Neil Olson - The Icon

“The plot thickens.” He refilled their glasses, working hard to keep his hand steady, making sure to give her more. Two of his fingertips were stained red from the wine. “What’s the story with that?”

“Not much of a story. Married at twenty-four, divorced at twenty-eight. No kids, thank God. He was a painter, turned commodities trader. Not a bad guy, just immature and stupid. Almost as immature and stupid as I was. Tell you what.”

“What?”

“You did such a great job with dinner, why don’t you make the coffee?”

It surprised him how comfortable he felt in her kitchen. Perhaps because it wasn’t really hers, but her grandfather’s, or not even his, but old André’s. And kitchens were familiar. His family was always in the kitchen, his father doing as much of the cooking as his mother, holding forth on some complex scientific theorem, his sister arguing. Robin and he spent a lot of time in the kitchen as well, touching as they slipped past each other going to the stove, cabinet, freezer. Though constantly together, they had separate apartments, and he was always aware of being at her place, on her turf, not his own-except for her kitchen, which felt somehow connected to his, a seamless parallel space passing from West to East Side. He recalled her stinging reply when he once admitted this strange theory to her: he loved her kitchen because that was where the front door was. It wasn’t a long way from that comment to the end of their relationship.

“My grandfather loved good coffee,” she said to his back. “He couldn’t really drink it anymore the last few years.”

“Which explains this cheapo coffeemaker. Who bought this, Diana?”

“Actually, I did.”

“Sorry.” He really shouldn’t drink socially.

“I like good coffee too, but I can’t be bothered with the effort. Turkish coffee, that’s what he liked. Middle Eastern food, Orthodox religion. I think he hated being born Swiss.”

“Did he join the Orthodox church?”

“No. He sort of drifted away from Catholicism, tried a bit of everything-I mean, of the Old Testament choices. He didn’t do Buddhism. Eastern Orthodox art seemed to speak to him, and that’s what pushed him in that direction. I don’t think he even went to church.”

“So it was more a personal spirituality.”

“I guess. To tell you the truth, I don’t really know how religious, or spiritual, he was. Sometimes he seemed intensely so. Other times, it just felt like superstition. I guess it all feels like superstition to me.” She was quiet long enough that he wondered if he was expected to respond. “One thing I can tell you, though,” she said finally, “he worshiped that icon.”

Matthew came back to the table as the coffeemaker finished burbling. “So can I ask you a rude question?”

“Fair is fair.”

“If he worshiped it, like you say, why did he leave no directions for its disposal?”

She looked perplexed. “He left all that to me.”

“In most cases, with a collection like this, there are specific instructions about what should be done. Usually these things are worked out in detail with museums and galleries, long before the person dies. You must know all that. Did the will say anything?”

“There were instructions, but they weren’t specific. A lot of latitude was built in for me to do what I wanted, add to my collection, sell to cover expenses. He had no relationship with museums. He knew very few people by the end of his life. And he never mentioned the icon.”

“Do you find that odd?”

“I did,” she nodded. “Then Wallace suggested that maybe the icon was too personal to him, that he simply couldn’t deal with the idea of being separated from it, even in death.”

Matthew stifled a skeptical laugh. It had a ring of truth, after all.

“Mr. Wallace is a psychiatrist too, huh? Didn’t he draw up the will?”

“The primary will. Notes on the paintings were appended to my grandfather’s copy, in a safe, here. He didn’t believe in safe-deposit boxes. I guess that came from being a banker. At one point some pieces were left to Swiss museums, but those were crossed out. Wallace pressed him to come up with a plan, but he just wouldn’t deal with it. I think he believed he would live forever.”

“He did pretty well. Ninety-seven years old, the obituary said.”

“And very sharp of mind, right up until the last year or two. He had a bunch of illnesses and injuries in his eighties and nineties, all of which he bounced back from. I think the blindness really broke his spirit.”

“He was blind?”

“Almost. The last several years, his vision started to go. It was devastating for him. That’s when the other things, the arthritis and the weak heart, got the better of him.” Ana caught his eyes lingering on her a little too long. “That coffee is ready.”

The last thing either of them needed was more coffee, but it gave Matthew something to do, and he sensed that she took some comfort from his serving her.

“Wow, this is strong,” she said.

“Don’t drink it.”

“I’m up all night anyway, might as well be alert.”

“This has been very tough on you.”

“Mostly it’s the responsibility. There’s a lot to handle with the estate. I snipe at Wallace, but I’d be lost without him.”

“There’s no one else, no brothers or sisters, uncles, cousins?”

“My dad was an only child, and he’s gone. I’m his only child, so it’s just me on the Kessler side. There’s my mother, but she’s no help. She and my grandfather hated each other. Well, she hated him, anyway.”

“That’s too bad.” There was a story there, Matthew figured, but it was her business whether she felt like telling it. “You were close to him, right?”

“Off and on. Less so in recent years. Too much traveling.”

“You enjoy it.”

“Buying and selling art is what I do, for myself and a few friendly clients. I have to travel. But I do love it, it’s true. I keep waiting for the settling-down urge to hit me. You must travel a lot, also.”

“I lived in Greece, went to Turkey a few times. Ravenna, Venice, great Byzantine stuff there. Otherwise, I never go anywhere. Hate to fly.”

“Most people do,” Ana agreed. “I sleep like a baby right through turbulence. Must come from my dad owning a jet. I was always flying off with him someplace from the time I was, like, ten.”

“Was he in the art trade too?”

“The family curse,” she said, sadly, leaning back in her chair.

“Actually, he was a banker, like my grandfather. But he dabbled in art, especially when the old guy stopped being able to travel. In fact, he died on a business trip for my grandfather.”

Matthew wondered what to ask. She glanced over at him and he merely nodded.

“Plane crashed,” she went on. “Nobody knows why. Mechanical failure, I guess. He was a good pilot.”

“He was flying himself?”

“Oh, yeah, he loved to fly. But the circumstances were kind of awful. He and my mother were supposed to take a trip, about the same time that my grandfather was supposed to go to South America and see this painting. Another icon, actually. I guess the icon was being auctioned, or there was another bidder or something. Anyway, he got sick and persuaded my father to go in his place. So my dad flew down to check it out. And his plane crashed into a mountain in Venezuela, coming back. Took them days to find the wreckage and there was so little left they couldn’t figure out what happened. They think he was too low and hit the mountain in a fog bank, but we’ll never really know.”

He waited a few moments to see if she would say more, then found his voice again.

“When did this happen?”

“Fifteen years ago. I was in high school.”