Framed

  “That’s Reinhard. . . Have you seen any sweet canapés doing the rounds?”

  “Reinhard . . . the auctioneer?”

  “Of course! With Dalloyau, I always like the sweet stuff.”

  “Listen, I can see a tray, over to the left. If you can reach me some of those little salmon things for me, we could do a trade.”

  She smiles, we do the swap and she orders two more glasses of champagne to wash it all down.

  “Lovely exhibition,” she says.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I say with my mouth full.

  She bursts out laughing. My right sleeve is tucked well into my pocket. Among all these society people it might look like a rather snobbish pose. A particular type. She feverishly puts away a succession of coffee-flavoured mini éclairs, and I take the opportunity to slip away. Reinhard is talking to Delarge, who’s still fuming. This time, I describe a parabola round the room to end up in front of the painting closest to them. I remember a conversation with Coste about Reinhard’s lineage, auctioneers from father to son for as long as the profession has existed. He authenticates, values and sells a good share of everything that goes through the salerooms at Drouot. What a job that is: striking a hammer at ten thousand francs a go . . . enough to give Jacques his doubts, him and his whole toolbox.

  Delarge is irritated and speaking in a half whisper; I can only get half of what he’s saying.

  “He pisses me off, you know. . . I’ve been preparing for this exhibition for two years . . . and the government commission with all the shit we’re in . . .!”

  Reinhard grumbles something inaudible.

  Right, let’s recap: Delarge has got problems with one of the foals from his stable who seems a bit quick to buck and rear. Reinhard, who’s another thoroughbred but on a different racecourse, is in on the secret. All these people are in a mess, and none of that is going to get my cause ahead by so much as one length. I’ll have to drum up the resolve to corner the dealer before his private view falls apart, get him to cough up what he can and go home. The champagne’s gone to my head a bit, and it won’t be long before I run out of patience. Reinhard is moving away towards Linnel, this is my only opportunity to take on Delarge. I pat his upper arm, he turns round and takes a slight step back. Oddly enough, the alcohol has made the job easier for me.

  “You don’t know me, and I won’t bother you for long. I tried to get hold of you at the gallery to talk to you about something which dates back to 1964. The Young Painters’ Exhibition. I read in the press cuttings that you were there, and I wanted to know . . .”

  He looks away, his cheeks are flushing like a child’s and his hands are shaking like an old man’s. He’s already wished I would go and roast in hell a hundred times.

  “I can’t . . . there are lots of people I need to see . . . I . . .”

  “You spoke to a group, there were four of them, ‘The Objectivists’. You took an interest in their work. I just wanted to know what you remember of them, try to think . . .”

  “. . . The who? . . . ’64 is a long time ago. . . Maybe . . . twenty-five years ago. . . I was just starting out. . . The journalist must have got it wrong. . . Anyway, I never went to the Young Painters’ Exhibition, or even to the Paris Biennale. . . I can’t be of any use to you . . .”

  I hold him back by his sleeve but he pulls away and makes off without another word. He goes back towards Linnel and Reinhard. They’ve stopped staring at me now that I’m looking at them. Only Linnel has kept his eyes riveted on me and is staring me up and down. . . I have a horrible feeling his gaze is stopping at the end of my right arm, buried in my pocket. Is he sniggering? Perhaps. . . I don’t know where to look any more, my lower arm is gripped with cramp, but now I know that somewhere, in all this crush, there is what Delmas would call a “seat of presumption”.

  All of a sudden I feel small, disabled and afraid of losing the thing that gave me strength – the pleasure of eradicating a culprit. All these people are beyond me, bigger than me, nothing here belongs to me, not the paintings or the ties, not the complicated words or the champagne, not the sound of all that pontificating, the perfumed sweatiness or the limp handshakes, and not the agonies of art and its obscure conflicts. I was made for the dust that comes off the baize, for silence skimming over ivory, for balls colliding sweetly and Angelo’s exaltation, for the smell of cigars and old men in braces, for blue chalk and that permanent gleam of serenity deep in my own eyes. And it’s to get that back some day, perhaps, that I have to stay a little longer in all this absurd circus.

