The Luzern Photograph

by William Bayer

  She nods. ‘Nietzsche set up the Luzern photo as a kind of memorandum of their chastity/study arrangement. It was his vision of what he hoped would be Lou’s role in his and Paul Rée’s lives. As for the young Hitler, since you tell me the photo was widely known we can safely assume he saw it, and, based on this drawing, fetishized it. He used it as a matrix for a drawing he presented to Lou to express his desire for subjugation. As for Chantal’s version, you use the word reenactment, but I see it more as an hommage. Like Hitler, she uses the Luzern photograph as a source of inspiration, creating an image by which she claims for herself the role of dominatrix.

  ‘Each artist was telling a story and each had a particular audience in mind. For Nietzsche it was the other two actors in his drama … and probably no one else. He couldn’t have anticipated that the image would become famous. For Hitler the intended audience could only have been Lou. He was communicating something so personal and shameful he couldn’t bring himself to put it into words. Years later, having become the all-powerful Führer, he couldn’t bear the thought that there existed a drawing documenting this youthful masochistic fantasy. That’s why he had Bormann send Eva’s father to try to buy it back.’

  ‘What about Chantal – what was her story, her audience?’

  ‘You say she put it on her website for all to see, but I think her real audience was herself. Her photo was a way to identify with Lou, whom she greatly admired, and at the same time assert her own identity. It’s very controlled and beautifully done. She certainly had talent.’

  Later in session, after I describe more of what Eva shared with me, Dr Maude expresses disgust regarding the motives and methods of Quentin Soames.

  ‘Freud had his faults,’ she tells me. ‘He could be controlling and dogmatic. He played his followers against one another and he harbored a substantial amount of anger. All this is well known. But I’m offended that someone as mediocre as Soames dares to think he can topple one of the giants of the twentieth century.’

  She tells me how, when she visited the Freud Museum in Hampstead, she was moved to tears. It wasn’t just the ambience of Freud’s study, she says, but her knowledge that the process, which she’d made her life’s work, had been developed in that room set up exactly as in Vienna.

  ‘It was there,’ she tells me, ‘that feelings and urges that mystified people since the dawn of history were finally uncovered and explained.’

  I ask her what she thinks really went on between Freud and Lou.

  ‘Based on their letters, they regarded one another with great respect. There was never a question of becoming lovers. Still it was Lou’s late-in-life association and friendship with Freud, in addition to her youthful liaisons with Nietzsche and Rilke, that place her at the center of the intellectual and literary culture of her time. This plus her own achievements makes her a commanding figure.’ She peers at me. ‘We’ve talked a lot about Chantal’s obsession with Lou. What are your feelings about her?’

  ‘Admiration, respect, fascination,’ I tell her, ‘though perhaps not so much as was felt by Chantal.’ I also admit I’ve considered what it would be like to be the lover of a succession of great men. ‘I don’t think I’d be a happy muse. The Great Man sees his brilliance reflected in her eyes. Not my kind of role. I don’t want to be anyone’s accessory.’

  ‘And your erotic dreams about Chantal – what do you think they mean?’

  I tell her that since I’m having really good sex with Scarpaci, I don’t think of them so much as lesbian fantasies as attempts to seal a connection with my subject.

  Dr Maude likes that. Her last words at end of session: ‘I felt we were drifting, Tess, but based on what you just said, I think we’re back on track. This obsession with Chantal – at first I was worried for you. It seemed too intense. But now I think it’s helping you work through your issues. And because of that I think this play you’re working on may be the most powerful thing you’ll have done.’

  Tonight over dinner Scarpaci tells me he feels stymied on the investigation. He hasn’t ruled out Josh Garske or Carl Hughes despite an inability to develop evidence against either of them.

  ‘I blew it with Josh,’ he tells me. ‘He knows I suspect him. Now he’s paranoid and won’t talk to me. Meantime Hughes has hired a lawyer who won’t allow him to submit to more interviews.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’ve eliminated Kurt and the killer of the domme in East San Jose. Which leaves me wondering about Chantal’s other clients. Like if she flipped the script on some guy, and he couldn’t take it.’

