Authors: Roberta Latow
Life is an education. It teaches you there is no such thing as a free lunch. Twenty-five years into it, you no longer expect unsolicited good fortune. And when your friends die, the good they brought you is almost blown away with the funeral ashes.
So the first few legacies come as a shock. Cheyney had received gifts before, but not like this, from beyond the grave and on such a scale. The mysterious part of himself left by Acton Pace in those paintings was also a kind of blank check for her. His notorious suicide made each painting a well-publicized relic. A commodity. He had created her market for her by the manner of his going. This was a strange, extreme extension of friendship.
It all seemed like some extravagant dream: that she should have, at this time in her life, a small nest egg of hard cash and three Acton Pace paintings.
En plus
love and sexual fulfillment with Grant Madigan and what she sensed was to be a
grande amour
. She placed her hands over her eyes and closed them.
Compose yourself, she thought. Instead, she heard a faint pop. The champagne cork. Removing her hands, she opened her eyes to see Judd Whyatt pouring the wine. He walked across the room to her, and she saw him in the context of his room: moneyed, like the Matisse, the Gauguin, the Rouault, hanging on the dark, rich wood paneling. How could he possibly understand what a trauma it was for her to have so much and so fast, after so little for so long?
He drew a chair closer to her and sat down. Touching the rim of his crystal champagne flute to hers, he said, “They say one swallow doesn’t make a summer, but with champagne the first swallow is always the best. To your good fortune, Cheyney Fox. May this be only the beginning.”
The vintage Roederer Cristal was only that little overchilled, but Cheyney was grateful for it. The cold seemed to snap her to greater attention. It felt so good in her mouth, and she drank to quench a thirst she had not realized she had. The wine instilled an immediate well-being. She relaxed.
“That’s better, you went quite white. If that’s what good news does to you, I hope I am never a bearer of bad.”
Cheyney touched her forehead and then her cheek with the back of her hand. “I’m all right now. It just took me by surprise. I never dreamed I would ever have an Acton Pace. Now I have three.”
“Quite a little trinity, in fact,” he said as he rose from his chair to refill their glasses, returning to his swan chair behind the desk. Opening the folder, he looked across his desk at
Cheyney and said, “Brace yourself, Cheyney Fox. The three paintings: one, title,
Mystic Moon
, painted 1958, size, four feet by five feet.” Judd Whyatt then slapped a large colored photograph of the painting smartly on the polished surface of his desk in front of Cheyney. Number two,
Homeward Bound
, six feet by nine feet, another colored photograph placed neatly in line with the first. The third painting, done in 1965,
Moon Mist and Sand
, seven feet by nine feet. Whyatt placed a third photograph into her hands.
Cheyney drank from her glass and remained silent for some moments. That gave Judd a chance to study this unusual woman. He sensed that there was a bond between them, forged by Acton Pace, that would always remain strong. Finally she spoke.
“I know those paintings well. That night before you arrived at Acton’s studio, we spent together, going through his work. Looking, admiring, being transported by it. Assessing each painting. We set those three aside, agreeing that for us they were in the top thirty of his best work. There is not a museum in the world that, if it had the funds, would not buy them. And he has left them to me …
“Mr. Whyatt, you simply cannot imagine what this means to me. They are an enormous responsibility for me to keep for myself. I could live with those three paintings and nothing else for the rest of my life. They are a world of beauty and love and hate, and birth and death and rebirth, on three canvases. I find it hard to believe that Reha will let me have them.”
“Oh, I can assure you she will. Acton has seen to that. They are legally yours. There actually isn’t anything she can do about it.”
“The insurance alone is going to put me back in the bankruptcy court.”
“That’s being just a little negative about a very generous gift, don’t you think?”
“Well, of course it is,” answered Cheyney, more annoyed with herself than with the lawyer for pointing it out. “I make no apologies for being slightly overwhelmed by Acton’s magnanimous gesture. He would have understood, where you can’t possibly. Unless you know that my life has felt like climbing
Mount Everest barefoot these last ten years. Now, suddenly, I’m well equipped to go for the summit.”
“Then what you’re saying is that you’re overjoyed, of course, but don’t know it yet?”
“Yes, something like that,” she answered, feeling already more at ease.
