Master of the Game

Chapter 18

BOOK FOUR
Tony
1946-1950
Chapter 18
Tony had been to Paris before, but this time the circumstances were different. The City of Light had been dimmed by the German occupation, but had been saved from destruction when it was declared an open city. The people had suffered a great deal, and though the Nazis had looted the Louvre, Tony found Paris relatively untouched. Besides, this time he was going to live there, to be a part of the city, rather than be a tourist. He could have stayed at Kate's penthouse on Avenue du Marechal Foch, which had not been damaged during the occupation. Instead, he rented an unfurnished flat in an old converted house behind Grand Montparnasse. The apartment consisted of a living room with a fireplace, a small bedroom and a tiny kitchen that had no refrigerator. Between the bedroom and the kitchen crouched a bathroom with a claw-footed tub and small stained bidet and a temperamental toilet with a broken seat.
When the landlady started to make apologies, Tony stopped her. "It's perfect."
He spent all day Saturday at the flea market. Monday and Tuesday he toured the secondhand shops along the Left Bank, and by Wednesday he had the basic furniture he needed. A sofa bed, a scarred table, two overstuffed chairs, an old, ornately carved wardrobe, lamps and a rickety kitchen table and two straight chairs. Mother would be horrified, Tony thought. He could have had his apartment crammed with priceless antiques, but that would have been playing the part of a young American artist in Paris. He intended to live it.
The next step was getting into a good art school. The most prestigious art school in all of France was the ecole des Beaux-Arts of Paris. Its standards were high, and few Americans were admitted. Tony applied for a place there. They'll never accept me, he thought. But if they do! Somehow, he had to show his mother he had made the right decision. He submitted three of his paintings and waited four weeks to hear whether he had been accepted. At the end of the fourth week, his concierge handed him a letter from the school. He was to report the following Monday.
The ecole des Beaux-Arts was a large stone building, two stories high, with a dozen classrooms filled with students. Tony reported to the head of the school, Maitre Gessand, a towering, bitter-looking man with no neck and the thinnest lips Tony had ever seen.
"Your paintings are amateurish," he told Tony. "But they show promise. Our committee selected you more for what was not in the paintings than for what was in them. Do you understand?"
"Not exactly, maitre."
"You will, in time. I am assigning you to Maitre Cantal. He will be your teacher for the next five years - if you last that long."
I'll last that long, Tony promised himself.
Maitre Cantal was a very short man, with a totally bald head which he covered with a purple beret. He had dark-brown eyes, a large, bulbous nose and lips like sausages. He greeted Tony with, "Americans are dilettantes, barbarians. Why are you here?"
"To learn, maitre."
Maitre Cantal grunted.
There were twenty-five pupils in the class, most of them French. Easels had been set up around the room, and Tony selected one near the window that overlooked a workingman's bistro. Scattered around the room were plaster casts of various parts of the human anatomy taken from Greek statues. Tony looked around for the model. He could see no one.
"You will begin," Maitre Cantal told the class.
"Excuse me," Tony said. "I - I didn't bring my paints with me."
"You will not need paints. You will spend the first year learning to draw properly."
The maitre pointed to the Greek statuary. "You will draw those. If it seems too simple for you, let me warn you: Before the year is over, more than half of you will be eliminated." He warmed to his speech. "You will spend the first year learning anatomy. The second year - for those of you who pass the course - you will draw from live models, working with oils. The third year - and I assure you there will be fewer of you - you will paint with me, in my style, greatly improving on it, naturally. In the fourth and fifth years, you will find your own style, your own voice. Now let us get to work."
The class went to work.
The maitre went around the room, stopping at each easel to make criticisms or comments. When he came to the drawing Tony was working on, he said curtly, "No! That will not do. What I see is the outside of an arm. I want to see the inside. Muscles, bones, ligaments. I want to know there is blood flowing underneath. Do you know how to do that?"
"Yes, maitre. You think it, see it, feel it, and then you draw it."
