Corpus Christmas

Abruptly, Miss Kristensen opened the door of a luxurious room with a sweeping view of the river. “Mr. Thorvaldsen’s suite,” she murmured. “If you’ll wait here, Lieutenant Harald, he’ll join you shortly.” She flicked on a soft light over a fully equipped bar that gleamed and sparkled with chrome and crystal and cut-glass decanters like a tiny, perfect jewel box. “May I get you something to drink while you wait?”

“No, thank you,” said Sigrid.

“Then I’ll say godnat. ” Wrapping her furs tighter around her small form, the secretary hurried away.

Sigrid was drawn to the bank of windows at the end of the room where a wide couch had been built into the curve of the window. Upholstered in buttery soft leather of a tawny topaz color, it invited one to curl up and enjoy the view. She slipped off her coat and rested her strong chin on the back of the couch to stare through the glass.

The 180-degree night view was breathtaking. Across the water, a huge neon coffee cup dripped its good-to-the-last-drop in front of New Jersey’s lights; on the near shore, the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan became towering tiers of cubed light; while upriver, the George Washington Bridge spa

The city’s stately nighttime beauty, coupled with the ship’s warmth and quiet, made Sigrid relax. It had been a long day and as the moments passed, relaxation turned to increasing lethargy. Just as she was begi

He was casually dressed in dark wool slacks and a white hand-knit fisherman’s sweater that had a fresh smear of grease on the left cuff, and he was followed by a waiter whose tray held a silver thermos jug of steaming hot drink and plates of cheese and crackers and smoked fish.

“Can’t offer you much,” Thorvaldsen said as the waiter spread the food on the blond oak table before her, then left. “The kitchen staff’s off duty until tomorrow morning.”

“This wasn’t necessary,” Sigrid told him, but she was suddenly conscious of hunger and took the plate he offered with no further protest.

The hot drinks were Tom and Jerries, not a concoction Sigrid cared for, although she could appreciate how fitting it was for the cold night and for the yuletide season.

“Glaedelig jul,” said Thorvaldsen, lifting his glass toward her.

“Skål,” she replied.

The spicy hot rum slid down easily and began to create its own i

“I didn’t realize you were such a hands-on shipowner,” Sigrid said, watching Thorvaldsen dab with a linen napkin at the grease on his sweater. There was an unpretentious, raw vitality about the man that kept one subliminally reminded of the working-class roots even when he wasn’t boasting of them.

“That generator could wind up costing me an extra eighteen hundred u

Sigrid cut herself a wedge of soft Havarti and spread it on a slice of dark bread. “All because it leaves in the evening instead of noon?”

“Everything that happens aboard ship, every detail, has a price tag. Leaving a half day late could mean getting into Bermuda long after lunch instead of well before. This is a very competitive business. Something goes over cost, it comes out of profits. When that happens, I want to know why.”

The serious lines in his open rugged face crinkled as he gri

Sigrid followed his eyes to a picture on the far wall, in a place of honor beyond the bar. Its colors and rhythms were arresting: very manly, very-now that she looked at it- Nauman. She was surprised to realize that she could recognize the painting as indisputably his. It was a large abstract in those topaz and rust tones that she now identified with Francesca Leeds.

In fact this whole room with its blond oak, its amber and russet-colored couches and chairs, its gold chrome and its touches of burnt orange might have been designed as a setting for Francesca Leeds.

“Which came first?” she asked, curious. “The picture or the decor?”

“The picture, of course,” he answered, apparently surprised that she would need to ask.

Sigrid gave an inward sigh. It was awkward to be the only person in Nauman’s world who wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about his work. She didn’t wonder that this self-made millionaire could respond so directly to the strength of Nauman’s art. Intellectually, she, too, could appreciate the games Nauman played with color and mathematics, with subtle rhythms and thematic variations; and she wished she liked it more. But it was just too abstract to move her emotionally, unlike the old German painters whom she loved for their spare asceticism and because they were rooted in the particular.

“-and perhaps it appeals to me precisely because I have spent so many years in hard serious work, but there’s always Nauman’s playful quality,” Thorvaldsen was saying.

Wasn’t there just, Sigrid thought wryly, momentarily diverted from Thorvaldsen’s enthusiasm by certain memories of Nauman’s playfulness.

“-an artist of his own time and one who isn’t afraid to leave the loose ends. The high purpose of art is to remind us that something is always left undone-to remind us that it’s not human to expect too much from method and plan. Only third-rate artists paint perfect pictures. Real life isn’t tidy,” said Thorvaldsen. “Look at this ship-all a fantasy!”

Thorvaldsen tilted the nearly empty thermos jug inquiringly. “More?”

Sigrid shook her head and covered the top of her glass with her hand. “No.”

She pulled a notepad from the outer pocket of her coat and placed it on the table. “You do realize this isn’t a social visit?”

“Too bad. ” His voice was slightly slurred, but his eyes were wary.

He seemed to be drinking quite a lot, Sigrid noted. That was the trouble with mixing alcohol with eggs and spices. Those hot Tom and Jerries were like eggnog: if one hadn’t eaten, it was too easy to treat them like food instead of drink.

Sigrid patted her other coat pockets and finally the pockets of her dark blue jacket and gray slacks without finding a pen.

Smiling, Thorvaldsen handed her his, a slim gold-filled object. His fingers brushed hers and lingered a moment before he released the pen.

Deliberately?

“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “I gather you’d already heard about Dr. Roger Shambley when I called before.”

“Yes. Someone told Francesca and she telephoned me.” Thorvaldsen buttered a cracker, added a morsel of smoked fish, and popped the whole thing in his mouth.

“How long had you known Dr. Shambley?”

The shipowner swallowed. “I didn’t. Heard his name, of course, and knew he was an art historian writing a book, but that’s all.”

“What did you think of him?”

Thorvaldsen gave a short explosive laugh and spoke a couple of one-syllable words in Danish that need no translation. “You were there, frøken Harald. You heard him threaten me.”

“Yes. What did he mean?”

The big Dane shrugged. “Who knows what small men dream?”

“You weren’t afraid of his threat?”

“Of course not.”

“Would you describe, please, what happened at the Breul house after Nauman and I left?” asked Sigrid.

“After you and Nauman left, it became boring.” Thorvaldsen leaned back in a creamy leather chair with his left ankle resting on his right knee and his brawny hands clasping his left shin. “I spoke with that curator chap, Buntrock, for a few minutes. Very knowledgeable about Nauman’s work. Then I left with Lady Francesca Leeds. About eight-thirty, I think.”