The Great Believers

by Rebecca Makkai

  He said, “Yeah. No. I get it. Ultimately, I do have a boss, and that’s Bill. I’ll apprise him of the situation. If we’re lucky, the stuff is obviously fake. End of story. And if not—we’ll talk again.”

  She said, “I’m going to leave you here and pick up some groceries.” And instead of shaking his hand, she squeezed his bicep.

  On the way back to the gallery, the wind was harsher and in his face. He tucked his head and walked like a charging bull. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, he’d promised. Really, just a future conversation. How ridiculous to be scolded and warned over what was essentially a pipe dream. He felt for her, he did, but acid was burning his throat. The wind tore at his skin.

  * * *

  —

  Yale and Charlie had long held tickets to see Julian in Hamlet at Victory Gardens. “Well,” Julian had said when he invited them, “not so much at Victory Gardens as in it. Like, on off nights.” The show was put on by the Wilde Rumpus Company, and this was how it operated—in other people’s theaters, on nights when the house would otherwise be dark.

  It was the last show Nico had set-designed. He’d just completed the sketches when he got sick, and the company had executed things as faithfully as it could. Julian was the one who’d introduced Nico to the theater world, who’d hooked him up with the company. But then Nico was the kind of guy who made you want to do things for him. He always smiled so earnestly, looked so pleasantly shocked that you’d be willing to do him some small favor.

  Yale rushed home from Evanston and changed out of his mud-smeared slacks only to find that Charlie was suddenly uninterested in attending. He was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Did you see what they wrote in the Reader?” he said. “They called it ‘unnerving.’”

  “It’s Hamlet,” Yale said. “It’s supposed to be unnerving.”

  “Do you know how long that play is? We’ll be old before it’s over.”

  Yale had taken off his loafers and was slipping his feet, again, into Nico’s shoes. They’d stretched a bit, the leather holding the shape of his toes.

  “Oh,” Charlie said, “your dad called, I think.”

  Yale’s father always phoned within the first few days of the month—regularly enough that Yale assumed it was something he scheduled, an item on his to-do list, like checking the batteries in the smoke detectors. It wasn’t an insult; it was just the way his father’s accountant brain worked. But if Charlie picked up, Leon Tishman wouldn’t leave a message, would just stammer that he must have misdialed. Five years ago, when Yale was so newly in love with Charlie that he couldn’t help shouting it from the rooftops, he’d tried telling his father he was in a relationship. His father said something like “Bop bop bop bop bop,” a sound effect to cover Yale’s voice, to stop his talking.

  Yale said, “He was due for a call.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t say anything. Bit unusual. Just breathing.”

  “Could be your secret admirer,” Yale said. “Was it heavy breathing?”

  But Charlie didn’t find it funny. He said, “Anyone else it might’ve been? Because it was odd.”

  Yale didn’t like the direction this was headed. He could have gotten defensive, or he could have just reassured Charlie, but instead he said, “Nico did promise to haunt us.”

  Charlie rolled over, buried his face in the pillow. He said, muffled, “I really don’t want to go tonight.”

  “Come on, get up. Let’s just do the first half, so you can say you saw the set design.”

  “I do want to see the set. I just don’t want to watch the play.”

  “What’s this about? Julian? Because I don’t get it. We can’t suddenly not have friends just because you’re going through this paranoid phase.”

  “Don’t start that,” Charlie said, and Yale was about to counter that he hadn’t really started it, but Charlie was sitting up now, opening the dresser to change his socks.

  * * *

  —

  It was an all-male production, Ophelia and Gertrude in drag, and not only were Guildenstern and Julian’s Rosencrantz clearly meant to be a couple, so were Hamlet and Horatio. Yale found it all darkly hilarious, with lines like “What a piece of work is a man” suddenly taking on new meaning, but Charlie didn’t laugh, kept folding his program.

  Nico’s set design was bleak and postapocalyptic. Hamlet didn’t live in a castle, apparently, but an alleyway—all fire escapes and dumpsters. It was strangely beautiful, if slightly more suited to West Side Story. If Nico had been around to oversee things, Yale imagined he might have added more color, graffiti, light.