When Tony was not in class, he was usually in his apartment sketching. He could have painted from dawn to dawn. Painting gave him a sense of freedom he had never known before. The simple act of sitting in front of an easel with a paintbrush in his hand made him feel godlike. He could create whole worlds with one hand. He could make a tree, a flower, a human, a universe. It was a heady experience. He had been born for this. When he was not painting, he was out on the streets of Paris exploring the fabulous city. Now it was his city, the place where his art was being born. There were two Parises, divided by the Seine into the Left Bank and the Right Bank, and they were worlds apart. The Right Bank was for the wealthy, the established. The Left Bank belonged to the students, the artists, the struggling. It was Montparnasse and the Boulevard Raspail and Saint-Germain-des-Pres. It was the Cafe Flore and Henry Miller and Elliot Paul. For Tony, it was home. He would sit for hours at the Boule Blanche or La Coupole with fellow students, discussing their arcane world.
"I understand the art director of the Guggenheim Museum is in Paris, buying up everything in sight."
"Tell him to wait for me!"
They all read the same magazines and shared them because they were expensive: Studio and Cahiers d'Art, Formes et Cou-leurs and Gazette des Beaux-Arts.
Tony had learned French at Le Rosey, and he found it easy to make friends with the other students in his class, for they all shared a common passion. They had no idea who Tony's family was, and they accepted him as one of them. Poor and struggling artists gathered at Cafe Flore and Les Deux Magots on Boulevard Saint-Germain, and ate at Le Pot d'Etian on the Rue des Canettes or at the Rue de l'Universite. None of the others had ever seen the inside of Lasserre or Maxim's.
In 1946, giants were practicing their art in Paris. From time to time, Tony caught glimpses of Pablo Picasso, and one day Tony and a friend saw Marc Chagall, a large, flamboyant man in his fifties, with a wild mop of hair just beginning to turn gray. Chagall was seated at a table across the cafe, in earnest conversation with a group of people.
"We're lucky to see him," Tony's friend whispered. "He comes to Paris very seldom. His home is at Vence, near the Mediterranean coast."
There was Max Ernst sipping an aperitif at a sidewalk cafe, and the great Alberto Giacometti walking down the Rue de Ri-voli, looking like one of his own sculptures, tall and thin and gnarled. Tony was surprised to note he was clubfooted. Tony met Hans Belmer, who was making a name for himself with erotic paintings of young girls turning into dismembered dolls. But perhaps Tony's most exciting moment came when he was introduced to Braque. The artist was cordial, but Tony was tongue-tied.
The future geniuses haunted the new art galleries, studying their competition. The Drouant-David Gallery was exhibiting an unknown young artist named Bernard Buffet, who had studied at the ecole des Beaux-Arts, and Soutine, Utrillo and Dufy. The students congregated at the Salon d'Automne and the Charpentier Gallery and Mlle. Roussa's Gallery on the Rue de Seine, and spent their spare time gossiping about their successful rivals.
The first time Kate saw Tony's apartment, she was stunned. She wisely made no comment, but she thought, Bloody hell! How can a son of mine live in this dreary closet? Aloud she said, "It has great charm, Tony. I don't see a refrigerator. Where do you keep your food?"
"Out on the w-windowsill."
Kate walked over to the window, opened it and selected an apple from the sill outside. "I'm not eating one of your subjects, am I?"
Tony laughed. "N-no, Mother."
Kate took a bite. "Now," she demanded, "tell me about your painting."
"There's n-not much to t-tell yet," Tony confessed. "We're just doing d-drawings this year."
"Do you like this Maitre Cantal?"
"He's m-marvelous. The important question is whether he l-likes me. Only about one-third of the class is going to m-make it to next year."
Not once did Kate mention Tony's joining the company.
Maitre Cantal was not a man to lavish praise. The biggest compliment Tony would get would be a grudging, "I suppose I've seen worse," or, "I'm almost beginning to see underneath."
At the end of the school term, Tony was among the eight advanced to the second-year class. To celebrate, Tony and the other relieved students went to a nightclub in Montmartre, got drunk and spent the night with some young English women who were on a tour of France.
