The Perfect Landscape Part 7

On the stairs Hanna walks straight past Composition in Blue, but one of the older kids stops dead in his tracks.

"Hey! I saw this on TV last year. It cost fifteen mill." They crowd around the painting.

"Fifteen million?" the others exclaim. "Wow, man!"

They look at one another, and suddenly Hanna has their undivided attention.

"The guy who painted this, is he dead?" Kari asks. Hanna confirms this with a nod, thinking to herself that if she and Steinn are right then the artist, whoever he is, is probably very comfortably off somewhere.

"Then who gets the money?" he asks.

Seizing the moment, Hanna explains to them how paintings are bought and sold and tells them how much some of the paintings in the gallery are worth, the most expensive ones she can remember. Now they show more interest; maybe art isn't entirely dumb. Hanna keeps them focused by talking about the vast sums paid for works of art on the world market, and about artists who have become megarich like Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons. She sees that Kari is listening. He probably lives on the breadline and dreams of living in luxury.

"We have one internationally famous artist," says Hanna. "He's almost as famous as Bjork. His works can cost tens or even hundreds of millions." Hanna tells the kids about Olafur Elia.s.son, and while she talks she looks at Composition in Blue and is actually certain she is right. This is a forgery even though it doesn't look it.

She knows Steinn has taken a sample. He said nothing about his discussion with Kristin after Hanna left, but she gets the feeling he hasn't given up. Now they are just waiting for the results.

Agusta calls out and startles Hanna. She was lost in thought looking at the painting and the group has moved on down to the ground floor. The ice is now broken, and the youngsters relate better to the photographs than the paintings on the upper floor. They keep coming up with questions, mostly about how much they are worth but also about how artists work. Who gets to exhibit in the gallery, how they are chosen, and whether they get paid. They like the freedom that artists have, that they can get on with their work when they please and aren't at someone's beck and call. Hanna doesn't disillusion them, and it's also true to an extent. She sees no reason to quash their interest in art or their dreams of freedom by pointing out to them how few artists succeed in making a living out of their art, and that even fewer get international recognition. She memorizes their names, and when they go to eat in the cafeteria she carefully probes them about their graffitiing. She regrets it immediately. Their faces go blank; they look away and start texting again. Hanna sees Agusta look at her in amazement, and she knows she's put her foot in it. She just doesn't have the knack.

After lunch Hanna lets Agusta take the group up to the room they have at their disposal. Steinn has put plastic sheeting down on the floor. They can have one wall for themselves, and they can do whatever they like on it. Hanna has decided to leave Agusta on her own with them while they get started. She blames herself for not relating to them better than she did. She would love to talk to Kari, but she knows he would shrink back so it's better to give him time. That's why she remains in the cafeteria for a while. On the table in front of her there's a printout of one of the first political murals in history, Allegory of Good Government and Bad Government, which are on the walls of the town hall in Sienna. She'd intended to show it to the youngsters.

At the request of the town councilors, Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted the frescoes on the walls of their council room in the early part of the fourteenth century. They cover a number of square meters and show the effects of good government versus poor government on town and countryside. In the allegory of good government well-dressed people walk about on clean, tidy streets; the houses are in good repair; and there's a plentiful harvest in the country. It goes without saying that the opposite is the case under bad government: houses are in disrepair, beggars and paupers are out on the streets, the countryside is neglected, and the harvest is poor. Hanna is wondering whether she should go up and show the pictures to the youngsters when Steinn suddenly appears.

"I thought you wanted to be up with the kids?" says Steinn, surprised. He's still got his eye patch. Hanna looks at his good eye and shows him the pictures in the folder.

"I was going to show them these. But I'm not sure it's a good idea." She flicks through the pictures with him.

"Why not?" asks Steinn. "It might get them started; I don't think they know what they're meant to be doing up there."

Hanna lets out a sigh; she needs to get a grip. Steinn is standing behind her and lays his hand on her shoulder. She doesn't move; she thinks of Frederico. Pulling herself together, she suddenly stands up and gathers up the pictures on the table.

