The Prize

by Jill Bialosky

  “If you call it success.”

  “What would you call it, then?”

  “I’m not sure there’s exactly a word for it.” He paused. “Horse’s ass,” he said, and they both laughed. “Really, though. Once you get to know him, he’s not that bad.”

  “All that nonsense about Nate Fisher? The art world whore. He’ll do anything for attention,” Julia moaned. She leaned against a lamppost on the sidewalk beside them and stretched her arms, revealing her soft curves. He looked around and thought to himself that in that moment he was in love with the city, with the old-world architecture, the steins of dark beer and sausages and little turnips and white beans he’d eaten the night before. With the ornate black railings in front of townhouses and the harsh, guttural sounds of the German language he heard from passersby on the street. With the utter foreignness of it all.

  “Alex Savan. I don’t know,” Julia continued. “He’s a little too slick for my taste.” She shook her head, as if she took it personally. “How does he do it? He enters a room as if he owns it.”

  “He listens carefully. That’s his gift.”

  “You’re more brilliant than you appear,” Julia said, with a slight grin.

  “Is that a compliment?” Edward lifted his chin, uncertain.

  “Of course it is. You sound glum. Or jaded. I’m not sure.”

  “I’m not. That’s my problem. I still hope to be moved.” The pavement darkened and then the sun came out from behind a cloud. “We met once. Do you remember? After you got the Rome Prize.”

  She raised her eyes and nodded. Then she put her cigarette out in the planter. Edward noticed the understated gold wedding band on her finger.

  “Why did you come?” she looked up to ask.

  He put his hands in his pocket and stared at her. “To the fair? I suppose I wanted to escape for a while.”

  “What are you running away from?”

  “It’s good to have a break from the gallery. I realized on the flight over that I’m not sure I’ve ever known how to enjoy myself. I only serve,” he said, and heat rose to his cheeks and he laughed awkwardly.

  “We’ll have to make sure you do. I mean, enjoy yourself. Why shouldn’t you?”

  He looked at her and smiled. Maybe Berlin would be okay after all.

  “I suppose we should get back.” She looked at her watch. “They’ll be starting lunch soon.”

  They pushed through the revolving door, Savan, lingering, watching. Edward excused himself for the men’s, and Savan swooped in and escorted Julia toward the group awaiting them. Her value had gone up once he saw that Edward had taken an interest in her. He’d probably woo her over to Reinstein before the seven days were over, Edward thought, shaking his head.

  Returning a few minutes later, he canvassed the room for Julia. Savan had left her side to chat up Gerhardt. Julia strolled toward the garden behind the gallery. He threaded briskly through the crowded hall to catch up with her.

  “Has Savan won you over? I saw the two of you talking.”

  Julia smiled. “It’s amazing what flattery will do. What’s more amazing is how desperate we are for it. I doubt he knows my work.”

  “I’m sure he does. He knows a great artist when he sees one.”

  “Or when someone else deems her so. I think he’s lonely.”

  “Savan? Maybe. His clients are his best friends. Or at least he’ll tell you so. And not really friends, if you ask me, since there’s a contract between them.”

  Julia nodded. “Before. Back there. What did you mean by ‘serve’?”

  “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. At the gallery I’m either serving the artists I represent or the clients we’re selling to. I’m not complaining about it. It’s what I do best.”

  “You need someone to serve you.”

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  “I have that effect on people,” she sighed. She thrust out her chin and shook her head, as if uncertain of whether or not she liked being a person others confided in.

  They walked through the gallery doors into the courtyard. Julia’s cell phone rang. She excused herself to take it and walked toward the rosebushes.

