A Nearly Perfect Copy

Part Two

Summer 2007


Elm


Elm felt such a surge of relief as the wheels lifted off the ground that she sighed more heavily than she meant to and felt her seatmate bristle in annoyance. She loved her family, but escaping from them, even for a couple of days, lifted a tremendous burden. She felt she was never doing enough. When she expressed to Colin, lost in his own anxious space, that she worried about her efforts as a wife and mother, he looked at her as though she were speaking a language he didn’t understand.

“That is so New York, to worry about these things,” he said. “You’re a terrific wife and a fantastic mother and a terrible cook. All my girlfriends say so.” He nuzzled her. “I don’t understand why you worry like this when there’s real stuff to worry about, like aliens and serial killers.” He was being nice, but he wasn’t saying the right words. What were those words? Some form of assurance that she didn’t let her son die, that everyone forgave her for letting her son die.

New York fell away, replaced by a blue that was either ocean or cloud cover. She was flying business class; she reclined and sipped at her not-terrible wine.

It had been a fight to get to go on this trip alone. Ian had wanted to come, even offering to pay his own way, claiming not to have been to Paris in ages. She had laughed like he made some ridiculous joke, but she would have been blind not to see the hurt in his eyes. Then Colin had suggested she take Moira with her. “She’s never been to France, Elm.” Elm wondered if he needed a break as much as she did. “I’ll be working too much,” she answered. “I’d have to find a sitter.”

Colette had, if unintentionally, helped Elm out. Needing to see Klinman’s stock was the perfect excuse to take a trip to Paris. Ordinarily, it was the dealer who came to the auction house, but Elm agreed with the man’s assessment that he didn’t want the works traveling unnecessarily; each minute they spent out of prime archival conditions was a year off their lives. It would be dangerous to ship them to New York. Easier to ship Elm to Paris. No one would ever have to know her real impetus.

But here she was finally, unencumbered. She made it uneventfully through customs, dragging her overnight bag with a few clothes and a couple of reference books. The taxi driver seemed surprised that she was staying on the Left Bank instead of the Champs-Élysées. Klinman too had been surprised, as had the mystery man at the clinic; apparently only backpackers tried to recapture the dirty glamour of the 1960s. She checked into her room; the hotel had no elevator so she climbed the two sets of carpeted stairs with a baggage porter in tow. She tipped him one euro, which he received silently so that she had no clue if she’d tipped him appropriately.

The small room was decorated in a faux Louis XIV style, lots of ormolu and brocade, but the window, when she pulled the curtain, looked out onto the back side of the Luxembourg Gardens. Across the patchy green she could see the busy Boulevard Saint-Michel.

She hadn’t visited Paris since Ronan died. But though he’d never been to Paris, the city reminded her of him; it was the site of Elm’s first solo trip after becoming a mother. He was a little over fourteen months, and she’d insisted that Colin put him on the phone every evening though he didn’t understand that the voice coming through the receiver was hers. “Yes, he misses you,” Colin said. “No, I haven’t fed him refined sugar. Wait—is Guinness refined sugar?”

Paris bustled beneath her, the snarl of traffic heading up the boulevard haphazardly like a group of beetles, the high-pitched claxons of hooting taxis. Here was a city where she knew no one, where no one knew she’d been Ronan’s mother. This feeling was simultaneously thrilling and devastating. She could be free. She was not under examination as a woman who had lost a child. The flipside of being where no one knew about Ronan was the feeling that all traces of him had been erased from the collective unconscious. She wanted to tell people on the street, “I had a son,” just so there would be some recognition of him. She tried to insert him into her memories of Paris: the smoky cabaret where the fat Frenchman stroked the older lady’s hair, some of which fell out in clumps between his thick fingers; the brushed-clean streets and the whir of the machines as they sprayed water into the gutters. Ronan would have delighted as the fountain went off in front of the Centre Pompidou, or at least, a young version would have. An older version would have enjoyed the Bateaux Mouches, or a tour of the sewers and catacombs. But all these fake memories were like a reel of movie pastiches. She would have to live without Ronan for the weekend, except for the DNA samples she’d brought: the hairbrush she’d kept from Thailand, and a baby tooth retrieved from a plastic box that Ronan had insisted they keep his teeth in once he realized that the Tooth Fairy didn’t exist.

She stood at the window in her room until night fell and it was a decent hour to venture out for dinner. She had with her Pedrocco’s book on Canaletto; with a decent Bordeaux she could try to make the evening pleasant. But even as she thought this she knew she was only going through the motions of a person visiting Paris. She was playing the role of “Elm” and simply waiting until she could shed her cover and visit the clinic. The knowledge simmered underneath her skin. She felt elated; the strange lack of jet lag was like a turbo boost of energy. She remembered a bistro not too far from the hotel. It had changed names, but the decor and the menu remained the same (did bistro menus ever change?), and they sat her at a table by the window so she could watch the people go by. The waiter patiently suffered through her nervous babbling in inferior French, her debate about whether to order steak tartare, and her eventual decision to have the roast chicken, because, she added, no one roasted chicken better than the French. The waiter took the menu and bowed slightly. Elm wondered if she’d said what she thought she’d said. She often made mistakes in French that were hilarious and sexual—commenting on the length of dicks outside the opera, or talking about how her grandfather liked to hunt twats.

She read up on Canaletto by candlelight, having trouble focusing after the carafe of wine. Whenever she caught herself thinking about the clinic, she corralled herself. She was afraid that if she let her guard down everyone in Paris would see the nakedness of her desire. She ordered a decaf coffee and a tarte tatin for dessert. Then, like someone had flipped a power switch, her jet lag caught up with her. She paid the bill with a Visa card, which the waiter ran through a handheld machine tableside, printing out her receipt immediately. When he pulled her chair out as she stood up, she had the feeling that, like Ronan, she didn’t exist here, that she might disappear on the way to her hotel and it would be like she had never been here at all. She checked that the hair and tooth were still where she left them in the room safe before donning her eyeshade and falling asleep.



