The Perfect Landscape

by Ragna Sigurðardóttir

  Frederico would probably tell her to follow her gut instincts; that’s what he’s always done. And she gave Steinn her word. She can’t let him down now; she can’t pull out and withdraw. It’s too late for that. After a moment’s silence she takes the initiative to end the conversation and puts her hand on the reports on the table. Then, picking up the papers, she stands up and walks away. Mentally she unsheathes her foil, but she is scared and has trouble holding it steady; her arm isn’t strong. If they’ve got it wrong, if there’s an entirely different painting underneath The Birches and not Composition in Blue, then her future is in jeopardy. She would undoubtedly lose her job, and so would Steinn. She would lose her reputation. Maybe they would both lose their jobs even if they were right. Then all of a sudden Hanna remembers what she’d forgotten to ask Steinn.

  “What did Kristin want with you the other day?”

  “She was just asking how I was,” he replies calmly, almost coolly, and Hanna can tell he doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t believe him. Kristin could have asked Steinn how he was with Hanna there. Clearly he doesn’t want to discuss this.

  “How about we go over this tonight?” he asks, putting his hand next to hers on top of the report as if he meant the reports on the table. She looks down at his fingers and slides her hand away. Her eyes wander out the window, and she avoids looking Steinn in the eye. Her head is in turmoil, but then she regains her composure. She nods in agreement; she isn’t going to back out.

  When it comes time to do it, she is uneasy. Steinn is waiting in the basement, but the painting is nowhere to be seen. “Best to be in the small storage room,” says Steinn. “No need to leave it lying around for all to see. I won’t get it done in one evening.”

  The painting is lying on a high workbench in the side room like a corpse ready for an autopsy. Next to it is a sharp, delicate knife. Hanna looks at the birch grove with her heart in her mouth, momentarily terrified at what they are about to do. The thought of ruining a genuine painting by Gudrun Johannsdottir won’t leave her despite all the evidence to the contrary. She still can’t get the list from Gudrun’s auction in Copenhagen out of her mind and the size of the painting that fits so perfectly.

  Steinn sees her doubts, and, as if to draw her into the process, silently hands her the gloves even though she doesn’t need to do anything other than watch. Steinn has an expression of utmost concentration on his face, and it looks like he’s going to start without further delay.

  “Steinn?” asks Hanna.

  “Yes,” he replies. “Is everything OK?” he adds tersely. “Hadn’t we agreed on this?” He doesn’t sound annoyed, but his neck has stiffened.

  Hanna looks at the painting.

  “You haven’t told me what came of the tests. Are you sure you can remove the upper layer from the painting? And are you going to do it with a knife?” She can’t help raising her voice. “It’s just all happening too quickly for me,” she says.

  She looks at the painting.

  “And I think it’s a good piece of work. Are we entirely sure? And what about Kristin?”

  Steinn shakes his head. “She won’t do anything to us. When this is over she’ll see that we did the right thing. Just give her a bit of time. Of course, I’ll tell you what came out of the tests. And what the knife is for. Just take it easy.”

  They are standing side by side at the workbench; Steinn pulls the Anglepoise lamp across the bench, flicks the switch, and angles the magnifying glass over the painting. Under the lens the brushstrokes of the sky look like an irregular abstract pattern, and Hanna can clearly make out the lines under the top layer that don’t belong to the sky or the clouds but hopefully to the painting Composition in Blue.

  “The tests showed up various things,” begins Steinn. “What I had analyzed were mainly the binding agents in the colors. I had an FTIR analysis done—do you want me to explain what that is?”

  Hanna shrugs lightly. This isn’t her specialist area.

  “Just tell me what came out of it.”

  Steinn carries on, “This enables you to check whether there are alkyds in the colors. And the samples from both paintings showed up alkyds. That means they must have been painted sometime after 1968 when Winsor and Newton began producing artists’ paints with alkyd resin. It wasn’t used before then.”

  Hanna stares at him.

  “Is it really that simple? Just like that and we can be sure that the samples are no older than that?”

