Pictures at an Exhibition by Sara Houghteling Read Free Book Online Page A

patronize the fine artists of the place du Sacré-Cœur.” Her voice had been strained.
    “Berenzons don't have their portraits painted anymore,” my father had replied, as if he knew that would make her cry. At the time, I had disregarded the strangeness of this and only considered it one of the many inexplicable interactions of childhood. I had assumed my parents spoke of the foreign world that existed before I came into this one.
    Outside Drouot's, I raised my head at the clattering of bells from the campanile of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. I could hear the tap-tap of a woman's shoes hurrying behind me. The blanched dome of Sacré-Cœur loomed above and I walked toward it. The rest of the heavens darkened for rain, but somehow Sacré-Cœur remained light and flickering. I pictured the amateur portraitists in the square beyond the church, how they would run for cover when the angry rains began and how they would call out from beneath striped restaurant awnings to sketch the faces of those who hurried by. I resolved to walk until it began to rain. By then, Father would know of my mistake and I could return home.
    WHEN AT LAST I WAS ON RUE DE LA BOéTIE , I found my father, much to my surprise, sitting in the gallery, wearing his coatand gloves, with the Manet fake unwrapped on an easel before him. The canvas was no bigger than the cover of a dictionary. A magnifying glass rested on the table beside him, and a full ashtray.
    “Good, you're home,” he said. “I was worried you were going to do something clever like throw yourself in the Seine.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “I spoke with Robert de Rothschild while you were out. He said if it was a fake, then it would be the work of this fellow who poses as a Hungarian noble, Baron von Horty. Rothschild has had some dealings with him as well, though I think the false pedigree was the part that irked Robert most. I don't know why Robert's being so kind to us, but he sent his lawyer over to the Conciergerie, and von Horty confirmed that our Manet is part of his forged œuvre. Von Horty's as strange a fellow as you can imagine. He's blackmailed some senator to keep him in the fashion to which he has grown accustomed. He has a beautiful harpsichord right there in the jail with him, which requires tuning every week since it's so damp.” When a matter interested Father, he moved at lightning speed.
    That night, during our silent dinner, amid the loud clanking of silverware against plate, my mind churned. I was responsible for several losses of varying sizes. I had made a fool of myself before my father and Rose. I had begged my father to draw me into his business dealings, yet when given a test I had failed. I pushed myself away from the table and gathered the painting from my father's office in the gallery.
    “Where are you going with that?” Father said. “Don't destroy it! Fakes are excellent instruction! They teach us lessons!” he shouted to my back, as I hurried upstairs.
    I dragged a suitcase from the recesses of the storage alcove in my bedroom. I opened it, and a cockroach scuttled away, leaving his dead comrades behind. When I swept them out, their dried wings and shells crackled. I stowed the painting in one of the valise's inner pouches. The parcel made it sag. I closed the case with a thud and clicked its latches shut.
    It was as if a key had turned inside me. I had wanted to twin the stupid, sullen Ham with my father's Almonds. Each mute still lifeneeded its mate; each was too bleak without the other. I felt nearly drunk when I bought the Ham. Father's joy at my triumph would have outrun his surprise at the price. I had let my mind close down on my doubts like a steel door. I did not consider that my father regarded my mistake as a rite of passage—that any collector who says he has never made a questionable purchase is a liar.
    I sat atop the suitcase with my head in my hands, for how long I did not know.
    Then my father was before me. “Why are you sitting