The Painting on Auerperg's Wall

by Erika Rummel

“You are worried about the house? You want me to keep an eye on your place?” he said to Nancy.

  “Would you?” Nancy said, looking relieved. “Actually, I’m not worried about the house. I have surveillance. The problem is the cat. Would you mind feeding Bébé?”

  She sat forward and perched on the edge of the sofa, ready to withdraw the cat-feeding request if it met with the least resistance. The cushions billowed and sighed.

  “I’m so sorry to impose on you,” she said, “but it’s only for a few days. Laura has decided to visit her mother in Hungary. Zoltan encouraged her, you see. He wants Laura to get in touch with her roots, and this is the only week she can get away from her job.”

  “Not to worry,” David said. “I’ll feed the cat and keep the burglars at bay.”

  “You are a darling,” Nancy said and air-kissed him. “I knew I could rely on you. And it’s so important for Laura to understand where Zoltan is coming from. Last chance to see the old Hungary, you know. Once it becomes part of the European Union, it will change forever.”

  “And Zoltan wants his daughter to see the old country in its original, wretched state?”

  Nancy gave him a breathless, fluttering laugh, and immediately became serious again. It wasn’t a laughing matter. “Zoltan broke up with his wife when Laura was a teenager,” she said. “He got custody and emigrated. It was a bitter divorce, and there are scars. Laura hasn’t seen her mother in years, so she’s a little apprehensive about the visit.”

  Nancy weighed the sentence down with a pause and let the story go. She didn’t want to develop the Nagy saga beyond the Hungarian background, the divorce, and the suspended mother/daughter relationship. Just a few factoids. This wasn’t about Zoltan or Laura after all. This was about her house. And her cat.

  “If you have a minute, David, I could explain the security system to you.”

  He followed Nancy across to her immaculate house. The Mini Cooper had disappeared from the driveway. She showed David how to disarm and rearm the security system. She took him into the stainless steel kitchen and showed him the cat pantry, initiated him into feeding times, and explained the workings of the state-of-the-art litter box. The “LitterMaid,” as Nancy called it, was a handsome cedar cabinet with a chute on top and a plastic bag suspended underneath. It needed emptying only every two or three weeks, Nancy said. There was really nothing to do, but just in case, she showed him where she kept the operating manual.

  To divert their thoughts from the nasty business of the LitterMaid, Nancy suggested drinks on the patio. At the sliding door, David stopped and, for a second, saw the deck chair by the pool in a double exposure: himself superimposed on the image of a bull-necked Zoltan. Was Nancy playing musical chairs with them? No, really, he had to wean himself from indulging in this kind of thought. It was all straightforward, a neighbourly transaction. Nancy was asking him to pet-sit while she and Zoltan were away.

  “What does Zoltan do with his patients when he takes a vacation?” he asked, pulling back into the realm of practicalities. “Are they supposed to put their phobias on hold, or does he refer them to a substitute shrink?”

  “I have no idea,” Nancy said, keeping her eyes on the tray with the drinks, fully occupied, apparently, with setting down David’s glass.

  “But that wouldn’t work, would it?” he mused. “Say you are midway through exploring your messed-up childhood or your dysfunctional marriage, you’d have to start all over again with the new shrink. The replacement shrink, I mean.”

  “I really don’t know,” Nancy said in a strained voice. She would have wrinkled her brow if Botox had permitted it. “In any case, it’s not a problem at this point because Zoltan is between assignments.”

  Between assignments, as in “unemployed?” Taking a Nile cruise seemed a little extravagant for an unemployed man. Unless, of course, Zoltan was independently wealthy. Or Nancy was footing the bill.

  “I thought Zoltan was working at a treatment centre in Malibu,” David said, unwilling to let Nancy off the hook. “That’s what he said to me at the party.”

  “At the Hope Center,” she said, “but he had a falling-out with the director over methodology. He thought the Center was too lenient on celebrity clients. Britney was there for a week, you know, and they allowed her out on shopping trips. The place was ringed with paparazzi after that. Things came to a head when Zoltan was offered a spot on TV to talk about rehab. The board vetoed it — something about a confidentiality clause.”

