Gabriel felt he should pity Lise for what she had become. And yet she seemed so at home in her world, far more content than he was in his. And while she could dabble in his world, work in an art gallery, create just enough to call herself an artist, he would be as lost in hers as if he’d been asked to join a troupe of circus acrobats. He was completely unsuited for a life of convention, unable to imitate it, let alone desire it.
He’d lost Lise, that was patently obvious. And she was not the only one. A phenomenon he’d noticed on the far side of forty was his growing disdain for all his former friends. So many of them had made such boring conventional choices: marriage, children. Most were no longer making art; one had gone to law school, another worked for some sort of graphic design firm. He remembered the long nights, drinking red wine from a screw-top bottle that stained everyone’s teeth red, being told by neighbors to shut the fuck up for chrissake, talking about art like characters out of La Bohème. When was the last time he had a real meaningful conversation about art? Or anything more substantive than who was showing where and what vitamins everyone was taking? If this was what it meant to be middle-aged, then Gabriel vowed to forgo it.
On Friday, Klinman met Gabriel at the gallery before it opened. Gabriel spread out the best of the art he and his École had drawn on Édouard’s light table. Édouard never came in before ten, so he and Klinman had an hour or so to go over them. Though Klinman’s expression remained stoic, Gabriel could tell by the way his eyes crinkled in the creases that the drawings, watercolors, and pastels were satisfactory. Gabriel’s shoulders opened up and he stood straighter.
Klinman looked at the drawings carefully. He lingered approvingly over the pastel Gabriel was proud of, but then he turned to the next drawing and saw Gabriel’s mother repeated in a sketch. “This is the same woman, in both drawings.”
“Sometimes Connois drew from the same models.”
Klinman nodded. He also paused over Lise’s gouache of her child with that yippy white dog. He pointed.
“Ganedis,” Gabriel said.
Klinman nodded his approval. At the bottom of the pile, Gabriel had included his take on a Piranesi arch as well as a Canaletto plaza scene.
“What are these?” Klinman asked.
“Oh.” Gabriel was slightly embarrassed. “There were a few extra sheets of paper, and because they were so beautiful, I drew on them. It’s not the style you asked for, but it was so pretty.…” Gabriel was scared. Klinman’s expression was of rapt concentration on the drawings.
“Might you be free on Sunday?” Klinman asked. “I have an idea. I would like you to come for a drink.”
He wrote down an address in the Marais.
“What time should Colette and I be there?”
“Not Colette. Just you,” Klinman said. He took the art, placed it carefully in the portfolio, and left without saying good-bye.
The bar Klinman had chosen was attempting to mimic a living room. It was decorated with low, ornate sofas, purple velvet worn through, and embroidered armchairs. Mirrors and candelabra adorned the walls. Klinman ordered a scotch, so Gabriel ordered one too. He was unused to the taste; he took large, infrequent gulps while Klinman sipped daintily. He was hungry, but didn’t want to order something to eat. It was sure to be expensive and tiny.
Klinman was appraising him, looking him up and down. Gabriel was dressed inappropriately for the occasion, as usual. Though they were in the Marais, ground zero for hipsters and artists (wealthy hipsters, successful artists), everyone else seemed to be wearing couture while Gabriel was sporting thrift-store chic. He was the only one without a jacket in the bar, and certainly the only one wearing shit kickers instead of loafers.
Klinman’s clothes, on the other hand, came straight from the set of a 1940s film, a three-piece pin-striped suit that clung to him like he’d recently outgrown it, his barrel chest swelling beneath the fabric.
“So where in Spain are you from?” Klinman asked in Spanish.
“How many languages do you speak?” Gabriel responded in Spanish, taken aback. The scotch was warming in his stomach and the room had taken on sepia tones, reflecting off the mirrors and ormolu.
Klinman laughed. He reverted to French. “My Spanish is terrible, rusty. But I am good at two things.” He let his head fall back, searching the ceiling for words