Black Water Lilies

by Michel Bussi

  “What do you want, Madame Morval? Is it revenge you’re after?”

  “No, Chief Inspector. Oh, no. For the first time in my life, it’s the reverse…”

  Patricia Morval hangs up, almost relieved.

  Through the window she sees the sun, in the distance, setting gently behind the slopes of the Seine, capturing the bend of the river in a fleeting but everyday Impressionist trick of the eye.

  26

  In Amadou Kandy’s gallery, Inspector Bénavides is rather surprised by the apparent lack of reaction on the part of the Senegalese giant. The more Sylvio looks around the gallery, the less he finds that it resembles any other. In general, the walls of such places are immaculate, white, with a clean and discreet kind of beauty. In the Kandy Gallery, by contrast, there are blisters in the crumbling plaster, bare lightbulbs hang from the ceiling, and the bricks seem to be held together more by dust than by mortar. Amadou Kandy has clearly gone to a lot of trouble to turn his shop into a kind of cave. Sylvio insists:

  “To sum up, Monsieur Kandy… We have a mistress without charm, a grandmother without money, and a rainy Anglo-Saxon island. Aren’t you surprised by your friend Morval?”

  “I always liked his eccentric side…”

  “And Sark?”

  “What about Sark?”

  “You are keen on Sark too, Kandy.”

  Bénavides leaves a deliberate silence before going on:

  “You have been to the Isle of Sark no fewer than six times over the last few years, and you happen to have been there a few months before Jérôme Morval met Alysson Murer.”

  Sérénac observes his deputy, and says to himself that if Sylvio knew how to do an impression of an anteater, he would certainly do one now. For the first time, Amadou looks shaken, and wrinkles suddenly appear on his brow. Bénavides pushes onward:

  “Monsieur Kandy, would it be indiscreet to ask what you were doing on the Isle of Sark?”

  Amadou Kandy watches the passersby walking along the Rue Claude Monet, then turns around. He has recovered his unctuous smile.

  “Inspector, you know as well as I do that Sark is the last tax haven in Europe. Don’t repeat this to anyone, but I go there to launder my money. Diamonds, ivory, spices, they bring in the money, you have no idea. Not to mention the trade in magic gazelle horns… Sark is the British equivalent of the French Overseas Territories.”

  Sylvio shrugs and goes on:

  “In fact, Kandy, Alysson, and her grandmother Kate have distant French roots. We have every reason to think that one of their ancestors was Eugène Murer. I suppose that you have heard of Eugène Murer?”

  “If you are asking the question, I suppose you have heard that I am the expert appointed by the Regional Office of Cultural Affairs to catalog the Murer collection.”

  The art dealer leans toward some paintings that are resting against the wall and delicately extracts a landscape of an African village, both naïve in style and colorful. He stands up with a smile of delight and continues with his speech:

  “Among all the Impressionist painters, there’s none that has a more endearing career than Eugène Murer, don’t you think? As a young man he was passionate about literature and painting… He became a painter and collector for the love of it, but sadly for him, poor thing, because every man must earn a living, he also became a pastry chef in Paris and Rouen… During his lifetime, Eugène Murer was wealthier than most of his artist friends, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet; he would help them out, support them, even feed them, good man that he was… He painted too, but who today remembers Eugène Murer?”

  Amadou Kandy places the African painting in front of the two policemen.

  “One more detail. Eugène Murer went off to paint in Africa for two years, between 1893 and 1895, far from the influence of anyone, and he came back with suitcases full of paintings. If you have a bit of taste, you will note that Murer was an excellent colorist, and that his mixture of Impressionism and a naïve style that echoes primitive art cannot help but surprise…”

  Laurenç Sérénac has removed his aching buttocks from the wooden bin and appraises the painting with fascination. Sylvio Bénavides refuses to be distracted.

