“I don’t think so,” she said. “We’ve sent hardly anyone down here lately. Only Buckminster Fuller.” She held the book up to the window. “Oh! This stuff. We passed through it ages ago. We called it Pre-Negative Realism.”
She bent her head over the pages. Beyond, on my climbing rose bush, there was one white rose left. In the center of it, a brilliant viridian green, was the last of the Japanese beetles.
“You know,” I said, “you can do me a great favor.”
“Why, I’d love to,” she said, with really enormous enthusiasm.
“You’re very amiable.”
“But naturally. I’m descended from the few who were left. So of course we’re amiable. What can I do for you?”
“Do you think you can turn yourself into a Pollock?”
“How large?” she asked.
“About forty-two by forty-eight. Just something that would fit up against the back seat of a Jaguar.”
“Oh, how exciting. You mean I’m going for a ride with that attractive dealer?”
“That’s the general idea,” I said. “He wants very much to hang you in his gallery. But I hope,” and I took her hand, “I hope that as soon as you hear him telephone the man about insurance, you’ll slip out and find your way back here.”
“Of course I will, darling,” she replied. “But how shall I find my way?”
“You take something,” I said, “they call the Long Island Railroad.”
She moved behind me.
“Don’t let go of my hand,” she said. “And don’t look back. Tell me, what do you see? Off in the distance?”
“Why the lighthouse at Montauk.”
“And beyond?”
“A dark fog rolling in.”
“And beyond?”
‘That’s all. What can you see?”
“I see a city, with water flowing through the streets.”
“It could be Mobile, Alabama,” I said. “It was right in the path of a hurricane. On the radio this morning.”
“It could be,” she said, “but I don’t think it is. The houses are of stone that is cut like lace, and the people move as if to music. There are four enormous shapes in the sky.”
“What sort of shapes?”
“Horses,” she said. “And there is a building, somewhat out of taste, that is filled with your pictures.” She was whispering now, her lips were close to my ear.
“There is a really attractive man with a forked beard, and he is handing you a check for a million… a million…”
“A million what?” I cried, and turned to her. But she wasn’t there. A strong smell of fresh paint drifted out the window and instantly disappeared. And then I realized that in my hand I held a Pollock, signed and dated 1949.
I began to feel a little guilty. I wondered if I’d done the right thing in changing her into a mere Pollock; and, I began to realize as I studied it, not a very good one at that. I was just about to politely request the Pollock to change itself back again when there came a loud knocking directly beneath my feet. Seymore, downstairs, had found the handle of the mop; he was getting impatient. I decided I’d go along with him. I set the picture up against the wall opposite the little window in the loft, and examined it critically.
“Frankly,” I said, “your color, it’s not Pollock’s color at all. It’s too sweet. It’s too old-fashioned. It’s School of Paris. And that big drip on the upper right throws the whole thing out of balance. If I were you I would eliminate it completely.”
Evidently her spirit still retained its amiability, for as I spoke a certain American harshness crept into the color and the heavy black drip faded and disappeared.
“That’s excellent!” I said. “Now, you’ve got Pollock’s calligraphic quality all right, but up there on the left you’re all tangled up. Clarify it a little, give it more meaning. That’s right. That’s better. Now. Just one thing more: couldn’t you possibly increase the over-all tension? That’s it. That’s perfect!”
I threw open the trap door and started down the ladder. But I had miscalculated. The picture was too large for the opening. It wouldn’t even go through diagonally.
“Shrink it down to forty-by-forty-six,” I whispered hoarsely.
“Who are you talking to?” asked Seymore. “You got more lobsters up there?”
“You go sit on the bed,” I ordered. “I’m going to bring the picture down with its back toward you. The way you do, for your rich clients.”
I found a place where the light was good, and slowly turned the picture around. Seymore jumped to his feet and whistled loudly.
“Boy!” he cried. “You’ve sure got something there. And the best period, too. Why, you can get up in the five figures for that, maybe more. Even after my commission. You going to Mr. Stettheimer’s party next week?”
“Yes.”
“Well, fella, I’ll have a nice check for you. By the way, what’s the title?” He picked up the picture and examined the back. “Why, yes, here it is. Very faint, in pencil. And in Pollock’s handwriting, too. It’s a funny title.”
“What is the title, Seymore?”
“Immediately Yours.”
“It’s not so funny,” I said.
Toward the end of the week Zogstein, my neighbor, went off to California. He had said I could borrow his jeep whenever I wanted. So the night of Mr. Stettheimer’s party I drove through Springs, past the broken tree where Pollock was killed, over to the Montauk highway. Mr. Stettheimer’s place is way out, opposite the airport. You take a private road through a thick woods, this opens up into an enormous lawn, and across that, on the edge of Georgica Lake, is the house. It’s all glass and about half a block long; it was designed by Philip Johnson or somebody. It was late, and there were lots of cars parked around. They were well beaten up and had a lot of character, the kind the artists like. I recognized most of them. This was a very exclusive party. But Seymore Harris’ red Jaguar was not there.
Mr. Stettheimer greeted me warmly. He was about eighty years old, I guess, but still frisky and alert. He was a banker, I knew, but except for his little gold-rimmed glasses, it was hard to believe. A long Peruvian serape covered his fat little body; beneath it a pair of faded bathing trunks hung down to his withered knees. He dressed that way because he wanted his guests to feel at home, he wanted to be inconspicuous. And actually, the way the artists dressed, he was. He led me through an enormous hall, hung with abstract pictures frame-to-frame, out onto a terrace overlooking the lake.
There were lots of people talking and dancing. Moving among them were a number of caterers in faultless evening dress carrying trays and glasses. The general effect was as if the peasants had revolted and pressed the nobles into service.
“Where’s Olivia?” Mr. Stettheimer asked, and produced an electric hearing machine from under his serape and held it toward me.
I rather hated to tell him, because he’d been so nice to me. “She ran off with Virgil,” I said. ‘The poet who lived upstairs.”
“Oh, dear me,” he said. “I warned Mrs. Stettheimer that something like that might happen. Oh, dear me. You’d better have a drink.”
He led me through the crowd to a table loaded with food and liquor. I held up my glass to Mr. Stettheimer, and he held up his hearing aid.
“What’s new in the art world?” I asked.
“Nothing much,” answered Mr. Stettheimer absently. “Oh, yes, I forgot. In New York last night, a Leonardo was stolen from the Museum.”
“A Leonardo!” I exclaimed. “But I didn’t know there was one in the country.”
“Nobody thought there was,” he said, “until the day before yesterday. Then Seymore Harris brought one to the Museum. I heard all about it at lunch at the Bankers’ Club today from one of the trustees of the Museum. It will be in the papers tomorrow.”