Thalia leaned forward. “Yes.” She cocked her head and finally stood up straight and looked at Zoe. “You’re right. I never noticed that before.” She sighed with resignation.

“You were distracted, no doubt, by the amazing luminosity and wonderful interplay of shadows and light that he did capture,” Zoe said. “No doubt your brain told you that if these were so good, then you could suspend your skepticism.”

“Amazing,” Thalia said. “Truly amazing. But how does your head know to make good music or noise? How did it learn to tell you which pieces were fakes and which genuine ones sound like Bartók?”

Zoe laughed. “Actually genuine Jackson Pollocks sound like Bartók doing scales badly.”

Thalia laughed along with her.

When they caught their breaths, Zoe explained: “Programming again. Every reputable museum and collection has a basement or back room filled with known fakes where scholars can go to see pieces that are proven fakes. Even the best collectors get fooled. The honorable course is to take the items off public display and make them available to scholars who want to learn from their mistakes. The most disgraceful museums are those without fakes in their basements. They continue to display fakes and refuse to acknowledge their mistakes because they’re too afraid of offending powerful benefactors or board members.” She paused. “Anyway, I figure that collectively, I’ve spent a couple of years of my life nosing around the archives of fraud comparing the real with the fake.”

Thalia nodded as she stared lovingly at her “Vermeer.” After a long moment, she looked into Zoe’s eyes and asked: “Does it really matter?”

“Does what really matter?” Zoe said at this unexpected turn of the conversation.

“If the painting gives joy… if even the experts can’t tell, does it really matter to the owner—or the public—if it was painted by someone else?” Thalia looked back at her “Vermeer.” “I’ve loved this painting since I was a little girl.” When she turned to face Zoe again, her eyes glistened with tears, which she quickly wiped away.

“Of course it matters,” Zoe said trying to ease the intensity of her own feelings. “Loving a fake painting is like… like loving an unfaithful man… or maybe a false god. It’s wrong; it’s… it’s evil.”

Thalia gave her a knowing smile. “Is it evil if your heart doesn’t know? If it never knows?”

“You mean it’s better to be ignorant?” Zoe was indignant

“Perhaps,” Thalia replied. “Perhaps.”

Zoe shook her head violently. “I can’t buy that. I just can’t I just believe that—” Zoe swallowed against strongly felt words that welled up in her throat, words that could not comfort, sharp truths that could only increase Thalia’s pain.

Thalia touched Zoe’s shoulder gently with a single finger. “I know what you believe and how strongly you believe it. I’m not suggesting that ignorance is best, but merely that people who choose to remain ignorant are often the happiest—with their God, with their mates…” She looked at her “Vermeer,” then back to Zoe. “And with their art.” She loosed a great sigh. “Well, now I know why Papa always refused my suggestions to sell it” She gave a sigh of resignation. “I suppose that makes it a little easier to sell it.” She gave her fake Vermeer a good-bye look, then reached over and slid it back behind the other one.