Art of Murder

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  It was not beautiful. It was grotesque, terrifying. The sight of Rembrandt's works transformed into living beings did arouse an emotion, but to Bosch this was not the product of beauty. It was obvious that Van Tysch had reached the limit: no one could go any further in human painting. But the path he had chosen was not that of aesthetics.

  There was nothing beautiful in the crucified man, in the young girl leaning on a windowsill, face as pale as death, in the feast in which the dishes were people, in the naked woman with her red-painted hair spied on by two grotesque individuals, in the silhouette of the girl with phosphorescent eyes, the boy wrapped in painted furs, the angel strangling the kneeling man. There was nothing beautiful in them, but nothing human either. And the worst of it was that it all seemed to accuse Rembrandt as much as Van Tysch. It was a sin shared by both men. Here before you is the negation of humanity, the two artists seemed to be saying. Condemned for being what they were. In a night of horror, mankind invented art.

  This is our condemnation, thought Bosch.

  'Hats off to him, no doubt about that,' a voice said after an endless silence. It was Ronald.

  On the screen, Stein raised his hands and applauded. Violently, almost furiously. But there was no sound, which made the clapping on the screen look like a silent convulsion. Hoffmann, Benoit and the physicist Popotkin joined in. Soon all the figures around Van Tysch were clapping their hands like frenzied dolls.

  The first to follow suit inside the Portakabin was Martine. As they beat together, her slender, flexible palms sounded like gunshots. Osterbrock and Nikki added their excited burst of clapping. Ronald's applause though was muffled, as if bubbles were escaping from his pudgy hands. All this noise in the confined space of the Portakabin deafened Bosch. He could see Nikki's cheeks were on fire.

  What were they applauding? Good God, what were they applauding, and why?

  Welcome to madness. Welcome to humanity.

  He did not want to be the exception, to be the odd one out: he hated drawing attention to himself. He told himself he had to stay within the picture frame.

  He beat his hands together and produced sounds.

  27.35.

  In Portakabin A, Alfred van Hoore was sitting in front of the monitor focused outside the Tunnel, observing the deployment of what Rita had baptised the 'parrot brigade'. His Artistic Emergency Team was waiting in Museumplein. They were green-and-white phantoms with yellow oilskins standing beside the evacuation vehicles. Van Hoore knew it was highly unlikely they would be needed, but at least his idea had won the approval of Benoit, and even of Stein himself. You had to start somewhere. In firms like the Foundation you had to come up with new proposals.

  'Paul?' Van Hoore spoke into the microphone.

  'Yes, Alfred,' he heard Spaalze's voice boom in his headphones.

  Paul Spaalze was the captain of this improvised team. Van Hoore had put complete trust in him. They had previously worked together on coordinating security for exhibitions in the Middle East, and Van Hoore knew Spaalze was one of those who 'act first and worry about it afterwards'. This meant he was not someone for making long-term plans, but who was indispensable at moments of crisis.

  'Less than half an hour before the flock troops in,' Van Hoore said, through a storm of interference. 'How is everything going out there, Paul?'

  It was a rather useless question, because Van Hoore could see from the monitor that 'out there' everything was fine, but he wanted Spaalze to know he was watching things closely. He had spent many long hours designing emergency evacuation procedures on his computer, and he did not want his captain to lose heart from having nothing to do.

  'Well, you know,' Spaalze roared. 'The worst catastrophe I'm facing at the moment is the possibility of a mutiny. Did you know they made us sing like sopranos for the voice identity checks, and to touch the screens as though we were paintings before they would let us into the blasted central square? My men didn't like that at all.'

  'Orders from above,' said Van Hoore. 'If it's any consolation to you, Rita and I had to undergo the same torture.'

  In fact, Van Hoore himself had wondered what the exact reason was for all the additional security measures: this was the first time he had been asked to go through these physical tests before getting in. Rita had not liked it any more than he had, and had even got annoyed with the agents who were blocking the way. Why hadn't Miss Wood told them anything about it? What did the change in the shifts for the recovery and supervision personnel mean? Van Hoore had a suspicion that the withdrawal of the Maestro's works in Europe had something to do with all this, but did not dare speculate what exactly it meant. Above all, he was hurt that he was not yet important enough to be let into the secret.

  'They don't trust us,' he said.

  Rita van Dorn, feet up on the desk while she stirred a cup of steaming coffee in a plastic cup, looked over at him in an offhand manner, then went on staring at the screens.

  17.50.

  A technician from the Art division held the umbrella aloft as Van Tysch climbed into the limousine. Stein was sitting waiting for him. Van Tysch's secretary, Murnika de Verne, was in front beside the driver. Journalists and cameramen thronged behind the security barrier, but the Maestro had not answered any of their questions. 'He's tired and does not want to make any statement,' his entourage said. Benoit, Nellie Siegel and Franz Hoffmann would be delighted to become prophets for a few minutes, and reveal the words of God for the microphones, but the Maestro had to leave. The car door closed. The driver - smart, blond-haired, wearing sunglasses - aimed for one of the exits the police had cleared. An agent allowed them out. His oilskin was gleaming in the rain.