Augustus Klinman was not the man she supposed he’d be. She was expecting a typical Englishman—thinning hair, scarecrow body stuffed into an ill-fitting, obviously expensive suit. Instead, when the man approached her in the lobby of the George V hotel and extended his hand, she was faced with a hairy-knuckled, hirsute, overweight, well-tailored surprise, though she had the expensive suit right. He shook her hand like an American, forcefully.

“Ms. Howells,” he said.

“Mr. Klinman.” She allowed her arm to be pumped.

“I’m very pleased to meet you,” he said. “Won’t you come upstairs?”

The elevator attendant looked at his gloved hands discreetly. Oddly, Colette had not asked to accompany her to see the drawings. That saved Elm the trouble of explaining that she wanted to see them on her own, that is, without Colette. The less she saw Colette the better.

Klinman had taken a suite on one of the upper floors. It was decorated in what Elm recognized as an attempt at Empire-style homage to Josephine and Napoleon. Heavy velvet curtains were tied back to offer a view of the Eiffel Tower, or part of it; the city was covered in its typical fog. Some of the objets decorating the room, while not fantastic examples, were period-correct, Elm knew. On the coffee table near the sofa, a small, covered urn sat uselessly, throwing shadows from the lamp on the glass. Bronze winged figures perched on marble-plated pedestals, and cherubic babies frolicked on painted canvases.

Klinman offered her a drink. Though it was only noon, Elm accepted a glass of wine. She was nervous and had the paranoid thought that she was being drawn into some sort of trap. She had even left a note in her hotel room saying where she was going. Having Klinman appear opposite her expectations didn’t help. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. The sofa was too deep; she couldn’t get comfortable.

“So,” he said. “I appreciate that you came all the way to Paris to meet with me.”

“My pleasure,” she said. “I had other business, and Colette had such good things to say about you.”

“I am sorry that I could not receive you in my office, but it’s undergoing renovations. And the French take their time with these things.”

Elm smiled politely.

“I am originally German, Ms. Howells. My family is Jewish; we narrowly missed Auschwitz.”

“I’m sorry,” Elm said. The wine was too sweet, but she had another sip. Why was he telling her this?

“That is why I am able to do what I do. There are individuals in England and in Germany who will still only do business with those whom they trust.”

“I don’t blame them,” Elm said. “There are a lot of unscrupulous people out there.” She smiled, but Klinman remained deadly serious.

“People have wondered, sometimes. Out of jealousy? Innate suspicion? I don’t know. But I can tell you that these drawings are new to the market.”

Elm’s eyebrows rose in surprise. New to the market? Most deceased artists’ catalogues raisonnés were long complete. It was rare that another drawing would be added to the oeuvre. Several at once would be strange.

“May I take a look?” she asked.

He nodded and took back the wineglass, placing it on the bar. He handed her a pair of gloves, donned a pair himself, and zipped open a case Elm had not noticed behind the chair. She got up and hurriedly drew the gauze undercurtains so the light would not damage the drawings.

She approached the table, the whirr of excitement building. She loved this part of the job, the sense of discovery that accompanied looking at truly fine art. And she wouldn’t lie: she loved the power. She determined what was authentic or fake, important or disposable, decorative or museum-worthy.

He laid the first drawing on the table. A typical Canaletto veduta, it showed a palazzo in architectural detail, with some extra flourishes that were clearly added by the artist, who often moved or added obstacles to suit his compositions. She noticed the gently swaying shadows and how the woman who was standing in front of the palazzo holding a basket mimicked that curve. The clouds were in a light wash, slightly sepia-toned, either from age or from original intent. She held it up gingerly. The watermark was appropriate. She couldn’t remember the firm off the top of her head, but she was sure she’d seen it before. The paper was handmade, the grains haphazard and the remnants of the pulp visible. Occasional wormholes dotted the page, with some mold spots. Period paper, then.

Her heart began to beat quicker. She could hear her own breathing. Maybe she was excited to be holding such an important piece of work. But that couldn’t be it. She had held much more important works, works that held significance for her personally, without such an extreme reaction. Maybe she was anxious about tomorrow.

She studied the lines. The drawing had Canaletto’s sure hand, his talent for perspective that wasn’t exactly as nature (or man) built monuments, but made sense to the naked eye. She took Klinman’s proffered loupe and looked more closely at the wormholes. The ink hadn’t bled into them, meaning that the holes were made after the drawing was complete, not before. Otherwise excellent fakes often had this telltale sign; the forger had drawn over the old paper, but the ink had betrayed him.

Mentally, she classified where in Canaletto’s oeuvre this work might fall. She recognized the street in Rome from her stay there in graduate school. It was not exactly as she remembered it, but that was possibly a fault of her memory, or of Canaletto’s. Sure enough, faintly underneath the ink lines she saw the barest remnants of chalk and red pencil where he had sketched the outlines before returning to his studio.

Elm considered, watching the curtains sway with the forced air blown out beneath them. It could be from one of Canaletto’s atelier. By the end of his life, he had quite a production line going. But the scene was from a veduta earlier in his life, when he was still sketching primarily on commission. And it wasn’t a pastiche. Too often, imitators of a master (whether forgers or hobbyists) amalgamated all of a master’s styles into one piece, the visual equivalent of overembellishing a lie. This piece had remarkable restraint. It had to be a Canaletto. And yet …

She put the picture down, willing her face not to betray any emotion. She felt the barest pinch of a headache, the constriction of her lungs. Her head told her that this was an authentic work. She had been trained by both the academy and personal experience to be an expert. She needed four hands to list the reasons this was definitely a Canaletto original and didn’t have a single reason to doubt herself except that her body seemed to be signaling her to trust instinct over reason.

