Nothing That Meets the Eye (15 page)

“A million and a half,” said Lucien calmly. He was in the last row.

Heads turned to look at him. There was a murmur as the crowd recognized Lucien Montlehuc.

“Two million!” cried the same unseen bidder.

“Two million ten thousand,” replied Lucien, intending to provoke laughter, as he did, by the insultingly small raise. He heard the sibilant whisper of “Lucien” among the crowd. Someone laughed, a sardonic laugh that made a corner of Lucien's mouth go up in response. Lucien knew from the rising hum that people had begun to ask one another if the Giotto were indisputably genuine.

The unseen bidder stood up. It was Font-Martigue of Paris. His bald head turned its eagle profile for a moment to glance at Lucien coldly. “Three million.”

Lucien also stood up. “Three million five hundred.”

“Three million seven,” replied Font-Martigue, more to Lucien than to the auctioneer.

Lucien raised it to three million eight hundred and Font-Martigue to four million.

“And a hundred thousand,” added Lucien.

At this rate, the figure might be driven beyond the price of a genuine Giotto, but Lucien did not care. The joke on Gaston would be worth it. And the audience was wavering already. Only Font-Martigue was bidding. Everyone knew that Gaston Potin had been wrong a few times, but Lucien never.

“Four million two hundred thousand,” said Font-Martigue.

“Four million three,” said Lucien.

The audience tittered. Lucien wished he could see Gaston at this moment, but he couldn't. Gaston was doubtless in the front row with his back to Lucien. A pity. It was no longer a contest of bidding. It had become a contest of faith versus nonfaith, of believer versus nonbeliever. Fifteen meters away on the dais the Revelation stood like a reliquary in its golden-leaf frame, a reliquary of the divine fire of art—as each of them saw it.

“Four million four,” said Font-Martigue in a tone of finality.

“Four million five,” Lucien promptly replied.

Font-Martigue folded his arms and sat down.

The auctioneer rapped. “Four million five hundred thousand new francs?”

Lucien smiled. Who could afford to outbid him when he wanted something?

“Four million six,” said a voice on Lucien's left.

A man who looked like a young Charles de Gaulle leaned forward on his knees, focusing his attention on the auctioneer. Lucien knew the type, the de Gaulle type indeed, another believer, an idealist. He was in for five million francs at least.

Five minutes later, the auctioneer pronounced The Revelation to the Shepherds the property of Lucien Montlehuc for the sum of five million two hundred and fifty thousand new francs.

Lucien came forward immediately to write his check and to take possession.

“My congratulations, Lucien,” Gaston Potin said. His forehead was damp with perspiration, but he managed a bewildered smile. “A genuine work of art at last. The only one in your collection, I'm sure.”

“What is genuine?” Lucien asked. “Is art genuine? What is more sincere than imitation, Gaston?”

“Do you mean to say you think this painting is a forgery?”

“If it is not, I shall give it back to you. What would I want with it if it were genuine? You know, though, you should not have represented it as a genuine painting. It ran my price up.”

Gaston's face was growing pink. “There are a dozen men here who could prove you wrong, Lucien.”

“I invite them to prove me wrong,” Lucien said courteously. “Seriously, Gaston, ask them to come to my suite at the Hôtel des Étrangers for aperitifs this afternoon. Let them bring their magnifying glasses and their history books. At six o'clock: May I expect you?”

“You may,” said Gaston Potin.

Lucien walked out of the courtyard to his waiting car. François had already strapped the Revelation carefully between the seat back and the spare tire. Lucien happened to look behind him as he reached the car. He saw Mlle. Duhamel walking slowly from the doorway of the courtyard toward him, and he felt a throb in his chest, a strange premonition. Sunlight, broken into droplets by the trees, played like silent music over her moving figure, light and quick as her own fingers had played in Gaston's salon. He remembered his feeling, as he listened to her Scarlatti sonata, that she loathed playing it. And yet to play so brilliantly! That took a kind of genius, Lucien thought. He was aware suddenly of a great respect for Mlle. Duhamel, and of something else, something he could not identify, perhaps compassion. It pained him that anyone with Mlle. Duhamel's ability should take so little joy in it, that she should look so crushed, so agonizingly self-effacing.