  Steinn nods. “Whoever forged this is a good painter. I didn’t exactly have twenty-twenty vision when Composition in Blue came to us, and that’s why I didn’t check it thoroughly enough, but this is well done.”

  Hanna agrees with this and thinks about his sight. To say he didn’t have twenty-twenty vision is putting it mildly.

  “It’s an exquisite forgery,” she says, smoothing over his oversight. “I can’t believe it was done in this country. By an Icelandic painter,” she adds.

  “But it could well be,” says Steinn. “Someone living in Denmark, perhaps, who is a specialist on Icelandic painters from this period—who knows? Maybe this is just the start of a new wave of forgeries. In that other forgery case it emerged that novice forgers were doing it. You remember the picture I showed you, where the lower half had been cut off?”

  Hanna remembers it. Steinn is right. If someone was going to work as an art forger in Iceland now he would have to become good at his profession.

  “It turned out that the top layer of Composition in Blue is a yellow finish,” says Steinn. “I’ll look at it more closely later, but if the painting is new and the top layer is removed then we’ll see it and we can examine the colors. There’s another sort of finish on this painting, probably this new mock spirit and linseed oil varnish I was telling you about the other day.”

  Steinn has the knife poised, but then someone comes down the stairs. They shrink back, but it’s only the janitor who has been working overtime. He calls good-bye, goes back out, and closes the door.

  Putting his gloves back on, Steinn settles himself on a tall stool at the bench with the knife poised. While he examines the surface carefully to decide where best to start, he carries on telling Hanna what came out of the sample analysis. Hanna raises no objections; she trusts he knows what he is doing.

  “The sample we took was a cross section,” he says. “Right down to the canvas. The base layer is the wash, which is put directly onto the canvas.”

  He talks calmly and deliberately; this is his specialty.

  “On top of that are oil paints, which are free of alkyds. The old colors, that is. That’s the painting we think is Composition in Blue. On top of this is another wash. Naturally, whoever painted The Birches put a wash over the previous painting, and, luckily for us, he has used a poor-quality wash that hasn’t adhered well to the oil painting below. The chemical combination is such that I should be able to tease off this second wash easily enough if I go about it carefully. We’re lucky that whoever did this was stone broke and couldn’t afford decent materials. And, just as I thought, The Birches is a mixture of new and old colors.”

  At last Steinn finds a promising spot up in the right-hand corner of the sky; he inserts the knife very carefully into a bank of white clouds. A minute flake comes loose; they hold their breath. Hanna takes a step back so as not to disturb him, and then moves forward again because she has to watch.

  “There’s a magnifying glass on the table in the other room,” says Steinn, and she goes to fetch it and uses it to watch while he teases off the next sliver with the knife. She hardly dares breathe for fear of distracting him, but Steinn’s hands aren’t shaking in the least and he works slowly and smoothly. He looks up after a short while. They both look at the section that has been removed. It doesn’t answer their question either way.

  “What shall we do if this is a completely different painting? By some John Doe?” asks Hanna without expecting a response, nor does Steinn give one.

  Then she asks, “
Where did Sigfus generally sign his paintings? It would be a stroke of luck to find his signature.”

  “That’s just the problem,” replies Steinn. “He rarely did it in the same place. If only we could’ve been sure it was the bottom right corner, but that’s by no means the case. It could just as easily be the left-hand side. Top or bottom, either way. Or not at all. I’ve looked at everything I can lay my hands on and there’s no pattern with him. And I can’t see anything on the X-ray.”

  Steinn remains unperturbed; he just carries on calmly picking tiny specks off the surface of The Birches. The picture is already so damaged that repairing it is out of the question. He still hasn’t penetrated the wash that lies underneath. Hanna sees that he is hot; he isn’t as calm as he appears. He works in silence for a good while; the only sound is a low hum from the air-conditioning and the overhead lights. Finally a small white fleck comes loose and underneath is a glimmer of blue.