“Hmmm,” she said, noncommittally. “The others?”

“Another Canaletto,” he said. It was from the same papermaker, which made sense. It showed a bit of water, a rare Canaletto subject, a gondola in the distant background, rowed by just the suggestion of a gondolier.

He stood by her, a respectful distance, his hands clasped in front of him, rocking on his toes. He looked at the ground so as not to make her nervous. He did everything a dealer was supposed to do.

When he showed her the Piranesi, the word no rose up in her like a belch. She managed to quell it before it escaped her lips. An odd reaction to what was by all accounts a beautiful drawing.

What, she asked herself, was that voice responding to? She realized it was responding to her assumption that this drawing was by Piranesi. Her reptilian brain was telling her that her first impression had been not quite right. It was this inner voice, this eye, that made Elm a superior attributer. Unfortunately, attribution was only half of a department head’s job. She forced herself to focus. The paper and materials were period-appropriate, no mass-produced postindustrial concoctions. The intricacy of the drawing suggested that it was a finished work, as opposed to a sketch for a copperplate engraving. However, the scene was one she recognized from View of the Arch of Constantine which meant it would most likely have been rendered as a practice for a definitive later work. But Piranesi was famous for etching straight onto the plate, drawing on his draftsman skills and prodigious memory for the details. It was not inconceivable that he would sketch out his plans for an etching beforehand, but all the extant studies attributed to Piranesi were crude outlines, lacking the inspiration and aestheticism of the finished product.

Similarly, its unity of style disturbed her. Piranesi’s theories on the development of human civilization and pastiche’s important role in that development, especially in the artistic realm, were well publicized. He liked to mash up various line strengths, tones, improvisations, and impressions. This drawing adhered to a rather rigorous Baroque temperament. She would have to examine it further against a previously authenticated Piranesi, or against a facsimile of View of the Arch of Constantine, but if she had to decide right now, she would say it belonged to one of Piranesi’s followers, his École, or an acolyte. This uncertainty would not stop her from placing the piece in the auction, but it would be reflected in how the drawing was listed in the catalog and in its final price. This should not be listed as Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

“And now for the Hiverains.”

She hovered over the first drawing, let a holistic impression fill her before focusing on any detail. It was a Connois, undoubtedly. A sketch, unsigned. Sketches came in four versions, Elm always thought. Important artist, important sketch, like, say, a study for a Rembrandt self-portrait; important artist, uninteresting sketch, like Tintoretto’s doodles, or ten incomplete versions of a hand by Rembrandt; fascinating sketches by arguably more minor artists, or artists in the atelier; and dogs’ heads by no one you’ve ever heard of. Interestingly, the first and third sold best at auction. No one wanted an anatomy lesson to hang on their living room wall, even if it was by Fra Lippo Lippi.

She picked up the paper carefully and held it up to the wan light. It had the right texture for nineteenth-century paper, pulpy and uneven, meaty. This first sketch impressed her. Connois was an artist’s artist, but this was beautiful, a work of art that stood among the best examples of Les Hiverains. It was a close study of a woman’s face. Elm examined the lines, following the artist’s hand in the process of laying the ink on the page. The lines were fluid, graceful. Even the thatching in the background was smooth and consistent. The woman’s face was complicated: one of her eyes was smaller; in the other one, a cataract was just beginning to form. Her nose had a broken bump, while her hair peeked out from her scarf. The lines radiating from the corners of her eyes betrayed a lifetime spent outdoors.

Perhaps it was the years of practice she’d had in searching out every face for the familiar features of Ronan. Perhaps she was simply well trained in her profession. She thought she recognized the woman in the drawing. It was the same woman who appeared in Indira’s Connois with the uneven eyes; most artists would correct a defect like that when drawing, either consciously or for aesthetics’ sake. But Connois had not. How strange, that this woman would appear suddenly in two previously unknown pieces of art. It was possibly simply a coincidence; Elm could think of explanations, but the fact that she had to make excuses for the art set off warning bells.

Attempting to maintain her poker face, she looked at the other two drawings. Now she was certain; they were too perfect. The watermarks were all different, which would be surprising considering that artists usually found a paper they liked and stuck with it. Also, they were all “typical” Connois scenes, the dry landscapes, the marketplaces, the wild dogs and peasants. Too typical. Connois drew these every day. It was hard to imagine that he would need to sketch them out in such detail at this point in his career. Composition, yes; new elements, yes; but a barking dog would have been second nature.

The artist, whoever he or she was, must have seen Indira’s Mercat when the auction was announced. The image appeared widely in all the art blogs. He must have taken that as inspiration. By the time she came to the little girl with a dog she’d seen in PDF form, her suspicions were impossible to dismiss. These were most likely forgeries. The question was, did Klinman know, or was he being duped? Did he draw these himself, or was there a separate artist in on the scam?

She tried to maintain her composure. “What are the provenances like?” she asked.

“These were in the families of German Jews with trading and import concerns,” he said. “Never sold. They were stolen during the war. The descendants finally got them back when the court case was settled in England last year. Now there are too many descendants to split them up, so they are taking them to market.”

Elm turned the first drawing over. There was no mark indicating it had ever been sold at auction, but there was a faint pencil inscription, “Exhibit C,” in the lower-right-hand corner.

“I could verify this?”