“Do you know that I am receiving some friends at six o'clock this afternoon, Mlle. Duhamel?” Lucien said with an unwonted awkwardness as she came closer. “I should be honored if you would join us.”

Mlle. Duhamel accepted with pleasure.

“Come a little early, if you will.”

“Five million two hundred and fifty thousand francs for a counterfeit,” Mlle. Duhamel whispered with awe. She sat on the edge of a chair in the salon of Lucien's suite, gazing at the picture Lucien had leaned against the divan.

Lucien strolled back and forth before her, smiling, smoking a Turkish cigarette. François had gone out a few moments before to fetch Cinzano and pâté and biscuits, and now they were alone. Mlle. Duhamel had been surprised, but not overly surprised, when he told her the Giotto was a forgery. Her reaction had been exactly right. And now she regarded the picture with the respect that was due it.

“One usually pays more dearly for the false than for the true, mademoiselle,” Lucien said, feeling expansive in his hour of triumph. “This hair I touch, for instance,” he said, patting the top of his light brown, gently waving hair, “is a toupee, the finest that Paris can make. Grown by nature, it would have cost nothing. Strictly speaking, it would have been worthless. It is worthless, to a man with hair of his own. But when I must buy it to hide a deficiency of nature, I must pay a hundred and fifty thousand francs for it. And it is a just price, when one thinks of the skill and labor that went into its creation.” Lucien swept off his toupee and held it in his hand, lustrous side uppermost. His bald crown was a healthy pink-tan, like his face, and really detracted little from the liveliness of his appearance, which was extraordinary for his age. The bald head was a surprise, that was all.

“I had no idea you wore a toupee, M. Montlehuc.”

Lucien eyed her sharply. He thought he saw amusement in her tilted head. She had one element of charm, he conceded: she had humor. “And applying this same principle to the false Giotto,” Lucien continued, inspired by Mlle. Duhamel's attention, “we might say Giotto's genius was a thing of nature, too, a gift of the gods, perhaps, but certainly a faculty which cost him nothing, and in a sense cost him no effort, since he created as every artist creates, out of necessity. But consider the poor mortal who created this almost perfect imitation. Think of his travail in reproducing every stroke of the master exactly! Consider his effort!”

Mlle. Duhamel was absorbing every word. “Yes,” she said.

“You understand then why I value the imitators so highly, or rather give them their proper value?”

“I understand,” she answered.

Lucien felt perhaps she did. “And you, Mlle. Duhamel, may I say that is why I find you so valuable? You have a superb talent for deceiving. Your performance of Scarlatti this afternoon was by no means inferior to the best—technically. It was inferior in only one respect.” He hesitated, wondering if he dared go on.

“Yes?” Mlle. Duhamel prompted, a little fearfully.

“You hated it, didn't you?”

She looked down at her slim, tense hands in her lap, hands that were still as smooth and flexible as a young girl's. “Yes. Yes, I hated it. I hate music. It's—” She stopped. Her eyes had grown shiny with tears, but she held her head up and the tears did not drop.

Lucien smiled nervously. He was not good at comforting people, but he wanted to comfort Mlle. Duhamel and did not know how to begin. “What a silly thing to cry about!” he burst out. “Such a talent! You play exquisitely! Why, if you could endure the boredom—and I really admire you for not being able to endure it—you might play in concerts all over the world! I daresay not a music critic in a thousand would recognize your real feelings. And what would he do if he did? Make some trifling comment that's all. But your playing would enchant millions and millions of people. Just as my forgeries could enchant millions and millions of people.” He laughed and, before he realized what he did, put out his hand and pressed her thin shoulder affectionately.

