Cannibals and Missionaries

by Mary McCarthy

  Van der Kampe begged pardon. He had to answer a pressing call of nature. Unaware of the privilege, he was shown to the toilet. Leaving Sophie behind, Henk strolled into the family room. He made an affirmative sign to Jim. The expert, he had concluded, would make short work of his expertise; he was in a state of terror that now seemed to be gripping even his bowels. Henk suddenly realized that the man must believe that it had been an act of great bravery to come here. And in his vanity he perhaps still suspected that he had been brought here on a ruse and was going to be held hostage.

  Carey was tackling Denise. “Come here, chérie. Mr. Lenz had a bad night. He looks damn sick this morning.” “J’ai vu,” she agreed. In truth Victor looked terrible. He lay huddled in a chair with red spots on his high cheekbones and his forehead the color of a young Leidsekaas with cumin. “Should we take his temperature?” Aileen proposed. It was wonderful how valuable at times an interfering woman could be. Denise’s thermometer read 39.5.° “What’s that in Fahrenheit?” someone asked. Sophie answered from the doorway. “103.1.” Henk was pleased to think of a computer with flashing lights swiftly adding, subtracting, multiplying, inside that noble head. “I knew those boils were unhealthy,” Aileen observed. “Shouldn’t you give him aspirin, Denise? At least he’ll feel more comfortable. Temporarily, they’ll bring the fever down. Oh, poor Victor.”

  Jim held up a hand. “Whoa there, Bossie. Not till Greet has a look at him. What do you think, Henk?” Before he could answer, Aileen had reversed herself. “No, Denise. Better not. It could be something serious, and the aspirin would mask it. We might have known something like this would happen. Could we ask to have a doctor flown in? When I think of the darling Bishop…He might be alive today. You ask, Henk. Jeroen listens to you.” “It might be more to the point,” Jim commented, “to fly old Victor out.” “But would they ever agree to that?” Lily asked. “Why not?” said Henk. “They could put him on the helicopter with Van der Kampe.” “Now there’s a thought,” cried the Reverend. “Chapeau, Henk,” said Aileen. “Actually they’d be criminals not to.” “They are criminals,” said Lily. “Still, perhaps one should remind them of Gus.” “I wouldn’t advise it,” said Jim. “You don’t want to put their backs up. Let them decide for themselves what’s to be done. The main thing is for Greet to look at him. And let’s not get too worked up, Aileen. He may just have some little bug, a touch of flu.” “With 103.1?” Aileen retorted. “Why, we could all catch it!” Ahmed felt Victor’s forehead. “Très malade,” he decided. “Well, go tell your boss-lady,” said Beryl.

  A distraction, however, occurred as the painting was brought in. Van der Kampe seemed to be still in the toilet. Jeroen himself carried the canvas to the parlor and ranged it against the west wall, where the light was best. In the family room, Victor was helped to the sofa and left to himself while the rest of them crowded in to see the “Girl.”

  She wore a blue cap—more like a coif—over sandy corkscrew ringlets that looked as if they had just come out of curl-papers; her long full jacket was yellow taffeta trimmed with ermine, and her billowy skirt was white with dark-blue panels. She held a guitar on her lap; she was touching the strings with her right hand, and her head was turned sideways as if she was looking toward someone, maybe her teacher, for a cue. Or else there was a spinet in the next room, and she was both looking that way and listening for a chord to tell her to begin. There was something uncertain in her attitude, and she held the guitar awkwardly. Her high-colored cheeks, stiff curls, and big Dutch nose had a provincial, teenager look. Henk did not think that the “Girl” could have been much of a musician. He felt sure she was a Vermeer, though.

  He did not know the painting. He was certain that he had never seen it in reproduction. But it must be very similar to the Vermeer that had been stolen by terrorists in London. That was maybe why Jeroen had been so interested in it: he was copying those Irish extremists or competing with them. Henk remembered the photos and daily news stories in the English press and his own keen concern for “the hostage,” whose fate had been more avidly followed than if she had been a live maiden. It was “only” a material object, as the pastor had said of this one a few days back, yet—possibly for that reason—there had been an aura of sacrilege about that riveting event. When a strip of the canvas had been mailed to a newspaper, it had been, for Henk at least, like the martyrdom of a Christian virgin as depicted in his old Calendar of Saints—Agatha, his mother’s name saint, having her tender breasts slashed off by fiendish pagans.

