The Mystery of the Lost Cezanne

by M. L. Longworth

  “I’ll meet you somewhere,” Manon said, feeling the eyes of Amandine Michaud on her back. Clara was right to worry; what did Amandine keep track of in her little notebooks?

  “Damn these social rules. I don’t care if people—”

  “I do,” Manon said firmly. “By the pine tree. Where we first met.” She shook his hand and walked off.

  Cézanne took out his pocket watch; it was almost noon. He would buy some cheese, bread, salami, and wine and take it to their meeting spot. It was cold out; how he wished he could take her somewhere warm. He walked off in the direction of the cathedral, and as he walked he tried to figure out just how much of his allowance could be spent on renting a small cabanon or apartment somewhere. Gardanne, perhaps? They were not known there and he could give Mlle Solari train money. But he was already paying for Hortense and Paul’s apartment in Marseille. Mademoiselle was such a sensible girl; would she even agree to seeing him behind closed doors? What are your intentions, Paul Cézanne? he thought. He put his hand on the doorknob of his favorite boulangerie and realized that his intentions were pure: all he wanted, at that moment anyway, was to paint Manon Solari.

  • • •

  “Did you come by way of Le Tholonet?” Manon asked. “The long route?”

  Cézanne found himself laughing. So many times he had been teased, especially in Paris, only to leave the dinner party, or café, in a rage. But Mlle Solari could tease him lovingly, warmly. Innocently.

  “I bought us lunch,” he said. He sat down on the cold grass and reached into his cloth bag. “Look,” he said, unwrapping two small rounds of goat’s cheese. “Rocamadour.”

  Manon beamed. “I’ve had that cheese only once before.”

  Cézanne’s back stiffened with pride. His father’s banking money was at least making this young woman happy, and filling her stomach. And when it comes to that, he thought, I put in many long days at the bank, too. He thought back to an afternoon sometime in the early 1860s when his father had been interrupted by a fellow clerk, and an annoying one at that—what was that fellow’s name?—who knocked hesitantly on M. Cézanne’s office door, carrying a bank ledger that he set gingerly on the old man’s desk, all the while not hiding the slight smirk that appeared at the corners of his mouth. The ledger’s last page glared up at the banker: it was a poem, written in his son Paul’s obvious hand: Alarmed and damaged, old Banker Cézanne / Finds his place taken by a painter man. It wasn’t long after that incident that Louis-Auguste gave his son permission to leave the bank to return to Paris to chase his artistic dream. The old man didn’t like the idea of Paris, or of his son living in that dirty, and probably dangerous, neighborhood in the 6th arrondissment near the Jardin du Luxembourg. At least Émile Zola was there, and the old man knew of Zola’s furious work ethic. He would be a good influence on Paul.

  Léopold, thought Cézanne as he unwrapped the salami. That was that rascal clerk’s name.

  “Is it beef or pork?” Manon asked, sniffing the salami and rubbing her hands together.

  “Both,” Cézanne said. “It’s a blend. The butcher gets it once a week from Arles.”

  “I’m spoiled, M. Cézanne,” she said. She then drew a handkerchief up to her mouth and coughed.

  “We should find somewhere else to meet,” Cézanne said. “It’s too cold here.”

  Manon shrugged. “I’d be happy anywhere,” she said. “I love watching you paint.”

  “I could paint indoors,” he answered, ripping off a piece of baguette and handing it to her.

  “Philippe told me of your still lifes. Apples and pears that fall off the kitchen table!” She poked him in the ribs and smiled. “Philippe said that they’re gorgeous, and avant-garde. He said that someday critics will look at those paintings and finally see what you were trying to do.”

  “But not in my lifetime.” He realized he was being morose, and tried to change the subject. Mlle Solari was always so happy. “Did Philippe teach you about art? You know as much as any of us in Paris.”

  Manon blushed. “Once a week Philippe took me to the Musée Granet. He said that most of the works are second rate—”

  “Except Granet’s own paintings.”

  “Exactly!” Manon said, putting down her bread and cheese in order to gesture as she talked. It was one of the things Cézanne liked about her. “Those bright clouds!”