When school started again, Tony began to work with oils and live models. It was like being released from kindergarten. After one year of sketching parts of anatomy, Tony felt he knew every muscle, nerve and gland in the human body. That wasn't drawing - it was copying. Now, with a paintbrush in his hand and a live model in front of him, Tony began to create. Even Maitre Cantal was impressed.
"You have the feel," he said grudgingly. "Now we must work on the technique."
There were about a dozen models who sat for classes at the school. The ones Maitre Cantal used most frequently were Carlos, a young man working his way through medical school; Annette, a short, buxom brunette with a clump of red pubic hair and an acne-scarred back; and Dominique Masson, a beautiful, young, willowy blonde with delicate cheekbones and deep-green eyes. Dominique also posed for several well-known painters. She was everyone's favorite. Every day after class the male students would gather around her, trying to make a date.
"I never mix pleasure with business," she told them. "Anyway," she teased, "it would not be fair. You have all seen what I have to offer. How do I know what you have to offer?"
And the ribald conversation would go on. But Dominique never went out with anyone at the school.
Late one afternoon when all the other students had left and Tony was finishing a painting of Dominique, she came up behind him unexpectedly. "My nose is too long."
Tony was flustered. "Oh. I'm sorry, I'll change it."
"No, no. The nose in the painting is fine. It is my nose that is too long."
Tony smiled. "I'm afraid I can't do much about that."
"A Frenchman would have said, 'Your nose is perfect, cherie.'"
"I like your nose, and I'm not French."
"Obviously. You have never asked me out. I wonder why."
Tony was taken aback. "I - I don't know. I guess it's because everyone else has, and you never go out with anybody."
Dominique smiled. "Everybody goes out with somebody. Good night."
And she was gone.
Tony noticed that whenever he stayed late, Dominique dressed and then returned to stand behind him and watched him paint.
"You are very good," she announced one afternoon. "You are going to be an important painter."
"Thank you, Dominique. I hope you're right."
"Painting is very serious to you, oui?"
"Oui."
"Would a man who is going to be an important painter like to buy me dinner?" She saw the look of surprise on his face. "I do not eat much. I must keep my figure."
Tony laughed. "Certainly. It would be a pleasure."
They ate at a bistro near Sacre-Cœur, and they discussed painters and painting. Tony was fascinated with her stories of the well-known artists for whom she posed. As they were having cafe au lait, Dominique said, "I must tell you, you are as good as any of them."
Tony was inordinately pleased, but all he said was, "I have a long way to go."
Outside the cafe, Dominique asked, "Are you going to invite me to see your apartment?"
"If you'd like to. I'm afraid it isn't much."
When they arrived, Dominique looked around the tiny, messy apartment and shook her head. "You were right. It is not much. Who takes care of you?"
"A cleaning lady comes in once a week."
"Fire her. This place is filthy. Don't you have a girl friend?"
"No."
She studied him a moment. "You're not queer?"
"No."
"Good. It would be a terrible waste. Find me a pail of water and some soap."
Dominique went to work on the apartment, cleaning and scrubbing and finally tidying up. When she had finished, she said, "That will have to do for now. My God, I need a bath."
She went into the tiny bathroom and ran water in the tub. "How do you fit yourself in this?" she called out.
"I pull up my legs."
She laughed. "I would like to see that."
Fifteen minutes later, she came out of the bathroom with only a towel around her waist, her blond hair damp and curling. She had a beautiful figure, full breasts, a narrow waist and long, tapering legs. Tony had been unaware of her as a woman before. She had been merely a nude figure to be portrayed on canvas. Oddly enough, the towel changed everything. He felt a sudden rush of blood to his loins.
Dominique was watching him. "Would you like to make love to me?"
"Very much."
She slowly removed the towel. "Show me."
Tony had never known a woman like Dominique. She gave him everything and asked for nothing. She came over almost every evening to cook for Tony. When they went out to dinner, Dominique insisted on going to inexpensive bistros or sandwich bars. "You must save your money," she scolded him. "It is very difficult even for a good artist to get started. And you are good, cheri."
