The Cellist by Daniel Silva
32London–Zurich
It was Amelia March of ARTnews who got wind of it first. Her source was the fashion model turned art dealer Olivia Watson, who for reasons never made clear had been granted a private viewing. But where on earth had he found it? Even Olivia, with all her obvious physical endowments, hadn’t been able to coax it out of him. Nor had she been able to ascertain the name of the art historian who had supplied the updated attribution. Evidently, it was unassailable. Stone tablets on Mount Sinai. Word of God.
Amelia knew better than to ring him directly; like most London art dealers, he was an unusually skilled spinner of half-truths and outright lies. Instead, she made quiet inquiries among his equally disreputable circle of cohorts, collaborators, and occasional competitors. Roddy Hutchinson, his closest friend, swore total ignorance, as did Jeremy Crabbe, Simon Mendenhall, and Nicky Lovegrove. Julian Isherwood suggested Amelia speak to his new partner, Sarah Bancroft, who was herself the source of endless rumors. Amelia left a message on her voice mail and dropped her a line on email as well. Neither received a reply.
Which left Amelia no choice but to approach the dealer directly, always a risky endeavor when one was a female. Like the enigmatic Sarah Bancroft, he ignored her phone calls, and refused to answer his bell when she popped round to his gallery in Bury Street. In the window was a small sign that read no comment.
It was, thought Amelia, the perfect vignette with which to lead her story, which she commenced writing later that afternoon. She was still laboring over the first draft when her editor forwarded her a link to an article that had just appeared in the Neue Züricher Zeitung. It seemed the London art dealer Oliver Dimbleby had sold a previously misattributed painting by Artemisia Gentileschi—The Lute Player, oil on canvas, 152 by 134 centimeters—to the Swiss financier and political activist Martin Landesmann. The saintly Landesmann had generously agreed to donate the painting to the Kunsthaus in Zurich, where it would go on display after an extensive restoration. The museum planned to unveil it at a gala reception, at which the internationally renowned Swiss violinist Anna Rolfe would perform for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The sponsor of the event was Landesmann’s newly formed One World Global Alliance for Democracy. Regrettably, the general public was not invited.
Having been thoroughly beaten to the punch, Amelia penned a flaccid but thoughtful piece that cast Artemisia—a gifted Baroque painter whose work had long been overshadowed by the rape she suffered at the hands of Agostino Tassi—as a feminist icon. Elsewhere in the British art press, there was disappointment that a major London art dealer had facilitated the transfer of one of Artemisia’s paintings to Switzerland, of all places. The one bright spot, grumbled the Guardian, was that The Lute Player would hang in a museum for all to see rather than on yet another rich man’s wall.
For its part, the Kunsthaus reveled in its good fortune. Owing to the lingering threat of the pandemic, only two hundred and fifty guests would be invited to the gala. Not surprisingly, the competition for tickets was fierce. Anyone who was anyone—the celebrated and the scorned, the offensively rich and the merely wealthy, the world and its mistress—fought tooth and nail to attend. Martin was besieged with calls from friends, associates, and even a few blood enemies. Each was instructed to dial a number that rang in the Erlenbach safe house, where Gabriel and Eli Lavon delighted in deciding their fate. It was Christopher, posing as an event coordinator from the Global Alliance for Democracy, who delivered the verdicts. Among those who were denied an invitation were Karl Zimmer, head of RhineBank’s Zurich office, and two senior members of the firm’s ruling Council of Ten.
After three days, only twenty tickets remained. Gabriel held two in reserve for Arkady Akimov and his wife, Oksana. Unfortunately, they showed no interest in attending.
“Maybe he has a scheduling conflict,” suggested Eli Lavon.
“Like what?”
“Perhaps he’s planning to subvert a democracy that night. Or maybe Vladimir Vladimirovich has asked him to come to Moscow to review his investment portfolio.”
“Or maybe he’s somehow unaware of the fact that the social event of the season will be taking place at the Kunsthaus in Zurich and he hasn’t received an invitation.”
“And he’s not going to receive one,” said Lavon gravely. “Not unless he sits up on his hind legs and begs for one.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Then we will have nothing to show for our efforts other than a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi and a new pro-democracy NGO. But under no circumstances are you to invite Arkady Akimov to attend that reception. It goes against all our operational orthodoxy.” Lavon glanced at Christopher. “We get on the streetcar before the target, not after. And we always, always, wait for the target to make the first move.”
Gabriel conceded the point. But when another three days passed with no contact, he was beside himself with worry. It was Yuval Gershon, director of Unit 8200, who finally put his mind to rest. The Unit had just intercepted a phone call from a Ludmilla Sorova of NevaNeft to the Global Alliance for Democracy. She rang the number in the safe house five minutes later. After listening to her request, Christopher placed the call on hold and addressed Gabriel.
“Oksana Akimova and her husband would be honored to attend the reception at the Kunsthaus.”
“If you had an ounce of self-respect,” said Lavon, “you’d tell her it’s too late.”
Gabriel hesitated, then nodded slowly.
