The Forger

by Paul Watkins

  “And why am I doing this?” I asked.

  “Because if Behr thinks he can get a better deal from you, he’ll take it. Besides, the more disorganized we seem to be, the more he’ll feel like he’s in charge.”

  “You’ve done this before,” I said.

  “I’ve done just about everything,” replied Fleury. He handed me a list of paintings. On it were two Picassos, one a charcoal of the head of a man with a pipe, the other a pen and ink wash of a couple at a bar. There was a Matisse entitled La Danse, a découpage done in ink and watercolor. A Redon charcoal of a skull on brown paper. A Monet pastel of the cliffs at Etretat. “I happen to know that these paintings have been acquired by Abetz.”

  “Are you the only dealer Abetz is working with?” I asked.

  He laughed. “A good number of dealers in Paris are squabbling over those great Jewish collections. Some are making deals with the Germans to let them know where the hidden paintings can be found. The Parisian art world is too small for keeping secrets and some dealers are too greedy to let a bargain pass them by. If this war lasts ten years, there’ll be another fifty years of people denying what they’ve done.”

  * * *

  I MET PANKRATOV AT the Dimitri and told him what Fleury had said.

  Pankratov showed no emotion. He sat with arms folded, Café National steaming in front of him. When I finished talking, Pankratov rubbed his hands across his face and sighed. “That bastard,” he said.

  “Why’s he a bastard?” I asked. “It sounds like a fairly good plan.”

  “What he’s doing,” explained Pankratov, “is covering himself in case something goes wrong. If the Germans don’t believe it’s genuine, Fleury can say he never saw the painting up close. He can say, quite rightly, that he wasn’t the one who sold it. He can load all the blame on you.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said. I didn’t want to believe it.

  “Valya came to see me today,” he said. “Valya and Dietrich. They came to where I live.”

  “What did they want?” I asked.

  “Dietrich wants us to work for him, too,” said Pankratov. “She says he can convince us, whatever that means.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you that Valya is with that Nazi?” I asked.

  Pankratov was picking at his teeth with his thumbnail, staring off down the street. “Valya’s never had beautiful clothes,” he said. “Never been to black tie parties. No one ever bought her pearl necklaces. This is a fairy tale for her. Why should she worry about the suffering of others when no one seems to care about what she’s lived through?” He paused then, perhaps to let me agree.

  But I had no answer for him.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY, FOLLOWING Fleury’s instructions, I went to see Leutnant Behr.

  He sat in his windowless, underground office. The clicking hammer of typewriters sounded from other rooms. “Where’s Fleury?” he asked.

  “Not here,” I said. I told Behr the story. “It will work out better for all of us.”

  Behr sat back. “What makes you think I won’t just call up Fleury right now and get you arrested?”

  I shrugged. “You wouldn’t get the painting.”

  He laughed a thin, wheezy laugh. “We’d get it. Believe me.”

  “All right, then,” I told him, “for argument’s sake, let’s say you did get it. But that’s all you’d get, instead of a chance at some paintings which you could buy more cheaply from me than from Fleury.”

  Behr was scratching the back of his neck. “What am I supposed to tell him?” Behr was hooked. Fleury had read him correctly.

  “Don’t tell him anything,” I said.

  Behr stood and began to pace back and forth behind his desk. “You said I could get this Cranach more cheaply from you than from Fleury.”

  I nodded.

  “How do I know that?” asked Behr.

  “Simple. Ask him what he wants for it.”

  Behr had begun to nod his head in rhythm with my words. “Have you got the painting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here?”

  “It’s in a safe place.” I pulled out the list Fleury had given me. “These are the paintings I would like in exchange.”

  Behr snatched the list and read it. “What makes you think we have these?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “How the hell did you know?” he asked.

  “Call Fleury,” I said, “and ask what he wants for the Cranach.”

  “All right,” Behr mumbled. “I’ll call him. Come back tomorrow. Nine A.M.” With great care, he folded the piece of paper, lining up the corners and sliding his thumbnail down the middle to make the crease. He seemed to have forgotten I was there.

  I slipped out of Behr’s office and up the concrete stairway to the street, breathing the cool air outside.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY I was back at Behr’s office.

  “The ambassador agrees,” he said. “We’ll meet you at midday today.”

  I told him the address of Pankratov’s atelier.

  “You will have brought the painting,” he told me.

  I nodded and left.

  They were on time.

  I was alone in the atelier. Fleury had wanted it that way. I sat on Valya’s chair, gripping the seat as if the legs had rockets tied to them and I was about to be blasted into the sky. I hoped to hell Pankratov had fixed that board the way I asked him to. From the drunken window of the atelier, I watched an unmarked limousine and a small delivery van pull up outside the building. The paintings, covered in paper, were unloaded by two men in blue boilersuits.

  Then came footsteps up the stairs.

  The first person through the door was Ambassador Abetz. He had on a black coat with a velvet collar and carried his gloves in one hand. All he said by way of greeting was “I don’t have much time.” He walked over to the easel, which was covered with a clean tablecloth.

  “For a man like Abetz,” Fleury had instructed me, “you will definitely need the dramatic moment.”