  On the table next to them is a photocopy from the book about the CoBrA painters that shows a picture of Sigfus and his colleagues, and in the background is a painting that looks like Composition in Blue. It’s in black-and-white, but the outlines and shapes are unmistakable. On the painting the gallery owns, oblique yellow and white lines run from the right corner where Steinn is scraping off the paint. In the black-and-white photograph they look pale and it’s impossible to say what the color is. If it’s the genuine painting underneath then Steinn should be able to find a light-colored line roughly where he is working, but the section he has opened up so far is only two to three millimeters.

  Hanna stands perfectly still by the table, breathing calmly. Motionless, she follows the delicate movements of Steinn’s hands, the tip of his knife, and how he carefully probes for the next speck. He probes a number of times before he teases off a tiny fleck of paint and then another and another. Hanna wouldn’t have missed this no matter what the consequences. Relief floods her heart and mind with every millimeter widening the expanse of blue. She feels her belief in what they are doing grow within her; bit by bit she becomes certain that this is right and they have found their treasure. Now is not the time to celebrate, and she doesn’t say anything, but she’s aware of a tiny invisible smile beginning to break out. Steinn is in a world of his own, but it feels to Hanna like they are breathing in unison. Eventually he looks up and breaks the silence.

  “Look at this!”

  She leans forward; together they lean forward over the painting and peer at a small patch of blue. Showing in one corner is a fine line of yellow.

  Hanna gives a gasp then immediately regains her composure. They both appear calm, but she sees Steinn’s hand is quivering. She is longing to jump up and down and shout for joy, fling her arms around him, and tell everyone about it. But she does nothing. She keeps her cool; she senses her foil at the ready and the strength within her. Yes, they probably are right, but now they have to work out their next move.

  14

  AN UNEXPECTED MOUNTAIN VIEW, SPRING 2005

  Hrafn gets a speedy response from Masha. She praises the painting he sent a picture of a few days ago, saying it’s glorious. And she wants to do him a favor—to have the painting seen by experts to decide whether it really is by Gudrun Johannsdottir.

  Larisa tells me that if the painting does turn out to be by Gurdin then you could get a good price for it. I enjoy this sort of business. Paintings are my hobby, you could even say they are my passion, Masha writes in her e-mail. She misspells Gudrun’s name, but Hrafn knows who she means.

  His thoughts turn to her private collection in Moscow. Yes, you could certainly say that paintings are her passion. He replies immediately, saying he would be delighted if she would be willing to get the painting assessed and asks her where he should mail it. Masha promptly responds that she will have the painting collected at once. Hrafn is staying in London during this exchange of e-mails, and the painting is in his hotel room in Copenhagen. He has a permanent room in the same hotel where his friend is now installing a sushi bar in the dining room. He gets in touch with the hotel, has the painting brought down to reception, and doesn’t give it a second thought; he has other irons in the fire.

  Buying and selling paintings is a hobby for him, not his profession, and Hrafn’s mind is on his work. He has never been particularly interested in Gudrun Johannsdottir’s paintings; her landscapes are too unassuming for his taste, and he hasn’t bought any of the abstract paintings she painted later in her career and is best known for. He’s not short of money, and it’s not the potential for profit that matters here.

  Hrafn is curious about Masha. What does this wealthy woman want from him? She hasn’t made a move on him; she was evidently going to use Larisa for that purpose, although she has probably now realized that didn’t work. All he can assume is that she wants to develop contacts with Icelandic entrepreneurs, some of whom have a reputation for being prepared to take risks and think big. Compared to Mariya Kovaleva, Hrafn and his colleagues are small-fry. Hrafn isn’t even among the richest men in the country; he is just one of many who are into big business. But small-fries have their role to play. Small-fries can even transform into fast-moving sharks, if they make the right moves. It’s impossible to guess what Masha has in mind.

  Hrafn would very much like to forge links with Masha; her hotel chain alone could increase his fish sales twentyfold. His export business has remained static for some time. It’s going well enough, but the time for change has come. By partnering with Masha those changes could come sooner rather than later.