  Berlin was the largest city in Germany, home of the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, and the atrocities of the Third Reich. He felt its power, its magnanimity, its horrors and destruction as he looked up at the stone façade of the building and at the sharp angles and strong heights throughout the city. He thought about the birth of the German Expressionist movement before the First World War as a reaction against industrialization and about how history influenced art and that somehow he was a part of it all, or wanted to be. For years he had been waiting to lay his claim on it and thought that perhaps with the stable of artists he had invested in, artists like Agnes Murray, he was at the edge of achieving it. It was a grandiose thought, but you couldn’t be good in the business without a bit of ego, and it was a rare moment when he gave himself credit for his accomplishments. He gazed at Julia huddled into her phone and smiled to himself.

  He lit up another cigarette, and waited for her while the others strolled toward the garden for lunch. She was a breath of fresh air among the megalomaniacs, the seekers, wishers, and climbers.

  When she returned she looked shaken. He asked if everything was okay. Her eyes filled.

  “I’m fine, really,” she said. “We should go.”

  He held out his arm and escorted her to the beer garden where Gerhardt was hosting lunch. He sat across from her at the long table, draped with a white cloth and enlivened by a centerpiece of freshly cut flowers. Once seated, Julia’s mood brightened. A debate had begun about whether artists like Koons and Hirst were responding to the media-saturated culture or simply creating sensational work that would please the public. Julia mentioned that she thought it was too easy. After the plates of tender bratwurst and sauerkraut had been served, Edward watched her become intensely swept up in the conversation. Her cheeks turned pink and she talked excitedly, gesturing with her hands.

  She said she’d read that Koons had hired a consultant to create an image for him. She wondered whether Fisher had, too.

  “Koons has stated that there is no meaning behind his work,” Gerhardt said. “Is that the case for Nate Fisher as well?”

  “I’m not sure,” Julia pondered. “His work strives for meaning. But it’s unclear whether he’s aware that the meaning is . . . well, Edward said it earlier. It’s banal. You might admire it if you like kitsch.”

  He looked at Julia again. Her sincerity moved him. He breathed in the sharp scent of pollen and fragrant roses, sipped his wine, and leaned back in his chair. His eyes drew toward her again.

  The waiter poured the coffee, and Julia stood up and excused herself. When she returned, her red lipstick was restored and her face again seemed composed. There was no sign she’d been upset earlier. She sat next to Gerhardt, instead of across from Edward, and though there was no particular reason why she would return to sit across from him, he was disappointed.

  3 BERLIN

  AFTER GERHARDT’S LECTURE and lunch, the Americans had a few unscheduled hours. Edward slowly walked to the Neue

  Nationalgalerie. Under the glow of the September sun, the air was warm and pleasant and the violet and blue pansies in the windowboxes shimmered. He admired the elaborate cornices and lead-glass windows of the prewar architecture, and as he took in the pleasing sensations he told himself it was okay to enjoy himself. Away from home, flying overseas, taking solitary walks, he had to remind himself that he was lucky to have a full life at home: a career he enjoyed, and a beautiful wife and daughter.

  As he walked he thought about his father, who had spent many summers in Europe doing research. He was approaching the age at which his father died, forty-two, and it left him unsettled. Sometimes when he thought of his father tears sprang to his eyes. He had dreams in which his father was handsome and youthful, unlike the last years of his life, when his illness destroyed his
mind. The medications made him lethargic and withdrawn. He couldn’t work anymore. He’d studied painting in college and had put it aside and when he couldn’t work he’d taken it up again. He painted the same landscape over and over again from the window in his study. He said that when he looked at his hands he didn’t think they belonged to him. Eventually he left the house only for psychiatric appointments. That first winter he was ill, Edward was seventeen. He promised himself he’d do well on his final exams and be nicer to his mother if his father would return to the way he’d been before he got sick. Ice coated the windows of his bedroom, the steps to the house. The wooden floors were cold. The faint odor of sickness filled the chilly air. He refrained from putting on heavy sweaters to keep warm, and stopped hanging out with his friends, unable to find joy while his father was suffering, but none of the bargaining worked. When he was twenty-one his father died from an overdose of lithium. He could never quite put it all together.