Steinn smiles at her, and Hanna feels the attraction toward him. She's not sure if Steinn feels the same way. It has occurred to her that maybe she should give Frederico a dose of his own medicine for what he did, but she doesn't have the courage. Besides, she wants to keep her friendship with Steinn. A love affair at work is not what she needs. She takes her leave of Steinn and his inscrutable gaze and rushes up to the painting room.

Everything is quiet and calm. Agusta has slipped off, and the five youngsters are sitting on the floor. They've opened the paint cans but can't agree on how they should paint the wall. Hanna says h.e.l.lo, and they fall silent and look at her, waiting. She feels she is interrupting them, but then she thinks about fencing and how it is important to take the initiative. Sitting down next to them, she spreads out the pictures of Good Government and Bad Government on the floor. None of them has been to Sienna, and Hanna tells them about the time she went there with Frederico and Heba some years ago.

"Walls encircle the old town center, which is up on a hill, surrounded by other hills."

Hanna tells them about the afternoon they spent with their friends in the hills. There was a warm breeze, and the cherry trees in the orchard were laden with berries. The hills were green, and on the neighboring farm there was a foal in the meadow. Heba went with some of the children to collect water from the well.

"It was a glorious day," says Hanna dreamily, picturing the gra.s.sy meadows and fruit trees, recalling the gentle peace that reigned over everything that day. She looks at Kari and sees that he is listening.

"The following day we drove into Sienna," she says, "and parked the car right outside the city walls. Then we had to take seven escalators to get up to the old town center. We came out onto streets that are so narrow you can touch the houses on either side if you stretch your arms right out. A real horse race is held in the town center twice a year. Thousands of people come from all over the world to watch Il Palio. The town hall in Sienna is on this square, and that's where you can find this fresco.

"Artists often want to express something in their art, maybe something in their environment that they're dissatisfied with. Although that wasn't the case with Lorenzetti herea"he was commissioned to paint this."

They examine the pictures and have a bit of a laugh at the primitive way the perspective on the buildings has been drawn and at the angels in midflight. But it also gives them a subject matter, and when one of the girls asks if she can paint an angel on the wall, Hanna agrees enthusiastically, relieved that one of them wants to get involved. The girls begin drawing on the wall in chalk, and Hanna immediately sees that they can't cope with the size of the wall. She goes to find Agusta.

With Steinn's help they produce a computer and an overhead projector; now they can project whatever they want onto the wall and paint the outlines. They potter about with this for a good while; when the computer arrived it was like the kids came to life. They now try to come to an agreement about their subject matter, angels, buildings, and people. Hanna notices that Kari doesn't get involved; he's not interested, and the others don't look to him. She wonders what his role is in the group. He sits with his back to the wall, his face expressionless, and Hanna risks sitting down next to him.

"What would you do if you had a whole wall to yourself?" she asks nonchalantly, as if to no one in particular, making sure to avoid eye contact.

She senses rather than sees him shrug his shoulders indifferently; he doesn't look up but, shaking his head, replies coldly, "Dunno."

Hanna sits quietly without saying another word, but Kari gets straight up and goes over to the others. Gradually they decide on the pictures and draw the outlines on the wall, outlines of American skysc.r.a.pers with angels flying over them. One of the boys takes it on himself to sketch out a skate park, and Hanna and Agusta advise them where best to start, how to work the background and work with colors on the wall. They've been contentedly doing this for some time when Hanna notices that Kari is no longer there but has silently slipped off without a word. She gets up and goes right down to the lobby. She is halfway down the stairs when she hears voices and shouting.

"Hey, you there!"

Hanna gets to the bottom just in time to see Kari aim a can of red paint and splatter it over the floor and up the wall by the entrance. Then he takes to his heels and is away. Hanna's first thought is that it's just as well it wasn't a work of art that suffered the explosion of paint, and then she remembers the question that he shrugged off.

11.

MY FRIEND BANKSY.

