Shades of Fortune

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “When I left Manhattan this morning, Miray shares were trading at sixty-nine and a half. I’m willing to offer you seventy-five and a quarter, Mrs. Bernhardt. That’s nearly ten percent above the current market.”

  “Mmm,” she says into the cigarette smoke. “Well, I should tell you that my grandfather used to say that we should never sell our Miray stock, no matter what. He was really quite adamant—even rabid—on the subject. He made my father, Nathan Myerson, promise never to sell. He was simply rabid on the subject.”

  “I understand that, Mrs. Bernhardt.”

  “My grandfather made all of his children and grandchildren promise—”

  “I understand that, too.”

  “It’s a very hard thing you’re asking me to do, to break a solemn promise I made to my grandfather.”

  “Let me say that I’d consider offering you seventy-seven and a half. That’s slightly more than ten percent over the market.”

  “Yes,” she says, picking an invisible piece of lint from the front of her white silk slacks. “Well, I’m sure you don’t expect a decision from me this afternoon. I’d like to consult my brothers, Sam and Joe.”

  “I’ll be speaking to them as well.”

  “And my husband, Dick. And I think I’d also like to consult my children. They should be a part of this, too, since this represents part of their inheritance. I must say, Miray has always been very good to us—at least since Adolph’s granddaughter took the company over. They’ve never skipped a dividend, and, as you know, there’ve been two splits.”

  “I know that.”

  “Will you be speaking with Mimi Myerson, too?”

  “On a somewhat different basis, yes.”

  “I don’t know her. We’ve never met, though she must be a very clever lady. There was some sort of family falling out years ago between my grandfather and his brother. I’ve never known what it was about, but it does seem silly, doesn’t it, after all these years? Two branches of the family which refuse to have anything to do with one another?”

  “These things happen, in families.”

  “Alas, yes. Is Mimi’s son in the business now? I think I read—”

  “He’s the one I’m after.”

  “After?” She laughs. “Goodness, you make it all sound rather sinister!”

  “I meant that … in the abstract,” he says.

  “I see. Business talk.”

  “So,” he says, rising from the sofa, “here’s my card where I can always be reached. You talk it over with your husband, your brothers, your kids. And let me know.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  “All I can say is that, in today’s market, I don’t think you’ll find a better offer, kiddo.”

  She starts toward the front door with him, then hesitates. “If you’re interested in the family, and the company, Mr. Horowitz, there’s something that you might like to see.…”

  To say that Nonie Myerson was astonished by her brother’s invitation to his house for dinner tonight would be an understatement. At their last meeting, she had thought he was going to hit her, and that only an extraordinary exercise in self-will had prevented him from doing just that. Knowing Edwee’s pattern of lengthy sulks after any sort of family disagreement, she had expected that it would be weeks, even months, before she heard from him again. And yet, this very morning, there he had been on the telephone, all jolly-voiced and cajoling, murmuring something about burying the hatchet, and calling her “dear girl,” and begging her to come to dinner.

  “I’m going to be cooking,” he said, “and there may be one or two others. Also, there’s a small bit of family business we need to discuss. Come at seven, dear girl.”

  And so, with that hint about family business, she had accepted. It was likely that Edwee’s plan to place their mother in a nursing home had struck some sort of legal snag that even forty lawyers from Dewey, Ballantine had been unable to sort out without Nonie’s cooperation. And, since she was revising her thinking about the nursing home notion as it might affect her dealings with her mother, Nonie had decided that it would be useful to her cause to find out what, exactly, was on Edwee’s mind.

  Now she has been ushered into Edwee’s office on Sutton Square by Edwee’s Filipino butler, and Edwee has closed the door conspiratorially behind them. He is still wearing his full white apron and tall chef’s bonnet, which, with his long silver hair flowing out beneath it, makes him look more than a little ridiculous, she thinks.

  “We’re having a salmon and sea-scallop tart, vermicelli with caviar and sauce aux truffes, veal paillard with sorrel sauce, cold chestnut soufflé, and a mango mousse,” he announces. “I’m particularly pleased with the mousse. Will you have a glass of Perrier?”

