The Last Weynfeldt (15 page)

Weynfeldt was confused for a moment. “But the Lake Geneva landscape by Hodler was still hanging in your house the other day.”

Baier shook his head, saying nothing.

“But I saw it with my own eyes.”

“What your eyes saw was a reproduction. Like the Segantini. And the Giacomettis. And the others. So the walls don't look empty.”

“You have had your entire collection forged?”

“Not forged. They are facsimile prints on canvas. I'm sure you know about them. I believe Murphy's organizes them for clients who can't bear to part with their artworks.”

“But this one is painted by hand.” They looked at the Vallottons through the haze of smoke.

“A print would not have been authentic enough.”

“Nor the copy it seems.”

Baier interjected. “Oh no, quite the opposite. I'm delighted with it.”

“So why didn't you keep it?”

“For that exact reason. Because it's too perfect. Because it's identical. An impulse—I don't know!” Baier drained the brandy snifter. “Wouldn't you like to know which Vallotton you saw that night at my house—the one on the left, or the one on the right?”

“The genuine one.”

“There is no genuine one. There is only a left and a right one; an old one and a new one.”

At this moment there was a knock and Frau Hauser entered. She asked the gentlemen to come to the Green Salon, dinner would be served in a moment. She waited till they had left the room, Baier limping, then opened one of the plate glass windows, shaking her head in disapproval.

Frau Hauser kept notes on Weynfeldt's guests. She had noted, for instance, that Klaus Baier liked her homemade clear oxtail soup. Weynfeldt and his guest had barely sat down before the new Asian woman served them just such a soup.

Weynfeldt waited till Baier had finished praising Frau Hauser's memory, attentiveness and culinary skills, then returned to the matter in hand. “There may be a left and a right Vallotton, an old one and a new one, but one of them will always be forged. Always.”

Baier started his oxtail soup. He had to bend right over the bowl and his hand was shaking. Weynfeldt didn't watch him, concentrating on his own soup to avoid making his guest feel awkward—at least in this respect.

After a few spoonfuls Baier pushed the bowl aside. “It's the same painting. It is an identical execution of the same idea using the same technique in the same format.”

Weynfeldt finished his soup in silence.

“The only difference is that the idea did not originate in two heads but in one. Vallotton came up with the picture in his head and painted it directly from there. My fellow painted it indirectly from the painting. The difference, my dear art expert, is not material, it is ideal.”

Frau Hauser and her assistant came in and cleared the table, Frau Hauser making no comment on Baier's half-f bowl. Shortly afterward the two women returned with the next course. Ravioli ricotta with sage butter. Homemade, and so big, only three pieces fit on each plate. Judging by Baier's reaction this had also been noted in Frau Hauser's card index.

Weynfeldt waited till they were alone again. Then he said, “You're challenging one of the basic principles of art, you do realize that? What you're saying is forger's logic. Just say it
: I tried to take you for a ride but it didn't work
.”

“I'm not challenging the basic principles of art. Great artists have thought the same way. Old Masters let their pupils paint indirectly out of their heads and signed their names at the bottom—quite rightly. As my fellow has done here. I'm challenging the basic principles of your profession. If my opinion prevailed, you'd have to close up shop, Murphy's and all the rest.”

He put his glass down, noticed it was empty and let Adrian pour him another. “There are people who have better ideas in their heads. And there are others who can execute them better. Have you ever stopped to consider what art could be like if the two were to work together? It wouldn't surprise me if my fellow was actually better technically than Vallotton. Unfortunately he is fated never to create better ideas. Imagine what artworks could be created if forgers were allowed to be better than artists.”

Baier ate little of the antipasti either. Weynfeldt was certain that Frau Hauser's coq au vin would follow, skinned and braised with slices of bacon in cabernet sauvignon, another classic for guests of Baier's generation.

And so it did. With all the adulation and alcohol, Baier was a little tired now, and restricted himself to a few exclamations of delight before digging straight into the chicken flesh, which fell from the bone at the merest touch.

