by Tom Rachman
Why, Pinch wonders, have I become so angry? Because of the pain? There are pharmaceuticals involved too. Or was I always this way, detesting those who outstrip me, at school, in university, in painting? He thinks of Temple Butterfield, that great artist. I’m so petty, hating people who don’t even think of me. The truth is that I have achieved what I deserve.
64
The new century begins with fanfare, the world marching toward ever more democracy, economies growing infinitely, the Internet guaranteeing better versions of everything. On a distant sideline, Pinch observes, buried under misery—until something unexpected happens: He wakes with almost no pain.
Gingerly, and withholding belief, Pinch steps around the flat, testing this resurrected body, repressing any expectations, until they culminate in a sob of joy and a defiant stamp on the ground—only to chastise himself for forgetting his neighbors and their sleeping baby. Still, this is amazing. Is it real? Will it stay?
He parts the curtains, peeking at dawn. I could just go outside. But it’s too early. He’s become fearful of hoodlums, having no ability to protect himself. Now? I’d punch those druggies in the nose! He tries to calm down, but cannot stop this jittery high. The pain will come back. Be careful.
Instead, he kicks a pile of unopened letters, months’ worth, and halts to see familiar handwriting among the scattered envelopes. He stoops, atrophied thighs shaking, and flops onto his backside. He rips open the letter, finding condolences about his father from Cilla Barrows. She found him through Marsden, and is saying—or rather, she said; this is from ages back—how much she has come to admire Bear’s work, and that she shudders to recall her callow self in France. She inserts a gloss of her past quarter-century: publishing books, teaching, raising a family. “I still owe you money for our European vacation,” she writes. “How much was my share?”
On Natalie’s old red Olivetti, Pinch types a response, with warmest greetings and a jokey summary of his own life, adding the email address that the Utz school recently forced on everyone. “P.S. Absolutely no need to pay me back.”
After breakfast, he ambles at a slow but acceptable pace to the Earls Court post office. Who was ever more elated to stand in an eleven-person queue? He chats to the adorable Jamaican granny working the wicket, Pinch gabbing away, as he’s seen others do. How angry that used to make him! Now he can gripe about his back and his doctor. “Well,” he says at his leisure, “must be off, my darling!” Everything has an exclamation point today!
Chattering to himself all the way home, he recalls Natalie’s manic spells, when she bounded around the art studio in Rome, and worked on pottery through the night. He always cautioned her to slow down. “Oh, enjoy your highs!” he tells her now. “Why didn’t I let you? Am I older now than you ever got? God, I think I am.”
He ponders Bear too. To succeed as an artist demands such a rare confluence of personality, of talent, of luck—all bundled into a single life span. What a person Dad was! Pinch decides that perhaps he himself had ability too, but this was insufficient: He lacked the personality. The art world was always beyond him. For the first time, he accepts this.
And he longs to tell someone of his painless state. After hesitating, he phones Jing. Might she come out for a drink?
The pint of lager looks huge on the pub table before her. He buys Jing a packet of prawn-cocktail crisps, then gobbles them himself, laughing to notice he has done so. He rises to buy more. “Look! I can get up and down!” When she tells of putting her house on the market to satisfy Salvatore’s greed, Pinch becomes indignant. “That’s terrible! You know, I should just buy the house,” he says. “Listen—what if we did a deal privately? You’d save, I’d get a mortgage, pay you a good price, and you could pay off that idiot without losing your home. I’d actually like to own property in London.”
“Slough.”
“That’s almost London.”
“My house is very cold, Chars.”
“I specialize in cold houses.” Thinking of the French cottage, he smiles. The absence of that place is what made him crumple this past year, perhaps as much as the pain itself. And he can return there now. “Look, I could rent your house back to you, so you’d get to stay as long as you liked.”
“It’s too big for me alone.”
