"No, thank you."
I went back to Silvers and reported. "The old cutthroat," he said. "Whenever I send anybody over to his place, he tries the same dodge. He's a born bargain hunter. He started out with a cart full of junk. Pretty soon he was selling whole trainloads of scrap. Then he went into armaments. Sold arms and scrap to the Japanese. When we went to war, he transferred the account to the U.S. Do you realize that for every Degas he buys, a few thousand people die?"
I had never seen Silvers so angry. "Then why do you sell to him?" I asked. "Doesn't that make you an accomplice?"
Silvers burst into an angry laugh. "Why do I sell to him? Because selling's my business. I can't operate like a Quaker. What do you mean an accomplice? In what? In the war? That's ridiculous!"
I had quite a time calming him down—that was my punishment for trying to be logical.
"I can't stand these merchants of death," said Silvers, but in a gentler tone. "I got five thousand more out of him that the valuation I'd put on the picture; I should have tacked on another five thousand."
He poured himself a whisky-and-soda. "Have some?" he asked.
"No thanks. I've had too much coffee."
That's the way to take revenge, I thought. With money. If I could do mat, I'd be able to escape from my past. "Maybe you'll get another chance," I said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he came back soon. I told him the other Degas would make a marvelous pair with the one he bought and that I personally—though of course it was all a matter of taste—found the other Degas almost more interesting and beautiful."
Silvers looked at me thoughtfully. "You're developing!" he said. "Tell you what I'll do. If Cooper comes back for the other Degas within a month, I'll give you a hundred-dollar bonus."
I caught sight of Natasha outside the Plaza. She was crossing the square to Fifty-ninth Street. She seemed deep in thought and didn't see me.
"Natasha," I said, hurrying over to her. "What are you thinking about so hard?"
She was quick on the draw. "That's easy," she said. "I was thinking about taking you to lunch.''
"Alas," I said. "I'm too old for a gigolo. And I haven't enough charm."
"You have none, at all, but it doesn't matter. Forget your old-fashioned principles. We all eat together on credit. Nobody pays until the end of the month. So you won't be embarrassed. Besides, there's somebody I want you to meet. An old lady. She wants to buy some paintings, and I've told her about you."
"But Natasha! I don't sell paintings."
"No, but Silvers does. And if you bring him customers, hell pay you a commission."
"What?"
"A commission. It's customary. Didn't you know that half the people in New York live on the commissions they get out of each other?"
"No."
"Then it's time you found out. Come along. I'm hungry. Or are you scared?"
She gave me a challenging look. "You're very beautiful," I said.
"Bravo!"
"If anything comes of the commission, you're having champagne and caviar on me."
"Bravo! D'accord."
The restaurant was rather crowded. I had the impression of being in a cage full of butterflies and assorted birds. Waiters were dashing about. As usual, Natasha seemed to know everybody.
"You know half New York," I said.
"Nonsense. Just a few people in advertising and fashion."
"What do we eat?" I asked.
"For the sake of your puritanical principles, I suggest the summer menu."
"What's that?"
"A polite name for a diet menu. Mostly rabbit food. Everybody's on a diet in this country."
"Why? They look healthy enough to me."
"It's the youth cult skinny people are supposed to look younger." She lit a cigarette and gave me a glance of mock severity. "All right, I know half the world is starving, but let's not talk about it right now. You were going to, weren't you?"
"Not really."
"Who do you think you're kidding?"
"Well, I was thinking of Europe. They're not dieting over there. You can't diet with a food shortage."
She peered at me out of half-closed eyes. "It seems to me," she said, "that you think about Europe too much."
I was amazed at her perspicacity. "I try not to."
She laughed. "Here comes our old lady."
I had expected a corpulent harridan, a feminine version of Cooper. Instead, I saw a tidy little woman with crisply curled silvery hair and red cheeks. She was about seventy and looked no more than fifty. One could see at a glance that she had led a very sheltered life. Her skin, fragile but scarcely wrinkled, had the quality of tissue paper. Only her hands had aged, and her neck, a good part of which was concealed by a pearl choker.
She questioned me about Paris, of which she had fond memories. I was careful to say nothing about the life I had led there. I talked as if the war did not exist. With my eyes on Natasha, I spoke of the Seine, the lie Saint-Louis and the Quai des Grands-Augustins, of summer afternoons in. the Luxembourg and evenings on the Champs-Elysées or in the Bois. A nostalgic look came into Natasha's eyes, and that made it easier for me.
The luncheon was served with dispatch, and in less than an hour Mrs. Whymper rose to go. "Perhaps you could take me to see the Silvers collection," she said. "Would you call for me tomorrow at five?"
"I'll be glad to," I said. I was about to add certain explanations, but Natasha kicked me under the table.
