Another tumbler appeared. Anna sat and we had gin all around. There was chitchat, and then Max said, “Peter has a most interesting profession.”
“Oh?”
“He is a gun runner.”
Anna’s eyes looked into mine. “Listen to him! Is that true?” Her voice was round and clear, with an undertone of amusement. The cadences were foreign.
“No.”
She shook her head. “I thought not. Max is a terrible liar. A terrible liar.” She looked at him fondly. A little unwarranted pang of jealousy pinched off my smile. Why was I jealous — what was Anna to me? Is there such a thing as jealousy at first sight?
Max was speaking. “Indeed a small world. Anna grew up in my own little village by the North Sea.”
“It is called Oostmahom,” said Anna. “Have you heard of it?”
“He has heard of it from me,” said Max. “Peter is the only man in America who has heard of Oostmahom.”
We talked on, of inconsequential things, while I stared at the woman from Oostmahom. She conformed to no conception of beauty that I consciously carried around with me, but she was beautiful just the same: a good body of the sturdy kind; a broad and well modeled face; long, heavy-lidded blue eyes under straight brows; and a marvelously shaped mouth. When she spoke, I couldn’t look away. Her hair was very fair, very thick, cut short — very Dutch. I told myself that she was stocky, square-jawed, and too old for me. My age, at least. And, of course, she belonged to Max, who said, “You’re looking thoughtful.”
I shrugged.
Anna asked me if I made my home in New York.
“Geneva.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Such an elderly city! Are you happy there? It is so cold. So grey! And the people — nobody speaks!”
“Money speaks,” said Max.
“Ah, that’s dreadful,” said Anna. “It is rude. Don’t pay any attention to him, Mr. Hessberg. He has no humor. No funniness. He lacks good qualities.”
“Peter sometimes deals in paintings,” said Max. She shot him a look — startled, I thought — which he did not return. “Tell Anna about your business. It is interesting.”
The units I purchase from the U.S. military I ship to Amsterdam to my friend Piet Bonta at P. Bonta Electrische, N.V., where they are tested, rebuilt, and shipped out to my clients — in most cases, the so-called third-world governments, who pay me a long time after with first-world money. All this I described, briefly, for Anna’s benefit, omitting the problems.
When I finished, she said, “I think Max is right. You are a gun runner. I see no difference. One of those terrible people who keep the world in a ferment.”
“You might not approve of my customers, but they’re legitimate governments, all of them. I don’t deal with terrorist organizations.”
Max raised his coppery eyebrows. “All governments are terrorist organizations.”
“Don’t be childish,” said Anna, laughing.
“It’s true,” said Max. “Someday you will agree with me. Now, Peter, tell Anna about the paintings.”
From time to time business takes me to Africa; the new nations — uncomfortable places, but they fascinate me. In the last couple of years paintings, along with other heirlooms, have begun to surface; pathetic, abandoned collections, once the property of families established for generations in colonial Africa. Those families are gone; most left empty-handed, the victims of upheaval. Some of the paintings belonged to the dead. Most are the sort of thing you couldn’t give away just a few years back: landscapes, genre — nineteenth century, most of them, modest, agreeable works. Today there’s a market for them. What comes my way I ship to New York, to John Fischer’s gallery.
Anna listened to me, frowning. “I think it is sad,” she said.
Max, on the other hand, looked pleased. “I think Providence has sent our friend here today.”
“No. No, Max. I know what you are thinking.”
“He has a whole week to waste. Surely he doesn’t want to spend it in this grimy city!”
“Then let him spend it in Timbuktu. Oh, Max—” she clasped her hands “—I am not happy about this!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked them.
Max leaned forward, his powerful arms resting on the polished surface of his admirable desk. “I have promised to pick up a painting in Amsterdam and bring it back here this week. Nothing out of the ordinary — a little nineteenth century landscape, the kind of thing you have just been describing.
“I am doing this as a favor for a client who is important to me. He has formed a sentimental attachment to this painting — and he must have it at once.” Max laughed shortly. “I can tell you, he is a man who is accustomed to getting what he wants. So, I have very foolishly undertaken to pick it up for him myself. Peter, I don’t want to go. I don’t know when I was last out of the city. Or in the city.” He nodded in the direction of the crutches propped against the wall behind his desk. “I totter through the streets like a falling building. Heads turn.”
“Can’t Anna—”
“I need her here. Listen to me, Peter. New York in August is an abomination. You don’t want to stay here. I will pay you a nice fee — let’s say ten percent of the selling price — and all expenses, of course. You’ll pick up the painting from the dealer, a man named Gerrit Till. He is ten, twelve miles outside the city, that’s all. And you’ll bring it here.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?”
He grimaced. “I am almost ashamed to tell you. My selling price is twenty thousand dollars. As you will see, too much money for this little painting. For your share? Two thousand.”
“Do you mind telling me how much you’re paying for it?”
“Not at all. After all, you will pay the dealer for us. Two thousand dollars, that’s all. In cash. It’s worth a little more to him that way.”
“Is the buyer that fellow who was leaving when I got here?”
Anna’s eyes widened. “What?”
Max shook his head. “No, no. You would not know this man, you have not seen him here. Who it is doesn’t matter. What do you say?”
“What’s the catch?”
“None.” His gaze was a model of candor. “This is not a painting that the Netherlands Historical Commission is interested in. There are no restrictions against its sale or export. I promise you there is nothing to worry about. If I could move around more easily I’d go myself. And I’ll tell you the truth — Anna had a little run-in with the commission a few years ago. So I prefer not to send her. Why stir up old complications?”
A plausible tale. Did I believe it?
Again Anna glanced at him and for some moments their eyes carried on a mutual discussion. Then she said, almost whispering, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Anneke, my love. This is nonsense!”
Anneke-my-love shook her head, and the fine fair hair flew back and forth. “No.”
“You’ll do it?” Max asked me.
Anna’s blue eyes held mine, willing me to refuse.
“I’ll do it.”
It was agreed I would go on Wednesday, as the painting wouldn’t be ready before then. Max said there had been a little damage to a corner of the landscape — no more than a square inch was involved — and Gerrit Till, the dealer, who was fortunately an expert in restoration, was doing the necessary patch-up. I was not to be concerned — the buyer was aware of the state of the canvas.
“Gerrit’s a fine fellow,” Max told me. “Interesting, too. An Indonesian background. A good contact for you. Maybe someday you’ll do business with him yourself — who knows?”
Anna left with me. It had begun to rain, bringing up a strong smell of wet stone and city dust from the sidewalks.
The afternoon had grown prematurely dark. Here and there the lights of store windows were reflected on the pavement; the city looked cosy and glistening. I walked beside Anna for a block or two toward the East River. She seemed distracted and had nothing to say. She disliked me, I thought, or distrusted me. I stopped under a street lamp at the corner of Third Avenue and put a hand on her arm. “Why don’t you want me to go?”