The Collector's Apprentice

by B. A. Shapiro

  In March: I sat on my yellow-and-green couch today and conjured you there next to me. For a moment it was so real I could feel your arms around me, the softness of your skin, the warmth of your lips. Then you were gone, and it nearly broke my heart.

  In April: Paris in the spring is the most exquisite place on earth for lovers, if only you were here to become mine.

  He sounded just like George: the compliments, the longing, the enthralling language. And he’s a ladies’ man, also just like George. She will not allow him to ensnare her. But she keeps the letters in a shoe box in the back of her closet, rereads them often.

  Perhaps not surprisingly, she begins to imagine she sees George around town. She could swear he was standing in the lobby at the symphony last month, but when she looped around to come from behind, he was gone. The same thing happened at a restaurant in March, and in Atlantic City a few weeks later.

  When he told her in Paris he might be going to the States, she assumed he was headed for New York City. Philadelphia seems too much of a backwater for his type of grand enterprise. Yet George’s logic is far different from everyone else’s because he’s always playing a chess game ten moves out, or more correctly, a con game. And he might very well be coming after her.

  She hopes he is, wants him to be. She won’t act the way she did that night outside the Café de la Rotonde. She’s no longer simple, gullible Paulien Mertens; she’s Vivienne Gregsby, far wiser and craftier than that naive girl.

  If he’s watching her, stalking her, it’s because he’s sizing her up as a mark. And the way to enact her payback is to pretend that that’s just what she is. She’ll play him the way he played her, the way he played so many others. And when she’s convinced him that she’s going to let him walk all over her again, when he allows himself to let down his guard, maybe while he’s in her bed—she’ll bed him if she has to—she’ll call the police. Justice will be hers, as will revenge, but most of all, his arrest is the calling card that will bring her home to her family, to forgiveness. Come on, you chump. Come get me.

  On her way to work early one morning, she notices a tall, broad-shouldered man in a linen jacket heading in her direction. He’s a couple of blocks away, too far to see his face, but the assured way he carries himself and his purposeful yet sauntering gait scream George. This is it. This is her chance. What’s her best move? Should she walk right up to him? Pretend she doesn’t recognize him? Wait for him to confront her? Should she be happy to see him or is she still angry?

  Before she can decide, the man turns at the next intersection. As she watches him travel away from her, she realizes that it isn’t George. The man is too old—his hair’s completely gray—but more importantly, there’s something about his demeanor, his lack of interest in his surroundings, which speaks of someone who’s on his home turf, comfortable and familiar, no evil intent.

  Edwin believes that Thomas Quinton is behind the district attorney general’s lawsuit. The owner and editor of Philadelphia’s largest and most powerful newspaper can conceivably influence judicial events—and has done so before—but Vivienne can’t believe this would be worth his trouble. Nor can she buy that it’s revenge for stealing Ada decades ago. But when a number of editorials and opinion pieces run—one written by Ralph Knight, Quinton’s close friend and the director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art—supporting the public’s right to view the Bradley artwork, this gives her pause.

  It’s part of her job to help Edwin win the suit, which is awkward, as she wants him to lose. The litigation is based on the contention that the Bradley, which is a tax-exempt institution, is neither an accredited school nor a museum, and therefore Edwin must pay taxes or allow the public to view the collection on a regular basis. Edwin is unlikely to agree to shell out the tax money—with the exception of purchasing art, he’s tight with a dollar—and therefore, if the suit succeeds, he’ll be forced to open the doors.

  Vivienne accompanies him to meetings with the lawyers, writes letters, collects materials, plots strategies, but if she makes a mistake now and then that might undermine their case, she lets it go. It’s not as if she’s hurting anyone. On the contrary, her efforts are a gesture of generosity.

  Late one fall afternoon, or more correctly early one evening, Edwin pops his head into her office. “Got a minute? There’s something I want to ask you.”

  Vivienne looks up from her post-Impressionist mapping. “Just fooling around here, boss. Whatever you need.”