  Sophie was staring at the painting. Her brow was furrowed, and her narrow jaw thrust out in deep American meditation. She was asking the canvas to “say” something to her—something profound and important that it had never told anyone else. Henk waited. “It’s a weird thing,” she said finally. “It makes me think of old studio photography. She’s all dressed up to have her picture taken, and the photographer has arranged the lighting, pulling back that curtain from the window so as to let the sun’s rays fall just right on her features. He’s adjusted the folds of her dress and tilted her head, running back and forth to the camera to see how she looks in the lens. He’s not satisfied; she needs something to do with her hands. But he has an idea: that prop guitar he keeps in the studio. He puts it in her lap and shows her how to hold it. Then he ducks under his black hood. ‘Wait for the birdie.’ Click.”

  Henk was amazed. What she had noticed was there, certainly; she had made a true observation about Vermeer. “The instantané effect. ‘Click,’ as you say. You will never find that in a Rembrandt. Rembrandt never ‘catches’ his sitters in a single flitting instant.” “Fleeting,” said Sophie. “Rembrandt’s sitters, you mean, have been there for centuries, like his trees?” “Something like that. Vermeer, I think, Sophie, is always painting time. That’s the meaning of all the musical instruments and the clock in the ‘View of Delft.’ You know it?” “I saw it once in Paris. At the Orangerie. I noticed the clock too.” Henk felt extraordinarily happy. “You are right, this picture is weird,” he told her. “Raar, we say in Dutch. Because it says to you that it is posed while at the same time it is telling you that it is a snapshot, a split second of arrested motion.” “You think that’s on purpose?” “Yes. It points to a contradiction. There is pathos in it. The grotesquely overdressed young girl, with the pearls round her neck—” “Do you suppose she could be Jewish, Henk?” He studied the “Girl” ’s features again. “The nose,” prompted Sophie. “And those dark popping eyes. Plus being overdressed.” “All that is Dutch,” he consoled her. “We are much like you, Sophie—a merchant race with overdeveloped noses and—”

  “Please!” They stepped back. Van der Kampe was finally ready to examine the canvas. He neared it, drew back, got down on one knee and looked up at it. Doffing his spectacles, he took a big magnifying glass from his briefcase and held it close to the canvas, where there appeared to be a signature, then moved it slowly across with his bare eye squinting through the lens. Henk was reminded of the feeling of having a doctor’s head pressed against your chest as he listened to your inner organs. The only sound that came from the Rijksmuseum clinician was of heavy breathing as he knelt before the work. Finally he put his cheek to the surface and blew softly.

  “He’s dissatisfied,” whispered Sophie. “Oh, God. Poor Helen.” “It’s not that,” said Henk. “He doesn’t like to give an opinion under these conditions.” “Because he thinks Helen’s life might depend on what he decides,” assented Sophie. Henk shook his head. “This gentleman thinks of his career, of his professional standing. As he explained to me, he would normally never consent to do an authentication ‘off the cuff,’ without the facilities of the Rijksmuseum laboratories.” “No talking, please.” “Come,” said Henk, guiding Sophie into the family room. What he saw there reassured him. There were still red patches on the invalid’s cheeks, and Jim and Denise were with him.

  In the laboratories—Henk reflected—the painting could be subjected to x-rays, carbon tests, and so on, by the
men in white under Van der Kampe’s authority; he would never be under the necessity of using his own unaided judgment in making an attribution. No wonder he was so uneasy; physical fear would be heightened by professional fear arising from lack of practice. It was probably years since he had arrived at an independent judgment of a work of art. “Like doctors today,” said Sophie. “They’re afraid to diagnose a case of chicken pox unless they can send samples to the laboratory. They don’t like house calls either. I suppose, for him, this counts as a house call.” She pondered.

