and the simple milkmaids don’t so much suit the modern taste, do they? I much prefer the van Goyen there. Sadly not for sale.”
“Van Goyen? I would have sworn that was a Corot.”
“From here, yes, you might.” He was pleased at the comparison. “Very similar painters—Vincent himself remarked it—you know that letter? ‘The Corot of the Dutch’? Same tenderness of mist, that openness in fog, do you know what I mean?”
“Where—” I’d been about to ask the typical dealer’s question, where did you get it, before catching myself.
“Marvelous painter. Very prolific. And this is a particularly beautiful example,” he said, with all a collector’s pride. “Many amusing details up close—tiny hunter, barking dog. Also—quite typical—signed on the stern of the boat. Quite charming. If you don’t mind—” indicating, with a nod, the bodies behind the tapestry. “Go over. You won’t disturb them.”
“No, but—”
“No—” holding up a hand—“I understand perfectly. Shall I bring it to you?”
“Yes, I’d love to see it.”
“I must say, I’ve grown so fond of it, I’ll hate to see it go. He dealt paintings himself, van Goyen. A lot of the Dutch masters did. Jan Steen. Vermeer. Rembrandt. But Jan van Goyen—” he smiled—“was like our friend Boris here. A hand in everything. Paintings, real estate, tulip futures.”
Boris, in the dark, made a disgruntled noise at this and seemed about to say something when all of a sudden a scrawny wild-haired boy of maybe twenty-two, with an old fashioned mercury thermometer sticking out of his mouth, came lurching out of the kitchen, shielding his eyes with his hand against the upheld lamp. He was wearing a weird, womanish, chunky knit cardigan that came almost to his knees like a bathrobe; he looked ill and disoriented, his sleeve was up, he was rubbing the inside of his forearm with two fingers and then the next thing I knew his knees went sideways and he’d hit the floor, the thermometer skittering out with a glassy noise on the parquet, unbroken.
“What…?” said Boris, stabbing out his cigarette, standing up, the cat darting from his lap into the shadows. Horst—frowning—set the lamp on the floor, light swinging crazily on walls and ceiling. “Ach,” he said fretfully, brushing the hair from his eyes, dropping to his knees to look the young man over. “Get back,” he said in an annoyed voice to the women who had appeared in the door, along with a cold, dark-haired, attentive-looking bruiser and a couple of glassy prep-school boys, no more than sixteen—and then, when they all still stood staring—flicked out a hand. “In the kitchen with you! Ulrika,” he said to the blonde, “halt sie zurück.”
The tapestry was stirring; behind it, blanket-wrapped huddles, sleepy voices: eh? was ist los?
“Ruhe, schlaft weiter,” called the blonde, before turning to Horst and beginning to speak urgently in rapid-fire German.
Yawns; groans; farther back, a bundle sitting up, groggy American whine: “Huh? Klaus? What’d she say?”
“Shut up baby and go back schlafen.”
Boris had picked up his coat and was shouldering it on. “Potter,” he said and then again, when I did not answer, staring horrified at the floor, where the boy was breathing in gurgles: “Potter.” Catching my arm. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Yes, sorry. We’ll have to talk later. Schiesse,” said Horst regretfully, shaking the boy’s limp shoulder, with the tone of a parent making a not-particularly-convincing show of scolding a child. “Dummer Wichser! Dummkopf! How much did he take, Niall?” he said to the bruiser who had reappeared in the door and was looking on with a critical eye.
“Fuck if I know,” said the Irishman, with an ominous sideways pop of his head.
“Come on Potter,” said Boris, catching my arm. Horst had his ear to the boy’s chest and the blonde, who had returned, had dropped to her knees beside him and was checking his airway.
As they consulted urgently in German, more noise and movement behind the Amiens, which billowed out suddenly: faded blossoms, a fête champêtre, prodigal nymphs disporting themselves amidst fountain and vine. I was staring at a satyr peeping at them slyly from behind a tree when, unexpectedly—something against my leg—I started back violently as a hand swiped from underneath and clutched my trouser cuff. From the floor, one of the dirty bundles—swollen red face just visible from under the tapestry—inquired of me in a sleepy gallant voice: “He’s a margrave, my dear, did you know that?”
I pulled my trouser leg free and stepped back. The boy on the floor was rolling his head a bit and