  “Well, thank you, Monsieur Kandy. So, now we know all about the Murers’ ancestor, Eugène, artist, pastry chef, and collector. Perhaps we could come back to his descendants, Alysson and Kate. Two years ago Kate Murer was threatened with expulsion by the Seigneur of Sark. Yes, I was surprised too, but Sark still has a seigneur who sets out the law—what do you expect? Life is tough in tax havens. Anyway, Kate was told to renovate her dilapidated house, which was causing complaints from both neighbors and tourists, or get out. This was where Jérôme Morval came onto the scene. He was seeing her granddaughter regularly and had spent a number of weekends, which we may suppose were romantic in nature, at her grandmother’s house. Our friend Morval suggested helping Kate Murer out. Fifty thousand pounds. An interest-free loan, just like that, simply out of friendship. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Jérôme was a nice guy,” observes Amadou Kandy.

  “Wasn’t he just! Kate Murer called her granddaughter, Alysson, and told her that her good friend Jérôme Morval was the most charming of men. Not only had he lent her fifty thousand pounds, but in order to avoid embarrassing her, he had suggested that in exchange for the loan, he would relieve her of her stock of old paintings, including that cumbersome reproduction of Monet’s Water Lilies.”

  “What did I tell you?” Amadou Kandy says mischievously. “Tact, generosity, that was typical Jérôme.”

  At last Sérénac takes his eyes away from the warm colors of Murer’s African village and continues where his deputy left off.

  “A saint among men, we agree. Except that while our Alysson may have possessed a somewhat crude face, the girl was no fool. Morval’s proposal got her thinking, so she called in an expert. Another expert, I mean, not you, Kandy.”

  The gallery owner takes the blow with a smile.

  “I don’t suppose you can guess what came next?” Sérénac goes on.

  “I’m burning to know, gentlemen; you are both almost as adept at telling stories as my marabout grandfather.”

  Sérénac delivers his punch line:

  “Kate Murer’s Water Lilies was a real Monet, not a reproduction. And it was worth a hundred times, a thousand times, what Morval had offered…”

  The walls of the gallery are shaken by Kandy’s thunderous laughter.

  “Good old Jérôme!”

  “Do you know the end of the story?” Bénavides says, close to exploding. “Alysson Murer, of course, broke off all relations with her lovely French gentleman… Kate, the grandmother, lost both a son-in-law and a friend. She refused to sell the painting and was thrown out of her fisherman’s cottage… She was found two days later, having hurled herself off the top of the cliff, by the bridge of La Coupée, the isthmus that connects the two parts of the island. Do you know all that is left of her?”

  Kandy, leaning on the painting by Murer, doesn’t reply.

  “A bench!” cries Sylvio. “A bench with the date of her birth and the date of her death, positioned directly opposite the cliff she threw herself off. It’s a tradition in Sark, no cemetery, no graves, just a wooden bench engraved with the name of the late inhabitant and placed somewhere in the landscape, facing the sea… Before she died, Kate had specified in her will that she was donating the painting to the National Gallery in Cardiff.”

  Kandy gets up again, without losing his smile.

  “Then there’s a moral to the tale, Inspector. Sark gains a bench, the museum in Cardiff a Water Lilies, and Jérôme Morval a reason to part with the ugliest of his mistresses…”

  “Monsieur Kandy,” Bénavides insists, his face blank. “You are the expert who has been officially designated by DRAC in Normandy to work on the Murer collection…”

  “So?”

  “Given that we know Morval gave you the task of finding him a Water Lilies, that you were familiar with
the Murer collection, and that you went to Sark on several occasions…”

  “I might have whispered to my great friend that Kate Murer’s Water Lilies was perhaps not a reproduction… Is that what you’re insinuating?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Even if we assume that were the case, would there be anything illegal in it?”

  “No, you’re right.”

  “So what exactly do you want to know?”

  Sylvio Bénavides has hoisted himself up onto the third step, which puts him level with Amadou Kandy.

  “The identity of Morval’s murderer. The motive could be revenge.”

  “Alysson Murer?”

  “No, she has a firm alibi for the morning of the crime; she was behind her desk in Newcastle…”

  “And so…?”

  “And so,” Bénavides presses on, “there’s nothing to say that Morval didn’t continue looking for another Water Lilies, another sucker, with your help, Kandy.”