“Then I take a wing. Why not? I need to move—I associate my place with Harold and Tony. I’d welcome a change.” Suddenly he doubts his own stream of promises. Does he, a man in his fifties, want a housemate? Does he want it to be Jing? Then again, if she speaks Mandarin around the house, that’d be useful. But does free language tutelage justify the purchase of a house?
He’s distracted again, grinning about that letter from Barrows—nostalgia overcomes him. He claps his hand upon Jing’s and gives a hopeful squeeze.
65
When fully sober, Pinch prefers to simply lend Jing ₤10,000 to pay off her grasping ex-husband, rather than buying a charmless house in Slough. But there is fallout from his high that night: He left a tipsy voice mail for his landlord, giving notice, quite rudely too. Sheepishly, Pinch called back, but his flat had already been promised to someone else. Until he finds a place, Pinch must lodge in a spare room at Jing’s house.
On his first day back at Utz, he and she take the train into central London together. Francesca greets him warmly, explaining that she had to hire another Italian teacher in his absence. “Don’t look so worried! You still have the same number of hours.”
“Yes, great.” He lowers his head. “Thanks.”
He sits at his office computer, struggling to learn the new Utz software suite, when he discovers a pleasant surprise: an email from Barrows, who is insisting on restitution for their long-ago trip to France, estimating her debt at $2,000. This is a ludicrous sum, he emails back, warning her not to send a penny. If she does, he’ll never buy another of her books.
Priscilla Barrows
Charles,
You read my books? Apologies! I’m boring the hell out of you (not to mention my six other readers).
—CB
Charles Bavinsky
Dear Barrows,
You have nothing to apologize for. I do buy your books, but confess that I’ve started none!
Yours sincerely,
Charles
Priscilla Barrows
Ouch. How come?
—CB
Charles Bavinsky
I was afraid that I might be mentioned. (I’m only joking.)
Yours,
Charles
Priscilla Barrows
Ha! . We have a saying at Princeton: “Have I read it? I haven’t even taught it!” My books are basically cultural takedowns in which I linger over phrases like “subversive sociality.” Avoid! Avoid!
Charles Bavinsky
You used a smiling face. I don’t know how to do that on my machine. If your fellow academics knew that you put smiling faces in your letters, you would be a pariah.
P.S. How do you do smiling faces?
Priscilla Barrows
They’re “smiley” faces not “smiling” . I’d refer you to the essay on email etiquette in my last book, BUT SERIOUSLY, which you bought and wisely failed to read. And, no, I’m not telling you how to do smiley faces. You’d only abuse the privilege.
Love, Barrows
In less than three weeks, their email correspondence has surpassed the ease of communication they achieved during nearly a year of dating. It’s so much easier to connect when you cannot touch.
Finally he deals with his clogged answering machine, a full ninety-minute audiotape. To his alarm, he missed a number of calls months ago from Marsden, who was wo
rried about the protracted silence. But most messages are from irked relatives or attorneys. Early in the tape, they are only menacing. As the messages progress, the same voices issue dated cautions. They’re questioning the will, impugning his behavior, demanding to view what he possesses. This mess is closing in.
In the months ahead, Pinch consults with lawyers at length—before conceding that he might have to abandon these paintings or face bankruptcy from legal fees. Another fear is that the French authorities might discover that he inherited paintings in their territory, which could land him in tax hell. It’d perhaps also trigger tax claims in America and Britain. Nope, there’s no way to retain the art. Yet he can’t accept handing it over.
When emailing with Barrows in recent months, he often lampooned his small life as a language teacher. He did so with genuine amusement because he’s demonstrably something more—in charge of serious artworks, of a foreign property, of the Bear Bavinsky legacy. All that makes him almost important. And they say he must surrender that.
