The Art of Confidence

by Wendy Lee

  Auntie Mai must have been reading one of the less-conservative newspapers. Harold would never have pegged her as a proponent of labor reform. “Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

  Auntie Mai was silent for a moment. Then she said, “When you were away doing your military service, your father asked me whether I thought he should turn the company over to you. It wasn’t that he didn’t think you were up to it. He just wasn’t sure whether it was what you wanted to do.”

  “And what did you tell him?

  “I said, ‘Let him choose for himself.’ He agreed.”

  “I didn’t know I had a choice,” Harold said.

  “You do now,” Auntie Mai replied.

  It certainly hadn’t seemed Harold had options when he’d come back from his year of military service on the southern tip of the Taiwan island. Neither had the military service been a choice. Many of Harold’s classmates, including Charlie Lin, had come up with ways to get out of it. Some of them feigned mental illnesses; others made themselves physically sick by not eating. Those who had the means to travel abroad left every few months so as to escape conscription. Charlie had been exempted for a heart murmur. Harold still wasn’t sure whether it was true or if Charlie’s family had paid a doctor to say so.

  “Who’s the enemy here? China?” Charlie would ask, always forward thinking. “In a few years we should be so lucky as to do business with China.”

  Harold knew he had no choice when it came to military service. His father would want him to serve just as he had; as would his mother, dead for two years. In his day, his father’s training had been for the navy and his service had lasted for three years. He felt it had given him the discipline and perseverance for building his company. Young people now, he maintained, were too weak.

  To please his father, Harold chose boot camp when he could have transferred to an office job or done translation work because of his facility with English. He was duly hazed, and in turn helped haze new recruits. His body ached in places he never knew existed, and muscles he never knew he had hardened into knots. Then he gradually became used to the routine and found comfort in the physicality of it, that it did not require him to think about the future, what plans his father had for him after that year, and whether he’d have a girlfriend when he came back.

  Charlie had introduced Harold to Vicki before he’d left. They’d gone on several group dates, which didn’t count, and then one date by themselves before he was scheduled to depart for the south. Vicki was planning to spend the year studying overseas in England, so they would have been separated anyway. Some of his fellow conscripts talked about their girlfriends or fiancées, and while Harold would have liked to boast that he had gone on a date with the first runner-up to Miss Taipei, he wasn’t sure where his relationship with Vicki stood. All he knew was that the committee that crowned Miss Taipei had made a huge mistake, and that he hoped Vicki wouldn’t fall in love with an ambitious Taiwanese or foreigner while she was away.

  His year away seemed to solidify what his future would hold. When he returned to Taipei, his father began teaching him the business of running his company. Vicki was also back and introduced him to her parents, who were impressed with his commitment to the nation. Looking back, it all seemed so archaic. Harold was sure that by the time Adrian was old enough, military service would be voluntary. And as Charlie Lin had so eloquently declared when they were fresh out of college, China was no longer the enemy.

  Harold and Auntie Mai spent the rest of the afternoon in silence while cleaning the tombs of Harold’s father and mother. As he had the day of his father’s funeral, Harold thought about how someday he’d lie in this burial plot, as well. In the past Vicki would have joined him, but he wasn’t so sure now. Perhaps Auntie Mai would be on the other side of his father. He shook his head to clear it of such thoughts.

  The sun was starting to go down when he and Auntie Mai headed for the entrance of the park. The packs of stray dogs were still lounging around the vendors, looking for a handout. Harold mentioned to Auntie Mai the incident last Tomb Sweeping Day when Adrian had gotten bitten by a dog, though not that Vicki had blamed him for it.

  “Is he okay now?”

  “There isn’t a trace of a scar.” Nearly six months later, Harold wondered whether Adrian could even remember what had happened, even if it was seared into his mother’s memory.

  Auntie Mai said, “I hope you and your wife will work things out, but if not, you are welcome to stay with me as long as you need to.”

  “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

  “Your father purchased this apartment for me, so it really belongs to you.”

  “He wanted you to have it,” Harold corrected. “But I appreciate it all the same. It will only be for a couple more nights, at the most.”

  He would need to find his own apartment soon, move his things from his house. And his office would likely move, as well, to somewhere else in the building, according to his new status. Later, there would be lawyers, for both the marriage and the company. But for now, he was choosing to let go of everything that had been expected of him.

  * * *

  From the view from his new apartment in central Taipei, overlooking Da’an Forest Park, Harold could just see the row of palm trees flanking the front of Taiwan National University. Fleetingly, he thought of Auntie Mai’s one-hundred-year-old patient; that had been over a month ago, so the man had likely passed away by now. If Harold himself lived until that age, he still had nearly two-thirds of his life left. Two-thirds of a life that he would dictate himself.

  While he was still working for the company started by his father, it was in a truncated role. No longer feeling any obligation to his job, he imagined he’d eventually leave and work for another company. Since that one afternoon, he hadn’t seen Charlie Lin. Neither did Vicki talk about him, and Harold preferred to keep it that way. When he saw Vicki nowadays, when she handed off Adrian to him, she seemed happier than she used to be. Or maybe she was pretending for his sake.

  What Harold looked forward to most during the week was seeing his son. Vicki let him take Adrian for Saturday and Sunday, and he’d set up the second bedroom in his new apartment as Adrian’s room, albeit with half the amount of toys from back home. He’d take Adrian to the park, or the harbor, or the market, sometimes in the company of Auntie Mai, who treated the child as if he were her own grandson.

  Perhaps in reaction to the chilly interior of his former house, which Vicki had decorated, Harold’s new apartment contained bright, primary colors. The only spot of gray was Elegy hanging on the wall by itself across from the plush sofa. There was no other place Harold could put it, and he also found it strangely comforting. He looked at it as often as he looked at the view outside his living room window. After the divorce settlement, it would be the only item of monetary value he owned. Or maybe not even that, if it truly was a fake.

  Harold had never received another message from the person who had e-mailed him about the forgery. At this point, he supposed it didn’t matter. He wasn’t planning to sell the painting, and would probably never need to. Someday, he hoped to pass Elegy on to his son.

  Chapter 11

  Caroline was coming down the stairs of her building one morning when she ran into her oldest neighbor, Mrs. Greeley, who lived with her husband in the apartment below hers. As a young couple, the Greeleys had raised their two children in a space no bigger than Caroline’s current apartment. They’d known Hazel since she’d moved in and were now in their eighties but healthy, still navigating the stairs of the walk-up building. Sometimes, when Caroline encountered one of them with their shopping cart, she offered to help them carry their things upstairs. Mrs. Greeley usually acquiesced, while Mr. Greeley refused any help. Caroline would ascend the stairs slowly, keeping an eye on him until he reached his front door.

  Ever since their landlord, Adam Alexiou, the son of the original landlord who had rented to Hazel and the Greeleys, had let them know the building was turning co-op, C
aroline had often discussed the matter with her oldest neighbors in passing. Today, she felt comfortable enough in having funds from the sale of the Andrew Cantrell painting to confide in Mrs. Greeley that she intended to buy the gallery space downstairs.

  Mrs. Greeley paused, holding on to the banister with a bird-like hand. “My dear, didn’t you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The co-op deal is off. Mr. Alexiou intends to sell the building to a real estate developer. . . .”

  Caroline had stopped listening beyond the first sentence. “So there isn’t even a possibility that we can buy in to the building anymore?”

  “Maybe after they’re done turning it into glass condos. But they’ll probably be bought by foreign businesspeople who won’t live here for most of the year. Not that Henry and I would be able to afford buying in to the co-op anyway.”

  Caroline turned her attention to the old woman. “What will you and Henry do now?”

  “Our daughter has already made plans to move us into a retirement community in Riverdale. We’ve gone to see it. It’s quite nice. Not as nice as having our own place, of course.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be quite comfortable there.”

  “It’s just that Henry and I have only lived here for most of our lives. Our children grew up here. We fully expected to be carried out feetfirst. Well”—Mrs. Greeley patted Caroline’s hand—“at least Hazel didn’t have to see her gallery destroyed because of one man’s greed. She’d likely padlock herself to the doors when the construction workers come, like those people who chain themselves around trees. I read an article about them once, how they’ll literally stop bulldozers. . . .”

  Caroline wasn’t quite sure how they’d gotten on the topic of ecological activists. “Thank you, Alice, for telling me,” she said firmly. “Best of luck to you and Henry.”

  Downstairs in the gallery, Caroline gazed at the empty white walls. Sandro Hess’s paintings were still leaning against them, packed up; he was scheduled to come take them away later this week. It was early enough that Molly wasn’t in yet, so Caroline felt free to use the phone at the front desk. She called Adam Alexiou at his office, banking on the fact that he was someone who got to work before everyone else.

  “I just heard from Alice Greeley that you’re planning to sell the building to real estate developers,” she said after they exchanged perfunctory greetings, trying to keep her voice from trembling—with anger or fear, she wasn’t sure. “Is that true?”

  “I was going to send an e-mail this week,” her landlord said. “Alice Greeley happened to find out first because her daughter called about scheduling their move.”

  Now the tremble in her voice was definitely due to anger. “Don’t you think we’re owed more than an e-mail? How about an explanation in person? Especially those of us who’ve lived here for decades?”

  “Caroline, I understand why you’re upset. But the truth is, no tenant was going to buy in to the co-op. The Greeleys’ daughter is using this as an excuse to get her parents into a retirement home, the Singhs are having another baby and need more room, and the two girls on the second floor are splitting up.”

  It occurred to Caroline that he didn’t remember the two female roommates’ names, although she didn’t, either. “I was going to buy in,” she pointed out.

  If Adam Alexiou was surprised that she had the funds to do so, he didn’t show it. “You have to admit you’ve gotten a great deal since your aunt died. But all good things must come to an end.”

  “If my aunt Hazel were here, she’d say you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Caroline spat. “She’d say you’re not half the man your father was.”

  She breathlessly hung up the phone, a little taken aback at where her venom had come from, when she heard Molly say from behind her, “Is everything okay?”

  Caroline manufactured a smile. “Yes, I was just talking to a vendor.”

  Molly didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press further as she got settled at her desk. Caroline moved deeper into the gallery out of sight from her assistant, pretending to double-check the padding around the Sandro Hess paintings. Within the space of a half hour, her plans had turned into dust. All of the subterfuge, the risk she’d taken in forging the Andrew Cantrell painting—it was for nothing. She was just sitting on a pile of money that she couldn’t use to buy what she most wanted. She had failed Hazel and, most of all, she had failed herself.

  Where could she go? Even with what was left of two million dollars after taxes couldn’t buy her a corner of a gallery in this neighborhood anymore. She could decamp to Brooklyn like so many others, including Solomon Finch, whom Molly had told her about. But that would mean starting over, and Caroline wasn’t sure she had it in her to do it. She didn’t know who the hip, young artists were, how to get people interested in them. She only knew what Hazel had passed down to her, and that wasn’t enough. Perhaps it was time for her to get out of the business altogether, when her biggest success was selling a forgery to an unsuspecting buyer.

  For the next few days, Caroline ruminated on what to do. Her landlord duly sent an e-mail informing his tenants of the impending sale of the building and a date later in the fall by which everyone was required to vacate the premises. That morning she also received an e-mail from Sandro Hess informing her that he’d be stopping by on the weekend to pick up his paintings. Ordinarily, the end of a show—even one that had produced no sales, as Sandro’s had—would be a source of renewed energy for Caroline. She’d usually have another artist lined up or be well on the hunt for one. But now, if she was going to be closing in about a month’s time, there was no point in finding someone else. For better or for worse, Sandro Hess was the last artist to be exhibited at the Lowry Gallery.

  Caroline was a little irritated that Sandro couldn’t make it with his van during the week to pick up his paintings, but at least if he came on Saturday, Molly wouldn’t be around to hear their final exchange. She anticipated Sandro would have some choice words for her, fault her for the lack of sales. But he seemed somber, resigned almost, on Saturday morning as they transported the paintings into the van.

  “Couldn’t you have hired someone to help you?” Caroline asked.

  “Where would I get the money?” Sandro pointed out, and Caroline subsided.

  Finally, when there was one painting left, the large Mickey Mouse kaleidoscope that had hung in the front window of the gallery, she said, “Wait.”

  “We’ll probably need another person to help with that one,” he agreed.

  “Come on into my office,” Caroline said.

  Sandro raised an eyebrow but did as she directed. She handed him a check for ten thousand dollars.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “I’m buying that last painting.”

  Sandro stared at her for a moment, then laughed. “You must be kidding.”

  For a moment Caroline was tempted to snatch the check back and tear it up. “This was the painting that first caught my eye when I went to your studio. I want this for my own. I think it’ll be a good investment.”

  Sandro still looked dubious. “You feel sorry for me.”

  “Maybe a little of that, too,” she admitted.

  “That’s okay. You never promised me big sales.”

  “That’s not all that I’m sorry for.” She held his eyes for a moment, long enough for him to realize what she was saying.

  He slowly nodded and pocketed the check; she knew he wouldn’t be too proud to accept it. Then he removed from his other pocket a set of keys, which he handed to her. Confused, she looked up at him.

  “I thought you gave these back to me.” She could picture her spare apartment keys now, hanging on a hook by her front door.

  “I made a copy and gave you back the originals.”

  A chill rippled through her, thinking Sandro could have entered her apartment at any time. “Why would you do that?”

  “I guess I wanted to show that I had power over you somehow, even
if I didn’t have it any other way.”

  “Did you take anything?”

  “Of course not. But I did notice you had a painting by Andrew Cantrell for a few days in your apartment. A fake Andrew Cantrell painting.”

  She immediately grew defensive. “What makes you think it’s a fake?”

  “You don’t cover your paper trail at home very well, Caroline. Receipts, a business card. Who is this Liu Qingwu?”

  “Someone I met on the street. A Chinese artist.”

  “Ah, they make the best copiers. You know about Ely Sakhai?”

  Caroline faintly recalled hearing the story of the famous New York City art collector whose scam involved selling forgeries of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings to Asian businessmen, only to also sell the originals some time later. He supposedly kept a team of Chinese immigrants in the attic of his gallery producing these paintings, like some kind of sweatshop. After spending more than three years in jail for fraud, he was said to have opened an art and antiques store on Long Island.

  “How much did you pay him?” Sandro asked.

  “Three thousand dollars.”

  Sandro shook his head. “Poor man. Sounds like you fleeced him well, considering you sold it for more than six hundred times that.”

  “All right,” Caroline said, reaching for her checkbook again. “How much do you want to keep silent?”

  Hand over his heart, Sandro acted offended. “Do you really think I would blackmail you?” He patted his pocket where he’d put the check she’d given him for his painting. “This is enough. Besides, I’ve already e-mailed the buyer. Harold Yu, correct? Anonymously, of course.”

  Caroline felt the bottom beginning to fall out of her world again. “What did you tell him?”

  “That you sold him a fake. He hasn’t gotten in touch with you, has he?”

  “No. Did he e-mail you back?”

  “I shut down the account after I sent the e-mail. I figured I had done enough.”