They went to Les Halles in the small hours of the morning and had onion soup at Pied de Cochon. They went to the Musee Carnavalet and out-of-the-way places where tourists did not go, like Cimetiere Pere-Lachaise - the final resting place of Oscar Wilde, Frederic Chopin, Honore de Balzac and Marcel Proust. They visited the catacombs and spent a lazy holiday week going down the Seine on a barge owned by a friend of Dominique's.
Dominique was a delight to be with. She had a quixotic sense of humor, and whenever Tony was depressed, she would laugh him out of it. She seemed to know everyone in Paris, and she took Tony to interesting parties where he met some of the most prominent figures of the day, like the poet Paul eluard, and Andre Breton, in charge of the prestigious Galerie Maeght.
Dominique was a source of constant encouragement. "You are going to be better than all of them, cheri. Believe me. I know."
If Tony was in the mood to paint at night, Dominique would cheerfully pose for him, even though she had been working all day. God, I'm lucky, Tony thought. This was the first time he had been sure someone loved him for what he was, not who he was, and it was a feeling he cherished. Tony was afraid to tell Dominique he was the heir to one of the world's largest fortunes, afraid she would change, afraid they would lose what they had. But for her birthday Tony could not resist buying her a Russian lynx coat.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life!" Dominique swirled the coat around her and danced around the room. She stopped in the middle of a spin. "Where did it come from? Tony, where did you get the money to buy this coat?"
He was ready for her. "It's hot - stolen. I bought it from a little man outside the Rodin Museum. He was anxious to get rid of it. It didn't cost me much more than a good cloth coat would cost at Au Printemps."
Dominique stared at him a moment, then burst out laughing. "I'll wear it even if we both go to prison!"
Then she threw her arms around Tony and started to cry. "Oh, Tony, you idiot. You darling, fantastic idiot."
It was well worth the lie, Tony decided.
One night Dominique suggested to Tony that he move in with her. Between working at the ecole des Beaux-Arts and modeling for some of the better-known artists in Paris, Dominique was able to rent a large, modern apartment on Rue Pretres-Saint Severin. "You should not be living in a place like this, Tony. It is dreadful. Live with me, and you will not have to pay any rent. I can do your laundry, cook for you and - "
"No, Dominique. Thank you."
"But why?"
How could he explain? In the beginning he might have told her he was rich, but now it was too late. She would feel he had been making a fool of her. So he said, "It would be like living off you. You've already given me too much."
"Then I'm giving up my apartment and moving in here. I want to be with you."
She moved in the following day.
There was a wonderful, easy intimacy between them. They spent weekends in the country and stopped at little hostels where Tony would set up his easel and paint landscapes, and when they got hungry Dominique would spread out a picnic lunch she had prepared and they would eat in a meadow. Afterward, they made long, sweet love. Tony had never been so completely happy.
His work was progressing beautifully. One morning Maitre Cantal held up one of Tony's paintings and said to the class, "Look at that body. You can see it breathing."
Tony could hardly wait to tell Dominique that night. "You know how I got the breathing just right? I hold the model in my arms every night."
Dominique laughed in excitement and then grew serious. "Tony, I do not think you need three more years of school. You are ready now. Everyone at the school sees that, even Cantal."
Tony's fear was that he was not good enough, that he was just another painter, that his work would be lost in the flood of pictures turned out by thousands of artists all over the world every day. He could not bear the thought of it. Winning is what's important, Tony. Remember that.
Sometimes when Tony finished a painting he would be filled with a sense of elation and think, I have talent. I really have talent. At other times he would look at his work and think, I'm a bloody amateur.
With Dominique's encouragement, Tony was gaining more and more confidence in his work. He had finished almost two dozen paintings on his own. Landscapes, still lifes. There was a painting of Dominique lying nude under a tree, the sun dappling her body. A man's jacket and shirt were in the foreground, and the viewer knew the woman awaited her lover.
When Dominique saw the painting, she cried, "You must have an exhibition!"
"You're mad, Dominique! I'm not ready."
"You're wrong, mon cher."
Tony arrived home late the next afternoon to find that Dominique was not alone. Anton Goerg, a thin man with an enormous potbelly and protuberant hazel eyes, was with her. He was the owner and proprietor of the Goerg Gallery, a modest gallery on the Rue Dauphine. Tony's paintings were spread around the room.
"What's going on?" Tony asked.
"What's going on, monsieur," Anton Goerg exclaimed, "is that I think your work is brilliant." He clapped Tony on the back. "I would be honored to give you a showing in my gallery."
Tony looked over at Dominique, and she was beaming at him.
"I - I don't know what to say."
"You have already said it," Goerg replied. "On these canvases."
Tony and Dominique stayed up half the night discussing it.
"I don't feel I'm ready. The critics will crucify me."
"You're wrong, cheri. This is perfect for you. It is a small gallery. Only the local people will come and judge you. There is no way you can get hurt. Monsieur Goerg would never offer to give you an exhibition if he did not believe in you. He agrees with me that you are going to be a very important artist."
"All right," Tony finally said. "Who knows? I might even sell a painting."
The cable read: ARRIVING PARIS SATURDAY. PLEASE JOIN ME FOR DINNER. LOVE, MOTHER.
Tony's first thought as he watched his mother walk into the studio was, What a handsome woman she is. She was in her mid-fifties, hair untinted, with white strands laced through the black. There was a charged vitality about her. Tony had once asked her why she had not remarried. She had answered quietly, "Only two men were ever important in my life. Your father and you."
Now, standing in the little apartment in Paris, facing his mother, Tony said, "It's g-good to see you, M-mother."
"Tony, you look absolutely wonderful! The beard is new." She laughed and ran her fingers through it. "You look like a young Abe Lincoln." Her eyes swept the small apartment. "Thank God, you've gotten a good cleaning woman. It looks like a different place."
Kate walked over to the easel, where Tony had been working on a painting, and she stopped and stared at it for a long time. He stood there, nervously awaiting his mother's reaction.
When Kate spoke, her voice was very soft. "It's brilliant, Tony. Really brilliant." There was no effort to conceal the pride she felt. She could not be deceived about art, and there was a fierce exultation in her that her son was so talented.
She turned to face him. "Let me see more!"
They spent the next two hours going through his stack of paintings. Kate discussed each one in great detail. There was no condescension in her voice. She had failed in her attempt to control his life, and Tony admired her for taking her defeat so gracefully.
Kate said, "I'll arrange for a showing. I know a few dealers who - "
"Thanks, M-mother, but you d-don't have to. I'm having a showing next F-friday. A g-gallery is giving me an exhibition."
Kate threw her arms around Tony. "That's wonderful! Which gallery?"
"The G-goerg Gallery."
"I don't believe I know it."
"It's s-small, but I'm not ready for Hammer or W-wildenstein yet."
She pointed to the painting of Dominique under the tree. "You're wrong, Tony. I think this - "
There was the sound of the front door opening. "I'm horny, cheri. Take off your - " Dominique saw Kate. "Oh, merde! I'm sorry. I - I didn't know you had company, Tony."
There was a moment of frozen silence.
"Dominique, this is my m-mother. M-mother, may I present D-dominique Masson."
The two women stood there, studying each other.
"How do you do, Mrs. Blackwell."
Kate said, "I've been admiring my son's portrait of you." The rest was left unspoken.
There was another awkward silence.
"Did Tony tell you he's going to have an exhibition, Mrs. Blackwell?"
"Yes, he did. It's wonderful news."
"Can you s-stay for it, Mother?"
"I'd give anything to be able to be there, but I have a board meeting the day after tomorrow in Johannesburg and there's no way I can miss it. I wish I'd known about it sooner, I'd have rearranged my schedule."
"It's all r-right," Tony said. "I understand." Tony was nervous that his mother might say more about the company in front of Dominique, but Kate's mind was on the paintings.
"It's important for the right people to see your exhibition."
"Who are the right people, Mrs. Blackwell?"
Kate turned to Dominique. "Opinion-makers, critics. Someone like Andre d'Usseau - he should be there."
