A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,30
background of a Blavoin, even though the artist worked before the industrial revolution and lived, famously, secluded in the provinces. Terrified of horses, he traveled only on foot, and therefore never left his township, nestled in the foothills of the Alps, far from any such smoke. This willful disregard for scholarship offended Elm, even as she laughed at it. It was insulting that someone would think her that stupid, though she knew specialists and departmental directors often were. She had seen obvious misattributions (the euphemism for fakes) fool good eyes and wind up in private collections.
Elm was not supposed to voice her suspicions. First of all, it was bad for business. Too many items pulled from auctions because of suspect authenticity gave houses a reputation they didn’t want. Second, it was bad to be the whistle-blower. Also, unless Elm had the opportunity to examine the drawing under the loupe, she really couldn’t be sure. And, of course, if the purchaser enjoyed his “Brueghel” or his “Delacroix,” who was she to rain on his parade? Still, pangs tugged at her heart when she saw small museums blow their acquisition budgets on inferior drawings. It was like watching the government build a bridge that she knew would fail.
Elm did a quick search in the Art Loss Registry. The database of stolen art was part of her due diligence, a hedge against liability if the pieces had been stolen. Nothing surfaced.
Elm wanted to meet the great Indira Schmidt, so she joined Ian and his croissants in a company car up to Columbia. Ian had described both the building and the woman perfectly. Mrs. Schmidt looked Elm up and down skeptically with rheumy eyes and let her into the apartment. Ian she kissed on the cheek, and as he straightened he winked at Elm.
The apartment was dark. The rays of sun that escaped from the velvet curtains blinded like spotlights instead of illuminating. The hallway carpet gave at each footstep. Elm noticed, as she walked slowly behind the old woman, that instead of family portraits, the pictures lining the entryway were all professional: Stieglitz, Leibovitz, Mann, Sherman. Not their controversial or iconic images, but recognizable nonetheless. In fact, Elm realized, there were no photos of family anywhere in the apartment.
Elm sat on a couch so low her knees were above her chin. She wondered if she’d be able to get out of it.
“That one’s broken,” Ian whispered at her, extending his hand to help her up. “Sit there.” He pointed to a thronelike carved wood chair.
“Mrs. Schmidt,” Elm began, “I’m a huge fan of your work. You know, I’m on the board of the New Jewish Institute, though I’m not myself Jewish. Your genius has—”
Mrs. Schmidt held up her hand in a “spare me” gesture. “This is not a case where the one I’m most fond of will get to sell my art, Mrs. Howells. When I am ready to part with it, the one who can offer me the most favorable terms will be my proxy, even if they are a one-armed ax murderer. You are here because I enjoy meeting new people. What can you tell me?”
“Beg your pardon?” Elm asked.
“I spent World War II in a hayloft in France,” Mrs. Schmidt said. “I walked into Texas from Mexico. I once met Elvis Presley.”
Elm began to say “Wow,” then realized these were examples, not actual experiences. The sound that emerged was “Whoa.”
“My family has land on this island off the coast of Connecticut,” Elm began. She very rarely parted with this information. She was never invited to the island now that her mother was dead, and she felt it gave people the wrong impression of her. They imagined a silver spoon. But all the silver had long since been hocked. “We used to go there in the summers when I was a child. Dinners were formal for the adults, but the children were served in a separate dining room, Tater Tots and miniature hamburgers. Paradise. The summer I turned twelve I was dying to be let into the adults’ room. The official age was thirteen, but I begged and begged, reminded them my birthday was coming up in October. Finally, on the last night, they let me. Mother gave me one of her old dresses to wear. It fit like a gunnysack. She put the necklace her mother had given her around my neck, an add-a-pearl necklace that no one ever added pearls to. She did my hair in a high bun