The Perfect Landscape Part 8

"She was just asking how I was," he replies calmly, almost coolly, and Hanna can tell he doesn't want to talk about it. She doesn't believe him. Kristin could have asked Steinn how he was with Hanna there. Clearly he doesn't want to discuss this.

"How about we go over this tonight?" he asks, putting his hand next to hers on top of the report as if he meant the reports on the table. She looks down at his fingers and slides her hand away. Her eyes wander out the window, and she avoids looking Steinn in the eye. Her head is in turmoil, but then she regains her composure. She nods in agreement; she isn't going to back out.

When it comes time to do it, she is uneasy. Steinn is waiting in the bas.e.m.e.nt, but the painting is nowhere to be seen. "Best to be in the small storage room," says Steinn. "No need to leave it lying around for all to see. I won't get it done in one evening."

The painting is lying on a high workbench in the side room like a corpse ready for an autopsy. Next to it is a sharp, delicate knife. Hanna looks at the birch grove with her heart in her mouth, momentarily terrified at what they are about to do. The thought of ruining a genuine painting by Gudrun Johannsdottir won't leave her despite all the evidence to the contrary. She still can't get the list from Gudrun's auction in Copenhagen out of her mind and the size of the painting that fits so perfectly.

Steinn sees her doubts, and, as if to draw her into the process, silently hands her the gloves even though she doesn't need to do anything other than watch. Steinn has an expression of utmost concentration on his face, and it looks like he's going to start without further delay.

"Steinn?" asks Hanna.

"Yes," he replies. "Is everything OK?" he adds tersely. "Hadn't we agreed on this?" He doesn't sound annoyed, but his neck has stiffened.

Hanna looks at the painting.

"You haven't told me what came of the tests. Are you sure you can remove the upper layer from the painting? And are you going to do it with a knife?" She can't help raising her voice. "It's just all happening too quickly for me," she says.

She looks at the painting.

"And I think it's a good piece of work. Are we entirely sure? And what about Kristin?"

Steinn shakes his head. "She won't do anything to us. When this is over she'll see that we did the right thing. Just give her a bit of time. Of course, I'll tell you what came out of the tests. And what the knife is for. Just take it easy."

They are standing side by side at the workbench; Steinn pulls the Anglepoise lamp across the bench, flicks the switch, and angles the magnifying gla.s.s over the painting. Under the lens the brushstrokes of the sky look like an irregular abstract pattern, and Hanna can clearly make out the lines under the top layer that don't belong to the sky or the clouds but hopefully to the painting Composition in Blue.

"The tests showed up various things," begins Steinn. "What I had a.n.a.lyzed were mainly the binding agents in the colors. I had an FTIR a.n.a.lysis donea"do you want me to explain what that is?"

Hanna shrugs lightly. This isn't her specialist area.

"Just tell me what came out of it."

Steinn carries on, "This enables you to check whether there are alkyds in the colors. And the samples from both paintings showed up alkyds. That means they must have been painted sometime after 1968 when Winsor and Newton began producing artists' paints with alkyd resin. It wasn't used before then."

Hanna stares at him.

"Is it really that simple? Just like that and we can be sure that the samples are no older than that?"

Steinn nods. "Whoever forged this is a good painter. I didn't exactly have twenty-twenty vision when Composition in Blue came to us, and that's why I didn't check it thoroughly enough, but this is well done."

Hanna agrees with this and thinks about his sight. To say he didn't have twenty-twenty vision is putting it mildly.

"It's an exquisite forgery," she says, smoothing over his oversight. "I can't believe it was done in this country. By an Icelandic painter," she adds.

"But it could well be," says Steinn. "Someone living in Denmark, perhaps, who is a specialist on Icelandic painters from this perioda"who knows? Maybe this is just the start of a new wave of forgeries. In that other forgery case it emerged that novice forgers were doing it. You remember the picture I showed you, where the lower half had been cut off?"

Hanna remembers it. Steinn is right. If someone was going to work as an art forger in Iceland now he would have to become good at his profession.

"It turned out that the top layer of Composition in Blue is a yellow finish," says Steinn. "I'll look at it more closely later, but if the painting is new and the top layer is removed then we'll see it and we can examine the colors. There's another sort of finish on this painting, probably this new mock spirit and linseed oil varnish I was telling you about the other day."

