by Martin Suter
He tried to drive these thoughts away. But no sooner had he succeeded in banishing them, others entered his mind and kept him from sleeping: Dr. Widler, his mother’s young doctor, old now; he might well take his last breath this night.
And Lorena. Lorena on the wrong side of the balustrade. Lorena in Spotlight. Lorena in bed. In exactly the spot he was now, tossing and turning. Lorena not at Châteaubriand. Lorena not on the answering machine. Lorena not on the telephone.
As on every other workday, by half past seven he was sitting in his breakfast room—bright, and furnished with pieces by Hans Eichenberger from the 1950s—reading the newspaper and eating the two croissants Frau Hauser had bought on her way to work from Schrader’s bakery, with her homemade, runny cherry jelly, but without butter. He drank a freshly squeezed orange juice along with them, followed by a caffè latte.
Straight after his breakfast he called Baier. Frau Almeida answered and suggested he try Baier’s cell phone; he was at Lake Como right now, but was expected back today. Weynfeldt tried, and Baier did indeed answer. He was upbeat, asking immediately about the weather in Zurich, because on Lake Como it was more than spring-like; on Lake Como it was summery.
Weynfeldt was able to assure him that he too had breakfasted with the window open. Then he fell silent.
“Yes?” Baier asked finally. “What can I do for you?”
Adrian cleared his throat. “I have to talk to you about La Salamandre.”
“What about it?”
“You know what.”
Now it was Baier’s turn to be silent.
“Frau Almeida says you are coming back today—when?”
“Half past five.”
“Shall we say seven?” Weynfeldt was amazed at his resoluteness.
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
Véronique had two phone message for him. One was from yesterday, after Weynfeldt had left the office. That man who called himself Gauguin again, wanting to know what the Vallotton was valued at; he had laughed at her when she repeated that there was no Vallotton in the auction. So was there?
The other had come ten minutes ago. A Frau Widler. Had asked if he would call back.
Weynfeldt knew what it would be about. He called, expressed his condolences and asked if there was anything he could do. Luckily Mereth Widler declined his offer.
“It is true, isn’t it?” Véronique asked. “We don’t have a Vallotton?”
“No, no, and once more no,” Adrian said, able to look her in the face as he said it.
He was distracted that day, unable to concentrate. All morning he postponed the decision whether to confront Strasser or not. In the afternoon he decided it would be shrewder to wait till he had talked to Baier. He took a walk by the lake at lunchtime, where it looked like Woodstock without the rain.
He got home early. Frau Hauser and a young Asian woman he hadn’t met before were busy preparing the evening meal he had ordered. He changed, got himself a beer—something he seldom drank, as it made one’s breath more alcoholic than other drinks, despite being less alcoholic—and withdrew to his study.
The painting stood in the dim, subdued light like something dirty or dangerous. The skin of the kneeling nude had the same shine to it as the bodies in the photos you could borrow from older boys at boarding school, in return for money or cigarettes.
Klaus Baier arrived on time. The doorbell rang at seven and Weynfeldt took the elevator down to let him in. He found Baier waiting at the door in the company of a man holding a large portfolio with strengthened corners. At the curb stood a taxi, its door open and hazard blinkers on.
The man was the taxi driver; he handed Weynfeldt the portfolio and Baier paid him.
They rode the elevator up to the apartment, in silence, and Weynfeldt took his guest straight to his study, where he leaned the portfolio against the wall by the door. He assumed Baier had brought it to transport the forgery away after their discussion. It seemed Baier wanted to keep things brief; he unfastened the black straps and opened the gray cardboard flaps.
But the portfolio contained the genuine Vallotton.
Weynfeldt was not sure he would be prepared simply to accept the exchange and let the matter drop. But Baier took the picture out, hobbled over to an empty easel next to Strasser’s Vallotton, also unframed, and placed the genuine one on it. Then he turned to Adrian like someone waiting for a compliment on some great achievement.
Weynfeldt said nothing. But he had to admit, Rolf Strasser had done an excellent job. Even now, side by side with the original, under the merciless spotlight, although his forgery didn’t stand up to comparison in every respect, it certainly came off well. The original looked strangely fresher than the copy; Strasser had taken the artificial aging process too far. But the forgery really looked like a clone of the original. Even the expressive quality, essentially indefinable in any artwork, was uncannily similar to that of the original. His Viennese professor’s judgment, such a blow to Strasser, was confirmed yet again: he might not be an artist, but he was certainly skilled.
“And what if I hadn’t realized?” Aside from a brief greeting, these were the first words Weynfeldt spoke to Baier.
“Then no one would have realized.”
“You’re wrong there. The only reason I didn’t realize was because it never occurred to me you would palm me off with a forgery. Think about it; I trusted you. I never thought you, an old friend of the family, would abuse my trust so shamelessly.”
There was a knock, and Frau Hauser entered. She would be serving a hot meal later in the Green Salon; would the gentlemen like to take their aperitif here in the study?
Without waiting for Adrian to respond, Baier ordered a brandy and an ashtray, as if it were his house. He sat on the yellow fiberglass shell chair Weynfeldt used at his desk and took a leather case for three cigars out of his breast pocket.