  He looks over her shoulder, rocks back on his feet. “I’d say that’s a lot more than fooling around. That’s scholarship.”

  “Except I’m not getting too far.” She points to the mess of crisscrossing and intersecting lines. “It’s the links between the artists who started out as Impressionists and then created all the schools that came after. Is Gauguin a Symbolist or a Nabi? Or both? And did the Fauves emerge at essentially the same time as the Pointillists and the Symbolists? Or are they a later derivative of the other two? Perhaps three, including the Nabis?”

  Edwin’s forefinger follows the lines in her chart. “One of the problems is that you’re representing each of these movements as single entities,” he says. “Enclosing them within individual boxes. But the reality is more fluid. Maybe it’s more like a bunch of wiggly amoebas overlapping and dripping into one another.” He laughs. “Although I think I’m mixing my metaphors.”

  “Mixed metaphors or not, you’re exactly right,” Vivienne says, impressed, as always, with his ability to rapidly conceptualize and verbalize complex issues. “The problem is that I’m trying to break it down. To understand it. I want to know, to be able to explain to my students, what the parameters of post-Impressionism are. Where it starts and where it ends.”

  “Then you must oversimplify. You need to allow yourself to make choices that might not be one hundred percent correct but will get at the deeper truth you’re trying to understand and teach.”

  She crosses out the boxes for Futurism, Divisionism, and German Expressionism, holds it out to him. “That streamlines it, but it leaves out these three important pieces, important influences . . .”

  Edwin beams at her with pride. “You’ve come a long way since that morning in Paris two years ago, Vivienne Gregsby. Very far.”

  “I have a good teacher.”

  “Indeed you have.” He steps toward the door, then turns and says with an uneasy casualness, “I was wondering if you might accompany me to dinner on Saturday evening. There’s something important I want to discuss with you.”

  “I would be honored,” she tells him.

  The night of the dinner is cold for October, and Vivienne burrows inside her coat as Edwin drives them to a French restaurant she’s heard of but never visited. A full-throated fire burns, throwing both heat and surges of orange light around the small room. The food is excellent and the service impeccable, but Vivienne can’t relax. What does he want to talk to her about?

  They drink an illegal but lovely French wine—Edwin drinks far more than she, as she’s purposely taking small sips—and discuss the Matisse book, what to do with the sixty Soutines that just arrived, and their next visit to Paris, the timing of which depends on the court date for the lawsuit. He’s in high spirits, and as the evening progresses he gazes at her with increasing fondness.

  Over dessert, he says, “I was thinking about your post-Impressionist map, about what you’re trying to achieve with it. To oversimplify, if the Impressionists broke with European tradition by focusing on light, then maybe the post-Impressionists broke with the Impressionists by emancipating color from its primarily descriptive role.”

  “That’s all true, but somehow it seems too . . . too academic. What draws me is the pure and unnatural color, the rejection of perspective. The way the world is depicted as slightly oblique, askew, both more and less than it actually is. . . . How this . . . this somehow makes it all feel more real, more present. As if the artist has put himself and his feelings between what he sees and—”

&n
bsp; “I love you.”

  Vivienne stops speaking. “What?”

  “I have since that very first day I met you in Paris. When you told me what different colors smelled like.”

  “You have?”

  “I know I’m much older than you, but I was hoping you might return my feelings. That we could be together.”

  “I . . . I had no idea. I don’t know what to say . . .”

  “Say what you think.”

  “I do care for you,” she assures him. “Very much. You know I do. But this is so sudden. . . . And what about Ada?”

  “This has nothing to do with Ada. She has her life and I have mine.”

  At least he isn’t talking about divorce, and this gives her a gracious way to refuse him without insult. “I’m sorry, Edwin, but I can’t get involved with a married man. I won’t. It’s not how I was raised.”

