The Wild Beasts of Wuhan by Ian Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

the paintings and looked down at the signature. “Matisse?”
    “Yes, these are all supposedly by Matisse,” May Ling said. She turned and pointed to another wall. “And over there, André Derain, Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, and, of course, our Monet.”
    “This is spectacular.”
    Uncle and Wong Changxing entered the room. Ava saw surprise register on her boss’s face, while the tension she had detected in Wong’s was now ripping across his.
    “When my husband came back to Wuhan,” May Ling continued, “he told me about the paintings he had seen and how much he loved them. He bought some art books, and though he couldn’t read them because they were in English or French, he used to stay up at night, poring over them as if he was looking at pictures of his children. I started looking into the movement myself, and I began to share his passion for the Fauvists. It was the colour and the simplicity of the paintings that attracted him, and then me.
    “I bought the first one — that Derain painting of the Tower Bridge in London — for his birthday. He was upset with me for spending so much money, but after I explained what a good investment I thought it would be, we decided to buy more. Our little gallery here became the largest private Fauvist collection outside of Europe.
    “Our Chinese friends never saw the sense in it and didn’t appreciate them. Among the Westerners, though, it changed their perception of Wong Changxing. He was no longer just another newly rich Chinese businessman, a man with no education, no breeding, no manners.”
    “This is such a beautiful collection,” Ava said. “It does speak well of its owners.”
    May Ling exhaled and then seemed to struggle to catch her breath. “Except — many of these paintings are fakes.”
    Ava turned to look at Uncle. His face was impassive.
    “Fakes?” Ava said.
    “Yes, forgeries.”
    Wong Changxing opened his mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out. He waved an arm at the paintings. “Fakes!” he finally yelled, his arm rotating like a windmill, his eyes squeezed shut in rage.
    “Can we go somewhere to sit and talk?” Uncle said.
    May Ling looped her arm through Wong Changxing’s. “Calm,” she said.
    They walked through the living quarters and entered a kitchen. It was a Chinese kitchen that could have been found in a hundred million homes: a small round table with four chairs, a standard fridge and oven, and on the counter a rice cooker and hot water Thermos.
    “Your guests?” Ava asked.
    “They’ll sing and drink for another four hours,” May Ling said.
    “What happened with the paintings?” Uncle asked.
    Wong Changxing banged his fist on the table.
    “Calm,” May Ling said again to her husband, resting her hand on his arm. She turned to Uncle and Ava. “It began when I bought the first one. I was ignorant about how to proceed, so I went to the art dealer in Hong Kong who helped us acquire our ceramics — they are genuine, by the way. I talked to him about the Fauvists and asked him to find me one. He called me in two months, saying he had located the Derain in a private collection in Switzerland and that it was ours if we wanted to pay the price. I did. When it got here, we loved it and we decided to buy more. I commissioned the dealer to do exactly that.”
    “ We commissioned,” Wong Changxing said.
    “Yes, sorry, we did make the decision together. His name — the dealer — was Kwong Kan and his gallery was near Lan Kwai Fong. We told him to call us whenever a Fauvist painting came on the market. Over the following years we bought the twenty you just saw. Braque. Dufy. Matisse. More Derain. Vlaminck. And the Monet, which cost fifteen million dollars. Then two years ago our dealer died — cancer — and we took a break.
    “Our collection was already impressive and, more important, we loved it. My husband started every day with tea, hot and dry noodles, and time alone in the room with the paintings.