“Of course, Madame,” he said. “They were among items recovered from a cave outside Berlin. The suit was brought by many families. I don’t believe the results were made public. The German government likes to keep these things quiet—they make a big fanfare about reparations, but they don’t disclose the details.”

“A cave?” Elm asked.

“Archivally controlled of course. The Nazis were barbaric only when it came to humans. With art they were as careful as surgeons. And, of course, there was jewelry and objets too. The Jewish community was not poor. I myself had the opportunity to examine many of the items—I was a plaintiff in the case, though I probably shouldn’t disclose that. These are not my drawings, rest assured. In fact, none of the valuables recovered belonged to my family, as far as we could ascertain, but the take was really quite beautiful.”

Elm wasn’t sure exactly of the appropriate response. Should she apologize? Express sympathy? She asked to examine the paperwork, and he handed her a binder, each document in a plastic protective sheath. Sworn, notarized statements from German and Austrian Jews. Narratives of discovery: a hidden safe, the opening of a vault in Switzerland, the death of an old man posing as a Gentile. A blurry photograph of a Weimar Republic family around a dinner table in front of what may or may not have been the third sketch of women digging on the beach. Certificates of authenticity from the experts at Sotheby’s in London and the curator of drawings from the Louvre, a man Elm had met over the years. Maybe not sufficient for a museum acquisition, but enough for an auction, or a private sale.

Elm looked at Klinman. He met her gaze. She tried to imagine what he might look like if he were actively deceiving her, but he was inscrutable, open, inviting her questions and smiling around the eyes hopefully, a bit desperately, as if he needed her to take these drawings off his hands, a burden that he was tired of shouldering. He was an excellent actor. She was shocked by his audacity, and too afraid to call him on it in this strange, secluded hotel room.

“Your sellers are anonymous?”

“They do not have the means with which to insure these drawings at the moment. It’s best if their names are not available.”

That made sense. Many people didn’t want others to know what kind of treasures they were keeping in their modest two-bedroom flats. The art may be worth a fortune, but it doesn’t help pay rent or put food on the table until it goes to auction.

Elm should just accept them, she thought. No one else would suspect their origins; no one else had the eye. She should be thrilled. She should be exhilarated. The next auction would go well; Greer would be happy; she’d prove she deserved her position. But something felt wrong. Why was it, she wondered, that sensations were always felt in your torso? Occasionally knees knocked and palms sweated, but everything else felt like a punch to the stomach, a knife in the belly, a tug at the heart.

“Let me make a few phone calls,” she said. “I’ll let you know soon.” She would send him an e-mail in a day or two, thanking him politely but saying that she didn’t think they were right for the house at this time, and wishing him luck in his endeavors.

“Please do,” Klinman said. “Some of my clients are very old, and need medical help as well as closure, as you Americans say.”

The hallway was brightly lit in contrast with the darkened room, and Elm had to blink when she stepped out. Klinman shut the door behind her softly, barely allowing it to click.



The inside of the Mercedes was upholstered in white leather, which Elm found ostentatious until it melted around her body as she sat in it. The backseat contained a folder of information to thumb through while the uniformed driver twisted and curved his way out of Paris. He barely spoke to her, only asking if the temperature was all right, and if she wanted music or silence, which increased her nervousness. Then he told her to look at her feet for the cooler if she wanted water while en route. It would take them about forty-five minutes, he said. He did not ask her if it was her first time in Paris, or comment on how lucky she was with the weather.

She fidgeted. If she crossed her legs, she slid at each turn across the white leather, but her feet weren’t comfortable on the pristinely upholstered floor. She opened the folder. The literature was specific. It diagrammed how the clone would be produced (engendered was the word they used). There was a sheet of paper on what to expect for the mother with a list of medications to take, and an additional sheet for the father. Elm noticed that neither had any of the clinic’s contact information. She was abruptly terrified. She put one hand on top of the other to stop their shaking. When that didn’t work, she tucked both under her thighs until they were numb from lack of circulation.

She sat back and looked out the window to calm herself. She opened it a crack to get some air and the driver immediately turned the fan on so that cold air blew on her shins. They were in the suburbs now. The housing projects rose from the ground, broken windows like corn cobs missing kernels. Men sat on the benches in playgrounds, the old ones resting their hands on their canes, the younger ones performing calisthenics. The few women Elm saw were wearing dark robes and long veils that hid their faces. She knew the outskirts of Paris were mostly Muslim, but she didn’t expect to feel like she’d traveled to Yemen. She didn’t think that the buildings would look so much like Detroit. Or, rather, if she was honest, like Escape from New York.

And then, just as suddenly, the projects ended and a field began. The scenery turned rural—a few stone farmhouses, an old barn. Some were obviously second homes whose manicured English lawns and in-ground pools betrayed their owners’ wealth, while others were occupied by farmers. The small gardens were staked out back, tomato plants just beginning to climb. Occasionally, they passed through a small town, the houses built right up to the road, dating from before the invention of cars. Her driver sped through these towns, and Elm bobbed with the turns, attempting to avoid an open shutter or a leaning broom she was sure they were going to hit. As they drove by curtains ruffled, and Elm got a split-second glimpse into someone’s life—a woman washing a baby in a large sink, a teenager talking on a telephone, an old man napping in a reclining chair—before they were out of the small town and back in the fields.

Elm thought the driver was deliberately trying to disorient her so that she wouldn’t be able to find her way back to the clinic. He needn’t have bothered. Elm’s sense of direction was so poor she often relied on Moira to remember where they were going. Or they could have blindfolded her and gone directly, saved everyone some time.

