May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, glorified, loved and preserved, throughout the world, now and forever. Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us. Saint Jude, worker of miracles, pray for us. Saint Jude, help of the hopeless, pray for us.
Say this prayer nine times a day for nine days and your prayers will be answered. This never fails. Publication must be promised.
WE HADN’T SEEN much of Roger since his arrival. He had been busy all day Friday with French lawyers, and American lawyers in France, and he went to the Louvre on Saturday instead of coming to the flea market with us; but he had announced he wanted to talk to us all on Sunday before we went to Chartres for lunch. He and Jane came to Roxy’s at ten on Sunday morning. Margeeve and Chester walked over from their hotel on the Ile Saint-Louis, looking happy as honeymooners. Roxy made coffee, and we assembled in the living room, with its conspicuously bare mantel.
“Let me put you in the picture,” Roger said. “It looks likely we can enjoin the Friday sale. It’s not that unusual to intervene at the last minute, the auction people simply announce at the auction that the picture’s been withdrawn. I don’t know if they alert major clients who would be coming from abroad. That’s issue number one, enjoining the sale. Number two, the issue of ownership, based on Isabel’s and my challenge, and Dad’s naturally, has yet to be ruled on. Is that picture Roxy’s, was it not just a loan to her from us? The de Persands have kind of steamrolled this settlement business, just assuming the picture belonged to Roxy, thus to Roxy and Charles-Henri. But it’s not a settled issue, not even in French law. In California, it would most definitely not be community property.
“But meantime, they may have in fact done us a service, in that the picture is out there, getting known in the art market, and there seems to be buyer interest from museums and dealers. We’ve already learned that it’s worth more than we thought. These things have a way of escalating. The thing may turn out to be worth a lot more than we thought. Apparently Antoine de Persand got somebody from the Louvre to look at it. Isabel, you were there, right?”
“Actually, Roger,” said Margeeve, who had appeared to be thinking of something else, and whose tone was strangely remote, “since California, as you point out, is a community property state, that picture would be half mine before it was yours and Isabel’s.”
A beat, while Roger assessed the meaning and, above all, the tone of this, deciding whether it revealed some unsuspected avarice on the part of Margeeve. But it seemed she was only defending Roxy’s moral right to have taken the picture. She waved her hands dismissively, indicating she had no more to say, and sat back.
Roger answered her objection. “Even if Chester inherits the picture after his marriage, you are not entitled to half as community property, because it’s an inheritance. Anyway, you don’t want to be suing Roxy, even technically, so I would not advise you to be a party to the suit.”
“Of course, how ridiculous,” said Margeeve. “I’m not suing any of you.” She sat back again. Was she disappointed? Roger went on.
“The Louvre. Apparently if the Louvre had wanted the picture, they could ask the Ministry of Culture to refuse to issue an export license. French pictures in some categories cannot leave the country. National treasures. Not the case here, though—luckily for us, for that would limit the number of buyers, would rule out Americans, Japanese.”
“Well, it’s unbelievable, our own picture we sent to France . . .” began Margeeve. “How can they tell us we can’t take it home again?”
“What I’m working up to, is that I think that we should go ahead and sell the picture in any case. Possibly in London. I’ve done a little homework. There’s interest, there’s been exposure, the market is good right now. There are certain advantages about London—taxes, notably. So I’ve been in touch with Christie’s, you know, as in Sotheby’s and Christie’s? Tomorrow we’re having lunch with the Christie’s guy, or I am at least, and you should come too, Dad and Margeeve. The actual sale would have to wait until the ownership issue is settled, but meantime the picture would be out of France, which I think wise, in case they change their mind about our right to export it.”
“What if you can’t enjoin the sale here?” asked Chester.
“We can challenge the sale. We could also challenge the de Persands after the sale, if we can’t stop the sale itself. I’m not sure how fast the courts can act here, they’ve had the issue for two weeks. We’re at a disadvantage, I don’t need to tell you, as foreigners, even with a French lawyer.”
Here Margeeve directed an imploring look at Roxy, as if hoping she would come to her senses and abandon her ill-advised admiration of foreign lands and people, degenerate predilections that had brought all this down on us. This would never have happened, she seemed to be saying, if. . . .
“Oh, God, let’s just sell it and get it over with,” Roxy said, abruptly. “What’s the difference? I can accept that, by coming to France, I signed on to these French rules, and I’m willing to abide by them and take the consequences.”
An eruption of irritation in the room at Roxy’s obtuseness.
“Is it that you don’t get it, Roxy, or are you just pretending not to? It isn’t just your money going down the drain here, we all have a stake,” Roger said. “The picture belongs to all of us. Us more than you.”
“None of you had any problems with my taking ugly old Saint Ursula until there was money involved,” said Roxy. I noticed that her cheeks had lately developed a pattern of redness, I think called the mask of pregnancy, which flared now, giving her a piratical, desperado look.
“Yeah,” Roger said, “but now there is and we do.”
“If you were going to make all this fuss, why didn’t you do it before this?” Roxy complained.
A confusion of acrimony and opinion ensued, from which I could sort out only that Roger wanted to wrest the picture from the French and sell it at Christie’s, Margeeve was apologetic at Roxy’s seemingly willful refusal to think justly and financially about the rest of us, Chester evinced mild discomfort, however he might feel privately, I nursed my hope for the ten thousand dollars I might reasonably expect, a part of which would be spent on faience, and Jane backed Roger.
“The de Persands are not missing any bets here,” Roger observed. “The brother’s fine hand—he’s Antoine?—is everywhere, even more so than Charles-Henri’s lawyers. Antoine’s taking quite an active role. I’m quite sure they all know what’s going on and what the stakes are.”
“We should get the eleven-forty train,” I pointed out. “We’re invited for one o’clock.”
I think my parents were vaguely pleased when Gennie, usually a good, perhaps too docile, little girl, pitched a fit and said she hated Sundays. I thought she had sensed the irritability that was overtaking the conversation, but my parents took it to mean she hated the Sunday visits to Suzanne, and I noticed Roxy didn’t correct this impression.