The Burnt Orange Heresy

by Charles Ray Willeford

  My room was musty and close again, although I had not turned off the overhead fan. I didn't want to go through the too-hot-too-cold routine with the reverse-cycle airconditioner-which had far too many BTUs for the size of the small room-so I cracked the door again and clamped it open with the brass hook-and-eye attachment. I stripped down to my shorts and T-shirt, took the art materials out of the closet, and got busy with the picture.

  I mixed Prussian blue, adding zinc white a dollop at a time, until I had a color the shade of an Air Force uniform. I thinned it slightly with turpentine and brushed a patch on the bottom of the canvas. It was still too dark, and I added white until the blue became much bolder. I then mixed enough of the diluted blue to paint a slightly ragged border, not less than an inch in width, nor more than three inches, around the four sides of the rectangle. To fill the remaining white space with burnt orange was simple enough, once I was able to get the exact shade I wanted, but it took me much longer than I expected to mix it, because it wasn't easy to match a color that I could see in my mind, but not in front of me.

  But the color was rich when I achieved it to my satisfaction. Not quite brown, not quite mustardy, but a kind of burnished burnt orange with a felt, rather than an observable, sense of yellow. I mixed more of the paint than I would need, to be sure that I would have enough, and thinned the glowing pile with enough linseed oil and turpentine to spread it smoothly on the canvas. Using the largest brush, I filled in the center of the canvas almost to the blue border, and then changed to a smaller brush to carefully fill in the narrow ring of white space that remained.

  I backed to the wall for a long view of the completed painting, and decided that the blue border was not quite ragged enough. This was remedied in a few minutes, and the painting was as good as my description of it in my article. In fact, the picture was so bright and shining under the floor lamp, it looked even better than I had expected.

  All it needed was Debierue's signature.

  I had a sharp debate with myself whether to sign it or not, wondering whether it was in keeping with the philosophy of the "American Harvest" period for him to put his name on one of the pictures. But inasmuch as the burnt orange, blue-bordered painting represented the "self" of Debierue, I concluded that if he ever signed a painting, this was one he would have to sign. I made a mental note to add this information to my article-that this was the first picture Debierue had ever signed (it would certainly raise the value for Mr. Cassidy to possess a signed painting!).

  Debierue's letter to the manager of the French clipping service was still in my jumpsuit. I took it out and studied Debierue's cramped signature, sighing gratefully over the uniqueness of the design. Forgers love a tricky signature: it makes forgery much simpler for them because it is much easier to copy a complicated signature than it is a plain, straightforward signature. There are two ways to forge a signature. One is to practice writing it over and over again until it is perfected. That is the hard way. The easy way is to turn the signature upside down and draw it, not write it, but copy it the way one would imitate any other line drawing. And this is what I did. Actually, I didn't have to turn the canvas upside down. By copying Debierue's signature onto the upper left-hand side upside down, when the picture itself was turned upside down the top would then be the bottom, and the signature would be rightside up and in the lower right-hand corner where it belonged.

  Nevertheless, it took me a long time to copy it, because I was trying to paint it as small as possible in keeping with Debierue's practice of writing tiny letters. To put ebierue inside the "D" wasn't simple, and I had to remember to "write" with my brushstrokes up instead of down, because that is the way the strokes would have to be when the painting was turned upside down.

  "James!"

  Berenice called out my name. I was so deeply engrossed in what I was doing I wasn't certain whether this was the first or the second time she had called it out. But it was too late to do anything about it. I was sitting in the straightbacked chair facing the canvas, and I barely had time to turn and look at her, much less get to my feet, before she lifted the brass hook, opened the door, and entered the room.

  "James," she repeated flatly, halting abruptly with her hand still on the doorknob. She had removed her makeup, and her pale pink lips made a round "0" as she stared at me, the canvas, and the makeshift palette on the low coffee table. The sheet I had used to wrap the once-blank canvas was on the floor and gathered about the chair I was using as an easel. I had spread it there to prevent paint from dropping onto the rug.