They circled a roundabout and headed down a long dirt road that had recently been graded. When they got to a fence, seemingly in the middle of a field, the driver leaned out the window and swiped a card. The gate swung in. Only once they were inside did she see the guard station.

The clinic was smaller than she’d expected, and newer, though built to look like an old house. Two columns held up the front entryway and five pale stone steps led to an ornate door with decorative wrought iron. They drove counterclockwise around the circular driveway.

A man opened the door and held out a hand to help her out of the car. “Your voyage was fine, Madame?”

“Thanks,” Elm said. He closed the door behind her and the car drove away before Elm could thank the driver, say good-bye, or debate tipping him.

“This way, Madame,” the man said, gesturing with his hand up the stairs. When Elm reached the last step the large door opened.

While she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness within, she found herself questioning what she was doing there. Really, it was all very silly, a gothic novel. Now all that remained was for Count Dracula to approach her from behind and ask her if she wanted to stay for dinner.

Instead, a small man wearing khakis and a polo shirt appeared at her right. “Ms. Howells,” he said. “So nice to meet you. I am Michel. We spoke on the telephone?”

She recognized the voice from their brief conversation. His accent sounded less pronounced in person, and he had a warm smile. His face was angular, his body compact.

“You would like to freshen up, after the journey? You are not experiencing vertigo?”

Elm shook her head. “I don’t get carsick, luckily,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind freshening up though, thank you.”

He pointed to a door along the hallway and Elm went in and closed it behind her. A powder room, wallpapered with violets, a pedestal sink, and a toilet paper stand. Elm sat down on the closed toilet lid and put her head in her hands. What was she doing here? She was embarrassed and frightened. She could no longer pretend she was here for a joke, or out of curiosity. She couldn’t even relate the story afterward, in a “look what stupid thing I did” way. Traveling across an ocean on a lark wasn’t funny. It was obsessive, pathetic. Crazy.

Her heart was pounding; French espresso was much stronger than coffee at home, and she felt a knot of anxiety. She went to the bathroom, then washed her hands and face in the sink. The soap was lavender, a scent her mother used. She’d washed all her makeup off, she realized, so she applied some lipstick, which just drew attention to her unshadowed eyes and unblushed cheeks.

Outside, she found Michel conversing softly with another man. He looked up at her as she came out. “Mattieu will get you a beverage. Would you like a coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Elm said. “Just some water.”

“Why don’t we go to my office?” Michel said, using one arm around her back to herd her down the hallway. Their steps echoed on the marble. On the walls, Elm noticed a sort of fabric wallpaper that reminded her of the tapestries she’d seen hanging in castles in the Loire. The gothic novel, the castle in France, James Bond films: her mind was trying to make sense of this place, to render the unfamiliar recognizable.

The office was sparsely furnished, a large desk polished to mirror-like shininess and a large Aeron chair. In front there was a seating area with two suede chairs and a small table between them. Michel gestured to one and sat in the other.

“So,” Michel said.

Elm smiled. Out the window she could see the round driveway she’d just come from. She looked at the windows—unbarred. Other than these two men, she’d seen no signs of life. She had expected … She didn’t know. Pregnant women walking around, two-headed goats, identical Labradors. Not silence.

“Are you all right?” Michel asked.

Elm tried to reassure him, but then a lump in her throat rose faster than the words, and suddenly she was crying.

Michel reached over and handed her a box of tissues. Then he took her hand in his. Elm had not held hands with anyone besides Moira in years. Colin didn’t like public displays of affection, and said it was difficult to walk attached to someone. Elm didn’t really like them either. They seemed boastful. And yet, here was this stranger, holding her hand while she cried for no reason. Or, rather, for the same reason she always cried.

Michel said nothing. His hand was cool; it didn’t squeeze. “I’m sorry,” Elm said. She wanted to pull her hand away, but she didn’t know how to do it without being rude.

“There is nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “People come here and they tell me that they feel silly, or desperate or embarrassed. They’re worried that we are taking advantage of their grief. I assure you, that is not the case. You should not feel embarrassed, any more than you would feel looking for a medical answer to a medical condition. And do not be afraid to hope. There is a very good chance we can return your son to you. But if we can’t, you have tried everything in your power, exhausted every option, you see?”

Elm nodded, taking back her hand. She wiped her eyes. The tissue came back with deep black smudges from what was left of her mascara. She crumpled it into a ball and held it in her free fist.

“I wasn’t expecting … this,” she said. “I thought it would be a hospital, or a sanatorium or something. I didn’t expect a mansion.”

“We house the laboratory in an addition in back,” he said. “And the in vitro is routine—it can be done at the office of any doctor. And then you have a normal pregnancy.”

“I just thought it would be sort of like a farm, with animals? My friend … her dog—”

“We have another site for nonhuman subjects,” Michel said, with such an earnestness that Elm smiled. “Maybe you’d like to tour the facilities?”

They stood and walked into the hallway. At the end, a sharp corner revealed glass doors secured with a fingerprinting panel. Michel put his second finger on the pad and said his name in a loud voice. The doors swung inward, revealing a small lab about the size of a high school science room and decorated somewhat similarly, with petri dishes and microscopes. Inside, two people were standing in front of what looked like a microwave oven, watching something inside whir and whistle. They smiled at Elm and said nothing. Michel led her to another door, which revealed an examining room with a table and stirrups. Behind a wall was a small operating theater, tidy and silent.

“And that is all,” Michel said. “You’ll never see any other guests here. And if you decide to go ahead, we will meet only once more.”

They walked back into Michel’s office. The space between the blinds projected a rectangular patch of light on the floor.

“You have questions?” Michel asked. He walked around the desk to sit down, motioning that Elm do the same in one of the two brown leather club chairs that faced it.

