Post slinked in a half hour before the reception, walking the gallery and nodding with approval at the installation, with the exception of Marriage, which he pointedly refused to look at. He complained to Francis about the prices again, to which Francis replied that they’d double in the next five years, and this constituted their kiss and make up, after which the artist prevailed on the bartender to open a bottle of pinot grigio.
The imperious and implacable Francis, the one who had dominated Alex Post, was gone. This opening-night Francis emanated an aura of generosity. His smiles were genial and wide, and his wineglass was always full—he sipped only if someone toasted. He made up for his small stature by always standing under one of the large hanging lights, which were organized in a sort of grid, attached to cables from the ceiling. He didn’t stay in one place, but when he moved, he invariably ended up directly below one of the lights, a tungsten glow illuminating his hair. Andrea and Marcus moved purposefully through the crowd, bringing people to Francis and ordering the assistants around, but Francis himself seemed to exist above it all, unflappable and serene.
Jeff noticed, once the reception was in full swing, that the crowd’s din, the talking and coughing and laughing, oscillated, growing louder as people tried to talk over one another, and then, according to some principle he couldn’t understand, descended in volume, only to go through the cycle again. That nadir in volume was when the music could be heard, for a moment, before conversation covered it again.
There wasn’t much looking at the art. The guests were there to be seen… by the other guests, Jeff supposed. He didn’t recognize anyone. But he noticed that some, the more powerful ones, presumably, were always approached by others, whereas another group did most of the approaching, in a regular pattern. A third group—the hoi polloi, as much as they could be called that in this context—limited their interactions to the people they’d arrived with. They were also the only ones looking at the art. Who were they? Would-be artists, assistants, appraisers, print dealers, cubicle jockeys from the auction houses…
Jeff walked the galleries, making sure he was always looking as though he was on his way somewhere, taking in whatever conversations he could, and keeping an eye on Francis, the central cog in this complex and glittering machine. It was seductive, the machine. Enchanting. He couldn’t help but be swayed and impressed.
As a hedge against intimidation, he reminded himself that if he hadn’t saved Francis’s life, none of this would have been happening.
Andrea shuttled an older Middle Eastern man toward Marriage, and Marcus simultaneously alerted Francis. The whole night, this was the only time Jeff had noticed Francis moving for someone else. They greeted each other with handshakes and smiles, more formal than usual for Francis. The man seemed pleased by the painting, and he and Francis stood shoulder to shoulder in front of it discussing its merits, presumably, though Jeff wasn’t within earshot.
Marcus caught him gawking. “He’s an Al-Thani,” he said, as if that should mean anything to Jeff. “Relative of the Qatari emir.”
Jeff felt he was witnessing a moment of some import.
“Francis is showing him the best painting,” Jeff said, under his breath.
“The best?”
“He moved it there, to the prime spot,” Jeff said.
Marcus looked at him like he’d just stepped off a tractor.
“Mr. Al-Thani already owns the painting,” he said. “Purchased it sight unseen last week. A wedding gift for his future daughter-in-law.”
Of course. Marriage.
25
“How did that affect your opinion of Francis?” I asked.
Jeff smiled. “I was disillusioned. It didn’t obviate the eye, but it did piss me off, how he railroaded the artist in favor of a collector. I didn’t yet know what I know today.”
“Meaning?”
“The art is only the glue. It’s not always just glue, obviously. Sometimes it’s capital-A art. But for the most part, the work, from the perspective of the art world, exists to provide an occasion for buying and selling, for socializing, for crowing, for telegraphing taste, for cleaning up dirty money.”
“I’m sure the artists don’t see it that way,” I said.
“Some do, some don’t.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Every once in a while artists try to come up with work that can’t be bought or sold. But the market always finds a way.”
His eyes grew distant. He asked me if I wanted another nonalcoholic beer. I offered to get drinks this time, since I needed to hit the restroom anyway.
“Vodka soda, please,” he said.
I made my way through the lounge’s maze of tables and small rooms until I found, tucked away, the restrooms. They were utterly unlike the ones downstairs: marble everywhere, orchids on the counters, disposable hand towels, and an overriding sense of space and serenity. No line, no crowd, no suitcases crammed into stalls populated by groaning defecators. The doors here went from floor to ceiling. It wasn’t as fancy as a luxury hotel, but it was—as the bathrooms in the rest of the airport were not—humane. I urinated in peace, absorbing the meditative music coming from speakers in the ceiling.
I didn’t know what to make of Jeff’s story so far. I was still digesting the fact that he’d become an art dealer. Was that what lay behind his years-long reticence? Or was there more? As his story proceeded, I felt an increasing indefinable discomfort, perhaps stemming from the knowledge that I was the first auditor, the accidental confessor who by my mere appearance had spurred on this excavation of his past. Was it excavation, though, Jeff getting everything off his chest? Or was he painting for me a kind of self-portrait? And what is a self-portrait if not self-serving? The tale of the young, ingenuous Jeff stumbling his way into FAFA could have, in another telling, come off as sinister. Based on what I’d heard thus far, I could have easily and justifiably accused Jeff of stalking Francis Arsenault.
I washed my hands and headed to the bar. The morose bartender, with feathered blond hair and an almost-handlebar mustache, looked like he’d stepped out of the late 1970s. When I ordered Jeff’s vodka soda and my nonalcoholic beer, he perked up.
“You’re the one drinking the near beers,” he said.
I nodded.
“Your friend there is quite the talker.”
“That he is.”
“I had an ex like that. Wasn’t happy unless my head was full of her words.”
I put a couple of dollars into the tip jar and made my way back toward our table.
Jeff sat leaning forward, his elbows on the armrests of his chair, his mouth resting on his interlaced hands, as though he was praying, or deep in thought.
The moment he saw me in his peripheral vision, he popped upright, animated and reaching for his drink.
After I sat down, he held up his glass.
“A toast,” he said, “to serendipity.”
“You mean that we bumped into each other?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said.
“Or are you talking about the past?”
He shrugged. “Why not both?”
We sipped our drinks, and Jeff resumed his story.
26
Marcus buzzed Jeff’s extension.
“I need you to help Fiona with a project,” he said.
Jeff had no idea who Fiona was. He ascended the private stairs with a tightness in his throat. He would soon be, he thought, in close proximity to Francis, maybe afforded the opportunity to finally have a conversation with him. He imagined himself coming out with it, telling Francis he had saved his life. What would the fallout be? Lose the job, get a reward? At the top of the stairs was a small waiting room, with a white sofa and a coffee table covered with catalogues from old shows. A hallway led to offices, and he realized that this space existed above the shipping room and the small back gallery room, which had a lower ceiling than the rest of the gallery.
At the end of the hall, Francis’s door was open. Andrea stood in the doorway, asking his opinion of the depth of the pockets of a certain collector. Jeff could just barely see Francis sitting at his desk.