  When Hrafn arrives in Copenhagen not long after his e-mail exchange with Masha, he finds the painting in his room, wrapped in the same brown paper as before. He is surprised and blames the Russian approach to efficiency. Maybe Masha is all talk and no substance? It doesn’t look as if the painting has gone further than to reception and back up again.

  His phone rings. It’s Vasya. His father’s old business colleague.

  “I’ve got some bad news,” he says and goes on to tell Hrafn about his wife’s death. Vasya’s voice is old and weary; he sounds hoarse. Hrafn sympathizes with him, but there’s nothing he can do. The funeral has already taken place.

  Hrafn is dismayed when he switches off the phone. Vasya and his wife often came to Iceland when he was a boy. He has good memories of them and his father, who showed his best side with them. Now that era is gone forever. He doesn’t get time to digest the news because just then his phone rings again. Seeing a Russian number on the screen, he assumes it’s Vasya again, but it’s Masha’s voice on the other end.

  “How do you like it?” she asks in her strongly accented English. Hrafn is taken aback. Is she tailing his every move? He only got to the room a few minutes ago.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” he replies politely, still thinking of Vasya and his loss. “I’ve only just got in.”

  “The painting, of course. How do you like it?” Masha repeats impatiently, her tone excited as a child’s. Hrafn looks more closely at the packaging around the painting, which is leaning up against a wall. He was wrong; it has been unpacked and rewrapped. He assumed the painting would be sent to Moscow to be looked at, but obviously that’s not necessary. Masha undoubtedly knows competent specialists in Copenhagen.

  But he still doesn’t understand the question. He knows the painting; he doesn’t need to look at it again. She knows he likes it; otherwise he wouldn’t have bought it. He looks at the packaging.

  “I’m happy with the painting,” he says, being careful she doesn’t hear the surprise in his voice. “Did you find anything about its history?”

  Masha laughs but doesn’t answer.

  “I knew you’d like it. It’s a masterpiece. Now there’s no doubt that she, whatever her name is, dottir-something, has painted it. Larisa says you could sell it for a good price.”

  Hrafn assumes that Masha has got a hold of some information that irrefutably links the painting with Gudrun.

  “That’s good to know,” he says. “We sho
uld meet up again soon. Are you in Copenhagen?”

  But Masha is at home in Moscow. However, before she hangs up she promises to get in touch next time she’s in Copenhagen.

  Hrafn turns his phone off. Staring at the brown wrapping paper for a moment, he tries to picture the painting in his mind’s eye but can’t quite recall it in detail. Eventually he picks the painting up, lays it on the bed, undoes the packaging, and looks at a totally transformed painting.

  The birch copse has been altered, but what most astonishes Hrafn is the mountain that now rises up from the trees. There was no mountain when he bought the painting. He sits down on the bed, perplexed. He examines the painting more carefully; it doesn’t look newly painted, far from it. The paint looks normal.

  The wood seems richer than before, the birch trees possess more life, the colors are deeper, and the painting is undoubtedly greatly improved and very like paintings he has seen by Gudrun Johannsdottir. He looks again—no, no signature. He wonders whether Masha has had the painting renovated and this painting was hidden underneath. But that can’t be right because in some respects the painting is exactly the same as before; most of the treetops are as they were. The sky doesn’t appear to have changed. Then it occurs to Hrafn that his memory is playing tricks on him. The painting has always been like this. But he knows that’s not true. He wouldn’t have overlooked a whole mountain.

  He checks the back of the frame, examines the painting in detail. There’s no doubt about it. Masha has got an outstanding forger to alter the painting. To place the scene in the Icelandic countryside and imitate the style of Gudrun Johannsdottir down to the brushstrokes. And he has expressed his delight over it.

  Hrafn is not pleased, and for a second he considers destroying the painting. Tear it into shreds and let it disappear. But Masha would not be pleased. Again, he wonders how she knew exactly when he would be returning to his room; she’d called only a couple of minutes later.