Deceptions, Anna Porter [ebook reader with built in dictionary .txt] 📗

owe the Russian any answers. Her client, if she was still her client, may have been in a hurry to sell the painting — although how she could do that without the husband’s agreement was a mystery — but Helena did not have to be in a hurry to lend her name to the authentication. And she was not yet sure what this painting was. “Mr. Vaszary would agree to sell the painting and split the proceeds with you now?” she asked.

“I think he would, if the price was right and if he knew that I have had your opinion and an offer in hand. I mean, he could not then still insist that the painting is not worth much.” She beamed at Grigoriev.

“I am going to the concert,” he said. “We can talk tomorrow.” Turning to Helena, he continued in Russian: “I am still your friend, Ms. Marsh,” he said, “and I would cut you in on the deal if you are ready to tell me what I am buying. . . .”

Gizella rose from the sofa and hurried to accompany him to the door. “You said you would name your price, Mr. Grigoriev,” she said.

“And I will, madam, I will. In the next couple of days . . . all depends on what I believe I am buying. Ms. Marsh, would you like me to drive you back to the hotel?”

“I will stay a while and study the painting,” Helena said.

“This authenticity,” Gizella began, after Grigoriev’s car picked him up, “how do you make it?”

“You don’t. You can only find it. I could maybe try if you remembered who sold the painting to your husband.”

Gizella went to a box on a table that had not been there the last time Helena visited and opened it to reveal some papers. She started to rummage through the contents. “It has to be here somewhere,” she said.

“Perhaps you remember the name of your friend? The one who sold your husband the painting.”

Gizella looked up, hesitated for a minute or two, then she said, “You mean Biro? He lives somewhere in Buda. But I doubt he will be able to tell you much.”

“Why?”

“Because he got — he bought — this one from someone else. He had it only for a short time before he decided he had to sell.”

Chapter Eleven

Attila had been afraid to postpone his prearranged pickup of the girls. It was as if every delay or change of plans weighed against him on some set of scales that the ex kept in one of her brand new brilliant yellow closets (which matched the yellow brocade cover of what had once been Gustav’s favourite chair). It was not as if there had been much more she could do to him, having left his life in tatters, taken the children, the curtains, all their furniture, the bookcases, and some of his favourite books. Her shelves contained a range of classics, from Aristotle to Tolstoy, but Attila doubted that she read them, though she had claimed that the purpose of books was to improve your mind. The dog-eared books in easy reach of her passing hands were about “leaning in,” improving your mental retention, and practising extreme yoga.

Judging by her appearance, he figured those fine literary works had improved her body — no sign of those comfortable hips, nor the charming little pouch under her chin she had developed during their marriage. Now she looked like a woman who spent more time on a treadmill than on a sofa, reading. What the hell, not my problem anymore, Attila thought as he climbed the two sets of stairs to her swish new apartment and readied himself for the usual critical appraisal of his own body parts when she opened the door.

“Na végre,” At last, Bea said, glancing at her expensive watch, though she would have known he was only two minutes late.

“Szia,” he said with as friendly a smile as he could conjure. “Looking lovely as ever.” That, he thought, should stop her in her tracks. She did, as it happened, look lovely in her tight-waisted blue dress, her matching blue high-heeled shoes with little spaces at front to display her blue-painted toes, and her hair with its frosted ends, swept up over her face. Every bit a woman pleased with her own carefully crafted appearance.

“Hmm,” said Bea, and called for the girls.

They had been waiting in the overfurnished living room behind her, their backpacks at the ready, Anna’s pencil case dangling from her hand, Sofi’s soccer ball under her arm. They approached cautiously at first, not knowing whether there would be another fight. When they saw that their parents were peaceful, they came and hugged Attila and chorused, “Good morning, Apu.”

Bea marched into the kitchen past Attila. She managed not to touch him, though it meant having to flatten herself against the wall where the girls’ raincoats hung on yellow-painted hooks that blended into the wallpaper. Attila could have stepped aside to leave her room, but he didn’t. He was tired of stepping aside for her. He was also tired of feeling like he should be apologizing for something. Even when he was on time. Even the last time when he had brought her flowers to apologize for being half an hour late. Or when he brought the dinner (admittedly, that was not often, but he did bring dinner sometimes). Somewhat like his mother, Bea managed to disapprove of everything about Attila’s choice of work. Neither made an effort to hide her disappointment in his lack of financial stability, with no prospects for improvement as time went on. “Unlike other people’s,” Bea had said, “your career moves are all downward.”

His mother used to chime in with, “You could at least have waited till they retired you. That would have given you a steady income. With this,” she said when he visited her last week, “whatever it is you do, you can’t even afford a reasonable vodka.” She preferred Chopin, but only