The Panama Portrait

by Stanley Ellin

  “Isn’t that a contradiction?” Jerome said. “And as for being secretive, it’s certainly something he hates in other people. Since he landed here he’s approached one person after another asking the damndest questions.”

  “And searching records and documents in all our public institutions without explanation,” said Fontanas-Todd. “He has the manners of a pig rooting in a garden.”

  Ian Kipp nodded soberly. “I’m sorry to say that’s about the size of it, Smith. I mean one hates to talk about the fellow this way, considering that you’re from the same part of the world and all, but that’s been our sad experience with him. Did you know him in the States? Are you very friendly with him?”

  “Not even moderately friendly. I helped Mrs. Chapin home after that fracas in the café last night, and he seemed to think it was sufficient to strike up an acquaintance.”

  “Well, you’d be wise to let it go at that. Otherwise, you’ll find him sucking up to you like a long-lost brother and trying to touch you for a loan. He’s the most unabashed beggar I’ve ever had the bad luck to meet. Amazing, really. You’d think he and that painter couple came all this way to be professional beachcombers.”

  “Degraded types,” said Bambas-Quincy. “Fit companions for the nadaistas.”

  There was no mistaking the warning in this. And, thought Ben, little doubt of the consequences if his host ever learned that the degraded types were now his pensioners. What stupidity to ever let Klebenau and the Chapins put him in this dangerous spot. One way or another, they would have to be induced to find themselves another Samaritan.

  When the party at the table finally adjourned to a gilt and rococo sitting room where the ladies were taking their ease, he was glad to see that the dragon in the wheelchair was gone and that he had Elissa very much to himself. She was sitting apart from the others, and, manners or no manners, he drew up a chair to be near her. She asked for a cigarette, and he lit it for her.

  “That is one difficulty of being with grandmother,” she said as she inhaled with deep satisfaction. “She thinks it disgraceful for a woman to smoke.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard she was quite the Victorian. I found her highly impressive, but I guess she must be a little hard to live with sometimes.”

  Elissa made a delightful moue. “She is an absolute tyrant. The only one who ever dared oppose her was my grandfather. He pretended to have great contempt for her, and for that she respected him. But, of course, he was a most formidable man, and handsome as the very devil. I loved him with all my heart.”

  So they talked like old friends now, and the time passed quickly. Too quickly for Ben. He had only a limited time in Santo Stefano anyhow, and now that he had discovered Elissa Bambas-Quincy he had no intentions of wasting any of it.

  When the other guests gave signs of departure he said to her, “I’d like to see you again. Will you be free tomorrow?”

  “Yes. If you come at noon, we can drive to Huanu Blanco. You have never seen it, have you?”

  “No, I haven’t. And what about the day after tomorrow?”

  She smiled. “Perhaps.”

  “Will you be going to the festival, too? I might find it a little less harrowing if you were there.”

  “Oh, I’ll be there. Not that I want to, but Grandmother insists the whole family attend with her, so I have no choice. It’s a horrible affair. I know very little about it really. I sit most of the time with my hands over my eyes.”

  “Then we’ll give each other moral support. But I’m surprised that your grandmother goes anywhere at her age. And in her condition.”

  Elissa’s mouth quirked, her eyes shone with mirth. “My dear Mr. Smith, never let her hear you say that! At her age and in her condition she intends to outlive us all. And, believe me, no one will be surprised if she does.”

  8

  The road from Port Buchanan to Huanu Blanco was a two-lane highway in excellent condition. For thirty miles it skirted the eastern shoreline, a white margin of sand marked at intervals by shabby fishing villages. Then, at the town of Playa de Hermanos, it turned inland and wound for fifty miles along the foothills of the Sierra Xares until it was brought up short by the sprawling conglomeration of railroad sidings, processing plants, barracks, huts, and street markets that was Huanu Blanco.