Kari is holding a spray can and spraying a gray wall in white paint. In his dream the wall is huge and so is he; he hears the hiss of the can and smells the glossy odora"he loves this smell. He covers the wall, the coa.r.s.e gray concrete, with white spray that veils everything, hides every flaw; he is on a high, high on a white cloud. Behind him he hears someone gently calling his name, and when he turns around Banksy is standing there in a hoodie and a monkey mask. Kari knows it's him; he sees his smiling eyes looking with satisfaction at the white covering Kari is bombing over the wall. Enveloped in the cool softness of the white cloud, Kari is bursting with joy and happiness; it is glorious and he wants to stay floating there forever. He looks Banksy in the eye; they are friends, fellow graffitists. Then Banksy lifts up both hands in a sign of peace and floats up into the air and disappears, vanishing into the white spray-paint.

Immediately Kari feels something hard under his chest, and a powerful smell of urine and vomit penetrate his senses. He is ice-cold, shivering, and feels sick. Someone is trying to turn him on the hard concrete floor in the pool of mess, trying to get to his pockets. He lies motionless; underneath him the spray can is hurting him, but he doesn't move. There's nothing in his pockets, not even a cigarette, and he lies still until the foul-smelling person stops fumbling. No one from the crew is there; they have left. Kari doesn't open his eyes but lies there on his stomach on the floor, trying to think of the white cloud again and the blissful feeling he had in his dream, but he knows it won't come back, not until next time.

12.

SEJA MARGINAL, SEJA HEROI.

Sc.r.a.ps of wood, rusty corrugated iron, tar-coated particle board, and gla.s.s lie heaped on the floor of the Annexe and there's another pile on the pavement outside, visible through the gla.s.s. It is well into May and the heat inside is tropical, rather like Brazil, native country to Helio Oiticica, the artist who effortlessly bridged the gap between modernism and open environmental installations in which the viewer plays an integral role. More often than not these were constructed from incidental materials in the artist's everyday environment. Oiticica also bridged the gap between South and North America, between the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and the affluent areas of New York and London; his art appeals to young and old alike. He died before his time, in 1980, before Leifur was born, but nevertheless he is one of Leifur's heroes. Seja marginal, seja heroi was one of his slogans, which Leifur can well envisage adopting as his own. Be courageous, live on the edge.

Leifur is alone in the room; he doesn't notice the heat. The sun has been shining in through the gla.s.s roof all night; now it's shining in through the windows overlooking the square, and the shadows of the window frames form lines on the gray tiled floor, which looks almost white in the bright sunlight. Apart from Leifur's sc.r.a.ps of wood, there are only Haraldur's paintings in the room, wrapped in brown paper and leaning up against the end wall. Leifur is careful not to come near them, but apart from that he is in a world of his own. He is creating his art in situ.

He has been collecting materials since January and storing them in his friend's garage. He has conscientiously chosen rusted sheets of corrugated iron, wood, and discarded building materials according to their shape, size, color, and texture. Leifur lets the sculpture, as he calls the configuration of items, spread out around the exhibition s.p.a.ce and onto the street, like looking through a mirror on the wall. The heap on the pavement outside is neatly marked art gallery, but twice yesterday Hanna had to stop the street cleaners from clearing away the timber.

Leifur is absorbed in his work and doesn't notice Haraldur coming in. He leans a sheet of corrugated iron, reddish-brown with rust, on a pillar near the window and works his way from there, angling pieces of wood, which at one time had been painted blue, up against the iron sheeting, thus making it the focal point of the piece. He paces up and down, muttering to himself, whereas Haraldur stands motionless in the doorway, not saying a word. The heat in the room hits him like a wave. Only the two of them have turned up. Today is the first day they can install their work for the exhibition Landscape: Past and Present. Anselma and Jon haven't arrived yet, and Hanna is in a meeting.