“Good, because, Miss Fox, Acton Pace must have wanted to make certain you have every chance of conquering your mountain. He left you the paintings and more. The paintings he left you are yours to do with as you like. No strings attached, so to speak, and Reha can do nothing about it. And, frankly, I don’t think she will even try. Acton Pace left you something else. I have here a document, legal and binding, because signed by him and witnessed by Reha Pace and myself. You have the right each year to buy one painting of his from his estate. Any painting of your choice, at the price of one hundred thousand dollars a painting, for the next twelve years.”
“But that’s mad. Why would he have done that? He might just as well have left me millions of dollars. Reha will never stand for that.”
“Well, she will for a few years, but, I have no doubt, in time she’ll try to find a way around that agreement. She hasn’t much chance of doing it. He was of sound mind when he made it, though it’s a recipe for strife. I didn’t know the man. I met him, what, for a few hours, spent fifteen minutes with him alone. He was a great artist, a remarkably kind and loving yet very introverted man. Not a happy soul, not for many years at least, I’m guessing. A man, who I think felt that he had been manipulated and abused enough by people who wanted control of his paintings. If he hadn’t wanted you to have these gifts, he would not have gone to the lengths he did to make sure they would be yours.
“May I suggest to you that you set a precedent about the purchasing of these twelve paintings? Put it into a legal document that we can send over to the Pace attorneys. A document that states you have accepted your legacy, and that you intend to exercise your right to purchase a painting a year for the next twelve years. That, to make it easier for all concerned, you will choose that painting on a specific date, the same date every year. Establish it as an annual event, so the Pace estate can
swallow the pill once, and then deal with it as a matter of form.”
“That’s all very well, Mr. Whyatt. But you are assuming I will always have a hundred thousand dollars on hand to buy a painting.”
“Well, of course you will. You buy your first one, and if you have to, or want to, you sell it. Invest the proceeds from the sale in safe bonds, and you have enough money and more, to buy all the others. Unless, of course, you have or can raise the money for the first purchase. If that’s the case, then you can keep your first acquisition and sell it when and if you need money to buy the second, and carry on like that.”
“Of course, I’m still thinking in pennies. But, Mr. Whyatt, to earn enough to spend a hundred thousand dollars a year, every year — that’s something I doubt I can handle. It’s a great deal of money. But I think I understand why Acton has done this, in just this way.” Cheyney stood up. She began pacing back and forth in front of Judd Whyatt. “He wanted me to become an art dealer again. But only if that’s what I wanted to do. So he has funded me with his paintings. Of course I can earn enough to buy a painting a year. Just dealing in his work alone, I could do that. And that doesn’t necessarily mean selling his paintings. As you can see, Acton could be very shrewd when he chose to be. He knew that I could use my collection of Pace paintings as bait to deal in other works of art if I chose to. How generous and clever he has been. He must have loved me very much, believed in me beyond my failures. And of course he knew that I would have earned a large chunk of money from the commission I would receive for putting together the deal for his collection. That I already had the money to buy the first painting.”
“By releasing the paintings to you at the rate of one a year, Acton Pace has set you up for life. And protected you from being wiped out by any business catastrophe. The guy was one artist who knew what he was doing.”
Cheyney sat down again in her chair opposite Judd Whyatt. He went around to her. Filled glasses yet again. They drank in silence. After some minutes, Judd Whyatt broke the silence.
“I have no idea about your finances. But I do know this. You are a very wealthy woman. Now, if the firm can be of
any further service to you, you let me know. Or I can pass these documents over to your own solicitor.”
“Mr. Whyatt, I have been handed a great legacy, and I don’t intend to blow it. It meant too much to Acton when he gave it to me, and it means everything to me to have it. Not just the wealth, but because of owning the paintings themselves. And also because of the manner in which the gift was given. I’m going to have to think hard what I want to do about it. Luckily I have all the time in the world to decide that.
“This much I can decide. I would like to ask you to act as my representative in all legal dealings concerning my Acton Pace legacy. I have about two hundred thousand dollars. A hundred we will spend immediately on the purchase of my first Acton Pace painting. As you know, I live in Athens. That means under a military regime. So I will not bring my paintings to Greece. Too dangerous. For the moment, we’ll move them from Boston to a strong room I’ll have to rent at Manhattan Storage. I will invest the hundred thousand dollars I have left in something absolutely safe, and live off the interest and what I can earn for the next year. That will give me enough money to buy the second painting, and to decide what I want to do with my life and my art collection. And that’s all I can think about for the moment. So … will you handle my affairs in this matter, since you are already involved?”