  “But what made him come, then?” Henk gave a short laugh. “His patriotic duty, he would tell us. In fact he’s a high civil servant depending—you will smile, Sophie—on the Ministry of Culture, Recreation, and Social Work.” “You mean they put pressure on him?” Henk did not know. The most effective pressures on such a type were those he would exert on himself. “They had only to suggest to him that in the event of his refusal they would regretfully have to turn to his younger colleague of the Mauritiushuis in The Hague.” Van der Kampe could never permit that. That the other should appear in the world press, not to mention Eurovision, as the Netherlands’ leading authority on Vermeer of Delft! Undertaking a dangerous mission in the sensational hijacking case, decorated by the Queen, maybe even receiving a knighthood…Sophie nodded. “But if he’s so scared for his career, will he give an honest opinion?” “You don’t know Hollanders. ‘Without fear or favor,’ as he would put it.” “I wish he’d hurry.” “He will not be hurried. Although, as you see, he is burning with impatience to leave. Even in these unsuitable conditions, he is determined to live up to the ‘highest professional standard.’”

  Jim, too, was becoming impatient. “Can’t you light a fire under him? Christ, how long can a man’s body maintain an artificially induced 103° temperature?” But Victor’s hand was hot, and his teeth were authentically chattering. Henk seated himself at his bedside on the sofa’s edge and became aware of an unmistakably soapy smell. It would be wise, he suggested, to get rid of the evidence before Greet was summoned. Victor fumbled in his clothing and handed over a sticky remnant of soap to which a few pale body hairs clung.

  In the beste kamer, Van der Kampe had declared himself ready to pronounce. Greet ordered the room cleared, leaving herself, Jeroen, Horst, and Elfride in the auditory. In the doorway Henk protested. Mrs. Potter, he argued, had a right to be present and to have a Dutch-speaking witness to translate for her. “And you volunteer, Deputy?” Greet was sarcastic. He was a lawyer, Henk retorted, and there was no one else on hand to represent Mrs. Potter who had a knowledge of Dutch. “The truth is, you are curious,” said Greet. Nevertheless she allowed both him and the owner to stay.

  Horst shut the door, and Van der Kampe took a stand before the canvas. He had set his briefcase on the harmonium and from time to time, as he spoke, he took neatly stapled documents from it for reference. At his request, to avoid distractions, the Ramsbotham collection had had their faces turned to the wall. Except for the ever-present pistol in Greet’s bulging bosom, there were no weapons in the room, and it might have been a seminar for a group of picked students. Charles’s walking-stick served the expert as a pointer; all he lacked were slides. From the harmonium stool, Henk translated. There was a small restoration, the speaker indicated, of the left-hand fingers and some signs of an earlier over-painting in the landscape hanging on the wall behind the subject. The glazes were in unusually good condition. Though the signature seemed to have been added by another hand, the painting appeared to be an authentic work of Johannes van der Meer, probably executed in the last years of the artist’s life. Possibly on commission from a client familiar with the Kenwood House “Guitar Player” and desirous of owning a work of the same kind. Photos and transparencies were produced from the briefcase and passed from hand to hand. Jeroen accepted the expert’s magnifying glass. Beside Henk, Helen preened. “Just what the authorities at home said.”

  It was evidently not a replica, Van der Kampe proceeded, but might be described as a variation on a theme. The Kenwood House painting (consultation of papers from briefcase), dated approximately 1667, was generally identified with a work known to have been in the hands of the painter’s widow following on his death. A picture of like description figured in the Amsterdam sale of 1676. Conceivably, that was the present work. Or possibly the canvas here was to be equated with a work that figured in Lot 4 in the later sale, of 1696, as “A Young Lady with a Guitar.” The notion of two closely allied “guitar” works of the master—one believed to have been lost—had often been put forward. Helen nodded.

  Van der Kampe offered photostats of documents for inspection and stepped back to the canvas. With the stick, he indicated the source of light, a window on the right almost entirely masked by a blackish drapery, as in a camera obscura, thus permitting the sun’s rays—the stick moved—to irradiate the subject’s face and upper body and the wall behind her with an effect of stage lighting. This treatment was also found in the “Guitar Player”—Henk obediently held up a photo enlargement—and supported a late date, as did the thinness and fluidity of the paint. In the absence of scientific tests, nothing more could be said. The painting had all the hallmarks of a late Van der Meer, but this could also be seen as a suspicious circumstance. Without chemical analysis of paints and canvas, forgery should not be ruled out. One could postulate a master forger of the nineteenth century, active during the period of Van der Meer’s “rediscovery,” or a current forger with access, through a clever dealer, to canvas dating from the seventeenth century. The painting was either a genuine Van der Meer of the second rank—a certain lack of freshness was to be noted, deriving possibly from diminished inspiration, often found in near-replicas done to order—or it was the work of an anonymous imitator endowed with undisputable genius. The speaker personally inclined to the first hypothesis, but in any case it was a work of museum quality.

