Portrait of a Man (Le Condottière) Read online

  “Of course not, not now … But at the age of seventeen, why not? As good a way as any of solving problems …”

  “What problems?”

  “Oh, any old problem … Like going back home, that kind of thing … Getting set up in life …”

  “Are you Swiss?”

  “No … my parents sent me to Switzerland in 1939 because of the war. They’d fixed it with a banker friend of theirs in Zurich. He paid for my boarding fees and gave me my pocket money …”

  “What did your parents do?”

  “They were in business, I suppose … I lost interest in them a long while ago …”

  “Why?”

  “No reason … Oh, they were very nice … sent me a letter every now and then … for three or four years … They were stuck in France but then they managed to bugger off to Bermuda and the United States … In 1945 they had a search made to find me … I saw them when they changed trains … I was living in Geneva at that time … I refused to go with them and they didn’t make a fuss. That’s about it.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  “I suppose so. They were in good health and there’s no reason to suppose that’s changed …”

  “Do they live in Paris?”

  “Presumably … but actually I’ve no idea. I haven’t written to them for fourteen years …”

  “In 1945 you were still under age …”

  “Yes … but we made a private arrangement. We had no obligations to each other …”

  “Why didn’t you try to see them instead of coming here?”

  “Am I a nuisance?”

  “That’s not why I asked the question.”

  “Of course not … Why should I have gone to see them?… I had no reason at all to do that … Can you see me getting there and saying, I’ve just killed a man, let me stay!”

  “What would they have done?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care to know … it’s of no importance whatsoever …”

  “Perhaps … What happened after you agreed to work with Jérôme?”

  “We went back to Geneva … I worked for him for two years. I helped him prepare the canvases; I learned various things: art history, aesthetics, painting techniques, sculpture, engraving, lithography. About fifteen hours a day, every day …”

  “You liked it that much?”

  “I suppose so …”

  “What did you like?”

  “Everything I was doing … Why, I can’t say … Doesn’t matter … If I hadn’t liked it I suppose I would have dropped it, but it was all presented in a way that made it interesting to me …”

  “And then?”

  “At the end of two years, I left to go to the Metropolitan in New York. I stayed a year. Came back with a diploma in Painting Conservation from New York University. I did a dissertation on something or other, a dummy thesis so as to get admitted to the École du Louvre. Spent more than six months at the Louvre, so as to get a qualification, and went back to Geneva. Thanks to Rufus, and it was Jérôme who introduced us, I was appointed assistant conservation expert at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Geneva. I stayed three months and then resigned for health reasons. All the travelling and the time spent abroad were designed to provide me with alibis. I got appointed as painting restorer at Rufus’s gallery and started painting fakes. So there you are.”

  “You could do that all by yourself?”

  “I was good enough to be Jérôme’s back-up and to start working on my own. I’d had four years of apprenticeship, which is quite a lot. Over the following five years I made small things. The large-scale stuff only started later …”

  “And what was Madera doing in the meantime?”

  “Out of sight … According to Rufus, who told me the whole story a year ago, because I’d guessed most of it by myself, it was Madera who’d authorised Jérôme to find a number two and who’d designed the basic scenario: official apprenticeships, appointments, and so on.”

  “Why had he done that?”

  “Apparently he had the war on his mind, and around 1943 he could see the end coming and reckoned that the market would rise, creating more demand for paintings and more outlets for him …”

  “Didn’t Rufus or Jérôme ever say anything about this to you?”

  “No. He kept completely in the background, like Nicolas, Dawnson and Sperenza … I knew Jérôme and I knew Rufus. I knew zilch about the rest.”

  “Didn’t you know what happened to the fakes you made?”

  “I supplied them to Rufus …”

  “You never got into trouble?”

  “With the police? No … In Geneva Monsieur Koenig is a very respectable gentleman. His gallery is one of the most highly regarded in Europe …”

  “Why was he a forger?”

  “I’ve no idea … I never understood him … He didn’t need the money, nor did Madera … Rufus made a huge pile from his gallery and Madera was supposed to be very rich anyway … Even if they’d made all their money from fakes, they certainly didn’t need to sell any more when I started working for them …”

  “Was the stuff you made worth a lot of money?”

  “No, not much, at the beginning … Then it started getting more expensive …”

  “Don’t you know who bought it?”

  “No … Private buyers, I guess. In South America, Australia …”

  “How did it work?”

  “I don’t have a clue … Rufus ordered something from me and I provided him with what he required; for a while I would see the canvas in the art gallery storeroom and then one day it was gone and I never heard another word about it …”

  “How were you paid?”

  “I had a basic salary as a paintings restorer. To declare for taxes. Plus a percentage on the sales of the fakes I made.”

  “Did they all sell?”

  “I suppose so. I always got … Between five and a hundred thousand Swiss francs per painting …”

  “What kind of a cut was that? Twenty-five per cent?”

  “Roughly … Five thousand for a small Degas and a hundred thousand for a Cézanne …”

  “What did you do with all that money?”

  “Nothing …”

  “Are you hanging on to it for your old age?”