“Normally yours is not the sort of work this firm handles. But, yes, I will, because I do have what has come to be an unusual personal involvement in all this. I originally came to the Acton Pace matter, as you already know, only to accommodate your client.”
“Kurt Walbrook. Yes, I know who the mystery client is.”
“Oh, good. That involvement extended to my helping Pace to arrange these matters for you. I suppose that it deepened as a result of going to visit him once after my initial visit when you were there. You see, it was me who cut him down from his studio rafters. I would like to see that everything he wanted me to do for him, at least, comes to fruition. If I can help I am at your service.”
One look at Cheyney and he realized she had not known the details. He had assumed that she knew because, somehow, despite all the influence he had used to keep the true facts from
the press, someone had leaked the story with all its gore and it had made nearly every newspaper. It had to have been one of the two women, either the dead man’s wife or his dealer. They had both been very angry with Acton Pace for taking his life. He had no right … And even more for what he had done with his paintings in those two weeks before his death. No, it was certainly — he assured Cheyney, after explaining to her what had happened that day — a woman’s revenge.
“I
don’t know why we’re making this ride to the airport. It’s six days before Christmas. Why can’t you stay for the holidays? I hate to see you go.”
“Athens is my home now, Della, and I want to be there with Zazou for Christmas.”
“But surely that’s all changed now, Cheyney? You can afford to move back to New York. For God’s sake, send for Zazou.”
“Not yet I can’t. And I don’t know that I ever will return to live in New York. Try to understand, I really feel like I’m going home. Bad as it is with those putrid colonels; bad as it can be at times being a foreigner living in Greece, for the time being it’s my home. It will be until I feel the time has come for me to move on. And there are other reasons why I must return. I have work commitments. And friends who are going through hard times: I can’t drop them just because my luck has changed. No, I’m committed to send several shipments to the museum. I’ve got orders to fill for my boutique clients. I have to think out the art scene in New York and what I want to do
about that. Once I have fulfilled my obligations, and figured out what and how and where I want to live, then I’ll make a move.”
“Oh, Cheyney, this is the place for you.”
“Maybe so, but not now.”
“And what about your Acton Pace paintings? Aren’t they something to come home to? And your relationship with Grant Madigan? New York is where he will be when his work is completed. Don’t you want to be with him?”
“Using Grant is a cheap shot, Della.”
“I know, but I’m getting desperate for reasons to keep you in the States. You know how red, white, and blue I can be. I hate to see you going all European on me.”
Cheyney put her arm around her faithful old friend. Trying to defuse Della’s sentimentality, she said, “I don’t, for the moment, have a home of my own where I can bring my Acton paintings. And I’ve made up my mind not to leave them in the Manhattan Storage. Acton didn’t paint them for that, not for private avarice, not just to blush unseen. He painted them to be looked at, admired. Maybe to raise consciousness. Hell, to give pleasure. He painted them to be experienced. His paintings were created to live with people. So after the holidays, I will be putting my working life in order. And that includes picking the museums I am willing to loan them to for a one-year showing. After that, another museum, unless I am settled enough to have a place for them to be with me.
“Now, please, no more about my leaving. Change your mind and come to Athens for Christmas.”
Only when the plane circled the city did Cheyney feel relaxed. Her body even went nicely limp on her. She wasn’t humping the world around on her shoulders anymore. She had not felt so happy and at ease since Grant Madigan had kissed her good-bye before he stepped into the air force cargo plane, with his crew and all their equipment, scrounged for Vietnam.
She had borne the pressure well and only realized at touchdown on the Athens runway how great a strain it had been. The Barry Sole trial, seeing all the people from the art world again after such a long absence. New York itself, all dressed up for Christmas. Doing the galleries. And then the legacy, and its aftermath. Establishing her right to buy the Paces and
then making her first buy. All that seemed to vanish into the sun playing on the water, the white houses spread out, “the biggest village in Greece.” That made Cheyney smile, she even hugged herself, so happy was she to be there.
The wheels bumped on the runway and shot forward at what Cheyney always felt was too great a speed. She followed her own routine for landing at Athens airport: closed her eyes and hoped that they wouldn’t overshoot. For once she was not annoyed at the airport drama. She smiled at everyone and seemed determined to say hello to any airport attendant who looked the least bit familiar. She even laughed at the Athens taxi driver sounding his horn — short, sharp blasts every five seconds. He kept calling her
kukla mou
, my doll, punctuating his complaints about the traffic, the weather, and radio static, which he tried controlling with a fist. The weather was actually good, sunny, and warm enough to sit outside at a street café. There was hardly any traffic, which was extraordinary. When Cheyney pointed that out to him, he banged the radio in protest and reverted to moaning about the lack of tourism and the cost of living, now laying on the sultry, “What you need is a great Greek lover,” look. Even that didn’t bother her. She told him she had one: the minister of transport. The possibility made him quiet and respectful the remainder of her ride into Athens.
