by Greg Iles
I shoot the paintings with a thoroughness bordering on compulsion, but I try not to look too hard at them. In one sense, each of these women is Jane to me. Yet there’s no denying their remarkable power. Unlike the painting I saw in Wingate’s gallery, the women in these canvases are saturated in color rather than surrounded by it: vivid blues and oranges highlighted with whites and yellows. Two are lying in bathtubs, posed much like the woman in the first painting I saw in Hong Kong, but their faces are less defined than hers. If I didn’t know these women might be dead, I would believe them asleep, for their skin fairly hums with light.
But I do know.
The man who painted these images sat or stood before petrified human beings, absorbing the hard metallic odor unique to sweat produced by terror. Unless the women were already dead when he painted them. How long could he have stood that? Staying in the room with dead women while they decomposed? I’ve photographed a lot of corpses, and close proximity with them isn’t something easily endured. But perhaps for some people it’s no hardship. Perhaps for some it’s actually pleasurable, though after a while, even a necrophiliac would have to be driven off by the smell alone. Or is even that a naive assumption?
“How long would it take to paint these?” I ask Kaiser, sotto voce.
“Experts say two to six days. I don’t know what they’re basing that on. I read in a book last night that the Impressionists believed you should start and finish a painting at one sitting.”
“If the women are dead, do you think he could be preserving them somehow before painting them? Embalming them?”
“It’s possible.”
I fire off two more shots of the last painting. “Look at this picture. What do you see? Is this woman dead or alive?”
He walks closer to the canvas and studies the woman.
“I can’t tell,” he says at length. “There’s nothing obvious that says death to me. Her eyes are closed, but that’s not conclusive.” He turns back to me, his face thoughtful. “I mean, where’s the line between sleep and death? How far apart are they, really?”
“Ask the dead.”
“I can’t.”
“There’s your answer.” I cap the Mamiya’s lens and remove the last exposed film. “I’m done. Let’s go see de Becque.”
Li appears silently in the archway to my left, like an escort to some other world.
THE OLD FRENCHMAN is waiting in the glass-walled room. He stands with his back to us, a wineglass in his hand, and watches a yacht sail out of the bay into the Caribbean.
“Hello?” I call.
He turns slowly, then gestures toward a matched pair of sofas that face each other before the great window. Li pours wine for us, then vanishes without even a sound of slippers on the granite floor.
“You wish your ‘assistant’ to join us?” de Becque asks, one eyebrow arched.
I turn to Kaiser, who sighs and says, “I’m Special Agent John Kaiser, FBI.”
De Becque walks forward and gives Kaiser’s hand a light shake. “Isn’t that a relief ? Deception is a wearying art, and foolish deception the most wearying of all. Please, sit.”
Kaiser and I take one sofa, de Becque the one facing us.
“Why have I brought you here?” the Frenchman says to me. “That is question number one?”
“That’s a good place to start.”
“You’re here because I wanted to see you in the flesh, as they say. It’s that simple. I knew your father in Vietnam. When I learned you were involved in this case, I took steps to meet you.”
“How did you learn Ms. Glass was involved?” asks Kaiser.
De Becque makes a very French gesture with his opened hands, which I translate as Some things we must accept without explanation. Kaiser doesn’t like it, but there’s not much he can do about it.
“How did you meet my father?”
“I collect art, and I consider photography an art. At least when performed by certain people. I owned a tea plantation in a strategic part of Vietnam. It provided a good base for those journalists whom I allowed to use it. My table was famed throughout the country, and I enjoy good conversation.”
“And access to information?” Kaiser asks bluntly.
De Becque shrugs. “Information is a commodity, Agent Kaiser, like any other. And I am a businessman.”
“What do you know about my father’s death?”
“I’m not at all sure he died when and where the world believes he did.”
There it is. Spoken by a man in a position to know.
“How could he have survived?”
“First, he disappeared in a very embarrassing place. Embarrassing for the American government, I mean. Second, while the Khmer Rouge generally killed journalists out of hand, not all Cambodians did. I believe Jonathan was shot, yes. But he could well have been nursed back to health. And like you, I’ve heard reports over the years that he has been sighted.”
“If he survived,” says Kaiser, “and he considered you a friend, why wouldn’t he seek you out?”
“He may have. But I had sold my plantation by the time he went missing. If he went there in search of me, he would not have found me. But there’s a simpler answer. By late 1972, Vietnam was not a place anyone would want to return to.”
“Neither was Cambodia,” I point out. “If he didn’t get out before Pol Pot started his genocide, he couldn’t possibly have survived.”
Another shrug. “It is a mystery. But I’ve heard Jonathan was twice sighted in Thailand, and by reliable sources.”
“Do you think he could still be alive?”
A smile of condolence. “That would be too much to hope for, I think.”
“How recent were the sightings you mentioned?”