  “And his relaxed, loose brushstrokes!” Cézanne said excitedly, pouring Manon wine into a small metal cup he always carried in his backpack.

  Manon thanked him for the wine and she watched as he concentrated on cutting the salami with his penknife. How he had changed in the few weeks they had been meeting in this field on the edge of the forest! At times he could be the gruff painter whom the girls at Michaud’s gossiped about, but those times were fewer and fewer. She almost felt like she could tell him anything now. But she would not ask about his mistress and son, nor did he speak of them.

  “You said you had news, M. Cézanne,” Manon ventured. Could it be about his mistress and son? Or was he returning to Paris, and she wouldn’t see him anymore?

  Cézanne smiled and reached into his backpack. “My friends in Paris came through for me,” he said. “These arrived in this morning’s post.”

  “The shea and cocoa butters?”

  “Two jars of each,” Cézanne said, handing them to her. “With your scented oils you’re almost on your way.”

  Manon reached over and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thank you!”

  He tried not to recoil from her touch. It had surprised him, but it was what he had been dreaming of. “Now you just need your emulsifier.”

  Manon’s brow furrowed. “That’s going to be the tricky part,” she said, taking a piece of salami and putting it in her mouth. She smiled. “So good,” she said after she had swallowed.

  “Well,” Cézanne said, reaching over to pour her more wine and, as he did, smelling the lavender scent she always wore. That she created. “I had a talk with old Vallier.”

  “Who is that?”

  “The gardener at Jas de Bouffan. I told him that I have a . . . friend . . . who needs a blending agent for a face cream they’re hoping to make. And do you know what he did?”

  “Tell me, monsieur,” Manon said, enjoying the game.

  “He took me out onto the back of the property, behind Maman’s rose garden. Vers les ruches.”

  “Ah! Beehives!”

  Cézanne smiled. “Vallier is saving some of the wax for you, mademoiselle. I think it may work.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  A Game of Xs and Os

  As Rebecca Schultz gazed out the window, she let her mind wander. There wasn’t a day that went by when she didn’t think of her parents. She had been orphaned shortly after her birth, and now she was, at thirty-four years of age, once again an orphan. Her parents’ friends had rallied around her, as had her Uncle Irv and his ditzy wife, Deborah. But it wasn’t the same as having Isaac and Judy (when she had turned eighteen she suddenly began calling her parents by their first names) around all the time. Even when she had moved across the country to attend the University of California Santa Cruz—then to Berkeley for an MA, then Harvard for a PhD—they had always been in her head, little voices that encouraged her. Big, shiny faces that smiled and watched her bloom. The elderly woman sitting beside her was reading a collection of Alice Munro stories translated into French; it was just the kind of thing Judy would have read.

  She was a baby when they brought her home; the Schultzes had already both turned gray. But their energy was vast—vast enough to care for an energetic but well-behaved little girl. The apartment, as Rebecca remembered, was often full of visiting—usually hungry—artists, or gallery owners who had come to pick the brains of her parents, who as amateurs had developed an uncanny eye for modern and contemporary art. One of her earliest memories was being caught playing ball i
n the living room. “Rebecca!” Judy had called out. “Watch out for the Duchamp! Remember our rule! No ball in the living or dining room, but down the hallway is fine.” The Duchamp had been sold to pay for her Harvard tuition; Rebecca didn’t miss it and Judy once confided in her that the bronze-and-glass sculpture had been “Isaac’s choice, not mine.”

  At parties, Judy Schultz liked to retell the story of her daughter’s first sleepover. Rebecca had just turned seven, and returned at ten the next morning tired but happy. Judy had tried not to ask too many questions—she hadn’t slept well—and finally Rebecca had looked up at her and said, “Karen’s family is very nice, but where do they put all their Cézannes?”

  Rebecca still owned her parents’ apartment in the East Village, a neighborhood that Irv and Deborah had said, until it recently turned chic and expensive, that Isaac and Judy had been crazy to live in. But Deborah, bless her, had helped Rebecca pack and donate many of her parents’ belongings she wouldn’t be keeping: her father’s simple, well-cut suits and garish ties; her mother’s well-worn wool skirts and tiny silk blouses, both of which were much too small for Rebecca. She did keep most of her mother’s purses, which were the one splurge, besides art, that Mrs. Schultz had allowed herself. Rebecca gave an elegant crocodile-skin clutch bag to Deborah, who immediately started crying.

