seine and to almost all her parties. Things are going so smoothly between Gertrude and Edwin that Vivienne isn’t surprised when Edwin decides to stay at Gertrude’s beyond dessert one evening.

  He usually complains about this latter part of the dinner parties, when the guests retire to Gertrude’s atelier; he claims it gets too raucous and goes on too late. Plus it’s raining that night, and Vivienne knows he hates getting his shoes wet walking between the house and the atelier. She assumes his new rapport with Gertrude has changed his opinion. She and Henri, along with Gertrude and Alice and Zelda Fitzgerald—who is a hoot—are having too much fun to worry about Edwin’s change of heart.

  Henri returned from Barcelona just the day before, and he’s even wittier and more handsome than Vivienne remembers. Despite the fact that his arrival means they can now begin the interviews for The Art of Henri Matisse, Edwin keeps shooting the two of them sidelong glances. Annoyed, she tears herself away from Henri and walks across the yard with Alice.

  When all the guests are in the atelier, Gertrude seats herself next to the cast-iron stove—the only source of heat in the room and therefore the center of activity—in a high-backed Italian Renaissance chair, and everyone clusters in small groups around both her and the warmth. As Vivienne edges her way toward Henri and Scott Fitzgerald, Edwin grabs her arm.

  “Come look at this,” he says, dragging her toward an oversize Picasso. “What do you think?”

  It’s from Picasso’s Rose Period, and Edwin has been looking for a piece from this era. “It’s magnificent,” she tells him, “but you know as well as I do that Gertrude never sells her paintings. And—”

  “I think it is some of his best work,” Henri says, joining them.

  Edwin twists his shoulders and takes a step to his left, positioning himself between Vivienne and Henri.

  Vivienne inspects the painting. “With a nod to you,” she tells Henri.

  “Why, thank you, Mademoiselle Gregsby.” Henri steps around Edwin and kisses her hand. “I appreciate that. Especially coming from someone with your discerning eye.”

  “Just because he’s using simple forms and bright colors?” Edwin’s voice is scornful. “Perhaps it is you, my dear friend Henri, who is nodding to him.”

  Vivienne is even more annoyed now. Edwin knows Henri and Pablo Picasso have a love-hate relationship, and he’s purposely antagonizing Henri.

  “If we have a positive effect upon each other’s work,” Henri retorts, “I can only believe this is a good thing. Artists do not stand alone. Pablo and I share an appreciation for many earlier and contemporary artists, and we use their work as a starting point for our own. Unlike in many other professions,” he adds, looking from Gertrude to Edwin, “painters are not always in competition with each other.”

  “In every profession, and in every situation, there is competition,” Edwin declares. “Winners and losers.” Then he calls out to Gertrude, “How much to buy this one?”

  Silence fills the room, and Gertrude says dismissively, “Not everything in this world is for sale.”

  “For the right price it is,” Edwin insists.

  “Perhaps you mistake my home for a gallery, Dr. Bradley.”

  Vivienne grabs his arm. “What’s wrong with you tonight? Don’t do this.”

  He shrugs Vivienne off and pulls his checkbook from his pocket. “I’ll give you a thousand francs right this minute.”

  Gertrude turns to a young man at her right, an aspiring painter who looks at her worshipfully. “Monsieur—”

  Edwin smirks at Henri. “Fifteen hundred,” he calls to Gertrude.

  “You work in oils, don’t you?” Gertrude asks the artist.

  “Most
of the time I—” the boy begins.

  “Two thousand.”

  “Most of the time you work in oils?” Gertrude prompts.

  “Three thousand.”

  Vivienne hisses in his ear, “You’re not going to win.” Is this grandstanding because he’s jealous of the notice she’s been giving to Henri or because Gertrude, a rival collector, is the center of attention?

  “Watch me.”

  “Pastels, actually,” the boy says. “But I—”

  “Four thousand!”

  “Vivienne,” Gertrude calls, “is there nothing you can do to silence this madman?”

  Vivienne gives Edwin an imploring look. “There are other Picassos out there.”