Hanna let Leifur in when he arrived that morning; he was waiting at the door. She'd picked up on his eager vibes, his total concentration, and the tension enveloping him like a veil of static. She didn't see Haraldur walking across the square, looking at them both from a distance, nor how he eyed the heap of building materials outside the exhibition s.p.a.ce. And she didn't see his disgruntled gait, which was at odds with the warmth of the morning sun. Hanna has gone off to a meeting with Baldur and Kristin and isn't expected back just yet. But Edda is there, and she comes up behind Haraldur as he stands in the doorway, looking at the bits of garbage spread out just where he had planned to put up his paintings.

"If you need anything, just let me know," she says to them both, but neither of them hears her; Leifur is absorbed in his work, and Haraldur is watching him.

"I'll go and make you some coffee," says Edda, hurrying off.

Haraldur steps into the room as if the floor were dirty and he needed to be careful not to lose his footing. For a moment he is at a loss, like a sportsman walking onto the pitch who realizes he is out of condition. Haraldur knew what Leifur was planning, but he hadn't envisaged a work of this magnitude awaiting him in the exhibition room. As well as Leifur's installation, there is Jon's work to consider; at least Anselma intends to set up her work outside the gallery. Her design, a work of art in the public s.p.a.ce that integrates pa.s.sersby, was totally lost on Haraldur. He's not interested in trying to fathom such an idea and doesn't believe it has anything to do with art. Jon hasn't given away much about what he is going to exhibit. They're not expecting him until tomorrow, and he hasn't sent anything over.

Treading cautiously over to his paintings, Haraldur tosses a chilly greeting to Leifur. Leifur looks up, nods indifferently, and carries on with his work. Haraldur is offended by this lack of respect from a young artist, and he expresses this slightly by clearing his throat. He is also displeased that Hanna isn't available. Haraldur belongs to that generation of artists who takes it for granted that someone else, the curator or gallery director, will make the decisions about hanging the paintings and the layout of the display. He feels it's Hanna's job. Or at least their joint decision, and he doesn't feel comfortable doing it without her. Haraldur is down on all fours, removing the wrapping paper from his paintings, when Edda reappears and puts a tray of coffee down on the floor.

"Just shout if you need anything else," she says. "Hanna will be along shortly."

Haraldur gets up and pours himself a coffee. He would really like to sit down, but there aren't any chairs. Leifur also walks over to the coffeepot and silently pours himself a cup. He virtually ignores Haraldur as he paces around and around what looks to Haraldur like a heap of garbage. He is frowning, and then Anselma appears with her computer bag slung over her shoulder. Haraldur gives her a dark look, but Leifur doesn't even notice her.

"Good morning," she says politely, taking a seat on the floor by the coffee tray as she would at home.

"I thought you were going to be somewhere outside, amongst the pa.s.sersby," says Haraldur with a hint of scorn. His words indicate his view of artists who continually seek to follow the newest international trends and movements. Anselma doesn't let his manner bother her, or maybe his disparaging comments are lost on her because of her limited command of Icelandic. In any case, she just gives Haraldur a friendly smile and silently watches Leifur working. Haraldur senses that despite her politeness she is ignoring him. Not for the first time he is cross with himself for getting involved with this exhibition. On the surface he has appeared tolerant, but inside he is seething. The heat in the room does nothing to improve his mood, but he doesn't take off his coat.

Hanna's invitation was the first sign of interest anyone had shown in his work for over ten years, and that is a long time in an artist's career.

Now he thinks the whole thing is a complete mistake. What is he doing here with these young fools who don't know what painting is? They haven't battled as he has. They haven't experienced the hatred and contempt he and his like-minded contemporaries and colleagues had to endure just five decades ago, when they were showered with abuse on the streets, when abstract art was considered to be in the worst taste, a crime against art and against society. And now they call this art, he thinks, hurt and angry, looking out at Leifur's pile of junk out on the street that the pa.s.sersby have to sidestep.