  Later we’re lying in his bed. We’ve finished making love. He’s cupping me and gently stroking my breasts. It’s cold outside, the kind of chill that settles upon the East Bay in August. Scarpaci gets up and walks naked to the window. His body looks good from the back, lean and well shaped. He shuts the window, turns, stands facing me against the glass. Ambient light from outside limns his form.

  ‘There’s a stack of open case files on my desk,’ he says. ‘Maybe I want to solve this one too much. Could be that’s blinding me to something obvious.’ He shakes his head then makes me a promise: ‘I won’t give up on this. Sooner or later we’ll get a break. Or maybe I’ll suddenly see the light.’

  Tonight, sitting at my computer, my eyes stray to my inkblots, then to Queen of Swords resting against Chantal’s St. Andrew’s Cross, then to the trio of images on my desk.

  Each one tells a story. And they’re all coded images, I think.

  Eleven this morning: I’ve been up for hours, have taken a run, am now working at my computer.

  The buzzer breaks my concentration. It’s Clarence. Seems there’s water seeping into the unit below. He wants to come up and check my pipes. I tell him I’m working but of course he can come up and do whatever needs to be done. I go back to my computer. I’m working on a scene between Chantal and Lou, a dream sequence in which they meet and make love. It’s based, on my erotic dreams about Chantal. I’m just at the point where Lou draws Chantal to her and kisses her, when Clarence knocks at the door.

  I open it to find him wearing a pair of bibbed coveralls and hauling a bag of plumber’s tools. Motioning him in I tell him I’ve been meaning to thank him for tipping me off about the green hoodie guy.

  ‘Yeah, him … haven’t seen him around lately.’

  ‘That’s because I took care of him.’

  Clarence raises his eyebrows to show he’s impressed. ‘Chantal’s chariot looks right at home here,’ he says, pointing. ‘Actually she had it angled a little different. May I?’

  He goes to it, moves it slightly.

  ‘It was more like this. When she wanted to use it in a scene, she’d have the guy pull it out to the center of the room then play horsey with him. What she called equestrian games.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about her scenes, Clarence.’

  ‘She liked telling me stuff.’ He giggles. ‘Maybe she thought it would turn me on. Anyway, I’m here about the leak. I’ll check out the kitchen and bath.’

  He goes to the galley kitchen then kneels before the cupboard beneath the sink. I go back to work. Later I hear him go into the bathroom. After a few minutes he returns to the main loft.

  ‘Nothing serious,’ he says. ‘Needed tightening, that’s all.’ He peers over my shoulder. At first I’m annoyed, thinking he’s looking at my screen. I save and clear, then turn to discover he’s gazing at my trio of Luzern images.

  ‘Interesting picture,’ he says, pointing at Chantal’s hommage photo. ‘She looks so great there, beautiful and commanding. Any chance you could make me a copy? I’d like to have something to remember her by.’

  When I run into Josh in the lobby, we nod politely, ask one another how things are going, but avoid any real exchange.

  Today, ascending together in the elevator, he suddenly turns to me.

  ‘I loved Chantal,’ he says. ‘I never told her, but I’m sure she knew.’

  ‘Wow, Josh! That’s a big thing to share. What brings this on?’


  ‘Scarpaci suspects me, but, see, I could never harm her. She meant too much to me. And now that she’s gone I feel empty whenever I come into the building. I’m thinking of moving. I know I won’t find as good a deal anywhere else, but every time I pass through the lobby I feel the darkness.’ He looks down. The elevator has reached his floor. ‘Sorry to burden you. Guess I oughta see a shrink.’

  I’m moved, but the elevator door rolls closed before I can tell him so.

  Later, thinking about what he said, I phone him to ask if I can come down and talk.

  ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I’m just sitting here sketching.’

  He leaves his door open for me. I find him lying on his couch, sketchbook by his side.

  I tell him I hope he doesn’t move out. ‘You’ll probably feel haunted no matter where you go.’

  ‘I know it’s not the building. But sometimes it feels like it.’

  ‘What made you decide to tell me that in the elevator?’

