“I would cherish that opportunity. Truly.”
“Then I have a way for us to get to know each other better after this negotiation. Ever since Marta was born, we drive up to the Abbey at Montserrat during the first weekend of May. You and your family should join us there next spring. There is something in the air of the place and in the majesty of the setting that makes me chatter on endlessly. Bibi complains about the nattering of an old man, but I think of my wanderings as a way to recharge my batteries.”
Kate missed her father at that moment more than she had in years.
Hirsch could not stop thinking about his favorite place. “We listen to the Escolania and we walk through the fields bursting with wild red poppies. Have you seen poppies growing wild in the fields? They remind us that life has an inherent promise that no matter how bleak the season that came before, the renewal of hope isn’t far off.” Kate wanted to believe that as much as anything she ever heard.
Hirsch took Kate’s hands in his. She wanted to linger in his touch. The void of a father dying when she was so young had never been filled. What would her own father have been like had he lived as long as Hirsch? “I asked Chris to think of the good in his father’s actions regarding the painting. Let me now ask something of you.”
Kate wondered what more she could offer the family. But Michael Hirsch did not have the expression of a man raising the ante in a bargain.
“If we reach agreement tonight, will you promise me you will bring your family to Montserrat in the spring when the poppies are in bloom?”
THIRTY-SIX
Marta Hirsch got her looks from her mother. Bibiana Hirsch had the same dark eyes and high cheekbones, but the fuller and softer countenance of maturity. She let her hand linger in Kate’s when she greeted her, asked her to call her Bibi, patted the top of Kate’s right hand with her left. Bibi was dressed simply, in a plain chocolate blouse and slacks.
Kate brought a spray of violets which Bibi put on top of a small wooden table to the left of her chair. Chris’s gift was a small teak box purchased that afternoon from a Moroccan vendor in a stall on the Rampla.
David Hirsch was thinner than his brother, almost to the point of being gaunt. He apologized and said he had not been well, and that he might excuse himself from time to time. He said he did not want them to think him disrespectful. His English was passable, but far less schooled than his brother’s.
David’s wife Yolanda was taller than her husband. She had long, graceful fingers. Her hair was streaked with gray, pulled back from her face, and tied with a red ribbon. They seemed far more rigid than Michael and Bibi. Kate hoped it was their lack of comfort with the English language rather than ill will about the painting. It bothered her that Michael’s older brother hadn’t made even a small gesture to acknowledge the rubbing.
Marta had changed into jeans and a pale blue cotton sweater. Her greeting to Kate and Chris—and even to her father—was stiff.
Her cousins Andrew and Eric resembled their mother. Both had wedding rings, but their wives were not in the apartment. Their greetings, too, seemed formal.
The buildings around the Plaza Sant Just dated from the late eighteenth century. Many of the limestone façades were decorated with armor and cement crests of the families who built them. Hirsch and his wife lived on the second floor in a small but comfortably decorated apartment overlooking the fountain in the center of the plaza. One of the walls was lined with books. The terrace doors were open. The night air was still, but filled with the lively conversations of the patrons at a small café across the plaza. Kate was warm with anxiety.
Hirsch opened a bottle of
Rioja
and another of
Lagar de Cervera
. Kate took the white. Hirsch spoke after everyone’s glass was filled. He stood behind his wife and raised his right hand in their direction. “I imagine our first toast should be to Gustave Courbet, the man who brought us all together.”
Kate smiled, but neither Marta nor her cousins registered any reaction. It was as if they’d taken an oath to avoid anything that might put Kate or Chris at ease.
The wine was cold in Kate’s throat. It stung her chest. She was relieved, though, that the meeting was under way in such a civilized manner.
Bibi said dinner was simple, but it was obvious she had fussed over it.
Alcachofas con pomeloa
, artichoke hearts with grapefruit and black olives, smothered in herbs and sherry,
cana de cabra
, a goat’s milk cheese, fritters Bibi said were called
croquetas de pollo
and
bunuelos de bacalao
, salt cod she said all Spaniards ate.
Eric’s brother, Andrew, a media executive unable to join them earlier in the day, broke both the quiet and the tension in the room. He had his older brother’s dark countenance.
“I do not want to revisit any of the topics you discussed earlier, but I am curious about the seemingly enormous effort that has gone into your investigation of this painting. By my count, Mrs. Brewster, this is at least your fourth trip to Europe in a matter of weeks. That degree of personal investment suggests we are talking about something of great value.” Kate nodded, but said nothing.
He turned to Chris. “Mr. Franklin, about how much money do you propose to raise in the transaction for which you are asking us to contribute the painting?” Andrew had a deep baritone voice and tightly drawn brown eyes. He studied or worked abroad, for he spoke English with only the slightest discernible accent.
Marta smiled at the question. Kate was now certain Marta had enlisted her cousins to her side, particularly one who could thrust and parry without falling over his words.
Whether Andrew had been fed the question by Marta or came up with it on his own was irrelevant. Chris had to answer. He was nimble enough to know, however, that Andrew asked a gate-keeping question. Isn’t a painting worth more than sixteen million Euros at auction worth more than the number Kate put in her proposal if the painting is the very linchpin to a several-hundred-million-dollar deal? Andrew was putting a value on leverage more than on art.
But at least he invited a discussion of price. During the time she had spent in her hotel room between the meeting in Michael Hirsch’s office and this dinner, Kate feared she would have to replay the blood-on-the-hands scene in front of a larger audience.
To his credit, Chris didn’t equivocate. “We anticipate we will raise somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty million dollars. Virtually all of it is already committed to pay for critical supplies and for expansion of our capacity. I’m happy to share all the details.”
Chris hardly could stretch the facts even if he had an agenda to do so. All of the papers needed for the offering were drafted and ready to be delivered to the SEC the moment Kate emailed that a deal was struck.
“I don’t pretend to know the details of your proposed offering, Mr. Franklin, but I am conversant enough with the United States capital markets to know insiders often profit quite handsomely from these transactions. May I ask what your personal share of the offering will be?”
Kate and Chris discussed the tipping point, the place where the Hirsch family would ask so much for the painting the deal lost its economic underpinnings. They agreed the family would be entitled to the painting and on top of that, to a fee for allowing it to be used in the deal, but little beyond that. Still, while he hadn’t wrapped his question with Marta’s moral indignation, the underlying premise of Andrew’s question was that of all the pieces Gustave Courbet painted, this particular one had the most intrinsic value because this family had the right to gum up the offering. They didn’t need the particulars of the deal to know that was what motivated Kate’s offer.
“That hasn’t been determined yet, although if your decision is to sell me the painting rather than to lend it to me for a period of time I suspect my share will be little or nothing.”
Kate took out Connie Meyers’s card. She handed it to Andrew. “I am advised by an expert at Sotheby’s, a well-known auction house with which you’re no doubt familiar, that assuming the painting’s authenticity can be verified, it is worth perhaps eleven million dollars in today’s market.” She looked at Marta, who had no reaction to the number.
Kate looked around the apartment. It made no more sense for them to be talking about retaining the Courbet than it did for Peter to hold onto the Leger. This could be a transformative moment for this family. It could lift them from a comfortable existence into one of a graceful glide into old age that Michael Hirsch and his brother had earned, first as young boys hunting through Barcelona’s trash, and then as men who built careers and families. Had Michael and his brother ceded this decision to their children? Would they really turn their backs on this proposition?
Kate continued when no one spoke. “They will guarantee seven and a half at auction. A recent experience of mine, however, suggests that before the current problems in the financial markets around the world you might have gotten another two to three million dollars. Sale commissions will reduce your recovery by another ten percent. Ms. Meyers is happy to discuss all these figures with you.”
Kate wanted to sound so clinically precise that no one could accuse her of shading the numbers to her advantage or of being as emotional as Marta had been on something as illusory as value. When and if they huddled together to discuss the fine points of the proposal, even the harshest critics in the Hirsch family would have to admit if they wanted to take back the painting and turn it into cash without letting Chris use it for Majik’s offering, the painting was worth only what someone would pay for it.
