He encouraged her work and he sold her paintings. Why would she kill him?
There had been no suspects, although clients and customers had been questioned. No one seemed to bear a grudge against Peter, and they could connect no one with the poison. The bottle of Campari apparently was not a gift, but there was no way to be sure. Peter was in the habit of buying Campari for himself. It was his favourite.
Finally after four months, during which she could not paint, could not even think, Maris decided to go back to Canada to see if a change of scene would snap her out of the funk she was in. She knew she had been fond of Peter, but his death was more than the loss of a friend. She had lost her way, her bearings. Her focus was gone, and her eyes no longer saw things that spoke to the painter in her. She saw neither beauty nor ugliness. She saw only drabness and mechanics. She saw people walking with their heads down just to get somewhere, unsmiling and faceless; traffic rolling through the streets of Singapore in the same way every day; grass growing and being trimmed; and flowers being planted and opening and dying on schedule.
I’m looking at the world through a Plexiglas shield, she thought. Like watching planes take off from an airport lounge without the sound, the smell, or the vibration of the powerful engines: an endless loop of cogs meeting wheels, engaging the gears of nature, society, life, in a stupefying rhythm. She found herself sleeping more than usual, taking naps in the afternoon, and sleeping a dreamless sleep.
“You’re depressed,” said Dinah. “Maybe you should talk to someone.”
“Take Prozac,” said Angela. “Everybody does.” They were in the storeroom behind the gallery, unpacking a shipment that had arrived from Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.
“I’m not taking Prozac,” Maris said, “and I’m not depressed. I’m just sad and tired. And aimless.”
“That’s depression,” said Angela. “We’re all sad and tired. But you don’t see me or Dinah sleeping in the afternoon. We have too much to do. We’re running the gallery without Peter and it’s hard work. You need something to do. You need to work.”
“Maris is an artist,” said Dinah. “You can’t just tell an artist to work and expect them to put their nose to the grindstone. Honestly, Angela, you’re in the art business. You should know that.”
“Yes,” said Angela, “I’m in the art business. And that’s what it is: a business. If artists don’t make art, they starve. They have to eat. Just like everybody else.”
Dinah rolled her eyes. “This conversation is clearly over,” she murmured to Maris as Angela left the room, muttering about some people never putting things back where they belong.
“That was a conversation?” said Maris. “I thought it was a sermon. From the high priestess of the Church of Business.”
“As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said them,” said Dinah. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said Maris. “Maybe I needed to hear it. I have to do something to stop this inertia. I’m not going to take Prozac, that’s for sure, but I have to make a change.” Dinah handed her a penknife and pointed to some boxes that needed opening. “Angela’s right in a way,” Maris continued. “Art is my work and without it I’ll starve. And not just from the lack of money. It sounds corny, but I’ve lost something, some part of my soul. Peter sort of re-invented me as an artist. He made me believe in myself. Before, I had only seen myself as a painter, someone who put colours and shapes on canvas. Peter made me think about art. I mean really think about it as a medium for ideas. He believed I had something to say.” She slid the knife across the tape sealing one of the boxes. “And now I’ll have to learn to live without that — whatever he gave me — and find it somewhere else. But what are the chances of finding another mentor like Peter?” She sighed, lifting the flaps on the box. “I guess I’ll have to create my own internal ego-booster. Can people do that?” She smiled at Dinah, but just thinking about it made her tired.
“I think they can if they want to,” said Dinah. “You can’t go on waiting for someone or something to come along and do it for you. In my experience that doesn’t happen.” She started unpacking the opened box, stuffing Styrofoam popcorn into a plastic garbage bag. “But it’s easy for me to say,” she continued. “I’m not an artist. I don’t have to be inspired to work. I’m just the hired help. ‘No tickee, no washee,’ as my ancestors used to say.”
They looked at each other and they both started to laugh. “I have no idea where that came from,” said Dinah, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “What a stupid thing to say.”
“Yes, but it was funny,” said Maris. “It’s probably because Angela makes you feel like a coolie. She makes you run around and do grunt work all the time. I’m sure if he could have, Peter would have left his half of the business to you. I don’t see why a half-sister should have fewer rights than an ex-wife.”
“I know, but they had an ironclad agreement that if anything happened to either one of them, the other would own the business outright. Though I doubt that Peter envisioned anything like this happening. Still,” she said, looking into the box, “I’d rather be working for Angela than not working at the gallery at all. It’s what I love.”
Maris sighed. “You know, art isn’t just about inspiration. It’s also about putting pencil to paper and brush to canvas. Even if the result is bad or mediocre, it keeps the juices flowing. It’s like practicing the scales if you’re a musician. You have to be doing whatever it is that you do. And I haven’t been doing anything, not even looking at other people’s art or doodling, for months. I think I have to do something drastic before it’s too late.”
Dinah looked alarmed. “How drastic?” she asked.
Maris laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to jump off a bridge. I’ve been thinking about going back to Canada for a while. Maybe a change of scene will help. I could stay with my mother. She has a house north of Vancouver where she makes pottery. Pretty good pottery, actually. She’s been doing it for years.”
“Maybe you could send me some,” said Dinah. “I could put it in the gallery and sell it. Authentic Canadian handicrafts.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Why not?”
Just then, Angela came back in the room, a large pair of scissors in her right hand. “Haven’t you finished opening these boxes yet? Do I have to do everything?”
Dinah looked at Maris. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll deal with her.” She lifted an ebony carving of a woman’s face out of the box. An expression of beatific tranquillity on the face suggested she had seen Shangri-La. “Isn’t it exquisite?” she said.
After the funeral, Maris and Dinah had sorted through Peter’s stuff and decided what to do with it. Angela had flown back to Germany almost immediately to attend to the business that had been interrupted by Peter’s death. She told them not to get rid of anything without consulting her first.
In his will, Peter had left instructions for certain things to be given away, and they attended to them first. To Maris he had left an old leather trunk that at first glance appeared to hold nothing more than some old books and paintings — probably from his childhood and not the kind of thing he chose to display in his elegant apartment. Peter was not sentimental, but he wouldn’t have kept the old trunk if its contents hadn’t been important to him.
To Dinah he had left his precious
