The Italian Teacher(85)
“Those pictures are in my head now,” Connor remarks, stabbing at his rabbit stew.
Pinch fills their glasses again from a carafe of C?tes du Roussillon, taking a long sip to ready for his confession.
Connor holds up his glass, gazing at the ruby liquid as if art itself sloshed around in there. “I’m seeing them everywhere I look.” He clinks with Pinch, who takes another bracing gulp.
“Before we get into further discussion of what you saw today, Connor, I need to mention something. There’s a larger reason I invited you out here,” he says.
“I’m intrigued.”
“Well, I wanted to propose something. A bit more than your just writing one article.”
“Don’t keep me hanging!”
“Connor, I’d like you to consider writing a book on Bear Bavinsky, the official biography. I could give you exclusive access to all there is. Everything.” Pinch dips a nub of baguette into his glass. “What say you?”
“Emphatically, yes!”
Pinch swallows the winey bread, swipes a napkin across his lips, sits higher. “My Dad had mixed feelings about putting his work out there, and he’s not around to state a preference today. So I need for us—not just me, but you too—to take on that mantle. Essentially, what I’m saying is: I want to invite you to work alongside me on this.”
“I am speechless.”
“Tomorrow I’m going to show you all the Life-Stills that Bear left me. And here’s the tough part: They will not be together again. Probably ever. Hard to say, but I’m giving them away. All of them. Bear’s other children do deserve something.”
“Hold your horses, Charles. Is this what Bear wanted? ‘These works should be in major collections.’ That’s what he always said.”
“I know what he said,” Pinch replies, a little testy. “You tell me the alternative then.” Pinch sees his father shouting at him outside the cottage, jabbing a finger at him, saying, “You work for me.” And Pinch recalls phone conversations during university, when Bear dangled the prospect of collaborating—always in the service of his art. But it’s mine now. You work for me, Dad. Without meaning to, you ended up working entirely for me.
Pinch taps his fork against a serpent of entrec?te fat curled across his plate. “What am I supposed to do? They’re relentless, my family.”
“Do you have to give in?”
“Off the record, Connor, there’s no way for me to hold on to these. I’ll lose them anyway if I fight this.”
“Why not donate them to the French state before anyone can stop you; get them displayed somewhere edgy?”
“Who can guarantee the French state wants them? And once I declare these works, they’ll tax the hell out of them, and I lose all leverage. No, my plan is this: You study them over the next few days. Gradually, quietly, I drive them to London in the coming months. Probably it violates export-license rules, but I won’t be profiting personally. Once I get them all home, a clever lawyer can reinterpret Dad’s will so every Bavinsky child gets something. Tax liability then becomes the concern of each individual. I realize that means most of them will sell, and the paintings will be lost to the wind. I don’t love knowing that. But if you can think of an alternative, say so.”
“I find this heartbreaking. Also for what it must be doing to you.”
Pinch nods sadly, stroking the tablecloth, breadcrumbs jumping. “All I can do is encourage them to sell to reputable collectors.”
Driving them back to the cottage, he grips the steering wheel tightly, needing to sober up, needing to come clean. The next morning, Pinch brings out genuine Life-Stills, twenty-three of them—but cannot resist infiltrating his three replicas among them. The contrast seems obvious to Pinch. Doesn’t this guy see?
“Your father was a genius,” Connor declares. “Truly.”
Over the next days, Connor takes notes and photographs, and tape-records their conversations. Pinch hides his nerves, awaiting the moment to admit what he’s done. He’s going to climb up to the attic, where he’s hidden the three originals, and lug each down in turn.
Delaying this, he cooks a meal for his guest while Connor rambles away. The journalist alternately moons over the wizardry of Bear and frets about his flight home. Last year, he stood in line at a Starbucks on the Upper West Side, ready to order his grande latte, when the first plane hit. Unfortunately, bombing Saddam into oblivion is the only option, he now argues. Otherwise, what? Risk dirty bombs in Times Square next? “Don’t get me wrong. I hate and despise Dubya with a passion,” Connor says. “But myself, as someone who lived the attacks, I can tell you that there’s no negotiating with terrorists. A guy like George Bush, who’s not plagued by mental quandaries—maybe he’s the right man for the moment. You know?”
Standing over a bubbling pot, Pinch offers meaningless grunts, accepting the role of bumpkin that Connor has evidently assigned him. And out here, clashing civilizations does seem like another planet. The aroma of shallots and white wine rises from his copper saucepan, swirling steam dampening Pinch’s brow, his spirits climbing with it toward the ceiling.
He will confess. I cannot let this go too far. If he were to allow his fakes to get out, they’d be detected. And if nobody noticed? What would he gain? Sure, he’d get to keep the originals. And that means much to him. But he could never show them—they’d be prisoners of the attic until Pinch was someday found out. No, no—it’d be insane. Yet he is bewitched by the momentum of this. He lowers his head toward the saucepan, eyes closed. You could be charged with a crime, if this got out of hand. You’d lose everything.