“I must get the picture back, I must. Do you think I’ll let Gundlach damage it again? Or let him destroy it? I should never have sold it to him. When Irene and I got involved, I should have given back the deposit and taken the painting with me. I was dumb, by God, was I dumb. I know now that I can only paint when I can decide what happens to the painting. Some paintings I’ve destroyed. Because they weren’t right. This painting is right. One day it will hang in the Louvre, or the Met, or the Hermitage. You don’t believe me? You’re right, maybe I’ll need the money and will be happy if I can sell the picture to Berlin, or Munich, or Cologne. But then a different painting of mine will hang in the Met. And one day I’ll have a retrospective in New York, to which Berlin will lend the painting.” He spoke with ever more agitation, throwing up his hands, splaying out his fingers, clenching his fists, then letting them sink down again. Suddenly he laughed. “Maybe I’ll come to the opening of the exhibition and remember you when I see the painting.” He laughed some more and shook his head.

Then he became upset again. “But the painting won’t be sent to New York without my consent. Never again will I sell a painting without retaining the power to decide what happens to it, who buys it, who gets it on loan. You think buyers won’t agree to that? Buyers will fight over my paintings and agree to everything I demand. You don’t believe me. You can’t believe that a little sketch that I scribble on your notepad would make you rich one day. You’d rather be paid by Irene. You take me for somebody who’s not talented enough or persistent enough – or you think I’m too crotchety for the art market.”

I wanted to object, but he wouldn’t let me interrupt, and dismissed me with a wave. “If only he’d do something abstract, you’re thinking – or at least something like Warhol. Soup cans or Coke bottles or Marilyn Monroe – that’s what you like, admit it, that’s what you like. Here in your office you have old engravings, at home you have Warhol’s Goethe or Beethoven because you want to show that you’re educated, but not old-fashioned, you’re open to everything modern. Isn’t that right?”

His tone was contemptuous, his gaze hostile. I wanted to explain what paintings hung in my apartment and why, but then I decided it was none of his business. He could think whatever he wanted. “Your painting is more important to you than your lover?”