Andre d'Usseau was the most respected art critic in France. He was a ferocious lion guarding the temple of art, and a single review from him could make or break an artist overnight. D'Usseau was invited to the opening of every exhibition, but he attended only the major ones. Gallery owners and artists trembled, waiting for his reviews to appear. He was a master of the bon mot, and his quips flew around Paris on poisoned wings. Andre d'Usseau was the most hated man in Parisian art circles, and the most respected. His mordant wit and savage criticism were tolerated because of his expertise.
Tony turned to Dominique. "That's a m-mother for you." Then to Kate, "Andre d'Usseau doesn't g-go to little galleries."
"Oh, Tony, he must come. He can make you famous overnight."
"Or b-break me."
"Don't you believe in yourself?" Kate was watching her son.
"Of course he does," Dominique said. "But we couldn't dare hope that Monsieur d'Usseau would come."
"I could probably find some friends who know him."
Dominique's face lighted up. "That would be fantastic!" She turned to Tony. "Cheri, do you know what it would mean if he came to your opening?"
"Oblivion?"
"Be serious. I know his taste, Tony. I know what he likes. He will adore your paintings."
Kate said, "I won't try to arrange for him to come unless you want me to, Tony."
"Of course he wants it, Mrs. Blackwell."
Tony took a deep breath. "I'm s-scared, but what the hell! L-let's try."
"I'll see what I can do." Kate looked at the painting on the easel for a long, long time, then turned back to Tony. There was a sadness in her eyes. "Son, I must leave Paris tomorrow. Can we have dinner tonight?"
Tony replied, "Yes, of course, Mother. We're f-free."
Kate turned to Dominique and said graciously, "Would you like to have dinner at Maxim's or - "
Tony said quickly, "Dominique and I know a w-wonderful little cafe not f-far from here."
They went to a bistro at the Place Victoire. The food was good and the wine was excellent. The two women seemed to get along well, and Tony was terribly proud of both of them. It's one of the best nights of my life, he thought. I'm with my mother and the woman I'm going to marry.
The next morning Kate telephoned from the airport. "I've made a half a dozen phone calls," she told Tony. "No one could give me a definite answer about Andre d'Usseau. But whichever way it goes, darling, I'm proud of you. The paintings are wonderful. Tony, I love you."
"I l-love you, too, M-mother."
The Goerg Gallery was just large enough to escape being called intime. Two dozen of Tony's paintings were being hung on the walls in frantic, last-minute preparation for the opening. On a marble sideboard were slabs of cheese and biscuits and bottles of Chablis. The gallery was empty except for Anton Goerg, Tony, Dominique and a young female assistant who was hanging the last of the paintings.
Anton Goerg looked at his watch. "The invitations said 'seven o'clock.' People should start to arrive at any moment now."
Tony had not expected to be nervous. And I'm not nervous, he told himself. I'm panicky!
"What if no one shows up?" he asked. "I mean, what if not one single, bloody person shows up?"
Dominique smiled and stroked his cheek. "Then we'll have all this cheese and wine for ourselves."
People began to arrive. Slowly at first, and then in larger numbers. Monsieur Goerg was at the door, effusively greeting them. They don't look like art buyers to me, Tony thought grimly. His discerning eye divided them into three categories: There were the artists and art students who attended each exhibition to evaluate the competition; the art dealers who came to every exhibition so they could spread derogatory news about aspiring painters; and the arty crowd, consisting to a large extent of homosexuals and lesbians who seemed to spend their lives around the fringes of the art world. I'm not going to sell a single, goddamned picture, Tony decided.
Monsieur Goerg was beckoning to Tony from across the room.
"I don't think I want to meet any of these people," Tony whispered to Dominique. "They're here to rip me apart."
"Nonsense. They came here to meet you. Now be charming, Tony."
And so, he was charming. He met everybody, smiled a lot and uttered all the appropriate phrases in response to the compliments that were paid him. But were they really compliments? Tony wondered. Over the years a vocabulary had developed in art circles to cover exhibitions of unknown painters. Phrases that said everything and nothing.
"You really feel you're there..."
"I've never seen a style quite like yours..."
"Now, that's a painting!..."
"It speaks to me..."
"You couldn't have done it any better..."
