The Mystery of the Lost Cezanne

by M. L. Longworth

  “I came because Cézanne had a mistress, and I’m fairly close to determining who she was.”

  “The affair in 1885.”

  “Well done,” she answered. “And knowing what I know about the artist, I’m convinced he painted her.”

  Verlaque didn’t reply but let her carry on. It was a trick that one of his law professors had taught him, and one of the only things about law school that he had retained. That, and an appreciation for whiskey that he had developed the semester he spent in Edinburgh.

  “I had been to René Rouquet’s apartment earlier in the evening,” she said. “I lied before.”

  “Ah,” he replied, turning to look at her.

  “I arrived at René’s apartment at around seven p.m. and rang his buzzer. To my surprise, he answered. I had expected Cézanne’s former apartment to be owned by a pair of nobles, or by an obsessed artist, not him.”

  “Retired postman.”

  “Ah yes, that is what he looked like,” she said. “I told him who I was, and that I was writing a biography on Cézanne, and he let me come up.”

  “Probably because he was a retired postman,” Verlaque suggested. “And not a count.”

  Schultz smiled. “You’re probably right. He made me a cup of instant coffee, and the more questions I asked about Cézanne, the more fidgety he got. Especially when I raised the date 1885.”

  “He didn’t show you anything?”

  “No, but I could tell he had more information. Or something he was hiding.”

  Verlaque leaned back as the chef served them their first course. “Do you like sake?” he asked. “I don’t feel like drinking tap water.”

  “I loathe it.”

  “Good, so do I.” He picked up the menu, motioned over a waiter, and pointed to a white Burgundy.

  “My parents used to order the sake,” she said, “until one evening my father made this funny face and said to my mother, ‘Judy, I just can’t stand this stuff!’”

  Verlaque laughed again, taking a piece of tofu with his chopsticks and dipping it into soy sauce. “I’ve never been to Japan,” he said. “But I would imagine there’s great sake there.”

  “I haven’t been there, either,” she said. “It always surprised me that my parents never went, given the influence of Japanese prints on modern art. But they really couldn’t stand being out of the East Village, especially my dad. Every Saturday they would do a tour of the small galleries, always on the lookout for new talent. It was more than a hobby for them; it was a passion.” She smiled as she leaned her elbows on the lacquered counter, playing with her chopsticks, lost in thought.

  “You have such palpable love for your parents.” He took a piece of omelette, paused, and set it back on his plate. “It’s admirable.”

  Rebecca looked at the judge and imagined she saw a cloud hovering over his barrel chest and wide shoulders. Family troubles? He seemed to her to be the classic wealthy Frenchman who had been ignored by his parents. “I’d do anything for them,” she said.

  • • •

  The wine and the good food were having their effect on Rebecca Schultz; she was finally warm, and slightly dizzy. “I have another confession to make,” she said as she watched the chef expertly cook her cod and Verlaque’s tuna.

  Her beauty had not gone unnoticed by the two young Japanese French waiters who hovered around her, at the ready with the wine bottle or carafe of water. Verlaque watched them, amused. “Ah bon?” he said, motioning to one of the waiters with his wineglass that had been empty for some time.

  “I was upstairs, at Edmund Lydgate’s, when you lunched there on Sunday. So I know about the painting.”

  Verlaque set his wineglass down and looked at her.

  “I was going to tell you,” she quickly said. She leaned back as the chef placed a rectangular ceramic plate in front of her, fish on one side and thinly sliced vegetables on the other. She asked, “What do you know about Mr. Lydgate?”

  “Worked as a high-end art auctioneer for years,” Verlaque said. “Now drinks too much in the Luberon. That’s about it. My commissioner is looking into his history.”

  “He knew my parents,” she said. “They were often called into Sotheby’s to estimate the value of paintings. They didn’t trust him, nor do I.”

  “Go on.”

