The Italian Teacher

by Tom Rachman

  They walk out into a drizzle, quickstepping up the soggy turf. Jing fiddles with the two locks on the studio door. Inside, she flicks the light switch but they remain in darkness. She turns on her smartphone flashlight, its beam picking out matted brushes, twisted metal paint tubes, a table splodged with hardened slugs of color. But there is no art except an unfinished picture on an easel: a face shown overly close, viewed at invasive proximity, forcing its subject—a youth—to turn away, as if edging off the side of the canvas.

  “That could be worth something,” Marsden says.

  They can’t risk carrying it back to the cottage through the rain, so leave it for now, locking the studio.

  “Well, that’s pretty much everything,” Marsden concludes. “There’s storage space in the attic, but it’s junk up there. Old boxes of his mother’s pottery. Nothing of value.”

  The low clearance in the attic forces them onto their hands and knees. Her phone light illuminates dusty cardboard boxes of ceramics, many in tissue paper, a few cracked. Marsden unwraps a long-necked vase, reads the bottom, signed in the clay: “Natalie.”

  He shows Jing. “Lovely, don’t you think? Is that glaze blue or green? It’s so dark up here. Gosh, there’s tons of pots. Not sure what you’ll want to do with them all.”

  She angles her light above the boxes.

  “It’s rafters that way,” he explains.

  But the sweep of her beam halts.

  “Holy shit,” he says.

  It’s so cramped that they cannot reach the other side without first removing all of Natalie’s pottery. Marsden is touched by how gently Jing treats it, lifting pots from the disintegrating boxes, cradling each piece down the stairs, notwithstanding their shared impatience. “Nearly there.”

  They approach the rafters, raise the tarpaulin. Stacks of paintings.

  “Oh my God.”

  “Let’s bring them down first,” Jing says, maintaining outward cool, but stiff with tension.

  With utmost caution, they transport each canvas into the kitchen. Marsden—leg jiggling—counts them. “Twenty-six here. All Life-Stills. This is insane, Jing.” With her permission, he scrutinizes a few. “Wow. Just, wow.”

  But gradually something troubles him. He checks another painting. And another. “I’m a bit confused now,” he says. “Okay, this requires a small admission. When I was here with Bear, I did something a bit naughty. One afternoon, I found his keys left in the cottage door. I went to return them to him, but noise was coming from upstairs—he was with a lady friend. So I tiptoed away. I had this key ring in my hand. Actually, the same one you have. And I found myself sneaking into his studio, which was strictly off-limits. I was just curious. And I saw a bunch of these Life-Stills. Which is what’s confusing me.”

  “Why is that confusing?”

  He does a Web search on her smartphone, bringing up an image that looks identical to the painting before them. “See that? A hedge fund manager bought this picture.” He finds an image of another painting in the kitchen. “Look, this is a Vogue shoot—this painting is in a mansion in Saint Petersburg.” After repeating this with several others, he turns to her. “Hate to tell you, Jing. These are copies. It did seem a bit too good to find original Bavinskys dumped in an attic. I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe Bear made two of each painting?”

  “Bear hardly kept one of each painting. These are copies. And, I’m afraid, not worth a penny.”

  87

  They’re famished, so they lock all the doors and drive to the nearest village for lunch, where the only restaurant is a drab pizzeria. They take a table by the door, chewing crusts, a downpour outside, an occasional car whooshing by. Neither says much, yet they have become closer by dint of their shared hope and shared disappointment. “Tired,” she comments.

  He smiles, nods.

  When she returns from the toilet, he watches her approach, feeling so fond of Jing for her kindness to his friend. She was terribly in love with Charles, Marsden knows, and is sorry that his friend never let himself fully reciprocate. “The unfinished painting on the easel—did you make out the face?” he asks her.

  “Chars?”

  “I’d need to see it under proper lighting, but I’m pretty sure, yes. I knew Charles when he was not much older than that. What’s odd is I have no memory of seeing that painting here.”

  “Bear did it after you left maybe?”

