The Mistress(41)

They talked about the show for about an hour, and Theo thanked him for doing such a good job and hanging it so well, and giving him such a great opportunity for his first gallery show. And then he left, carrying Natasha’s portrait, walked to Boulevard St. Germain, and hailed a cab. He gave the driver the address he remembered on Avenue Montaigne. He knew he couldn’t just ring her doorbell and show up, but there would be a concierge, and hopefully he could call her from downstairs and hand it to her. He wondered if Vladimir would be there.

The building was as fancy as he expected it to be in that neighborhood and particularly on that street, and it was small, with a single apartment on each floor, and some occupying two floors, like theirs. There were only six stories in the building. And there was actually a security guard outside as well as a concierge. And there was an intercom to each apartment. He buzzed where it was marked VS, knowing it was them, and a Russian maid answered. He asked for Natasha, and the woman went to get her, then he heard Natasha’s voice at the other end.

“Hi. It’s Theo. I came to drop something off.” She hesitated for a long moment while he waited, and then he heard her voice again.

“You can come up. Fourth floor.” She buzzed him in, and he went through a glass door, and got into a mirrored elevator big enough for four people, which was large for Paris. The elevator stopped, and he got out. She was standing in the doorway, in blue jeans and ballerina shoes, with a heavy black sweater and her long blond hair loose and tousled, reaching almost to her waist. He handed her the wrapped painting where she stood, and she looked surprised.

“I want you to have it. I was going to keep it because everyone says it’s my best work so far, but it belongs to you.”

“Did the buyer change their mind?” She looked confused, and he shook his head.

“There was no buyer. I wanted to give it to you. I knew it when I saw you last night, but I didn’t want to tell you with all those people around.”

“I want to buy it,” she said fairly, as they stood on the landing with the painting between them, and he shook his head again.

“It’s a gift. It has no price, and it’s not for sale. It’s yours.”

“I can’t just take it from you like that.” She was visibly embarrassed but pleased and very touched. She looked incredibly young when he talked to her. He had noticed it before. He didn’t know how old she was, but she seemed like barely more than a girl, especially with what she wore. She appeared older only when she was all dressed up.

“Why not?” He smiled at her. “I took your face to paint it, now you can take the result.”

“It’s a wonderful portrait. Do you want to help me pick a place to hang it?” she asked cautiously as she stood in the doorway, and he nodded. She stepped aside so he could come in, and he carried the painting for her. He had chosen an antique frame and it was heavy.

He followed her into the apartment, and he immediately noticed the antique boiseries and floors, the art she had hung in the entry, which was mostly her choices, and not as important as most of Vladimir’s, but warmer and more appealing. He walked into the living room after her, which looked like a little sitting room in Versailles, but wasn’t overdone, with delicate silks and damasks. They wandered into the little sitting room, the dining room, and then she took him up the stairs to their bedroom, since she was thinking of hanging it there. She had a seventeenth-century painting of a young girl over the fireplace, and they both had the same thought at the same time. The portrait would be perfect there. He carefully lifted down the one she had hanging, and put the one of her on the same hook, and it was absolutely perfect. They both smiled as they looked at it, and she seemed thrilled.

“I love it, don’t you?” She clapped her hands like a child, and he laughed, watching her. She was more like a young girl than a woman, despite what she’d seen and the life she led with Vladimir.

“Yes, I love it,” he said, smiling at her, pleased that he had made the gesture and given it to her. And what he’d said was true. It belonged with her. He wanted her to have it.

They agreed on a place to put the other painting, on the opposite wall in her bedroom, and he asked her for a hammer and nail. She went to get them, and he hung it for her, and then she looked at him with a question.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were Lorenzo Luca’s son? Especially when Vladimir bought the painting?” She had been about to say “we,” but she was conscious that she didn’t own it. Vladimir did, he had bought it, and unlike Theo’s portrait of her, it was not a gift. She had no ownership in the art he purchased.

“It seemed irrelevant. What difference would it make? I don’t usually tell people. It’s distracting. I don’t like to trade on his name.”

“You don’t need to,” she said softly. “Your work is very good. I’ve been trying to study art history on my own. I’d like to take classes one day at the Sorbonne, but we don’t stay in one place long enough for me to do that, and he doesn’t want me to,” she explained. “Maybe now that we have the apartment here, I can take some classes, or hire a tutor.”

“You already seem very knowledgeable to me.” He had gleaned it from the discussion they’d had on the boat, when he delivered his father’s painting. “You probably know more now than some of the professors you’d have classes with,” he said honestly, and she was flattered. She had learned a lot on the Internet and from what she read in her books and magazines.