Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Kristina

Paris, November 1928

Kristina was putting on her earrings when she heard Max’s and Serge’s voices rise from the nursery.

‘I’m sure that’s not how you fold it, Max,’ Serge said.

‘It is. Kristina showed me. You can’t fold it too big because she’s only a few months old.’

‘Well, tuck it under her leg then,’ suggested Serge, ‘otherwise I can only see it leaking and the poor thing will be left lying in a wet bed.’

Kristina smiled. They sounded like two grandmothers bickering. But baby Nadia could not have had a more devoted father and godfather in Max and Serge. Their willingness to share the responsibility for Nadia had given her time to paint. Magnificently too. She had three small oils and one large one on show tonight. Maybe at last she would make a significant sale.

‘I’m ready,’ she said, coming out of the bedroom and smoothing her embroidered Georgette dress.

Their young maid, Colette, came up the stairs holding a pile of freshly washed nappies.

‘Now, you are sure you’ll be all right looking after Nadia tonight?’ Kristina asked her. ‘We are just around the corner if you need us.’

Colette’s grin brought out all her dimples. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got ten younger brothers and sisters. I’ve done all this before.’

Kristina smiled then called out for Max and Serge. ‘We’d better get going!’

The door to the nursery opened and Max and Serge backed out, both waving at Nadia before finally shutting the door.

‘You look beautiful,’ Max told Kristina, taking her arm.

They moved towards the stairs. Serge followed after them, but suddenly stopped and felt around his pockets before pulling out a silver rattle.

‘Her favourite toy,’ he said, heading back towards the nursery. ‘She can’t be without it.’

Kristina and Max looked at each other and chuckled.

Their five-year-old marriage was a happy one. Max and Serge were now well known in the art world as discoverers of exceptional talent, and they all had enough money to live well. Even with an economic depression looming over the world, Bergeret being considered too delicate to paint nudes and having to take life-drawing classes with a cow as a model instead. Or not being able to paint outside their homes without the risk of being molested or considered immoral. And there was no hope for their talent at all if they were saddled with domestic duties. All this, and yet there were still Suzanne Valadons, Sonia Delaunays, Marie Laurencins and... Kristina Belovas. For she did feel the greatness in her, and it needed not only to be expressed but recognised.

*

‘Kristina,’ Max whispered in her ear the following morning as the grey November light crept through the gap in the curtains.

‘Yes?’

‘I have to see a collector this morning about the paintings he purchased from the exhibition.’

Kristina squeezed her eyes shut again, knowing that they weren’t hers. All those months of work and the only painting of hers that had sold was a small oil of a woman clutching a bouquet of flowers. ‘It’s so pretty,’ the buyer had said. ‘I’ll give it to my daughter to hang above her dressing table.’

‘Serge is going to the H?tel Drouot. There is a Manet up for auction and he wants to buy it. But we have a tight budget until we receive the payments for the paintings from the exhibition. Can you please go with him and make sure that he doesn’t mortgage everything we’ve got to obtain it?’

Kristina smiled and turned over to face him. ‘Isn’t that what you did to buy my paintings when we first met?’

Max chuckled and tucked his arm around her. ‘Yes, I did. But what a priceless treasure we got in return. Seriously though, when he really wants something, he can .. . change. And things are different now. There is Nadia to consider. We can’t be out on the street eating beans while waiting for our cashflow to become steady again.’

‘Yet you’re letting him go to London next month after the last time when he temporarily sent us broke?’

Max kissed her on the forehead. ‘He’s going to London with a strict budget and can’t sign off on anything without my approval.’

‘All right,’ she told him. ‘I’ll go.’

*

Serge seemed excited by the idea of Kristina accompanying him to the auction. As they rode in the taxi together to the ninth arrondissement, he told her:

‘The H?tel Drouot is nothing like the hallowed institutions of Christie’s or Sotheby’s. You’ll see. There is always something fascinating to look at.’

Indeed, when Kristina and Serge walked through the main pavilion of the auction house, she thought it resembled a flea market. The only difference was that the price tags were considerably higher. Fine art, furniture, marble busts and heirloom jewellery filled every room. But after becoming used to the tasteful way that Bergeret & Lavertu exhibited their artworks, Kristina was slightly disturbed to see that priceless paintings were often stacked against each other, that jewellery was jumbled together on trays and some of the display cases were dusty.

‘It’s like a bazaar or a souk,’ she said to Serge as they made their way through the crowd, which was a mix of dealers, curiosity seekers and tourists.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s why I make sure I only ever come with one object in mind. It’s easy to get carried away. I often have to rein Max in, you know.’

‘He says the same thing about you!’

Serge laughed. ‘The truth is, we are as bad as each other. Out of the three of us, you are the most level-headed, Kristina.’

They took their seats in the auction room and Serge looked about him. ‘There are three other dealers,’ he whispered to her. ‘This is going to be tough.’

‘What is so special about this painting?’ Kristina asked him. ‘Apart from the fact it’s a Manet?’

‘While Manet is famous for his controversial Olympia , art connoisseurs love his flowers for the fact that they draw on the old masters for structure, but Manet also gives them a modern cast.’

The bell rang and the auctioneer began to describe the items in the lot, including a Venetian armorial cartouche and a pair of Roman granite columns. When the Manet was brought to the block and the auctioneer described it as being in excellent condition and one of the finest examples of Manet’s work, Kristina noticed a distinct charge in the atmosphere. But most of all she saw that beads of sweat had broken out on Serge’s forehead although the room was chilly. Before the bidding started, he took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his face and neck. His hands were trembling.

‘Are you all right?’ Kristina asked him.

He barely nodded and seemed to be in a trance-like state.

As the bids for the Manet began to rise higher and higher, Serge’s trembling increased. His legs jiggled up and down and his pupils enlarged so that his eyes seemed to have turned black.

It’s like watching a drug addict , thought Kristina. Was this what Max had been worried about? At what point would she need to stop him? Max hadn’t said.

She was thankful when Serge made the highest bid and the auctioneer dropped the hammer and the ordeal was over. Serge slumped back in his chair, almost catatonic. When the auction was done, he sat up again, his eyes back to normal and his voice even.

‘Well, we have it,’ he said cheerfully. ‘The Manet is ours! And under what I’d expected we’d have to pay for it.’

Serge sounded like himself again, but Kristina remained unsettled. The auction had shown her a different side to him. It was exactly as Max had said – when Serge really wanted a piece of art, something in him changed.