  “He died before I left.” He wipes his hands on a serviette, pausing, seeing Bear lying on the mountain path. “Come to think of it, that portrait couldn’t have been done in the studio. Bear didn’t paint the Faces here.”

  “Yes, yes, he did.”

  “You’re wrong, Jing. I was living here. And they weren’t around.”

  “But Chars always brought them back from the cottage.”

  They keep eating, neither tasting now.

  “I have a scary feeling again,” he says.

  “Me also.”

  They drive fast back up the winding hill. The paintings are untouched, which almost surprises them—their focus made it seem as if the world were converging here. The cloudburst is over, so they lug the unfinished portrait into the kitchen. “Yes, it’s Chars,” she acknowledges. “As young man.”

  But Marsden is occupied, studying the reverse sides of various Life-Stills, which are smeared with threads of tobacco and manly handprints. Marsden turns to her, agape. “Holy fucking shit, Jing. These are originals.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “These here. These are real.”

  “But you say Bear only does one of each picture.”

  “That’s true. Is it possible that the ones people bought, that those are copies? Is that possible?” he says, flushing from excitement. “And who came out here obsessively, Jing? Who was the only person?”

  “So that is Chars’ painting, hanging in Saint Petersburg?”

  “They all are. I bet you!” He claps, jubilant—but is still jittery, still running through the consequences.

  Jing walks into the living room, trying to digest this. She pauses at the memorial booklet, its pages paint-spattered, folded at reproductions of family snapshots. These photos are curiously familiar, including one of Birdie at age fifteen. Jing searches online for images from the Faces series. She starts shouting for Marsden. “Look! Come look!” The Faces paintings aren’t identical to the memorial photos. But they were clearly inspired.

  “I’m telling you,” Marsden says triumphantly. “I saw Bear’s late days. The man was terrified to work. He had his trademark style, and was resting on it. There are no late works by Bear Bavinsky.”

  “The late works of Bear are the early works of Chars.”

  “They’re his late works too,” Marsden remarks sadly. “Well, you’re a rich woman, Jing. All those collectors who bought phony Bavinskys might sue the sellers, but that wasn’t you. It was his siblings. I guess they might sue the estate. Come to think of it, you’ll have lawsuits. Still, in my view, you have every right to put these on the market.”

  “What about the Life-Stills that Chars painted?”

  “Oh, it’ll be a huge scandal,” Marsden says, delighted. “When your originals hit the market, there’ll be insanity. What a comedy! Hey, do you think Charles cultivated that pompous journalist, Bear’s ‘authorized biographer,’ to pull this off—to have an expert at the ready to verify all his fakes? Or is that too crafty? Jing, you have no idea the stink this is going to cause.” Rubbing his hands with glee, he finds a Cecil Ditchley teapot and a box of loose Darjeeling. At the stove he tests the gas tank, which still has fuel, and makes them a brew.

  Jing leans over her steaming cup. “What I do now, you don’t tell.”

  “Is that a question?”

  She approaches one of the original Life-Stills, lifts it, and drags it toward the front door.

  He stand
s, bemused. “Whoa—it’s raining outside. Jing? Jing, stop!”

  But she persists, pulling the painting by one side, which causes him to grab for the other side, lest a decades-old masterpiece be dragged along the soggy lawn. He keeps telling her to stop, or at least explain herself. She keeps moving, saying only: “You’ll see. You can see now.” She back-kicks open the unlocked studio door and drops her side of the canvas on the floor. “This machine? What is it? Fireplace?” She points to the kiln. “How do I turn it on?”

  “Hang on, Jing. What am I supposed to not say anything about?”

  “I burn them, all the paintings.”

  Blinking double-time, he scrunches his face. “Jing, this is an original. Apologies—I thought you understood. We’re talking millions of dollars, each one.”

  “I understood.”

  “Then I don’t.”

  “If I sell these ones, then the paintings that Chars did, all around world, they come down. And the museums that are putting up the Faces, also by Chars—what happens?”