  Edwin holds his checkbook high in the air. “I’ll give you ten thousand francs,” he declares. “In cash!”

  For a moment Gertrude hesitates, and as soon as Edwin sees this, he chortles. “See, Mademoiselle Stein, everything is for sale at the right price.” He bows to Gertrude and turns to Henri. “As I said, winners and losers.” Then he walks toward the door.

  “Out!” Gertrude bellows. But Edwin is already gone.

  Zelda, quite drunk—as is her usual state at this hour—starts to giggle. Scott, also drunk, throws his arm around her and joins in. Then the snickers begin. The guests try to hold themselves back, but it’s impossible. Soon everyone, with the exception of Gertrude and Alice, are exploding with laughter. The hilarity is contagious, and Vivienne collapses into Henri’s arms, hooting along with the rest of them. Edwin has indeed made his point.

  Gertrude stands, pulls herself to her full height, and in her deep, booming voice declares, “Go! All of you! Go!”

  The merriment immediately abates, and everyone shuffles out into the rain like chastised children sent to their rooms.

  The next day, Vivienne schedules a series of interviews with Henri. And to spite Edwin for his antics at Gertrude’s, she goes out and buys a velvet dress for their first meeting. It’s a luxurious shade of forest green, a color she knows Henri likes because he uses it so frequently in his paintings. Perhaps the purchase is not just to get back at Edwin.

  But she doesn’t get to spite Edwin or to go to Henri’s apartment. The day before the first interview, Edwin receives a cable from his lawyer in Philadelphia. The district attorney general’s office is bringing a lawsuit contending that the Bradley should be opened to the public, and Edwin must return immediately.

  So instead of sitting on Henri’s Matisse’s green-and-yellow couch in her new dress, Vivienne finds herself in Marseille, boarding a ship bound for New York.

  The Trial, 1928

  My life is a roller coaster, Edwin. A hackneyed metaphor perhaps, but true. After the last two sessions, in which my motive and opportunity were on broad display, Pratt petitioned the court to revoke my bail, and the judge took it under advisement. For two long days, I huddled in my bed, praying to be allowed to continue spending my nights there.

  When sleep finally came, it was full of nightmares of being stalked or held in a cage with no doors. Once in a while there were pleasant dreams in which I freely wandered the back fields of the estate in Belgium, a young girl still, but these dreams became nightmarish when I awoke to my true situation. Yet you know nothing about that young girl or those fields, do you? Odd to think how much we shared and how much we withheld from each other.

  Fortunately the judge rejected Pratt’s motion. That’s the top-of-the-roller-coaster part. The rush downward was due to the meeting I had with Ronald to discuss his strategy. We met in his office, a small, windowless room at the end of a narrow corridor, far from the opulence of the marble-sheathed lobby. Ronald stared into his coffee cup and mumbled, “Hello.”

  “What’s your overall plan?” I asked, as any reasonable client on trial for her life might. “Pratt seems to be positioning his pieces for a quick checkmate. What’s our next move?”

  “Reasonable doubt.”

  “Specifically . . . ?”

  “There are three prongs: other potential suspects, the implausibility of someone choosing to stage a car crash as a viable murder technique, and the likelihood it was an accident.”

  He did have a plan. With three prongs. “So all the others he promised the collection to and then reneged?” I asked hopefully. “The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania? And there are tons of people who disliked him.” Sorry, Edwin. “Thomas Quinton for starters. Ralph Knight at the PMA. Clifton Sherman at Penn.”

  “They’re all on the prosecution’s list of potential witnesses.”

  “Wouldn’t they be our witnesses?”

  “They were going to be.”

  “But not anymore?”

  “No.”

  His cryptic answers revived my irritation, and I demanded that he explain exactly what was going on.

  “Pratt is trying to head us off at the pass.”

  I wasn’t encouraged by the cowboy reference either. “We’re talking about a goddamned murder conviction!” I cried. “You tell me how you’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen or you’re fired.”

  This seemed to get his attention, and he explained that he’d deposed each of Pratt’s witnesses and determined their testimonies were going to hurt us more than help us.