  "Yes?" I said quietly.

  Berenice shut the door, and leaned against it. She supported herself with her hands flat against the door panels. "Just now… on TV," she said, not looking at me, but with her rounded blue eyes staring at the canvas, "… on the ten thirty news, the newscaster said that Debierue's house had burned down."

  "Anything else?"

  She nodded. "Pending an investigation-something like that-Mr. Debierue will be the house guest of the famous criminal lawyer Joseph Cassidy in Palm Beach."

  I swallowed, and nodded my head. I am a highly verbal individual, but for once in my life I was at a loss for words. One lie after another struggled for expression in my mind, but each lie, in turn, was rejected before it could be voiced.

  "Is that Debierue's painting?" Berenice said, as she crossed the room toward my chair.

  "Yes. I needed to look at it again, you see, to check it against the description in my article. It was slightly damaged-Debierue's signature-so I thought I'd touch it up some."

  Berenice pressed her forefinger to the exact center of the painting. She examined the wet, bemerded smear on her fingertip.

  "Oh, James," she said unhappily, "you painted this awful picture. .!"

  3

  Looking back (and faced with the same set of circumstances), I don't know that I would have handled the problem any differently-except for some minor changes from the way that I did solve it. Ignorant women have destroyed the careers, the ambitions, and the secret plans of a good many honorable men throughout history.

  It would have been easy enough to blame myself for allowing Berenice to discover the painting. If I had locked the door, instead of being concerned with my physical discomfort in the hotel room, I could have hidden the painting from her before allowing her into the room. This one little slip on my part destroyed everything, if one wants to look at it that way. But the problem was greater than this-not a matter of just one little slip. There was an entire string of unfortunate coincidences, going back to the unwitting moment I had allowed Berenice to move in on me, and continuing through my foolhardy decision to allow her to accompany me to Debierue's house.

  And now, of course, caught red handed-or burnt orange handed-Berenice was in possession of a lifelong hold over me if I carried my deception through-with the publication of the article, with the sending of the painting to Joseph Cassidy, to say nothing of the future, my future, and the subsequent furor that the publication of an article on Debierue would arouse in the art world.

  Berenice loved me, or so she had declared again and again, and if I had married her, perhaps she would have kept her mouth shut, carrying her secret knowledge, and mine, to her grave. I don't know. I doubted it then, and I doubt it now. Love, according to my experience, is a fragile transitory emotion. Not only does love fall a good many years short of lasting forever, a long stretch for love to last is a few months, or even a few weeks. If I think about my friends and acquaintances in New York-and don't consider casual acquaintances I have known elsewhere, in Palm Beach, for example-I can't think of a single friend, male or female, who hasn't been divorced at least once. And most of them, more than once. The milieu I live in is that way. The art world is not only egocentric, it is egoeccentric. The environment is not conducive to lasting friendships, let alone lasting marriages. And that was my world. .

  My remaining choice, which was too stupid even to consider seriously, was a bitter one. I could have destroyed The Burnt O
range Heresy (such was the title I assigned to the painting), and torn up the article I had written, which would mean that the greatest opportunity I had ever had to make a name for myself as an art critic would be lost.

  These thoughts were jumbled together in my mind as I confronted Berenice, but not in any particular order. Emotionally, I was only mildly annoyed at the time, knowing I had a major problem to solve, but bereft, at least for the moment, of any solution.

  "You may believe that this is an 'awful' picture," I said coldly to Berenice, "and it's your privilege to think so if, and the key word is if, if you can substantiate your opinion with valid reasons as to why it's an 'awful' picture. Otherwise, you're not entitled to any value judgments concerning Debierue's work."

  "I–I just can't believe it!" Berenice said, shaking her head. "You're not going to try to pass this off as a painting by Debierue, are you?"

  "It is a painting by Debierue. Didn't I just tell you that I was touching it up a little because it was damaged slightly in transit?"