  “I can see that there might be a problem, a conflict of interest,” David said.

  “Oh, of course it would have meant walking a fine line,” Nancy said. She had found her stride again and gave him a gleaming, super-white smile. “Zoltan could have handled it. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the Executive Director. He thought he should be the one in front of the camera. He was upset because Zoltan had been asked to do it. Naturally, the media want someone with pizzazz. They don’t want a dry, clinical lecture. They asked Zoltan because he has the human touch. He knows how to engage people, but they never gave him credit for that at the Center.” Nancy looked aggrieved on Zoltan’s behalf.

  “I hope he finds something more suited to his talents,” David said, trying to keep the irony out of his voice. TV shrink? Ladies’ escort? Director of recreation?

  “He has other projects,” Nancy said airily. “I just read the first draft of his novel-in-progress. It’s fascinating.”

  “Zoltan is writing a novel?”

  “Science fiction,” she said. “About a biologist who develops a method of shedding old age by transferring it to a clone. The clone then goes through the aging process on behalf of the donor, if that’s the right word.”

  David could see Nancy taking an interest in remedial cloning as a way to maintain youthful looks.

  “I think it’s an amazing idea, absolutely marvelous, don’t you think?” she said.

  “A little too esoteric for my taste,” David said.

  “I’m not very good at explaining the story. You should read the manuscript. I’ll ask Zoltan to give you a copy.”

  David begged off. “I’m hopeless,” he said. “I’ve never been able to follow science-fiction plots. I think I lack the requisite imagination.” He finished his drink and stood. “Give Zoltan my regards. I wish him the best of luck.”

  AS SOON AS David got home, he googled the Hope Center. Why am I doing this, he thought as he hit “Enter.” It was small-time snooping, despicable greasy behaviour. But Zoltan’s name was inseparably linked in his mind with Laura’s, and the memory of Zoltan’s incomprehensible babble at the party meshed with Laura’s enigmatic smile. David thought of her with a rush of desire. He had already googled the Getty and found only a short listing for Laura that told him no more than her title, “Curator,” which he knew already, and the number of her extension, which he could have gotten through the switchboard. Would a background check on Zoltan provide more clues? He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for.

  A click-on series of images on the website of the Hope Center showed a resort-like complex, a woman in a white lab coat giving a PowerPoint presentation, and a group of people in designer gym clothes doing aerobics. Another click brought him to the mission statement. The Center endeavoured to treat the whole person, taking into consideration his/her special needs: “We promise security combined with luxury and comfort.” Zoltan Nagy was still listed as a team member. He had degrees from Vienna and Berkeley, but no publication record popped up, at least nothing of a scholarly nature. Apparently he was the author of a memoir entitled The Rescue. Rescue from what? The dreary economics of Hungarian communism? David felt faintly curious about Zoltan’s life story, which included fathering Laura after all, but the book wasn’t listed on Amazon.com. He considered putting in a special order at the local bookstore, but his recent bout of energy was coming to an end. His desire to go out and do things wa
s waning. He was settling back into sloth mode, no, worse than sloth mode. He no longer had the strength to read the paper. He decided not to renew his subscription to the LA Times. No more international calamities, no more natural disasters. He decided to stick to the local daily, The Santa Monica Daily Press, even though it meant going to the corner to pick up a copy. Local crime, city council squabbles, and entertainment news was all he could handle. He missed Jerry. His talk had been like CPR. He knew how to keep the pulse going. Maybe it was the professional skill of a columnist. Was that the difference between the two of them, the difference between an academic and a journalist? Or the fact that Jerry was gay? No, that was irrelevant. Gay is the new straight, Jerry wrote in his column. Forget about the old stereotypes, the hedonistic, transgressive, radical ethos (But it fits you, Jerry!). The politics of coming out are shifting. There is no more need to change or assimilate to fit into the mainstream.

  “And that’s a good thing?” he said to Jerry.

  “Well, it’s a little sad. The edgy times are over, but that’s what we wanted, after all, to be like everyone else,” Jerry said.