  Rebecca shifted in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She looked down at her pale-green 1960s Dior purse, and whispered, Judy, I need you.

  • • •

  It had been a race to catch the 7:05 p.m. train. Roger Caromb earned his salary by getting Verlaque to the Aix TGV station four minutes before the train was about to leave. Caromb had double-parked the car on the square below Verlaque’s apartment as the judge ran up the stairs and quickly packed an overnight bag, at the last minute throwing in an extra shirt, as he was already sweating. He would change shirts on the train. Caromb then wheeled the car around the corner to the Palais de Justice and parked in front, lights flashing, while Verlaque went inside to get the painting, running up the stairs to the second floor and down a hallway that led to the vault rooms. Verlaque opened the first room with his key and stopped, surprised to see someone in it. “What are you doing in here?” he asked.

  A young woman turned around, surprised. She put her hand to her heart and said, “I’m so sorry. I came in here to have my tea.”

  Verlaque looked at her, perplexed. “What on earth?”

  She gestured to a teapot that sat on top of a low filing cabinet. “We all have tea in here, Judge Verlaque. It’s the warmest room in the building.”

  He stood there and could indeed feel the warm forced air streaming in through a series of vents along the top of the walls. He looked ahead and saw that the second door, this one gated, which led to a smaller room where evidence was kept, was securely locked. “I know you from somewhere, don’t I?” he asked.

  The woman stepped forward and held out her hand. “My name is Françoise,” she said. “I’m a maid here, hoping to get promoted to secretary someday.” She smiled. “We also met the other night on the rue Boulegon. I am . . . was . . . René Rouquet’s neighbor.”

  Verlaque said, “Ah yes, that’s where I met you; Aix is so small. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to drink your tea somewhere else; I need to get evidence out of the next room.”

  “Of course!” Françoise said, grabbing her mug off a table. “I’ll make tea in the kitchen. Good evening!”

  Verlaque watched her go and opened the second door with another key and took the painting. He left, locking both doors behind him, and ran into Paulik in the hall.

  “I have your train ticket,” Paulik said, handing it to Verlaque. “I went down to the car and Caromb said you were up here.”

  “Since when do the staff use the vault rooms to stay warm?”

  “Since the heating went on the blink,” Paulik replied, readjusting his wool scarf. “But they shouldn’t be in there. I’ll have Mme Gérard send a memo around.”

  “Yes, please do that,” Verlaque said, stuffing the train ticket in his pocket. They ran down the stairs together. “Did you know that Rouquet’s neighbor works here, as a cleaner? I thought that Mme Chazeau gave you a list of the occupations of rue Boulegon’s tenants.”

  “She did,” Paulik said. “But the cleaners don’t work for us.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s a subcontractor,” Paulik said. “Called Netoyage-Aix. That’s probably why it didn’t register with me; they have contracts all over Provence. You see their vans everywhere.”

  “Is it a coincidence? Check into it,” Verlaque said. “And tell them to stay out of the vault!”

  “Yes, sir.” They got to the car and Paulik opened the passenger door.

  “I’ll call you after I meet with Hippolyte Thébaud and Commandante Barrès,” Verlaque said as he got into the car.

  Paulik saluted and waved as the car sped off. He knew that the traffic between Aix and its TGV station would be heavy, but Caromb could use the blue flashing light if need be. Paulik had never met Hippolyte Thébaud, but Antoine Verlaque had once given him a detailed—and somewhat humorous—description of him over lunch months previously. “A dandy” was how Verlaque had described him, and in Paulik’s limited experience, dandy meant that Thébaud was of a slight build, paid careful attention to what he wore, spoke softly, and probably favored old-fashioned accessories like a carved walking cane, or a rose in his jacket lapel, or even a top hat. Bruno Paulik had been born and raised on a farm in the Luberon and had never seen a dandy, although his wife, Hélène, had once introduced him to a famous wine critic from England who Paulik imagined fit that definition. Or his definition of dandy, at any rate.