  Someone jogs me, and I don’t even have time to complain before the girl has carried on, heading straight for Delarge and coming to stand squarely in front of him. From the front I wouldn’t know, but from behind you can make out a fierce determination. She’s talking loudly, and the three men have now completely forgotten me. Perfect diversion. Delarge’s face goes to pieces again. Not a good evening. This thought is rather comforting and gives me my second wind. Linnel bursts out laughing so loudly that, this time, the conversations around them stop. I go over towards the buffet again to listen, like everyone else there.

  “I’m not interested in your private view, Monsieur Delarge, but this seems to be the only way to see you face to face!”

  Excuse me? How many of us are there exactly in the same situation?

  “Please, mademoiselle, is this the time to come and make a scandal?” Delarge says, his cheeks burning.

  “Scandal? Who are you to talk about scandal? My paper will publish a whole dossier on your fraud!”

  “Be careful what you insinuate, mademoiselle.”

  “I’m not insinuating anything, I’m shouting out loud for everyone to hear!”

  Barking mad and furious, she has cupped her hands round her mouth and started shouting to the room at large.

  “Anyone here who’s bought work by the famous Cubist Juan Alfonso can start worrying now!”

  “Quite right too!” adds Linnel, bent over laughing.

  Delarge throws him a filthy look and pushes the girl away, waving at the two henchmen on the door, who materialize instantly beside him.

  “This woman’s mad, my lawyer will take care of all this! Get her out of here!”

  The two men almost pick her up and drag her towards the door. Now I don’t know if I’m dreaming or witnessing a brilliantly staged event. She’s struggling and still going on with her infernal incantations.

  “The truth about Juan Alfonso, in the May issue of Artefact! On sale everywhere!”

  The crowd has frozen, for one everlasting moment. The silent, gaping mouths no longer close, the glasses stay poised against lips, and arms held up in the air – stiff with surprise – no longer come back down. A Hieronymous Bosch panel, in three dimensions.

  The only one who still knows how to talk is Linnel.

  “Wonderful. . . Wonderful. . . This is wonderful . . .”

  It doesn’t look as if his provocation is going down too well. Especially with Delarge, who clearly has an overwhelming urge to thump him and tell him how ungrateful he is. A new wave of people draws gently towards the buffet. Someone automatically hands me a glass, probably because the general consensus is that everyone needs one. A scandal . . . And, seen from where I’m standing, a wonderful episode, as Linnel says. Delarge seems to have more than one dodgy scandal in his wake. Never heard of the Cubist whose name I’ve already forgotten, or of the nefarious goings-on around him. I adopt a degree of compassion for this man, this art dealer who should have triumphed this evening and who’s done nothing but suffer attacks from the press, from his own artist and from snoopers like me. I should have stayed for private views more often.

  People are gradually picking up their conversations again. There are trays of canapés back on the tables.

  “That girl was wonderful, wasn’t she? I mean, turning the Pompidou Centre into a Grévin museum, not bad . . .”

  The words just slipped into my ear, and I swivel round.

  Linnel, smiling
from ear to ear.

  The man must be a bit touched in the head.

  “Yes. . . It came over as a bit of a publicity stunt, didn’t it? A funny publicity stunt, but still,” I say.

  “Perhaps, but I really like rude people. You get so bored in scrums like this. And then . . . I’m here because I have to be – I’m the one who did all this stuff that’s hanging on the walls – but what about the others?”

  “The others? They like this sort of thing, that’s all.”

  “What about you, do you like it?”

  “I dunno. If I had to say something, it would be a bit rude.”

  He laughs and so do I but my laugh gets strangled in my throat when he slips his arm under mine. My bad one.

