In Paris, Daniel hadn’t seemed to have a job outside of painting, although to be fair she didn’t really know what he did while she was in classes during the day. She had thought about asking, but was unsure that she wanted to know. And while he exhibited and sold some of his work, she doubted whether that was enough to support him, modest though his lifestyle was. She told herself that it was possible that he was living off the proceeds of some works that he had sold previously.
And yet, finding the bag of white powder at the back of the cupboard had not been a complete surprise. Dropping it lightly on the table, she had stared at it for a while. She thought about tasting it, but realized that would simply rule out sugar or salt. Not the confirmation she was looking for.
Confronted, he was unrepentant. “I do it for the money. For canvas, for paints, for brushes, for rent. I do what I need to do.”
“Is that it, then? A noble end justifies the means?”
“I don’t need to justify myself to anyone.” He paused and when he continued he spoke slowly and deliberately. “Listen to me. What I want, more than anything, is to be great. To be remembered. More than rich or famous, or even happy. That is what I care about. And I am willing to do whatever is necessary for it.”
“Maybe you need an agent.”
He had stiffened. “I’m not interested in playing that game. Meeting with buyers, explaining my work, telling them what they want to hear, playing the artist. I don’t care about any of that. I want to paint. I don’t care about selling.”
Kat picked up the bag of white powder from the table, feeling its scant weight in her palm. “We all sell something. Why not sell something you believe in?”
* * *
IT WAS AUTUMN in Paris. She could smell it in the air. That little hint of something almost like cold apples. Kat waited at the front window of the gallery. Dusk was gathering together into night and the shadows were disappearing. Daniel was not there, as she had known he would not be. A small student exhibit in an obscure gallery in a far corner of the Marais; she had seen a call for submissions for it on a board at school. Daniel had disdained to submit, but had not stopped her from doing so. His piece had been accepted.
The man she was expecting was the sixth attendee. Besides the artists themselves, there had been only five visitors that evening. Kat had counted. Although surprised to hear from her, he had agreed to come to the show and had not asked any questions. Harry Harper was a lion in the New York art world and an old friend of her mother’s. Kat remembered him vaguely from her childhood, but had not seen him in many years. After all that time, he was little more than a familiar name in her memory, but she recognized him immediately when he came in through the door. An older man with unlikely dark hair, he did not smile, but greeted her cordially, taking her hand between his large smooth ones.
“Hello, Katherine.”
“Mr. Harper. Thank you so much for coming.”
He dismissed her sentiments. “Not at all. How is your mother? How unfortunate that I was unaware you were in Paris. Marie-Claire and I would have had you to dinner.”
“That is very kind of you.” She smiled at him and the conversation abruptly stopped, as they moved from the darkness into the brightly lit gallery. She was uncomfortably aware of how he was now staring intently at her face in the sudden bright light. He seemed not to be fully conscious.
“Shall I show you the paintings?”
Shaking off the spell, he waved her off.
“If I may? Let me have a look around and I will tell you whether anything catches my eye. That way, we will all know there is no favoritism at play.” He spoke seriously, his expression grave.
As he moved toward the first wall of paintings, she returned to the window.
She was watching the streetlights come on as darkness set in when his reflection caught her eye in the glass. She followed his small, measured steps against the dim backdrop of the empty street. She saw the way he paused when he came to Daniel’s work and stood back from it for a long moment, as if everything else in the room had suddenly become invisible. He continued around the room at the same measured pace, all the while sneaking glances back at Daniel’s canvas. Flirting with it. Completing his slow circuit of the room, he returned to Kat. He indicated Daniel’s painting on the far wall. “Is that the young artist you rang me about?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Daniel Blake.”
“I see.” He nodded. “Here is what I am going to do. I am going to put him in touch with an agent I know in the city who specializes in this sort of thing. Someone who has the collector base to support this type of work.”
Extracting a business card from his breast pocket, he turned it over and wrote out a name and a phone number, speaking as he wrote. “He’s an eager young fellow, but particularly good at nurturing the fragile temperament of the young artist. And this…” He looked toward Daniel’s painting. “… deserves to be nurtured. I am quite surprised that he does not have representation. He is at the École, you said?”
“He was at the École.”
He held out the card to her. “Of course.”
Kat reached to take the card from his fingers. “I can’t thank you enough for this.”