  Van Tysch looked back one last time at the Tunnel, then turned to the front. Stein put a hand on his shoulder. He knew Van Tysch detested any show of affection, but he was doing it for himself rather than the Maestro: he needed the other man to understand to what extent he had obeyed him, all the sacrifices he had made.

  And how many he still had to make, galismus.

  'It's finished, Bruno. Finished.'

  'Not yet, Jacob. There's still something to be done.'

  'Fuschus, I swear that... you could say it's already done.'

  'You might say it, but it's not'

  Stein thought of a possible reply. This was how it had always been: Van Tysch was the eternal question, and he had to find the replies. He leaned back in his seat and tried to relax. Impossible. The great painter was as distant and inscrutable as the works of art he created. Next to him, Stein always felt a bit like Adam in the Garden of Eden after he had disobeyed God, with a certain transparent sense of shame. Any silence before Van Tysch contained an implicit recognition of guilt. It was a really unpleasant feeling. But what did that matter? Stein had spent twenty years of his life watching the Maestro transform human bodies into impossible things, and changing the world. He had enough material to write a book, and one day he would. But he still felt he did not know him any better than the rest of the world. If Van Tysch was a dark ocean, he had simply been a dyke to dam it, an electric power station which could change the extraordinary torrent into gleams of gold. The Maestro needed him, would go on needing him. Up to a point.

  Just then, a phantom reared up in the front seat.

  Murnika de Verne had turned her head and was regarding Stein through the tousled curtain of her jet-black hair. Stein looked away from the empty, lifeless eyes. He knew very well that it was not Murnika staring at him, but the Maestro. Murnika de Verne was Van Tysch to an extent that no one, except Stein, could suspect. The Maestro had painted her like this, with that wild look of hers.

  Murnika kept staring at him, her anxious mouth hanging open like a starving dog's. She seemed to reproach him for something, but also to want to alert him.

  The car glided on through the darting rain. Her fixed stare disturbed him.

  'Fuschus, Bruno, don't you believe me?' he said to defend himself. ‘I swear I'll take care of everything. Trust me. Everything will be fine.'


  He was talking to Murnika, but his words were intended for Van Tysch. He was making the same mistake a spectator sometimes makes when he believes the eyes of a painting are following him, or when a ventriloquist's dummy addresses him in the middle of an act. But in this case, it was Van Tysch who seemed like the dummy. Murnika de Verne appeared horribly alive and painted. She stared at him for a moment longer, then the life went out of her and she turned back to face the front of the car.

  Stein drew a deep breath.

  The windscreen wipers tussled with the rain. The only noise Stein could hear was this ticking like a clock (or a pendulum, or a paintbrush) as the limousine sped along the motorway towards Schiphol.

  'Everything will be fine, Bruno,' Stein repeated.

  18.35.

  'We met at school in Edenburg,' Victor Zericky explained. 'My family is from here. Bruno only had his father, who was born in Rotterdam and who probably told him, among many other things, that there was nothing to be done here.'

  Zericky was a tall, strong-looking man with blond hair going white. He looked like a well-intentioned man for whom things had not always gone as he had wished. Yet there was something about the way he screwed up his eyes when he talked that suggested there might be some hidden secret, some forbidden room, some distant family curse on him. His house was as cramped as it appeared from outside, and smelt of books and solitude. Half an hour earlier, when he returned after his long walk along the Geul with his dog and was showing Miss Wood in, he had confessed that his wife had left him because she could not bear either of these things. 'Neither books nor solitude,' he said with a laugh. But that did not mean he lived like a hermit, far from it: he went out a lot, was sociable, and had his friends. And he loved to discover nature on walks with his dog.

  Miss Wood explained who she was, and gave a pardal account of why she was there. She said she wanted to know more about the man whose works she was protecting, which was reasonable, and Zericky nodded, seeming to accept the excuse. Miss Wood launched into an entertaining monologue about the 'tremendous difficulty in finding the real Van Tysch' in the numerous books written about him, which had made her determined to get to the bottom of the problem and interview his great childhood friend. 'Tell me everything you remember,' she asked him, 'even if you don't think it's important.'

  Zericky narrowed his eyes. Perhaps he suspected a deeper reason behind Miss Wood's visit, but he did not seem to want to discover what that might be. In fact, he was flattered by her request. It was obvious he liked to talk, and he did not often have the opportunity. He spoke first about himself: he gave classes in a school in Maastricht, although the previous year he had asked for leave in order to catch up on all his unfinished projects. He had published several books on the history of south Limburg, and at present was gathering material for a definitive study on Edenburg. Then he began to tell her about Van Tysch. He had got up to fetch a grimy folder from his bookshelves. In it were a pile of photographs. He passed some of them to Miss Wood.

  'At school he was incredible. Look.'

  It was a typical school form photograph. The children's heads shone white and round like so many pinheads. Zericky leaned over Miss Wood's shoulder.