  Nonie nods. Perrier is the only liquid that Edwee permits his guests to drink before one of his little dinners. Anything stronger, he insists, would dull the palate to the flavors of his dishes and their accompanying wines.

  “Sit down, dear girl,” he says, uncapping the little green bottles and emptying them into champagne flutes. “I asked you to come a little early, because there is a matter of some delicacy that I need to discuss with you. And Gloria is—”

  “How is darling little Gloria?”

  “Gloria is … indisposed. Poor Gloria won’t be joining us tonight. She’s having something light sent up to her on a tray.” He hands Nonie a glass and suddenly winks at her. “The fact is, we think we’re pregnant.”

  “Pregnant! For the first time in her life, do you think?”

  “Yes. We’ve been experiencing a little morning sickness for the last few days, and we’re twelve days late getting our period.”

  “You both are? This will make medical history, Edwee!”

  “Yes! Isn’t that extraordinary? Oh, not the late period, of course, but I’ve been experiencing the morning sickness too. Doctor Katz tells me that this often happens with the husband. It’s called a sympathetic pregnancy. Do you suppose I’m going to start swelling up like a balloon? Doctor Katz says I just might. Anyway, we won’t know for sure until tomorrow, when we have our appointment with the OB-GYN.”

  “Really, Edwee. It’s too … mind-boggling.” She does not voice the question that immediately flew into her mind: how the sort of sexual gymnastics Edwee described to her earlier could possibly have led to a pregnancy.

  “Exciting, isn’t it? And you’re the first to know, because we’re really quite, quite sure. Aren’t you pleased? Won’t it be nice to have a new little nephew, or a new little niece who’ll be a bit more simpatico than our crass and calculating Mimi?”

  “I didn’t know that you found Mimi crass and calculating, Edwee.”

  “Mimi’s only interested in money; that’s all she’s ever cared about. The finer things in life have always escaped her. All she sees are dollar signs. It’s tragic, really, but that’s the way she’s always been—a life single-mindedly dedicated to the almighty dollar. I pity people like Mimi, who’ve never let their souls be lifted by art, music, poetry, the dance, the higher forms of love or beauty, even haute cuisine, and who care about nothing but money.”

  That, Nonie thinks, is easy for him to say, since he has always had more money than he ever needed. But she doesn’t say this. Instead she says, “But that isn’t what you wanted to talk about, it it? You mentioned some family business. I assume it’s about putting Mother in the nursing home.”

  “Hmm? Oh, no. No, I’ve given up on that idea. No, that won’t be necessary.”

  “What?” she cries in some dismay. “What do you mean? I thought you had the home all picked out. I thought we—”

  “No, no, no,” Edwee says. “No, you were right. It would be too cruel. We could never do a thing like that to our dear mother—to make her give up her lovely apartment, her darling little dog, her friends, room service. You and I could never live with ourselves, Nonie, if we were to be a party to a thing like that. You were absolutely right.”

  “But I’ve changed my—”

 
“No, what I wanted to talk to you about was something quite different. It’s that I suddenly remembered the other day that you have been to ‘I Tatti,’ and that you’re the only one in the family who has.”

  “That I’ve been where?” She is now more mystified than ever.

  “To ‘I Tatti.’ Bernard Berenson’s villa outside Florence.”

  “Well, yes. Years ago. It was when I was married to Horace. No, it was when I was married to Erik. It was before the war, and Berenson invited Erik and me to lunch.”

  “Ah,” he says. “Do you remember what you talked about?”

  “Not really. I remember there were some other people there, and I remember I thought he was charming. B.B., everybody called him. And his wife, Mary. I thought he was a darling little man, with that white, pointy beard and those big, sad eyes. Why do you ask about him?”

  “It’s important. Mother would never go to ‘I Tatti.’ She didn’t trust Berenson. She never met him. But you were there. You met him and talked with him.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You also remember when mother bought the Goya. I was too young.”