  "I'm not blind, James." She made a helpless, fluttering gesture with her hands, her big eyes taking in the evidence of the art materials and the painting itself. "How do you expect to get away with something so raw?' Don't you know that Mr. Cassidy will show this painting to Debierue, and that-"

  "Berenice!" I brought her up sharply. "You're sticking your middle-western nose into something that is none of your damned business! Now get the hell out of here, get packed, and if you aren't ready to leave in twenty minutes, you can damned well stay here in Valdosta!"

  Her face flushed, and she took two steps backward. She nodded, nibbled her nether lip, and nodded again. "All right! There is obviously something going on that I don't understand, but that isn't any reason to blow off at me like that. You can at least explain it to me. You can't blame me for being bewildered, can you?' I can see that, well, the way it looks is funny, that's all!"

  I got up from the chau put my arm around her shoulders, and gave her a friendly hug. "I'm sorry," I said gently, "I shouldn't have woofed at you like that. And don't worry. I'll explain everything to you in the car. There's a good girl. Just get packed, and we can get out of here and be on our way in a few minutes. Okay?"

  I held open the door. Still nodding her head, Berenice crossed the hallway to her room.

  The moment her door closed, I wrapped the art materials in the sheet, washed the ashtray palette under the bathtub hot water tap and dried it with a towel. I slipped on my trousers and a shirt, and took the painting and the small bundle of art materials down to the basement garage on the elevator. I dumped the bundle in a garbage can, and placed the painting carefully, wet side up, in the trunk of my car. It took another three minutes to unfasten the canvas covertible top, fold it back, and snap the fasteners of the plastic cover. It would be chilly riding with the top back at this time of night, but I could put it up again later. The night garage attendant, a young black man wearing white overalls, stood in the doorway of the small, lighted office, watching me silently as I struggled with the top. Finished, I crossed the garage, handed him a quarter, and told him I was checking out.

  "Call the desk, please," I said, "and tell the clerk to send a bellman with a truck to get our baggage in five-ten and fiveoh-five in about fifteen minutes. Tell the bellman to pile it on the back seat when he comes down. The trunk is already filled with other things."

  "Yes, sir," he said.

  I returned to my room, packed in less than five minutes, pulled a sleeveless sweater on over my shirt, and slipped into my sports coat. Berenice wasn't ready yet, but I helped her dose her suitcases, and advised her to wear her warm polo coat over her slack suit. The bellman came with his truck, and when we got off at the lobby to check out, he continued on down to the basement to put our luggage in the car. Berenice paid the bill, which was surprisingly reasonable, by cashing two traveler's checks, and the bellman had the car out in front for us before we had finished checking out. The night deskman didn't ask questions about why we were leaving in the middle of the night, and I didn't volunteer any information.

  The night air was chilly when we got into the car, and there was a light, misty fog hovering fifty feet or so above the deserted city streets. I lit two cigarettes, handed Berenice one of them, and pulled away from the curb. She shivered slightly and huddled down in her seat.

  "You're probably wondering why I put the top back," I said.

  "Yes, I am. But after the way you barked at me last time, I'm almost afraid to ask any questions."

  I laughed and patted her leg. "If it gets too cold, I'll put it up again. But I thought it would be best to get as much fresh air as possible to keep myself awake. It isn't really cold, and there won't be much traffic this time of night, so we should make fairly good time."

  Berenice accepted this moronic explanation, and I increased the speed the moment we got out of the downtown area and onto the new four-lane highway that was still bordered by residential streets containing two- and three-story houses.

  From my examination of the map I knew that there were several small lakes between Valdosta and Tifton, and a few pine reserves as well, first- and second-growth forests to feed the Augusta paper mills. Most of the rich, red land was cultivated, however-tobacco, for the major crop, but also with melons, corn, peas, or anything else that a farmer wanted to grow, including flax. East of Valdosta was the Great Okefenokee Swamp, which filled a large section of southeast Georgia, and there were many small lakes, streams, and brooks that filtered well-silted water into the swamp.

