The Burnt Orange Heresy

Berenice shut the door, and leaned against it. She supported herself with her hands flat against the door panels. "Just now ... on TV," she said, not looking at me, but with her rounded blue eyes staring at the canvas, "... on the ten thirty news, the newscaster said that Debierue's house had burned down."

"Anything else?"

She nodded. "Pending an investigation-something like that-Mr. Debierue will be the house guest of the famous criminal lawyer Joseph Cassidy in Palm Beach."

I swallowed, and nodded my head. I am a highly verbal individual, but for once in my life I was at a loss for words. One lie after another struggled for expression in my mind, but each lie, in turn, was rejected before it could be voiced.

"Is that Debierue's painting?" Berenice said, as she crossed the room toward my chair.

"Yes. I needed to look at it again, you see, to check it against the description in my article. It was slightly damaged-Debierue's signature-so I thought I'd touch it up some."

Berenice pressed her forefinger to the exact center of the painting. She examined the wet, bemerded smear on her fingertip.

"Oh, James," she said unhappily, "you painted this awful picture . . . !"

Looking back (and faced with the same set of circumstances), I don't know that I would have handled the problem any differently-except for some minor changes from the way that I did solve it. Ignorant women have destroyed the careers, the ambitions, and the secret plans of a good many honorable men throughout history.

It would have been easy enough to blame myself for allowing Berenice to discover the painting. If I had locked the door, instead of being concerned with my physical discomfort in the hotel room, I could have hidden the painting from her before allowing her into the room. This one little slip on my part destroyed everything, if one wants to look at it that way. But the problem was greater than this-not a matter of just one little slip. There was an entire string of unfortunate coincidences, going back to the unwitting moment I had allowed Berenice to move in on me, and continuing through my foolhardy decision to allow her to accompany me to Debierue's house.

And now, of course, caught red handed-or burnt orange handed-Berenice was in possession of a lifelong hold over me if I carried my deception through-with the publication of the article, with the sending of the painting to Joseph Cassidy, to say nothing of the future, my future, and the subsequent furor that the publication of an article on Debierue would arouse in the art world.

Berenice loved me, or so she had declared again and again, and if I had married her, perhaps she would have kept her mouth shut, carrying her secret knowledge, and mine, to her grave. I don't know. I doubted it then, and I doubt it now. Love, according to my experience, is a fragile transitory emotion. Not only does love fall a good many years short of lasting forever, a long stretch for love to last is a few months, or even a few weeks. If I think about my friends and acquaintances in New York-and don't consider casual acquaintances I have known elsewhere, in Palm Beach, for example-I can't think of a single friend, male or female, who hasn't been divorced at least once. And most of them, more than once. The milieu I live in is that way. The art world is not only egocentric, it is egoeccentric. The environment is not conducive to lasting friendships, let alone lasting marriages. And that was my world . . .

My remaining choice, which was too stupid even to consider seriously, was a bitter one. I could have destroyed The Burnt Orange Heresy (such was the title I assigned to the painting), and torn up the article I had written, which would mean that the greatest opportunity I had ever had to make a name for myself as an art critic would be lost.

These thoughts were jumbled together in my mind as I confronted Berenice, but not in any particular order. Emotionally, I was only mildly annoyed at the time, knowing I had a major problem to solve, but bereft, at least for the moment, of any solution.

"You may believe that this is an 'awful' picture," I said coldly to Berenice, "and it's your privilege to think so if, and the key word is if, if you can substantiate your opinion with valid reasons as to why it's an 'awful' picture. Otherwise, you're not entitled to any value judgments concerning Debierue's work."

"I-I just can't believe it!" Berenice said, shaking her head. "You're not going to try to pass this off as a painting by Debierue, are you?"

"It is a painting by Debierue. Didn't I just tell you that I was touching it up a little because it was damaged slightly in transit?"

"I'm not blind, James." She made a helpless, fluttering gesture with her hands, her big eyes taking in the evidence of the art materials and the painting itself. "How do you expect to get away with something so raw?' Don't you know that Mr. Cassidy will show this painting to Debierue, and that-"