  “Come with me, I’ll give you a little personal tour.”

  Before setting off round the rooms, he fills two glasses and hands me one, and I just stand there like a prick, stuck between the glass being offered to me and the stranger’s hand parked against my ribs.

  He gets me to clink glasses, and I obey but slightly lose my balance. He stops me in front of a painting.

  “Look at this one, it’s an old one, from ’71.”

  I don’t know what he wants from me, whether this is a carefully thought out manoeuvre or the latest escapade of a drunken artist. Either way, he knows that I’ve caused his dealer some grief, and perhaps that’s what he likes. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve had a look at his work; I went too quickly earlier and I didn’t see a thing. I always tend to like the frames more than what’s in them. Long brushstrokes of a rather dirty green, you get the feeling each stream of colour was painted in a straight line, then diverted towards the end. Then he covered the whole thing with white, taking over the entire surface. I don’t really know what to think of it. It’s totally abstract. That’s all.

  “Does it do anything for you?”

  “Something, yes. . . You know, I don’t know anything about it . . .”

  “Good, specialists wind me up. And I’d really like someone like you to tell me what they think this evening. So, what does it say to you?”

  “You should talk to someone else. I only go by the response from my retina – primal and reactionary. That’s what everyone says when they’re scared to commit, and I’m one of them. The bottom line is I can’t tell between a good painting and a bad one. Can you give me a tip?”

  “Yes, it’s simple, you just have to have seen a few thousand of them already, that’s all. So, what does it say to you?”

  “Pff. . . If I really think. . . It might make me think of a mother sheltering her daughter under her coat because it’s raining.”

  Curious silence.

  I said it so earnestly that he isn’t even laughing. It just came to me on impulse.

  “Right, okay, everyone sees what they want in it. I wasn’t thinking of that when I did it but . . . well. . . I can’t say anything. And do you know how much it costs?”

  “If you’re someone who gets exhibited at the Pompidou Centre, it must cost a bomb.”

  “More than that. This one’s 125,000. One night’s work, if I remember right.”

  Misfire. It doesn’t impress me. I once saw a pile of empty beer cans come into the gallery, and they were worth twice that.

  “And how much for the dealer?”

  “Too much. The rule’s fifty-fifty, but we have a special arrangement.”

  “And you work at night?”

  “Oh yes, and I’m one of the only painters in the world who likes artificial light. That way I have a surprise at dawn . . .”

  He hails a passing waiter in a white jacket, and the man comes back a minute later with some champagne. He wants to clink glasses again. A couple comes over towards us, the woman kisses Linnel, and the man does the same. The artist proffers his cheeks unenthusiastically.

  “Oh, Alain, it’s fantastic. Are you pleased? It’s really powerful, you can feel a buzz, do you know what I mean, the pieces create such a dialogue, it’s excellent.”

  He thanks them as if he has a clothes peg on his nose and drags me somewhere else. The man’s mad.

  “What does ‘the pieces create a dialogue’ mean?” I ask.

  I actually know better than anyone, it’s the expression Coste used to use. But I just wanted to get him to talk.

  “Nothing. If we started listening to that sort of crap . . .”

  “Still. . . I find that impressive, these people who speak in code. Without it, you can’t get anywhere.”

  “Really? I hate every kind of jargon. André Breton used to say ‘any philosopher I don’t understand is a bastard!’ I quite often laugh till I cry when I read the learned articles about my daubings. You know, contemporary painting lends itself to that sort of thing much better than, say, music. What on earth could you say about music, hey? Art critics don’t talk about what they see; they just try to be even more abstract than the canvases. They even admit it themselves.”

  I’ve read a shed-load of those incomprehensible catalogues.

  “Still . . . it’s impressive.”

  “Right, nothing could be easier, we can wander gently between the guests and I’ll do a simultaneous translation for you, okay?”