  It was a scenic ride and a fast one. The car was a thunderously powerful convertible of French make unfamiliar to Ben—a Facel Vega—and behind its wheel Elissa looked almost alarmingly diminutive and doll-like. But they were not long out of Port Buchanan when he saw that she drove with the relaxed competence of a professional, always at a fair rate of speed, never perturbed by the erratic traffic which cluttered the highway, the creeping pack donkeys, the bicycles swooping off course, the approaching trucks and buses aimed like weapons at anything within scraping distance. Even when a squad of black-jacketed motorcyclists roared dangerously close around them she didn’t blink. “Young Nationalists,” she said disdainfully, “they like to frighten women,” and let it go at that.

  The one stop they made en route was on the summit of a rise that overlooked the lush green jungle stretching out into the northern distance until it was hidden from the eye by an overhanging mist. A dangerous place, she said. Bandits and criminals frequented those steaming depths, and they had become so bold that the army was now at work trying to root them out and destroy them. For herself she detested the jungle. The mountains were different. They were silent and peaceful and, to anyone who knew them well, friendly. She pointed to a black thread winding among the crags of the sierra towering over them. That was the road leading up to the Victorica, she explained. Hundreds of years ago it had been a footpath littered by rocks and trees which the Axoyacs had put there to prevent Fernando Hermanos from finding their last hiding place. Today it was maintained by the Commission of Culture as a vital route to the festival.

  “I suppose that is what one calls progress,” she said, “but sometimes I wonder. Those poor Indians. How sad it is not to have one hiding place where you can be safe from the world.”

  There was no need for any such wistful reflections on the sea-cliffs beyond Huanu Blanco. Here the respected, well-cherished, tenderly cared for population was avian—countless sea-birds in full possession of a rocky kingdom extending mile after mile high over the surf which battered and foamed at the shore below. No ship was permitted close to this kingdom, no aircraft allowed to fly over it. The birds were sacred. Nothing must be done to offend them so that they might migrate permanently and bring ruin to Santo Stefano.

  Ben had heard enough about El Niño and the havoc it wreaked among the feathered population of the cliffs to expect a bare vista when he arrived on the scene. Instead, he saw birds everywhere. Amid the din of their flapping and screaming he could scarcely hear Elissa as she named various types for him. Albatross, piquero, pelican, cormorant, gannet, gull—wherever the eye turned there they were, roosting on the cliffs, soaring overhead, bobbing on the surf. Later, when Elissa told him that all this was only a remnant of the flocks that ordinarily dwelt here, he found it hard to believe. There didn’t seem room enough left on the rocks for another bird.

  That was the first of several excursions they made in the days that followed. In the region around Port Buchanan the land was fertile with cultivation, crisscrossed by dirt roads which connected vast fields of cane and cotton and tobacco in a tight network that seemed to be largely the property of the Bambas-Quincys, the Fontanas-Todds, the Alden-Aragones, and a few other reigning families. There was little activity in the fields now and much traffic on the roads, a slow, dusty traffic on foot, because, Elissa said, those field-hands who wanted to attend the festival on the Victorica had to allow several days for the journey. At its final stage, the festival authorities provided a bus ride from the foot of the mountain to its heights, but even those who could not afford the dollar fare would uncomplainingly spend a day climbing that steep road for the sake of an hour’s pleasure. She shook her head at that, but whether in admiration or de
spair at such stubbornness Ben could not tell.

  Her comments on the passing scene often left him wondering. She was certainly part of it, it was in her blood; yet she was, in a curious way, removed from it. She seemed to have a built-in isolation which everyone around her recognized and accepted. In a country where it was hard not to know your neighbor, she never exchanged a greeting with anyone and never mentioned the name of a friend or acquaintance to whom she was devoted. This extended even to her family and to her personal servant, an ancient Indian handmaiden named Juana who fussed over her and prepared the picnic lunches and gave dire warnings about the heat, the sun, the dust, and the dangers of the road. To her family she was polite, to Juana she was forbearing, and that was all. As far as Ben could see, he was the only one with whom she was willing in any way to share her private thoughts. He could not have been happier.

  Meanwhile he heard nothing from the Chapins and Klebenau. He found this both gratifying and annoying. He had good reason for wanting them to keep their distance, but he did feel that they might have showed a little appreciation for past favors. That feeling was promptly dispelled early one morning by a phone call from Klebenau.

  There was nothing diffident about Klebenau’s approach. “I’ve got to see you, Smith,” he said. “Will it be all right if I meet you at the hotel right now?”