  Years before he’d gotten sick, his father took him on a trip to New York to view a collection of Keats’s letters in an exhibition at the New York Public Library. He’d been working on a book about the Romantic poets, and after three years of research and writing was frustrated by his lack of progress and his inability to articulate his thoughts with the precision and clarity that had once come easily. After a long morning at the library, they took a cab to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His father’s dark hair was unkempt, and wire-rim glasses shadowed his eyes. He was an elegant, sensitive man with a thoughtful expression and delicate hands. He ranted about his department and not having enough time to work on his book but once he was taken out of himself, coming upon a painted urn in one of the Greek galleries, he brightened. He believed that there were those who sought freedom through wealth and attainment, and those who sought it in art and literature, and he hoped Edward would be in the latter camp. The urn reminded him of Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” His father had been obsessed with Keats. He quoted from one of the letters he’d read at the library earlier that day. “‘The excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth.’ This, my son, is the reason for my living,” he’d said. Edward knew, as children of brilliant parents do, that his father was not ordinary. He was an enigma; he wondered if all parents were to their children.

  His father’s ideals became Edward’s benchmark for judging a work of art. In college he studied art history and painting. He wanted to immerse himself in art. But the solitude required was oppressive. After a few hours of painting he couldn’t wait to burst out of the studio and take a walk in the fresh air, or see a friend. During critiques he was more excited by his classmates’ work than his own. Artists and the inspiration behind their subjects, their choice of medium and material, fascinated him. By his senior year he came to realize he didn’t have the constitution and talent necessary to make a livelihood as an artist, and that it wasn’t so much the making of art that moved and excited him, anyhow, but being in the presence of it. When he first began working at the gallery he couldn’t believe he was being paid, pitiful as the salary was, to be around art that thrilled him and to work with artists who believed he could help them.

  He walked the wide streets dotted with maples and lindens, thinking about his father’s passion for poetry and art, the ability of writers and artists to express the inner life and elements of life itself, and wondered what his father would think of the work he was doing. He stopped to check the map he’d picked up at the hotel and soon reached the Neue Nationalgalerie, where, inspired by Gerhardt’s lecture, he hoped to view some holdings of Munch, Picasso, and Klee.

  He stood on the steps before entering the museum and checked his phone. Georgia, his assistant, had sent him a message that Agnes Murray had called. He punched in the gallery number.

  “She said she hoped you’d be back soon. She was feeling anxious and needed to speak to you.”

  Georgia filled him in on a few other business matters before they hung up. He debated whether to phone Agnes or wait until he returned to New York. He knew he held more power if he kept her at a slight distance but did not want to take any chances of alienating her. They were expecting her new work not only to boost the bottom line but to revive their cachet. It had been four years since she’d last shown. She was elusive and mysterious about the work in progress. The longer she waited to show it to Edward, the more she upped the ante. He didn’t want to pressure her, but he knew that an artist in her position needed to show new work every few years to maintain her star power. The last time he’d gone to her studio she was working on one of her mural-like paintings and was dissatisfied with her figures. She said that Rembrandt together with his students produced thousands of drawings and was convinced they improved his paintings. She asked if Edward would sit for her. She made three or four quick sketches using charcoal until she was pleased with one. When the sketch was done, they looked at it together. It was different from the face he saw in the mirror. It wasn’t unattractive or ugly, but it was far from handsome. It had been sketched quickly, with fierce strokes. He could make out the faint dimple of his chin and the slope of his slender nose, but it was the eyes that struck him. They were serious, dark, with formidable circles—piercing and sad. She had captured something, and as he gazed at the drawing it reminded him of the way he’d felt when he lost his father. Or when he thought too hard about himself. Or when his heart was broken.