People kept arriving, and Tony wondered whether the attraction was curiosity about his paintings or the free wine and cheese. So far, not one of his paintings had sold, but the wine and cheese were being consumed rapaciously.
"Be patient," Monsieur Goerg whispered to Tony. "They are interested. First they must get a smell of the paintings. They see one they like, they keep wandering back to it. Pretty soon they ask the price, and when they nibble, voila! The hook is set!"
"Jesus! I feel like I'm on a fishing cruise," Tony told Dominique.
Monsieur Goerg bustled up to Tony. "We've sold one!" he exclaimed. "The Normandy landscape. Five hundred francs."
It was a moment that Tony would remember as long as he lived. Someone had bought a painting of his! Someone had thought enough of his work to pay money for it, to hang it in his home or office, to look at it, live with it, show it to friends. It was a small piece of immortality. It was a way of living more than one life, of being in more than one place at the same time. A successful artist was in hundreds of homes and offices and museums all over the world, bringing pleasure to thousands - sometimes millions of people. Tony felt as though he had stepped into the pantheon of Da Vinci and Michelangelo and Rembrandt. He was no longer an amateur painter, he was a professional. Someone had paid money for his work.
Dominique hurried up to him, her eyes bright with excitement. "You've just sold another one, Tony."
"Which one?" he asked eagerly.
"The floral."
The small gallery was filled now with people and loud chatter and the clink of glasses; and suddenly a stillness came over the room. There was an undercurrent of whispers and all eyes turned to the door.
Andre d'Usseau was entering the gallery. He was in his middle fifties, taller than the average Frenchman, with a strong, leonine face and a mane of white hair. He wore a flowing inverness cape and Borsalino hat, and behind him came an entourage of hangers-on. Automatically, everyone in the room began to make way for d'Usseau. There was not one person present who did not know who he was.
Dominique squeezed Tony's hand. "He's come!" she said. "He's here!"
Such an honor had never befallen Monsieur Goerg before, and he was beside himself, bowing and scraping before the great man, doing everything but tugging at his forelock.
"Monsieur d'Usseau," he babbled. "What a great pleasure this is! What an honor! May I offer you some wine, some cheese?" He cursed himself for not having bought a decent wine.
"Thank you," the great man replied. "I have come to feast only my eyes. I would like to meet the artist."
Tony was too stunned to move. Dominique pushed him forward.
"Here he is," Monsieur Goerg said. "Mr. Andre d'Usseau, this is Tony Blackwell."
Tony found his voice. "How do you do, sir? I - thank you for coming."
Andre d'Usseau bowed slightly and moved toward the paintings on the walls. Everyone pushed back to give him room. He made his way slowly, looking at each painting long and carefully, then moving on to the next one. Tony tried to read his face, but he could tell nothing. D'Usseau neither frowned nor smiled. He stopped for a long time at one particular painting, a nude of Dominique, then moved on. He made a complete circle of the room, missing nothing. Tony was perspiring profusely.
When Andre d'Usseau had finished, he walked over to Tony. "I am glad I came," was all he said.
Within minutes after the famous critic had left, every painting in the gallery was sold. A great new artist was being born, and everyone wanted to be in at the birth.
"I have never seen anything like it," Monsieur Goerg exclaimed. "Andre d'Usseau came to my gallery. My gallery! All Paris will read about it tomorrow. 'I am glad I came.' Andre d'Usseau is not a man to waste words. This calls for champagne. Let us celebrate."
Later that night, Tony and Dominique had their own private celebration. Dominique snuggled in his arms. "I've slept with painters before," she said, "but never anyone as famous as you're going to be. Tomorrow everyone in Paris will know who you are."
And Dominique was right.
At five o'clock the following morning, Tony and Dominique hurriedly got dressed and went out to get the first edition of the morning paper. It had just arrived at the kiosk. Tony snatched up the paper and turned to the art section. His review was the headline article under the by-line of Andre d'Usseau. Tony read it aloud:
"An exhibition by a young American painter, Anthony Blackwell, opened last night at the Goerg Gallery. It was a great learning experience for this critic. I have attended so many exhibitions of talented painters that I had forgotten what truly bad paintings looked like. I was forcibly reminded last night..."