  After Abetz came Behr. He looked up at the rafters, as if searching for snipers.

  I went over to the easel and drew back the cloth. My life is in the balance, I thought to myself. The words repeated in my head like some insane chorus. Life in the balance. In the balance. Balance.

  Abetz rolled his gloves into a bundle and put them in the pocket of his coat. Then he moved up to the painting, his feet seeming to glide across the floor. He lifted the panel off the easel and walked over to the window with it. He tilted it in the light and turned it over. Next, he brought his face close to it, just as Fleury had done, and breathed in the smell of the wood. Moisture on Abetz’s forehead glimmered under the weak ceiling lights of the atelier, whose bulbs hung like drops of liquid just about to fall from the white and rust-bubbled shades.

  “Has Dietrich been in touch with you again?” asked Abetz casually, not taking his eyes off the painting.

  “He’s been in touch,” I replied.

  “He likes to think of himself as a generous man.”

  I shrugged. “He is pretty generous.”

  “Dietrich is a man of limited means,” said Abetz. “He does not have the same resources at his disposal as a man in my position. If you happen to come across any more paintings, as I’m sure you will, and if Mr. Dietrich happens to find out about it, as I’m sure he will, then you must always make sure to wait for my offer.” Now he looked at me. “I can also be generous. And I don’t just mean the odd basket of goodies.” He turned back his attention to the painting. “It’s a portrait of the daughter of Martin Luther. It has on it the marking of the Italian collector Leonid. I haven’t seen it before.”

  I went over to a shelf and pulled out a book of prints. “Here,” I said, opening the page to the place where a portrait of Magdalena Luther had been. A postcard of our painting had been made by Fleury, replacing the old print.

  “Well,” said Abetz. “It’s certainly a Cranach.” He rose up on
his toes and settled back again. “Everything appears to be in order. Some buyers require authenticators, you know. Dietrich, for example. You’ll notice that I don’t need one.”

  I nodded.

  “I can even tell you,” continued Abetz, “where it has been hanging, even if I do not know the exact location. It has spent some time in a church or more likely in the antechamber of a private chapel. I’m sure I can smell sandalwood. No detail is too small for me, you see. I am a connoisseur even of smoke!” Abetz turned to the men in boilersuits, who were waiting outside in the hall. “Bring them in. Take off the covers.”

  The paintings were brought in and the paper wrappings removed. The room seemed to fill with light as the Picassos, the Matisse, Redon and Monet came into view.

  I made a show of examining them one after the other. When I reached the last one, I looked up at Abetz and said, “Done.”

  “Good!” Abetz clapped his hands together. “You can contact Leutnant Behr when another situation arises. And you may count on my discretion.” He wheeled about and started off down the stairs, followed by the men in boilersuits.

  Then it was only Behr and me. “Are you happy?” I asked him.

  “Abetz is happy. It’s all that matters. I wanted to thank you…” he began.

  Abetz’s voice rose from far below, echoing up the flights of stairs. “For God’s sake, Behr! What’s keeping you?”

  When they were gone, I went over to Pankratov’s chair and sat down, too nervous to think straight. I was still sitting there when Pankratov appeared in the doorway half an hour later.

  “Would you mind telling me what you’re doing?” he asked indignantly.

  “I’m sitting in your goddamned sacred chair is what I’m doing,” I replied.

  Pankratov opened his mouth, left it hanging open for a moment as he hunted for something to say. Then he closed his mouth again, teeth clacking together.

  “I could use a drink,” I said.

  Pankratov nodded gravely. “Me too.” He looked at the paintings that Abetz had left. “Bastards,” he muttered.

  We covered the paintings under a tarpaulin and went downstairs. As the two of us walked into the Dimitri, Ivan strode up to us and blocked our way. He looked very troubled. The tips of his fingers were shaking.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Pankratov.

  Ivan answered him in Russian.

  Pankratov grew very pale. He faltered out a reply, then turned to me. “Let’s go,” he said.

  I followed him out into the street.

  Pankratov struggled to light a cigarette.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Ivan says we can’t go there anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “People have noticed that we’re friendly with the Germans,” explained Pankratov. “Some of Ivan’s customers saw that limousine outside my atelier. They think we must be collaborating. Ivan says he can’t force us to leave and that he’ll serve us if we go in, but he wants us to know that we’ve been labeled as sympathizers.”

  “This was bound to happen,” I said. “I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.”

  Pankratov puffed viciously at his cigarette. Then suddenly he shouted, “God damn it!” He threw the cigarette down onto the sidewalk and stormed back into the Dimitri.

  A few minutes later, Pankratov emerged with Ivan. Ivan was protesting, still in the process of removing his apron. Pankratov drowned out his complaints in a flurry of Russian.

  Ivan looked at me. “Can you tell this madman that I have a café to run?”

  “You have waiters,” said Pankratov.

  “But they don’t know how to make a proper cup of coffee!”

  “These days,” Pankratov told him, “neither do you.” He ushered Ivan across the road and into the atelier. “Upstairs!” he commanded. “Go on!”

