Painting №18
“So I had a chance to attend your exhibition last night.”
No shit, that is the only reason you are here. “I hope you had a good time.”
“I loved it.”
“Thank you, but you don’t have to lie to me.”
“I get that we often have to,” searching for the words, “pretend, or augment our enjoyment levels but, truly, I loved it. It is such a progression in form from your last one.”
A small silence. “So you didn’t like my previous work?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Just …”
“Just that it was work that needed a progression?”
The journalist begins to reach out to touch the artist’s hand but wisely stops and sinks back. “I think I misspoke, I didn’t mean to …”
“Call it a progression? Well, that is quite the compliment,” Nancy Juri Kim, smiles without warmth. “A tad backhanded. Did you not like my last exhibition?”
The reporter widens her eyes and her mouth forms an O.
Christ, Nancy sighs inwardly, she is so stupid she cannot even understand her own insults.
“No, no, I am one of your hugest fans. I just, this was just beyond my expectations.”
“Because my past work was so trifling?” Nancy is extravagant as she looks at her watch.
“Oh my goodness,” the young woman’s voice is getting frantic. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I loved all your work, ever since the Italian series.”
“Even though, last night …”
“Nancy for the love of god, give the poor girl a break.” The young woman looks over Nancy’s shoulder at Chet Harns, Nancy’s amanuensis, her words, factotum, his. The journalist is looking at him as if he were nothing short of a life raft. “Ignore her, she is usually much nicer than this. Just the stress of a new exhibition. Love the jacket by the way.”
Nancy sniffs. “He is right. It has been a bear of a process and well the new work,” Nancy drifts off.
“Right,” the young woman inhales. “Again sorry and thank you.”
Both Nancy and Chet nod in unison.
“Are you an artist too, Ms..” Chet’s voice trails off, “sorry I don’t have the list of interviewers in front of me.”
“Chase, Florence Chase. No, not an artist. I, well, at one time but the talent was lacking. My professor’s words.”
“Academics,” Nancy scoffs and graces Florence with a small smile.
“But your mentor, Nicolas Kroft,” Ms. Chase prods.
One, just one fucking interview, one conversation, can we go without mentioning him?
“Nick was an artist first and foremost.”
“He was the foremost artist,” Florence gushes.
“The great man,” Chet agrees, a tad coldly.
“Anyway Nick only dabbled in academia, mostly to pay the bills.” And steal ideas from any of the students he found talented; which was almost none of us. “He also would never discourage anyone with an interest in art.” He would also not encourage them either.
“Is it fair to say that his influence has shaped some of the new works?”
Nancy leans back. “More than fair, although if you were to somehow unsift any particular influence upon me, from my early obsession with Korean folk paintings.” And this was a common answer as it was known that her mother is Korean, and had in several interviews back when Nancy was first making waves in the art world, let it be known that her talent had been inherited from an even greater artist. Nancy smiled at this as her mother had been almost laughably bad as an artist. “through my charcoal phase and, admittedly my expected and boring phase, with the impressionists, it would be hard to see just how much Nick influenced me. I always feel that we.”
“Excuse me, by we do you mean the public or do you mean.”
“I mean,” Nancy does not snarl but there is no warmth in her responding interruption. “We, as in the Art Octet.”
“Nick’s most famous students.” Chet supplies now in a thoroughly bored voice. “Nancy being chief amongst them.”
He does earn his paychecks, Nancy thinks with almost grudging respect.
Nancy then notices, with something of a jolt, the creased brow on Florence’s unwrinkled forehead. Is this bitch ranking me below the others? Who, Travers? Richten? surely not Clarissa?
“In my opinion of course,” Chet adds quickly. He turns away from the seated women and rolls his eyes.
“For fuck’s sake, Chet.”
Chet laughs as he closes the door. “Is it just me or are the journalists getting dumber by the year. God what was she wearing? Her grandfather’s army jacket?”
“And that was a self described fan. I am getting a bit tired of the,” Nancy looks at her phone, “hitting a new high with this new exhibition.”
“At least they are celebrating you now. I mean ‘Tribute’, is already being bandied about as one of the greatest paintings of a generation. Not too shabby.”
Nancy just sighs.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Nancy says, her voice flat. The sun is behind the clouds. “This is more the weather I expected.”
“The weather yes, you no. I am not understanding this mood of yours? I would blame it on menopause but we had those battles five years ago.”
Nancy smiles. “Chet I have lived under Nick’s shadow all my life and when I finally start getting the kind of acclaim …”
“It’s because you create something that is so heavily influenced by him.” Chet sighs. “It is your painting, not his.”
