Intimacies(28)

We had reached the exhibition space, which was rapidly emptying out. An usher approached and asked if we were attending the dinner, and if so, could we please make our way downstairs. Eline and I looked at each other, Jana was nowhere in sight, and after a moment we went down to the museum lobby, where an elaborate scene had been produced. There were long banquet tables covered in white cloth. At various stations around the lobby they had set up spreads of food in perfect imitation of the paintings in the exhibition.

It’s like an inversion of Zeuxis and Parrhasius, Eline said with an amused smile. I tried to recall the specifics of the reference, something that I had learned in school, a story about a contest to determine the best painter in ancient Greece. I remembered that Zeuxis created a painting of grapes so realistic that birds swept down to peck at the panel. That was only half the story, and I couldn’t remember what followed, what the rival painter Parrhasius had produced. The image of the birds swooping down through the crowd, their wings beating upon the panel, had subsumed the rest of the narrative. In any case, as Eline had said the scene in the lobby was certainly a perfect inversion of the painting Zeuxis had made, they had even set up frames around each tableau, through which guests were invited to reach, in order to take a piece of cheese or a leg of meat or indeed to pluck a grape.

I was sure Jana must be pleased, it was an impressive, even ostentatious, display. The room was crowded with delighted guests, the noise and chatter of their appreciation. Jana appeared behind us at that moment, slinging an arm around my shoulder, and asked what we thought. Eline said at once that it was wonderful, and Jana said that they had commissioned a food artist to make the dioramas, a young woman who had studied at the Rijksakademie and was now getting commissions from all the big biennials. She was whisked away before she could continue, I saw that she was animated by the success of the evening. There was no formal seating plan, instead there was a towering stack of plates piled on a table set in the middle of the lobby. Guests were crowding around the paintings, plates in hand, sawing away at sides of meat and cheese wheels through the various picture frames, the entire scene was bizarre and amusing.

I thought of Adriaan, it occurred to me that this was the world he had inhabited with Gaby. They would have circulated through this room with ease, I was sure that between them they would have known most of the people in attendance, in some ways it was their world even more than it was Jana’s. I felt a rush of fear crowd into me. I was not of this place. I had an image of Adriaan, together with Gaby again, for a moment it was as if they were there in the room. Around us, lines were forming. Shall we? Eline asked gently, as if aware of my distraction. I like the look of that Clara Peeters.

She indicated a display of cheeses and said with a laugh, I think our dinner will consist of cheese and bread, the fish and lobster have already been depleted. It was true, happy diners were now sitting down at the banquet tables, their plates heavy with food. Servers circulated with pitchers of wine, everything had been thought of. We joined the line and then reached through the frame to cut slices of cheese. Eline took an apple and some other fruit from another display, It is wonderfully executed, she murmured as she bit into a peach and surveyed the scene. If you look, the lighting has been adjusted to mimic the paintings. She gestured to the lighting rig above. Even the wreckage is somehow funny and interesting, you never get to see the paintings in this state.

A while later, Jana joined us. She sat down in the chair next to me and slipped her heels off. What a night, she said. She sounded tired, the words a little ambiguous, the evening might have been a success or a disaster in her eyes. Eline said, It’s wonderful, you must be very pleased. Jana leaned forward eagerly. What did you think of the exhibition? she asked. Eline reached for Jana’s hands and grasped them in her own, It’s a triumph. There was a great deal of kindness in her voice, and although I did not doubt the sincerity of her words, I could see she was aware of how much they meant to Jana. Jana nodded as if relieved, and a little later Eline stood up and said that she needed to go. It was such a pleasure to meet you, she said to me, and although the words were mere convention, I again felt she meant them. Can we meet again? she said, and Jana immediately said that she would put us in touch.

Eline smiled and said good night. As she watched her go, Jana yawned, the crowd was beginning to disperse and it was as if she had officially clocked off, she reached for her glass of wine. Isn’t she lovely? Did you like her? she asked. Very much, I said. How did you meet?

She was in front of my building.

What do you mean?

Her brother was the man who was attacked—you remember, in that mugging last month.

I looked at her, startled.

She didn’t tell you? Jana drank from her glass. That’s how we met, she was standing in front of the apartment building, maybe one week after the attack. It was so clear she didn’t belong there, I thought she was lost, or I don’t know what, but for some reason I stopped and asked if she was okay. She looked at me and then she burst into tears. We went to the café around the corner and she told me what had happened, that her brother had been attacked and beaten while in the neighborhood, that he had been hospitalized for over a week.

Jana reached over and squeezed my hand, her manner warm and affectionate. You know, I’m sorry not to have been in touch. The exhibition has taken up all my time.

But he’s fine? I asked. Her brother?

Eline’s brother? I think so, she said with a shrug. Although I don’t think there’s been much progress in the case. He can’t remember anything. He doesn’t even know why he was in the neighborhood, or what he came there to do. It’s a total mystery.