  “He has this long-winded, emotionally charged version of why he quit the auction house,” she said. “But I think it was because he was linked to an art theft. Though it was never proven. For years—no, decades—an extended family from Long Island has been in charge of the handling of art and antiques at the auction house,” she went on. “It’s a well-paid, comfortable job that these guys are sort of born into.”

  “Les Cols Rouges,” Verlaque said.

  “Pardon?”

  “We have the same system here, at Drouot. The men who handle and store the art are Savoyards. Always have been.”

  “And the ‘red collars’?” she asked. “Is that their uniform?”

  “Exactly. It’s hundreds of years old.”

  “Well,” Rebecca said, smiling, “I think these guys—most of them are from the Bolibar family—probably wear blue jeans. But they’re French, too, or at least their origins are. Anyway, a few years ago a New York surgeon died and the Bolibars arrived, as they usually do, to pack up and catalogue the art that would be auctioned.”

  “And let me guess,” Verlaque said. “They helped themselves to a few pieces?”

  “Yes. They took some Raoul Dufy prints, a Picasso drawing, an Eileen Gray desk—the real thing, not a re-edition—and a small Degas sculpture. One of the ballerinas.”

  “How were they caught?”

  “The surgeon had, luckily, shown his collection to a junior member of the auction staff just weeks before. It’s hard to remember all of the art that passes through these places, believe it or not—”

  “I believe it.”

  “But she had done her MA thesis on Eileen Gray’s furniture, and so remembered the desk.”

  Verlaque wiped his mouth with his napkin and set it down, leaning back. “Where does Lydgate fit in?”

  “My parents said that the Bolibars chose pieces that were valuable and that would be easy to sell,” she said. “As if they had an advisor. Someone who would have seen the collection earlier, or who went with them.”

  “Someone from the auction house, and someone who could help them sell that stuff.”

  “Right,” Rebecca answered, finishing what was left of her wine. “They’d been stealing for years, and in a warehouse on Long Island their ‘holdings’ were found. Crates and crates of art and antiques. Once they were caught, the trail of their sales was stupefying. One of them used his earnings to buy six studio apartments in Manhattan. Another sold two Picassos to open a chain of pubs. They drove Porsches and Lexuses.”

  “Were you hoping to meet Lydgate when you came to France?”

  “Yes. I brought his number in Gordes with me. He knows a lot about art—my parents confirmed that for me, even if they didn’t like him. So I called him and asked if I could visit. He told me that he was giving a lunch party for a judge, so I knew it was you.”

  “And was he able to shed some light on Cézanne?” Verlaque asked.

  “Well, I couldn’t see the painting,” she answered. “But we talked about it after you had left. He didn’t think it was a genuine Cézanne, and he talked about the canvas in vague terms, the kind of stuff my first-year students say.”

  “That sounds surprising.”

  “Yes. So either he’s forgotten all he knows about modern art, or he didn’t want to tell me.”

  “I’d go with the latter.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  A Visit to Cézanne’s Studio

  Marine met her father outside the parking garage Pasteur.

  “How was your class?” Anatole B
onnet asked his daughter after they had exchanged the bise.

  “Fine,” she answered. “I’m teaching History of the Civil State. I haven’t done it in a while.”

  “Ah. I’m sure you’ll make it more interesting than a bunch of dates and decrees.”

  “Merci, Papa,” Marine said, putting her arm through his as they walked up the avenue Paul Cézanne. “Unfortunately, my methods are too interesting for some of my colleagues. Next week I’m showing the students the film The Return of Martin Guerre. Some of my fellow law professors think that a film is out of place in the classroom.”

  “Nonsense. It’s very relevant, and if nothing else, you’ll be showing the students something other than a vampire film.”

  Marine laughed. She was impressed that her father even knew about the current vampire rage in young adult books and film.

  “I’d forgotten how important the Martin Guerre case is to our history of law,” he continued. “The beginnings of written documents used as identification, right? Seems so obvious now. When was it, exactly?”