  “It will not.”

  “But this is a matter of concern to both of us. Now don’t start making noises like that, Smith. Nora and I talked this over, and she’s convinced me that it’s only fair to let you hear the whole story. It’s her idea that I have no right to come to you for help without laying all the facts on the line. All right, my back is against the wall, so I’ll do it. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  Ben drew a deep breath. “Klebenau, your back wouldn’t be against the wall if you used those airline tickets and headed home where you belong. And if you come near me in public, so help me, I’ll shoot you. The people I’m dealing with here rate you and Chapin on a par with bubonic plague. Is that clear?”

  “I know better than you how clear it is. Yesterday we were served with a court order of deportation as undesirable aliens. When I went to your lawyer friend, Alden-Aragone, he said that if I could raise some cash he could buy me a delay. I can’t risk turning in those airline tickets, Smith, and graft comes high here. I need money and I need it fast.”

  “How much?”

  “I’ll settle for a thousand. Five hundred has to go to the politicians, and the rest of it will take care of expenses for awhile.”

  “That’s out of the question.”

  “Not until you’ve heard my story, Smith. If you don’t want me to meet you there, then come to the house here. Otherwise, I’ll wait in the hotel until I can pin you down.”

  Ben said furiously, “All right, I’ll come to the house. But I’m not coming with any money. And I have an important lunch date, so I can’t see you until after that. I hope you don’t mind waiting.”

  “I can wait that long,” said Klebenau as he hung up.

  The lunch was with Ian Kipp at the sports club, and despite Kipp’s encouraging display of good will the occasion was dimmed for Ben by thoughts of the impending session with Klebenau which was not only highly risky but which meant time spent apart from Elissa. He was in a bad mood when he arrived at the address Klebenau had given him. The street was an improvement over the Calle Indios, but still had a rundown look. It was littered with trash and palm leaves, the frame houses along it were dilapidated, and the lawns before them were untended patches of rank growth.

  Inside the house his mood was not brightened by the sight of a large and noisy company seated around a dining table and lustily stuffing itself with the food his hard-earned money paid for. Along with the Chapins and Klebenau, Juliana and Tito Aguilar were there, and Pepe and his pretty little Prima, and others remembered from The Sun and Moon and the Calle Indios. Most of the noise seemed to arise from a debate between the pro- and anti-festival factions of the nadaista brotherhood, but it was obvious that their philosophical differences did not prevent them from hungrily breaking bread with each other.

  Klebenau met him with open relief, and Nora greeted him with a sisterly kiss on the cheek and a display of the steaming pot before her. “Won’t you have some?” she offered. “It’s arroz con pollo. Mostly arroz and very little polio, but it’s good. Juliana made it.”

  “I’ve had lunch,” Ben said curtly. “And I’m supposed to be here on business. Can’t we take care of it somewhere in private?”

  Nora’s face fell. “You’re angry, aren’t you? I told Max you would be.”

  “I have a right to be. You people don’t give a damn what kind of spot you put me in, do you?”

  “What about the one we’re in?” said Klebenau. “All right, let’s go into my bedroom. We can talk in private there.”

  In the bedroom he and Ben took the available chairs while Nora reclined in her familiar position on a rickety bed, shoes off, legs stretched out comfortably. Seeing her this way and thinking of Elissa, Ben found himself drawing a comparison in which Elissa had all the better of it. It was like comparing a sunflower to an orchid. Nora was undoubtedly good to look at, but as against the delicate image of the Infanta she was almost too ripely buxom, too full-breasted and golden-haired. To use Klebenau’s own lingo, she was the kind of woman her favorite Michelangelo might have hewn out for himself, while Elissa was pure, cool Tanagra brought to blushing life.

  “Does the name Charles Laval mean anything to you?” Klebenau asked without preface.

  “No. Why should it?”

  “No reason, unless you’re familiar with the life and times of Paul Gauguin. You do recognize that name, don’t you?”

  “Oh, stop it, Max,” said Nora. “Must you always sound like an art dealer?”

  “Dear girl, I am an art dealer. And all I’m trying to do is establish a common language with Mr. Smith. Otherwise, nothing of what I have to say will make sense to him.”