  ‘The elevator reminds me of her. I don’t know how many times we rode it together giggling at the weird way the lights dim between floors and the quirky way it jerks to a stop. Since you’re writing about her I wanted you to know how I felt.’ He peers at me. ‘Are you writing in a little part for me?’

  ‘Want me to?’

  He nods. I don’t commit myself but tell him it’s a possibility. Then I ask if he’d mind if I worked his Queen of Swords portrait into my script.

  ‘Not at all,’ he says. ‘Consider it on semi-permanent loan. If you get a production use it as a prop. Maybe someone’ll see it and be impressed.’ He sits up. ‘Something I’ve been meaning to tell you, Tess. What I do, working in other artists’ styles – there are serious people who consider that a legitimate art form. There’ve been a number of great art forgers – van Meegeren, David Stein, and lately a Chinese guy, Pei-Shen Qian, who did great Pollocks, Rothkos, and Klines. I’m good but not in their league. Stein could knock out a Picasso, a Chagall, or a Miro in an hour. When a gallery gave him a show, “Forgeries by Stein”, the New York State Attorney General brought suit to have it closed. The judge ruled for Stein. In his decision he wrote: “His work in perfecting the style of the masters may properly be ascribed to that special talent with which true artists are uniquely endowed.” In other words Stein deserved respect for his ability to work in other artists’ styles. He’d only be guilty of a crime if he forged their signatures on his paintings.’

  I find it sad that Josh sees himself as a B-level art forger and finds it necessary to quote a judge to validate his work. I’m thinking of some way to reassure him, tell him how good his tarot queens are and how he should do more work like that, when, out of thin air, he brings up something that totally surprises me: Chantal’s request that he forge a suite of erotic drawings by Hitler.

  ‘She showed me what she said was a photocopy of a Hitler drawing. She told me it belonged to a friend. She assured me it was genuine, but, because of the erotic content, no expert would authenticate it. She wanted me to produce others in the same style so that it would seem like a trove of them had surfaced. I was struck by how close it was to the photograph she took of me and the other guy yoked to her chariot.’

  ‘Did you make the drawings for her?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Couldn’t. Told her there was nothing in her friend’s drawing I could copy, no defining style I could fasten on to. She was disappointed. She even muttered something to the effect that she’d thought she was lucky to know a real live art forger, and how sad that I couldn’t come through for her. This was just before I went down to LA to see my kids. I was upset. I didn’t expect her to react this way. So on my way out I left a note under her door telling her I’d try to make the drawings when I got back. But then when I came back …’ He shakes his head. ‘Well … she was gone.’ I see tears forming in his eyes. ‘If I’d drawn them for her maybe she’d still be alive.’

  Back upstairs I immediately phone Scarpaci. He’s less moved by Josh’s feelings of guilt than annoyed by the way he oozes out info when it suits him.

  ‘Sounds like Chantal decided he was useless,’ he says.

  I disagree. ‘Based on everything I’ve learned about her she wasn’t a user. Plus they were friends. But suppose she had a buyer lined up, someone she was trying to persuade to purchase Eva’s drawing?’

  ‘Seems like a long shot,’ Scarpaci says. ‘Why don’t you check with Eva, see if she knows anything about a buyer.’

  Early this morning I Skype Eva in Vienna, our first contact since we parted in New York.

  She shakes her head when I tell her what Chantal asked Josh to do.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I knew about that. Chantal, bless her, had this crazy notion that my father’s Hitler drawing would be more credible if it were part of a series. I reminded her Dad’s drawing could well be a forgery, that there’s plenty in his memoir that defies belief. But if it did turn out to be real (as I now know from Lou’s letter to Freud it is) it wouldn’t be helpful to surround it with forgeries. She saw my point, admitted it was a harebrained scheme, and promised to drop it.’

  Eva rolls her eyes. ‘Maybe she decided to try it anyway. Since she was friends with a forger … why not. I met Josh when I visited last year. Nice man. I liked his Queen of Swords portrait a lot. I’m sorry he’s feeling guilty, but he was right to turn her down. Like she said, it wasn’t one of her better ideas …’

  Hearing this I decide not to tell her Josh is Scarpaci’s prime suspect. But I do ask if she thinks Chantal was seeking a buyer for the drawing.