“I’m sure you don’t mind,” he observed, bit the tip off a Havana and began ceremoniously to ignite it.
Weynfeldt certainly did mind. He hated it when his study stank of stale cigar smoke. But he would never have forbidden a guest from smoking. He simply expected his guests not to consider smoking in his study.
Frau Hauser returned with the brandy and poured Baier a glass. She gave Adrian a glass of the Château Haut-Brion 2001 he had chosen to go with dinner. Weynfeldt drank good wine even with unwelcome guests.
Bauer dipped the end of the cigar in the brandy. A revolting habit, Weynfeldt thought. They both looked at the two pictures.
“I understand,” Baier began, “that you feel betrayed. But whether or not you believe it, I didn’t want to betray you.”
“No?”
“It just happened.”
Adrian waited. He was not going to sit on one of the low cantilever chairs, forced to look up to Baier as he had at their last meeting.
“Doctors and lawyers are bound by professional secrecy. How do you art experts work?”
“We are discreet,” was all Weynfeldt said.
“I grew up with this painting. I have spent my entire life with it. It’s hard for me now, at the end of my life, to part with it. What am I saying? It’s breaking my heart. Got it?”
“Why are you doing it then?”
“Because I have to.”
“I understand,” Adrian said, although he didn’t understand how someone like Baier could have got into this situation. “Why don’t you sell one of the other pictures from your collection?”
“You really are discreet, you art experts?”
“Like priests at confession.”
“I’ve already sold them.”
Weynfeldt was confused for a moment. “But the Lake Geneva landscape by Hodler was still hanging in your house the other day.”
Baier shook his head, saying nothing.
“But I saw it with my own eyes.”
“What your eyes saw was a reproduction. Like the Segantini. And the Giacomettis. And the others. So the walls don’t look empty.
”
“You have had your entire collection forged?”
“Not forged. They are facsimile prints on canvas. I’m sure you know about them. I believe Murphy’s organizes them for clients who can’t bear to part with their artworks.”
“But this one is painted by hand.” They looked at the Vallottons through the haze of smoke.
“A print would not have been authentic enough.”
“Nor the copy it seems.”
Baier interjected. “Oh no, quite the opposite. I’m delighted with it.”
“So why didn’t you keep it?”
“For that exact reason. Because it’s too perfect. Because it’s identical. An impulse—I don’t know!” Baier drained the brandy snifter. “Wouldn’t you like to know which Vallotton you saw that night at my house—the one on the left, or the one on the right?”
“The genuine one.”
“There is no genuine one. There is only a left and a right one; an old one and a new one.”
At this moment there was a knock and Frau Hauser entered. She asked the gentlemen to come to the Green Salon, dinner would be served in a moment. She waited till they had left the room, Baier limping, then opened one of the plate glass windows, shaking her head in disapproval.
Frau Hauser kept notes on Weynfeldt’s guests. She had noted, for instance, that Klaus Baier liked her homemade clear oxtail soup. Weynfeldt and his guest had barely sat down before the new Asian woman served them just such a soup.
Weynfeldt waited till Baier had finished praising Frau Hauser’s memory, attentiveness and culinary skills, then returned to the matter in hand. “There may be a left and a right Vallotton, an old one and a new one, but one of them will always be forged. Always.”
Baier started his oxtail soup. He had to bend right over the bowl and his hand was shaking. Weynfeldt didn’t watch him, concentrating on his own soup to avoid making his guest feel awkward—at least in this respect.
After a few spoonfuls Baier pushed the bowl aside. “It’s the same painting. It is an identical execution of the same idea using the same technique in the same format.”
Weynfeldt finished his soup in silence.
“The only difference is that the idea did not originate in two heads but in one. Vallotton came up with the picture in his head and painted it directly from there. My fellow painted it indirectly from the painting. The difference, my dear art expert, is not material, it is ideal.”
Frau Hauser and her assistant came in and cleared the table, Frau Hauser making no comment on Baier’s half-full bowl. Shortly afterward the two women returned with the next course. Ravioli ricotta with sage butter. Homemade, and so big, only three pieces fit on each plate. Judging by Baier’s reaction this had also been noted in Frau Hauser’s card index.
Weynfeldt waited till they were alone again. Then he said, “You’re challenging one of the basic principles of art, you do realize that? What you’re saying is forger’s logic. Just say it: I tried to take you for a ride but it didn’t work.”
“I’m not challenging the basic principles of art. Great artists have thought the same way. Old Masters let their pupils paint indirectly out of their heads and signed their names at the bottom—quite rightly. As my fellow has done here. I’m challenging the basic principles of your profession. If my opinion prevailed, you’d have to close up shop, Murphy’s and all the rest.”
He put his glass down, noticed it was empty and let Adrian pour him another. “There are people who have better ideas in their heads. And there are others who can execute them better. Have you ever stopped to consider what art could be like if the two were to work together? It wouldn’t surprise me if my fellow was actually better technically than Vallotton. Unfortunately he is fated never to create better ideas. Imagine what artworks could be created if forgers were allowed to be better than artists.”