"That was painless," said Natasha when she had gone. Then she laughed. "Weren't you going to tell her you only sWept the floor and opened crates? Quite unnecessary. There are lots of people here who make a business of advising the helpless rich and taking them around to galleries."
"Touts!" I said.
"Advisers," Natasha corrected me. "Honest young men who protect poor helpless millionaires from thieving art dealers. Are you going to do it?"
"Yes," I said.
"Bravo!"
"For your sake."
"Double bravo!"
"To tell you the truth, I'm more corruptible than you think."
She clapped her hands discreetly. "In a minute you'll be almost human. The statue is beginning to move."
"But weren't you surprised to see it come off so smoothly? After all, Mrs. Whymper doesn't know me from Adam."
"It was because you spoke of things she loves: Paris, summer in the Bois, the Seine, the quais, the book stalls ..."
"But not a word about paintings."
"Exactly. That was very clever of you."
We walked along Fiftieth Street. I felt light and happy. We passed the Savoy auction rooms. A load of rugs was being carried out. The street was alive, and my black night seemed far behind me.
"Will I be seeing you tonight?" I asked.
She nodded.
"At the hotel?"
"Yes."
I retraced my steps. The sun was covered with a film of dust. The air was hot and smelled of exhaust fumes. I stopped outside the Savoy auction rooms and after some hesitation went in. The place was half empty, and everyone seemed half asleep. The auctioneer, looking down from a sort of pulpit, was trying to arouse interest in some figures of saints. One by one they were brought in and set down on a platform. Nobody wanted them very much, and they were going for a song. What can you do with saints in wartime, except put them in jail? I went out again and studied the windows. In among the heavy Renaissance furniture there were two Chinese bronzes. One was obviously a Ming copy, but something told me that the other might be authentic. The patina was poor and may even have been tampered with, but even so . . . My guess was that some ignoramus had taken it for a copy and tried to improve on it. I went back in and consulted the catalogue. The bronzes were listed without dates, in among pewter pitchers, brass candlesticks, and other miscellaneous objects. I felt sure they would go for very little—none of the big dealers was likely to go out of his way for such an assortment of junk.
Why shouldn't I buy this bronze and sell it to Lowy Senior, wh
o couldn't possibly have noticed it? Then, as I strolled on, I started to think of Natasha and the night she had brought me back to the hotel in the Rolls. I had been silent during the latter part of the drive and had left her with unseemly haste. For a ridiculous reason: an urgent need to empty my bladder. Once relieved, I had been very angry with myself, certain that Natasha must be furious; maybe it was all over between us. Next day I changed my mind. Of course my behavior had been silly. But hadn't it been romantic of me to suffer in silence rather than exhibit my mortality, have the chauffeur stop at the nearest hotel, and keep Natasha waiting in the car? Besides, I reflected, I wouldn't have acted so foolishly if I hadn't been fond of Natasha, and the thought gave me a delicious feeling of tenderness.
Deep in my tender musings, I paid no attention to where I was going. Then suddenly I was outside the Lowys' shop and saw Lowy Junior standing in the center of a group of white Louis Seize chairs, gazing dreamily at the street.
"How are you, Mr. Lowy?" I asked.
"So-so. My brother's still at lunch. We go separately, you know. Somebody has to mind the shop. And besides, he eats kosher, whereas I—I eat American."
The Lowy brothers reminded me of the original Siamese twins, one of whom had been a drinker, the other a teetotaler. Since they had the same blood stream, the unfortunate teetotaler was forced to share his brother's spells of drunkenness and the ensuing hangovers as well. Proving that virtue is its own reward.
"I've found a bronze," I said. "It's up for sale at a third-class auction."
Lowy Junior made a disparaging gesture. "Tell my my fascist brother about it. I'm not in the mood for business right now. I've got my life to think about." He paused for a moment, then decided to speak. "Tell me the honest truth—what do you advise? Should I get married or shouldn't I?"
A ticklish question. A yes or no could be equally disastrous.
"In Catholic Italy," I ventured, I'd say no. In America it's simpler: here you can get divorced."
"Who's talking about divorce? I'm talking about marriage."
It was clear to me that when a man really wants to get married, he doesn't ask for advice, but I was saved from having to say so by the appearance of Lowy Senior, floating in well-being after a copious meal.
He beamed at me. "Well, how's the old parasite?"
"Silvers? He's just given me a raise of his own free will."
"He can afford it. How much? A dollar a month?"
"A hundred."
"What?"
They both gaped at me. Lowy Senior was first to recover his composure. "He should have made it two hundred."
"He did, he did," I replied. "But I turned it down. I don't think I'm worth that much yet. Maybe in another year."
"The trouble with you," Lowy Senior grumbled, "is that you can't be serious."
"Oh yes I can," I said. "I can be serious about bronzes."
I told him about my discovery. "I advise you to bid on it Everybody else will think it's a fake."
"But what if it is a fake?'
