The Masterpiece

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

March 1975

Virginia showed up early to work on Monday, greeted the evening shift, and offered to take over for the supervisor. The early-morning commuters knew where they were headed, for the most part, so she busied herself by climbing up through one of the missing glass panels in the ceiling and up onto the very top of the information booth, not caring who saw her. From there, she had easy access to the four-sided clock. Taking great care not to disturb the face of the clock, she rubbed the brass sides with cleaner until they shone, before climbing back down and stowing away her cleaning supplies.

But even this didn’t help alleviate her nervous exhaustion.

Last night she’d hardly been able to sleep, not only because of what she was about to do but also because Ruby had wanted to talk about Ryan into the wee hours, after the bar had closed for the night. Virginia supported her daughter’s decision to date him but entreated her to stay independent for a while longer. Not to rush into anything. Sure, Ryan seemed like a lovely man, but she had her whole life ahead of her. That morning, Virginia left before Ruby woke up, eager to get to work.

Terrence arrived first, arching one eyebrow at her promptness—usually no one was in before Terrence. Soon after, Doris and Winston sidled through the door, arguing whether The Stepford Wives was boring or brilliant.

Finally, Totto showed up, balancing two coffees, handing one to Terrence.

Virginia tried to stay cool, as Ruby would say, and not stare, but she couldn’t help it. His hair was messy, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. She’d assumed early on that he and Terrence were brothers, as they shared the same slim builds, gray hair, and height. They bickered all the time. She’d been corrected by Terrence but hadn’t considered the matter further.

Totto’s back was to Virginia as he settled in, adjusting his timetables, lining up his pencils just so. Imperceptibly, his shoulders stiffened. He straightened up and looked about, one hand covering the O’Keeffe exhibit brochure that Virginia had left there.

They locked eyes.

“What’s this?” Totto’s voice trembled, but he covered it with a cough.

“I went to a fascinating exhibit this weekend.” Virginia spoke louder than necessary, so her voice traveled across the booth. “I learned a lot.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. For example, I learned what Georgia O’Keeffe’s middle name is.”

Doris tore off a bite of her egg sandwich. “Georgia O’Keeffe? Love her.”

Winston’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “She’s the one that draws enormous lady parts, right?”

“That’s enough, everyone,” said Terrence.

Virginia made her way past Doris until she was right behind Totto. “Totto is her middle name,” she whispered. Totto tried to ignore her, but she pressed in closer. “Right?”

“What about it?”

“We should talk.”

Totto stood. “Terrence, I’m going to help Virginia with some boxes.”

Totto led the way to the elevator at track 23. Virginia’s heart pounded as loudly as her footsteps, as they walked toward the art school without speaking. Her hunch had been right. Totto pulled out a key ring, fiddled with it, and then opened the door.

She’d found her ghost.

Inside, Totto headed to the back storage room, the one with all the crates. He stood in the middle of it, his hands on his hips, surveying the mess of crates, some opened, some shoved to one side, the assortment of artwork pinned haphazardly on the walls. He plonked down on one of the crates and let out a harsh laugh, before putting his head in his hands, overcome.

Virginia perched on an old wooden chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe we can help each other.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I think you do. Who are you really, Totto?”

“You don’t know?”

“You’re related to Clara Darden.”

Totto threw back his head and laughed.

Something about the movement caused all the pieces to finally shift into place. The smooth white neck. No Adam’s apple.

Totto wasn’t Clara Darden’s brother.

Virginia studied Totto with new eyes. A woman, not a man. The suit did a lot to conceal her shape, but the hands and neck should have given it away weeks ago. Her wrinkled, mottled skin masked the delicate bone structure of her face.

“You’re Clara Darden.”

“I am.” She raised her head, glaring. “Where’s my watercolor?”

Virginia sidestepped the question. “How did you know I had it?”

“I heard you in the booth, on the telephone, setting up an appointment. You mentioned me and Levon Zakarian. I realized that you’d found it, somehow. After months of me digging through these crates, you’d breezed right in and plucked it out from under me.”

“How did you get a key?”

“From when I taught here, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Surprisingly, it still worked.”

“You sent me threatening letters.”

“Which you ignored.”

“I had to find out more about the painting.”

“You thought it would make you rich.” Venom dripped from Clara’s voice.

This wasn’t going the way Virginia had imagined. She’d lost the upper hand. “How do I know it’s really yours? Levon Zakarian is the painter, according to the rest of the world. Do you have proof?”

Clara turned to Virginia, hate in her eyes. “One of my illustrations is on the back of the watercolor, signed and dated at the bottom. The illustration is the basis for the watercolor, which was a study for the oil painting. Follow the clues, Sherlock.”

