Me and Kaminski Read Free Page B

“Are you staying in the village?”
    “Yes,” I said vaguely. “In the village.” Did she want to invite me to spend the night in the house? Nice gesture.
    “Good. And now we must get back to our guests. We’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”
    “You have guests?”
    “People from the neighborhood and our gallerist. Do you know him?”
    “I spoke to him last week.”
    “We’ll straighten that out,” she said.
    I had the feeling her mind was already on something else. Her grip as she shook my hand was surprisingly strong, then she helped her father onto his feet. The two of them moved slowly to the door.
    “Zollner.” Kaminski was standing still. “How old are you?”
    “ Thirty-one.”
    “Why are you doing this?”
    “What?”
    “Journalist. Several major newspapers. What do you want?”
    “I find it interesting! You learn a lot and you can get involved in things that . . .”
    He shook his head.
    “I wouldn’t want anything else!”
    He banged his stick impatiently on the floor.
    “I don’t know, I—I fell into it somehow. Before, I was at an advertising agency.”
    “That explains it.”
    That had sounded odd; I looked at him, trying to understand what he’d meant. But his head was nodding down onto his chest and his expression was blank. Miriam led him out, and I heard their footsteps fade into the distance.
    I sat down in the chair the old man had just been sitting in. Sunbeams were slanting in through the window, and motes of dust were dancing in them. It must be nice to live here. I pictured it: Miriam was roughly fifteen years older than me, but I could live with that, she still looked good. He wasn’t going to be around much longer, we’d have the house, his money, and there’d certainly be a few remaining paintings. I would live here, administer the estate, maybe set up a museum. I would finally have the time to write something really big, a fat book. Not too fat, but fat enough for the fiction shelves in the bookshops. If possible one of my father-in-law’s paintings on the cover. Or maybe better to use something classical. Vermeer? Title in dark type. Stitched binding, heavy paper. Given my connections, I would get a couple of good reviews. I nodded, stood up, and went out.
    The door at the end of the hall was now closed, but you could still hear the voices. I buttoned my jacket. It was time for decisiveness and being a man of the world. I cleared my throat and walked in fast.
    A large room, table laid, and two Kaminskis on the walls: one pure abstract and the other a misty city view. People were standing around the table and at the window with glasses in their hands. As I came in, silence fell.
    “Hello!” I said. “I’m Sebastian Zollner.”
    That broke the ice right away; I felt the mood ease. I held out my hand to each of them in turn. There were two elderly gentlemen, one of them obviously a village dignitary and the other a banker from the capital. Kaminski muttered something to himself; Miriam looked at me thunderstruck and seemed to want to say something, but then stayed silent. A dignified English couple introduced themselves to me as Mr. and Mrs. Clure, the neighbors. “Are you the writer?” I asked. “I guess so,” he said. And then of course there was Bogovic, the gallerist to whom I’d talked ten days before. He gave me his hand and looked at me thoughtfully.
    “Are you still working?” I said to Clure. “Anything new?”
    He threw a glance at his wife. “My new novel just came out.
The Forger’s Fear.
”
    “Brilliant,” I said, giving him a slap on the upper arm. “Send it to me, I’ll review it!” I smiled at Bogovic, who for some reason was behaving as though he didn’t remember me, then I turned toward the table, where the housekeeper, with raised eyebrows, was laying another place. “Do I get a glass too?” Miriam said something quietly to Bogovic, he frowned, she shook her head.
    We sat down at table. There was a totally tasteless soup made