“I know, but they think they are praising me by saying it is as good as anything he created.”
“But it is.” Chet laughs, “okay, okay, I’ll shut up. Listen you have two more then lunch with Keira tonight.”
“Where and when,” Nancy looks almost afraid.
“I will send a car,” Chet shakes his head and opens the door to another young person, this time a man.
Or at least it looks like a man, god knows nowadays, Nancy hoists her best attempt at a smile on her face.
It has started to rain as Nancy gets escorted to the car by the hotel doorman. Nancy is watching the rain as the driver’s music assaults her ears.
“Want me to turn it down, luv?” The driver asks, making eye contact in the mirror.
“Just a tad, if you don’t mind.”
The driver not only turns it down but also to a classical station.
“Better miss?”
“Substantially, thank you.” Wagner, of all things, well it is rather fitting, if ever there was a modern day Valkyrie it is Kiera.
Kiera is already seated. She is still wearing her hair short, still razor thin, still looking like the universe had borrowed lunch money off her in elementary school and had refused to pay it back ever since. Christ has she lost weight?
“Don’t get up,” Nancy waves her to stay seated but Kiera has already risen up and the two exchange air kisses.
Everyone, and that means everyone, has long believed that Nancy had been Nicolas Kroft’s lover. But by the time Nancy was in Kroft’s orbit, he had already married and had, amazingly, stopped such behaviours. Kiera, not as well known, having abandoned art for an MBA, had been one of the last female students to sleep with Nick.
“Rough day?” Kiera asks with a small smile.
“It that obvious?”
Kiera shrugs. Nancy recoils slightly, I can see her bones.
“I have heard nothing but wonderful things,” Kiera remarks.
“I suppose.” Nancy signals the waiter for another drink.
“And Chet is with you? Surely everything on his side has been done?”
“He just got divorced, think it is doing his head in a little. He was desperate for a change of venue.”
“Divorced? I hadn’t heard. He and Davos were together for years. How is he taking it?”
Nancy leans back and exhales. “Well his first divorce taught him he was gay, this one has taught him that he is old. I think the first lesson was easier to take.”
“Ugh, getting old. Is he in his young lover phase?”
“Afraid so. Personally I never saw the appeal of young men, but then I was always a traditionalist.”
“Young men have their place, usually beneath me, but I admit they are rather fucking exhausting. Like a diet of junk food.”
“What?” Nancy asks, taken aback by the sudden look of horror on Kiera’s face.
“I think I just now realized what I was for Nick. God that is depressing.”
“You were not junk food, hell if anything you were his cocaine. He was inspired by you. Most people think number 14 was inspired by you.”
“Most people?” Kiera scoffs. “Most of the Art Octet, you mean?”
“Such a sad name. Such a sad group of failures.”
“You are not a failure goddamn it Nancy.”
“Have you seen it?” Nancy suddenly demands.
Kiera pauses, then smiles as the waiter places their salads in front of them, it will be the only food they eat.
“I saw it.”
“And?”
“Nancy, must we.”
“That bad?”
“Well hell Nancy, why? And you called it Tribute but it might as well be called reproduction.”
Nancy rubs her eyes.
“I am not trying to be callous. It is a great work but …”
“No you are right. And now it is what I will be most tied to, if I am even fucking remembered.”
Kiera reaches over and pats her hand. “You are already part of the literature, you dumb cow. You are already inked in the history books. I envy fuckers like you so much.”
“You had real talent Kiera,” Nancy sniffs, wiping her eyes. “You just wisely prioritized having a life.”
“What life? What talent? And speaking of being remembered, I was Nick’s last lover before he married that lobotomy patient, Rachel, and yet everyone thinks you were his last fling.”
Nancy smiles. “Gods, Rachel? I keep forgetting she is still alive out there.”
“Senile, not that it is much of a difference. So strange the people that some people fall in love with? I would never have thought Nick would tie himself to someone so …”
“Stupid?”
Kiera smiles. “Other than the work, how is life?”
“Life? Is there a life there outside the work? I wonder about it. My first marriage was such a disaster that it spinistered me for life.”
“Us single ladies have to stick together.”
“And you?”
“Me?”
“Are you going to tell me about it or not?”
“Oh the weight loss, the gauntness? How happy I am to still have my goddamn hair despite it probably won’t survive the next few rounds? You want to talk about that?”
“Maybe we should just concentrate on getting drunk instead?”
“You are pulling it?” Chet asks as he hands Nancy a large coffee. “You are certain you want to do this?”
“Just crate it and ship it back early,” Nancy tells him. “Chet please, just get it done.”