  Julian looked, as always, made for the stage. His dark hair glowed like wet paint.

  In high school, Yale had wished he’d had the acting bug. He didn’t want the social fallout, but he wanted, desperately, something to talk about with the guys who got up there and, with no apparent self-consciousness, sang and even danced their way through Guys and Dolls, through Camelot. But the thought of going onstage was terrifying, beyond just the stigma. He could never have opened his mouth up there.

  He’d mentioned it, offhand, to the shrink he’d seen at U of M, a guy who would occasionally suggest that Yale wasn’t so much homosexual as lonely. “Could that desire be about your mother?” he’d said. “A desire to connect with your mother, through the theater?” And Yale had brushed it off, said that wasn’t it at all. But he’d wondered, in the years since, if it weren’t even simpler than that—if he didn’t possess some latent theater gene that would never emerge but that he could feel, now and then, tugging.

  It wasn’t till halfway through the first act that Yale spotted Asher Glass two rows ahead. The stage lights glowed through the backs of his ears, turned them translucent so Yale could see their threadlike veins.

  At intermission, they found Asher in the lobby, looking at the racks of books and T-shirts the company had brought in for sale.

  Yale said, “It’s not bad, right?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here. I can’t concentrate, can you?”

  “I think it’s okay to let your mind wander.”

  Asher looked back blankly. “No, I mean Teddy. I’m thinking about Teddy.”

  Charlie’s voice turned thin. “Is he, what, is he sick?”

  Asher let out a strange, short burst of laughter. “Someone broke his nose. Last night.”

  “What?”

  “They banged his head into the sidewalk. He was on campus at Loyola. He teaches some undergrad class, right? And he was walking back afterward and someone just—” He pantomimed it on his own head, grabbing his hair and thrusting himself forward. “On the sidewalk. It wasn’t a robbery even.”

  “Is he—”

  “He’s fine. He’s got a bandage across, and two stitches, and a black eye. He’s home, if you—but he’s okay. It’s more the fact of it. They have no idea who did this. One person, five. Students, punks, some asshole just strolling through campus.”

  “Have you seen him?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I went to help him deal with the cops. You know how they are. Even if someone’s caught, they’ll say it was gay panic, say you put your hand down their pants, whatever. You’re covering this in the paper, right?”

  “In general?” Charlie said. “Violence?”

  “No, this. Will you write about Teddy?”

  Charlie pulled at his lip. “It’d be up to Teddy. And my editor.”

  “You’re gonna cover it. I’m following up tomorrow.”

  And then it was time to head back in.

  Yale tried to pay attention, but he saw Teddy’s face hitting the sidewalk again and again, and because there were so many different ways he could picture it, he was compelled to picture them all: undergrads following him out of class; teenagers on bikes, a sudden inspiration. Teddy was so small. He closed his eyes, squeezed
the image out physically.

  He glanced at Charlie a few times, tried to read his face. Charlie drummed his fingers on the armrest, but he’d done that through the first act too.

  Afterward, Yale wanted to join the crowd waiting to congratulate Julian—Asher and those guys from the sandwich shop where Julian worked and the chubby accountant Julian used to see—but Charlie had to get to work. “You can hang back if you want,” he said, but Yale wasn’t an idiot.

  * * *

  —

  That Friday was the day before Hanukkah began, and so when Yale walked in to work and Bill Lindsey grinned and said there was something waiting on his desk, Yale was terrified it was going to be a menorah. Bill was either overly interested in Judaism, or had been using a feigned interest in Judaism as a way to awkwardly flirt. But instead, Yale found a large envelope with a return address in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. He felt adrenaline flood his thighs, as if the situation might require sprinting.

  Bill hadn’t followed him in, which he easily could have. He also could have opened the envelope. Yale had to give the man credit: He knew how to let people have their moments.