“So if it makes no difference,” Weynfeldt ventured, “whether the work is by the artist or an imitator, if there is no material difference, only an idealistic one, why didn't you keep the imitation?”

Baier put the piece of meat he had arranged on his fork back on the plate. “It makes no difference to anyone except one person: me.”

He wiped his mouth and placed the napkin next to his full plate. “For me—and only for me—the difference is material too. This painting is part of my life. It is this board, this paint. Under this patina there are fingerprints from my parents. Fingerprints from me as a toddler, as a child, an adolescent. It has the same patina as me. It has the same memories as me, if paintings can have memories—and who knows they don't?”

He reached for his wineglass and emptied it down to the finger alcoholics leave. “For the new owner it's not an issue. He can begin a new life with a painting that is new to him. It is not important to anyone whether the painting is original or not. Not to anyone. Except to this old man,”—he pointed wearily to the napkin, now at his chest, one corner shoved roughly under his collar—“who doesn't know how much longer he will live.” He coughed, as if to underline his frailty.

Weynfeldt felt a little sorry for him; he was old. Tentatively, he asked, “You do understand, though, don't you, that I must insist on the original.”

Baier shook his head. “I can note what you say, but can I understand it? No, I can't.”

The Asian lady cleared their plates and Frau Hauser brought the dessert: her homemade
cassata
. This time Weynfeldt heaped on the praise. Baier was too downcast.

When they were on their own again, Baier said, his voice a shade more pathetic, “I need one and a half million to spend my last years in a decent, dignified way. No more. One and a half million. Not much to someone who used to juggle millions. To someone who regularly made and lost much bigger sums. And would make them again if he still had the strength. One and a half million, Adrian! It's too little to sacrifice the one thing you love. The one thing you have left. The consolation of your twilight years. You must see that.”

Weynfeldt couldn't work out where Baier was heading here. He put some cassata in his mouth so he wouldn't have to say anything.

“The old Vallotton, I won't call it the genuine one, I'll say the old one, the old Vallotton is priceless. To me it is priceless. Only to me. Are you forcing me to sacrifice it for one and a half million?”

Baier let the question hang in the room. Then he continued. Pleading. “I need the money, though. Otherwise I'll be spending my final years on welfare. Do you want that, Adrian?”

Weynfeldt had eaten his ice cream and had no further excuse not to speak. “Of course I don't want that. But I think, just between the two of us, I wouldn't swear to it, I think
La Salamandre
would fetch more than one and a half. A lot more.”

Baier shrugged his shoulders. “Quite possibly. But never the sum it is worth to me.” And with a gentle smile, he added, “Would you mind calling me a taxi.”

Adrian got up uncertainly. It didn't feel right letting the old man leave like this. But before he had reached the telephone on the dresser Baier spoke again, without a trace of pathos. “I'll make you a proposal: take the new one, and anything over one and a half you make from it, you can keep.”

Weynfeldt picked up the receiver and ordered a taxi. Then he asked, “Are you taking both of them or just the forgery?”

Baier got up from the chair, groaning. Adrian passed him his cane. “Jesus, you're square,” he grumbled. “I'm leaving them both here. I'm not going to wander around in the middle of the night with two-million-francs' worth of art. Have a good look at them both and give it some thought.”

While they waited in the hallway for the taxi to ring the bell, Weynfeldt asked, “Who copied the painting for you?”

“A young artist. A collector I know recommended him to me. He sometimes boosts his income with jobs like this. Lots of collectors have pictures they have come to love copied before they part from them.”

“What's his name?”

“I'd rather not drag him into it. He acted in good faith.”

Both of them jumped as the doorbell rang. They walked through the hallway into the elevator, which had not been used since Baier's arrival.

Baier broke the silence during the short trip down: “Let's say one point six. Anything over one point six is yours.”

Weynfeldt shook his head in disbelief and grinned softly.