  So, gay wasn’t the point. The difference between them was the difference between certainty and doubt, Jerry’s wide-open arms and David’s need to hold in his breath. Before David could figure it out — Should you be friends with a gay man? Was it okay to like Jerry’s slim-hipped boyfriends? — Jerry started dying. His eyes faded to a washed-out blue. He became painfully thin. His laugh shrunk to a sardonic grin. He stood, leaning on the back of a chair to steady himself, and looked at David with his newly colourless, appraising gaze that said: You are healthy, you lucky bugger. What’s your reason for being depressed?

  Right. No reason. Except the spine-crushing doubts, the constant questioning of his thoughts, his methods, his worth. Doubts were tightening David’s throat, whispering to him. He was back where he had been before Nancy’s party, before the dream vision of Laura. He spent mornings in the sunroom, holding on to his empty coffee cup, looking at the hedge separating his property from Nancy’s and thinking of the trees that had been there, still expecting them to be there. He made himself turn away and look for something real, staring at his garden shed, trying to memorize the shape of the aluminum siding and the location of the dented spots. He had given up working on his book. The footnotes were strangling him. He tried to rally and rekindle his ambitions, but there was no answering call in his mind. His insides had gone blank. Going upstairs and switching on the computer required too much effort. It had turned into an expedition on the scale of climbing Mount Everest. And Nancy’s backyard offered no diversion. She and Zoltan had left for their vacation the night before.

  David dragged himself to the kitchen and contemplated Nancy’s set of keys hanging on a hook next to a striped potholder. A sense of obligation took hold. The thought of Bébé starving stirred him into action.

  He went next door and did a duty round, crossing the conversation pit in Nancy’s living room, presided over by the Mondrian. He schlepped upstairs. More art of the significant kind. A small collotype of a landscape, impressed with Klimt’s signet in metallic ink. A sculpture that looked like a Picasso. In the master bedroom, a black-and-white photo (of the late Mr. Auerperg?) signed by Karsh. In the hall, two landscape photos by Ansel Adams. David checked the other bedrooms — mostly abstract expressionism. He looked into the gleaming bathrooms and noted a whimsical bird by David Hockney.

  Everything was in order, as far as he could see.

  Back downstairs, in the kitchen, he opened a tin of cat food and watched Bébé crouching over her dish, scarfing down the food, her body tense, her tongue flicking rapidly.

  He reached down and stroked her sleek coat. Some of Bébé’s animal energy passed through his hand like a galvanic current, an electric sizzle. His pulse came to life. He went out into the backyard and stood at the edge of the pool, looking at the shimmering reflection of the cabana: Laura’s future home. He became aware of his stepped-up heartbeat, sensed a certain disquiet springing up. He had noticed it before. The sloth mode was peaceful, spurts of energy brought anxiety.

  I’ll take the Karmann Ghia for a spin, he thought. It was an unfailing remedy for anxiety — a calming drive, a cruise along Montana to watch the latte-sippers in the sidewalk cafés, then over to San Vicente, past the coral trees, and back home to the quiet of Wadsworth Avenue. Then maybe something halfway between work and indolence, like buffing the car. The garnet red finish was beginning to dull a little on top, but the biscuit interior was still perfect, and all the accessories were original down to the spotlessly clean ashtray. David knew his admiration for the car bordered on fetishism, but beauty had that effect on him, whether live or cast in steel. It made him prayerful, at one with the cosmos. It was the only way to restore inner peace.

  He cast a final look at the pool and was about to leave when it occurred to him that his guardianship over Nancy’s house included the cabana. He fingered the set of keys, debating the propriety of inspecting Laura’s space. If the set contained a key to the cabana, Nancy meant him to check it. If not…

  There was a key. David felt a riff of anxiety — or was it a voyeur’s thrill — as he unlocked the door and surveyed the space, a large open room with an alcove, cool and mysteriously sombre in the half-light of the shuttered windows. He turned on the lights and furtively took stock, looking for clues to Laura’s life. The rattan seating arrangement with the melon green pillows, the close-up art photos of blooming cacti, and the tribal carpet covering the terracotta tiles were probably Nancy’s. They reflected her interior decorating spirit. There was a Barcelona settee in the alcove, intended for an after-sauna siesta but set up as a bed now. The computer desk and shelves on the far wall had probably come out of those IKEA cartons the movers had delivered. They were made of pressed wood with a white finish, the kind you assemble with a screwdriver. He could see the clothes rack in the hallway, hung with square-shouldered bags. The content might be revealing, but he couldn’t get himself to unzip them. The gesture seemed too intimate, even fetishist.