  Yale hadn’t told Bill yet about his conversation with Cecily. He’d been hoping to ignore the problem away. Bill did know the basic details of their trip north, and he knew that Yale was intrigued by the artwork. That was the word Yale had carefully chosen, intrigued, rather than excited. In part because it wasn’t Yale’s place to get worked up about art or to assess its value.

  He tore into the package and spread the Polaroids—more than a dozen of them—across the surface. A blur of color and lines and reflective glare. There was a letter, too, but that could wait. He sat and closed his eyes and, blindly, plucked one photo to hold up in the window light. It was a Foujita, or it was meant to be a Foujita, he reminded himself, and at the very least it was instantly identifiable as such. And it was not a work he was familiar with, not a copy of something famous. A young woman in profile, a simple drawing done in ink, small bits—her hair, her green dress—filled in with watercolor. Charmingly incomplete, yet fully realized. Signed, in the corner, both in Japanese and in Roman letters.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” This was just going to be one of those times when he talked to himself. He would hand the photos over to Bill this afternoon, but for now they were his. He put his palms flat on the desk. He did not want a two-million-dollar repercussion, didn’t want whatever legal battle might come from Nora’s family, didn’t want to make the phone call to Cecily, didn’t want his job on the line over this, didn’t want, even, to start hyperventilating right now with excitement. And yet, if these turned out to be real, this would be the find of his career. This was the dream version of his job. What Indiana Jones was to a regular archeology professor, Yale was right now to a regular development director of a modest gallery.

  The Modigliani sketches struck him next. Well, sketches was the wrong word. They were simple drawings, perhaps studies for something else, perhaps—as Nora had suggested—pieces made in payment to a model. All appeared to be done in blue crayon. Three of the four were signed. All nudes. If these were real, if they could be authenticated, they’d be worth a lot more than the pencil sketches Yale had been imagining.

  He examined three more Foujita line drawings—a woman in a robe, a woman holding a rose in front of bare breasts, a pile of fruit—plus a painting of an empty bedroom and a chicken-scratch pencil study of a man in a jacket, neither of which seemed to match any of the artists Nora had originally listed. It was when he picked up a wonderfully smudgy Soutine in one hand—God, this was a full painting, swirled and vertiginous and wild—that he stood straight up and then sat immediately down again, his knees not working properly. This piece showed, identifiably, the same woman as in the Foujitas: blonde, small ears, small breasts, impish tilt to her smile. Nora, presumably. If he tilted his head, it kind of even looked like Fiona. Was he nuts? It really did look like Fiona. The Modigilianis were too abstract to pin to Nora, all sinews and pointed ovals.

  One of the photos showed not artwork but a shoebox full of papers, and so after he’d sorted and examined every other Polaroid, Yale looked at the letter, typewritten on law-firm letterhead, to see if it explained.

  Dear Mr. Tishman:

  My greetings for the holiday season! Please find, herein, nineteen (19) Polaroid photographs documenting the collection of Nora Marcus Lerner. Mrs. Lerner wishes to remind you that the pieces are the work of the artists Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani, Jeanne Hébuterne, Tsuguharu Foujita, Jules Pascin, Jean Metzinger, Sergey Mukhankin, and Ranko Novak, completed between the years 1910 and 1925. Additionally, one (1) photograph shows the collection of correspondence, personal photographs, and other mementos Mrs. Lerner had amassed during her time in Paris.

  Mrs. Lerner and I are delighted by the Brigg Gallery’s interest in the collection, and look forward to your further communication.

  With warm regards,

  Stanley Toynbee, Esq.

  Yale walked down to Bill’s office, his legs still shaking, but Bill had stepped out. Yale left a Post-it on the door: I have good news and bad news. He went back and drafted a letter to Nora—he’d wait for Bill’s permission to send it—effusing over the photographs, saying that the sooner they began to work together, the sooner these pieces could receive their public due. He added that it might be best if she keep all correspondence private for now; he hoped she’d understand this to mean she shouldn’t talk to her son. He called Fiona and left a message. “You made my year,” he said. “You and your artist-schtupping aunt.” He did not call Cecily. As she’d pointed out, she wasn’t his boss. And when Bill came back, when he stood there cooing over the Polaroids like they were newborn kittens, when Yale told him about Chuck Donovan, his threats and his two million dollars and the plaque he’d pried off the Steinway, Bill puffed out his cheeks but never stopped staring at the photos. He said, “This is a lot more than two million, Yale. And I’m being very conservative. I mean, look at these. Look at these. You’ll figure out Cecily, you will. You’re my miracle worker.”

