The Flanders Panel

Menchu agreed. Her frivolity did not extend to her professional life, in which she moved with all the cunning of a trained rat. She was acting as intermediary in the transaction because the owner of the Van Huys knew nothing of the workings of the art market. It was she who had handled the negotiations for the auction with the Madrid branch of Claymore’s.

“I’ll phone him tomorrow. His name is Don Manuel Belmonte, he’s seventy years old, and he’s delighted, as he puts it, to be dealing with a pretty young woman with such a splendid head for business.”

There was something else, Julia pointed out. If the uncovered inscription could be linked to the story of the people in the painting, Claymore’s would be sure to play on that to up the asking price.

“Have you managed to get hold of any more useful documentation?”

“Very little,” Menchu said, pursing her lips in her effort to remember. “I gave you all I had along with the painting. So you’re going to have to find out for yourself.”

Julia opened her handbag and took longer than necessary to find her cigarettes. At last, she slowly took one out and looked at her friend.

“We could ask Alvaro.”

Menchu raised her eyebrows and said at once that the very idea left her petrified, or saltified or whatever the word was, like Noah’s wife, or was it Lot’s? Anyway, like the wife of that twit who got so fed up with life in Sodom.

“It’s up to you, of course,” she said, her voice growing hoarse with expectation. She could sense strong emotion in the air. “After all, you and Alvaro…”

She left the phrase hanging and adopted a look of exaggerated concern, as she did whenever the topic of conversation turned to the problems of others, whom she liked to think of as utterly defenceless when it came to affairs of the heart.

Julia held her gaze, unperturbed, and said only: “He’s the best art historian we know. And this has nothing to do with me, but with the painting.”

Menchu pretended to be considering the matter seriously and then nodded. It was up to Julia, of course. But if she was in Julia’s shoes, she wouldn’t do it. In dubio pro reo, as that old pedant Cesar always said. Or was it in pluvio?“

“I can assure you that as regards Alvaro, I’m completely cured.”

“Some illnesses, sweetie, you never get over. And a year is nothing. As the song says.”

Julia couldn’t suppress a wry smile at her own expense. A year ago Alvaro and she had finished a long affair, and Menchu knew all about it. It had been Menchu who, quite unintentionally, had pronounced the final verdict, which went to the very heart of the matter, something along the lines of: In the end, my dear, a married man invariably finds in favour of his legal wife. All those years of washing underpants and giving birth always prove to be the deciding factor. “It’s just the way they’re made,” she had concluded between sniffs, her nose glued to a narrow white line of cocaine. “Deep down, they’re sickeningly loyal.” Another sniff. “The bastards.”

Julia exhaled a dense cloud of smoke and slowly drank the rest of her coffee, trying to keep the cup from dripping. That particular ending had been very painful, once the final words had been said and the door slammed shut. And it went on being painful afterwards. On the two or three occasions when Alvaro and she had met by chance at lectures or in museums, both had behaved with exemplary fortitude: “You’re looking well.”

“Take care of yourself.” After all, they both considered themselves to be civilised people who, quite apart from that fragment of their past, had a shared interest in the world of art. They were, to put it succinctly, mature people, adults.

She was aware of Menchu watching her with malicious interest, gleefully anticipating the prospect of new amorous intrigues in which she could intervene as tactical adviser. She was forever complaining that since Julia had broken up with Alvaro her subsequent affairs had been so sporadic as to be hardly worth mentioning: “You’re becoming a puritan, darling,” she was always saying, “and that’s deadly dull. What you need is a bit of passion, a return to the maelstrom.” From that point of view, the mere mention of Alvaro seemed to offer interesting possibilities.

Julia realised all this without feeling the slightest irritation. Menchu was Menchu and always had been. You don’t choose your friends, they choose you, and you either reject them or you accept them without reservations. That was something else she’d learned from Cesar.

Her cigarette was nearly finished, so she stubbed it out in the ashtray and smiled wanly at Menchu.

“Alvaro’s not important. What concerns me is the Van Huys.” She hesitated, searching for the right words as she tried to clarify her idea. “There’s something odd about that painting.”

Menchu shrugged distractedly, as if she were thinking about something else.