  Again Eva shakes her head. ‘She never said anything about that, and I’m sure she would if she had someone in mind.’

  I’m running every day now, my only exercise since I quit San Pablo Martial Arts. And though I’ve set aside for now my desire to learn to fight, I miss the cardio workouts, shadowboxing, jump-roping, and slugging the bags.

  Until I find a new gym, I decide to continue my kickboxing workouts at home. I go to a sporting goods store on College Avenue, buy a forty-pound heavy bag, then summon Josh to install it.

  He hangs in my bedroom then, amused at the notion of me taking out my aggressions on a dummy, refuses to leave till I put on a little boxing exhibition.

  ‘I love to watch warrior women,’ he says, then suddenly his eyes turn sad. ‘I’m sorry, Tess. Gotta go.’

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’

  ‘This kind of joshing reminds me of Chantal, the way we used to kid around.’

  This morning, studying the three pictures on my desk, I recall what Dr Maude said: that each of the images tells a story. Each, I believe, also contains a secret embedded consciously or unconsciously by its maker. Nietzsche’s secret is complex. Hitler’s is transparent. Chantal’s is mysterious. I believe the painter René Magritte put it well: ‘Everything we see hides another thing. We always want to see what is hidden.’

  Dr Maude wants me to concentrate on resolving my anger toward my father.

  ‘He died before you came to terms with him. He left you with just that one decent message. Urging you to live an honest life – that was out of character for him, but my guess is he was sincere. He was a psychopath, the sort of toxic person who can’t manage life unless he lies. But even psychopaths have moments of clarity. He looked at you, had an insight, and, that single time, shared it with you. That’s the heritage he left you, and that, I think, is what you must hold on to. Recall his lies and scams and you’ll be left with bitterness.’

  I’m writing scenes I’ve imagined between Lou and young Hitler, leading up to his presentation of his drawing. I’ve decided to set them at the kind of coffeehouse depicted in the book in which Chantal filed Eva’s love letters. The phone rings. It’s Scarpaci.

  ‘Free for an early dinner?’

  ‘I’m working, but sure. What’s going on?’

  ‘Something could be about to break. Meet me at six at Tribune Tavern and I’ll fill you in.’ He pauses. ‘By the way, how much rent do you pay?’<
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  ‘There’s a non sequitur. Seventeen-fifty including utilities.’

  ‘Terrific deal! You got about fifteen hundred square feet. Market rate for a live/work loft top floor of a historical downtown building should run close to four grand. I’m thinking why so low? I’m also thinking why was Chantal in such a hurry to give up her business there and move out? Was she afraid of someone who knew where she lived? She could have put in a top-of-the-line security system. But what if it had to do with someone in the building? That points back to Josh. But again I ask myself – why’s the rent so low? What’s going on in the Buckley I don’t know about?’

  ‘Talk to Clarence. His aunt owns the place. He manages it for her.’

  ‘I’ll do that. What about the other tenants?’

  I tell him the little I know. Josh is the only one I’ve gotten close to. I’ve seen the others, nodded to them in the lobby, exchanged niceties with a few. I tell him there’re a number of surly Chinese businessmen who have offices on the lower floors, several of whom might be sleazy. There’re also lawyers and accountants, a Vietnamese woman who imports ceramic elephants, and several artists and craftspeople in the residential lofts, types Clarence claims he likes because, as he puts it, ‘they class up the joint.’

  ‘I wonder what sort of rent those arty types pay.’

  ‘Arty! Please, Scarpaci! That’s what people say when they want to put someone down because they think she undeservedly regards herself as an artist.’

  ‘Sorry. I should have said artists and craftspeople.’

  ‘You’re forgiven. As for rent, Clarence claims he sets the amount on how much he wants a prospective tenant in the building.’

  ‘Strange way to do business. On the other hand, if I were a building manager and a very attractive young woman wanted to rent a loft, I might be inclined to give her a break.’

  ‘You’re thinking of Chantal?’

  ‘I’m thinking of both of you.’

  ‘Is this what you meant when you said you were on to something?’

  ‘There could be a connection.’