The temptation to linger near the Acropolis was resisted. But not that of stopping at Zonar’s. She had a Greek coffee and greeted several friends. At the Byzantium in Kolonaki Square, another coffee, more friends, and a promise given to return later in the day to tell them about New York.
On the short ride from there to her apartment, she mulled over life’s little labyrinths. How your circumstances can fluctuate, and yet your life not change unless you choose to change it yourself.
Only days now before Christmas. Not a word from Grant. She was, frankly, not so much disappointed as surprised.
It was the early hours of the morning before she and Zazou returned from a night out with the Greek
pareia
. In bed, Zazou snoring on the pillow next to her, Cheyney, too tired to sleep, was thinking about the two men in her life. Her heart ached for Grant Madigan, a resurgence of that carnal passion that seemed to bind them together, despite their fear of the power
they might wield over each other’s lives because of it. Her very soul ached for him. That did not diminish her desire to be caressed and made love to by Kurt Walbrook. She fell asleep, yearning for his lips and his tongue to be upon her, to feel that slow, steady coupling that had given her such endless sexual satisfaction.
She answered the telephone. His call took her by surprise. No less the sense of delight she felt on hearing his voice.
“I would like to be with you for Christmas and New Year’s Day, but that’s impossible. I have other commitments. I would be happy to have you with me, but I don’t think you would have a good time. And so, what can we do?”
“Wish each other a merry Christmas?”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s enough. Wouldn’t you like to see me, be with me? At the very least, for us to be in each other’s arms to kiss each other for Christmas, Sheyney?”
That voice, that mesmerizing sensual voice, the way it whispered and spoke out clearly at the same time. It provoked shivers of excitement. She opened her blouse and touched a naked breast, caressed a nipple. She unashamedly closed her eyes and felt her breathing quicken, as a warmth coursed through her body. Against her will, she was charmed by his voice, seduced by the words: Cheyney was unaware of what she was doing. She had to control her voice when she answered, “As a matter of fact, I find I would, very much.”
“Good. Today, tomorrow, are you free?”
“I can be. Where are you?”
“In Paris. Would you like to come to Paris?”
“Oh, Kurt. I don’t think I could bear to get on a plane right now. So much has happened since last we met. I’ve only just come from New York, and when we meet I have something to tell you about that. And there’s Zazou, I simply can’t leave her again. No, I don’t think I can come to Paris.”
“Then I must come to Athens.”
“Oh, would you?”
“Ah, I like the enthusiasm in your voice. Of course I will. And I will arrive like Santa Claus, laden with presents. But I shall only be able to stay for a short time. I will have to leave you in time to be in Austria for Christmas Eve.”
“Then when shall it be, today or tomorrow?” she asked, elated at the prospect of seeing him.
“Today and tomorrow. I will be there as soon as I possibly can. Do nothing, buy nothing. I will bring our entire Christmas with me.”
“Am I at least allowed to offer you a gift?”
“I thought you had, when you said we could be together for an early Christmas. I love you, Cheyney Fox, and I will see you in a few hours.”
For some time after she had spoken to Kurt, Cheyney sat quietly thinking about Kurt and the effect he had upon her. She felt as if she were in a half-dazed state whenever they talked on the telephone. And most certainly on that day they had spent together. It was as if he honed all the rough edges off her life. He affected her like a powerful morphine; the pain instantly dulled, herself wafted away to some earthly paradise. Cheyney cautioned herself — she could become addicted to Kurt Walbrook. She wondered what it was going to be like to be with him, now that each knew who the other was.
The day he had picked her up at Zonar’s had been very exciting. Their sex had been mysterious and thrilling, because they had been no-name strangers to each other. All that was changed now. But his voice hadn’t changed nor had that magnetic charm. Cheyney looked at her watch. She had no more time to waste anticipating something she would know about in a few hours’ time. There were things to be done before his arrival.
Cheyney knew only a fraction of Kurt’s involvement with her since the time he had first seen her and fallen in love with her. But it was enough for her to appreciate that he cared deeply for her and had helped her greatly from the background of her life. Although she had no facts, she sensed that she owed him a great debt. He had helped her to become whole again. If he could go on a shopping spree for her in Paris, she could do the same in Athens.