  “Yes, I do know about Gauguin,” Ben said. “You can take it from there.”

  “Very well. Laval was a friend of Gauguin. So good a friend that when Gauguin made his ill-advised trip to Panama, Laval went along with him.”

  “Panama?” said Ben. “I thought it was Tahiti.”

  “That came much later. Early in his career he decided for various reasons that the island of Tobago near Panama would be the paradise where he could live like a child of nature and paint with freedom. Along with Laval he got as far as Panama. There he discovered that property in paradise cost more than he could afford. Panama itself must have been quite a hellhole in those days. He and Laval lived there a couple of months in 1887 before they gave up and left for Martinique, and during that time Gauguin worked with pick and shovel in the Canal, and Laval scraped out a living by doing some bad portraits of local celebrities. It is this matter of the portraits that concerns us.”

  “Why, if they were as bad as you say?”

  “They were. Laval was a good soul but not much of a painter. What concerns us is that when he succeeded in selling some portraits, he suggested to Paul that he try his hand at this trade, too. The impression since then is that Gauguin refused to cater to the local taste for bad art and never did any painting during his Panama sojourn. In Martinique he did some fascinating work where we have early evidence of his experiments with flat color, but there is nothing in any catalogue anywhere which suggests that a single painting came out of Panama. Now let me ask you something, Smith. If any such painting were brought to light, a full-sized oil which was the very first experiment Gauguin made in his great technique, what do you think it would be worth?”

  “How would I know? Judging from the present market, I’d say plenty.”

  “And what is your conception of plenty? Twenty thousand? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand?”

  “From the look in your eye, Klebenau, more than that.”

  “You’re right. A fine Gauguin, a unique Gauguin in good
condition, comes very close to being priceless. Not in terms of museums that work on fixed budgets, but in terms of certain of my clientele who have unlimited incomes and almost terrifying competitive instincts. Seven years ago I had two Greek ship-owners in this category bid a Gauguin up to a quarter of a million dollars. The loser in that competition does not intend to lose again. If I can offer him the unique Gauguin of the Panama period, he will pay the price I ask. And my price, Smith, will do nothing to deflate an already fantastically inflated market.”

  “And to get your price all you have to do is produce the painting. I think I see the light, Klebenau. There wouldn’t be some genius in Santo Stefano who could forge that Gauguin for you, would there?”

  Nora sat up sharply at that. “Of course there isn’t. Do you think we’re trying to get you into something criminal? All Max is telling you is that there is such a painting.”

  “In Santo Stefano?”

  “Yes. That’s what we’re here for. To look for it.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Klebenau interposed, “let’s go back to Charles Laval. Then you may understand why I have spent two years of my life combing Central and South America for this apparently nonexistent masterpiece.

  “A long time ago I bought a packet of Laval’s letters in an auction at Christie’s in London. They seemed to have little value at the time. They were watersoaked and largely illegible and hardly appeared worth the effort to decipher them. One provided me with a genuine frisson. In a few paragraphs it discussed a portrait Gauguin had done in Panama. This was so astounding that I had extensive tests made on the letter itself to prove it was not a forgery. It was not. It was authentic, and its reference to what I now think of as the Gauguin ‘Panama Portrait’ was authentic, too. There is no possible question about it.”

  “But the mere mention of a picture—” said Ben.

  “It was more than merely mentioned. It was explicitly described as the portrait of a little whore from the Panama cribs whom Gauguin was briefly taken with. A strange picture, wrote Laval. A large oil on canvas which too flatteringly depicted this monkey-faced tart. And the colors were used most unsuccessfully. It was as if Paul were trying to return to the dead-and-gone techniques of Guido and Cimabue and Giotto. What a devastatingly myopic view of Gauguin’s great revolution! Those Italian primitives had made perspective—the three-dimensional illusion—a prime requirement of painting for six hundred years. Gauguin was the one to smash those fetters, to restore the art of painting to its purest form which is, as his own friend Maurice Denis defined it, simply the application to a flat surface of colors arranged in a certain order. Henceforth, a painting need never be merely a window opening on a scene. Now it could be something contained within itself, a mirror for the artist more exacting and intense than any window could ever be.”