Free Goya'S Dog by Damian Tarnopolsky Page A

were open, three women fainted. He’d fanned himself with his paper, and was sweating so much that he even thought of leaving, and then he’d seen it: Rembrandt just starting toenter middle age and just starting to doubt. Asking himself a question and asking it of Dacres. He wore a ridiculous hat and a gold chain, he was trying to look the middle-class part, but this was the point: the brushwork was as diffuse in his self-portrait as the other paintings were rigid. Most of the canvas, except for the face, was brown tones and the right hand at the bottom was painted over but still visible; he’d left it aside to finish it later and then forgotten. So genius leaves masterpieces as table scraps. Only the eyes were sharp—as sharp as Alberti’s—and they asked what the next years would bring. Starting to get old. Asking if it had all been worth it and not at all sure of the answer. Now in the Canadian hotel Dacres remembered something: this is the reason to have more than one work in a room, because one is the masterpiece. Win our grand prize. But he was asking himself now: had it been worth it? Well, Edward, has it been worth it? Has it been worth it.
    Dainty Edelweiss appeared and instantly Dacres forgot his thoughts.
    â€œMy painter friend,” said Edelweiss.
    â€œMy painter friend,” said Dacres, indicating a chair, and as usual Edelweiss blushed.
    I have to remember what I am like, Dacres thought. I have my morose times: and then all I need is company. It doesn’t matter so much whose.
    â€œI have some bad news,” Edelweiss began.
    â€œLet me have it,” said Dacres.
    â€œVery well—”
    â€œNo, don’t hold back. I can stand it. Both barrels.”
    â€œWell, Edward—”
    â€œHave some bad news of my own, actually. Just been thinking I’m never going to paint a dancer as good as a Degas. Not even if she’s the size of a postage stamp. Not even if I work on her from now until my death-day. Which I won’t, for reasons I don’t want to share just at present.”
    Edelweiss angled himself forward and Dacres saw for a moment his swan neck shining in reflected light.
    â€œMy news is more mundane.”
    Dacres blinked and the effect was gone. Something the matter with my eyes, he thought. Whatever next.
    â€œNow when I say postage stamp, I don’t mean painting a miniature. That presents its own challenges.” Clarence, the burly waiter, had not come to refresh his drink, unusually. “Are there any Rembrandts in this city do you think?”
    But Edelweiss was in a business mood.
    â€œYou’re going to have to settle.”
    â€œSettle? Settle what?”
    â€œThe bill.”
    â€œAh. You’re not serious.”
    Dacres lifted his glass hopefully at a white jacket but already it was gone. As if the waiters knew an assassination was afoot and didn’t want to be implicated.
    Dacres asked if Edelweiss was going to have a drink and Edelweiss shook his head.
    â€œI was expecting this, to be honest,” said Dacres.
    Woolworth’s, I’m going to be eating at Woolworth’s, chimed a voice in his head.
    His superior was coming back from sick leave the next day, Edelweiss explained tersely. He was nervous and Dacres wondered if all his urbanity had come from the temporary power he’d had. Everything had to be aboveboard, Edelweiss explained.
    Dacres drew on the tablecloth with his index fingernail. What am I doing now, he thought, etching? Who were the worst engravers of the nineteenth century? Make a list.
    â€œSo I’m going to have to clear out, am I?”
    Edelweiss nodded. Dacres, curiously, didn’t feel like fighting. This was the moment when he was supposed to scream and riot, and he knew Edelweiss was expecting him to.
    â€œI’ll do that tomorrow morning then, if that’s all right with you,” Dacres said.
    â€œMr. Alleyn returns very early