  Amadou Kandy doesn’t take his eyes off Sylvio. Staring contest, first to blink…

  “If I had found one, Inspector, if I had found a Water Lilies, then I wouldn’t be here in this wretched gallery. I’d have bought one of the Cape Verde islands near Dakar, declared independence, and built my own personal tax haven.” Amadou Kandy gives a toothy grin. “And would you be asking me to give away a professional secret?”

  “With a view to exposing your friend’s murderer.”

  “Let’s be serious, Inspectors. Where on earth would I have been able to find another Water Lilies by Monet?”

  Neither of the policemen answers. Both Bénavides and Sérénac get up and take a couple of steps toward the door.

  “Just one more thing,” Sérénac says suddenly. “Kate Murer didn’t exactly leave the painting to the museum in Cardiff. In fact, it was the Theodore Robinson Foundation that received legal ownership, and it then loaned the work to the Welsh National Gallery.”

  “So?”

  Among the many posters hanging in the windows of the art gallery, Laurenç Sérénac has spotted the one for the “International Young Painters Challenge,” the same one that is pinned up in Stéphanie Dupain’s classroom.

  “So,” replies Sérénac. “I think the Robinson Foundation is turning up a few too many times in this case.”

  “Well, that’s normal, isn’t it?” replies the gallery owner. “It’s an institution, that foundation. Particularly here, in Giverny…”

  Kandy stands in front of the poster, momentarily lost in thought.

  “Theodore Robinson, the Americans, their passion for Impressionism, their dollars… Who could imagine what Giverny would be like without all that?” he says, spreading his arms. “You know what, Inspector?”

  “What?”

  “Basically I’m like Eugène Murer, here, in my shop. I’m just a grocer. But if I could go back in time, you know what I’d like to be?”

  “A pastry chef?” Laurenç suggests.

  Amadou Kandy explodes with laughter.

  “I like you, the clever one,” he manages to articulate between hiccups. “You too, by the way, Mr. Anteater. No, Inspectors, not a pastry chef. I’m going to confess to you that I would, in fact, love to be ten years old. Still at school with a pretty teacher telling me I was a genius, and that I should put myself forward, like hundreds of other children in the world, for this competition organized by the Robinson Foundation to find a budding new artist.”

  27

  The sun will soon go down behind the slope. Fanette is in a hurry—she has to finish her painting. Her brush has never moved so quickly, painting in white and ochre patches, reproducing the mill and its old tower, the large cherry-red and silver tree in the middle of the courtyard, the waterwheel dipping into the running water. She is concentrating, but today it’s the reverse, it’s James who won’t stop talking to her.

  “Do you have friends, Fanette?”

  What about you, James, do I ask if you have any?

  “Of course. What do you think?”

  “You’re often alone…”

  “You were the one who told me to be selfish. When I’m not painting, I’m with my friends.”

  James walks slowly into the field and folds his easels, one by one. He always follows the same ritual when the sun starts to set.

  “But since you ask, I’ll tell you. They get on my nerves. Especially Vincent, the one you saw the other day. He was spying on us. He sticks to me like a pot of glue…”

  “Of varnish!”

  “What?”

  “A pot of varnish. It’s more useful than a pot of glue, for a girl who paints.”

  Sometimes James thinks he’s hilarious.

  “There’s also Camille, but he shows off a lot. He thinks he was born gifted, you know the type. The last one my age is Mary, but she cries all the time. The crybaby. I don’t like her.”

  “You must never say that, Fanette.”

  What did I say? I haven’t said anything…

  “Mustn’t say what?”

  “I’ve already told you, Fanette. Nature has been extremely kind to you, it’s spoiled you, and don’t pretend you don’t understand. You’re as cute as a button, intelligent, and full of mischief. An incredible gift for painting has been placed on your shoulders, as if a fairy had sprinkled gold dust over you. So you have to be careful, Fanette, because other people will always be jealous of you. They will be jealous, because their lives will be much less happy than yours.”