Cheyney had not spent years in Greece without locating the best private collections of arts and artifacts in the country and identifying their owners. Antiquities that could be legally exported and those that could not be. Her mind began to roam, eliminating most of the things she knew were for sale. She
narrowed it down to three, and then one. A piece she had always coveted for herself: an Etruscan life-sized head of a youth, a boy so beautiful that it made one want to weep, in a yellowing, white marble. Fifth-century work. Cheyney, once determined to buy it for Kurt, made several phone calls. Two hours later, she sat in her flat surveying the sculptured head, resting in the open, blue-velvet-lined travel box the collector had made for it. The export license lay on the table next to the box.
The perfect gift for Kurt Walbrook. And she half luxuriated in the spectacle of having spent so much. Ten thousand dollars on a gift for a man. There was no way she could explain it even to herself. The mad extravagance of the outlay. Not just the impulse to buy something superb for a man of Kurt’s discrimination, but a real desire to do so. She closed the lid and wrapped the pig-skin box in a not very pretty Christmas paper, all that she could find. She clinched it with a much prettier bow of wide, red-and-white candy-striped satin. No easy task, heavy and cumbersome to enfold. It was the money she had allotted to herself to upgrade the furnishings in her Athens flat. Well, that would now have to wait. The mattress on the floor for another year? She would have to just live with that. And so would Kurt for the next two days or check them both into a hotel. Well, a man has to take a girl as he finds her. Cheyney discovered in herself a case of the jitters. Slight, but jitters still. Those minor trepidations had hardly faded when she heard his voice over the intercom.
She felt the rush of excitement women feel for their lovers. She waited for what seemed a lifetime for his appearance from the little elevator that rose through the floors to deposit him in front of the door. Whatever her anxieties, they vanished the moment she saw him step out of the elevator. A Christmas wreath over one arm, a wriggling dog, almost a carbon copy of Zazou, tucked under the other. He laid the wreath on the hall table outside her door. Then, tilting her chin toward him, he kissed her on the lips.
“Merry Christmas, my love. You declined to come to Paris, and so I have brought Paris to you. Voilà.” She heard the commotion of people trundling up the stairs long before they
arrived, the distinctive timbre of French speech, even as Kurt held the dog up to Cheyney.
A chef, a butler, a maid, a designer, and two workmen with boxes stacked up to their noses, of all shapes and all sizes, wrapped in the most glorious Christmas papers and ribbons, and Christmas trees of pine, and what seemed like forests of fresh green spruce and holly and mistletoe. Cartons and boxes trooped past the couple as they stood with the dog in the entrance to Cheyney’s apartment. Huffing and puffing from the climb, people managed big, open smiles, and such greetings: “Joyeux Noël. Oh, mon Dieu, such a climb.
Chère madame
, Merry Christmas,
C’est tres romantique
, such a Christmas.”
Zazou added her barks, scampering between everyone’s feet, until she spotted Kurt and leapt into his arms with yipes of joy. She licked and kissed his face, unaware of or ignoring, for the moment — impossible to tell which — the four-legged intruder Cheyney was holding. Kurt had to usher Cheyney back into the apartment. She hadn’t moved, so surprised was she by it all.
“Kurt, I don’t believe all this … this mobile feast.”
“Well, my dear, you had better believe it. I’ve brought them all so we won’t have to do a thing.”
Then he introduced them one at a time to Cheyney. Henri, to do the Christmas decorations. Jean Louis, the chef. He whispered, after that introduction, “I told you I hate the Greek cuisine, it doesn’t suit my palate at all.” Mimi the maid, “So you don’t have to press a thing.” An English butler was introduced, and lastly, various fetchers and carriers.
“First things first.” Kurt held Zazou high over his head in front of him. “Romeo is his name, Zazou. He’s two years old, of impeccable breeding, and loves the ladies. I expect you to play Juliet to his Romeo, and with no nonsense about it. It’s about time you had a lover of your own.” Zazou let out a curdling howl, Romeo a commanding bark that silenced her. Good shock tactics. She remained silent and docile when Kurt placed them both on the sofa, just long enough for Romeo and Zazou to sniff and lick each other’s fur and affect canine love. Their future relationship resolved, they hopped off the sofa and chased each other around the apartment like unhouse-trained schoolkids.