2002
66
During the next school holiday, Pinch drives too fast through France, the highway lane stripes whipping underneath, as he whooshes past gas station turnoffs and countryside. Once in the studio, he contemplates his father’s paintings; the twenty-six Life-Stills that Bear hid here and that Pinch inherited. He passes two weeks alone, occasionally dashing out to buy food and supplies. On his last day, he hikes down to the village pay phone to call New York. “I don’t suppose you could fly out here in a few months?” he says into a crackly line.
On the agreed date, Pinch returns once more to the cottage, finally hearing a Hyundai Getz struggling up the driveway, engine coughing, the tires spitting pebbles. The parking brake cranks and out steps Connor Thomas, in a pink polo shirt with collar popped, cargo shorts, Teva sandals. “Oh wow—I’m actually here,” he says, looking around.
Pinch leads his guest to the kitchen, where a Life-Still rests against a table leg. Another even larger Life-Still is flat on the tabletop; a third rests against a wall. “Nobody else has seen these, Connor. Nobody ever, except Dad, me—and now you. What do you think?”
Eyes bugging, hands clasped behind him, Connor gapes, neck straining like a chained dog. “I had so hoped it’d be this.” He leaps from one Life-Still to another. “Dare I ask, Charles? Are there more?”
Pinch hesitates—then nods, prompting a squeak from Connor, whose attention returns to the art. He crab-walks the length of the table, leans toward a canvas for close inspection, clutching his thighs. “Awe. Like, real awe. And Bear’s studio was here, right? Can I peek?”
“Let’s hold off on that.”
“Right, totally. I’m getting ahead of myself. Wow. I could seriously faint.” For show, he gulps a few breaths of air and fans himself with his hand, then fixes on Pinch. “Perhaps I’m speaking out of turn here, but aren’t you crazy to keep these here? It must get damp and cold, no? There could be a fire or a theft or anything.”
“This is where Dad always kept them. The safest place in the world. Nobody even knows where this place is.”
“Except me now. Something goes missing, and you can send the gendarmes to hunt me down!”
For a chilling instant Pinch hears his father barking at Marsden to get the cops up here. Then Pinch is back, smiling at his guest, waiting for Connor to detect the obvious flaws in these three paintings, all of them copies that he produced during his last visit. When the man figures it out, Pinch will confess to the prank and bring out the authentic Bavinskys, which they can compare for amusement (and for the presumed flattery Connor will offer his host). But amusingly, the supposed Bavinsky expert finds nothing untoward, bubbling with worshipful remarks, each of which is like a firework of elation inside Pinch. He smooths over a few long strands of hair, readying his confession. “Connor?”
“Charles, I need to thank you for selecting me.” He bows with a hand-twirling flourish. “These paintings are unbelievable.”
“I was going to say something.”
Connor is not listening, beguiled by replicas.
“I was going to tell you.” Pinch stops. It’d make Connor look foolish to expose him suddenly like this. Do it delicately later. For now, Pinch can’t help basking. “You know, I just realized the time. Pretty late for this part of the world. If we’re going to eat tonight, we should find a restaurant.”
“Who needs food when my eyes are feasting on these?”
Pinch smiles, feeling like a twit for his jubilation from a charade. He drives Connor to Vernet-les-Bains, promising “the best restaurant anywhere around,” though Pinch has never eaten out when visiting the cottage. The place turns out to be empty, with an unctuous manager who presses on them every piece of fish and game in urgent need of dispatch from the kitchen.
“Those pictures are in my head now,” Connor remarks, stabbing at his rabbit stew.
Pinch fills their glasses again from a carafe of Côtes du Roussillon, taking a long sip to ready for his confession.
Connor holds up his glass, gazing at the ruby liquid as if art itself sloshed around in there. “I’m seeing them everywhere I look.” He clinks with Pinch, who takes another bracing gulp.
“Before we get into further discussion of what you saw today, Connor, I need to mention something. There’s a larger reason I invited you out here,” he says.
“I’m intrigued.”
“Well, I wanted to propose something. A bit more than your just writing one article.”
“Don’t keep me hanging!”