“Why didn’t you just sign the oil painting with your own name?”

She leaned back on the crate, her arms braced behind her, head cocked. “We decided to keep it anonymous at first. Me, Felix—my art dealer—and Levon. The Depression was in full force, no one was buying, especially from a woman illustrator, and we figured a big revelation would attract attention.”

“Everyone assumed Levon was the artist, because he was on the train to the Chicago exhibit with Felix when . . .” Virginia drifted off, unable to finish the sentence.

“When it crashed.” Clara spat out the words. “A flash flood took out a bridge, and the train fell into the river below.”

Virginia didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

Clara nodded and pulled a tissue out from her sleeve, gently dabbing at the skin under her eyes. A habit Virginia had seen every day but only now recognized as something a woman would do, so as not to smear her makeup.

“I have to ask, why weren’t you on the train as well, if you were Clyde?”

“I should have been on the train with them, but I missed it, because someone delayed me. Some would say it was a lucky break. I consider it a terrible tragedy.”

“Don’t say that. You’re alive.” Virginia pressed on. “Why didn’t you claim the paintings back then, when it all happened?”

“There was nothing left to claim. They were all destroyed.”

“Except the untitled one.”

“I didn’t know about that. Not until I saw it in the auction catalog.” She eyed Virginia, sizing her up. “I’d been told it was still around, but I didn’t believe the person who told me. Oliver originally said he had destroyed it.”

“Who’s Oliver?”

“An old lover. A jealous one. Once I’d recovered from the shock of the crash, I reached out to him to find out the truth. By then he’d killed himself.” She stood, her arms crossed. “There, I’m obviously the painter. Do you need more proof? Where is it? I want it back. Now.”

“What happened, after the accident? Where did you go?”

“Why do you deserve to know? Do you have the watercolor or not? It’s mine.”

“I thought I was rescuing it.”

“You stole it.”

“I swear I didn’t mean to. When I discovered it, the watercolor had been collecting dust for decades.”

“I must have it in order to claim The Siren as my own before it goes to auction.”

“The Siren?” Of course. The title fit perfectly. Virginia pictured the painting’s vague figure, which swam in and out of the viewer’s gaze, the wash of blues. “Where did you go after the crash? Where did you disappear to?”

“I have to tell you a story and then you’ll tell me where it is? Is that the game you’re playing?”

After a moment, during which Virginia remained silent—not without great difficulty—Clara dropped her hands to her sides.

Her words came out slowly at first. “After Oliver made me miss the train, I exchanged my ticket and had a telegram sent to Chicago saying I’d be there a day late. I went back to the studio Levon and I shared, livid with myself. And with Oliver.

“A friend came by the next morning and knocked on the door. He said there had been an accident, and he’d come around praying we hadn’t taken the Twentieth Century Limited. Showed me a copy of the newspaper saying it had crashed, fallen into a river, many killed. No mention of Felix or Levon. A few days later I got word that the paintings were all gone, that Levon and Felix were dead.” She paused. “Everything I loved was lost.”

“What did you do?”

“I wandered about, out of my mind with grief, blaming myself. They had done so much for me, taken risks, and paid with their lives. I had to get out of town, get away from everything that reminded me of Levon. I put on a pair of trousers and one of Levon’s old jackets. He used to talk about how he’d dressed his sister like a boy when they were driven out of their village, back in eastern Turkey. Dressed as a man, I felt safe traveling alone. The jacket still smelled like Levon.”

“That’s when you became Totto?”

“Yes. Since I’d already tried on a new identity with Clyde, what was one more? This way, no one could find me and start asking questions about Levon. I could simply disappear, leave my fury behind me.” A wisp of a smile showed, briefly. “I ended up teaching art back in Arizona, where I grew up, eventually settling in an old mining town called Jerome.”

“Did you paint?”

“No. Never again. But I stayed tuned in to the art world. I’d get the auction catalogs from New York in the mail, subscribed to all the magazines. Watched as the brilliant few of our contemporaries hit it big. I read that the Grand Central School of Art had been closed, abandoned. Last summer, I saw the listing for The Siren.”

“Wait, just last summer? When did you come to New York?”

“In September.”

Virginia remembered Doris calling Totto the “newbie.” She’d assumed it meant he’d been working there for, say, sixteen years, versus Doris’s seventeen. Not six months. The combination of Totto’s advanced age and Grand Central expertise had thrown her. “Seeing your work up for auction must’ve been a shock.”

