A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,29

as worked as the rest. This was not an expression of meticulousness or perfectionism. It was simply a part of the painting, regardless of whether or not anyone would see it, and deserved the same level of care.

Gabriel pried the staples from the stretcher and the canvas sagged with relief. He rolled it carefully, trying not to crack the paint, and placed it in a tube he had stolen from the stationery store. Then he turned to his painting, the one he had been working on all summer. It wasn’t quite dry; August’s humidity stalled the oil, but it would work. He stretched the canvas over the supports and hammered the staples back in. Then he reframed the painting, careful to mimic the small space where the frame’s right angles didn’t quite meet.

He was in the kitchen when his mother came home. “Gabriel,” she called. “Oh, there you are. Are you very hungry tonight?”

Gabriel shook his head. His insides were as agitated as though he were traveling on the waves of the painting. Would she notice?

She set about the business of dinner, peeling potatoes and cutting tomatoes to spread their innards on thick pieces of bread. Gabriel heard the click of the salt container’s top snapping open and closed, but his gaze was fixated on the painting. He stared at it so long and intently that the landscape ceased to resemble any recognizable vista and became a jumble of intermingling colors and shapes. It was like a tangle of thread; if he tried to follow one brushstroke or one color, he confused it with another layer of pigment and texture.

“What’s wrong with you?” his mother asked. “I think the woodshed is not a good place for a studio. Too hot. And too much coffee; you’re dehydrated.”

He turned his head to smile absently at her.

“Febrer changes for me as well.” She served him potatoes. “Depending on my mood, I project onto it, almost like I am the painter. Today it looks shinier, more alive.”

“I cleaned it,” Gabriel said impulsively. “As a present to you before I leave. I cleaned the surface so it’s like a new painting. Don’t let anything touch it for a couple of weeks until the new varnish has a chance to dry.”

Tears rimmed his mother’s eyes. She said nothing. Not “Oh, thank you!” as he thought she would, nor “You shouldn’t have bothered,” nor “I’ll miss you so much.” He wondered if she knew, if she suspected. Impossible. It was a nearly perfect copy, and she would have noticed right off if it weren’t exact. If he could fool her, she who knew the painting better than anyone in the world, then he was indeed as talented as she claimed he was, as the school in France thought he might be. He might even be as talented as his great-great-grandfather.

When he got to Paris, he approached Sotheby’s with the canvas. He told the story truthfully, and was lucky enough to have arrived just as the art market was hitting its peak. Houses couldn’t afford to be too thorough in checking provenances. The house verified the painting’s age through forensic testing and Febrer was put up for auction in a group of minor Impressionists, under “École des Hiverains, artist unknown.” It still sold for more money than Gabriel had expected. He sent his mother all of it, telling her he’d sold one of his paintings. In a sense, he had. The more he thought about it, the more he believed it himself, until it became as much a fundamental truth as the bitterness of coffee or the hot stink of the Parisian métro. He had sold his first Connois.

Elm

Mrs. Schmidt’s drawings returned authenticated. Several times, minor copies (or forgeries, it was impossible to know) crossed Elm’s desk. She could always tell—the lines lacked the natural progression, the logic of the artistic mind. Where an artist’s charcoal would fly across the paper, gathering speed in the weave and bumps of the pulp, the copyist’s was hesitant, looking back to check on its progress. The artist’s work was freer; those who followed in his footsteps were always a step behind.

Even though clear forgeries were often obvious, people still tried to sneak them into auctions. Their provenances were sketchy—they were discovered in an attic or behind an old painting or in a flea market—or even nonexistent. The perspective was off, or the material was wrong, or it contained other anachronisms. Elm once saw smoke rising from an industrial chimney in the