  On the way home, Yale bought flowers and an apple pie. He smiled at strangers on the El, and didn’t feel the cold.

  2015

  Fiona slept well, from whenever Serge had brought her home until 3 a.m. She lay still a long time, not wanting to make noise and rouse Richard. Wasn’t he an old man, despite everything? And then she fell back asleep and dreamed that her seatmate from the flight was swimming with her in a pool. He had something that belonged to Claire, and when Fiona found her, would she hand it over? He pulled from his swimsuit pocket, slowly, like a magician, Nico’s long orange scarf.

  When Fiona finally came out into the kitchen, Richard was at the breakfast table, the morning sun illuminating his computer, his hands. He typed quickly, mouthing words. “Emails,” he said. “Did you ever think we’d be so buried under mountains of these things?” She sliced a banana and asked if Serge was up yet. Richard laughed. “The question should be if he’s back yet. Which he is. He fell into bed around four.” Serge had a number of boyfriends, he said, none serious. “Mostly Italians. He does pick lovely ones.” Fiona knew better than to ask whether it bothered Richard. He seemed tickled by the whole situation, by Serge’s youth and energy. Richard stretched luxuriously, a lion in a bathrobe, a sun king on his throne. He closed his computer and said, “Look at this gorgeous weather, just for you. I wish you could enjoy Paris. Next visit you will. I don’t know when I died, but this is my Valhalla.”

  He told her they’d blocked off the Rue des Deux Ponts during the night for the movie shoot. She looked out the window. No crowds yet, no movie stars, but there were trucks. The sound of angry horns as drivers learned they couldn’t go through. He said she might cross the bridge to find a cab. But she didn’t want a cab. Even though her legs ached, she wanted to walk again. Only if Serge went with her, Richard said. He didn’t want her getting lost out there.
(He didn’t want her passing out, was what he didn’t say.)

  Serge roused himself, despite Fiona’s protests, to put on his jacket and come along, half the time dragging behind like a sleepwalker, half the time speed-walking ahead and deciding where they should go. She grew used to the back of his head—his dark, floppy hair, his long and ruddy neck.

  Yesterday, on the back of his motorbike after the café, she’d insisted he take her on the Pont de l’Archevêché—broad and nearly empty. A bride and groom posing for a photographer, but no Claire. Of course that bridge, or any bridge, would be the last place they’d find her. Life didn’t work like that.

  Now they walked down on the quays, Fiona showing Claire’s photo to every artist she saw—the ones with canvases the size of index cards for sale, the man drawing caricatures, even a clown in full makeup who sat eating a sandwich. Serge stood back to text, to light a cigarette, although his translation would have been helpful. “Elle est artiste,” Fiona managed each time, but she wished she could elaborate, explain that her daughter was not a pregnant teenager, not a hapless runaway. They all shook their heads, bemused.

  Serge led her to Shakespeare and Company, which Fiona had known was a bookstore, but which also turned out to have beds upstairs, Serge explained, “for lonely foreigners.” That made it sound like a whorehouse, but when they went upstairs she saw little cots. They were for single young people, sleeping four hours a night, caffeinating their hangovers away, engaging in passionate flings. Not a place you’d stay with a partner and a child. If she’d been in a better mood, Fiona would have fallen in love with the store, with its creaky floors and precarious tunnels of books, but as things were she just wanted to move on.

  With Serge peering over her shoulder, Fiona showed Claire’s photo at the counter to a young guy with a Brooklyn handlebar mustache and a Southern accent. He called a girl over.