In the center of Preston’s gallery I turned in a slow, tight circle, taking in the convulsive brushstrokes of the Oriental canvases that lined white brick walls. I closed my eyes, imagining I was an explosion, then opened them and faced the aftermath: the seething energy of those paintings.
A gaunt young woman peered in through the gallery window, her face all stark angles above a dark turtleneck sweater. She tried the locked door and then tapped on the glass pane, arching an eyebrow at Preston, who’d just returned from his office in the back, fresh drink in hand. He shook his head no. This was a private showing. She gave him the finger and walked off on the dark street.
Stepping beside me, he gestured to the silk wall hangings. “So tell me, what do you think?”
“I like them,” I offered, not yet prepared to reveal their effect on me. “Are these Chinese—”
“Japanese. A collection of their newest, their best calligraphers. Notice how each painting is a single character—a single word—from a cursive Japanese script. In these artists’ versions, each character becomes more than just a word, more than pictorial—it becomes a map, of a human mystery. You of all people should appreciate that. By the way, are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink?”
“No thanks.”
I drew near the wall to read the printed titles, to examine the paintings more closely. Calm, far from serene, was a figure-eight so deformed and slashed by a swift and agitated brush that it might be the hunched outline of someone standing before an empty, oval mirror. Another, labeled Faint, appeared to be two hands cupped to meet each other, the dark ink applied so thickly it bled beyond the borders of the brushstrokes into a misty haze. Forgive could be a face hovering between weeping and laughter. The black strokes of Yes were a knot straining to unravel itself.
Dream, applied in thick yet graceful brushstrokes, resembled a dancer, the wavery lines implying swinging arms, and I lingered long before this figure. It seemed to rush away and yet rush toward me as well, the skittish ink about to release itself from the canvas. I had to fight the urge to reach out and either catch that hurtling figure or prevent its escape.
Preston’s footsteps approached on the polished wooden floor. “This particular work intrigues you?”
I nodded.
He stood beside me, regarding the canvas, then sighed. “I think I see how it might.”
I didn’t think it wise to reply, knowing where this was leading. He wanted to display my objects, sell them to any interested customers. I’d laughed at the idea back at the airport, laughed when he’d said I owed him the professional courtesy of hearing him out at his gallery. Yet here I was.
Preston shook the ice cubes in his glass, then slipped the smooth stone from his jacket pocket. “Up till now, Michael, our exchange has been unfair. We’ve matched stories, but now it’s time for me to offer a gift, of equal value to this stone. This painting, Dream? It’s yours. Whether or not you choose to show your collection here.” Alarmed by a generosity I didn’t trust, I said, “I really can’t accept this—”
“Of course you can. As far as I’m concerned, you already have. There’s no obligation,” he said, cunningly echoing my words.
I laughed, waiting for the rest of his pitch. If he understood what moved me the most in this room, then perhaps he’d also located some hidden part of me that wanted to set loose my objects and release the burden of their stories.
“Are you still upset at misreading me at the airport?” Preston asked, chuckling with the satisfaction of someone who’d managed to escape detection. “Your mistake was understandable. And yet … never mistake a gallery owner for the art he or she displays. Of course I’m a businessman, though I like to think there’s more to me than that. I have a secret too, like this wonderful stone, like this lovely calligraphy. Whenever I open a new show, I imagine I’m actually redecorating my mother’s house, the one I wasn’t allowed to enter. My gallery isn’t only public space, Michael, it’s private space as well.”
“Of course,” I murmured, and as I scanned the room again a strange dizziness overtook me: those surrounding canvases could just as well be my own mother’s daily dramas, or Kate’s hidden self, or any number of other languages I had yet to discover.
“I choose my shows carefully,” Preston continued, “always mindful of the money, of course, but once that’s taken care of, I look for work that helps me reinvent someone I never knew. You see, I’m an idealist of sorts—why else would I have given you the time of day at the airport? But I’m also calculating my self-interest, and I’m telling you this because I know you like to hear secrets. See? More self-interest on my part.”
He grinned and I smiled back. I was a sucker for confession, even one that was also a hustle.
“Now, Michael, I know very little about the rest of your collection, though I’m intrigued by the possibilities. I suspect that the rest of your objects are much like this calligraphy. Displaying them would be perfect for my gallery. I hope you’ll reconsider what would be an excellent financial arrangement as well—”
“I’ve never sold my objects. They’re gifts.”
“And you’re cheapening your gifts and their revelations by giving them away. Now that was a very entertaining cab ride from the airport—the indifference of money, the poetry of insurance—but I have to disagree. People value what costs. Exchanging money for something creates an invisible bond, so if you want the treasures you bestow to really be treasures, I’m sorry to say that you’ll need to make a bit of profit from them.”
Preston tilted back his head and finished his drink. Then, with that familiar flick of his arm, he scattered the ice cubes onto the polished wood floor. They clattered and careened off the baseboard, splitting into jagged chips that skitted back toward us.
“An interesting pattern, don’t you think? Maybe even worthy of one or two of the paintings on the wall. But the ice will melt, and then the puddles will evaporate. I can’t sell this. It can’t be owned. Besides the necessary pleasures, art has to give a sense of prestige and permanence, and this is felt most deeply when its purchase involves a sacrifice, a risk. It’s my business to understand this.”
“But you’re contradicting yourself, Preston,” I said, though with little sense of triumph. “You gave me a painting. A gift, remember? So where’s my sacrifice?”
“Oh, what does a sacrifice constitute? When I decided to listen to you, I also decided to miss my plane and an important meeting that cost me a great deal of time and effort to set up. And that made the gift of this stone all the sweeter.”
He kicked at one of the melting ice cubes and it spun away in swift pirouettes across the floor. “Look, Michael, I have another secret for you: I’m willing to gamble that your accepting my gift will be a first step toward your accepting my proposition. If you do, essentially you’ll be releasing your precious objects for this one silk painting. Now that’s a sacrifice worthy of the name, I’d say.”
I turned back to the whirling brushstrokes of the painting that was mine if I wanted it. I could roll it up, walk out the door, and add it to my collection. Standing before the canvas, I imagined that elusive, dancing figure as my own St. Vitus’ Dance, suddenly arisen within to spin me away from every object I’d ever collected, to spin me away from the bric-a-brac of my life.