Baier ate little of the antipasti either. Weynfeldt was certain that Frau Hauser’s coq au vin would follow, skinned and braised with slices of bacon in cabernet sauvignon, another classic for guests of Baier’s generation.
And so it did. With all the adulation and alcohol, Baier was a little tired now, and restricted himself to a few exclamations of delight before digging straight into the chicken flesh, which fell from the bone at the merest touch.
“So if it makes no difference,” Weynfeldt ventured, “whether the work is by the artist or an imitator, if there is no material difference, only an idealistic one, why didn’t you keep the imitation?”
Baier put the piece of meat he had arranged on his fork back on the plate. “It makes no difference to anyone except one person: me.”
He wiped his mouth and placed the napkin next to his full plate. “For me—and only for me—the difference is material too. This painting is part of my life. It is this board, this paint. Under this patina there are fingerprints from my parents. Fingerprints from me as a toddler, as a child, an adolescent. It has the same patina as me. It has the same memories as me, if paintings can have memories—and who knows they don’t?”
He reached for his wineglass and emptied it down to the finger alcoholics leave. “For the new owner it’s not an issue. He can begin a new life with a painting that is new to him. It is not important to anyone whether the painting is original or not. Not to anyone. Except to this old man,”—he pointed wearily to the napkin, now at his chest, one corner shoved roughly under his collar—“who doesn’t know how much longer he will live.” He coughed, as if to underline his frailty.
Weynfeldt felt a little sorry for him; he was old. Tentatively, he asked, “You do understand, though, don’t you, that I must insist on the original.”
Baier shook his head. “I can note what you say, but can I understand it? No, I can’t.”
The Asian lady cleared their plates and Frau Hauser brought the dessert: her homemade cassata. This time Weynfeldt heaped on the praise. Baier was too downcast.
When they were on their own again, Baier said, his voice a shade more pathetic, “I need one and a half million to spend my last years in a decent, dignified way. No more. One and a half million. Not much to someone who used to juggle millions. To someone who regularly made and lost much bigger sums. And would make them again if he still had the strength. One and a half million, Adrian! It’s too little to sacrifice the one thing you love. The one thing you have left. The consolation of your twilight years. You must see that.”
Weynfeldt couldn’t work out where Baier was heading here. He put some cassata in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to say anything.
“The old Vallotton, I won’t call it the genuine one, I’ll say the old one, the old Vallotton is priceless. To me it is priceless. Only to me. Are you forcing me to sacrifice it for one and a half million?”
Baier let the question hang in the room. Then he continued. Pleading. “I need the money, though. Otherwise I’ll be spending my final years on welfare. Do you want that, Adrian?”
Weynfeldt had eaten his ice cream and had no further excuse not to speak. “Of course I don’t want that. But I think, just between the two of us, I wouldn’t swear to it, I think La Salamandre would fetch more than one and a half. A lot more.”
Baier shrugged his shoulders. “Quite possibly. But never the sum it is worth to me.” And with a gentle smile, he added, “Would you mind calling me a taxi.”
Adrian got up uncertainly. It didn’t feel right letting the old man leave like this. But before he had reached the telephone on the dresser Baier spoke again, without a trace of pathos. “I’ll make you a proposal: take the new one, and anything over one and a half you make from it, you can keep.”
Weynfeldt picked up the receiver and ordered a taxi. Then he asked, “Are you taking both of them or just the forgery?”
Baier got up from the chair, groaning. Adrian passed him his cane. “Jesus, you’re square,” he grumbled. “I’m leaving them both here. I’m not going to wander around in the middle of the night with two-million-francs’ worth of art. Have a good look at them both and
give it some thought.”
While they waited in the hallway for the taxi to ring the bell, Weynfeldt asked, “Who copied the painting for you?”
“A young artist. A collector I know recommended him to me. He sometimes boosts his income with jobs like this. Lots of collectors have pictures they have come to love copied before they part from them.”
“What’s his name?”
“I’d rather not drag him into it. He acted in good faith.”
Both of them jumped as the doorbell rang. They walked through the hallway into the elevator, which had not been used since Baier’s arrival.
Baier broke the silence during the short trip down: “Let’s say one point six. Anything over one point six is yours.”
Weynfeldt shook his head in disbelief and grinned softly.
The elevator stopped, the chrome doors parted and Weynfeldt opened the glass security door with his magnetic card. Before he opened the heavy wooden door, Baier said, “Think about it.”
“You think about it too,” Weynfeldt said, and opened the door.
Lorena stood outside.
“Thank God!” she cried. “I thought there was no one home.” She took Adrian’s hand and kissed him briefly three times on alternate cheeks. He stood stiffly in front of her for a moment, flabbergasted, then remembered Baier. “May I introduce you, Klaus Baier: Lorena …” He didn’t know her surname, and she made no move to assist him.
The two shook hands. Lorena turned back to Adrian. “It’s terribly embarrassing, but could you help me out? I’ve lost my wallet and can’t pay the taxi.”
Now the two men realized that the waiting taxi was not the one they had ordered. Weynfeldt started walking toward it, but Lorena stopped him. “I’m going to ride on, I’m exhausted. Fifty francs will be enough.” Adrian whipped out his wallet.