Read The Perfect Landscape Online
Authors: Ragna Sigurðardóttir
The Perfect Landscape
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2009 by Ragna Sigurdardottir
English translation copyright © 2012 by Sarah Bowen
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
The Perfect Landscape
was first published in 2009 by Forlagid as
Hið Fullkomna landslag
. Translated from Icelandic by Sarah Bowen. Published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2012.
Published by AmazonCrossing
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612184319
ISBN-10: 1612184316
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012911053
1. A LANDSCAPE WITH BIRCH TREES
3. INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CONFERENCE MOSCOW, 2004
4. A WALK IN THE ALPS REYKJAVIK, CURRENT DAY
7. EXHIBITION OPENING COPENHAGEN, SPRING 2005
8. GOLDSMITH FROM BRUGES REYKJAVIK, CURRENT DAY
10. WORKSHOP FOR YOUNG OFFENDERS
14. AN UNEXPECTED MOUNTAIN VIEW, SPRING 2005
15. OPENINGS REYKJAVIK, CURRENT DAY
16. IN THE ARTIST’S STUDIO, SPRING 2005
17. CHOCOLATE REYKJAVIK, CURRENT DAY
19. AN ARTIST PAYS HIS RENT COPENHAGEN, 1943
A LANDSCAPE WITH BIRCH TREES
Hanna steps onto the street. Inhaling the cold, damp, dismal darkness makes her gasp for breath. The dark air smells of rain, wet tarmac, and car exhaust with a hint of saltwater and seaweed. Even when she closes her eyes there’s no doubt she’s back home. Tucking her head down, she wraps her scarf tightly around her neck, pulls her woolly hat down to her eyes, and walks toward the town center. She hurries along, looking down at the sidewalk, ignoring the street scene around her, which is so very familiar. Seeing a pinkish light from a fast-food outlet reflected in the puddles on the wet asphalt, she peers through the rain and the ugliness of the square takes her by surprise—she had forgotten how bleak downtown Reykjavik can be.
She heads for the Annexe, the city’s art gallery. In her head Hanna is still in Holland, where it’s cold but calm, like in the painting she’s fond of—
Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap
. It depicts a still and frosty day, roofs laden with snow, skaters all muffled up on a frozen canal, and a bird trap on the bank. For a moment the painting is vividly before her, and
then she sees Heba’s face, pale in the faint morning light at the railway station in Amsterdam, an auburn curl trailing down the dark blue woolen coat she got for Christmas. Hanna raises an imaginary foil to keep at bay how much she is missing her daughter and walks briskly across the pavement in front of the gallery, where the gusts of wind are sharpest. She tries not to think about Frederico, her Italian husband and father of Heba. They have been married for nearly twenty years, and now their relationship is going through a rough patch.
The Annexe extends from the main building out onto the square; the architect didn’t have displaying works of art in mind when he designed this exhibition space for contemporary art. Transparency and flow may currently be all the rage, but it’s hardly prudent to put up a glass building in a city that witnesses weekend binge drinking. One pane sports the illegible orange initials of its graffitist; another is covered by a piece of plywood, probably broken over the weekend. Monday morning, Hanna muses. Should the Annexe’s funds really be spent on such repairs? Half running the last few feet to the entrance, she attempts to decipher the scribble on the glass without success.
———
Baldur is standing by the window in the meeting room on the second floor, looking out. The gallery’s acquisitions committee is meeting, and everyone is present apart from Hanna and Kristin. He glances across at Thor, the lawyer, and, detecting his impatience, looks back to see Hanna running across. Baldur rushes out into the corridor, down the stairs toward the entrance, his keys jangling in his pocket. When he gets to
the lobby he presses a button on the reception desk and the door opens. Hanna walks in and greets him—they know each other from their art college days. They look at one another for a moment, and Baldur unconsciously runs his hand through his thick red hair, which is just beginning to fade; the backs of his hands are more freckled than they used to be too.
“I saw you from the window,” he says. “Recognized your gait immediately.”
Hanna’s eyes crinkle when she smiles. When she laughs they almost disappear, but nothing else about her gives the impression of an Asian origin. Her smooth brown hair is totally European, her face is only memorable when she smiles or laughs, and her movements are unremarkable except when she’s fencing on the piste.
“It’s good to meet an old acquaintance on your first day in a new job,” she says, taking off her soaking wet hat and flicking raindrops off her coat as they walk up the stairs, her leather boots resounding on the tiled steps.
“We’re just about to begin. Kristin, the director of the gallery, is on the way,” explains Baldur as he shows Hanna into the meeting room. Hanna smiles nervously at the three faces turned to greet her. She hasn’t been in a management position before and doesn’t know which of the three will be working for her, but the job description mentioned two staff.