But he was no longer listening to her. Still grasping the card with one hand, he reached up in a fluid motion with the other and touched her cheek softly. His eyes were no longer focused on her, but rather seemed to be looking through her, somewhere into the dark street behind her, his intent gaze impossible to define. She thought she detected the faintest trace of a smile on his face, but when she looked closer it was gone.
Just as Kat was about to fill the silence, he abruptly dropped his hand from her face and relinquished the card. “I am sure that many people have told you that you have your mother’s eyes. As you do. But it would seem that you also have your mother’s eye.”
He smiled. A little sadly, she thought. “Give her my regards.”
Kat had collected her coat and was about to leave when the seventh visitor came through the door. She saw Kat and for the smallest moment her face registered what looked like disappointment, but it was replaced immediately by something else. Something she had prepared earlier.
Elizabeth smiled and made her way across the empty room, pulling at the fingers of her gloves. Kat was struck by how different she looked. Her ample curves swathed in a stylish long black coat, she seemed slighter.
“Kat!” she exclaimed, leaning in to kiss her on both cheeks. “I saw some flyers for the show at school and I took a chance you would be here.”
“I didn’t realize there were flyers done for this show.”
Elizabeth dismissed the comment blithely. “Oh, well, maybe one of the other artists had them done. Never mind.” She smiled brightly, her face flushed from the cold. “I came to see you. How are you?”
“Well,” Kat replied. The word hung in the air between her and the expectant look on Elizabeth’s face until Kat caved. “How are you?”
“Fantastic.” Elizabeth exhaled. “Just finished my paper on Rimbaud. Early, if you can believe that! So now I’m free to have a little fun.”
Kat suppressed a smile. Elizabeth finished every assignment early.
“I’ve come to make you an offer you cannot refuse. Some of us are going to Prague this weekend. If we catch a flight after class tomorrow afternoon, we can be there in time for dinner. Jean-Paul has a cousin whose flat we can use. You should come.”
“This weekend?”
“This weekend.”
Kat pursed her lips in the manner of someone considering something and waited what seemed to her to be the appropriate amount of time before replying.
“Thanks. It sounds fun, but I think I am going to pass.”
“Oh, come on. It will be divine. The flat is in the Castle District. Jean-Paul says it has the most fantastic view of the Charles Bridge and the city.” She grinned at Kat. “If all of that doesn’t convince you, I hear that a certain aspiring senator may be in Prague this weekend.… Who knows? If you aren’t there, someone else may very well snap him up. Come on, what else are you going to do this weekend?”
“Thanks, but I still think I am going to say no.”
Elizabeth paused and regarded her for a long moment. She seemed to be choosing her next words carefully.
“What are you doing, Kat?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you doing? You do realize that you have not been out of Paris since we got here in April?” Elizabeth’s tone was accusatory. “You are barely present in classes and no one ever sees you outside of school. I just don’t get it. You come three thousand miles to Paris and spend all your time locked up in a studio.”
Elizabeth paused momentarily before continuing. “You must know who he is by now.”
Kat held her gaze. “I do.”
Elizabeth shook her head and adjusted her handbag, slipping its delicate chain-link strap farther up on her shoulder. She turned and took a step away, but stopped and looked back, a rueful smile on her face. “Suit yourself. I just think you are going to regret this—not traveling, not taking advantage of being here and experiencing everything.”
As she heard the words, she knew that Elizabeth was right. Paris was meant to have been about her. The program, travel, adventure. Although she was doing well in school, she was aware that rather than immersing herself in it, she was focusing on it impatiently in order to devote the remainder of her time to Daniel.
She had come all this way to Paris only to see the inside of her classrooms and a small studio tucked under the eaves on the rue Garancière. To rush from one to the other through the sunlight on the wide boulevards and to gaze out at the rooftops of the city at night through a grimy window. Paris, which had been her focus for so long, had become peripheral. Certainly her plans for travel had fallen away. Rome, Barcelona, Prague—were all abandoned. She gave them up for something that burned more brightly.
After that day, Elizabeth stopped trying.
Daniel had taken the business card with the name and phone number scrawled on the back in Harry Harper’s angular hand. He didn’t ask how or where she had gotten it. She did not tell him. She had not waited for, nor had she expected, any response from him. She simply wanted him to have it and now he did. Some months later she had seen the card, streaked and creased, under some crushed tubes of paint in a bowl on the windowsill. She had been pleasantly surprised that he still had it.