  “Okay, fine. But you cannot just destroy original works of art. These are the rare few that Bear saved. He kept them back for years and years. These are part of art history. You can’t. I’m sorry.”

  “Chars’ paintings go in the museums,” she insists, kneeling by the kiln, struggling with the latch.

  “You’re not doing this,” he repeats. “If you want to honor Charles, remember that he spent years guarding these paintings.”

  “How I can turn on this machine?”

  “I’m not showing you. Sorry. I won’t.”

  88

  Marsden strides fast toward the woods. This woman is nuts. He scrambles up the subsided remains of his staircase in the hillside, pausing at the beginning of the hiking path. He is panting; his pulse won’t slow. The forest rustles. The remains of that old Nokia must be in there somewhere. Could’ve been his own remains rotting there.

  Why, he wonders, am I so upset with Jing? Because what she’s suggesting is a violation! I will not allow it. But why not? I’m supposed to maintain the integrity of art history? As if there weren’t thousands of forgeries all through the great museums!

  He kicks a tree trunk. “Charles,” he says, turning to see his friend. How can you not be here? On the snowy steps before class in Toronto: “We’re smoking Cuban cigars today, my dear Charles. Come admire us. And apply your body heat. We’re ice cubicles, and it’s for you alone to save us.” Marsden presses his knuckles hard into his breastbone, to drive back the grief. Then he smells smoke and swivels around. It’s billowing from the studio.

  He starts running, nearly losing his footing, skidding to a halt before the oil barrel, which is flaming from kerosene. Jing stands in the studio doorway, trying to drag out the Life-Still.

  Marsden blocks her way. “You’re not.”

  She tries to barge past, but he needs only a half step to deflect her.

  She tumbles, losing her grip on the canvas, which he grabs. She hits the grass, gasping, winded from the fall. She hurries to her feet, nearly in tears, raising a muddy hand against him, as if to ward off violence.

  “You think I’d hurt you? Never. Ever.” He offers his hand.

  “They’re mine. I am allowed to do this!”

  But he closes the metal lid over the barrel; the flames peter out. He places the Life-Still back in the studio and walks past her, back to the cottage.

  Before the kitchen table he stands, hands on hips, staring down at these genuine works. He runs his fingers over the rough fibers of the back of a canvas, which is smeared with charcoal where Bear Bavinsky once wiped his hand. “I’m not,” Marsden mumbles. “This is insane.” Glancing around the kitchen, he recalls a scene just outside, Bear—eyes wide with rage—shouting at his son: “You work for me. Get it? You always worked for me. And you dare steal? Get this: I win. You hear? I fucking win.”

  Marsden looks at the ceiling—then pushes out the cottage door, striding back through the rain, finger leveled at Jing, who sits in the studio doorway. Yet he bypasses her and stoops before the kiln. “This,” he says, “is how you turn it on.”

  She meets his gaze, the briefest confirmation, and drags over the painting. Marsden stands at the far wall, staring fixedly away, wishing he could ask his friend how you make something of such beauty. Behind Marsden, she grunts from exertion, struggling to fit the large canvas inside.

  “I’m not helping,” he tells the wall, then rotates. He takes the painting, stamps on one stretcher beam, which cracks, then does the same to the other side, folding it with ease, cramming canvas and wood inside. “We’re doing them all?” he asks. “If you say yes, I might be sick.”

  Together they carry in every other Life-Still, moving in haste, dragging them up the lawn. Side by side, they kneel at the kiln, sweat drops splatting onto these last-century originals, which Marsden kicks and snaps apart, leaving her to ram them inside. He works fast, needing this to be over.

  When every Life-Still is inside, he slams the kiln door, locks it. Looking pointedly at her, he says, “I did not do this.”

  “I didn’t too.”

  Through the peephole they watch as the temperature rises. Canvases curl. Elbows, hips, thighs—they yellow and burst into flames. Smoke rises up the chimney, spiraling over the valley.

  They return to the kitchen, spent. Jing raises her clunky tea mug, clinks his.

  “To Chars,” she says. “Artist.”