“I went to a canyon and screamed until my voice was hoarse. It was mine, but how to prove it? No one would believe me. Then I remembered the watercolor, how I’d tucked it on top of the storage cabinet and forgotten about it. I had to come back, see if it was still there. It wasn’t. When I saw the crates, I figured maybe it had been put away and began working my way through them on my lunch hour. I wasn’t going to give up until I’d scoured every one.”

“Why did you leave it up on top of the cabinet in the first place?”

“That was where I stored most of my work, after the students had cleared out for the day. I didn’t want the director to know I was painting for myself during class. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. The oil was painted later, away from the school. Where did you find the watercolor?”

“Behind the storage cabinet. One corner was sticking out; we must have knocked it from its hiding place when we . . .”

“We what?”

Virginia was certain she was turning the color of rhubarb. “I was up here with a man.”

“I see.” Clara muttered under her breath. “The type of woman who’s only good when she’s on her back.”

“It was from behind, actually.” She couldn’t believe she just said that.

One corner of Clara’s mouth lifted, a dint of humor.

“Anyway, that blue color caught my eye. Why didn’t you just look behind the cabinet in the first place?”

“I tried. Damn thing is anchored to the wall, there’s no light, no way to tell.” She threw up her hands. “For God’s sake, have I proven to you that I’m the artist? That I’m Clyde or Clara Darden or whoever else you want me to be?”

She had no doubt of Clara’s story.

But even though Virginia had discovered the painting, she’d also surrendered it.

Clara took Virginia’s silence for doubt. “Follow me.” They walked deeper into the art school, down the long hallway. At each room, Clara narrated a story. About her first illustration class, the students, the art exhibits. New York during the 1920s came to life through her words, Clara’s eyes sometimes blazing with anger, other times wet with tears. The school truly was full of ghosts. Virginia imagined them streaming through the hallway, whispering between easels.

Clara pointed to one of the bigger studios. “This is where Levon used to teach. I took his class once, on a dare.”

“What was Levon like?”

“Passionate, sometimes bullheaded. Always engaged with whoever was in front of him. He’d suffered terribly as a child.”

“And Oliver?”

“Privileged. Beautiful and knew it. He supported me early on. Without him I might not have made it as far as I did, but he made sure I remembered that. He thought he could live out a life of an artist through me, I think, and resented my success.”

“How did you get the job at the information booth?” They circled back toward the entrance.

“I knew someone who knew Terrence.” Clara stopped in the small foyer. “How much do you want for it?”

“For what?”

“The watercolor.”

“No, that’s not it. I don’t want your money. You should have it; it’s yours, rightfully so.”

“What have you been doing with it, shopping around for the highest bidder?”

“No. I wanted to find out more about it, about you. Over the past couple of years I’ve lost so much, and the watercolor gave me hope that eventually I’d be okay. I know that sounds strange. But I loved it.”

“Loved?” She leaned forward. “Why past tense?”

“Well, that’s the tricky part. I don’t have it. It’s with the Lorettes.”

“Irving Lorette?”

“Irving and Hazel. I was told to talk to them. They said they were going to get an expert at the MoMA to examine it.”

“And?”

“They lied, and now they won’t give it back.”

Clara’s entire body went rigid. “Bastards. What were you thinking, giving it up like that?”

“I have no idea how the art world works. I assumed they were doing the right thing.”

“You fool.”

Virginia’s defenses rose. “It certainly didn’t help matters, you sending me threatening notes. I was terrified. You tried to come after me in the school that one time, right? When I ran out the door?”

“I came in to try to figure out where on earth you’d found it, then realized someone else was already in here. What you heard was me trying to hide inside one of the closets.”

How ridiculous. “We were frightened of each other!”

“This isn’t some zany comedy. It’s not funny.”

“No kidding. You had some guy mug me at knifepoint and try to steal the watercolor.” Virginia grew indignant at the memory. “I could’ve been killed. You should know that right after that terrifying incident, I handed it over to the Lorettes, happy to be rid of it, at least temporarily. So it’s partially your fault they have it now. Why on earth did you do that?”

“I watched as you waited in line at the Lost and Found, then didn’t follow through. I offered the guy twenty bucks to follow you and grab the portfolio case. I didn’t know he had a knife. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

For a moment, the two stood off against each other. Until Clara hung her head. “It’s all lost. Again. Without that watercolor, Clara Darden is just a footnote to history. If that. Levon gets to be celebrated and revered. I loved him, but nothing has changed, almost fifty years later.” She leaned back on the wall, all fight drained away, fighting back tears. “You ruined it all, you meddling, ignorant fool.”