  Before going into the museum he sent May, the widow of the founder of the gallery, a message to let her know about Henning’s work and that he intended to secure a group of paintings to sell at the gallery. Before his success with Agnes Murray, every time he wanted to take on a new artist’s work, he had presented an analysis of numbers and market value, drawing comparisons with other successful artists working in the same vein, even though at the end of the day it was all speculative. A dealer placed a price on a piece of art, and since the market was unregulated, anything was possible. He was glad he no longer had to go through that song and dance.

  The last quarter, they’d been down, and he’d had a few sleepless nights. He’d been particularly anxious about not being able to get a clear timeline from Agnes. She was dragging her goddamn feet and in the meantime they were losing money. Selling some of Henning’s work would help them through the next quarter. He was in the process of selecting a new gallery to mount a show for Agnes in Berlin, and that morning, after a couple of calls before the lecture, he’d made some inroads. Now that he had decided to take on some of Henning’s work and was close to closing a deal for Agnes, his time wouldn’t be wasted, and he felt he could attempt to enjoy himself.

  He hated having to think this way. He wanted to be able to let Agnes take her time, not to feel that his fate hinged on hers.

  He tucked his phone in his pocket and walked into the museum. There was a small exhibition of Bonnard he wanted to see and he followed the signs to the gallery. Bonnard was one of his favorites. The paintings evoked a world secure and safe in its privilege and taste—a cultivated bourgeoisie in which, money, security, art, talent, and new ideas exist in peaceful harmony, a world insulated from catastrophe.

  He stood before Le petit déjeuner. It was such a peaceful, romantic painting, full of light and mystery. He admired the exuberance in the colors and the afternoon glow from the window. He felt his shoulders loosen. He hadn’t realized he’d been tense. The colors reminded him of the warm tones of red and yellow that Julia wore. He thought of her and pictured her inside the painting. She, too, seemed of another world, or in Berlin, away from his own life, she appeared so. He sat down on the bench across from the painting and then imagined himself in it with her.

  4 NEW YORK

  AFTER A SUCCESSFUL studio visit, the thing to do was to invite the artist to the gallery and begin the seduction. Relaxed in turtleneck and navy jacket, Leonard took the seat next to Agnes around a large glass table. Edward sat across from them. Leonard was a s
mall man with soft eyes, a knowing smile, and a reputation for excellent taste. His expertise was not only in spotting young talent but in putting a particular artist with the right dealer. He and Edward had worked together before and were close friends. It was two weeks after Edward’s first visit to Agnes’s studio in Bushwick, when he had seen her paintings for the first time.

  Agnes glanced at Leonard and he nodded for her to proceed. With a sweep of her eyes she scanned the open conference room with views into the gallery, and then, as if pleased, relaxed in her chair. She’d cleaned up for the meeting as if to set in her couture what she demanded for her work, looking more like a starving model than an artist, hair in a twist, draped in an expensive-looking peasant blouse, black slacks, and high short boots, a gloss of blackberry stain on her lips, large apricot-gold hoops in her ears, Prada bag slung over her shoulder. She asserted that her former dealer never understood her work. She didn’t like the crowded way he hung her paintings and that in the catalogue he misrepresented her intentions.

  “I’m quite frankly hurt by his callousness. I think there were like two reviews.”

  “Let’s just say Morgenstein doesn’t engage in the details,” Leonard conceded. “He’s a broad-strokes guy. We’re looking for the opposite.”

  “You’ve been painting since you were a child, haven’t you?” Edward pointedly asked.

  She nodded. “How did you know?”

  “It’s all there.”

  “That means a lot. I never felt that Morgenstein understood me.”

  “How can we make the experience different for you?”

  She twisted a lock of hair that had come loose behind her ear, glanced at the catalogues and printouts of excellent reviews arranged on the table to impress her, and quickly hid her smile. “I suppose if the work is as brilliant as you say, I should have all of it,” she said, nodding toward the reviews. She pulled at another spring of hair. “Exploit what you need to, that’s Nate’s motto,” she said. “But it has to be genuine. And I don’t want just anyone buying my paintings. It’s hard to part from them. I’d like to approve the buyers.”