The Center of the World (23 page)
Her voice had dropped to a whisper. I looked up from the fire and, seeing the tears in her eyes, handed her a handkerchief. As she began to weep she looked more beautiful than ever.
“You are most kind. One needs friends at my time of life. How was it,” she asked, “with you? You need not fear me.”
Seeing me hesitate, perhaps even seeing the color come to my cheeks, she turned her face toward mine. I understood why Egremont wanted her as his mistress and why Turner wanted her as his model and muse. At our best moments I have always felt, David, that I could open up my heart to you without reserve, although I have always been conscious of the differences in perspective between us. This consciousness has, in some small way, constrained the flood of my feelings. As I looked at Mrs. Spencer I felt no such constraint. I too wept as I told her how Turner had me squat upon the couch in the most undignifled and humiliating of postures. I told her how Turner had praised me for my beauty. I confessed with shame and humiliation how I had felt some perverse pleasure in debasing myself before the great man. It was the confession of pleasure that made me weep.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Mrs. Spencer filled her glass and emptied it. “I will be spared nothing,” she said. “Nothing.”
33
.
I THINK OF MYSELF
as an infrequent flyer. Whenever we go anywhere other than the Adirondacks, it’s usually on Susan’s miles. She knows which coffee places to avoid in Newark and that the Asian place in Philadelphia is almost worth eating in. I am not used to the anxieties and indignities of the security checkpoints or to the sight of soldiers with automatic weapons in public places.
As the plane banked and turned, I imagined that the madmen had taken over the cockpit. We would be bearing down on Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, proof positive that the war had done nothing to make us safer. I looked out the window at the dawn-lit patchwork of the English countryside, half convinced that planes from the Royal Air Force would appear in a few minutes. I wondered if I would be able to see the faces of the pilots as they flew alongside trying to determine why Continental Flight 29 wasn’t responding. I wondered how long I would remain conscious after the
rockets struck. Or perhaps it wouldn’t be rockets; it would be a nondescript suitcase in the hold. Either way I would dissolve into death and rain down from the sky. Blair and Bush would give a press conference. The passengers would be described as heroes and victims of terror. A fund would be set up; perhaps Susan and the children would get some money. My face would appear in
The New York Times
. Susan would be free to move in with her lover, although it occurred to me that it was only the fact of my existence that made this particular lover necessary or possible. The painting would remain in the Adirondacks; Mossbacher would find it after Susan sold the place.
I thought of Helen. She understands this violence. She knows that the men who suffer on the plain behind her tall window are dying on her account. Her cool and indifferent eyes comprehend the determination of the hijacker as he slits the captain’s throat with as much remorse as I feel for the chicken that sits on my plate. She understands the look of victory in his eyes as he pushes the throttle forward. Praise be to God. It is all the same to her.
The talk on the work of the foundation went well. I am always surprised that people take me seriously as a professional person, which probably goes a long way toward explaining why I’ve had the same small job for twenty years. On Wednesday morning, since I was no longer on the expense account, I moved from the conference hotel to a cheap tourist-class place a few blocks from Victoria Station. The room was small and dark, painted an unpleasant shade of yellow. A television with
a twelve-inch screen was mounted on the ceiling at the foot of the bed. The shower in the bathroom was so small that even though I had lost some weight it was a struggle to bend down to pick up a dropped piece of soap.
My first day on my own was cool and drizzly. I walked along the Thames toward the Tate. I put the collar of my raincoat up and allowed myself to luxuriate in the feeling of being a lonely man in a foreign city. It was six in the morning at home. I wondered if Susan was sleeping alone.
All the Turners in the Tate seemed related to
The Center of the World
, but in none of them could I see more than a hint of the truth that my painting revealed. Yet as I walked through the gallery, any doubts I had about its authenticity disappeared. There was something about the sky in many of the other Turners that I recognized at once as the same, although the effect of light seemed pale and unachieved compared with what he accomplished in my painting. There were low suns on the horizon that resembled my sun and architectural details, especially in
Rome, from the Vatican
, that seemed borrowed from
The Center of the World
. They were all wonderful paintings, but they only gave a hint of what mine revealed.
Later that day I walked to the National Gallery and looked at the Turners there. I spent a long time in front of
Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus
. The poor Cyclops is just a blur in the background, while Ulysses’s gold-encrusted ship is a miracle of invention and delight in the foreground. Just above the horizon a Turner sun is setting. When I stepped close to the canvas I could see Apollo’s chariot and the horses of the sun sketched
in with white paint. It was a poor trick compared with what Turner had pulled off in
The Center of the World
, where the gods seemed vividly present, even if they were not represented in any visible way.
A steady rain was falling when I left the National Gallery. The crowd that had filled Trafalgar Square earlier in the day had disappeared. I pulled my baseball cap down and turned up the collar of my raincoat. The city was gray. The fact that traffic was going in the wrong direction made me feel disconcerted, almost nauseous.
I headed vaguely west toward Mayfair. A curtain seemed to be falling, but I did not understand why. I liked the city I was in; I liked the idea of being where I was. I had just seen some beautiful paintings. I possessed something more beautiful still. I was free.
At a newsstand I looked at the tabloid photos of heavy-breasted young women. They are the debased daughters, I thought, of Helen. I bought a pack of cigarettes, even though I hadn’t smoked in almost fifteen years. I had wanted a cigarette ever since I arrived in England, probably to prove to myself that I was free and could do whatever I wanted. It wasn’t quite as pathetic as the kiss with Ruth Carpenter, but it was the same sort of impulse. I stood under the awning in front of the store and tapped the pack against the heel of my left hand three times before I tore the cellophane off. I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and lit it. Fifteen years seemed to melt away as I performed that once familiar automatic gesture, but I coughed as I inhaled.
I let myself get lost, walking until my legs hurt. I don’t know what I was thinking about, but I felt myself disappear into the rainy city. There were funny buses and beautiful buildings; cars came at me from the wrong side. At some point I found myself walking through the Wellington Arch. I read the names of the battles: Tobruk, Ypres, Khartoum. So much death, so much murder. She had seen it all, caused it all. I went into a pub to consult my map, use the bathroom, have a beer and then a few more. I smoked more cigarettes. The beer made the smoke go down easier.
It was raining harder when I got out of the pub. I put my head down and walked. I was about ten blocks from the hotel when I entered another pub to use the bathroom again, to warm up, and to have more beer.
At last the bartender said, “Hurry up, please, it’s time,” just like in the poem. That struck me as comic.
When I got to the hotel I leaned on the doorbell for a little too long to summon the Serbian girl who worked the night desk. She was so pretty that I wondered if she had come to London to be a model, or maybe an actress. There was something about her eyes, I thought, that almost reminded me of Helen. I tried to imagine what she thought about, staying awake all night at the desk of a cheap hotel. Did she get lonely? I can’t quite remember what I said to her, but the way she looked at me as she silently handed me my key is inscribed in my mind. I went up the stairs, a trail of water dripping from my raincoat. It took two tries before I got my key into the door. I let my wet clothes fall to the floor and crawled into bed.
34
.
BECAUSE SO MANY
of the people that Stokes sold off his art collection to were Americans Gina spent more time in New York. At first she stayed with her mother, but the way her mother careened from one crisis to another made it difficult to get anything done. One day, however, Bryce handed Gina the key to a studio apartment on Sixty-seventh Street. No one, he said, was using it, and she was welcome to stay there; no other explanation was offered. It was simply but tastefully furnished, with only two or three paintings hanging on the walls. One of them was a small early Matisse.
She spent most of her time going through records and archives associated with art dealers who were active in the years between the world wars. It was frustrating work, since she could not tell anyone what she was looking for and most of the records were long gone, the galleries having disappeared or merged with other firms.
She had been in New York for about a month when she began one of their regular meetings by reminding Bryce that
he had once said that they had competitors who were looking for the same thing as themselves.
“But you had predecessors as well,” she said. “Look at this.”
Birch Lodge
Saranac Lake, New York
October 19, 1929
Dear Ozzie:
I have finally gotten rid of the insufferable Mrs. R. She is a harmless soul, I suppose, but there is something criminally insipid about her. She is a good-looking woman, or she was once, but after spending an eternity with her in a parlor car, she hardly seems as attractive as everyone says. You told me she wanted a friend, but the wanting is so obvious, making love to her in the way that we genteel women do feels like taking candy from a baby
.
But she is off to bed, performing, I suppose, her conjugal duties. I have been told that Rhinebeck is a lecherous old goat, and although his enthusiasm at seeing his beloved spouse and her clever friend (or so she characterizes me) was muted at best, I suspect he will make the most of the situation and get from his wife what wives are supposed to provide. He is, however, a good deal more handsome than the photographs I have seen suggested. Or perhaps it is his money; I have always found that it does wonders for a man’s looks. So if it becomes necessary to serve the cause on my back, or in some more Continental posture, it will be less grim than I had feared
.
From some hints dropped by Mrs. R., I have the impression that the intimate relations between my hosts are not all that they could be. I am quite sure that Mrs. R. is unaware of all the details that you have provided, but she knows that there is something rotten in the Rhinebeck Denmark. And she doesn’t, poor thing, have the faintest inkling of how to make it right. I saw enough in Rhinebeck’s eyes (and in the way that his gaze fixed on a negligently fastened button) to suggest that the way to his heart is
not
through his stomach. I doubt, from certain hints that Mrs. R. gave before the train had even left the metropolitan area, that she has much enthusiasm for the kinds of things that will keep a man like Rhinebeck interested
.
As for this place—it is everything that money and good taste can achieve. It is all done up in “Adirondack” style, a charming and expensive version of American pastoral, forest division. Stuffed animals of every description hang from the walls, making the place a very paradise of slaughter. The rooms are light and airy, with wonderful views of the lake or the forest. Each room contains a fireplace, framed by artful masonry made from the local stones
.
We arrived just at sunset, and Rhinebeck took us out onto a balcony. “You have come just in time,” he said. We admired the view; the trees on both shores of the lake were brilliant in yellow, orange, red, and green. Suddenly the declining rays of the sun infused the trees on the island across from us with an impossible richness. The light seemed to dance on the gray-blue water. And as if that wasn’t enough,
there was a sliver of silver moon hanging in the perfectly blue sky. “Every evening when the sky is clear,” Rhinebeck said, “I am treated to this sight. Is it not wonderful?”
Mrs. R. wept at the beauty of it all, or so she said, but I think her tears came from realizing how much her husband had been hiding from her. It is some measure of her acuity that an inkling of the truth dawned on her only then; most women would have thought it odd some time sooner that her husband had built a pleasure palace from which she was explicitly excluded!
After we had admired the view and had been given a chance to freshen up, we went to dinner. Rhinebeck so contrives things that the house staff is almost invisible, but shortly after we sat down, a plain old woman appeared, carrying a tray loaded down with venison, roast potatoes, red cabbage, and freshly baked bread. Rhinebeck managed the wine himself, apologizing as he did so for the “rough ways” of the North Country. But it was all a pretense, because I doubt that a finer plate of food could be had anywhere in the environs of Herald Square. And as for the wine—well, it was a Château Margaux from before the war, and there are few finer bottles to be had anywhere in the city
.
We spoke primarily about hunting (an oddly appropriate topic, given my mission!). We started on it when I remarked that it was a bit eerie to be sitting down to eat the flesh of animals while stuffed versions of those animals, their eyes glittering in the firelight, looked down on us. Rhinebeck then told us a gruesome story about the killing of our supper
and concluded with the typical remarks of a man of his class, viz. that it is important to see the facts for what they are, important to look life squarely in the eye, no good taking a sentimental view and so forth. He said he had hitherto excluded all women from Birch Lodge because he wanted to have at least one place where he was safe from female softness, although, if Miss Deventer is to be credited, he made an exception for her soft female form
.
At dessert (a most delicious tart of wild blueberries), he seemed to relent. “Come,” he said, “I will show you my Snuggery and give you, even though you are ladies, a glass of port.” He then led the way to a room we hadn’t seen before—the most marvelous room in the whole marvelous place. It was warm, cozy, delightful, and grand all at once. There was a comfortable sofa covered with sheepskins and a few easy chairs in front of a large fireplace in which a bright fire was burning. A card table was off to one side, a handsome desk on the other. There was a curious cabinet, decorated with a hunting scene of inlaid wood, and bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes. There were three or four wonderful landscapes on the walls, including a gorgeous Corot that would fetch you a pretty penny if you could only get your hands on it. There were decanters of wine and other spirits on a sideboard. The whole room smelled pleasantly of firewood and cigar smoke
.
He settled us down on the sofa so that we were facing the curious cabinet and handed us each a glass of the most delicious port I have ever tasted. Rhinebeck stood in front of
the cabinet and looked down at us with what I thought was a smug and self-satisfied air
.
“Now that you have seen this room and tasted this port,” he said, “only one thing remains before you will have penetrated to the very heart of the mysteries of Birch Lodge.”
He opened the cabinet with a flourish, as if he were the proprietor of a raree show. Inside was a lovely Renoir nude, one of those big pink ones. There are flowers on the wall behind her. Her right hand covers her nether regions, although a hint of dark hair is visible. One senses, indeed, that her hand is not placed where it is out of modesty, but rather that we are looking in on some very private reverie
.
Rhinebeck revealed her with a kind of wink, as if he thought we ladies might be offended. He told us that we were the first ladies who had seen her in ever so many years, and that she had been painted for an exclusive club in Paris, or at any rate that is what the dealer told him when he bought her after the war. He sat down and said with amiable simplicity, “So now you know all.”
Of that I am not convinced. He seemed, I thought, to be protesting a bit too much. The painting is more frankly sensual than the sort of thing you would expect to find in a museum, but many more shocking works are hung proudly on the walls of Fifth Avenue apartments. He looked hard at his wife, as if he were waiting for some expression of shock or outrage. “What do you think?” he asked
.
She had been looking at the painting quite intently. With a sad smile she said that the painting reminded her
somehow of the August afternoons of her youth on Nantucket. She is really a pathetic creature
.
In spite of Rhinebeck’s protestations, I am not convinced that he isn’t hiding something up here. I am sure, however, that that something is
not
the Renoir. So I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that if this Turner of yours exists, Rhinebeck might have it, and if he has it, it might be at Birch Lodge. He strikes me as the kind of man who would enjoy owning something as shocking as you claim this Turner is
.
It is almost dawn. My mind has been too wound up from the journey and too full of speculations to sleep. I also wanted to give you some report of my thoughts and progress as soon as I could. I have been told that the mail boat (isn’t that charming?) stops at the dock at around nine, so I intend to put this in the bag before I go to sleep
.
I will write again if I have the opportunity, but I suspect that the next time you hear from me will be in New York
.
Please know that I am dedicated to your cause and that I will leave no stone unturned in helping you achieve your aim
.
Yours devotedly
,
Maria