  “I used to buy books … Books were the only things I bought very often … I also rented an apartment in Paris and another one in Geneva … I travelled a bit …”

  “Sounds like a pretty nice life.”

  “Not unpleasant …”

  “What was wrong with it?”

  “There was nothing wrong with it … I think that was the worst thing about it … Everything was completely fine, it went like clockwork. An interesting job, good money, long holidays, foreign travel …”

  “But there must have been something wrong.”

  “Why so? Jérôme had lived his whole life like that … For twelve years nothing went wrong … It was admirably straightforward. I worked, they paid me; then I took a rest. Three weeks in some luxury hotel or a Mediterranean cruise on a yacht that Rufus would lend me. I came back, started over, and so on …”

  “Something didn’t work, all the same …”

  “Yes, of course … nothing worked in the end …”

  “But there must have been something that set it off in the wrong direction?”

  “It’s hard to prove … I’ve often wondered what triggered it … But that doesn’t make a lot of sense …”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know … It would take too long to explain … I’d have to remember what I was thinking on a given day, at a given time … but I don’t remember …”

  “What day, what time?”

  “Any day … Any time … Any year … While I was at work or when I was off … What I was thinking, what I wanted to do, what I wanted to achieve … It’s really too hard … At the start it all went smoothly … But it wasn’t right … I don’t know why, I don’t even know what that means … It wasn’t
right, there was something missing, something I wanted but couldn’t or could no longer have … I can’t find my words … a kind of … a kind of agreement with myself, a kind of peace … a match … some such thing … It’s not that I ever felt guilt … no, that’s not it, not at all … making fakes never weighed on my conscience … I’d rather make fake Chardins than authentic Vieira da Silvas any day … If I’d been a real artist I doubt I would ever have done anything that would have made a mark … I’d been convinced of that for years … but that’s not what the issue was … What I did was meaningless, but that’s not what mattered … It’s not easy to put this into words … What I was doing wasn’t going anywhere … I had no chance of getting out of it … All I could do was to go right the way through Benezit’s Dictionary. Every painter, every engraver, every sculptor. In alphabetical order … do you see? Antonello, Bellini, Corot, Degas, Ernst, Flémalle, Goya … etcetera, you see … Like kids who play at finding a writer, a painter, a musician, a capital, a river and a country that all begin with the same letter … So there you are. I was condemned to carrying on an idiotic game …”

  “It made you a very nice living.”

  “So what? It made me a living, alas … If I’d been starving, then of course I wouldn’t have gone on with it … But I was snug as a bug in a rug … So obvious … The goose that laid the golden eggs, updated … They’d got the hang of it …”

  “Why do you pretend to be a victim?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? I fell for it at the age of seventeen and that was that. That Madera was too polite to be honest … Come this way, my lad, if you’d like to be a painter …”

  “That works on a seventeen-year-old … But when you were twenty? Twenty-three? Thirty?”

  “That’s what I told myself too … But what could I do about it? Once you’re in a rut …”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t at any point have the strength to say no?”

  “Why say no? The strength to say no to what? What good would it have done me? What would I have lived on … ? You don’t understand … I did say no … a week ago … I killed Madera because I was saying no … I killed Madera because there was no other way I could say no …”

  “That’s too easy …”

  “Too easy? You can talk! Too easy to let everything fall to pieces! Too easy to feel you’re going bonkers? I didn’t do anything, Streten, I didn’t do anything because there was nothing I could do … Believe me, I was strapped in place. Strapped tight. No room to move. Not to the left, not to the right. I couldn’t move a finger on my own …”

  “That’s not what I meant, Gaspard, as you know very well … It’s too easy to say, after having killed Madera, that there was nothing else you could do. You didn’t try to do anything else …”

  “How do you know? I tried to say no but I couldn’t …”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was meaningless …”

  “Did killing Madera have a meaning, then?”

  “Did accepting Jérôme’s offer have a meaning? Things happened the way they happened. That’s all. I met Jérôme and I agreed to work with him. It was a trap. Twelve years later I realised it was a trap. I couldn’t unspring it. That’s all …”

  “That’s still too simple. How did you come to realise it was a trap?”

  “Like any man in the world, I suppose, I sought happiness. Like any man I also wanted a suitable position in life. I got a position that suited me. But I was not happy …”

  “Why weren’t you happy? How did your not being happy manifest itself from day to day?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “You’re lying … That doesn’t mean anything … You’re not telling your story properly … You’re overdoing it … For sixteen years, four in apprenticeship, twelve in the trade, you lived in a world of your own choosing … After sixteen years you say that the whole enterprise hit the rocks … But that can’t be true … There was something that set it off, something that started the ball rolling. It’s all very well to let yourself be caught in a trap, but there was no reason you should have noticed. It doesn’t make sense. If it had all been natural you’d have carried on as a forger for the rest of your life, like Jérôme … Do you see what I mean?”

