The subject of the table did not come up for another week. Then, quite late one night, Cynthia telephoned. “Can I talk to you?” she said.
“It’s the table, isn’t it? Want some coffee?”
“Yes and yes. I’ll be right over.”
We sat in the kitchen and Cynthia toured me through the tortuous mental landscape, as it were, she’d been traveling in since purchasing the table. “Philip keeps saying what I did was just another example of situational ethics,” she said. “Situational ethics or not, things took a totally different turn than I could ever have imagined.”
“In what sense?” I asked.
“See, when I got the table home, I put it in my studio. You’ve seen it there, I suppose. Then I started doing research. I made some inquiries. I called Sotheby’s in New York. I spoke to higher-ups. They were tremendously interested. I could almost hear them drooling and panting. They wanted to send appraisers, but I said I had to think about it. They have been very solicitous. Very. ‘At least send some photographs,’ they said. So I sent some photographs. A few days later, they called and gave me an estimate, based on the photographs alone. So few Giacometti tables come on the market.
“But I couldn’t sleep. I was tossing and turning, driving Philip crazy. He knew I felt guilty. He kept quoting Freud — Anna Freud, I think: ‘Put your guilt to good use.’ But I didn’t know which good use to put it to. I was going insane with this, Sam. Really, I was.
“Then, just yesterday, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I put the table in the car, drove all the way to Gunning Cove again, and tracked down the granddaughter. I asked for Violet’s address at the post office. I drove to her house and knocked on the door, and when she came out on the porch and saw that I’d set the table on the ground, she said, ‘Oh, Lord, and here I thought I’d got rid of that godforsaken thing. You want me to buy it back — that why you’re here? I can’t believe my bad luck.’
“I asked had she ever heard of Sotheby’s.
“‘The Sothebys, do they live over in Ingomar? Or is it East Point?’ she says.
“‘No,’ I say, ‘it’s a famous auction house in New York and London.’
“‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’ she says.
“‘The thing is,’ I say, ‘the table is worth — one estimate is a hundred twenty-five thousand dollars American. I’m not saying it would go for that at auction. It’s just an estimate.’
“And then she just looked me over. She sort of took me full in. Then she said, ‘Whatever scheme is afoot, I’m already shut of it.’ I protested and even confessed that I knew the worth of the table before I bought it, and could we at least discuss a few options.
“But here’s the surprise, Sam. Here’s the surprise. Violet pushed right past me, walked over to the table, lifted it up, and set it back in the station wagon. She was a larger woman than I’d remembered. Then she got behind the wheel, turned the car so it was facing back toward the road. She got out, engine running, and said, ‘See, you’re on the straight and narrow now. Facing the right way home now. Look, I understand, you are not at peace with your actions. You brought your problems to me, but I do not want them. I don’t want your problems delivered to my porch. But I’m going to tell you something that might put your mind a little more at ease. I’m going to tell you something about that table. And this is not common knowledge, and God won’t go out of His way to bestow blessings if you go and wag your tongue with this information, eh? My own disreputable father, a charlatan, bought that table during the war, when he served in France. He bought the table in Paris. And that table resided in a Paris apartment, which my father shared with his second — unbeknownst to my mother — wife. Unbeknownst to my mother. My mother was his first wife. You can put two and two together, eh? My charlatan father lived with the French wife and had a daughter with her. That daughter and I have never met, but none of it’s her fault. Then one day my mother, may she rest, discovered a photograph of the French wife, the French daughter, and my father standing next to the godforsaken table in their Paris apartment. Big shouting quarrel, and my father went back to Paris, promising to settle things there and come back and try to right things with us. He left for Paris and did not come back. Why? Maybe because the French wife stabbed my father in the stomach. He’s in some cemetery or other in France, we didn’t bother to inquire. It may have been a foreigner’s pauper’s grave, we didn’t bother to inquire as to the details. France kept a lot of Canadian fathers in the ground after the war, but for more heroic reasons. Heroic didn’t apply to my father. See, the French daughter was now half orphaned — as was I — and the French wife was in prison. About a year later, out of the blue, mind you, four pieces of furniture arrived, and the table was one. We didn’t know it at the time, but my mother had just a few years left on this earth. We put the table in the cellar. I brought it upstairs for the estate sale. Now, I’ll admit I was very, very grateful you bought the table. Let’s leave it at that, shall we? I don’t care one bit if it’s worth a million dollars. Good riddance to that table.’”
Then Cynthia said, “I paraphrased there, Sam. I don’t have your memory. But that’s pretty much what Violet told me. Whew. And then she went back into her house and I drove the table back home.”
So, that is my friend Cynthia. The table is still in her studio.
The Sleepless Night of the Litigant
ISTVAKSON SENT LILY Svetgartot to give me a gift, a framed print of The Sleepless Night of the Litigant. I had never heard of this engraving. “I understand you have your new telephone number, now unlisted,” she said.
“That’s right.”
She was wearing jeans and that thick sweater again. She also wore a stylish black raincoat. It had started to rain.
“Hmmm, okay, Mr. Lattimore. Well, Mr. Istvakson has sent me, delivery lady, with this picture. Will you accept it?”
“I’m not going to watch the movie being made. No bribes. And contractually I got out of having to contribute any dialogue, so—”
“Mr. Istvakson wrote something for me to read to you. May I?”
“Go ahead.”
“On the porch here?”
“Yes, I’m busy.”
“I smell some cooking.”
“I’m busy with cooking. That’s what I’m busy with.”
“It’s a two-hour drive from Halifax. A truck almost killed me. My car slid in the rain.”
“Read what you have to read.”
“All right.” She took out a piece of paper from her raincoat pocket and read from it:
“‘Hello, Sam Lattimore, my author. My brilliant writer and, I hope someday, friend Sam Lattimore. Our start with the movie is going very well. We have often had miracle weather and the actors are doing brilliant work. They all would like to meet you. So, please, come meet. My assistant Lily Svetgartot delivers something I want you to keep as a gift, based on my admiration. It is called The Sleepless Night of the Litigant. It is an engraving from 1597. I had this facsimile sent from Amsterdam, an art dealer I befriended there. I had it framed in Halifax last week. The artist is named Hendrik Goltzius. It is an engraving from a series called The Abuses of the Law. I was once thinking of having a screenplay written based on this engraving and may someday. Look at the engraving! A man so guilty of something he cannot sleep, and demons visit him. I admit it is a familiar situation to me personally. I have a notebook full of ideas. If I do make that as a movie, maybe you would consider writing the novel based on the screenplay. They do that kind of thing in America and they are often successful books, I’m told. Look at this engraving closely, please, Sam Lattimore. Lily Svetgartot will unwrap the paper and kindly please closely look at it.’”