“I was wondering about … compensation.”

“Our fee structure is outlined here.” Michel handed her a sheet. “The total fee is $250,000. We ask that you make a down payment of forty percent. Another forty percent is due when we successfully replicate the DNA, and the third payment of $50,000 is due upon implantation. All of these deposits are nonrefundable. We can make no guarantees about the outcome of each of the parts of the proceedings. If a certain part of the process is unsuccessful and you would like to try again, and we consider it within our medical power to rectify the problem, then an additional $25,000 is required to retry that step. Is that clear?”

Elm took a deep breath. Where would she get that kind of money? “I’m not sure …”

“Say you decided to go ahead. You give me $100,000 as soon as possible, and the DNA sample. My lab retrieves the DNA and grows several cells to retrieve the DNA nucleus. You, meanwhile, take an estrogen receptor modulator to prepare yourself for egg retrieval. This is easy to order from Mexico or Canada. You will come to see us in about two months, at which point you will pay an additional $100,000 and we will retrieve your eggs. Wait, I remember in your file that you have poor ovarian reserve. Very well, we get a donor egg. That will add an additional $20,000 to the price, and increases the chance the egg won’t implant, but only very slightly. Then you pay the remaining $50,000 and we implant the egg. Voilà.”

“What kinds of things can go wrong?” Elm asked.

Michel blew air out of his cheeks in a way that reminded Elm of Colette, making a poof sound to indicate that many problems might occur. “Well,” he said. “It has happened that the artifacts fail to produce a valid sample that we can extract DNA from. Sometimes, for reasons unknown, the cells fail to reproduce when implanted into an egg. Then there are the risks associated with IVF—that the egg won’t implant, that the woman will have an ectopic pregnancy. And there are the associated risks of pregnancy—risk of genetic mutation, risk of cells that divide unevenly. There’s also the possibility, though we’ve never seen it, of identical twins.”

He sat back and crossed his legs. “I should tell you too that there is a higher instance of miscarriage among cloned fetuses. We’re not sure why. And a higher risk of genetic malformations. Of course, you can choose to terminate any fetus that shows these signs. However, what you might have heard about the genes being improperly expressed is nonsense. We simply changed the medium for growth and the cells mature normally.”

Elm shook her head. “What kind of elevated risk of genetic malformations?”

“We estimate it to be twice as high as a regular pregnancy, which is still fairly low. There is only the normal risk of pregnancy to the woman.”

Elm shifted. “What about, I’ve read, I mean, that there are diseases that …”

“The risks I outlined are the only ones we have seen. Will your husband be participating?”

“I haven’t talked to him about it,” Elm admitted.

“We each grieve differently,” Michel said. “I do not pretend to get involved in marriage negotiations, but we will need to discuss what you will want to do.”

“How come you can do this and no one else can?” Elm asked.

“You think no one else can clone?” he said. “That we are somehow light-years ahead of other governments and private institutions? No.” He shook his head. “The technology is there. They are afraid.”

There was a small silence while Elm stifled her desire to question the man’s bravery. She was reminded of Colin’s joke: “The pharmaceutical companies cured the common cold years ago but haven’t released the cure to the public because it will cut down on cold remedy profits.” There was something about the doctor’s attitude that irked her; his self-righteousness. She supposed, though, that you would have to believe deeply in the rightness of your cause to ignore its ethical and legal implications.

“What about the law?” she asked.

Michel shrugged. “They know about us; they have to. But who would bring charges, and for what? Every government agency claims this is the jurisdiction of another. In any event, you would mostly likely be unimpeachable—you are living in a different country. And how would they prove that it was a clone? I wouldn’t worry. That said, it would of course be in your best interest to keep the information a secret.…” He slowed his voice down so that Elm understood it was a veiled threat, and she was back in the gothic novel from earlier. Her hesitation must have shown on her face, because Michel drew in a deep breath to continue.

“Yes, it’s against the law, but so are many other things we do daily that we don’t consider crimes: walking against the streetlight, for example, or not reporting the money we pay the babysitter on our income taxes. These are crimes without victims. The legal prohibition against cloning hinges on the fear of its abuse. Because the potential for abuse is there, people have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, pardon the expression. Consider this: Do you think it is a crime to want your child back? Who does it hurt when we succeed? I think you’ll come to the same conclusion I did.”

Elm thought. His argument made logical sense, but it was the logic of the criminal. Still, Elm imagined herself holding Ronan again, his blind eyes closed while his puckered mouth sought out her breast through her shirt. She would give anything, anything, to be able to watch him retrace his path, to outlive his eight-year-old self, to hit ten, then enter high school, to go to college, get married, have children of his own. As his mother, she owed him this chance. As his mother, she deserved it too.

“How does the payment work? How do I get the money to you?”

“You’re buying an oil portrait of the deceased,” Michel smiled. “On installment. And you will get the oil painting as well. I’m afraid it won’t be very good.”

“I might even get a tax write-off,” Elm said, attempting humor.

“So,” Michel stood up. “Do you need time to consider?”

“No,” Elm said, surprising herself. She felt a strong sense of relief at having made the decision she wanted to all along. She knew she would try. She had to. Why even pretend to hesitate?

Michel smiled widely. “I’m so glad,” he said. “From the pictures I saw online he is a fine, handsome boy. I’m glad we’ll be able to give you some comfort.”

“I brought you … what you need,” Elm said. She reached into her purse and took out the envelope with Ronan’s DNA samples. She had to force herself to hand them over, these pieces of her son. And it seemed impossible that this envelope would re-create Ronan, that this doctor had the gift of necromancy. And yet, she clung to the hope that he did.