Steinn has the knife poised, but then someone comes down the stairs. They shrink back, but it's only the janitor who has been working overtime. He calls good-bye, goes back out, and closes the door.

Putting his gloves back on, Steinn settles himself on a tall stool at the bench with the knife poised. While he examines the surface carefully to decide where best to start, he carries on telling Hanna what came out of the sample a.n.a.lysis. Hanna raises no objections; she trusts he knows what he is doing.

"The sample we took was a cross section," he says. "Right down to the canvas. The base layer is the wash, which is put directly onto the canvas."

He talks calmly and deliberately; this is his specialty.

"On top of that are oil paints, which are free of alkyds. The old colors, that is. That's the painting we think is Composition in Blue. On top of this is another wash. Naturally, whoever painted The Birches put a wash over the previous painting, and, luckily for us, he has used a poor-quality wash that hasn't adhered well to the oil painting below. The chemical combination is such that I should be able to tease off this second wash easily enough if I go about it carefully. We're lucky that whoever did this was stone broke and couldn't afford decent materials. And, just as I thought, The Birches is a mixture of new and old colors."

At last Steinn finds a promising spot up in the right-hand corner of the sky; he inserts the knife very carefully into a bank of white clouds. A minute flake comes loose; they hold their breath. Hanna takes a step back so as not to disturb him, and then moves forward again because she has to watch.

"There's a magnifying gla.s.s on the table in the other room," says Steinn, and she goes to fetch it and uses it to watch while he teases off the next sliver with the knife. She hardly dares breathe for fear of distracting him, but Steinn's hands aren't shaking in the least and he works slowly and smoothly. He looks up after a short while. They both look at the section that has been removed. It doesn't answer their question either way.

"What shall we do if this is a completely different painting? By some John Doe?" asks Hanna without expecting a response, nor does Steinn give one.

Then she asks, "Where did Sigfus generally sign his paintings? It would be a stroke of luck to find his signature."

"That's just the problem," replies Steinn. "He rarely did it in the same place. If only we could've been sure it was the bottom right corner, but that's by no means the case. It could just as easily be the left-hand side. Top or bottom, either way. Or not at all. I've looked at everything I can lay my hands on and there's no pattern with him. And I can't see anything on the X-ray."

Steinn remains unperturbed; he just carries on calmly picking tiny specks off the surface of The Birches. The picture is already so damaged that repairing it is out of the question. He still hasn't penetrated the wash that lies underneath. Hanna sees that he is hot; he isn't as calm as he appears. He works in silence for a good while; the only sound is a low hum from the air-conditioning and the overhead lights. Finally a small white fleck comes loose and underneath is a glimmer of blue.

On the table next to them is a photocopy from the book about the CoBrA painters that shows a picture of Sigfus and his colleagues, and in the background is a painting that looks like Composition in Blue. It's in black-and-white, but the outlines and shapes are unmistakable. On the painting the gallery owns, oblique yellow and white lines run from the right corner where Steinn is sc.r.a.ping off the paint. In the black-and-white photograph they look pale and it's impossible to say what the color is. If it's the genuine painting underneath then Steinn should be able to find a light-colored line roughly where he is working, but the section he has opened up so far is only two to three millimeters.

Hanna stands perfectly still by the table, breathing calmly. Motionless, she follows the delicate movements of Steinn's hands, the tip of his knife, and how he carefully probes for the next speck. He probes a number of times before he teases off a tiny fleck of paint and then another and another. Hanna wouldn't have missed this no matter what the consequences. Relief floods her heart and mind with every millimeter widening the expanse of blue. She feels her belief in what they are doing grow within her; bit by bit she becomes certain that this is right and they have found their treasure. Now is not the time to celebrate, and she doesn't say anything, but she's aware of a tiny invisible smile beginning to break out. Steinn is in a world of his own, but it feels to Hanna like they are breathing in unison. Eventually he looks up and breaks the silence.

"Look at this!"

She leans forward; together they lean forward over the painting and peer at a small patch of blue. Showing in one corner is a fine line of yellow.

Hanna gives a gasp then immediately regains her composure. They both appear calm, but she sees Steinn's hand is quivering. She is longing to jump up and down and shout for joy, fling her arms around him, and tell everyone about it. But she does nothing. She keeps her cool; she senses her foil at the ready and the strength within her. Yes, they probably are right, but now they have to work out their next move.