  “Oh, I remember vividly. It was in the early thirties. And I remember the price: fifty thousand dollars. I remember how Mother agonized over that. It seemed sinful, she said, almost sinful, to spend that kind of money on a piece of art when the world was sinking into a Great Depression, when vice-presidents of banks were selling apples on street corners. Well, how much is that Goya worth today, Edwee, do you suppose? Fifty million? Astonishing, what’s happened to art prices.”

  “And when you were at ‘I Tatti,’ did Berenson mention the Goya? Think hard. It’s important.”

  “He may have. I really don’t remember, Edwee. Goodness, it was more than forty years ago when Erik and I were there.”

  “But he may have.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “What exactly did he say about it?”

  “I don’t remember if he said anything about it at all, Edwee.”

  “You see, Mother bought the painting from Joseph Duveen, presumably with Berenson’s endorsement. But Duveen is dead, Berenson is dead, Mother is senile, and of course Goya is dead. You are the last living link between Berenson and that painting, Nonie.”

  Nonie frowns slightly. She does not particularly like being called the last living link between something and something else.

  “So it’s important for you to try to remember whether Berenson said anything at all to you about Mother’s Goya.”

  “Well, I guess he may have mentioned it—said he was pleased that it had joined Mother’s collection, or something like that. It was considered an important piece. But I don’t understand. What’s all this business about the Goya? The Goya’s going to the Met, as you well know—thanks to Mother’s sudden outburst of generosity!”

  “Not necessarily,” he says. “It may not necessarily be going to the Met.”

  “Of course it is. You heard what Mother said. She had Philippe de Montebello in and told him he could have whatever he wanted. He’ll certainly want the Goya.”

  “Ah, but will he, dear girl?” he says. “You see, there’s a strong possibility that the Goya is a fake. A very strong possibility.”

  “Oh, no! How awful!”

  “Yes,” he says. “You see, Berenson’s specialty was Italian Renaissance painting. That was his forte, Italian painting from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Goya was not Italian, and he was late-eighteenth-early-nineteenth century, as you know. Berenson was weak—by his own admission, Nonie—when it came to the Spaniards. He was on very shaky ground—he admitted this, too—when it came to the later period of Goya. He may have had grave doubts about the authenticity of our Goya, and he may have expressed these doubts to you.”

  “Well, he didn’t. I’d have certainly remembered it if he had.”

  “You know that Berenson, on more than one occasion, authenticated paintings that he was unsure about because Duveen made him do it. Berenson worked for Duveen, of course, and it was Joseph Duveen who made Berenson a rich man. Without Duveen, your friend B.B. would not have been able to afford luxuries like ‘I Tatti.’”

  “Please don’t call him my friend, Edwee. I only met him that once, at lunch, and there were quite a few other people there. I remember Garbo was there, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. No, wait: the Duchess was there, but the Duke wasn’t.”

  “Berenson was essentially Duveen’s employee. If Duveen had a rich client who wanted, say, a Caravaggio, Duveen would force Berenson to certify a particular work as being by Caravaggio when, in fact, Berenson suspected that the quote-unquote Caravaggio was actually a Guido Reni, or some lesser master, or an outright forgery. A number of instances of that sort of hanky-panky have come to light since the great B.B.’s death.”

  “But what makes you think Mother’s Goya is a forgery, Edwee?”

  Edwee makes a steeple of his fingers. “As you know,” he says, “and I hope this doesn’t sound immodest, but I have a certain reputation as an art historian, I have examined the painting very carefully, and there are certain details, certain brushstrokes, that strike me as incompatible with Goya’s work. On the other hand—and I am modest enough to admit this—my reputation is as an amateur, not a professional. I have been called—and I admit this, Nonie—a dilettante, rather than a true connoisseur, in the art world. But you were a witness. You were there.”

  “A witness to what? What are you driving at?”

  Edwee leans back in his chair, his fingers still steepled, and closes his eyes. “Let us try to picture a scenario,” he says. “You and Horace were invited to ‘I Tatti’ by B.B. for lunch—”

  “It wasn’t Horace. It was Erik.”