Unlike their time together in his office, Michael Hirsch did nothing to stop the conversation from moving in this direction. Kate looked to him for a sign of where he wanted to take the discussion, but he seemed distracted by the need to assure everyone had a glass that was full. And Kate was at his mercy.
The starkness of the numbers silenced even Andrew. “That assumes, of course, you want to sell the painting rather than to retain it,” Kate said. “If we are having a negotiation over price, we should be talking in that range, plus a small fee for allowing it to be used in the transaction. If you want the painting returned, but do not consent to its being used to facilitate the offering, we will explore other options for the company, but then, of course, there would be no reason for Mr. Franklin to pay you anything on top of that.”
The dinner was beginning to feel to Kate like the Carter Foods deal, where Andrew Butler was going head-to-head with Bruce Wasserstein for control of the frozen food conglomerate. They both went on vacation rather than look too concerned about the next round of bidding. Wasserstein won that one by playing harder to get.
“I am but one vote, but for myself, I think we simply should take back the painting and nothing more,” Eric said. “The idea of allowing it to sit on Mr. Franklin’s wall so he can paint a rosy picture for his investors strikes me as fraud. I want no part of that.”
Eric was as rigid as he had been the first time they met. His mother shook her head in apparent disagreement with his comment. Kate felt her heart rate rise at the idea she might have another ally if the vote got close.
But what Kate didn’t know was that just as Marta enlisted her cousins as her proxy, her father knew exactly when and how he wanted the discussion to end. Kate caught him nodding in Bibi’s direction when Marta’s back was turned to look over the sweets Bibi set out for dessert. He seemed to be telling her it was time to talk.
“I am not certain whether Yolanda and I actually get a vote, because we only married into this family and you are linked to this painting by blood,” Bibi said. She gestured toward a spot across the room, above the television. “But if we are going to keep the painting rather than share the money we can get for selling it, as Miss Brewster discussed, then I would like it to hang there on Tuesdays and on my birthday. Yolanda, do you have a day of the week in mind? Marta, will the painting fit in the back of your Fiat as it shuttles from place to place?”
Kate suppressed a smile of fulfillment, but remained quiet. Let the cousins bicker for a while. Bibi’s comment underscored the path that conversation would follow. The only question was how long it would take to reach their understanding.
On her way to the sideboard to refill her
Lager de Cervera
, Kate touched Hirsch on the shoulder. He reached his hand up and put it on Kate’s, as if to acknowledge the agreement they would seal.
THIRTY-SEVEN
There were three calls from Jack and two from Clive on Kate’s phone when her plane landed at JFK. Before she listened to their messages, though, she called Peter. “Hi. It’s me. Any music in the house?”
“None. I took them to the movies and then to dinner both nights. I didn’t want her moping around in her room. How did the meeting go?”
“Fine. No. Better than fine. We made a deal with the family and the offering can go forward. But tell me about Sarah. We can always talk business later. And is Mack okay?”
“Just come home, Kate. Other than to tell you they need a mom at the moment there isn’t much to report.”
The plane reached the gate. Everyone around her began gathering themselves and heading to the door. Kate was slow to move. She resolved to let everyone who wanted to rush out pass her by. And then, just as she began to stir, her phone rang. It was Jack.
“I hope you’re still on cloud nine, Kate. It’s remarkable. Just remarkable. The prospectus is already being reviewed by the SEC. The feedback is enormously positive. We’ve already gotten calls from four shops that want to be first in line for the road show.”
Prodded by Bibi, the family agreed to sell Chris the painting for ten million Euros. Not wanting to draw attention to themselves or to tie their recovery to the success of the offering, they demanded cash in front, so it fell to Jack to approve another cash infusion for Majik. It was a surprisingly banal ending to Kate’s short but obsessive flirtation with Gustave Courbet.