14.

AN UNEXPECTED MOUNTAIN VIEW, SPRING 2005.

Hrafn gets a speedy response from Masha. She praises the painting he sent a picture of a few days ago, saying it's glorious. And she wants to do him a favora"to have the painting seen by experts to decide whether it really is by Gudrun Johannsdottir.

Larisa tells me that if the painting does turn out to be by Gurdin then you could get a good price for it. I enjoy this sort of business. Paintings are my hobby, you could even say they are my pa.s.sion, Masha writes in her e-mail. She misspells Gudrun's name, but Hrafn knows who she means.

His thoughts turn to her private collection in Moscow. Yes, you could certainly say that paintings are her pa.s.sion. He replies immediately, saying he would be delighted if she would be willing to get the painting a.s.sessed and asks her where he should mail it. Masha promptly responds that she will have the painting collected at once. Hrafn is staying in London during this exchange of e-mails, and the painting is in his hotel room in Copenhagen. He has a permanent room in the same hotel where his friend is now installing a sushi bar in the dining room. He gets in touch with the hotel, has the painting brought down to reception, and doesn't give it a second thought; he has other irons in the fire.

Buying and selling paintings is a hobby for him, not his profession, and Hrafn's mind is on his work. He has never been particularly interested in Gudrun Johannsdottir's paintings; her landscapes are too una.s.suming for his taste, and he hasn't bought any of the abstract paintings she painted later in her career and is best known for. He's not short of money, and it's not the potential for profit that matters here.

Hrafn is curious about Masha. What does this wealthy woman want from him? She hasn't made a move on him; she was evidently going to use Larisa for that purpose, although she has probably now realized that didn't work. All he can a.s.sume is that she wants to develop contacts with Icelandic entrepreneurs, some of whom have a reputation for being prepared to take risks and think big. Compared to Mariya Kovaleva, Hrafn and his colleagues are small-fry. Hrafn isn't even among the richest men in the country; he is just one of many who are into big business. But small-fries have their role to play. Small-fries can even transform into fast-moving sharks, if they make the right moves. It's impossible to guess what Masha has in mind.

Hrafn would very much like to forge links with Masha; her hotel chain alone could increase his fish sales twentyfold. His export business has remained static for some time. It's going well enough, but the time for change has come. By partnering with Masha those changes could come sooner rather than later.

When Hrafn arrives in Copenhagen not long after his e-mail exchange with Masha, he finds the painting in his room, wrapped in the same brown paper as before. He is surprised and blames the Russian approach to efficiency. Maybe Masha is all talk and no substance? It doesn't look as if the painting has gone further than to reception and back up again.

His phone rings. It's Vasya. His father's old business colleague.

"I've got some bad news," he says and goes on to tell Hrafn about his wife's death. Vasya's voice is old and weary; he sounds hoa.r.s.e. Hrafn sympathizes with him, but there's nothing he can do. The funeral has already taken place.

Hrafn is dismayed when he switches off the phone. Vasya and his wife often came to Iceland when he was a boy. He has good memories of them and his father, who showed his best side with them. Now that era is gone forever. He doesn't get time to digest the news because just then his phone rings again. Seeing a Russian number on the screen, he a.s.sumes it's Vasya again, but it's Masha's voice on the other end.

"How do you like it?" she asks in her strongly accented English. Hrafn is taken aback. Is she tailing his every move? He only got to the room a few minutes ago.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he replies politely, still thinking of Vasya and his loss. "I've only just got in."

"The painting, of course. How do you like it?" Masha repeats impatiently, her tone excited as a child's. Hrafn looks more closely at the packaging around the painting, which is leaning up against a wall. He was wrong; it has been unpacked and rewrapped. He a.s.sumed the painting would be sent to Moscow to be looked at, but obviously that's not necessary. Masha undoubtedly knows competent specialists in Copenhagen.

But he still doesn't understand the question. He knows the painting; he doesn't need to look at it again. She knows he likes it; otherwise he wouldn't have bought it. He looks at the packaging.

"I'm happy with the painting," he says, being careful she doesn't hear the surprise in his voice. "Did you find anything about its history?"

Masha laughs but doesn't answer.