“I don’t have the cash. I’ll need to … move some things around.”

Michel accepted the envelope. “I’ll get Pierre to drive you back. When you send in the first installment, we will let you know if the DNA extraction is successful. Then we can talk about the next step.”

As the driver wound back through the small towns of the rural countryside, Elm’s relief began to take on a more anxious edge. Where was she supposed to get the money? She could cash in her 401(k), but that would cover only the down payment. Even if she were somehow able to convince Colin that this was a good idea, they would be able to scrape together maybe fifty thousand dollars. They could sell the apartment, she guessed. She clenched and unclenched her fists until the car dropped her off back at the hotel.

There was one other way to get money, but it seemed so farfetched that Elm couldn’t even consider it. Or could she? Presumably, she could do it on the sly. And it wasn’t illegal, exactly. Not the most moral decision, but a victimless crime, like the cloning. And then the decision felt inevitable, a force moving with the laws of nature propelling it forward. It was desperate, yes, but she was desperate. Consideration to decision lasted a surprisingly short time. When she got back to the hotel, she didn’t even put her purse down before she took out the card and dialed the number Augustus Klinman had given her.

“I have a proposition,” she said.



Colin spent more than a minute unlocking the door. It was after ten p.m. Elm sat on the couch watching a Law and Order episode she’d already seen. She’d been back from Paris for two weeks, but had somehow never found the proper time, or adequate words, to tell him the details of her trip.

He stumbled a bit on the entry rug before he noticed Elm looking at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have rung. Were you worried?”

Elm could hear the descending chords in the background, signaling a change of scene. Was the jury back in? Was there a development at the precinct? She fought the urge to turn her attention back to the television.

“I’ve had the longest fecking day,” he said, throwing his jacket on the chair and kicking off his shoes. He came around to sit next to Elm, taking her feet in his lap. She hadn’t changed since coming home from work, and her feet were still stockinged. She wiggled her toes but he didn’t rub them.

He smelled faintly of alcohol and sweat; tired, stale sweat, like being in an airless meeting all day, which was probably what he had been doing before he went to a bar, either alone or with people from work. She didn’t care that he drank, only that it was an activity he embarked on without her. It was another distancing factor.

“What happened?” she asked. Guilty, the foreman said. The television defendant burst into tears, mouthing, Why? Why? at the startled jury. The credits began to scroll on the right of a split screen. The other half plugged the nightly news.

“Can we talk about it in the morning?” he asked, turning to her. His face was so forlorn, so utterly exhausted, that it reminded her of the morning he had arrived in Bangkok, soulless and failed.

“Okay,” she said. Then a pause. “No, you have to tell me now.”

“It’s not bad,” he said. “Can we leave it, Elm? Need a kip. A little pissed, I am. I’ll look in on the beanbag?”

“Just let her sleep,” Elm said. “Tell her you looked in on her and she slept through it.”

In the early morning, Elm woke up to the sound of Colin peeing long into the toilet, and then the hinge of the medicine cabinet where he was probably taking something for a headache. Then she heard the whir of the electric toothbrush.

The bed began to grow cold. Elm stretched, and suddenly, she wanted Colin. “Come back to bed,” she called.

“In a minute,” he said. “I want to shower.”

This was marriage, then, she thought. Sublimated desire, delayed gratification. She had thought marriage would fulfill some of these needs, emotional as well as sexual, that having a permanent partner would end her loneliness, her frustration, her anxiety. But no, she often had to wait as long for release as when she was single, when she waited for her girlfriends to get off work so they could meet for a drink, spend the evening identifying then flirting with a stranger, making out with him outside the bar before giving him a fake number and slipping away in a taxi.

He came to her smelling of soap and shampoo, and a little like deodorant, a bouquet of artificial scents. She surprised herself by attacking him. Usually, their morning lovemaking was leisurely and half-asleep. He typically started it, and often she could catch a few more minutes of shut-eye afterward. Not so this morning. She bit his ears, held his arms down while she straddled him, then insisted on a position they didn’t normally use.

Afterward, she pulled the sheet around her. It was still early. Moira wouldn’t stir for another thirty minutes. She felt better—less frustrated, but still anxious.

“Now you’ll tell me,” she said.

“What?” he asked. He was dozing again, his eyes half-closed.

“What was bothering you yesterday.”

“Oh,” he said. “Al resigned.”

“What?” Elm was shocked. Al had been Colin’s boss for ten years. He had been at the company for nearly twenty.

“He just quit?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” Colin said, stretching. “He said he didn’t want to work under that admin.”

“That’s insane,” Elm said. She twisted around to face Colin. “What’s he going to do?”

Colin said, “F*ck if I know. His noncompete clause means he won’t be working in the pharmaceutical industry, at least.” Colin closed his eyes again, avoiding looking at her.

“Colin,” Elm said. “What does that mean for you?”

“I”—he paused—“no longer have an advocate. Which means that possibly I no longer have a job.”

“What?”

“Or, maybe they’ll promote me. I can’t really say at the moment.”

“How can you be so …” Elm searched for the right word. “Nonchalant? This is your future. You have a noncompete agreement too.”

“I’m not in a tizzy, Cabbage, because it’s not something I have any control over at the moment.”

“What do you mean? Don’t call me Cabbage. I hate vegetable endearments. We need to plan or something. Did Al really resign? For good? Irreparably?”

“Afraid so. Elm, we just have to wait. Don’t you think I’m bloody worried too?”

Elm’s secret chafed like an itch, like an inflammation of the conscience. This would be the time to tell Colin. She could pretend she was joking, see what his reaction would be. And then he would stop her, because, of course, someone needed to talk her out of this insanity. Because she was thinking about it as something she’d already done. Or rather, something that the person who was inside her body had done. She felt so removed from herself that her hands were things of wonder, her knees foreign.