  “In Toulouse, 1560,” Marine answered. “Before that, people’s identities were acknowledged by their faces. Written IDs didn’t exist. Until Martin Guerre decided to leave his wife and return twelve years later.”

  “Ah yes. In the meantime Martin Guerre had been replaced, by someone who looked like him,” her father said. “An imposter.”

  “I remember going to see that film with you when it came out. It was the first Gérard Depardieu film I ever saw.”

  Dr. Bonnet laughed, remembering Florence doing her crossword a few nights previously. “Your mother was with us, too. But she’s never been good at remembering actors’ names. Well, it sounds like your semester is off to a good start.”

  Marine sighed. “It is, but I’m always a bit sad to have a smaller group after the Christmas break. So many kids drop out at midsemester.”

  “They’ll find another path to take,” he said.

  “But they must feel so discouraged,” Marine said. “You know, I’m not sure it’s the best system we have, letting everyone who received a ten on the Bac—regardless of grades—into first-year law and medicine.”

  “It’s fair.” Anatole stared straight ahead. His daughter was picking up too many of Antoine Verlaque’s nonsocialist ideas.

  “And before you say that these are Antoine’s ideas,” she said, “it’s something I’ve been thinking over for some time.” She stopped to let her breathing catch up with her. “This road is steeper than I remembered. Well, let’s not get upset about the dire straits of our university system and begin this Cézanne walk you’ve organized. I take it our first stop is his atelier.”

  “I thought it best to start there,” Anatole said. “In my youth this was still the Chemin des Lauves, as it was when Cézanne had the studio built in 1902. Let’s turn around and look at the view.”

  They turned and faced Aix, the father’s arm gently resting on his daughter’s shoulder. “He would have seen the same churches,” Marine said, sheltering her eyes from the late-morning sun. “And the red-tile roofs.”

  “Fewer apartments in his day,” her father said. “Look: you can see the green hills south of Aix, and Gardanne. I would have liked a house up here, but we thought it better to be south of the downtown, so your mother could walk to the university.”

  “The view is fantastic,” Marine said. “But you’d have to walk uphill, back home, with your groceries.”

  “True enough.”

  They turned around and continued walking uphill, ten minutes later stopping at the gate of Cézanne’s studio. “So sad that the studio is now surrounded by 1950s apartment buildings,” Marine said, looking around her.

  Her father shrugged. “Too many babies born after the war,” he said, smiling. “We never had enough housing in Aix.”

  Marine said, “I know that Cézanne would have had a good view of the Mont Sainte Victoire from here, but I think it was perhaps more important that he be far away from the snotty Aixois.”

  Her father smiled and quoted Jean-Paul Sartre: “L’enfer, c’est les autres.”

  Marine usually got along with people, but her colleague Franck’s snarky comment of her showing a film to law students made her think that the French philosopher may have been right. “Yes, other people can be hell,” she said. “And here Cézanne would have been alone.”

  They passed through the entry and showed their IDs. As residents of Aix, they were admitted free of charge. They walked up the narrow flight of stairs to the painter’s atelier, where an enormous north-facing window let in a subdued morning light. It gave the room a dreamy, filtered look. Hardly a noise could be heard except for the odd cough and shuffle of feet as the other visitors slowly moved around the room, looking at the objects Cézanne used for his still lifes: white ceramic bowls and pitchers, wooden chairs with cane seats, pewter carafes, and, of course, fruit, which Marine supposed the staff replaced every few days. “It’s sad in here,” Marine whispered.

  “I’ve always thought so, too,” Anatole said. “But Cézanne was sad here. His mother—to whom he was so attached—was dead, and Zola was, too.”

  “I thought they had a falling out.”

  “They did,” he answered. “But all the same, when Cézanne heard of Zola’s death in 1902, he locked himself in his rooms on the rue Boulegon and refused to come out for a day.”