  “It was a lovely summer’s day. The war was over.”

  “As I recall, it was raining, and it was before the war.”

  “Let me continue, please,” he says. “The time doesn’t matter. It was a lovely summer’s day. The war was over. B.B. took you by the hand and led you outside into his garden. Erik stayed behind in the villa with the other guests—this is important, because Erik is still around. B.B. led you out into his garden—he was very proud of his garden at ‘I Tatti,’ you know—”

  “He didn’t show me any garden. He showed us his library, I remember. I don’t recall seeing any garden.”

  “Please let me finish, dear girl. As you and B.B. strolled through his beautiful garden, and he pointed out the specimen trees and plantings, you admired the blossoms of the tall lupines and delphiniums, the strong violet hues of the lobelia blooms, the dark greens of the Lombardy poplars, the shadows of the Cyprus trees, and you remarked that these colors, this palette of garden hues and shades, reminded you exactly of the colors of the Duchess of Osuna’s gown in your mother’s Goya. With that, a look of deep distress came over B.B.’s normally serene face! He seized your elbow. ‘The Myerson Goya,’ he whispered. ‘I should never have let your mother buy that picture. It is most assuredly a forgery, though a clever one. I have lived too long with this guilty secret! It was a robbery to sell your mother that painting for that price! I begged Duveen not to force me to authenticate that painting. But the rascal reminded me of what my share of the commission would be, reminded me that there was a world depression, reminded me of the unpaid doctors’ bills that were mounting on my desk to care for my beloved Mary, reminded me of the money it was taking to support Mary’s sister’s cocaine habit. He threatened to withhold from me certain other commissions that were due me if I did not authenticate this one painting. And so I succumbed to the devil Duveen, may he twist eternally in his grave.’ Then he added ‘Do just one thing for me, Mrs.’—what was Erik’s last name?”

  “Tarcher. Erik Tarcher.”

  “‘Do just one thing for me, Mrs. Tarcher. Never tell your mother what I have just told you. It would hurt her too much to know how thoroughly she had been fooled.’ As the years went by, you kept your promise. Indeed, you had almost forgotten this singular
episode in B.B.’s garden because, after all, at the time you and Erik were in Italy on your honeymoon.”

  “We’d been married at least four years.”

  “Indeed, you’d forgotten this singular episode until, the other day, you heard that your mother was planning to give this painting to the Metropolitan Museum. This triggered your memory, and you became concerned lest the museum be drawn into this deception.”

  “Well, it makes an interesting story,” she says. “Except that none of it is true.” Then, all at once, she begins to have a glimmer of what Edwee is up to. She has found herself unwittingly involved in some of Edwee’s schemes before, and she knows that she must watch her step. Edwee’s schemes often lead to traps, and she knows that she must proceed very cautiously from this point forward. “I think,” she says, “that this is a story, or something like it, that you want me to tell someone. Who?”

  His eyes are open now. “The Met wouldn’t touch that painting with a ten-foot pole if there was even the slightest question of its authenticity. Neither would John Marion at Sotheby’s, or any other auctioneer or dealer, in spite of some of the funny games they play at those places.”

  “And?”

  “The Goya would be ours.”

  “Ours?” She has a brief mental picture of her brother and herself lugging the heavy painting back and forth between each other’s houses, between 66th Street and Sutton Square, once a month, on a kind of time-share basis. “Why would we want it?” she says. “A fake Goya? Or maybe it isn’t a fake, is that it? I think it isn’t a fake, correct?”

  “It’s still a very handsome painting, either way,” he says evasively. “The field of art authentication is a very inexact science. You can get one so-called expert to stand up before a judge and jury and swear that a painting is authentic. And you can get another so-called expert to swear before the same judge and the same jury that it isn’t. It’s when the authenticity is questioned that the museums and the dealers want hands off. That’s when it becomes a hot potato. My own expertise in questioning the authenticity of this one will certainly help. But your firsthand account of your conversation with B.B. should cinch it, don’t you think? The Goya will become the hot potato that nobody will want to touch … but us.”