  Now I understood. “Are you sure about this?” I asked.

  “Positive,” said Pankratov.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Ivan.

  “Just keep moving,” said Pankratov.

  Inside the atelier, we sat Ivan down on the stage where Valya used to pose. Then we locked the door.

  “Blindfold him,” ordered Pankratov.

  “Sorry about this,” I told Ivan, as I tied a painter’s apron across his eyes.

  “You’re all completely crazy,” he said. “And I’m crazy for sitting here and letting you do this to me. Are you collaborating or aren’t you? It’s a simple question. Why can’t you give me a simple answer?”

  Pankratov brought out the paintings from under the tarpaulin and set them up along the wall.

  Ivan sat patiently, hands resting on his knees.

  “Ivan!” said Pankratov.

  “Yes?”

  “Welcome to your first art show.”

  * * *

  PANKRATOV EXPLAINED EVERYTHING.

  Ivan looked at each of us in turn, his eyes fix-focused with surprise. “Tcha,” he kept saying and shaking his head. “Tcha.”

  I wasn’t worried about Ivan. I understood why Pankratov had to tell him. They came from a world that no longer existed and all they had of their past and the codes by which they had lived was each other. It was more than Pankratov could bear to think that Ivan considered him a traitor.

  Pankratov told Ivan the story of each painting and talked about the lives of the artists who had made them.

  “I have never seen such…” said Ivan. Then, a moment later, “I have often wondered…” He began several sentences and did not finish them, his thoughts extinguished by new ideas that jumped into his mind.

  After the tour, Pankratov told Ivan that we would steer clear of the Dimitri from now on. Fleury, too. “We don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ivan told us. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I don’t want you to do anything,” said Pankratov. “I only wanted you to know the truth.”

  * * *

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, I bumped into Fleury on my way into the apartment building. He had spent the day at his gallery and I was out at the warehouse.

  We stopped in the doorway of Madame La Roche’s building and looked across the street at the Dimitri. Its awning shone brightly in the sun. Out on the pavement, three German soldiers sat at the table, counting out little zinc coins from their change purses while Ivan stood by with a long-suffering face.

  Fleury and I exchanged gloomy looks.

  When Ivan saw us, he began to wave. “Hello, David! Hello, Guillaume!” He gathered the Germans’ change and emptied it into the pocket of his apron. Then he plodded toward us with the slow gait of someone who could never run fast. The money jangled in his apron.

  “What is it, Ivan?” asked Fleury.

  “Come to the café,” he said, smiling and wheezing.

  “Ivan,” I said softly, “you don’t want us in there.”

  “Yes. I do. I’ve been thinking it over. I’m either going to close down or I’m just going to serve whoever wants to be served. It’s got to be one or the other. So come to the café. Come now.”

  I glanced at Fleury.

  “Don’t look at him,” said Ivan. “Look at me! And what do you see?”

  “A sweaty Imperial Russian.”

  “Yes, well, besides that. Do I look afraid? Do I look like I’m in any doubt?” He set his hands against our backs and shoved us toward the Dimitri.

  I tried not to meet anyone’s stare as we walked in. The place was full. It was past quitting time and this was the first wave of café people, both French and German, settling their bones after the working day.

  Ivan gave us a table near to the bar. If somebody wanted to give us grief, they would have to do it with Ivan standing there.

  I felt sick with worry.

  Fleury fumbled with his chair, smiling nervously as he glanced around the room.

  While Ivan went to fetch us drinks, I sat with my hands on the cold tabletop, while sweat ran from my armpits and
down over my ribs.

  Fleury pulled out his Craven A tin. His hand began to shake. He dropped the tin on the floor. It clattered open and three hand-rolled cigarettes fell out. Fleury scrambled to gather them up, while people glanced over to see what the fuss was about. By the time he had sat up again, his cheeks were red and his glasses hung lopsided on his face.

  Ivan set two heavy white cups down in front of us. They were filled with an oily black liquid, which rocked against their sides. Bubbles of fat showed pearly at the surface. “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “It’s bouillon. All we have today. I promise, you do get used to it.”

  I was just raising the cup to my lips when I caught the eye of a man sitting diagonally across from us.

  He was one of the old Legion types, red-faced and square-headed and tough. He looked out of place in his brown civilian clothes. They were all mud brown, all different shades, as if he had tried to make a uniform of his street clothes, even though he was no longer a soldier. He sat with his hands under the table, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, watching us with narrowed eyes.

  “Here we go,” I muttered.

  “What?” asked Fleury. “What is it?” He turned sharply in his chair to see who was staring at us.

  The man did not avert his gaze. He seemed to be staring straight through us. Then suddenly he shouted, “Konovalchik!” summoning Ivan. The cigarette wagged in his mouth.

  “What is it, Monsieur Le Goff?” Ivan did not raise his head. He was drying glasses with a white towel behind the bar.

  “I thought you weren’t going to allow collaborators into the bar!”

  That got everyone’s attention. The conversation ebbed, rose hesitantly and then stopped altogether.

  I heard Ivan sigh and then swallow. He raised his head, to meet the mudman’s gaze. “Collaborators?” he asked.