  “I’ll get a divorce. I’ll speak with Ada tonight, and then you and I can—”

  “Divorce?” Vivienne interrupts before he can go any further. “That’s . . . that’s such a big step. Drastic even. I can’t let you do this. You and Ada have been together for so many years. She’s your wife. What would she do without you? Who would she be?”

  But as she says the words, she wonders whether she’s being too rash. Edwin is a handsome and accomplished man. Yes, he is much older, but he is vital, his intelligence prodigious, and he has great affection for art, as does she.

  “There hasn’t been anything between Ada and me for a long, long time,” he says, interrupting her thoughts. “If ever.”

  “This is . . . is so much.” What if she did marry him? She thinks of Henri, but he can’t factor into her decision because she will never be a factor in his. She would become Edwin’s wife, his heir. Perhaps she could persuade him to give her the colonnade seven as an engagement gift, to send her family money, maybe move them all to the States. Her mother would consider a marriage of convenience to a rich man a great accomplishment.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” she says truthfully. “It’s so fast. And I’m flattered. Of course I am. I’m overwhelmed. Have to think. I think you should take me home now. Could you please take me home?”

  He immediately signals the waiter for the check.

  “I need to be alone,” she adds quickly, afraid he misunderstood her request as a proposition. “It’s so much so fast. So overwhelming,” she stammers, and realizes she’s repeating herself. “I never imagined. Never expected. I . . . I can’t quite believe it.”

  When she reaches home, she closes the door behind her and slides to the floor. Merde. Married to Edwin Bradley. Obviously she doesn’t love him, but she respects him, enjoys his company, and he has much to offer: companionship, safety, protection, the collection. . . .

  The Mertens Museum of Post-Impressionism. Or perhaps, to be fair, the Bradley-Mertens Museum of Post-Impressionism. She, the owner and curator, a collector and philanthropist, known for her support of the arts. The twenty-three galleries simplified and streamlined, warm and engaging, filled not only with light and color and coherence but with people.

  The next day, Edwin comes into her office looking both angry and nervous.

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  He sits down on the corner of her desk, stretches his hand toward her. “Vivienne—”

  She takes it, presses it between her own. Overnight she’d weighed the pros and cons and decided she’s going to marry him. It’s best for everyone: Edwin, herself, her family, the colonnade seven, the collection. If not for Ada. But from the look on Edwin’s face, it appears this may not be her decision to make, which is simultaneously a blow and a reprieve.

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “Giving up?”

  “It’s Ada.” He falters. “She won’t agree to a divorce. The Catholic thing. She claims it’s impossible, that she’d be excommunicated, which I suppose she would.”

  Ada is meek and docile in most things, but Vivienne figures there’s little chance she’ll change her mind about this; a practicing Catholic is not about to mess with her immortal soul. “Wouldn’t you be excommunicated, too?” she asks, because she doesn’t know what else to say. Because she can’t untangle her conflicted emotions.

  “I converted for her and her goddamned mother. I don’t give a rat’s ass about their church. How the hell can you take a religion seriously when it’s run by men who wear dresses?”

  Vivienne bursts out laughing, glad for the release. “You’ve got a point there.”

  Edwin doesn’t smile. “Once when we were having a quarrel, Ada told me if she had the opportunity, she’d sell off every piece of art to a different place because that would destroy what she called ‘my fixation.’ And now she says if I try to divorce her, she’ll demand half the artwork—and then who knows what she might do with it.”

  “But she claimed she doesn’t believe in divorce,” Vivienne says. Then more tentatively, “You could call her bluff.”

  His face releases a bit. “Once again, we’ve come to the same conclusion. Soon we won’t even need to speak.”

  The day after Edwin calls her bluff, Ada files for divorce on the grounds that he committed adultery. Even though there’s obviously no concrete evidence, it will be a problem for Edwin to prove a negative. Ada also contends that Edwin has caused her to “suffer indignities.” These indignities include denial of marital rights, mistreatment, and humiliation.