Chet has known her long enough to know when to shut up. They had met when he was an articling student at the firm handling her divorce. They were close enough in age as she had married young and divorced quickly. Chet had been a shoulder to cry on in the strangest of places. “Oh hun, we should have met earlier. I would never have let you marry that closet case.”
And when he branched out to talent management, he sought her out, despite her being neither an actress nor an athlete, the only artist his firm represented. The art circles hated the arrangement, saw it as a harbinger of doom, and yet no one ever questioned Chet’s effectiveness.
When Nick Kroft died he had left an almost mythical legacy. He was known as the artist who only produced masterpieces. A ridiculous claim. The analogy of the archer with perfect accuracy was bandied about — shoot first, draw the bullseye around it. Nick Kroft had created 17 perfect paintings, art the stretched the limits of various genres and techniques, 17 gems hanging in the 17 greatest art houses and museums in the world. None allowed to travel from their assigned place of hanging. This was his legacy. It was his selection of the 17 houses, a few quite controversial, a few prosaic in their predictability. Still that was what it was, 17 surviving great works and nothing else aside from his 7 notebooks. Marketing, as Chet would say. Throw out the hundreds of failures and sure, it looks like the guy could only throw strikes.
The 17 paintings were, however, the product of a genius that staggered even the most jaundiced critic. A genius that none of his students even aspired to, just mimicked from time to time.
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The notebooks were interesting in that they contained brilliant sketches and some of the most leaden prose ever written. Kroft’s genius was truly singular, he had no ability to write, little ability to teach, and some, well, a great deal actually, to romance. Not that it helped him avoid marrying a first class dunce.
It causes a ruffle, the removal of Tribute. People ask questions, the exhibition runs its course, the buzz around it dying off, seemingly with every moment Tribute is no longer there. Nancy leaves to general acclaim, but it is meaningless and the people who matter know it. It was a good show buoyed by the inclusion of a first class piece that mysteriously disappeared after only 2 days. The public starts to think it is a marketing ploy, for reasons unknown, but she does have a PR firm.
Back in Chicago she places Tribute in Storage. She has, like most of her peers, taking on adjunct status to make ends meet. Her classes are almost all theoretical, not having the patience to deal with other artists at any distance closer than arm’s length. Students gush over her return. She endures it all. Chet has updated her socials and online bios. Her mother has even called with congratulations. She has a hard time remembering a lower point in her life.
It had been Kiera who mentioned it, Kroft’s signature or signifiers, over dinner. At first Nancy had been uninterested, she knew full well how Kroft looped all his works with the ‘K” in his name at the bottom of his paintings. How they were all of a uniform length, the paintings, but not the line connected with the ‘Kroft K’, for that was sometimes a few centimetres, or others, famously as in the case of the Pollack-esque №7, it wanders throughout the entirety of the work.
“No, not just that,” Kiera had muttered. “Some grad student, Nguyen or Winn, little fucker, bad clothes had come to my office.”
“A Thai?”
“American, I think. Could have been Canadian, hard for me to tell the difference.”
“He came to you?” Nancy had asked. “No offence but why not …”
“One of you all? None would talk to him. Chet had basically threatened him if he bothered you.”
“Chet never ..”
“Chet is so odd, he acts like a mamma bear around you.”
“So what did this Nguyen want?”
“I think he just wanted to brag,” Kiera snorted. “Typical man. Typical short man if I can be a bit shitty.”
“Brag about what? The K is well known.”
“This guy says it isn’t just the K. That in fact the K was the obvious one, too obvious. Anyone could reproduce that. He said he and his team.”
And here Nancy had started to go numb. “Team?”
“Yeah, but with this guy I think it might just be his D and D pals sitting around after an edible.”
“Right,” Nancy had agreed with a hollow laugh.
“But they had found at least nine more signifiers in Kroft’s paintings. Anyway I had forgotten about it until, well until I thought of your magnificent Tribute.”
Her mind had flown out of the restaurant at that moment. It had faithfully backpedalled every meter of the taxi ride back to the hotel, and from that lobby it had speed along the car path of another ride, this time a limo, to the gallery, through the doors, past the now empty rooms, skipping over the bodies of her other paintings, brushed past her rather sad small statue, a brave effort that, and finally it came upon it; Tribute. A painting almost the same dimensions as the 17, being an almost imperceptible 7 cm shorter, the lower edge an abrupt ending, one that as a critic had noted already, after the first public showing, left the audience peering downward, hoping for completion.
“Darling,” Kiera had reached over and her talon like, cancer depleted hand, gripped Nancy’s with a viking’s strength, “are you alright? You look as if you have seen a ghost.”