Haraldur thumps his coffee mug down and turns to his paintings. He has nothing to say to these youngsters, and clearly they have nothing to say to him. When he was young he showed respect for those who had gone before, paved the way. I doubt this Leifur realizes he wouldn't be here with this garbage of his if abstract artists hadn't fought his battles long ago. They taught people to see, to look and think, he grumbles to himself. But Leifur sees nothing but the rusty sheet of corrugated iron, which he is carrying like a baby, and sets down carefully only to pick it up again even more carefully and rearrange it.

Haraldur does his utmost to calm down. He has a habit of losing his temper and it has happened to him before, but not for a long time. He now starts to slowly remove the wrapping from his paintings. Anselma is still sitting at her computer screen. Haraldur glances at her and Leifur, but neither of them is watching him or showing any interest in his paintings. He tries not to let it bother him; he wants to maintain his dignity. When he has finished unwrapping all the paintings, he folds the paper up and suddenly a mischievous idea pops into his head. He picks the papers up and walks over to Leifur.

"Maybe I can offer you this as well?" he asks. "And here's a bit of string."

Haraldur is standing there, stiff with ill-disguised contempt in front of Leifur, who looks at him politely, not realizing that Haraldur is mocking him.

"Er, what? No, I, um, er? What? I didn't bring this," he says abstractedly. Then he turns away from Haraldur and carries on shuffling around with his sheet of corrugated iron.

Haraldur stands motionless, the wind taken out of his sails. Now anger takes over. His hands are shaking as he walks away, but on the surface he appears completely calm. He turns his back to Leifur and stares at his paintings up against the wall, as if he's working out where to hang them, but he sees nothing, only red.

He turns abruptly on his heel and Anselma looks up at the sudden movement. Haraldur walks without hesitation past the sheet of corrugated iron that Leifur has just finished setting up very carefully against the radiator near the window; he sticks his foot out a fraction. The iron sheeting clatters to the ground, taking the pane of gla.s.s with it, which shatters loudly onto the tiles. They all give a start, even Haraldur although he was responsible. From outside comes the sound of footsteps and the door opens.

Hanna and Edda stand astonished in the doorway as Leifur turns on the old man in a flash, grabs him by his collar, and pins him up against the gla.s.s wall. Out on the street pa.s.sersby stop to watch anxiously.

"What the h.e.l.l were you thinking, Haraldur? Can't you see what I'm doing here?"

Leifur's voice is gruff but barely raised, and he lets go of Haraldur as quickly as he started. He turns away and is about to walk off when Haraldur takes a step forward, grabs him by the shoulder, and turns him around. Pulling him up close, Haraldur lands a resounding blow on Leifur's jaw so he loses his balance and falls on the broken gla.s.s scattered over the floor. Leifur's cheekbone bangs onto the tiles and fragments of gla.s.s, and he cuts his cheek; the blood trickles down his jaw as he sits sharply back up and stares openmouthed at Haraldur, who is standing over him, red-faced and panting. Leifur tries to stand up but suddenly goes deathly white and crashes straight back down onto the floor.

Edda and Hanna see that Leifur has also cut his hand. Edda calls for an ambulance. Hanna runs over to Leifur and crouches down beside him, and Haraldur sweeps out the door. Someone on the street calls out to him, but he doesn't respond; he just strides rapidly across the square and disappears out of sight.

13.

UNDER THE BIRCH TREES.

"He said it was owned by a Danish farmer on Mon," Hanna says to Steinn. It's a quiet morning at the gallery and she is sitting at his workbench, supposedly studying the repair reports. She has one of them in front of her now; the vandalism is still going on. Since the young offenders workshop she feels the attacks are directed specifically at her. As if she was responsible. She hasn't tried to get in touch with Kari again after the incident that day, but she often thinks about him. She understands him, in retrospect. Why did she think she could arouse his interest in art in just one day?

The floor tiles in the lobby had to be partially replaced. Kristin wasn't unduly sympathetic though she didn't say anything. Hanna has less leeway now than she did when she started, and the landscape exhibition booklet that she had underway is suddenly not going to be published.