  • • •

  Hippolyte Thébaud was one of France’s most sought-after wine theft experts, if not the expert. What set him apart from other consultants was not only his photographic memory when it came to wines but the fact that he learned everything he knew while in jail. Both the judge and the commissioner immediately thought of using Thébaud’s connections in the fraud world to help them determine the origins and authenticity of the canvas. “A legitimate art expert is one thing,” Verlaque had said, “but an art expert who has painted copies, or sold them, will be able to look at this portrait in a different way.” Mme Gérard had managed to book an appointment with Commandante Barrès, who had penned the article “To Catch a Thief,” which was icing on the cake.

  Verlaque realized that he had been lucky to catch the train, as his appointment with Hippolyte—they were, thanks to a prior case involving stolen wines, on a first-name basis—and with Hippolyte’s art fraud buddy Hervé was the next morning at 9:00 a.m. But buying a train ticket at the last minute always came with conditions; most of all, the coveted solo seats in the first-class cars would all be taken. He pulled in his legs as the small boy facing him fidgeted and squirmed. The boy’s mother was playing—or texting, he couldn’t tell—on her iPhone as the child tried to occupy himself. Verlaque dreaded the carées on the TGV: four seats, two side by side that faced two others, a narrow table in between. The old man to Verlaque’s left had already fallen asleep by the time the train got to Avignon, and his gentle snoring seemed to be in perfect rhythm with the train itself. The train crossed over the Rhône and Verlaque squinted, trying to see the center of Avignon. Despite the dark, he could see it lit up, and was amazed, as he always was, at just how much, especially at a distance, Avignon’s medieval Palais des Papes loomed over—dwarfed, even—the much-newer buildings that surrounded it.

  He opened his Moleskine notebook and considered ripping a page out and giving it to the kid across from him, with a pencil, so he’d have something to do. The mother was still playing with her cell phone. Verlaque sighed and began to look through his notes on the case. He drew a blank. Two murders, one lost American professor; all of this over a painting that Edmund Lydgate had said was a forgery. Was Lydgate lying? Why? If
the painting was a fake, as he claimed, it would be kept as evidence at the Palais de Justice and later be destroyed. It’s not as if Lydgate would be able to get his hands on it, months or even years later, and sell it.

  A waiter came by and passed out menus. The old man woke up and quickly ordered a pasta salad and a ham sandwich. Verlaque looked at the menu and asked for the risotto.

  “Sorry,” the waiter apologized. “We can’t deliver hot food anymore, only cold meals. For hot meals you need to go to the bar car.”

  “I’ll get something in Paris, then,” Verlaque said, handing the menu back. He hated cold dinners and didn’t feel like making his way to the bar car. Besides, from here he could see the edge of his leather bag, sitting on the luggage rack at the front of the car.

  The woman and child began to eat sandwiches and cheese, and Verlaque was relieved when she pulled out fruit and water instead of giving the kid a soda and sweets.

  Verlaque pulled out a book about Cézanne and began reading. He had always enjoyed looking at Cézanne’s paintings but had never before realized the Aixois’s importance to modern art. It was Cézanne who first used his imaginative powers to paint, something that almost every artist of the twentieth century would follow. Nature was almost a spiritual matter for Cézanne: the cosmos, where everything was interrelated. Verlaque set the book down and thought of someone he had met on a past case, Jean-Claude Auvieux, a gardener who tended the grounds of a château outside of Aix that was now a small luxury hotel. Jean-Claude was the closest thing he could imagine to being a contemporary Cézanne; he made a vow to soon visit the gardener. He picked the book back up and looked at one of the early paintings, of Cézanne’s father, painted in 1866 when Cézanne was twenty-seven. The old man wears a small black cap and sits in an armchair, his thick hands reading a newspaper, L’Evénement. Verlaque grinned, enjoying the painter’s joke: Cézanne’s banker father reading a nineteenth-century left-wing newspaper. It would be as if his own father read Libération. The author suggested that Cézanne was mocking his father. Verlaque looked out at the darkness and then again at the painting. Perhaps Cézanne wasn’t being mean-spirited. Perhaps he was pleading for understanding, trying to communicate with his father.