  The champagne makes me laugh mischievously. My brain must be starting to look a bit like an emulsion of brut impérial.

  “Okay.”

  I may well be inebriated but I’m not forgetting a thing . . . not Delarge or my stump. Whatever he may have in mind, Linnel could be a useful joker to have in my pack.

  Without looking for anyone in particular we come within earshot of two slightly ageing women, one of whom is on particularly eloquent form. The smoke from a cigarette in the corner of her mouth is keeping her left eye closed.

  “You know, Linnel often plays on chromatic equivalences, but still . . . there’s that need for implosion . . .”

  Linnel’s aside:

  “What she means is I always use the same colours, and ‘implosion’ means you have to look at the pictures for a long time before anything happens.”

  The old dear goes on:

  “You get a strong sense of the matt qualities of the surface . . . then there’s something emerging, here . . . breaking through the veil . . .”

  Linnel:

  “She’s saying off-white’s a bland colour and you can see what’s behind it.”

  It seems to me the exhibition rooms are getting fuller and fuller. The two old girls move away, but others take their place, a couple in which the woman doesn’t dare say a thing until the bloke has spoken. He hesitates as if absolutely compelled to express an opinion.

  “It’s. . . It’s interesting,” he says.

  Linnel turns to me with a nasty glint in his eye.

  “With him it’s not complicated, he just wants to say it’s rubbish.”

  I laugh again, quite openly this time. He has a way about him that I really like, he’s the disillusioned artist who couldn’t give a damn about the decorum and the pretentious song and dance that revolves around anything set up as dogma. Anything except for what he does, on his own, at home. His daubing. The sacred thing he doesn’t talk about. Those moments I myself have experienced when you feel you are the author, the actor and the only spectator.

  “Hey, let’s go and get shit-faced,” he asks me, absolutely seriously.

  “Let’s do that!” I’ve answered without even realizing it.

  I do wonder where he picked up that vocabulary, it’s like listening to René. Could Linnel be the prodigal working-class son who first started painting in wood primer, doing landscapes of suburban wastelands and still-lifes of buggered mopeds? I don’t know if it’s the champagne or the bloke’s gentle irony, but I’m feeling much better than when I arrived.

  We clink glasses.

  “Has your dealer got a government commission on his back? I know I’m prying . . .”

  “Prying? You’re joking . . . it’s in all the papers, a bitch of a fresco that’ll cover a whole wall of the Ministry buildi
ng. And it’s not him who’s got a government commission on his back, it’s me.”

  I give a long, loud whistle.

  “. . . You? Well, this must be the year of the Linnel! The Pompidou Centre and a government commission! What a triumph! What luck!”

  “Yeah, really, 300 square feet . . . and I don’t have a clue what to put up there for them. . . They want to inaugurate it next year.”

  “Have you started on it?”

  “Yes and no. . . I’ve got a vague idea. . . It’s going to be called ‘Hoodathawt’, a 250-foot dick coming out of the building, all in pinks and purples. What do you think the Minister will make of me then?”

  For a moment I thought he was serious. Delarge has got plenty to worry about with a nutter like him. I think I have a better understanding of what is going on, the poor dealer is dependent on an artist who is quite capable of going off on one at the height of his success. His six-foot by three-foot paintings are already overpriced, so I dread to think how much the fresco’s costing.

  “I’m going to find something to drink, will you wait for me?”

  I nod. Someone’s just smacked a deafening “Hello!” into my left ear.

  Coste.

  “I’m a bit late because they were so awkward on the door, I’ve lost my invitation. . . How are you? I didn’t know you came to private views at the Pompidou Centre. Do you know Linnel? I mean . . . do you know him personally?”

  She must have seen me drinking with him. And that would intrigue Coste, seeing the ex-hanger from her gallery knocking back drinks with an artist from the Pompidou Centre.

  “I didn’t even know him by name before getting here. And do you like his paintings?” I ask her before she has a chance to ask me.