Someone Like You Read online

  ‘Where is my little Kalmuck?’

  ‘He is gone,’ she had answered. ‘I do not know where, but I heard it said that a dealer had taken him up and sent him away to Céret to make more paintings.’

  ‘Perhaps he will return.’

  ‘Perhaps he will. Who knows?’

  That was the last time they had mentioned him. Shortly afterwards they had moved to Le Havre where there were more sailors and business was better. The old man smiled as he remembered Le Havre. Those were the pleasant years, the years between the wars, with the small shop near the docks and the comfortable rooms and always enough work, with every day three, four, five sailors coming and wanting pictures on their arms. Those were truly the pleasant years.

  Then had come the second war, and Josie being killed, and the Germans arriving, and that was the finish of his business. No one had wanted pictures on their arms any more after that. And by that time he was too old for any other kind of work. In desperation he had made his way back to Paris, hoping vaguely that things would be easier in the big city. But they were not.

  And now, after the war was over, he possessed neither the means nor the energy to start up his small business again. It wasn’t very easy for an old man to know what to do, especially when one did not like to beg. Yet how else could he keep alive?

  Well, he thought, still staring at the picture. So that is my little Kalmuck. And how quickly the sight of one small object such as this can stir the memory. Up to a few moments ago he had even forgotten that he had a tattoo on his back. It had been ages since he had thought about it. He put his face closer to the window and looked into the gallery. On the walls he could see many other pictures and all seemed to be the work of the same artist. There were a great number of people strolling around. Obviously it was a special exhibition.

  On a sudden impulse, Drioli turned, pushed open the door of the gallery and went in.

  It was a long room with a thick wine-coloured carpet, and by God how beautiful and warm it was! There were all these people strolling about looking at the pictures, well-washed dignified people, each of whom held a catalogue in the hand. Drioli stood just inside the door, nervously glancing around, wondering whether he dared go forward and mingle with this crowd. But before he had had time to gather his courage, he heard a voice beside him saying, ‘What is it you want?’

  The speaker wore a black morning coat. He was plump and short and had a very white face. It was a flabby face with so much flesh upon it that the cheeks hung down on either side of the mouth in two fleshy collops, spanielwise. He came up close to Drioli and said again, ‘What is it you want?’

  Drioli stood still.

  ‘If you please,’ the man was saying, ‘take yourself out of my gallery.’

  ‘Am I not permitted to look at the pictures?’

  ‘I have asked you to leave.’

  Drioli stood his ground. He felt suddenly, overwhelmingly outraged.

  ‘Let us not have trouble,’ the man was saying. ‘Come on now, this way.’ He put a fat white paw on Drioli’s arm and began to push him firmly to the door.

  That did it. ‘Take your goddam hands off me!’ Drioli shouted. His voice rang clear down the long gallery and all the heads jerked around as one – all the startled faces stared down the length of the room at the person who had made this noise. A flunkey came running over to help, and the two men tried to hustle Drioli through the door. The people stood still, watching the struggle. Their faces expressed only a mild interest, and seemed to be saying, ‘It’s all right. There’s no danger to us. It’s being taken care of.’

  ‘I, too!’ Drioli was shouting. ‘I, too, have a picture by this painter! He was my friend and I have a picture which he gave me!’

  ‘He’s mad.’

  ‘A lunatic. A raving lunatic’

  ‘Someone should call the police.’

  With a rapid twist of the body Drioli suddenly jumped clear of the two men, and before anyone could stop him he was running down the gallery shouting, ‘I’ll show you! I’ll show you! I’ll show you!’ He flung off his overcoat, then his jacket and shirt, and he turned so that his naked back was towards the people.

  ‘There!’ he cried, breathing quickly. ‘You see? There it is!’

  There was a sudden absolute silence in the room, each person arrested in what he was doing, standing motionless in a kind of shocked, uneasy bewilderment. They were staring at the tattooed picture. It was still there, the colours as bright as ever, but the old man’s back was thinner now, the shoulder blades protruded more sharply, and the effect, though not great, was to give the picture a curiously wrinkled, squashed appearance.

  Somebody said, ‘My God, but it is!’

  Then came the excitement and the noise of voices as the people surged forward to crowd around the old man.

  ‘It is unmistakable!’

  ‘His early manner, yes?’

  ‘It is fantastic, fantastic!’

  ‘And look, it is signed!’

  ‘Bend your shoulders forward, my friend, so that the picture stretches out flat.’

  ‘Old one, when was this done?’

  ‘In 1913,’ Drioli said, without turning around. ‘In the autumn of 1913.’

  ‘Who taught Soutine to tattoo?’

  ‘I taught him.’

  ‘And the woman?’

  ‘She was my wife.’

  The gallery owner was pushing through the crowd towards Drioli. He was calm now, deadly serious, making a smile with his mouth. ‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I will buy it.’ Drioli could see the loose fat upon the face vibrating as he moved his jaw. ‘I said I will buy it, Monsieur.’

  ‘How can you buy it?’ Drioli asked softly.

  ‘I will give two hundred thousand francs for it.’ The dealer’s eyes were small and dark, the wings of his broad nose-base were beginning to quiver.

  ‘Don’t do it!’ someone murmured in the crowd. ‘It is worth twenty times as much.’

  Drioli opened his mouth to speak. No words came, so he shut it; then he opened it again and said slowly, ‘But how can I sell it?’ He lifted his hands, let them drop loosely to his sides. ‘Monsieur, how can I possibly sell it?’ All the sadness in the world was in his voice.

  ‘Yes!’ they were saying in the crowd. ‘How can he sell it? It is part of himself!’

  ‘Listen,’ the dealer said, coming up close. ‘I will help you. I will make you rich. Together we shall make some private arrangement over this picture, no?’

  Drioli watched him with slow, apprehensive eyes. ‘But how can you buy it, Monsieur? What will you do with it when you have bought it? Where will you keep it? Where will you keep it tonight? And where tomorrow?’

  ‘Ah, where will I keep it? Yes, where will I keep it? Now, where will I keep it? Well, now…’ The dealer stroked the bridge of his nose with a fat white finger. ‘It would seem,’ he said, ‘that if I take the picture, I take you also. That is a disadvantage.’ He paused and stroked his nose again. ‘The picture itself is of no value until you are dead. How old are you, my friend?’

  ‘Sixty-one.’

  ‘But you are perhaps not very robust, no?’ The dealer lowered the hand from his nose and looked Drioli up and down, slowly, like a farmer appraising an old horse.

  ‘I do not like this,’ Drioli said, edging away. ‘Quite honestly, Monsieur, I do not like it.’ He edged straight into the arms of a tall man who put out his hands and caught him gently by the shoulders. Drioli glanced around and apologized. The man smiled down at him, patting one of the old fellow’s naked shoulders reassuringly with a hand encased in a canary-coloured glove.

  ‘Listen, my friend,’ the stranger said, still smiling. ‘Do you like to swim and to bask yourself in the sun?’

  Drioli looked up at him, rather startled.

  ‘Do you like fine food and red wine from the great chateaux of Bordeaux?’ The man was still smiling, showing strong white teeth with a flash of gold among them. He spoke in a soft coaxing manner, one glove