“The first around 1976. The last in 1980.”
More than twenty years ago. “We’re here for another reason, of course. But would it be all right for me to telephone you later for specifics?”
“I’ll make sure you have my numbers before you go.”
Kaiser leans forward, his wineglass between his knees. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course. But I may be selective about my answers.”
“Do you know the identity of the artist who paints the Sleeping Women?”
“I do not.”
“How did his paintings first come to your attention?”
“I was acquainted with Christopher Wingate, the art dealer. I’m in the habit of buying new artists whose work catches my eye. It’s a risk, but all life entails risk, no?”
“Is this purely a business endeavor?”
De Becque’s eyes shine with humor. “It has no connection whatever to business. If I wanted to make money, there are much surer ways.”
“So Wingate introduced you to the Sleeping Women, and—”
“I told him I would buy all he could get me.”
“And he got you five?”
“Yes. I made the mistake of letting certain Asian acquaintances see my paintings. The price skyrocketed overnight. After the fifth, Wingate betrayed me and began selling to the Japanese. But”—de Becque turns up his hands—“who expects honor from a Serb?”
“What initially attracted you to the paintings?”
The Frenchman purses his lips. “Hard to say.”
“Did you have any idea that the subjects might be real women?”
“I assumed they were. Models, of course.”
“Did you have any idea that they might be dead?”
“Not at first. I assumed the poses were of sleep, as everyone else did. But after I saw the fourth, I began to get a feeling. Then I saw the genius of these paintings. They were paintings of death, but not in any way that had been done before.”
“How do you mean?”
“In the West, the attitude toward death is denial. The West worships youth, lives in terror of age and disease. Most of all in terror of death. In the East it’s different. You know. You were there.”
This statement throws Kaise
r off his rhythm. “How do you know that?”
“You’re a soldier. I saw it when you first came in.”
“I haven’t been a soldier for twenty-five years.”
De Becque smiles and waves his hand. “I see it in your walk, your way of watching. And since you’re American, your age tells me Vietnam.”
“I was there.”
“So. You know how it is. In America, someone gets bitten by a rattlesnake, they move heaven and earth to race to the hospital. In Vietnam, a man gets bitten by a krait, he sits down and waits to die. Death is part of life in the East. For many it’s a sweet release. That is part of what I see in the Sleeping Women. Only, the subjects aren’t Asian. They’re Occidental.”
“That’s interesting,” says Kaiser. “No one’s mentioned that interpretation before.”
De Becque touches the corner of his eye. “Everyone has eyes, young man. Not everyone can see.”
“You know that at least one of the subjects in the paintings is missing and probably dead?”
“Yes. This poor girl’s sister.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“Morally, I mean. How do you feel about the fact that young women may be dying to produce these paintings?”
De Becque gives Kaiser a look of distaste. “Is that a serious question, mon ami?”
“Yes.”
“Such an American question. You fought in a war that cost fifty-eight thousand of your countrymen’s lives. A million Asian lives beyond that. What did those deaths buy, other than misery?”
“That’s a separate discussion.”
“You’re wrong. If nineteen women die to produce eternal art, then in the historical sense, the price was cheap. Laughable, really.”
“Unless you loved one of those women,” I say quietly.
“Quite so,” concedes de Becque. “That’s another matter entirely. I merely point out to Monsieur Kaiser that many human endeavors are begun with the knowledge that they will cost human lives. Bridges, tunnels, pharmaceutical trials, geographic exploration, and of course wars. None of these goals even approaches the importance of art.”
Kaiser’s face is reddening. “If you knew for a fact that women were being murdered to produce these paintings, and you knew the identity of the murderer, would you report him to the authorities?”
“Happily, I do not find myself in that dilemma.”
Kaiser sighs and puts down his wine. “Why wouldn’t you send your paintings to Washington for study?”
“I am a fugitive. I don’t trust governments, particularly the American government. I had many dealings with it in Indochina, and I was always disappointed. I found American officials naive, sentimental, hypocritical, and stupid.”
“That’s something, coming from a black marketeer.”
De Becque laughs. “You hate me, young soldier? For the black market? You might as well hate rainfall or cockroaches.”
“I’m no fan of the French, that’s for sure. I saw what you did in Vietnam. You were a lot worse there than we ever were.”
“We were brutal, yes, but on a small scale. The American infantry handed out chocolate bars while their air force killed civilians by the tens of thousands.”
“You were glad enough when we did it in Germany.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” I cut in, giving Kaiser a sharp look. After years of traveling the world, I’ve learned to avoid conversations like this one. Most Europeans will never understand the American point of view, and even when they do, they’ll loudly condemn it. At the bottom of their fervor, I believe, lies jealousy, but there’s nothing to be gained by arguing with them. I would have thought Kaiser knew that.
“You’ve seen me in the flesh now,” I tell de Becque. “What do you think?”