"I knew you'd like it. It's a masterpiece. Now there's no doubt that she, whatever her name is, dottir-something, has painted it. Larisa says you could sell it for a good price."

Hrafn a.s.sumes that Masha has got a hold of some information that irrefutably links the painting with Gudrun.

"That's good to know," he says. "We should meet up again soon. Are you in Copenhagen?"

But Masha is at home in Moscow. However, before she hangs up she promises to get in touch next time she's in Copenhagen.

Hrafn turns his phone off. Staring at the brown wrapping paper for a moment, he tries to picture the painting in his mind's eye but can't quite recall it in detail. Eventually he picks the painting up, lays it on the bed, undoes the packaging, and looks at a totally transformed painting.

The birch copse has been altered, but what most astonishes Hrafn is the mountain that now rises up from the trees. There was no mountain when he bought the painting. He sits down on the bed, perplexed. He examines the painting more carefully; it doesn't look newly painted, far from it. The paint looks normal.

The wood seems richer than before, the birch trees possess more life, the colors are deeper, and the painting is undoubtedly greatly improved and very like paintings he has seen by Gudrun Johannsdottir. He looks againa"no, no signature. He wonders whether Masha has had the painting renovated and this painting was hidden underneath. But that can't be right because in some respects the painting is exactly the same as before; most of the treetops are as they were. The sky doesn't appear to have changed. Then it occurs to Hrafn that his memory is playing tricks on him. The painting has always been like this. But he knows that's not true. He wouldn't have overlooked a whole mountain.

He checks the back of the frame, examines the painting in detail. There's no doubt about it. Masha has got an outstanding forger to alter the painting. To place the scene in the Icelandic countryside and imitate the style of Gudrun Johannsdottir down to the brushstrokes. And he has expressed his delight over it.

Hrafn is not pleased, and for a second he considers destroying the painting. Tear it into shreds and let it disappear. But Masha would not be pleased. Again, he wonders how she knew exactly when he would be returning to his room; she'd called only a couple of minutes later.

What would the market value be of a newly found, prewar painting by Gudrun Johannsdottir? Hrafn calls the gallery in Reykjavik to get some information. The value is good. Would get him a very nice Jeep. He's been thinking about changing. He looks at the painting again, at the back of the frame, no signature, nothing about the origins of the work. The frame hasn't been changed; the painting looks completely authentic. He looks at the picture. He likes it a lot. It's an impressive piece. After a moment's hesitation, he calls his friend, Thor, the lawyer who specializes in copyright. A fellow student from high school days, a fishing buddy and a gym buddy when they're both in Reykjavik. Thor doesn't pick up right away, but Hrafn lets it ring. Thor is often out fishing in the summer, but Hrafn knows that he never goes out without his phone and Bluetooth.

"Well, h.e.l.lo there," says Thor.

"Where are you?" asks Hrafn. "Have you caught anything?"

"I just let one go," replies Thor. "I'm in the Nordura River. Lovely day up here."

Hrafn tells him briefly about the painting. Thor listens carefully, and by the time he replies he's standing on the bank of the river.

"So this Russian woman is in contact with forgers who've done this for her?"

Hrafn concurs and describes Masha's private collection to Thor.

"Do you think the paintings have been forged?" asks Thor, and Hrafn thinks of the rows of paintings on Masha's walls in Moscow.

"No," he replies. "But possibly some of them." He remembers the smell. When they went in he caught a whiff of turpentine and oils. Maybe some of the paintings were brand-new, barely dry.

"I know that Gudrun Johannsdottir sold some paintings at an auction in Copenhagen around 1940," says Thor. "If one of those matched this painting then we'd be sitting pretty. I'll look into it for you when I'm back in town. Talk to my friend Baldur."

Hrafn agrees; he knows what Thor has in mind.

Hrafn is no art forger. He has not made a habit of selling forged pieces. But he has followed the market for a good number of years. He knows that a certain percentage of the artworks in circulation are forgeries; with Thor's help he has managed to get rid of a few paintings that he suspected could have been forged, to clean up his collection.