  He promptly picked up his briefcase and, gesturing to Horst to open the door, went briskly into the next room. Helen followed him. Her stout little body was quivering with indignation. “‘Second rank’! But if it’s a forgery it’s a work of ‘genius.’ Oh, no, sir, you contradict yourself!” In Henk’s view, there was no contradiction, but Van der Kampe did not dispute that with her. He stood polishing his spectacles, ready to depart. “It’s had all those tests he speaks of,” Helen went on, beginning to sniffle. “And passed them with flying colors.” “In the States, madam. But professionally, you see, I cannot take account of that. Were you to offer it to the Rijksmuseum, we should have to submit it to our own testing processes, even though, as I’ve indicated, I’ve no personal doubt that it’s genuine. Someday, in fact, I should be greatly interested in doing a monograph comparing it with the Kenwood House canvas. I’m quite often in New York, and if you’d allow me to call on you and study it at leisure—” He was stopped by a burst of tears. The pompous fool had forgotten that if his validation was accepted she would no longer have the painting. “Pray forgive me. How tactless of me.” He glanced at his watch. “In any event, if you will be staying on a few days in Amsterdam, I shall take pleasure in showing you our Van der Meer archive. Your husband as well. Fascinating insights were gained in our restoration clinic at the time of that unhappy incident—you recall it, of course—the canvas hacked from its frame while on exhibition in Belgium. Irreparably damaged, we feared, when we first recovered it.”

  “‘The Love Letter.’ Yes. Quite some time ago.” Her mind hopped like a bird onto the new topic. “I always asked myself, did the museum pay a ransom?” “Madam, as a distinguished collector, you know very well that my answer must be a negative. But, as I was saying, it will be an honor, one day when we meet again—” “‘When you meet again’!” Margaret burst out. “Why, she’ll be going back with you. I gather you’ve won her her freedom, though you took your time over it, I must say.”

  Greet looked to Jeroen. “We are satisfied, Mr. Curator,” he said. “You and Mrs. Potter will proceed at once to the helicop
ter. Carlos!” “And you will be going too, old gentleman,” Greet ordered quite fiercely, handing Charles his walking-stick. “Carlos, take him along.” “Can you wait a minute?” said Aileen. “Victor’s sick. There, on the couch.” “We are busy,” said Greet. “I will look at the prisoner later.” “He has much fever, Greet,” put in Denise. “Très malade,” said Ahmed, making his own teeth chatter. “Could you send for a doctor maybe?” Jim said in a meditative tone that won Henk’s full admiration. “I guess that aircraft out there might pick one up if a message was sent ahead.” “You will leave decisions to us, Senator. We are masters here. I will look at the prisoner, Jeroen.” Denise stood ready with her thermometer. Greet shook it down and inserted it roughly under Victor’s tongue. “39°.” Her thumb went down on Victor’s limp wrist, taking his pulse. “Fast. But not so fast as the fever would propose. Is there a history of tuberculosis?” Victor licked his lips, and his eyes turned to Jim, who made a dissuasive motion with his head. Henk agreed: the fewer lies the better. “Not that I know of,” said Victor. “Vreemde,” she said to Jeroen. “She says it is strange,” Henk reported. Greet and Jeroen eyed each other. They murmured together in Dutch. Henk crossed his fingers, touching the piece of soap in his pocket. He caught the words “uit” and “weg.” They were telling each other, evidently, that it would be best to be rid of Victor. Henk nodded affirmatively to Jim.

  It looked like clear sailing. Only one little reef remained to be crossed: was there room, after all, in the helicopter? When estimating the craft’s seating capacity, Henk had overlooked Charles. Van der Kampe, who had been listening impatiently, had his own word to add. He was not prepared to have his return flight compromised by the extra burden of a sick man. “I wish to put my foot down,” he said loudly. “What is now proposed is for us dangerous. I do not like it. They have promised me safe-conduct, Deputy. Four besides the pilot is an overload—too many.”