"I don't think it is. I suppose you want me to insure you against error and loss?"
"Why not?" Lowy grinned. "With your income."
"If that's how you feel about it," I said, "I'll buy it myself." I was disappointed. I had expected a little more gratitude for the tip, "How was the lentil soup?" I asked.
"Lentil soup? How do you know I had lentil soup?"
I pointed to the crushed lentil on his lapel. 'Too heavy for this time of year, Mr. Lowy. Watch out, or you'll have a stroke. Good afternoon, gentlemen."
"My goodness, Mr. Rossi Can't you take a joke? You've been a good friend. It's all setfled. How high should I go?"
"Let me take another look at it first"
"Good idea. I can't do it myself. If they see me poking around, they'll smell a rat. They know me. Then you'll come back and tell me about it?"
"Of course."
I felt strangely bouyant as I walked away. I had been so pleased with the idea of doing a little business on my own, and then without a thought I had turned it over to Lowy. But now I knew why. Something was changing in my life. For the first time in years I was looking forward to something. But because this feeling was so utterly new, my uncertainty was as great as my hopes. It was to propitiate a fate that might still turn against me that I had called Lowy's attention to the bronze. That was why my tender thoughts of Natasha had led me to his door. Call it superstition.
XV
Next morning when I announced Mrs. Whymper's projected visit to Silvers, he reacted with indifference. "Whymper? Whymper? When's she coming? At five? I'm not sure I'll have time for her."
I was well aware that the lazy crocodile had nothing else to do but wait for customers and drink whisky. "All right," I said. "Let's put it off until you have time."
"No," he said wearily. "Better bring her. It's always best to get these things over with."
Good, I thought. That will give me a another chance to look at the bronze.
"How did you like Cooper's setup?" Silvers asked.
"Very much. He must have good advisers."
"He does. He himself doesn't know a thing."
It occurred to me that Silvers himself didn't know very much outside the limited field of French Impressionism. He had nothing to be arrogant about; the Impressionists were his business, just as munitions and scrap iron were Cooper's. In a way Cooper came off better—in addition to his paintings he had magnificent furniture, whereas Silvers had nothing but upholstered sofas and armchairs and mass-produced modern furniture.
He must have guessed my thoughts. "It would be easy to furnish my house with eighteenth-century pieces," he said. "If I don't, it's because of the pictures. All that baroque and rococo rubbish only distracts the attention. Bric-a-brac from the dead past. What sense does it make, in a modern house?"
"It's different with Cooper," I said. "He doesnt have to sell his pictures. He can fit them into his own setting."
Silvers laughed. "If he really wanted to put them in his own setting, he should furnish the house with mortars and machine guns."
He often displayed such animosity toward his customers. But in expressing his contempt for them, he only showed me that in reality he envied them. He persuaded himself that his cynicism preserved his freedom; but it was a cheap freedom, comparable to an employee's freedom to run down his boss behind his back. Like many half-educated people, Silvers was given to ridiculing everything he did not understand—a convenient defense mechanism, except that it didn't quite work because he himself remained dimly aware of what he was doing. All in all, I came to the conclusion that the man was a desperate neurotic, and as far as I was concerned, that was the one thing that made him interesting. Once the novelty had worn off, I found his lectures on art and life rather tedious.
During the lunch hour I went back to the auction rooms. They were not at all crowded, for there was to be no auction that day. For a few minutes I pretended to be looking at the Renaissance furniture, then at the clutter of antique weaponry—swords, spears, and breastplates. Finally I asked to be shown the bronze. Now that I had ceased to be an indifferent onlooker and had become a prospective buyer, I found myself looking with hostility at the other customers. These people had never struck me before as particularly objectionable; today I detested them as potential competitors. Holding the bronze in my hand, I stood by the window with my back to the enormous showroom. Fondling the bronze, I looked out at the street, knowing that Natasha might appear at any moment like a naiad amidst a flock of penguins. I was seized by the vague agitation that had made me unfair to Silvers and would no doubt make me unfair to others. I felt it in the palms of my hands. I wanted this bronze and I knew that I somehow identified it with Natasha. At last, after all these years, I wanted something that had nothing to do with survival.
I put the bronze back in the window. "It's not old," I remarked to the man who had brought it in for me, an elderly employee who was chewing gum and seemed totally indifferent to my opinio
n. Slowly I left the auction rooms and crossed the street to the restaurant where I had eaten with Natasha. I didn't go in, but I could have sworn that a kind of aura set this entrance apart from all the other doorways on the street.
Mrs. Whymper lived on Fifth Avenue, across from the park. I arrived punctually at five. She seemed to be in no hurry. The only paintings in sight were a few Romneys and a Ruisdael. "Is it too early for a Martini?" she asked me.
She had one in front of her, a very dry one, as I could see by the color. It looked like vodka. "Is that a vodka Martini?" I asked.