  “Of course … You’d like there to be a solid point of departure, a sudden insight … But that’s not right either … As the days went by, nothing happened … There wasn’t any turning point in my existence … There wasn’t a story … There wasn’t even an existence … Of course, if things had been logical, I would never have been able to acknowledge my own weakness, I would never have felt the ground give way under my feet, I’d never have been aware of anything at all … It’s just that I wanted to live. In spite of them, in spite of Rufus, in spite of Madera, I wanted to be something more than a duplicator, a plagiarist, the man with the magic hands … To be something other than anything by anybody from any period …”

  “What did you mean when you said ‘I wanted to live’?”

  “Nothing at all, and that’s the point … that is the question. That’s it in a nutshell … ‘being alive’ is meaningless when you’re a forger. It means living with the dead, it means being dead, it means knowing the dead, it means being anyone at all. Vermeer or Chardin. It means spending a day or a month or a year inside the skin of an Italian from the Renaissance, or a Third Republic Frenchman, or a German from the Reformation, or a Spaniard or a Dutchman. It means inserting a few additional details into that man’s life, a more or less coherent set of facts, something plausible in between two more definite facts: where was Memling before he got to Bruges? On the Rhine? Did he paint when he was there? Of course he did. Why shouldn’t he have produced a Virgin with a Donor in Cologne around 1477? You do research and find that in the present state of knowledge, it could fit; so you take off for Bruges to spend three weeks at the Sintjanshospitaal studying the Virgin with Apple and the Shrine of St Ursula and so on; you come back, and six months later in the attic of a more or less deserted convent near Cologne someone discovers a Virgin that looks quite like Marie Morel and Donor with looks somewhere between those of that thug in the Rijksmuseum and Martin Van Der Whatsit, the Burgomaster of Bruges and a Donor himself. That’s how it’s done, and it doesn’t mean a thing … But day and night for six whole months, awake and asleep, you’ve been Hans Memling, or Memlinc if you insist. You’ve put yourself in his shoes and travelled the same path in reverse … Gaspard Winckler, who’s he? … It was like that all through those twelve years … It wasn’t painful, it wasn’t dreadful, it was fascinating, stimulating, tremendous … But I couldn’t carry on with it … You must understand, I spent my time making impressions … I just took a blank patch, a missing beat, a hole in some other painter’s life with a rather vague date and slightly elastic data, and there you go, I would slip into his tunic … It was all useless, the precautions were pointless because three out of four buyers took Rufus or Madera or their front men at their word. They could have checked if they’d wanted to and it would have worked. We knew the rules of the game inside out. We didn’t take any risks, we had accounts and files. We knew where to check if the need arose. As a picture restorer I was entitled to go into archives and to search in museum storerooms. But at the end of the day I was still underwater … I was the sum total of all the dubious parts … Even more than the fourteenth guest … I turned up just in time to paper over the gaps … But my own life … I was ambitious … not even … even if I took every precaution, I was Gaspard Winckler nonetheless … I needed something else … You can’t hold it against me …”

  “Needed what?”

  “To be me …”

  “What did you need so as to be you?”

  “I don’t know … That’s why it was a trap … The self was left out of it, it didn’t count. I was just a hand, a performing tool. What I brought were my dictionaries, file cards, brushes and paint pots. But in real life I wanted some fine da
y or night to be able to rip off my mask and be something other than a forger … It stuck to my skin, everywhere I went it followed behind … Who are you? I am nobody, I am anybody …”

  “It’s what you wanted …”

  “Yes, I’d wanted it, really wanted it … I’d wanted to erase myself, make myself disappear … I’d wanted to be everybody so as to end up as nobody, I’d wanted to protect myself beneath innumerable masks, to be inaccessible, to be impregnable … The result? I went too far … It was asking too much to get away with it entirely, there were bound to be domains where it didn’t work …”

  “Which domains?”

  “I met Mila, I never should have … She didn’t pick me up: I was the one who went after her. That was my first mistake … Being a forger means taking everything from other people and giving nothing of yourself … I gave Mila nothing … I didn’t pay attention, I remained indifferent. It was natural. I went after her. She came to me. I plodded on down my own path. Why should I have swerved to the left or right? She left. I missed her. So what? At the time I was working on the Hoard of Split. I was very busy. That’s all.”

  “Was it serious?”

  “No. Why should it be serious? It was almost natural … a tiny slip of the steering … Did I love Mila? I’ve no idea, I never asked myself. I loved paintings and art books. I loved spending days and days making a fake Baldovinetti. That’s what I loved … Didn’t mean a thing. But I didn’t know it was meaningless. That’s how it was …”

  “Then what?”

  “Then nothing … Life went on as if nothing had happened … Only a tiny crack had appeared in the magnificent ivory tower that protected me … One evening I wanted to see Mila … and I didn’t dare go … She’d left me two weeks before, without saying anything to me, for no obvious reason, simply because she expected something from me that I hadn’t managed to give her … maybe just being there … I didn’t dare and that bothered me … I went out and spent the evening at the cinema … That’s not something I did very often … It bored me … I left halfway through the film, and found a bar. I had a drink. I probably had too much … I went for a walk along the street … At Place de la Madeleine I picked up a girl and took her home. In the morning I told myself I’d been an idiot and ought to have stayed at home and got on with some work. Which is what I did on the evenings that followed.”