She shuddered under his touch and relaxed in her chair. She seemed to shrink until she was nothing but that small, unhappy core of herself. “You are the only one who has ever known,” she said. “It was my father who made me study music as a child and as a young girl, study and study until I had no time to do anything else—even to make a friend. My father was organist of the church here in Aix. He wanted me to be a concert pianist, but I knew I never could be, because I hated music too much. And finally—I was thirty-eight when my father died—it was too late to think of marriage. So I stayed on in the village, earning my living in the only way I could, by teaching music. And how ashamed I am! To pretend to love what I hate! To teach others to love what I hate—the piano!”

Her voice trailed off on “piano” like a plaintive sob itself.

“You fooled Gaston,” Lucien reminded her, smiling. An excitement, a joy of life was rising in him. He could not stand still. He wanted—he did not know exactly what he wanted to do, except to convince Mlle. Duhamel that she was wrong to feel ashamed, wrong to torture herself inwardly. “Don't you see it isn't at all logical,” he began, “to take seriously something you were never serious about in the first place?—Look, mademoiselle!” With a graceful movement, Lucien removed his right hand. He held the detached and perfectly natural-looking right hand in his left. His right arm ended in an empty white cuff.

Mille. Duhamel gasped.

“You never suspected that, did you?” asked Lucien, grinning like a schoolboy who has brought off a practical joke with success.

“No.” Obviously, Mlle. Duhamel hadn't suspected that.

“You see, it's exactly the mate of the left, and by certain movements which have now become automatic, I can give the impression that my useless hand cooperates with the other.” Lucien replaced his hand quickly.

“Why, it's like a miracle!” Mlle. Duhamel said.

“A miracle of modern plastics, that's all. And my right foot, I might add, too.” Lucien pulled up his trouser leg a few inches, though there was nothing to be seen but a normal-looking black shoe and sock. “I was wounded once, literally blown apart, but should I have crept about the world like a crab, disgusting everyone, an object of horror and pity? Life is to be enjoyed, is it not? Life is to give and take pleasure, is it not? You give pleasure, Mlle. Duhamel. It remains only for you to take it!” Lucien gave a great laugh that was so truly out of his heart, that rolled so solidly from his broad chest, Mlle. Duhamel began to smile, too.

Then she laughed. At first, her laugh was no more than a feeble crack, like the opening of a door that had been closed for an incalculable length of time. But the laugh grew, seemed to reach out in all directions, like a separate being taking form, taking courage.

“And my ear!” Lucien went on with delight. “It wasn't necessary to have two ears to hear what I heard in your music, mademoiselle. An excellent match, is it not, of my left ear? But not too perfect, because ears are never exactly alike.” He could not remove his grafted right ear, but he pinched it and winked at her. “And my right eye—I will spare you that, but suffice it to say that it's made of glass. People often speak of my ‘magic monocle' when they mention my uncanny judgments. I wear the monocle as a joke, by way of adding an insult to an injury, as the English would say. Can you tell the difference between my eyes, Mlle. Duhamel?” Lucien bent forward and looked into her gray eyes that were beginning to glow behind the tears.

“Indeed, I cannot,” she told him.

Lucien beamed with satisfaction. “Did I say my foot? My entire leg is of hollow plastic!” Lucien struck his thigh with a pencil he picked up from the table, and it gave a hollow report. “But does it stop me from dancing? And did anyone ever suggest that I limp? I don't limp. Shall I go on?” His affirmative clap of laughter came again.

Mlle. Duhamel looked at him, fascinated. “I've never—”

“Needless to say, my teeth!” Lucien interrupted her. “I had scarcely three whole teeth left after my injury. I was a young man then. But that doesn't matter, I saved my employer's life, and he rewarded me with a trust fund that enables me to spend my life in luxury. Anyway, my teeth are the product of an artist in deception, a Japanese whose ingenuity and powers of depiction certainly rank him with the great Leonardo. His name is Tao Mishugawa, but few on earth will ever hear of him. My teeth are full of faults, of course, like real ones. Every so often, just to deceive myself, I go to Tao and have some more fillings or an inlay put in. Tell me, mademoiselle, did you suspect?”