  Ada’s lawyer sets out the parameters of the compromise they’re willing to make: in lieu of pressing the suit, Edwin and she must remain married and he will cease all “adulterous activities.” Edwin will legally place the house and grounds in Merion as well as their country estate, Ker-Feal, in Ada’s name. And she will receive half of everything Edwin has earned or acquired during their marriage in cash.

  Edwin is fuming. “The ‘in cash’ piece,” he explains to Vivienne, “would mean selling Bradley and Hagerty, the Bradley building, and at least half of the collection. Not acceptable!”

  “Can she win?”

  “It’s possible. My lawyers say that even if she doesn’t go much further, the cost of starting the litigation would be prohibitive.”

  “And?”

  “We countered by accepting all her conditions except the cash demand.”

  “And?”

  He hangs his head. “She agreed. I know we wanted to marry, but we’ll still have the Bradley, our time together.”

  Vivienne inspects her fingernails. She’d come so close to fail this spectacularly. Gone in a flash. The colonnade seven, restitution, the collection. The Bradley-Mertens Museum.

  “We can still continue our work.” Edwin kneels, takes her hands. “The Bradley. The book. The school. It will be almost as if we’re married. If you’re willing to consider the . . . the other thing, it, well, it could be a good life for us.”

  Vivienne shakes him off and goes to stand at the window, her back to him, thinks about what George might do to recoup his losses. She watches the gardeners put the beds to sleep for the winter. It’s melancholy work, pulling out ailing plants, slicing off yellowed leaves and browned flowers, covering bushes to protect them from the coming cold. “I will not be your paramour.”

  “You would be more than that.”

  “If that’s what you think, you don’t understand the meaning of the word.” She faces him. “This is . . . it’s . . . it’s all so very awkward now. How can we continue as we were? Working together so closely? I . . . I can’t be with you like that. I don’t know anything about it. I’ve been saving myself for marriage . . .” She looks away from him. “Maybe . . . maybe it would be best if I leave.”

  “We’ll go back to how things were,” he protests. “Just as they were. I respect your choices, very much so, respect you for them. I won’t push you, I promise. We’ll let it be. But you can’t leave. What would the Bradley do without you? What would I do without you?”

  She turns to th
e window again. The gardeners rake the dead leaves and branches onto a large tarp, drag the load off to an already looming pile of the season’s demise, return to fill it yet again. The days are growing short, the shadows of dusk leaning in by midafternoon.

  “Please, Vivienne, tell me you won’t leave us.”

  She doesn’t respond. Just because they can’t marry doesn’t mean that she can’t inherit the collection.

  “Vivienne,” he pleads.

  She’s silent for another full minute. Then she says in a throaty whisper, “How could I leave either you or the Bradley?”

  18

  George/Benjamin/Ashton, 1925

  Damn the bitter losers. Damn the jealous liars. Damn the mealymouthed investors with their lack of confidence and misplaced suspicions. None of his businesses have ever failed. He’s always been the one to close them down—on his own terms. This is a slap in the face. Sudden, sharp, and surprising.

  He slams his empty scotch glass down hard on the table and walks to the window, gazing out at Central Park from a tenth-floor room in the hotel where he registered under yet another assumed name. He has also washed the gray out of his hair, bought a pair of spectacles, and begun to grow a beard.

  The park is denuded, harsh, and barren. The few walkers are hunched over, pushing against the wind into the deepening shadows of winter’s early dusk. He’ll find whoever started the rumor that Steel Bearings, Inc.—the largest company held by Talcott Reserves—was on the verge of bankruptcy. And he’ll make him pay. The stock market is rising and the economy is booming, so why would anyone believe that one of the largest manufacturers of ball bearings in the United States is in financial trouble? Damn it all to hell.

  But all his damning changes nothing. It happened. It’s done. Talcott Reserves is gone—and so are the millions of dollars he poured into the business, not to mention the millions more in profits he expected to reap over the next two years. He has barely enough stashed away in Switzerland to start a new venture.