Tony's face turned ashen.
"Please don't read any more," Dominique begged. She tried to take the paper from Tony.
"Let go!" he commanded.
He read on.
"At first I thought a joke was being perpetrated. I could not seriously believe that anyone would have the nerve to hang such amateurish paintings and dare to call them art. I searched for the tiniest glimmering of talent. Alas, there was none. They should have hung the painter instead of his paintings. I would earnestly advise that the confused Mr. Blackwell return to his real profession, which I can only assume is that of house painter."
"I can't believe it," Dominique whispered. "I can't believe he couldn't see it. Oh, that bastard!" Dominique began to cry helplessly.
Tony felt as though his chest were filled with lead. He had difficulty breathing. "He saw it," he said. "And he does know, Dominique. He does know." His voice was filled with pain. "That's what hurts so much. Christ! What a fool I was!" He started to move away.
"Where are you going, Tony?"
"I don't know."
He wandered around the cold, dawn streets, unaware of the tears running down his face. Within a few hours, everyone in Paris would have read that review. He would be an object of ridicule. But what hurt more was that he had deluded himself. He had really believed he had a career ahead of him as a painter. At least Andre d'Usseau had saved him from that mistake. Pieces of posterity, Tony thought grimly. Pieces of shit! He walked into the first open bar and proceeded to get mindlessly drunk.
When Tony finally returned to his apartment, it was five o'clock the following morning.
Dominique was waiting for him, frantic. "Where have you been, Tony? Your mother has been trying to get in touch with you. She's sick with worry."
"Did you read it to her?"
"Yes, she insisted. I - "
The telephone rang. Dominique looked at Tony, and picked up the receiver. "Hello? Yes, Mrs. Blackwell. He just walked in." She held the receiver out to Tony. He hesitated, then took it.
"Hello, M-mother."
Kate's voice was filled with distress. "Tony, darling, listen to me. I can make him print a retraction. I - "
"Mother," Tony said wearily, "this isn't a b-business transaction. This is a c-critic expressing an opinion. His opinion is that I should be h-hanged."
"Darling, I hate to have you hurt like this. I don't think I can stand - " She broke off, unable to continue.
"It's all right, M-mother. I've had my little f-fling. I tried it and it didn't w-work. I don't have what it t-takes. It's as simple as that. I h-hate d'Usseau's guts, but he's the best g-goddamned art critic in the world, I have to g-give him that. He saved me from making a t-terrible mistake."
"Tony, I wish there was something I could say..."
"D'Usseau s-said it all. It's b-better that I f-found it out now instead of t-ten years from now, isn't it? I've got to g-get out of this town."
"Wait there for me, darling. I'll leave Johannesburg tomorrow and we'll go back to New York together."
"All right," Tony said. He replaced the receiver and turned toward Dominique. "I'm sorry, Dominique. You picked the wrong fellow."
Dominique said nothing. She just looked at him with eyes filled with an unspeakable sorrow.
The following afternoon at Kruger-Brent's office on Rue Ma-tignon, Kate Blackwell was writing out a check. The man seated across the desk from her sighed. "It is a pity. Your son has talent, Mrs. Blackwell. He could have become an important painter."
Kate stared at him coldly. "Mr. d'Usseau, there are tens of thousands of painters in the world. My son was not meant to be one of the crowd." She passed the check across the desk. "You fulfilled your part of the bargain, I'm prepared to fulfill mine. Kruger-Brent, Limited, will sponsor art museums in Johannesburg, London and New York. You will be in charge of selecting the paintings - with a handsome commission, of course."
But long after d'Usseau had gone, Kate sat at her desk, filled with a deep sadness. She loved her son so much. If he ever found out...She knew the risk she had taken. But she could not stand by and let Tony throw away his inheritance. No matter what it might cost her, he had to be protected. The company had to be protected. Kate rose, feeling suddenly very tired. It was time to pick up Tony and take him home. She would help him get over this, so he could get on with what he had been born to do.
Run the company.