She should tell him now. Now, she urged herself. But it would be so easy to pretend that she hadn’t purposely stopped taking the pill, that it had simply failed. And then they wouldn’t have to have that conversation, the one where he voiced all the nagging worries she was pushing down into her subconscious, the uncomfortable distance that arose whenever they talked about Ronan, like the topic was a furnace grate that blasted hot air when opened.

Colin was already out of bed and in his boxers. “I’ll get Moira up for school,” he said.



Relay Lacker operated her art-consulting business from a small office in Midtown, but suggested an upscale restaurant near Tinsley’s on the Upper East Side when Elm invited her to lunch.

Elm ordered the least stomach-turning thing on the menu, but even as her Cobb salad arrived she knew she wouldn’t be able to eat it. She pushed it around with her fork while they made small talk.

“So,” Elm said, hiding half of an egg under a large piece of lettuce where it wouldn’t stare at her. “I’ve asked you to lunch because I would like to discuss some business.”

“I’m all ears,” Relay said. She smiled, and Elm caught just a glimpse of a gap between her teeth and gums. She’d had porcelain veneers put on. Elm didn’t know anyone who had done that, and she wanted to ask her about it, but it didn’t seem appropriate.

“I have available these drawings for sale, really beautiful pieces. A Piranesi, two Canalettos, a couple of Connoises, Ganedis, or at least from their schools, new to the market.”

“Ooh,” Relay said. She leaned forward on her elbows. “I don’t know the last artist.”

“I was wondering if your private clients might like to take a look at them.”

Relay sat up. “Mostly they’re interested in modern art, but … Why wouldn’t you put them up for auction at Tinsley’s?”

Elm chose her words carefully. “Their provenances are sort of slim. Art owned by Jews, stolen by the Nazis and recently recovered. Their sale goes toward reparations for the families, you know, the ones who survived.”

Relay furrowed her brow. “So you don’t want them for Tinsley’s, but you want to foist them off on me?”

Elm laughed, though Relay was close to the truth. “It’s not like that. I just can’t verify the ownership to the extent that the house demands. But they’re really beautiful pieces, and the cause, so to speak, is good.”

“What kind of a financial arrangement would you be looking for?”

Elm had planned out what she was prepared to offer, but she pretended to consider. “How about we split the twenty percent commission?”

Relay nodded.

“And, my name stays out of it,” Elm said. “That’s really important. Obviously, I’m not supposed to deal privately, but I really want to see these pieces end up in good hands.”

“So I’ll deal directly with the sellers,” Relay said.

“Well, actually, me, and I’ll deal with the Englishman who is selling them on behalf of the owners. They want to remain anonymous.”

“Okay …” Relay dragged the word out, the thinking evident in her pause. She seemed about to ask a question, then thought better of it. “Yeah, that works. Send me the PDFs.” Relay held out her hand for Elm to shake, an odd formality that amused Elm.

When the check came, Relay insisted on paying, even though Elm had invited her to lunch. “Because you’re bringing me business, that’s why,” she said.

This had been so easy, Elm thought. Why had she thought it would be impossible to sell Klinman’s drawings? She didn’t even have to pay for lunch.



Relay called her the following week and left Elm a voice mail saying she thought she had a buyer for a couple of the drawings. Elm called her back.

“I think you know them? You were at their party? The people with, you know, the dog?” Relay had the unfortunate habit on the phone of raising her voice at the end of each sentence so that each statement sounded uncertain.

Elm looked at her fingernails, feigning nonchalance, even over the telephone. “Super,” she said.

“They want the old woman? And the beach scene?”

“Great.”

“They offered $175,000 for both.”

Elm sat up straighter. She did some quick math: 80 percent to Klinman and his clients, the remaining 20 percent split between Relay and Elm. That would come to $17,500. “That’s a little low,” she said.

“I know.” Relay sighed as though they were discussing a common evil, like traffic or losing sports teams. “But they were concerned about the certificates, the provenance not being so great, you know? Resale and all that. They’re investors, not collectors.” Relay lowered her voice, confiding in Elm.

“I’ll have to consult the seller,” Elm said, swiveling her chair back to face her desk. She didn’t know if Klinman would take it. They had hoped to sell them for $100,000 each. But if the sums she was receiving were smaller she would attract less attention.

As she hung up she considered too that she wasn’t sure where Relay’s loyalties belonged. Of course, she’d want to negotiate the best deal to earn her commission, but maybe she had a side deal going with the collectors, or “investors,” as she called them. Maybe she wanted to get them a deal so they’d use her more. Maybe … maybe … it was impossible to tell.

Elm knew she did not have a criminal mind. The entire business made her queasy. Plus she knew these people. She’d been in their home. She had assumed the buyers would be unknown, at least to her. This made it more personal. Real criminal masterminds (at least in the movies) were free from anxiety. They slept dreamlessly at night. Meanwhile, Elm was lucky if she got two straight hours.

The worst-case scenario, she decided. I’ll think of the worst-case scenario and then I’ll feel better. She imagined herself pregnant, behind bars. Fired, bankrupt from an extended lawsuit. And still she didn’t regret her decision to clone Ronan. That must mean something, surely.

She wondered where Klinman got them. How far back did the forgery go? To the Holocaust survivors? Did they even exist? Had Klinman commissioned the art or was he being manipulated?

She sent Klinman a brief message asking him to call her. Then she was sorry she had done so from the office. That would increase her liability. She made a mental note to buy one of those calling cards next time. She was getting better at this. Pretty soon she’d sleep through the night.