  Apparently they were all eager to express their dislike for you, Edwin. To describe the fights and the insults. But one after the other, every man and every institution’s representative insisted that he never believed you’d leave the collection to anyone but me.

  “But that’s not Quinton’s only possible motivation,” I explained as calmly as I could, trying to keep from screaming. “Thomas Quinton hates Edwin with a passion. Blames him for stealing his true love, Edwin’s wife, Ada. The man is still holding a torch after all this time. And Ada told me he was going to help her prove that I killed Edwin.”

  For the first time Ronald appeared interested. “When did she say this?”

  “At Edwin’s funeral.”

  “Who else was there?”

  “Just Quinton.”

  “Nobody else?”

  “No, but she could have told someone at another time.”

  “Not good enough.”

  My voice rose a few notches. “Thomas Quinton is on the board of directors at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. For years he and Ralph Knight have been cooking up ways to move Edwin’s collection to the PMA. They both know that if I inherit it, I’d never give it to them. And I’m sure Ada promised them that she would—probably part of her deal. Quinton helps her get revenge on me, and she hands over the collection. Sounds like a lot of damn motive to me.”

  Ronald waited patiently through my tirade, and then said, “Suggesting men of their stature and gravitas are setting you up for murder wouldn’t be good for us.”

  “Not good for us?” I argued. “How can it make it any worse?”

  “Thomas Quinton owns the Philadelphia Investigator,” Ronald informed me, as if that was all that needed to be said.

  “That doesn’t mean he’s not orchestrating this debacle!”

  Ronald shrugged. “That would be difficult to prove.”

  “So apparently you have only two prongs,” I pointed out, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “Your third one doesn’t appear to actually exist.”

  He glanced at his watch. “I suppose that’s true.”

  “What about Ada? Mrs. Bradley?” I’m sorry, Edwin, I appreciate how you always protected her, but all I need is reasonable doubt. “She’s an heir, too—and the spouse is always a suspect, right?”

  “Problematic to go after the grieving widow,” Ronald said. “Especially when they were married for so many years. And in this case, his will didn’t stipulate that Mrs. Bradley was to get anything beyond what Dr. Bradley had already agreed to give her—in writing, I might add—before he died.”

  “But that isn’t the—”

  “It’s not going to work, Vivienne,” he interrupted. “Ada Bradley didn’t stand to inherit anything sh
e didn’t already own, so it’ll be hard to convince the jury she had cause.” His implication was that there would be much less difficulty in convincing a jury that I did.

  “What about the fact that she believed Edwin and I were having an affair? The scorned wife?”

  “But you told me you and Bradley weren’t involved in that way.” He spaced his words as if he were talking to a slow child. “It would have more merit as a motive if you’d had an actual affair.”

  “She didn’t know that!” I wanted more than anything to tell him, as you would say, what a horse’s ass he was. But I don’t know any other lawyers, and my inheritance is being held in escrow—if I’m found guilty of your murder, I can’t claim it—so I don’t have the money to pay someone to start all over again. Actually I barely have the money to pay Ronald’s firm. “I want you to go after her anyway.”

  He looked at his watch again and sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I’ve been looking into alternative theories and other possible suspects—including Ada Bradley—and so far I’ve come up empty. The firm told me just the other day that I’ve charged too many hours, and they won’t give me any more money to investigate further.”

  17

  Vivienne, 1924

  Once Vivienne and Edwin arrive back in Philadelphia, Henri corresponds frequently with both of them, mailing letters about the book to the Bradley, posting personal ones to her home address. Some of his notes to her are friendly and chatty: tales of Saturday evening opium smoking at Gertrude’s, descriptions of the weather in Nice, talk of his progress on the odalisques, his latest disagreement with Picasso. Others are more intimate.

  In February: I cannot stop thinking of you standing so still in my studio, taking in Odalisque with Red Pants with your painter’s eye, striving to see what I had done and what I had found, crawling into my soul. It was a moment more intimate than if we were making love. When will you return?