Baldur introduces her. “This is Agusta, assistant head of exhibitions. She was quite the asset to Bjorn, your predecessor.” Agusta nods at Hanna. “Steinn is in charge of conservation and looks after the premises,” adds Baldur.
Steinn’s age is hard to gauge; he could be five years older or younger than Hanna. He stands up and greets her with a firm
handshake; his hand is big and bony. His eyes remind Hanna of blue-gray basalt, smooth, hard, but genial as if warmed by the sun. Hanna is still holding his hand when he quickly drops his eyes and lets go, as if she were being too intimate.
Baldur continues the introductions. “This is Thor, our legal expert,” he says. “He has special knowledge of copyright law.” Thor rises halfway out of his seat and greets Hanna politely. He is short with graying hair and steel-rimmed spectacles and that rounded face that comes from too many three-course meals in good restaurants, but muscular nonetheless. A lawyer who frequents the gym, thinks Hanna, who has herself practiced fencing for many years, which is enough physical exercise for her.
Taking a seat opposite Steinn and Agusta, Hanna notices an oil painting standing on an easel at the end of the table. It’s a landscape painting remarkably like the work of Gudrun Johannsdottir, one of the country’s foremost twentieth-century painters. The painting could well be from the series that Hanna knows well, painted before the war, before Gudrun went to Paris, where she carried on her studies, having finished at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen.
The painting is small—a grove of birch trees in the foreground, a mountain on the right, which looks like Mount Baula, and a whitish-blue sky in the distance. The style is realist but has romantic undertones, and there is a hint of Cezanne in the way the canvas is divided up. The brushstrokes have that firm rhythm that Hanna is so familiar with from Gudrun’s work.
She leans back in her chair to take in the picture and catches Steinn’s eye. He gives her an almost imperceptible grin and she responds with a glimmer of a smile before looking away. She’s
not going to start her new role exchanging looks when she doesn’t know their significance.
There is an aura of politeness around the meeting table; no one refers to the painting.
Puffing and panting, Kristin eventually arrives and shakes Hanna’s hand. She exudes a love of her work and total commitment; her dark, speckled-gray eyes look straight into Hanna’s as she welcomes her to the group. Kristin has an agitated manner, but that’s misleading because when she talks she’s clear and concise and comes straight to the point. She sits down at the head of the table next to the painting and launches in.
“How do you like it?” she asks. No one responds; they haven’t been told anything about the painting or the meeting’s real agenda.
“Elisabet Valsdottir has given us this work of art,” Kristin continues proudly. “As you can see, it’s clearly by Gudrun Johannsdottir. Elisabet bought it at auction in Copenhagen recently for eight million kronur.”
Hanna remembers reading that Gudrun held exhibitions of her work in Copenhagen sometime before the war. Those paintings have not all found their way home to Iceland; some of the sales were not recorded and other works have yet to be uncovered. This one turned up by chance, through some secondhand dealer or from up in an attic somewhere, and then came up for auction. This is one of Gudrun’s most appealing pictures, she muses, contemplating the birches, the interplay of colors, their twisted trunks and vibrant foliage. The painting displays a regularity, indicating the direction Gudrun would later take; she has given the twisted birches, which are really no more than shrubs, the true air of a forest tree.
“Elisabet Valsdottir?” asks Hanna.
Kristin gives her a look of surprise. “Don’t you know who she is?” she asks brusquely, to which Hanna shakes her head. New faces have become prominent in society since she’s been away, and she hasn’t kept up-to-date. “She owns a chain of coffee shops that have sprung up all over the place. Elisabet has a keen interest in art and runs her own gallery. She’s married to one of the richest men in the country,” she adds and mentions a name Hanna has seen in the papers.
“This painting came to light when the estate of a Danish butcher and wealthy storekeeper, Christian Holst, was put up for auction after his widow died last year. The couple owned a large collection of paintings. He bought the majority from the well-known Danish collector, Elisabeth Hansen. She collected abstract works, most of which she bought from artists who later became part of the CoBrA avant-garde movement. But the old guy was partial to landscapes. There was a lyrical side to him. I met him once. He knew his art and may well have bought this painting by Gudrun himself,” Kristin explains.
Kristin takes off her glasses to wipe them. “Of course, we’ll need to examine the painting before we exhibit it,” she says. “I don’t want the papers getting wind of it before we’ve done that. We’ll do this as we normally would. This is a real bonus for us. Of course, as you know, our funds don’t stretch to a work of art like this one.” She smiles, and under the surface Hanna senses her determination and single-mindedness. This is a woman not to be argued with.
“Well then, what d’you say?” Kristin asks without waiting for an answer. Glancing occasionally at the painting, Baldur and Thor talk in undertones. Kristin is chatting about coffee
with a short woman who just tapped on the door and strode straight in.