Christopher brought the receiver to his ear and took the call off hold. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Sorova, but I’m afraid there are no more tickets available. I only wish you’d reached out to us sooner.” After a silence, he said, “Yes, a donation to the Global Alliance for Democracy would certainly influence our thinking. What sort of contribution did Mr. Akimov have in mind?”
The sum, arrived at after several offers and counteroffers, was an astonishing twenty million Swiss francs, slightly more than Martin had paid for The Lute Player. He had pledged to deliver the painting to the Kunsthaus, restored to its original glory, in time for the gala. The museum’s chief conservator, the esteemed Ludwig Schenker, was skeptical. Having reviewed high-resolution photographs of the canvas, he reckoned a proper restoration would take six months, if not longer. A specialist in Italian Baroque art, he had offered to serve as a consultant. Martin had politely demurred. The restorer he had in mind for the project didn’t play nicely with others.
“He’s good, your man?” inquired Dr. Schenker.
“I’m told he’s one of the very best.”
“Do I know his work?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Might I at least share with him some of my observations?”
“No,” said Martin. “You might not.”
The high-resolution photographs had revealed only a portion of the damage. They did not accurately represent, for example, the shocking degree to which the four-hundred-year-old canvas had sagged with age. Gabriel concluded he had no choice but to reline the painting, a delicate undertaking that involved adhering a swath of new linen to the back of the original canvas and then reattaching it to a stretcher. When the procedure was complete, he commenced the most tedious portion of the restoration, the removal of the old varnish and surface grime using cotton wool swabs soaked with a carefully calibrated mixture of acetone, methyl proxitol, and mineral spirits. Each swab could clean about a square inch of the painting before it became too soiled to use. At night, when he was not dreaming of blood and fire, he was removing yellowed varnish from a canvas the size of the Piazza San Marco.
He worked in the garden room of the safe house, with the windows open to vent the dangerous fumes of his solvent. For the most part, he was spared unwanted observation of his efforts; Christopher and Eli Lavon both knew better than to watch him while he worked. An Office courier brought his brushes and pigments from Narkiss Street, along with his old paint-smudged portable CD player and a collection of his favorite opera and classical music recordings. The rest of his supplies, including his chemicals and a pair of powerful halogen lamps, he acquired locally.
Twice each week, Isabel traveled to the safe house from Geneva for a crash course in the basics of tradecraft. Having successfully penetrated the defenses of the Russian Laundromat, she was a natural deceiver. All she required was a bit of polish. Christopher and Eli Lavon served as her instructors, and the techniques they instilled in her were borrowed from both the British and Israeli traditions. Her education did not suffer as a result. Among the international brotherhood of intelligence officers, MI6 and the Office were universally regarded as the finest handlers of human assets in the business.
Gabriel remained a distant observer of Isabel’s training, for he had a restoration to finish and a service to run. He shuttled regularly between Zurich and Tel Aviv, and twice popped in to London to confer with Graham Seymour. With just ten days remaining until the gala, The Lute Player was nowhere near ready for her reemergence into public view. Several large swaths required retouching, including the young musician’s amber-colored garment and her face, which Artemisia had depicted exquisitely in semi-profile, with an expression both serene and concentrated. There was also a trace of foreboding, thought Gabriel, perhaps an allusion to the danger that awaited the young girl just beyond the safety of her music room.
Having never restored a painting by Artemisia, Gabriel would have preferred to work with painstaking slowness. His looming deadline, however, would not allow it. It was no matter; trained in the Italian method of restoration, he was when necessary the swiftest of painters. The operas of Puccini, especially La Bohème, were his usual background music. The restoration of The Lute Player, however, was set mainly to a pair of violin sonatas—one by Beethoven, the other by Brahms—and a haunting piece by Sergei Rachmaninoff, the favorite composer of the oil trader and oligarch Arkady Akimov.
On the second Wednesday evening of October, Isabel came to the safe house for a final session with Christopher and Eli Lavon. This time she was joined by a woman she idolized, the renowned Swiss violinist Anna Rolfe. Their rehearsal involved no music, only choreography—the seemingly serendipitous and effortless conveyance of Arkady Akimov into the hands of Martin Landesmann. Afterward, Anna stole into the garden room to watch Gabriel work, knowing full well it drove him to distraction.
He loaded his brush and placed it against the cheek of the lute player. “What do you suppose she’s thinking?”
“The girl in the painting?”
“The girl in the next room.”
“She’s probably wondering how it is we know one another.” Anna frowned. “Did my practicing really annoy you?”
“Never.”
“Good. Because I never tired of watching you work.”
“Trust me, it gets old.”
“Like me.” She probed at the skin along her jawline. “I don’t suppose you could do a little work on me before the recital on Saturday night.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a minute to spare.”
“Will you finish it in time?”
“That depends on how many more questions you intend to ask me.”
“Actually, I have only one more.”
“You want to know what happened to the Englishman who was hired to kill us that night in Venice.”
“Yes.”
“He’s talking to the girl in the next room,” said Gabriel.
“The dishy one with the lovely suntan?” Anna sighed. “Must you make a joke about everything?”