Seven

I stare at After the Bath as if my eyes are tethered to the canvas. As a child, I sat on the floor of the Short Gallery in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, pencil in hand, struggling to draw this very painting. The slope of a back, the shadow of a towel fold, the extension of an arm. After the Bath. I am awed. I am thrilled. I am horrified.

“I, it,” I sputter at Markel. “I can’t have this here. You’ve got to take it back.” Even as I say the words, part of me is screaming: No, leave it, please leave it right where it is. “It’s way too valuable, priceless. Not to mention stolen. I can’t take responsibility for—”

“Of course you can have it here,” Markel says. “It’s the perfect place. If anyone sees it, they’ll figure it’s one of your reproductions.” His calculation is as impressive as it is appalling.

I can’t take my eyes from the brushwork, the depth of the values, the saturation of the colors. How did Degas do it: rabbit-skin glue in his sizing? yellow ochre in his underpainting? egg temper in his medium? But these are only technical questions. The genius of this painting is much more than technique—and quite impossible to replicate. How could Markel ever think I would be able to create a credible forgery of this magnificent beast?

“Don’t worry, I’m going to give it back,” he says.

“But you just brought it.” I’m having trouble thinking clearly with the canvas so close to me.

“Back to the Gardner Museum.”

“Now?”

Markel’s eyes twinkle. “Later. After you’ve worked your magic. That’s the doing-good part. I sell your copy and give the original back to the museum.”

“If you sell it as the original, it’s a forgery not a copy.”

“Call it whatever you want. The important point is that a Degas masterpiece is returned to both the Gardner and the world. A pretty good thing, don’t you think?”

I speak as if coming out of a drug-induced fog. “But some innocent collector is going to be out millions.”

“Not so innocent. Remember, whoever buys it believes he’s buying a stolen masterpiece.”

“Like that guy? What’s-his-name?” My mind refuses to work. “You know, that dealer in New York who had duplicates of paintings forged then sold both as the original? Starts with E . . . Ely Sakhai.”

“Claire,” Markel says. “You’re not listening. Not even to yourself. Yes, Ely Sakhai did forge paintings and sell them both as originals. But that’s not what we’re going to do. We’re going to give the original back to its rightful owner. It’s a completely different thing.”

“Then the buyer will find out about it,” I protest. “He’ll go to the police.”

Again the twinkle. “And what will he tell them? That his stolen masterpiece turned out to be a fake? And anyway, he’ll have no idea who sold him the painting. I know how to protect myself.”

I need him to slow down. His fast answers are coming too fast. Yet my questions won’t stop either. “What about the sellers? Won’t they be pissed?”

“They get their money, what do they care?” Markel shrugs.

Then I realize what’s really bothering me. “The other paintings. The other ones stolen from the Gardner. You know where they are.”

He looks me straight in the eye. “I have no idea.”

I hold his gaze. “You know where you got this one.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

“But—”

“I was contacted by someone who asked if I had a high-end client who might be interested in a ‘significant’ piece of art. I said that, of course, it depended on the piece, but yes, I probably did. To make a long story short, I had a number of conversations with a number of people, who used what I can only assume were false names—which is exactly how I intend to handle the sale from my end. And finally, one told me what they wanted to sell.

“At first I said no, that I had no interest. But then I started to think about returning it to the Gardner and came up with this plan. I called them back and said I thought I had just the right person.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Think about it,” Markel says, warming to the subject. “After the Bath, back in its rightful place in the Gardner Museum. Millions of people are thrilled. The seller gets his money, and the collector gets what he believes is a Degas, at least until he finds out the truth in the press, and then it will be too late. You and I get to feel really good about ourselves. Not to mention, your own work gets the exposure it deserves.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“The alternative is that some other broker sells it to some crook who most likely keeps the painting underground, moving it through the black market as collateral for weapons or drugs. Not taking care of it. Never to be seen. This will save After the Bath from that fate.”

I don’t really understand what he’s talking about, and I’m not sure it makes sense. “Why don’t you just give it back to the Gardner now? Why do you need the rest of it?”

“I have to cover my back. And my expenses.”

“You need money?”

“Don’t be naive, Claire. It doesn’t suit you.”

“But the gallery? All your artwork?” I’m honestly puzzled.

Markel hesitates, then says, “The last few years have been tough. Business is way down, as is the value of art. And those alimony payments never change.”

“But you could collect the reward.”

“Not if it’s returned anonymously. And I can’t get my name or the gallery involved. Even if there’s no chance of prosecution.”

Markel has clearly thought this through, and I can’t find any glaring holes in his logic. Which might be the problem. There’s something too pat, too convenient, about the explanation. But I figure that’s the least of my difficulties.

I turn back to the painting. It’s a depiction of three nudes toweling themselves dry, not an unusual subject for Degas in the later part of his career, but it’s rendered in his early classical style, dense layers of vibrant color set on top of one another, expressing the inexpressible with a luminosity that indeed makes Meissonier’s work look like dull metal. I want to touch it so badly that I have to clench my fists to keep my arms by my sides.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime for you in many ways,” Markel says. “Not to mention the adrenaline rush of the century. You strike me as the adventurous type. Why not give it a shot?”

“For the obvious reasons,” I mumble.

“They don’t seem all that obvious to me.”

I shake my head.

“Claire?”

Finally, I whisper, “I’m not good enough.”

Markel’s laugh bellows out of him and bounces around the studio. “I misunderstood your reluctance. I thought it was some kind of misplaced morality.”

I jut my chin forward. “Well, it’s that, too.”

He winks and says, “Let me know what you need.” Then he walks across the room and closes the door behind him.

THE ROOM IS dark, and I’m lying on my mattress. I’ve been up most of the night. I feel After the Bath like a human presence: massive, breathing, haunting, yet also comforting. As if Degas himself is with me, risen from the dead. His genius, his brushstrokes, his heart.

I think about the Gardner Museum, about the frames that hang empty on the walls of the Blue Room, the Dutch Room, and the Short Gallery. The frames hold nothing where the stolen artwork used to be, marking the loss, waiting stoically for the return of their raison d’être. I’ve been to the museum many times since the robbery, and I always stop in front of these frames to ponder the fate of their missing centers.

Much has been written about the Gardner heist, but very little is known. Or, more correctly, those who know aren’t talking. A $5 million reward, no questions asked, no chance of prosecution for the return of the thirteen works, and nary a nibble. The statute of limitations has run out, and still no one’s come forward with even a reasonable rumor. In this global Internet village we live in, it doesn’t seem possible, yet there it is. I climb out of bed, flick on the light, and stand in front of the painting.

It’s such a magnificent being. So alive, yet more like the sensation of life, rather than how life actually is. Color and emotion pulse from the canvas. Once again, tears fill my eyes, and this time I let them run down my cheeks. I should return it to the Gardner right now. It isn’t fair to keep such a masterpiece hidden away.

But I don’t want to give it back. I want to live with it, spend time with it, paint it. I know I shouldn’t, but I reach out and tenderly run my finger over the hand of the bather on the right. She’s seated, one leg raised as she towels her ankle dry. I decide her name is Françoise. The other two are Jacqueline and Simone.