  “To Charles!” Marsden affirms, voice cracking as he looks to the ceiling, blinking fast. “Best of artists!”

  Before leaving the property, Marsden pockets a Cecil Ditchley mug—a token of this place, where he will never return. The lone object Jing takes home is that unfinished self-portrait of Pinch pictured as a youth, back when he believed he’d endure, that strangers would know of him someday.

  Jing keeps that painting under his bed in the spare room. At times, she takes it out. Never for long. Just a look.

  London, 2018

  89

  On the twentieth anniversary of Bear Bavinsky’s death, the first major retrospective of his work is organized at Tate Modern. Marsden and his longtime partner, Rob, close their Prince Edward County bed-and-breakfast for a few days and fly to London.

  The museum is holding another show too, Selfie Shtick: Autofictions of the Contemporary Canon, where once-snarling, now-domesticated Young British Artists have chosen works by their personal friends, including huge plastic dog feces by a Taiwanese sculptor, computer-generated images of a Czech artist known for dressing up as Disney characters, and even a video series by Temple Butterfield. The exhibition has won rave reviews, so Marsden expects everyone to congregate there, allowing for a peaceful inspection of the Bavinskys.

  But he is wrong. Crowds are trooping into Bear Bavinsky: The Body Politic, with throngs gathered before all of the paintings, which are ranged across eleven rooms. Many visitors take photos with their phones, wanting evidence of their proximity to greatness; others stand frozen with audio guides, learning about the artist’s private life: the opulent childhood in St. Louis, his precocious rebellions and wartime traumas, the fierce debates at Black Mountain College, the scene in Greenwich Village, his travels through bombed-out Europe, years in the critical wilderness, his volatile relationships with women, most notably his third wife, Natalie, now recognized as the painter’s muse, demonstrated by her appearance in so many of the Faces series. For context, the curators included a vitrine of eight ceramics by Natalie, marked “Courtesy of Xiao Jingfei,” whom visitors assume to be a tycoon collector.

  The first rooms contain Bear Bavinsky juvenilia: childhood sketches drawn in a hospital bed, already showing promise; slapdash portraits from his army days; early experiments with abstraction; his unique style, approaching its consummation in the mature works that dominate subsequent rooms, including a triumphant display of eighteen Life-Stills from
private collections, plus fourteen of the Faces, which were lent by museums.

  According to the catalog, the Faces have all entered prominent public collections, owing to the tireless efforts of the Pulitzer-nominated biographer Connor Thomas, who has made it his mission to accomplish the lifelong wish of Bear Bavinsky. The museums didn’t pay full valuation, instead covering outstanding taxes and fines owed by the estate. Today the Faces reside in the permanent holdings of the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, the Menil Collection in Houston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, among others.

  In the final room, Marsden hesitates by the exit, not willing to leave. Rob is curious to peek into The Selfie Shtick, so Marsden returns alone to the beginning of the Bavinsky exhibition, renting an audio guide this time. The narration speaks of Bear as “the embodiment of that old slogan: art for art’s sake.” He toiled for decades without caring what the public thought; he scorned money; he dedicated himself to a singular vision.

  Why, Marsden wonders, are these myths still recited about artists? It’s probably lucky that Charles never became a painter in public. They’d have demolished him. Rather, they’d have ignored him. He lacked the personality, which is so much more important than any audio guide dares say.

  Instead, this one cites “the erotic absence of the Life-Stills,” noting that “from the sixties onward, a frequent claim against Bavinsky—strenuously denied by the artist—was that he was an aesthetic reactionary, and to some, a misogynist.” But, it hastens to add, Bear redeemed himself in the purest way: through art, as shown in “the undeniable humanity of his Faces series.”

  Marsden smiles. Bear gains his glory in the end! Though this isn’t quite the end. There’s fifty years hence, one hundred, five hundred, all diminishing toward that everlasting instant when nothing by human hand remains. But today, Bear is triumphant: strangers speaking his name, estimating his prices, dreaming of his objects on their walls.