  “Cézanne was sick, too, wasn’t he?”

  Anatole nodded. “Diabetes. He began using the atelier in 1902 but died four years later. One of my elderly medical professors was on the committee of citizens who tried to save the studio in 1952, when it was almost sold to developers.”

  “The same ones who built the apartments.”

  “No doubt. And the studio was full of paintings when they found it.”

  “Really?” Marine said. “What happened to them?”

  “They were bundled up in lots of ten and sold to Americans.”

  Marine opened her mouth to protest.

  Anatole put his index finger up to his mouth and then whispered, “The Americans did save the studio from developers. They bought it and offered it as a donation to the country of France, which refused. So they offered it to the region, which also refused.”

  “The city of Aix?”

  “Also turned them down,” Anatole said. They walked along, bending down to look at three skulls set out on a small wooden table. “The university finally accepted the studio.”

  A young man stood beside them, looking at the skulls, shaking his head. “This is it?” he asked them in broken French with what sounded like an Eastern European accent. He threw his arms into the air. “This is all Aix has of its most famous son? This small studio with hardly any paintings? Just some dusty bowls? A tragedy!”

  “But Cézanne’s here,” Marine said. “Don’t you feel it?”

  The young man rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and walked on, shaking his head back and forth.

  “I think that these objects speak for themselves, don’t you?” Marine asked her father.

  “Indeed,” Anatole answered. “And my stomach is speaking to me right now.”

  Marine laughed. “Should we stroll downtown? We could pick up some cheese at André’s, and a dessert at Michaud’s, then eat at my place.”

  • • •

  The walk downhill took half the time and Marine had to walk quickly to keep up with her father. He was not only six inches taller but, when hungry, walked at a determined pace. She pulled at his arm when they got to the cathedral. “Saint Saveur,” she said. “Cézanne’s funeral was here, right?”

  “Oh yes,” her father replied distractedly, “1906.” Anatole pointed across the street at an elegant former mansion that now housed a political science university. “And that was the old law faculty where old Louis-Auguste Cézanne made his son study.”

&nbs
p; Marine thought of her students and wondered how many of them would prefer to study art, or nursing, or cooking, but had signed up for law to please their parents. “Let’s buy some cheese around the corner,” she said.

  “I’m glad your cheese monger friends are back in Aix,” her father said.

  “Me, too,” Marine answered. “The Marseillais just didn’t buy their cheese.”

  “Marseille is a fish town, plain and simple.”

  “And the name of this street must remind André of that daily,” Marine said as they turned right on the rue des Marseillais.

  A bell rang as they entered the shop, and the handsome black-haired owner waved from behind a glass-and-chrome counter. “Salut, Marine!”

  André walked around the counter and gave Marine the bise. She introduced her father; the elder Bonnets usually bought their cheese at the supermarket, which she didn’t tell her cheese affineur friend. “André is Aix’s only affineur, Papa,” she said instead, turning to her father. “He has three different cellars for his cheese, each one with a different humidly and temperature, depending on the ripeness of the cheese. Is that right, André?”

  “You’ve got it,” André said, moving back behind the counter and picking up a large piece of black-veined cheese. He cut two slivers and passed them to Marine and her father on a piece of butcher paper.

  “I can smell it from here,” Marine said.

  “Truffle!” her father exclaimed, putting the cheese in his mouth and smiling.

  “Pecorino laced with black truffles,” André said. “I seldom get it.”

  “Too many people buying it?” Marine asked. “It’s heaven!”

  “Not enough people buying it,” André answered. “I’m worried that the cheese maker isn’t going to survive. People are unwilling to spend the money.”

  Anatole Bonnet looked at the price per kilo and whistled.

  “But you only need a little bit when a cheese is this good,” Marine quickly said, annoyed at her father. At least her mother wasn’t with them; she’d have out her pocket calculator. “I’ll take some for Antoine. He’s in Paris but will be back tomorrow.”