The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World (12 page)

“There's a lot of people who would say that,”William said.

Amedeo said, “William knows that I prefer artichokes.”

“Have you ever had collard greens—done right?”

“Never.”

“I'll fix us some,” Mrs. Wilcox said.

“And I'll open some champagne. Champagne and collard greens. Mr. Zender did not allow collard greens on our menu. He was a thin man.”

“I remember from his pictures in the
Vindicator
that he was,” Mrs. Wilcox said.

“Just before Jessie Mae quit, Mr. Zender called her into his study—this very room we're sitting in now—to talk to her about her attitude. Jessie Mae listened to everything he had to say, and then she said, ‘Mr. Zender, you are one shallow man. If I gonna stick you with a toothpick, it gonna go right through you—front to back—and still have room to pop an olive on the end.' Then she untied her apron and dropped it on this very chair and walked out.”

Mrs. Zender began to laugh, and William and Amedeo did too. Mrs. Wilcox smiled hesitantly before allowing
herself to fully engage. Then Mrs. Zender added dreamily, “I missed Jessie Mae. I still do. But then, what could I have done?”

Mrs. Wilcox's lists were growing in number and complexity. One list was for the furniture and objects that Mrs. Zender wanted to keep for the Waldorf and her “shelf of her past.” Those items were ticketed
NFS—NOT FOR SALE
—and tucked away in one of the guest bedrooms. A second list was for items that would be put up for general sale. She made a third list for special dealers who might be interested in large items like the paneling, the bathroom fixtures, or the cabinetry. The fourth list was for items that she wanted to recommend to Bert and Ray. They would be let in first, before she even advertised the sale.

The Bert and Ray list was the best. There were many fine family heirlooms, including some antebellum cabinet pieces, several superb sets of fireplace tools, an old mercury-backed mirror in a hand-carved frame, and a brass fender large enough to be the guardrail of the balcony in a small theater.

Preparing for the sale involved Mrs. Wilcox's examining the undersides of chairs, the insides of drawers, the bottoms of bowls and cups and saucers, always looking for
clues as to their ages and makers. She sometimes sent Mrs. Zender searching through papers to find any record of when these purchases were made. The search was almost always fruitless, but going through her papers prompted an endless recital of stories.

Mrs. Wilcox was an apt listener. She enjoyed hearing tales of a life frosted with glamour, and Mrs. Zender needed someone who would not interrupt with stories that could possibly compete with hers.

The names Bert and Ray came up time and again, and the closest Amedeo ever heard William argue with his mother was when he heard him say, “Ma, they got eyes in their heads. They can see what all we got.”

Mrs. Wilcox looked a little embarrassed and explained to Amedeo, “William don't feel as in thrall to Bert and Ray as I do.”

William said, “Ma, you're even. You are out of debt, Ma.”

“Well, William, we're out of debt because of them and the career they led me to.”

“Right! And because of you they've made enough good buys to put them in a new income tax bracket. Ma, you don't have to be beholden to them anymore.”

Mrs. Wilcox looked over her lists and did not reply.

William said, “Ma?”

“Yes, son?”

“Ma, did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Well?”

“Well, that piano is gonna be a problem. It's so outta tune. Can't hardly keep a piano in tune with all this here heat and humidity. I think I gotta call in a regular piano dealer.”

A
FTER EXPLAINING HOW THE
N
AZIS HAD BEGUN THEIR CAMPAIGN
against Modern art by commandeering and corrupting the word
degenerate,
Peter wrote brief biographies of each of the artists to be represented in the Sheboygan exhibition and why the Nazis thought each of them was degenerate.

Henri Matisse:
Degenerate because he was a member of a group of artists called
Les Fauves,
which translated as the “Wild Beasts.” Matisse dared to paint oranges and apples in bold, flat colors that sometimes did not even hint at their natural shades, and at other times he left whole sections of his canvas unpainted. (Hitler had a particular distaste for any work that he considered “unfinished.”) What would happen to German culture if it allowed itself to be contaminated by Wild Beasts?

Pierre-Auguste Renoir:
Degenerate because he was an Impressionist. He painted the way he did because he had a disease of the visual cortex, as did all the Impressionists. What would happen to German culture if it allowed itself to be contaminated by the work of people who were diseased?

Pablo Picasso:
Degenerate because he drew inspiration from the tribal art of Africa. And what would happen to German culture if it allowed itself to be contaminated by the primitive aesthetics of the black subhumans of the Dark continent?

Vincent van Gogh:
Degenerate because he was a diagnosed epileptic. He was crazy enough to cut off his own ear and give it to a prostitute. He had committed suicide, hadn't he? What would happen to German culture if it allowed itself to be contaminated by the work of crazy suicidal epileptics who cut off their own ears?