His blue eyes twinkle like Maurice Chevalier’s. “I would love to see you au naturel, chérie. You’re a work of art.”
“Would naked be enough? Or would naked and dead be better?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I am a libertine. I celebrate life. But”—he holds up his glass in a silent toast—“death is always with us.”
“Did you commission the painting of my sister?”
His humor vanishes. “No.”
“Did you try to buy it?”
“I never had the chance. I never saw it.”
“Would you have known who she was?”
“I would have thought she was you.”
Kaiser says, “When did you first become aware of Ms. Glass’s existence?”
“When I saw her name beneath a photo in the International Herald Tribune. The early 1980s, it would have been.” De Becque chuckles. “I nearly jumped out of my skin. The credit read ‘J. Glass,’ same as her father’s.”
“I did that as an homage to him.”
“And a fine one it was. But a bit of a shock to those who knew him.”
“That happened to a lot of people. After a few years, I started using my full name.” Unable to focus on the task at hand, I steel myself and ask de Becque the question foremost in my mind. “What kind of man was my father?”
“In the beginning? A wide-eyed American, like a thousand others. But he had eyes to see. You only had to tell him a thing once. He had tasted little of Asia, but he was open to it all. And the Vietnamese loved him.”
“I presume that included women.”
Another Gallic gesture, this one I translate as Men will be men.
“Was there one woman in particular?”
“Isn’t there always? But in Jon’s case, I don’t really know.”
“Don’t you? Did he have a family over there, Monsieur de Becque? A Vietnamese family?”
“How would you feel if he did?”
“I’m not sure. I just want to know the truth.”
“You saw Li?”
“Yes.”
“She’s French-Vietnamese. They’re the most beautiful women in the world.”
“Did my father have a woman like her?”
“He was certainly exposed to them.”
“At your plantation?”
“Of course.”
De Becque is a man who speaks between the lines. I’m normally good at reading such men, but in this case I’m lost. If my father had a Vietnamese family there, why not tell me outright?
“Have you considered this?” asks de Becque. “The year your father disappeared, Look and Life folded.”
“And?”
“They were the great picture magazines. That was the end of an era. Jonathan never had to live through shrinking markets, the dominance of television, the humiliating transformation of the industry in which he made his name.”
“Are you saying he had nothing to come back to?”
“I merely point out that, professionally speaking, the best years of photojournalism were in the past. Jon had won all the awards there were to win. He had experienced life on the razor’s edge, with a rebel band of brothers. They photographed the horrors of the century, then moved on to the next before the last could crush their spirits. They were glorious in their way. They owned nothing, yet they owned the world. They were a cross between young Hemingways and rock-and-roll stars.”
“But their day was over. That’s what you’re telling me?”
“The world changed after Vietnam. America changed. France, too.”
Kaiser puts down his wine and says, “I’d like to return to Ms. Glass’s sister.”
“I would, as well,” says de Becque, his eyes on me. “What exactly do you hope to gain by being part of this investigation, Jordan? Do you have some fantasy of justice?”
“I don’t think justice is a fantasy.”
“What would justice be in this case? To punish the man who has painted these women? The man who stole them from their homes to immortalize them?”
“Is he one and the same?” I ask. “Is the kidnapper the painter?”
“I have no idea. But is that your desire
, to punish him?”
“I’d rather stop him than punish him.”
De Becque nods thoughtfully. “And your sister? What are your hopes along that line?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Do you think she might be alive somewhere?”
“I didn’t until I saw her painting in Hong Kong. Now . . . I’m not sure.”
When de Becque makes no comment, I ask, “Do you think the women are alive or dead?”
The Frenchman sighs. “Dead, I would say.”
For some reason, his opinion depresses me far more than that of someone like Lenz.
“But,” he adds, “I would not assume all these women share the same fate.”
“Why not?” asks Kaiser.
“Things happen. No plan is perfect. I wouldn’t think it absurd to hope one or more out of nineteen is alive somewhere.”
“Is it nineteen women?” Kaiser asks. “We’ve been trying to match the paintings to the victims, but we’re having trouble. There are only eleven victims in New Orleans. If each painting is of a different woman, then there are eight victims we don’t know about.”
“Perhaps those eight are simply common models?” de Becque suggests. “Paid off long ago and forgotten. Have you thought of that?”
“We’d like that to be true, of course. But the abstract nature of the early paintings has made it impossible for us to match the faces to victims. We haven’t even matched them to the eleven known victims yet.”
“The early paintings aren’t abstract,” says de Becque. “They were done in the Impressionist or Postimpres sionist style. This involves using small drops of primary colors in close proximity to produce certain hues, rather than blending colors. It produces an effect much closer to the way the human eye actually perceives light. He probably painted them very quickly, and merely meant to suggest their faces, rather than to clearly depict them.”