The elevator stopped, the chrome doors parted and Weynfeldt opened the glass security door with his magnetic card. Before he opened the heavy wooden door, Baier said, “Think about it.”

“You think about it too,” Weynfeldt said, and opened the door.

Lorena stood outside.

“Thank God!” she cried. “I thought there was no one home.” She took Adrian's hand and kissed him briefly three times on alternate cheeks. He stood stiffly in front of her for a moment, flabbergasted, then remembered Baier. “May I introduce you, Klaus Baier: Lorena …” He didn't know her surname, and she made no move to assist him.

The two shook hands. Lorena turned back to Adrian. “It's terribly embarrassing, but could you help me out? I've lost my wallet and can't pay the taxi.”

Now the two men realized that the waiting taxi was not the one they had ordered. Weynfeldt started walking toward it, but Lorena stopped him. “I'm going to ride on, I'm exhausted. Fifty francs will be enough.” Adrian whipped out his wallet.

Baier, who had been staring at Lorena with blatant curiosity, butted in. “I need a taxi too. Could I take yours and drop you off on the way?”

Without a moment's hesitation, Lorena replied, “How kind of you. If it's no bother.”

And then they walked straight to the taxi. And then she got in, and blew Adrian a kiss from inside. And Baier's parting words were, “Sleep on it.” And then the taxi's red rear lights vanished.

And then the taxi they had ordered came.

And Weynfeldt gave the driver twenty francs for the wasted journey … instead of getting in and shouting, “Follow that car!” he thought in the elevator, dejected.

T
HE REDHEAD LOOKED FAMILIAR TO
B
AIER
. H
E WASN'T
sure why.

Weynfeldt had been completely flummoxed, stood there like a stuffed dummy. His face had darkened; by day you'd have seen it was red.

Baier wasn't sure what had made him offer to take her home. Instinct. And when it came to affairs of the heart, his instinct had served him even better than with money.

Weynfeldt certainly hadn't been pleased about it; he'd noticed that. And after his stubborn behavior that night, that was reason enough.

In the taxi he was suddenly certain he had done the right thing. He realized why the woman seemed familiar. She looked like Daphne, Weynfeldt's art student back then. His memory for faces wasn't so good he could identify someone after so many years. But he clearly remembered the image of Weynfeldt standing like a lackey next to a red haired, pale-skinned girl. Weynfeldt too by the look of it.

“Have you known Adrian long?” he asked.

“No. You?”

“Since he was born. Our fathers were friends.”

She showed no great interest in this information, staring out of the window as the city center passed.

“When did you last have it?”

“What?”

“Your wallet. When I lose something, I try and reconstruct the scene—when I last had it.”

She hesitated, and her answer surprised him:

“I haven't lost it. I just don't have enough money on me.”

“And why didn't you tell Adrian that?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Do you like people to know when you don't have any money?”

“To be honest, it doesn't happen very often.”

“Of course. Silly question.”

A few youths in summer clothes were sitting on a bench, surrounded by bottles and cans. One of them threw a can at the taxi but missed. They heard his pals booing.

They would reach the address she had given the driver in about five minutes. Too little time to talk, Baier decided. “Would you give an old man the pleasure of joining him for a nightcap?” he asked. “I don't sleep well, and it's still early.”

She turned her gaze from the window and examined him with a look which verged on the professional. “Where then?”

“Wherever you want.”

“Somewhere I can get a bite to eat. I haven't had dinner.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Lobster. That kind of thing.”

“You're thinking of the Trafalgar?”

“Maybe I am.”

The Trafalgar was a hotel bar in the style of an English pub where classics from the hotel's fish restaurant were served until late at night. Including lobster. Cold lobster, grilled lobster, Lobster Thermidor. It wasn't far off their route.

Baier told the driver the new destination. Shortly afterward Lorena helped him out of the taxi.

The bar was dimly lit and half empty. Hotel guests sat at a few of the tables; at others, traveling businessmen, in the company of the attractive young employees of a local escort agency. Ill-matched pairs like Lorena and himself, Baier thought.