A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,46

was worth. Before I discovered it was a Connois sketch.”

Realization dawned on Gabriel like extremities thawing after coming inside from the cold. “A Connois? You want me to draw on this?”

“It is already drawn.” Klinman stared at him, his face close to Gabriel’s. “Do you not see the Spanish marketplace?”

Gabriel nodded, though he didn’t exactly see it. Klinman continued, “It looks perhaps like a sketch for Víspera de Fiesta, but not exactly like it. You can see here—” Klinman gestured at a spot on the page that was no different than any other. “Instead of the gypsy selling the fruit, there is a small boy. And there are touches of his other paintings; the clouds from La Baia, this rooster.”

The paper was beautiful: handmade, pulpy. Gabriel could see how it would absorb the ink and then reject it, making an inimitable smooth line. You couldn’t find paper like this just anywhere. It was a work of art in its own right. Drawing on such a piece would be like opening a five-hundred-euro bottle of wine, or staying at the Ritz—a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Suddenly, Gabriel felt such a strong desire to draw on the paper that he didn’t recognize himself. He felt his hands itching to grab the paper off the light table, to run away with it and make it his. The desire was almost sexual, the raw hunger of it.

Klinman leaned back. “You understand me now?”

Gabriel licked his lips, chapped from the cold air. “I think so, yes.”

“You can restore the drawing, then? Return it to its intended state?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. He was thirsty; he wished Klinman had offered him a drink, though no real art lover would let liquid anywhere near these treasures.

“Well, then, we will make each other very happy, I suppose.” Klinman lifted the paper by its corner. Gabriel’s mind was already spinning ideas. Klinman put the page inside a cardboard portfolio, then put that in turn into a faux-leather briefcase. “Should be safe like that,” he said. “You take your time.”

The métro could not come fast enough. Gabriel gripped the briefcase in both hands, holding it in front of him like a schoolboy. He longed to take the paper out and examine it, even here in the station, but he knew that would invite disaster. He felt like he’d won an award, like he’d been singled out as special. For the past decade nothing—no woman, no grant, no group show—had produced anything other than anemic contentment. But now he felt like he had arriving in France years ago with the Connois tucked in his suitcase, his acceptance letter in his shoulder bag, the same exhilaration, the same sense of optimism, of possibility that had eluded him for the past few years as his work failed to impress his professors, colleagues, and gallerists. He’d let them toss him aside like potato peelings, but no longer. He would show them what he could do, what they all overlooked.

Elm

On a rainy Friday, a week before she gave birth to Moira, Elm took Ronan to the Morgan Library & Museum. “Is that the house one?” he asked. She wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Frick or the Morgan.

They rode in the first car of the 6 train, so that Ronan could pretend he was driving it. “If we’re going to Thirty-sixth Street,” Elm said, “where do we get off the train?”

“Thirty-third,” he said, as though anyone on the planet could answer such a simple question. He was turning an imaginary steering wheel, yelling out the stops when they slowed. The subway car found it cute; people were laughing behind her as she held his belt buckle while he tried to peer out the window. Elm couldn’t lift him anymore.

A black man in a doorman’s uniform came over and, without asking, picked Ronan up so he could see out. Elm was startled—a sudden rush of adrenaline made her extend her arm as though she might snatch him back—but the man was totally benign, just trying to help, and Ronan squealed with delight.

After Forty-second Street Ronan said, “We get off here,” to the man, and he set him down.

Elm took Ronan’s hand in the crowded station as they moved slowly up the stairs. The baby was heavy, resting on her pelvis, and picking up her legs was difficult. She had woken up that morning with swollen ankles. The only shoes that fit were her sneakers.

Ronan’s hand was slightly sticky while hers was sweaty. They walked down Thirty-fifth Street. Usually