  'That one's me. And this is Bruno. He was very beautiful. It took your breath away just to look at him, whether you were a boy or a girl. His eyes shone with an inexhaustible gleam. His jet-black hair, inherited from his Spanish mother, his plump lips and thick black eyebrows that looked as if they had been drawn on with ink, gave him the harmonious look of an ancient god .. . That's how I remember him. But it was more than just beauty ... how can I explain it? . .. He was like one of his paintings . .. there was something that went beyond what you can see. There was nothing for it but to bow at his feet. And he loved that. He enjoyed directing us, giving us orders. He was born to create things with others.'

  For a split second, Zericky's eyes opened wide, as though they were inviting Miss Wood inside to see all that they had seen.

  'He invented a game, which he sometimes played with me in the woods. I stood stock still, and Bruno placed my arms, head, or feet in the position he wanted. He used to say I was his statue. The rules were that I couldn't move until he gave me permission, although I must say that he made up the rules as well. Does that mean Bruno could do whatever he liked? Yes and no. I think he was more of a victim.'

  Zericky paused as he put the photo back in the folder.

  'I've thought a lot about Bruno over the years. I've come to the conclusion that he never cared about anyone or anything, but not because he was really uninterested in them so much as in order to survive. He was used to suffering. I remember one of his typical gestures: when anything hurt him, he would look up to the skies as though imploring aid. I used to say it made him look like Jesus, and he liked the comparison. Bruno always saw himself as a new Redeemer.'

  'A new Christ?' Miss Wood repeated.

  'Yes. I think that's how he sees himself. A misunderstood god. A god made man whom all of us have tortured.'

  19.30.

  He was out there somewhere.

  All of a sudden Bosch had been filled with that terrible conviction.

  He was out there somewhere. The Artist. Waiting.

  Hendrickje, who had put her superstitious faith in his old bloodhound's sense of smell, would have bet anything that he was right. 'If that is what you feel, Lothar, don't think twice about it: go with it.' He stood up so brusquely that Nikki turned towards him, intrigued.

  'Is something wrong, Lothar?'

  'No. I just feel like stretching my legs. I've been sitting down for hours. I might walk over to the other control post.'

  In fact, one of his legs had gone numb. He tapped his shoe on the floor to help the blood flow.

  'Take an umbrella: it's not raining hard, but you could get soaked,' said Nikki.

  Bosch nodded, but left the Portakabin without taking an umbrella.

  It was raining outside - not heavily, but with a steady persistence - although it was quite warm. Bosch blinked, and walked a few paces away from the Portakabin to savour the atmosphere.

  The huge tent of the Tunnel was less than thirty metres from him. It shone like petrol in the rain, and looked like a mountain shrouded in mourning clothes. The vehicles parked round it left narrow corridors that were thronged with personnel: workmen, police, plainclothes agents, the sanitary team. The sight inspired confidence and security.

  But there was something more, a thread he could perceive although it was almost invisible, a background colour, a deep note playing beneath the surface fanfare of noise.

  'He's here.'

  Two of his men passed by him and said hello, without receiving any reply from Bosch apart from a brief nod. He swung his head from side to side, studying shapes and faces. He would not have been able to say how, but he was sure he was going to recognise Postumo Baldi when he saw him, whatever his disguise. His eyes are mirrors. But he could not rid himself of his sense of unease, even though he knew it was unlikely Baldi was there at that very moment. His body is like fresh clay. Maybe I'm just nervous because today is the opening, he told himself. That was easy to understand, and with the understanding came a sense of calm.

  'Don't try to understand, Lothar. Listen to your spirit, not your mind,' was what Hendrickje used to tell him. But then, Hendrickje read her tarot cards like others read the morning papers, and saw her horoscope as set in stone just like events that had already taken place. Despite this, you didn't see that lorry waiting for you on your way back from Utrecht, did you Hendri? You didn't foresee the astrological confluence of your head and the back end of that trailer. All your intuition suddenly converted into Stardust, eh, Hendri?'

  He walked over to the barriers. Why would he be here today? That's absurd. The only reason would be for him to explore the terrain. That's the way he operates. First he gets to know the surroundings, then he attacks. He's not going to try anything today.

  He flashed his ID card and an agent let him
through. He found himself caught up in the crowd coming out of the long night of the Tunnel - their eyes wide, fascination still shining in their faces, and swam against the current of this tide of humanity. Further on, beyond another row of barriers, was the central square from which all the paintings would be picked up. There were fewer people in there. Bosch could see the green and white uniforms of Van Hoore's team. They all seemed to be like him: nervous but at the same time calm. It was understandable. Never before had such astronomically valuable works of art been exhibited in a place like this. Outdoor pieces were much easier to guard; still simpler the ones in museums. 'Rembrandt' though was a huge challenge for the Foundation personnel.

  He made for the Tunnel entrance. To his left, near the Rijksmuseum, was concentrated a small but vociferous group of BAH members waving banners in Dutch and English. The rain did not appear to dampen their enthusiasm. Bosch considered them for a moment. The main banner showed an eye-catching illustration (a blown-up photo) of a Stein original called The Stepladder, with the fourteen-year-old adolescent Janet Clergue. Her buttocks, breasts and genitals had been scribbled over and censored. Other placards displayed texts hastily written in capitals: