The Italian Teacher(88)

Laughing, Pinch looks to the pebbly ground, taken aback by this familiar tone with which Connor seems to declare his elevated status since they last met here, six years before. Today, he’s an influential writer and critic, successful enough to rent this luxury car. He steps ahead of Pinch, letting himself into the cottage. “What you got, my friend?” he asks, sitting at the long kitchen table.

From the next room, Pinch carries in a canvas on stretchers. Both men consider the painting; neither speaks. Pinch steps out again and returns with a second picture. “A small sampling,” he says, watching his guest closely, “of the late works of Bear Bavinsky. These are them.” He presses down a loose strand of hair. “What everyone’s been asking about for years. And you’re seeing it.”

Connor flings off his burgundy skull jacket, as if to better study the artworks, which are part of a startlingly different series than the Life-Stills. In those, Bear never portrayed any face, as if a gaze threatened to wrest the painting from his control. These two paintings—each an enlarged physical detail of the sitter, still employing the pugnacious Bavinsky brushstrokes, his swirling reds and violets—here, his subject is the face, pictured too close, staring at the viewer as if trapped by the borders of the canvas.

“Who are they?” Connor asks.

“Before I get to that, what do you think?”

“Before I get to that, who are they?”

“But you like them?” Pinch asks.

“I’m still taking them in. But what I want to know is why you didn’t put these out there earlier.”

“I’m not sure he wanted them seen. I’m still not sure. Before we go further, Connor, could you just tell me what you think?”

The journalist crouches before the first painting, taking his time.

“Needless to say,” Pinch adds tensely, “you’re evaluating these in strictest confidence.”

“Meaning?”

“Just that, for now, this is all off the record. You’re here as a fellow expert.”

“I am writing about these. I flew all the way here.”

“And I paid for your flight, Connor. I was clear that I just wanted an opinion.”

“Hey, you do know what I do for a living, right?”

“We’re just assessing these,” Pinch says, voice wavering between rage and fear. “I need to know if they even merit showing—and not just because they’re by Bear. But because they’re good. If they are. So are they?” Pinch toys with his Panama hat, which sits on the table. “Sorry—I’m passionate about these pictures.”

“No kidding.”

“Look, maybe you’re not the right audience,” Pinch says, scrambling for a way out of this. “You don’t seem to get them, which is a pity. Because I think they’re valid. Or I thought they were.”

“You are so protective of your old man.”

“This is silly, Connor. I haven’t decided what’s going to happen with these. If you’re unimpressed, I don’t want you going home and writing something negative about my father’s final artworks, which he labored over for years and years. If it’s best they remain private, then they need to stay that way.”

“Listen, man, you got to make your intentions clear next time, if you have, like, terms and conditions.”

“I was clear.”

“Uh, not so much. But hey, you’re keeping more than these up in this joint, right? Tell me there’s more than these two.”

All afternoon Connor takes notes, seated at the kitchen table, leaping up to check the paintings, a mysterious smile lurking. By late afternoon he raps on the table, announcing that he must dash: dinner with friends in Perpignan. “Anything to avoid the dive you took me to last time.”

That night Pinch cannot sleep and repeatedly gets up to study the paintings. Apparently they’re wretched. Clearly, I have no taste. I can’t judge anything. By morning he is exhausted, worn down—and determined to clear the air with Connor. He brings out another of the late works and prays for a better response. Around noon Connor arrives hungover. For a fresh start, Pinch asks about Connor’s flight over here. “No terrorists on board, I’m glad to see!”

“What’s that mean?”

“Last time you were here, you kept saying how with your luck there’d be terrorists on the flight home. Remember? I was cooking for you, and you were saying how Saddam Hussein needed to be taken out. You don’t remember that?”

“Um, I was totally against that war.”

“Oh,” Pinch says, hesitating. “Look, I didn’t mean to go down that rabbit hole.”

“I was never for the war, okay? Not to be rude here, but can we get to work? If you’re making coffee, I could seriously do with one.”

As happened the day before, Connor snorts with amusement when studying the paintings. Pinch stands back, infuriated.

“Any reason you’re staring at me?” Connor asks. “Kinda distracting.”

Pinch would murder Connor to undo this humiliation. But there is no reversing. When this guy viewed forged Life-Stills six years ago, he venerated every one. Because they fit; those were in the expected Bavinsky style. Yet these are shit. How can he even say? Connor has no judgment of his own. He admires what one is supposed to. These paintings are not what he knows, so he turns catty, elevating himself above the artist. These pictures, he’ll say, are just minor late works.