A Nearly Perfect Copy - By Allison Amend Page 0,98

auction, announcing the hoax. There would be cinematic gasps, followed by newspaper articles, then international recognition.

“Fuck!” he swore out loud. The art world was stupid, insipid, without taste, and he still wanted its approval. No, he corrected himself, not its approval, its money. It wasn’t fucking fair that some artists got plucked to fame. He wasn’t asking for much. A nice studio, with light. The occasional vacation. He’d been living in France for nearly twenty years now. Well, existing, anyway. He wanted to be successful. He wanted to make enough money off his art that he could paint/create full-time. His art, not his personality, or his ancestry. Bullshit, he told himself. He had changed his style to suit a gallery. He had forged his ancestor’s work, passed it off as original. God only knows what happened to it then. So what artistic standards was he supposed to be upholding?

His whole life was based on a principle he abhorred. He wanted to win a game he didn’t believe in playing. No wonder he had spent the past fifteen years angry and depressed. Who wouldn’t be when faced with the gaping abyss of existence? His happiness at his success of the last few months was the result of a grand coincidence that acted like some kind of numbing drug, so that he was in a fog of complacency.

He went to the studio, but felt his fury grow, speeding through his veins. He spent a few hours banging around cans of solvent.

“What are you doing?” Marie-Laure asked.

“Trying not to kill someone,” Gabriel answered. This admission fueled his rage, and Marie-Laure scurried away. He heard footsteps and then Hans stood in the doorway.

“What’s up, man?” he asked. “Did you threaten to kill Marie-Laure?”

“Those fucking sons of whores,” he said.

“Who?”

“No one. I’m just …”

“Hey, man, chill out. What happened?”

“Nothing.” Gabriel couldn’t hide the irritation in his voice. “Everyone gets something from me. Everyone but me.”

“Is this about me not coming to the show? My old lady had bronchitis.”

“Never mind.” Gabriel headed for the door. Hans blocked him and the two men played a game of chicken. At the last second, Hans stepped back. Gabriel’s shoulder brushed him as he stormed out.

He tried to fuel his rage all the way to Klinman’s. It took more than an hour, and there was a point at which the métro had a transfer with his line. He considered just going home. But then he saw a pair of shoes, expensive, handmade. They were on the feet of a woman sitting near him. The heels were tremendously high, the leather shiny. At the end of the shoe, a pedicured foot poked its toes out. Her ankles were slim in the French way—he wondered often how they held women up, calves so thin he could wrap his hand around one.

Finally he looked up at her face. She drew her arms in and after a couple of seconds stood up to go across the car and sit with her back to him.

This snub reignited his anger. He willed the train to travel faster and leaped out the doors at Klinman’s stop before they had fully opened.

It occurred to him that Klinman might not be there, and he wondered what he would do if that were the case. He took the stairs two at a time instead of waiting for the elevator, arriving at Klinman’s door breathing hard.

The door was open, the lock turned so that it wouldn’t close all the way. He heard noise coming from inside the apartment, soft music, voices. He pushed the door.

The apartment had a large table in its center that Gabriel hadn’t noticed before. Seated at it were about a dozen people, who stopped in the middle of their conversations to stare at his entrance.

“Ahh, Gabriel,” Klinman said, standing up. “So glad you could make it.” As though he had been invited and was merely tardy.

Gabriel had a speech planned. He opened his mouth to begin the recitation when the focus of all those pairs of eyes made him turn red.

“I need to speak to you,” Gabriel said.

“Would you like a drink?” Klinman nodded at a uniformed waiter who approached Gabriel until his angry look made the waiter shrink away. “All right, then, we can go in here. I won’t be a minute,” he said to his guests.

He led Gabriel to a room off the salon. It was a bedroom, smaller than Gabriel would have guessed. In contrast to the dark, clubby main room, it was bright