"The fund-raising didn't go as well as we'd hoped," said Kristin by way of explanation and simply pointed out the obvious fact that the exhibition Baldur is organizing in conjunction with Herbert Grunewald will take up a lot of the funds the gallery has available this year. Relations between Hanna and Kristin have generally been somewhat cooler since their talk about The Birches.

Steinn is free of his eye patch. He watches Hanna, and she looks at his eyes rather than into them, looking for telltale signs of the operation.

"If you look carefully you can see a black triangle on the iris, right on the edge," says Steinn, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Hanna looks hard and finally spies a black mark.

"Oh yes," she says, then looks back at the report. Steinn no longer shrinks away from contact with her as he did when she first started, when she almost always felt that he thought she was invading his s.p.a.ce. Now it's the other way around; if they accidently touch it's Hanna who pulls away.

"In Monaco, the tax haven?" he says eventually when they break eye contact.

"It would be really rather more appropriate if a dubious painting had come from there, wouldn't it? But it's not that Mon, but the Danish Mon. An island in southern Denmark."

"Of course, what was I thinking?" Steinn smiles. His smiles are not so rare now and they suit him well. "Where did you get that from?"

"From the auction house," replies Hanna.

They are talking about the first owner of Composition in Blue, the painting the gallery was given and that cost fifteen million.

"I met a very ordinary guy who gave out the information just like that, but maybe it's because the man's dead. He was a farmer near some town called Elmelunde."

"Dead, you say?" asks Steinn. "How convenient!" he says sarcastically, and Hanna agrees.

"So you think so, too! Of course, they didn't tell me who bought the painting from him and put it up for auction, where it sold for fifteen million. But the farmer is said to have bought the painting from Sigfus at an exhibition in Copenhagen before the war."

"I don't suppose there's anything on record about that transaction? A register of the exhibits, a list of purchasers, or something?" asks Steinn.

Hanna shakes her head. "No, I asked. Nothing along those lines. But what occurred to me," she says, lowering her voice because at that moment Edda walks in, "is that if Composition in Blue is a complete forgery then the forger could obviously have looked at the same books I have. Found the same picture. He could have based his painting on the picture in the book. That's why the picture and the painting are so alike. It would also explain why they're not the same size. There's nothing in Sigfus's sketches to indicate how big Composition in Blue was."

Steinn doesn't respond. Hanna knows he is not pleased that he was fooled by the painting when it came into the gallery's possession.

"It's obviously extremely well done if it is a forgery," she adds.

"We'll start tonight," says Steinn, suddenly decisive.

Hanna is taken aback. "Don't we need to look into it more? The man must have some descendants, a wife or children, someone who can tell us about this purchase, surely? Or, if we're right, that he didn't buy the painting."

"A farmer down on Mon isn't exactly a likely candidate to buy a painting by Sigfus Gunnarsson," says Steinn brusquely, and Hanna senses a wall of stubbornness from him and sees the look of indignation on his face. "We've come to our conclusion," he says. "We'll talk about it again tonight."

Hanna hesitates. What would Frederico advise? She hasn't mentioned any of this to him; their conversations are still brief and revolve almost entirely around Heba. From her contact with Heba though Hanna has realized that Frederico is very keen to make up for what happened. And, after the conversation with Laufey, Hanna's anger toward Frederico has receded. Their marriage has been the cornerstone of her life for almost two decades.

Frederico would probably tell her to follow her gut instincts; that's what he's always done. And she gave Steinn her word. She can't let him down now; she can't pull out and withdraw. It's too late for that. After a moment's silence she takes the initiative to end the conversation and puts her hand on the reports on the table. Then, picking up the papers, she stands up and walks away. Mentally she unsheathes her foil, but she is scared and has trouble holding it steady; her arm isn't strong. If they've got it wrong, if there's an entirely different painting underneath The Birches and not Composition in Blue, then her future is in jeopardy. She would undoubtedly lose her job, and so would Steinn. She would lose her reputation. Maybe they would both lose their jobs even if they were right. Then all of a sudden Hanna remembers what she'd forgotten to ask Steinn.

"What did Kristin want with you the other day?"