“Connor, I’d like you to consider writing a book on Bear Bavinsky, the official biography. I could give you exclusive access to all there is. Everything.” Pinch dips a nub of baguette into his glass. “What say you?”
“Emphatically, yes!”
Pinch swallows the winey bread, swipes a napkin across his lips, sits higher. “My Dad had mixed feelings about putting his work out there, and he’s not around to state a preference today. So I need for us—not just me, but you too—to take on that mantle. Essentially, what I’m saying is: I want to invite you to work alongside me on this.”
“I am speechless.”
“Tomorrow I’m going to show you all the Life-Stills that Bear left me. And here’s the tough part: They will not be together again. Probably ever. Hard to say, but I’m giving them away. All of them. Bear’s other children do deserve something.”
“Hold your horses, Charles. Is this what Bear wanted? ‘These works should be in major collections.’ That’s what he always said.”
“I know what he said,” Pinch replies, a little testy. “You tell me the alternative then.” Pinch sees his father shouting at him outside the cottage, jabbing a finger at him, saying, “You work for me.” And Pinch recalls phone conversations during university, when Bear dangled the prospect of collaborating—always in the service of his art. But it’s mine now. You work for me, Dad. Without meaning to, you ended up working entirely for me.
Pinch taps his fork against a serpent of entrecôte fat curled across his plate. “What am I supposed to do? They’re relentless, my family.”
“Do you have to give in?”
“Off the record, Connor, there’s no way for me to hold on to these. I’ll lose them anyway if I fight this.”
“Why not donate them to the French state before anyone can stop you; get them displayed somewhere edgy?”
“Who can guarantee the French state wants them? And once I declare these works, they’ll tax the hell out of them, and I lose all leverage. No, my plan is this: You study them over the next few days. Gradually, quietly, I drive them to London in the coming months. Probably it violates export-license rules, but I won’t be profiting personally. Once I get them all home, a clever lawyer can reinterpret Dad’s will so every Bavinsky child gets something. Tax liability then becomes the concern of each individual. I realize that means most of them wi
ll sell, and the paintings will be lost to the wind. I don’t love knowing that. But if you can think of an alternative, say so.”
“I find this heartbreaking. Also for what it must be doing to you.”
Pinch nods sadly, stroking the tablecloth, breadcrumbs jumping. “All I can do is encourage them to sell to reputable collectors.”
Driving them back to the cottage, he grips the steering wheel tightly, needing to sober up, needing to come clean. The next morning, Pinch brings out genuine Life-Stills, twenty-three of them—but cannot resist infiltrating his three replicas among them. The contrast seems obvious to Pinch. Doesn’t this guy see?
“Your father was a genius,” Connor declares. “Truly.”
Over the next days, Connor takes notes and photographs, and tape-records their conversations. Pinch hides his nerves, awaiting the moment to admit what he’s done. He’s going to climb up to the attic, where he’s hidden the three originals, and lug each down in turn.
Delaying this, he cooks a meal for his guest while Connor rambles away. The journalist alternately moons over the wizardry of Bear and frets about his flight home. Last year, he stood in line at a Starbucks on the Upper West Side, ready to order his grande latte, when the first plane hit. Unfortunately, bombing Saddam into oblivion is the only option, he now argues. Otherwise, what? Risk dirty bombs in Times Square next? “Don’t get me wrong. I hate and despise Dubya with a passion,” Connor says. “But myself, as someone who lived the attacks, I can tell you that there’s no negotiating with terrorists. A guy like George Bush, who’s not plagued by mental quandaries—maybe he’s the right man for the moment. You know?”
Standing over a bubbling pot, Pinch offers meaningless grunts, accepting the role of bumpkin that Connor has evidently assigned him. And out here, clashing civilizations does seem like another planet. The aroma of shallots and white wine rises from his copper saucepan, swirling steam dampening Pinch’s brow, his spirits climbing with it toward the ceiling.