2 months later
Nancy is enjoying a sabbatical. That is how she was told, by Chet, to refer to it, this, forced fucking leave of absence. In the last month she has both started jogging and smoking again. I should combine them into some sort of ghoulish new sport, she thinks as her phone rings.
Without even looking she sighs, Chet or her mother, those were the only two that called now. It is Chet.
“Can you swing by later,” he is cheerful even now. Why not, not his ass on the line.
“Sure.”
“Nancy,” Chet says from behind his large desk. For the umpteenth time Nancy feels the surrealism of someone like Chet not only knowing someone like her but having her as a client.
“Are you certain you don’t want to-”
“No,” she snaps.
“It is just that -”
“Chet,” Nancy inhales and asks the question she has not had the courage to ask yet. “Do you think I stole ‘Tribute’? Do you think it is one of Kroft’s that I stole?”
To his credit Chet shrugs. “I do.”
“Some friend you are.”
“I am your friend. Here is how much Nancy. Look me in the eye and tell me that you are the creator of Tribute, that it is your work and I will change my tactics immediately.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. “Chet if I admit to this I will lose everything. I will be erased completely.”
“So say it was a gag, gift it to a ‘great’ gallery, make it painting 18, and that that is the tribute you intended. Salvage what you can.”
“We can’t,” Nancy feels herself shrinking into the chair, suddenly this is the largest office in the world, in the fucking galaxy. “Just bluff it out? Say that I put all those signifiers in intentionally?”
“But we don’t even know the fucking entire list. That fucking grad student won’t return my calls.”
“Maybe I should reach out?”
“That would not be a good idea.”
“I have been looking at his works again, in detail. I think I can find at least a few of the details. Kind of shocked that I didn’t see them before.” Kind of sad he never told me, she adds inwardly.
“That would be a gamble that could spectacularly backfire.”
“Damn it Chet,” Nancy starts then stops. “Why are you sticking by me?”
“It’s my job.”
“Bullshit, why me?”
“I like you.”
“So strange. Never understood what caused you to latch onto me.”
“You,” Chet leans back and sighs. “Nancy don’t you know, really?”
“Know what?”
“I was one of the guys sleeping with your husband.”
“What?”
“Jesus, I thought … I didn’t know he was your husband. And it was just a fling. He was moving through people like a buzzsaw, if that makes sense.”
Nancy is wide eyed. “I knew about the … buzzsaw sums up Patrick pretty well.”
“And then I saw you at the firm. And you being married to him. And I don’t know. Something about you.”
“What about me? I was a woman looking for a divorce?”
“You seemed wounded. I often, despite being happily gay, wonder what kind of woman I would want to end up with, if I were straight.”
“That is a,” Nancy shakes her head. “It was all just pity?”
“No. No. At first I was terrified you would find out about me, then I realized I was just one face in a crowd.”
“Sure, when it comes to infidelity, finding men Patrick slept with …”
“I was straw hiding in a haystack,” Chet smiles. “And I started to like you. I became your friend.”
“Under such strange circumstances. Christ, with friends like you and Kiera.”
“You have friends. You have support. You fucked up, I get it. We need to massage it. Turn Tribute into both a gift and a tribute.”
Nancy rises. “You get it? You get working all your life, creating art that just never quite gets to the level you have in your mind? That is among the best in the world but is just somehow lacking? Living your life under the shadow of a man who taught you for two years, and really all that was was him over your shoulder, occasionally grunting either approval or disapproval? You get that?”
“Nancy,” Chet spreads his hands. “Of course not, but I am in the business of damage control. And we have damage in need of control.”
“Can you give me a few days?”
Chet shrugs. “I can only try.”
Nancy nods. At the door she turns back and looks at him.
“You and Patrick? I just don’t see it.”
The next day Nancy is at her private studio. There is a blank canvas in front of her, and all she can do is glare at it. Why even fucking bother, she thinks. Christ, I may never paint again. There is a knock on the door and it forces an involuntary shriek out of her. Who on earth, god not a reporter, which would be the worst thing; well a disappointed student would be worse, her mother, god no, thankfully her mother hates flying and she chose Chicago for various reasons, chief among them was it was too far for her mother to drive to. She walks to the door, and is tipping up on her toes to see through the keyhole. The only thing worse than a reporter would be.
“Clarissa?” she breathes out in amazement.
“Nancy,” Clarissa walks past her. “I’ll pretend as if you invited me in.”
“Clar,” Nancy feels as if every part of her has turned into blue water, sagging. “Please tell me you are not here to gloat.”