Gudrun Johannsdottir is dead. In his view there's nothing unduly criminal in profiting from a forgery attributed to her, a work that isn't even signed. If he did sell the painting, it would be on the basis that in all probability the painting was by her. And if Thor managed to arrange it that a painting in the auctioneer's list in Copenhagen from the time when the original painting was done was listed as exactly the same size as this painting, so much the better. Thor has good contacts and knows someone who is skilled at changing the odd number in an old record in such a way that no one will notice. In this way a painting that originally was sixty-by-eighty centimeters could easily become fifty-by-seventy, for example. Thor has easy access to the records of the gallery in Reykjavik; he simply has to borrow Baldur's keys, no questions asked.

Thor and Hrafn regularly give each other a helping hand. They are businessmen in their different ways. These business dealings are a gray area. Strictly speaking they are illegal of course. Unethical. And yet no one loses by them. Everyone gains. Hrafn, Thor, the auction house. In Hrafn's eyes, such business dealings are all right from time to time but he wouldn't engage in them on a regular basis. And whoever ends up buying this painting will undoubtedly be delighted with this handsome work of art.

Hrafn hangs up and looks again at the painting; it's undeniably beautiful and would be a credit to any living room. Give it some time, maybe two or three months, and he will put it back up for auction. In the autumn. As a painting by Gudrun Johannsdottir. The gallery's database will then have doc.u.mented a painting of this size from the auction list of around 1940.

Hrafn's thoughts then turn to the auction house where he bought the painting. They have a picture of the painting before it was altered. He wants to see it again, to make sure that no one can connect this new painting with the one he bought. People have been caught out by this kind of slipup. Hrafn hurriedly finds the auction house's website, but it's only possible to see sold items from the previous week. He calls them up and gets a picture of the painting he bought e-mailed to him. It is exactly the same as the painting lying on his bed.

Hrafn is relieved but also concerned. It would seem Masha is very well connected, even in Danish auctioneer circles. She has clearly had the image in the database switched and replaced with a picture of the painting as it is now. Obviously it's no problem to find an employee who is willing to get involved in this sort of thing. Invite him to parties on an expensive yacht, to a luxury hotel on a private island, or offer him cocaine and a more beautiful woman than he could dream of legitimately having. Hrafn thinks about Larisa, her gentle movements, the sparkle in her eyes.

It occurs to him that he has met his match in Masha. He has already accepted the painting. Thanked her for it. Expressed his delight. Without opening it. He is angry at himself. This would never have happened to him in another business deal. But how could he have foreseen it? And what would he have said if he had looked at the painting while they were talking? Probably the same. Now he owes Masha a favor and he doesn't know what this favor will entail, only that he can't say no to her.

15.

OPENINGS REYKJAVIK, CURRENT DAY.

A shepherd stands under a tree with his crook and his knapsack, leaning up against the broad trunk, watching his flock graze on a broad plain. The morning light falls on a small ponda"or is the day drawing to a close? In the distance a village nestles among leafy trees, smoke winds up from the chimneys, bluish like the mountains in the background that soar above the plain, and the clouds are tinged with pink. There is an air of tranquility about the shepherd and his flock; the only thing that brings to mind the transient nature of life is the tree under which he is standing, dominating the center of the canvas. Its crown is dark and leafless, the bare branches standing out against the sky as if in anguish. Man's insignificance in the face of Nature and the Almighty is revealed through the shepherd.

Der einsame Baum, The Solitary Tree, is the name Caspar David Friedrich, the nineteenth-century German painter, gave to his work, which is owned by the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin and has now come to Reykjavik for the Arts Festival.

It isn't a large painting, only fifty-five by seventy-one centimeters, and it looks lonely there on the second floor gracing the end wall of the exhibition room. Visitors have to peer at the picture to see the shepherd and the sheep or the smoke rising so calmly over the village. The painting has been roped off so they can't get too close to it. Strict security was one of the conditions attached to the loan of this work. The gallery hardly meets such conditions, and if it wasn't for the fact that Herbert Grunewald, patron and cocurator of the exhibition Landscapes: Past and Present is the ex-director of the Alte Nationalgalerie, the painting would never have entered the country. Let alone after only a few months to prepare for it.

Much has been made of the painting's debut in the country, and it's not surprising that Baldur and Kristin are rather tense seeing the crowd building up and filling the square outside the gallery. The attendance is even better than they expected. The street artists from Paris who are performing on the square are a big draw. It's the third Sat.u.r.day in May; the sun is shining and the air is still. It's not only as if spring has arrived, but also summer, on the same day.