Shadows of Berlin полностью

Even as a child, she liked to watch her mother at work in her studio. Every canvas began simply with the application of an imprimatur of Dammar varnish and turpentine. Then a dry-­brush underpainting of umber followed by what was then called la couche morte. The Dead Layer. An underpainting of grays. Once applied, the hidden palette of the work would lift the colors of her brushwork into the heavenly realms of translucence.

The figure before her throbs off the canvas.

A sensual inferno of red pigments. It both repulses Rachel and draws her in. The long, willowy body. The beatific face with the untamed eyes of a leopard. Persephone erupting from the Underworld. La muse du rouge. She glares at it as if staring straight into a furnace.

“So for a lousy fifty bucks, I wrap it up,” the bedbug informs her. “And this little gem is all yours, hon. I’m sure it’ll kill over your sofa.”

Rachel blinks. Her eyes shoot to this skinny specimen with his buggy eyes.

He presses. “So what’ll it be?”

Rachel’s head is a tangle. She is desperate to flee, desperate to return to a world where her mother’s work has been completely incinerated by the past. But knowing this piece has survived…this terrifying canvas. How will she live now without it?

“Fifty dollars,” she repeats blankly back to the man. She has, perhaps, a dollar in her billfold, plus a quarter in her change purse and a couple of vending machine tokens. Fifty dollars, when they pay eighty-­nine dollars a month for their apartment? How can she possibly lay hands on such a sum? She could try to what? Raid Aaron’s wallet at night after he undresses, even though she knows he doesn’t carry more than cab fare.

She could write a check. She thinks there’s some money in their checking account, because Aaron was paid last Friday, but that would leave them too broke to cover their rent and monthly bills. The only possibility that remains is the twenty dollars her husband has stashed in his copy of the Merriam-­Webster Dictionary. Only for emergencies. “Rainy-­day cash” he calls it. Well, it is a day, and it is raining.

“Will you take less?” she probes.

The bedbug looks confused by the word. “Less?”

“I can give you twenty dollars. In cash.”

“First off,” he tells her, “I only deal in cash when I’m selling to women. Even the pretty ones, sorry to say. I’ve been screwed too many times by husbands canceling their wives’ checks. And second, why should I accept less? For chrissake, the frame alone is worth more than twenty.”

“How about thirty? If I can get your thirty dollars in your hand?”

Retrieving his cigarette from the ashtray, he spills ash onto the counter. “Sorry, baby. Fifty shekels. That’s it.”

“This is my mother’s painting,” Rachel hears herself announce.

The bedbug looks at her like maybe she’s just lost her head in front of him.

“My mother. She painted this,” she declares with greater purpose. “You see—­that’s her signature. Right at the bottom.” She points at a series of parallel strokes. “LML. That’s how she signed everything! Lavinia Morgenstern-­Landau. Morgenstern, her husband’s name, and Landau, her father’s name!” Is she shouting?

The bedbug still looks confused and maybe a bit perturbed. “Okay, okay, just calm down for a sec, will you? No need to have a cow, lady.”

A cow? Rachel shakes her head. “What does that mean?”

“It means give me a minute to think for cryin’ out loud,” he tells her and then snorts out a breath. “Okay, so look,” he says, setting the painting down on a chair below the glass-­eyed bear head. “Let me get this straight. You say this thing was your mother’s?”

“Yes.”

“That she painted it?”

“She did.”

“And you can prove it?”

“Prove it? Prove what? That I am my mother’s daughter?”

“Yeah, I guess. Just that,” the bedbug confirms. “That Lavinia whoever. Husband’s name, father’s name, whatever. That it’s true, ya’ know? Show me a driver’s license or something.”

Rachel licks her lips. “I don’t drive. Anyway, my name is different now.”

He grins, catching on to the con. “Oh, uh-­huh. I get it. Different.”

“I’m married. I’m a U.S. citizen now. My name is different.”

“So no proof,” the bedbug concludes.

No proof. How can she have proof? All the proof of her life before was either stolen or incinerated. How can she prove a thing? She tries to speak, but no words are forthcoming. Only tears. And maybe the tears are enough to wipe the smirk from the bedbug’s punim. Finally, maybe, he finds a drop or two of pity in his heart.

“Okay, okay,” he is repeating. “No need for the waterworks. I get it. Things get emotional,” he decides. “But you gotta understand, honey.” And he says this almost pleadingly. “I’m running a business here.”

Rachel sniffs, wipes her nose on her coat sleeve like a child. “What about forty?” she says and blinks. “What if I can get you forty dollars…”