One Way or Another(32)
Marco agreed that wherever was most comfortable for the sitter was always best.
“It’s a place of atmosphere,” Ghulbian said. “It stands quite alone amid the marshes. There are just the cries of the waterfowl and the rush of the tidal river, the ‘bore,’ as it’s called when it turns and begins to flow inland again. I love to watch the deep brown water surging toward the house, the powerful undercurrents that swirl beneath the surface.”
He finally got up and began to pace the room, as Marco had suspected he’d wanted to do.
“No grass ever looks greener than marsh grass.” Ghulbian stopped and looked out the window again as though he could see the marsh before his eyes right that minute. “It’s more inviting than any well-tended country house lawn with its simpering young women and afternoon tea beneath the trees. There are no trees in marshland, no young women pouring tea, only that inviting green grass that will swallow you up faster than you can even think about taking that final step forward.”
He turned with a sudden smile, holding out both hands, palms up. “Of course, I’m only joking. Nobody drowns in my marshes.”
“I imagine it’s the silence that attracts you,” Marco said. “For me, it would be the color. That perfect green.”
“Then you must come and see it. Paint it.”
They made an appointment for a few days later.
Marco saw the enthusiasm on Ghulbian’s face; the man obviously loved his silent, lonely home in the marshes.
“I’ll come,” Marco said, surprising himself. “I’ll paint you there. It’s your place.”
For the first time Ghulbian smiled a genuine smile, not forced or polite.
“Then you will make my dream come true,” he said.
24
Of course, Ghulbian sent his helicopter for Marco. It was evening, and already getting dark, when he arrived. He had expected the house to be typical Ghulbian over-the-top ostentatious, and he was not disappointed. The front door, opened by a manservant, led onto a long paneled hall where an immense crystal chandelier, surely bought from some Venetian palace, tinkled in the draft. Stained-glass windows in reds and greens lent a dim shimmer, while soaring above everything, an opaque domed ceiling gave a cathedral-like air.
An upper landing ran across the back of the house, branching off on either side into corridors which faced over the central hall. There were many paintings on the walls, not crammed together but properly hung and lit with sufficient space to give each its own area, so they might be better viewed. Ghulbian was, after all, a man who appreciated the arts.
The subdued gray of the walls, the dark earth tones of the furnishings matching the mansion’s exterior, seemed forbidding, a touch of the movie House of Horrors, Marco thought. Except, that is, for the pair of red leather chairs, set in front of a blazing fire in the drawing room where the servant left him. Between the chairs was a black leather ottoman on which rested an ornate silver tray that Marco felt surely must be by Paul de Lamerie, the famous eighteenth-century silversmith. On that tray stood a bottle of Patron Silver tequila. Not your usual supermarket bottle either; this one looked as though it might have been made by Lalique. There was certainly nothing understated about Ahmet Ghulbian’s possessions. He had the money and he bought only the best.
Marco walked toward the fire. The rug under his feet was soft, a symphony of pale corals and greens, not silk though, and he guessed it was probably Turkish and certainly of the finest hand-knotted wool.
The curtains were of a dark green heavy corded fabric held back with thick gold tasseled cords. There were no lights outside and the night looked very black. Marco thought “secluded” was not the correct word for this place. It was “remote.”
He wondered why a man who could buy anything he wanted, any house he wanted, in any part of the world, would choose this godforsaken place. There was not a sound outside, not even of a dog leaping and barking a welcome. But there was Mehitabel.
Marco did not hear her come in, then there she was, standing beside him.
She smiled. “I startled you. I’m sorry. I came to see what I might offer you to drink. Mr. Ghulbian always keeps excellent champagne chilled if you wish for a glass? Of course, if there is anything else you might like, from wine to … well, I suppose beer.”
“A beer would be good, thank you. Dos Equis, if you have it.” He put her to the test by ordering a Mexican beer but she was unfazed.
“Of course.” She gave him a smile that upturned only the corners of her lips. “I shall get it for you myself.”
It occurred to Marco that except for the helper at the door, he had seen no other servants. Surely, with a place this size and an owner as demanding and discriminating as Ahmet, there must be at least a personal valet, a housekeeper, a cook or chef, even a butler. Yet there was only this woman, who placed the chilled bottle of beer on the priceless silver Lamerie tray and set a glass straight from the freezer, white with cold, next to it. She noticed Marco flinch as he saw what she had done and this time she laughed.
“Mr. Ghulbian wants his things to be used the way they were when they were first designed and made. Antiques are only antiques because we have made them that way, is what he believes. He uses them, makes them his own. Their original owners would surely be grateful to him for doing so.”
Marco had to admit he had never thought about it that way but Ghulbian had a point, though an iced beer bottle on the three-hundred-year-old silver was a bit much.