“Who is this man?” she asked me, suspicion in her voice, warranted obviously; can she really tell a porker over the telephone? But not really a lie when you think about it; Krebs really is a patron and possibly less of a gangster than the old kings of Europe, considering the kind of shit they pulled as a matter of course-Krebs never sent his boys to burn a city and rape its women and burn people at the stake.
“His name’s Krebs,” I said. “He’s a German art dealer and collector. Mark set it up, but I’m not working through Mark. This is all directly for the collector.”
“That’s ridiculous. No one sells paintings like that. What will happen when your work is sold? Will you share in the proceeds?”
“Not clear, and I don’t care. I’m getting paid top dollar to please a single connoisseur who loves my work. Every artist in Europe had that arrangement before the modern period. Lotte, I’ve been looking for this all my life. And you’ve been yelling at me for years to do the best work I can, not jokes, Lotte, no more jokes. And the money…the money is fantastic. It means a completely new life for us.”
“As for example…”
“He’s going to give me a million for the painting I’m doing now.”
A longer pause here and a long, sad sigh. “Oh, Chaz,” she said,
“why do I even talk to you? I don’t know what to do.”
“What?”
“You are out of your mind, you are still in some kind of fantasy world. I’m sorry, I cannot do this-”
“Listen, it’s not a fantasy, Krebs is real. Ask Mark.”
“I don’t trust Mark. He’s perfectly capable of encouraging your insanity for his own purposes, and in any case, what you describe is impossible! No one could realize that much on your work in the market-”
“Lotte, there’s no market. That’s the point. He’s an eccentric zillionaire. He’s got private jets, private yachts, he can afford to have a private artist, just like Lorenzo the Magnificent and Ludovico Sforza and the rest of those guys.”
A long silence, and at last she said, “Well. Then I congratulate you. Honestly…I’m sorry if I sound doubtful, but it all seems like…I don’t know, some impossible and grandiose fantasy. You used to have them all the time when you were taking drugs, if you recall, so perhaps you’ll forgive me if I am not just now breaking out the champagne. By the way, my father rang and said he’d seen you and that you looked well.”
“So you know I’m not doping,” I said, maybe a little acerbic tone there, because she said, “I didn’t mean to imply any such thing. But, you know, it is my business-everyone is suspicious, the artists think they’re being cheated, the customers think the same, haggling, always haggling. No one comes in the door and says, I love this work and here is a check for what it says on the card. It’s always, if I buy two can I have twenty percent off? And I sell a work and then the artist sees it at auction and it sells for twice what he got, and he yells at me for undervaluing his work.”
“So quit. We don’t need the money for the gallery anymore.”
“Yes, your new fortune. I tell you, Chaz, I would like to meet this man and see with my own eyes what you have gotten into. Then maybe I’ll believe it.”
“Blessed are those who have not seen and believed.”
That got a laugh. “Well, if you quote the Bible I suppose I must become a little excited.” She sighed. “Ah, if only it were true! There are clinics in Switzerland that have had wonderful successes with children like Milo, where a month costs what I take in, gross, in my best year.”
“It’s covered. I’m telling you, Lotte, it’s a new world. Look, the other reason I called-I want you to come over here.”
“What, to Venice?”
“No, I’m in Rome. That’s where the studio is. I’ll send you first-class tickets, you’ll come, we’ll stay in a swanky hotel. When was the last time we did something like that? Never is when.”
“But the gallery. And the children-”
“The girl can handle the gallery for a few days and the kids’ll be fine with Ewa. Come on, Lotte, you can spare four, five days.”
And she agreed right away, which I thought was a little odd. Lotte’s response to poverty is the classic French one of bitterness, self-denial, and also resenting the pleasure others get in expending money. We used to fight about that a lot: we couldn’t ever go out for a nice meal, and when I did drag her out she always ordered the least expensive thing on the menu and drank a single glass of wine and sat like the chief mourner at a provincial funeral. She wasn’t like that when I met her; no, she knew how to let the good times roll. It was the kid getting sick. Or me. Maybe I have a special charism for making women bitter.
Two days later Franco and I picked her up at the airport and drove to the San Francesco, which is not quite the Danieli in Venice but is the best hotel in Trastevere. She was quiet, a little withdrawn, which I guess I had to expect, and when we got out of the Merc at the hotel, she gave me a look. Lotte, being a diplomatic brat, is used to the top end of things-or was before she married me-and the look said, can you really afford a place like this? And so I whipped out my magic black card and handed it to the desk clerk.
Who took it with both hands and made a little bow and was all smiles. He was about to check us into the room I’d reserved when Lotte put a hand on my arm and drew me aside.
“I want my own room,” she said.
“Why, you think I’m going to attack you in a frenzy of lust?”
“No, but I’m not here for a cozy holiday. A few months ago you were a raving maniac who pulled a knife on a gallery owner, and I would like to have at least one door between us if this maniac should happen to return.”
“Fine. So what is this, a tour of inspection, like a sanitary commission?”
Now she was standing in combat position, with her arms folded across her breasts and her jaw thrust out, and at that moment more than anything I wanted to tell her the whole thing. But I did not. I was terrified that if I spilled it her face would take on a certain look, one I was more than familiar with from the terminal stages of our marriage, in which shock, pain, and bone-deep disappointment each played a part. The suspicious and canny face she was now showing was not a natural part of her expressive repertoire, I knew. It was me that put it there, as surely as if I’d painted it on with oils. My mom used to wear it often, as a matter of fact, and now I’d given it to my beloved forever. Life is just so wonderful.
“If you like,” she said. “You say you have all this money, and I’ve seen some of it, but I want to be sure you are not in some insane delusion about the rest of it. It’s about our child, Chaz, and about his future. You see why it’s hard for me to trust you-”
“Sure. Okay, no problem. Two rooms. Can they be adjoining or do you have to be heavily isolated from the maniac?”
“Adjoining is fine,” she said coolly, and I turned again to the desk.
An elderly porter with the manners of an ambassador ushered us up to our rooms and got a tip commensurate with his mien. When he’d gone, we agreed to meet in an hour and go out to dinner. I tossed my bag onto what would be my lonely bed and left for the bar on the roof of the hotel, where I drank a couple of Camparis and watched the sky go dark and the shadows creep up the ochre walls of the little convent across the street until they vanished into blackness.
When I returned and knocked on the door of Lotte’s room, I found her ready to go, wearing a dress of just the rose pink that Fra Angelico used to clothe his angels in and a worn velvet jacket colored a sort of verdigris, very quattrocento. It suited her coloring, the dark blond hair, the dark eyes, an unusual combo, but one you see often in paintings from that period. From her Italian mother. And it’s a habit of Lotte’s to dress in colors, when everyone in her circles in New York wears black, as a sign, she says, of mourning for the death of art.