Someone is coming for me. I owe him a debt and as you know all too well, debts must be paid. But he kept his end of the bargain and it’s my turn to keep mine. As for our bargain, I admit I didn’t tell you the entire truth at our second meeting when I said you were sitting on a goldmine. You thought I referred to your body and in a way I did. What I should have said was you are sleeping on a goldmine. Open the bed knobs and you will see what I mean.
As for who I am, you will know it soon enough.
All my lust,
Malcolm
P.S. Do anything you must, but keep me forever.
The bed knobs? What on earth did he mean by "open the bed knobs”? And what on earth did he mean by keep him forever? Surely that was his responsibility, not hers. The tone of the note unnerved her greatly. Something about it seemed final. Something about it seemed like a goodbye.
Mona stood and stared at the bed knobs. The one closest to her at the foot of the bed was nothing more than a brass ball. She put her hand on the knob and turned it. At first it didn’t want to give, but then she felt it twist the tiniest bit. With both hands she turned the knob again. The old bed didn’t want to let the knob go, but eventually she managed to take the knob off. She looked inside the post and found that while it was hollow as she would have expected, it was not empty.
Something was inside it. Something rolled up and wrapped in yellowing linen. Carefully she extracted the linen tube from inside the bedpost. She took the linen wrapping off and discovered a rolled canvas beneath it. Mona shook as she unfurled the canvas, going slowly as she could to avoid doing any damage to the painting that had been hidden in her bed for God only knew how long. At first she saw nothing but black. Then a bit of red on either side. A pocket with a gold chain. Then buttons followed by a white collar. Then a face she knew better than her own, a devilishly handsome face, not smiling at the mouth but a little in the eyes, the eyes that were so black one couldn’t tell where the pupil ended and the iris began.
Malcolm in a black three-piece suit. That was the painting. At the bottom of the canvas was a name of a portrait painter she recognized at once, because they’d had an exhibition of his portraits of women at The Red Gallery five years ago. A man famous for his paintings of England’s high society. A man who had been dead since the 1950s.
Mona turned the painting over.
It couldn’t be. No. It couldn’t.
And yet, there it was, written in pencil on the back of the canvas.
Portrait in oil, 1938.
The Rape of the Sabine Women
Three months later
"The Times called again,” Gabrielle said as she stood in the doorway of Mona’s office.
"What do they want this time?” Mona asked, barely glancing up from her auction catalog.
"They say they wish to run a feature on the gallery for the Society page. I think you should do it, yes?”
Mona looked up at her assistant. Gabrielle was tall and shapely and black and had the loveliest French accent that made every word sound like it had been dipped in silver. "Society” was Zociety and "yes” was yezz. The combination of her beauty and her accent had made Gabrielle the perfect hire for The Red. No one could tell this woman no when she said, "You wish to buy it, of course. I will wrap it up for you.”
"I suppose we ought to say yes,” Mona said. "The Times has given us good free press.”
"I’ll call them and let them know tomorrow morning. It’s good to let both men and newspapers sweat a little before you tell them yes.”
"Good advice,” Mona said. Gabrielle smiled and strode from the doorway in her black suit and towering black high heels. It was so nice to be able to afford employees again. Since the discovery of the paintings rolled up and hidden in the brass bed, The Red Gallery’s telephone had been ringing day and night with buyers, reporters, and all the curious. Mona had found two paintings hidden in the bedposts, though the art world only knew of one—a lost Picasso, a painting of one of his many mistresses. The second painting she told no one about. She’d had it framed and hung in a place of honor in The Red Gallery with a tag that read "Unknown Man, 1938, artist Anthony Devas.”
The Picasso she’d had authenticated, and, despite the lack of provenance, the art world had gone mad over it. Mona had lent it to an art museum which could provide the best security, cleaning, and crowds to see it. She was entertaining offers from buyers for the Picasso and all the sketches and etchings Malcolm had given her, but she didn’t want to sell them quite yet. The Picasso had been Malcolm’s parting gift to her. Since he’d left her without giving her the child she’d wanted from him, she was reluctant to give up anything associated with him. Every single day she thought of him. She woke up remembering him. She fell asleep and dreamt of him. She pleasured herself fantasizing of him. And every day she came to The Red, unlocked the door, pushed back the curtains, and stared into his dark smiling eyes that stared back at her from inside the gilt frame. She’d hung the portrait of Malcolm where she’d once hung The Fox Hunt by Morland. In her mind, Malcolm was standing there staring at that painting, one hand on his hip, the other on his chin. In her heart, he would always be there. It was in her body where she wanted him, but that wasn’t possible. If Malcolm had been forty or so in 1938, then he would be over one hundred now, making it unlikely he was still alive. Had it been his ghost that had come to her? Had he somehow traveled through time, or otherwise found a way into her in dreams? She didn’t know; she would, most likely, never know. But he’d kept one part of his promise. He’d saved The Red. After the Picasso had been appraised in the millions of dollars, the collections agencies had stopped calling. The bank restructured her loan and she’d been able to take out a line of credit again, hire Gabrielle, have the gallery painted and repaired, and once more the art world was calling. She should have been so happy…
And yet.
Malcolm.
He’d said she could keep him and so she had. She kept him in a frame on the wall. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it would have to do, wouldn’t it?
Mona sighed. A tear fell from her eye and landed onto the auction catalog. Silly girl, crying over a man who’d paid her to have sex with him. Nonsense. She should act like the grown woman she was and not a lovesick schoolgirl. She yanked open her desk drawer to fetch a tissue and found a book of art she didn’t recall putting in there. She took it out and found a page marked with a red velvet ribbon.
Malcolm?
She couldn’t breathe. She had to force herself to inhale and exhale as she extracted the book from inside the drawer and laid it atop her desk. She opened the page to the ribbon and gasped.
A Rubens painting. The Rape of the Sabine Women, 1637.
Shivering in fear and shock, Mona stared at the famous painting. She knew it well. They’d studied it in one of her many art history courses. The painting, a riot of movement and color and light, depicted the famous abduction of the daughters of the Sabine men who had refused to allow the Roman men to marry into their families. Mona’s mother had hated that the word raptio—meaning "abduction”—was translated into English as "rape.” She said it made the women sound like victims, when in fact they bravely intervened during the subsequent war between the Sabines and the Romans to put a stop to the killing of their husbands by their fathers and the killing of their fathers by their husbands. But that was the sort of thing her mother would take issue with. Mona had reminded her that even if they hadn’t been raped, they had been kidnapped and forced into marriage. Her mother waved the objection off and told Mona they’d been veritable prisoners of their fathers anyway, so it wasn’t as if life was sunshine and roses before they were abducted. Mona accused her mother of applying her "beauty over truth” standard to history. Her mother had only scoffed and said, "You’ve never heard of the Holy Sabine Empire, have you? The Romans won for a reason.” Mona had let the subject drop and had given the painting little thought since then.
Until now.
Mona rose from her chair and ran to the back room. She threw open the door and found…nothing. Nothing but paintings, sculptures, boxes, and supplies. Mona had moved the brass bed to her apartment. The back room was nothing but storage now. Malcolm certainly wasn’t there. She’d half-expected to find him in a Roman centurion’s uniform ready to throw her over his horse’s saddle and ride off with her to his home where he would make her his wife. A nice fantasy, but only a fantasy.