  “That’s rubbish! You’re talking rubbish. Anyway, the only friend of mine who’s worth bothering with is Paul. You haven’t met him yet. I’ll bring him with me, one evening. He’s already agreed. We’re going to travel the world together. He’s going to take me to Japan, Australia, Africa, so that I can paint.”

  “I’m not sure there’s a man who’ll put up with that.”

  Sometimes James annoys me too.

  “Yes, there is. Paul!”

  Fanette pulls a face at him as he turns around to put away his paint box.

  There are times when James just doesn’t get it. Besides, I don’t understand what he’s doing, it looks as if he’s stuck in front of his tubes of paint.

  “Are you stuck?”

  “No, no. I’m fine.”

  There’s a funny expression on his face. Sometimes James is just strange.

  “You know, James, for the Robinson Foundation I’d like to paint something other than the mill and the witch’s house. That thing you said about reinventing the painting of Père Trognon doesn’t really do it for me…”

  “Really? Theodore Robinson did a—”

  “I have my own idea,” Fanette cuts in. “I’m going to paint some water lilies. But not in an old-man sort of way, like Monet. I’m going to paint a young person’s Water Lilies.”

  James looks at her as if she’s just come out with the worst imaginable blasphemy.

  He’s gone all red. I think he’s going to explode.

  It’s OK, you don’t have to look like Père Trognon!

  Fanette bursts out laughing.

  “Monet… and his ‘old-man’ Water Lilies…” James wheezes.

  He coughs into his beard and then starts talking to her in a teacherly voice.

  “I’m going to try to explain to you, Fanette. You know, Monet traveled a lot. All over Europe. He was inspired by all the paintings in the world—you’ve got to understand, they’re all very different, people don’t see things in the same way. Monet understood that, and he studied Japanese painting in particular. So after that, he didn’t need to travel anymore, or go somewhere else. A lily pond was enough, for thirty years of his life, a perfectly ordinary pond, which was still big enough to revolutionize painting throughout the entire world… And even to revolutionize more than painting, Fanette. It was man’s vision of nature that Monet revolutionized. A universal way of looking. Do you understand? Here, in Giverny! Less than a hundred yards away from this field! So, when you claim that Monet had an old man’s way of seeing things
…”

  Blah blah blah…

  “Well,” Fanette’s bright voice explodes, “I’m going to do the opposite. I was born here, so I’m going to start with the Water Lilies pond and finish with the rest of the world! You’ll see, my Water Lilies will be unique; even Monet wouldn’t have dared to paint them the way I will. Like a rainbow!”

  Suddenly James bends down and gives Fanette a hug.

  He’s being odd again, he’s got that strange, worried expression on his face. It doesn’t look like him.

  “I’m sure you’re right, Fanette. You’re the artist, after all; you’re the one who knows.”

  He’s holding me too tightly, he’s hurting me…

  “Don’t listen to anyone but yourself,” James goes on. “Including me. You’re going to win this Robinson Foundation prize, Fanette. You’ve got to win it! Do you hear me? So, off you go now, it’s late, your mother will be waiting for you. And don’t forget your painting.”

  Fanette heads off across the wheat field. James calls one last piece of advice after her.

  “To kill that gift within you would be the worst of crimes!”

  Sometimes James says some very strange things.

  James watches the slim figure running across the field as he bends once more toward his paint box. He waits for Fanette to disappear behind the bridge, then opens it, shaking. He didn’t want to let it show in front of Fanette, but he’s drenched in sweat, gripped by a kind of panic. His old fingers are trembling in spite of himself. The rusty hinges squeak slightly.

  James reads the letters engraved in the soft wood inside the box of paints.

  SHE’S MINE,

  HERE, NOW AND FOR EVER

  The carved words are followed by two simple lines that cross one another. A cross. James has understood that it’s a threat. A death threat. His thin, elderly body is shaken by uncontrollable tremors. The presence of the police, searching everywhere in the village because of that corpse and the murderer who hasn’t been found, isn’t reassuring at all. The whole atmosphere of the place oppresses him.