Corpus Christmas

It was too full of things. How could anyone relax in a place so visually distracting? Even tonight, with the lights lowered and candles to soften the impact, the busyness of the decor made her edgy. She tried to imagine the walls stripped of the pictures Erich Breul had collected, the furniture surfaces cleared of vases, ornaments and other bibelots. Even so, would these ornate rooms really make an appropriate exhibition space for Nauman’s abstract pictures?

Evidently she wasn’t the only one who wondered that, for immediately after her arrival, while still talking to Jacob Munson, whose old-world courtliness had charmed her, a tall storklike man in formal evening clothes strode into the Breul House, spotted Nauman, and immediately cried, “Oscar! What’s all this crap about a retrospective here?”

“Behave yourself, Elliott,” laughed Francesca Leeds, swooping down upon them, “or we shan’t let you play, shall we, Jacob?”

The newcomer murmured appropriately as Sigrid was introduced to him, but his eyes were for Lady Francesca and Oscar Nauman. Arguably the hottest curator in town, Elliott Buntrock did not recall having met Sigrid at a Piers Leyden opening back in October. Nor did he seem to consider her someone with whom he need bother tonight.

Which suited Sigrid. As the other four began to discuss the possibilities of an exhibit here at the Breul House, she had followed the sound of a piano into the drawing room where Mrs. Beardsley had introduced her to Thorvaldsen and some of the trustees of the Breul House.

And now she had examined all the pictures hung one above the other on the gallery walls and, except for the Winslow Homer drawings, the only work that really captured her interest was a still life of bread and cheese. It reminded her empty stomach she’d eaten nothing since a pushcart hot dog around noon. Back at the far end of the drawing room, Thorvaldsen and the Hymans had been joined by Francesca Leeds and Jacob Munson; a young black woman entered the gallery in animated conversation with a vivacious middle-aged blond who exhibited a slight limp; and, as Sigrid crossed the great hall at the upper end, she saw Nauman and Elliott Buntrock walking slowly in her direction.

Both men were tall and lean, but while Nauman looked fit and moved easily, the curator seemed all joints. In his formal black-and-white evening clothes, he looked like some sort of long-legged water bird, a stilt or a crane, picking his way across a shallow lake, on the alert for any passing mi

Sigrid prudently continued into the dining room.

“You’re too important for this place,” said Buntrock. “A Nauman retrospective’s big business. Where’s your head on this, Oscar?”

“If I do it-” Nauman began mildly.

“You’re doing it!” the curator interrupted. “And high time, too.”

“-it’ll be for Jacob.”

“Loyalty. How touching. But why here? With your reputation and my co

“Nobody’s threatening to wall you up with a cask of Amontillado,” Nauman gri

“Francesca Leeds is the only one with any sense on this whole damn project. Of course I’m interested.”

The art world was always a little crazy but Elliott Buntrock was begi

Buntrock wasn’t quite sure why Peake’s well-being was important to old Jacob Munson. Francesca thought it had something to do with Munson’s only son who’d been killed years ago.

Anyhow, there they were: Peake’s career was wobbling again, so once Jacob Munson was persuaded that a Nauman show would shore it up, he’d put the screws to Nauman, who was evidently unwilling to refuse his old friend.

Exasperated, Buntrock pulled harder on his silk scarf, which only hunched his angled head forward and increased his resemblance to a reluctant stork being pulled along to his doom. Only a fool would turn down the chance to curate a major Nauman exhibition, but here?

They had entered the gallery. It was the first time Buntrock had ever been here and he just stood shaking his head from side to side. “The most important abstract painter of our time in a shrine to nineteenth-century kitsch? You’re crazy, Oscar.”

Until their conversation, Nauman had not made up his mind but now the trendy curator’s patent dismay roused the imp of perversion that lurked in his soul.

“The Breul House or no house, Buntrock. Take it or leave it.”

“Done!” Elliott Buntrock groaned, already hearing the disbelieving jeers that would rise from his compatriots in the art world when they learned what he’d agreed to. He looked down the long space beyond the archway, to the drawing room, where the others were gathered around the piano. “Shall we tell them the wedding’s on?”

“Be my guest,” said Oscar. “I want another drink.”

In the dining room, a waiter had taken Sigrid’s empty glass and promptly returned with a full one.

At the buffet table were a gray-haired man and woman who both smiled as she approached. “The pâtés good,” said the man, gesturing to the platter with a hearty friendliness.

“So are the crab puffs,” said the woman, who was so painfully gaunt beneath her diamonds and pearls that Sigrid couldn’t believe anything more caloric than lettuce and water ever passed her lips.

Another couple at the end of the table broke apart from what seemed like an intense conversation. The dark-haired woman wore a vivid red-and-purple dress with panache and she turned with an equally vivid smile on her attractive face. “Miss Harald? I’m Hester Kohn, Jacob’s partner. Have you met Benjamin Peake? He’s director of the Breul House.”

“So pleased,” the director murmured and took her hand and looked into her eyes as if he’d waited all his life to meet her.

Unfortunately for the effect, he immediately turned that same look upon the thin woman beside them, “Mrs. Herzog! Have you met Miss Harald, Oscar Nauman’s friend? Miss Harald, Mrs. Herzog. And this is Mr. Reinicke. They’re two of our most dedicated trustees, Miss Harald.”

“Winston Reinicke,” said the man. “Great admirer of Nauman’s work. Fine painter. Fine.”

“Thank you,” Sigrid replied inanely as the man pumped her hand.

Mrs. Herzog continued to smile graciously, but Sigrid suddenly felt herself inventoried, cataloged and ready to be shelved. Mrs. Herzog (“She was a Babcock, you know”) was not deceived by gold sequins and costume jewelry. “We at the Breul House would feel so honored if an artist of Oscar Nauman’s standing should come to us.”

“Is it quite settled then?” asked a languid voice behind them.

A man approached from the stairs beyond the arched doorway. Sigrid noted that he was several inches shorter than she with a slender, almost childlike body, and the head of someone much bigger. His thatched brown hair grew low on his forehead, almost meeting his thick shaggy eyebrows, and as he crossed to join them by the table, he carried his chin thrust upward at such an angle that Sigrid was reminded of a haughty ape.