Marc Chagall:
Degenerate because he was Jewish. The Jews—just by virtue of being Jews—by even a fraction of their heritage were the absolute worst
contaminators of the Aryan race. What would happen to German culture if it allowed itself to be contaminated by Jews?

Georges Braque:
Degenerate because he was a Cubist, a geometrician who painted in squares and triangles and scribbled dots and squiggles and wrote random letters and numbers on his canvases. His work did not deserve a frame. Braque was out of touch with reality. What would happen to German culture if it allowed itself to be contaminated by the work of men who lived in a fantasy world?

For the cover of the catalog, Peter chose to reproduce Picasso's
Harlequin at Rest,
a significant masterpiece from the artist's Blue period.

On the inside of the front cover, Peter selected a quotation by Goebbels that had appeared in the original 1937 catalog of
Entartete “Kunst”:

 . . . the frightening and horrifying forms of the Exhibition of Degenerate art . . . [have] nothing at all to do with the suppression of artistic freedom and modern progress. On the contrary, the
botched works of art . . . and their creators are of yesterday and before yesterday. They are the senile representatives no longer to be taken seriously of a period we have intellectually and politically overcome.

On the inside of the back cover, he included another quotation—an epitaph:

Anybody who paints and sees a sky green and pastures blue ought to be sterilized.

—Adolf Hitler, 1937

P
ETER
V
ANDERWAAL SLIPPED A NOTE
into the invitation he sent to Amedeo and his mother. The note read, “This show is major. The opening night party will be
molto, molto magnifico
—so glamorous that even Jake has promised to wear a tux. I pray that he has bought one. A rented tux is so father-of-the-bride. How do you like the title? If you tell me it's brilliant, I'll know that you are captive to truth and integrity. This is an offer you can't refuse.”The note was signed, “Godfather.”

As soon as the invitation came, Amedeo knew his mother wouldn't go.

Even though Loretta Bevilaqua had known Peter for a longer time than Jake had—Loretta and Peter had actually grown up on the same street in the same neighborhood—Jake and Peter were better friends. As adults all three had gone their separate ways until they joined forces to save
from demolition three tall towers that had been built in the backyard of the house at 19 Schuyler Place. It was while working on the campaign to save the towers that Jake and Loretta met and fell in love.

After the towers had been safely moved to higher ground, they continued to require care and maintenance, and Jake was appointed their chief curator, so several times a year he traveled to Epiphany to check on them and do necessary repairs.

When Amedeo was little, and Loretta and Jake still loved each other, they used to make the trips to Epiphany together. Peter had often arranged to visit his mother at the same time. Peter loved the towers as much as Jake did, and he would accompany Jake on his tour of inspection, and then they would all gather at Mrs. Vanderwaal's house. Amedeo loved those visits with Peter and his mother.

After Jake and Loretta fell out of love and separated, Loretta stopped making the trips to Epiphany, but Amedeo continued to go along, and Peter continued meeting them there. Other than at camp and school, most of Amedeo's time was spent in the company of adults. None of Loretta's friends made a great effort to entertain him. Most often, he was relieved of having to say anything other than
please
and
thank you,
so those became
his conversational necktie and jacket and allowed him to watch and learn the language of handshakes and air kisses. Loretta Bevilaqua said that learning to deal with boredom was the job of childhood and church, and only one of them was optional. Of all the adults that Amedeo spent time with, Peter and Jake were his favorites. They too allowed him to be a quiet observer, but he was relaxed and never bored when he was with them.

Jake was an artist, and most of his friends were artists. After the divorce, when Jake moved into the loft that he had been using as a studio, Amedeo split his weekends between his mother's apartment and his father's studio. There were no neckties and jackets in his father's company, and there he learned the language of bear hugs and smooches and high opinions loudly spoken.

Friendship takes up time, and Loretta was too efficient for it. Friendship is a combination of art and craft. The craft part is in knowing how to give and how to take. The art part is in knowing when, and the whole process only works when no one is keeping track.

Before he met William, Amedeo often felt more left out in the company of kids than in the company of adults, for his conversational necktie and jacket were inappropriate in one direction, and the loud, easy, sometimes
profane talk among Jake's friends was equally inappropriate in the other. His friendship with William was there in the age-appropriate middle. It was there, and it was singular—well, one-on-one. It had all begun on the other side of Mrs. Zender's door, and without ever saying it, they both knew that what happened at Mrs. Zender's stayed at Mrs. Zender's. This friendship was Amedeo's, and it was William's, and it was theirs, and for as long as they could, they drew a thick black line around it and put up a
NO TRESPASSING
sign.

Loretta Bevilaqua knew how much Amedeo loved Peter, and she correctly guessed that he would not want to miss the grand opening of Once Forbidden. Amedeo correctly guessed that his mother would make arrangements that would allow him to go without her having to take the time to go herself.