  What was on view didn’t yield as much information as David had hoped. There were no signposts to Laura’s past. No travel souvenirs, no books whose titles might reveal her interests.

  No books! David realized. Wouldn’t you expect a curator to have a wall of art books? Maybe there was more stuff to come. His thoughts were blanked out by the sound of footsteps on the gravel path — had he left the gate open? David heard the scraping of boots on the patio, saw a shadow darkening the doorframe. His heartbeat speeded up. Burly intruder. No, uniformed man. Cop. Cops. Two of them. A flash of a badge.

  “Are you the owner?” the front man said, sizing up David with a quick glance. His black sunglasses gave off a menacing glint.

  “I’m a neighbour,” David said. “The owner asked me to check the property while she’s away.” He held up Nancy’s keys to validate his claim. There was something in the officer’s polycarbonate, UV-resistant stare that turned David from an innocent man into a person of interest.

  Why were the cops here? Had he set off an alarm? Breached the security when he entered the cabana? Perhaps he’d touched one of the paintings in the house by mistake. Were they wired? If so, Nancy should have warned him. But he had disarmed the security system. Wouldn’t that take care of everything?

  The officer gave him the steady look reserved for suspects.

  “I live next door,” David said and pointed in the direction of his house, becoming aware of the flaking paint on the clapboard siding of his sunroom. A board had come loose under the eaves.

  “Next door?” the officer said. “What’s your name?” He pulled out a pad and noted down the information. If it wasn’t for the gun, you could have taken him for a TV repairman or a guy from a cable company. Same type of uniform. Short sleeves, shirt open to the second button, undershirt showing through the V, tools of the trade hanging from his leather belt.Okay,
that was the giveaway: a holstered gun, handcuffs, and an electronic gadget — a metal detector? A taser to jellify your muscles?

  “Can we ask you a few questions?” the officer said and went on without waiting for David’s answer. “When have you last seen or spoken to Laura Nagy?” His colleague was standing by silently, twitching an incipient Latino mustache, keeping an eye on David, ready to jump him if he tried to bolt.

  “Laura Nagy? Let me see. Wednesday night.”

  “And she told you to take care of the property?” the officer said, leaning forward, straining to look into David’s eyes. The outline of a bulletproof vest was showing under his uniform.

  There was a moment of confusion until David sorted out the misunderstanding.

  “No, not Laura Nagy,” he said. “The owner, Nancy Auerperg, asked me to drop in and feed her cat. Laura is her tenant.” How to explain the whole complicated story to a cop, that Laura was supposed to house-sit, but now she wasn’t? “Mrs. Auerperg asked me to take care of things until Laura’s return from her vacation in Hungary. Is there a problem?”

  “Miss Nagy has been the victim of a mugging.”

  David blinked. In Hungary? “When was that? Where? Is she hurt?”

  “She is under medical care,” the officer said. “Have you seen any unusual activity around here in the last few days?”

  “Nothing unusual,” David said. “So is Laura okay?” That was a stupid question to ask after being told that she was under medical care. He corrected himself. “I mean, where is she now?”

  The officers exchanged looks. Were they assessing his sanity? Gauging the value of the information he was asking for?

  “You can contact the UCLA Medical Center for information,” the front man said.

  Laura was not in Hungary then. She was at the Medical Center.

  The second-in-command stepped up, boots clanking on the tiled floor. “Mind if we have a look around?” he said.

  “Do you have a search warrant?” David said. The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself, an old bit of TV dialogue stuck in his brain, something from LAPD: Life on the Beat.