  I was unfamiliar with the highway and the countryside, and I didn't know precisely what I was looking for, other than a grove of pines, a finger of swamp, and a rarely used access road. I slowed down considerably a few miles north of Valdosta, as soon as I was in open country with only widely scattered farmhouses, and I began to keep my eyes open for side roads leading nowhere. Berenice, who had been as silent as a martyr, and suffering from my silence as well, finally had to open her mouth.

  "Well?" she said.

  "Well, what?"

  "I'm waiting for the explanation, that's what. You said you'd explain, what are you waiting for?"

  "I've been thinking things over, Berenice, and I'm beginning to come to my senses. You really don't think it would be a good idea, do you, to send that painting to Mr. Cassidy?"

  "That's your business, James. It isn't up to me to tell you what to do, but if you're asking me for an opinion I'd say no. But as you said, I don't know all there is to know about what it is you're trying to do-so until I do, I'll keep my long 'middle-western nose' out of your business."

  "I apologized for that, sweetheart."

  "That's all right. I know that my nose fits my face. What does bother me though is that I've been more or less forced to think that you set fire to Debierue's house."

  "Me?" I laughed. "What makes you think I'd do something like that?"

  "Well, for one thing, you didn't show any surprise," she said shrewdly, "when I told you about the news of the fire on television.

  "Why should I be surprised?' His vifia in France burned down, too. It does surprise me, however, that you would think that I did it."

  "Then tell me that you didn't do it, and I'll believe you."

  "What would my motive be for doing such a thing?"

  "Why not give me a simple yes or no?"

  "There are no simple yes or no answers in this world, Big Girl-none that I've ever found. There are only qualified yes and no answers, and not many of them."

  "All right, James, I can't think of a valid motive, to use one of your favorite words, 'valid; but I can think of a motive that you might consider valid. I think you've faked an article about some paintings that Debierue was supposed to paint, but didn't paint. You looked at the paintings he did paint and didn't like them, probably because they didn't meet your high standards of what you thought they should be, so you burned them by setting fire to the house. You then invented some nonexistent paintings of your own and wrote
about them instead."

  "Jesus, do you realize how crazy that sounds?"

  "Yes, I do. But you can show me how crazy it is by letting me read the article you wrote. If there's no mention of that weird orange-"

  "Burnt orange-"

  "All right, burnt orange painting in your article, then you can easily prove me wrong. I'll apologize, and that'll be that."

  "That'll be that, just like that?' And then you'll expect me to forgive your wild accusation as if you'd never made it, right?"

  "I said that I might be wrong, and I sincerely hope that I am. It's easy enough to prove me wrong, isn't it?' What I do know though, and there's nothing you can ever say to persuade me that I'm wrong, is that Debierue never painted that picture in your hotel room. You painted it. It was still wet when I touched it-including Debierue's signature. And the only reason I can possibly come up with for you to do such a thing is because you want to write about it, and pass it off as Debierue's work. I–I don't know what to think, James, the whole thing has given me a headache. And really-you may not believe this-I actually don't care! Honestly, I don't! But I don't want you to get into any trouble, either. Arson is a very serious offense, James."

  "No shit?"

  "It isn't funny, I'll tell you that much. And if you did set fire to Debierue's house, you should tell me!"

  "Why?' So you can turn me in to the police for arson?"

  "Oh, James," she wailed. Berenice put her face into cupped hands and began to cry.

  "All right, Berenice," I said quietly, after I had let her cry for a minute or so, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do." I handed her my handkerchief.

  She shook her head, took a Kleenex tissue out of her purse, and blew her nose with a refined honk.

  "You're right, Berenice, on all counts," I continued, "and I might as well admit it. I guess I got carried away, but it isn't too late. Setting the fire was an accident. I didn't do it on purpose. The old man had spified some turpentine, and I accidentally dropped my cigarette and it caught. I thought I'd put it out, but apparently it flared up again. Do you see?"