Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [140]
There were paintings within paintings. Under X ray, “Red Square” was a negative that revealed a rectangle painted over. Under fluorescent light, the border’s lower layer of zinc white paint softened to a creamy hue. Under ultraviolet light, the brushwork of lead white turned to blue. Under oblique light, magnified brush strokes were rapid horizontal commas with variations—a cloud of strokes here, a tidal swell of strokes there in a varying sea of different reds, broken by a crazing called “craquelure,” where red paint had not bonded to the yellow paint hidden underneath.
Irina said, “While the work is unsigned, every brushstroke is a signature. Brushwork, choice of paints, repainting, lack of signature, even the ‘craquelure,’ are characteristic of Malevich.”
Arkady liked the word craquelure. He suspected that under the proper light he might show some “craquelure” of his own.
The screen went white again, moving over a magnified weave of canvas and primer thrown into relief by oblique light to the telltale grain of a fingerprint faintly discernible through the paint. Irina asked, “Whose hand left this mark?”
A face with deep-set, sorrowful eyes filled the screen. The camera pulled back to show the blue tunic and sorrowful face of the late General Penyagin. Hardly a person whom Arkady had expected to meet again, least of all in artistic circles. With a pen the general pointed to similar whorls and deltas in the enlargements of two fingerprints, one lifted from the gallery’s “Red Square” and the other from an authenticated Malevich in the Russian State Museum. An off-camera voice translated. It occurred to Arkady that a German forensic technician would have been faster, but a Soviet general was more impressive. By now he had recognized the off-camera voice as Max’s. It asked, “Would you conclude these prints are from the same man?”
Penyagin stared straight into the camera and worked up forcefulness, as if he sensed how short his starring role would be. “In my opinion,” he said, “these prints are absolutely those of the same individual.”
As the lights of the room came up, the most kaiserlike guest in the audience rose and asked angrily, “Did you pay a Finderlohn?”
“Finder’s fee,” Max translated for Arkady.
Margarita answered the question. “No. Though a Finderlohn is perfectly legal, we dealt directly with the owner from the start.”
The man said, “Such fees are notorious ransoms. You know that I’m referring to the fees paid in Texas for the Quedlinburg treasure, which was stolen from Germany by an American soldier after the war.”
“No Americans are involved.” Margarita almost smiled.
“Only one of numerous examples of German art despoiled by the occupying forces. Like the seventeenth-century painting stored in Reinhardsbrunn castle and stolen by Russian troops. Where is it now? On the auction block at Sotheby’s.”
Margarita assured him, “There are no Russians involved, either, except for Malevich. And, of course, I have some Russian background myself. You must be aware that it is absolutely against the law to export art of this period and quality from the Soviet Union.”
The art lover was mollified, though not without a parting shot. “So it came from East Germany?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s one of the few good things that did.”
He drew general agreement.
Was the painting a Malevich? Arkady wondered. Forget the amateur performance by Penyagin. Could the story of the crate be true? It was a fact that most of the Malevich works in existence had been hidden or smuggled to reach the museums where they now reigned. He was the outlaw artist of the century.
What provenance did Arkady have to show for himself? Not even a Soviet passport.
Margarita Benz played a strict but generous hostess, keeping people at arm’s length from the painting, forbidding cameras, steering her guests toward a table of caviar, smoked sturgeon, champagne. Irina circulated from guest to guest, answering questions that sounded like hostile inquisitions. That was the German language to an