Clarissa turns and gives her a mischievous arching eyebrow. “So much of me wants to do so, but no. God lord Nance, what the fuck were you thinking?”
“What time is it?”
Clarissa widens her eyes. She takes out her phone, “2 14,” she says.
“Good, after lunch. Let’s have a goddamn drink.”
“You knew?”
“I knew the second I fucking saw it, despite it being only in a newspaper. And then the dimensions.”
“Had to, you know,” Nancy sighs.
“Sure cut the fucker’s signature K out.” Clarissa leans back on small settee. She looks around. “You were always so fucking talented Nance. I hated you for it.”
“But not talented enough,” Nancy mutters. “Which got me here.”
“Sure, none of you were,” Clarissa accepts a cigarette.
“You are excluded yourself?”
“What from the Art Octet, dumbest fucking name. And yes, it was always a group of three. You Travers, and Richten. The rest of us were journeymen.”
“Ultimately so are the three of us,” Nancy sighs. “Well maybe Travers if he had lived.”
“Nah, not even Travers would have outshone Kroft. That is the shitty thing, we were students of a flat out genius. And not only that, his stupid ability in various genres kind of fucked us.”
“Right,” Nancy agrees. “Although, it did kind of force us into new territory.”
“You know we all have one,” Clarissa laughs.
“One what?”
“One of the fucker’s paintings, one of the things he had us ‘destroy’. You think you are the only one that squirrelled one away?”
“Even Travers?”
Clarissa shrugs. “Well, probably not him. He was terrified of Kroft, thought he was all knowing. And it would have come out after his death. But I know for a fact that Richten has one, as do Chou, and Bertie.”
“Why we you always so close to them?”
Clarissa shrugs. “For us, it was kind of a support group. For you it was a challenge to be around someone that talented, we were all young and you saw it as a mountain that you could climb. For the rest of us, we knew we were defeated from the jump. Kiera at least had the sense to bail.”
“She has cancer,” Nancy says with a flat voice.
“I know.”
“God art is such a bitch,” Nancy takes a sip.
“Yeah. And for you it must be torture.”
“Would you have done what I did?”
“Christ no,” Clarissa laughs. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. First off I could never have the balls and also, I am not talented enough to even come close to pulling something like that off. It is a testament to your ability that you almost got away with it.”
“Almost? I mean I haven’t …”
“Yes. Dammit, yes. Almost. Nance the jig is up. Do what you need to, pretend it was a hoax, involve me and Richten in it, we will say you discussed it with us and we thought we would gift the world with an unreleased Kroft, no. 18.”
“And my legacy?” Nancy hated herself for asking, hated the tear sliding down her cheek.
“Will fucking suffer Nance, but linger, as it was going to no matter what. In time the 8 will become 3. I will slide off the page entirely. I have made my peace with it. You will be remembered for your talent, for being his lover, yes I know, I know, but that is out of our control, and you will be remembered most for that damned painting, Tribute.”
“Why does he get to loom so large? Why does fortune bless some of us … ah fuck it.”
“He got there first,” Clarissa laughs, it is a bitter sound. “And he moved the conversation a bit, that is all we can do.”
“Or can’t do.”
“There are thousands of painters like me, hundreds like you, tens like Travers and one like Kroft. Guy didn’t deserve the talent and luck he had, none of them do. But we deserve ours.”
“Fucking pointless,” Nancy wipes her cheeks. “All bullshit.”
“Beats digging ditches,” Clarissa pats her knee. “Call that professional vampire of yours. Get the story out there, select a gallery and gift it.”
“And the lack of signature? Won’t that be ….”
“Say that Kroft did it, that he thought it wasn’t up to snuff and took his name off before asking you to dispose of it. By this time next year it will be a non issue, and you will be back to your life.”
“Did Chet call you?”
“He called all of us. God, never knew why you kept him around, but he freaking loves you. You sure he’s gay?”
“As a french horn in spring. He slept with my ex.”
Clarissa leans back and laughs. “So … what, he feels guilty?”
“Maybe, at first, now he just loves me. Dammit I just stopped crying.”
“Everyone loves you Nance,” Clarissa says gently. “Even us who hate you love you underneath. You produce such good work.”
Before she left, Clarissa hugs Nancy. “I still haven’t decided.”
“What?” Nancy asks, exhausted.
“Well in my will I have what will either be no.19 or perhaps no.20.”
“And?”
“Do I let it out or have it destroyed?”
“Christ why destroy them? They are great works.”
“Because,” Clarissa steps out of the studio. “My teacher asked me to.”
