Irene and Gundlach greeted each other with a hug. They showered each other with questions until they laughed, realizing that they were too many and too big. The simple ones remained. Was he sleeping here? The pilot too? Were they hungry? Gundlach offered to have dinner flown in, but was also happy with anything that Irene might serve. While Irene and I cooked, he stood next to us, propped up on his cane, and told us about the article in the New York Times and the reports that followed in the German media. The painting, Woman on Staircase, a fixture in Schwind catalogues, but never exhibited, about which Schwind had always been evasive, had a mysterious aura, and its sudden appearance in, of all places, the Art Gallery of New South Wales was a sensation.

Gundlach called the pilot in to eat, then sent him away. He would have liked to send me away too. While Irene was putting candles and red wine on the table, he asked: “Can we talk in private?” She smiled and said: “I have no secrets from him.” It made me happy, even if it wasn’t true.

Gundlach talked about his successes and his children, about his worries for the future of the company and the country, about his pride in his life’s work. I didn’t hear obsession, but the self-satisfied balance sheet of a self-satisfied, upstanding citizen. As she had with me, Irene turned his questions into questions of her own, giving nothing away about herself. It did not seem to disturb him. I asked myself if, like me, he was too polite to show his irritation, or if he didn’t insist because he already knew what he wanted to know about her. He smiled each time she deflected a question.

Then he spoke of his marriage. He was happy, his wife was a good woman, a successful realtor, yet always there for him when he needed her. But she was so young that he often felt old. He looked at Irene. “You were young too, but with you I never felt old. I know, I was younger, the age gap was smaller. But that wasn’t all. Seeing you in the painting just now, I felt young again.” He smiled. “Paintings halt the march of time. I had you painted back then so you would stay young, and I with you.” Gundlach leant forwards and took Irene’s hand. “I did everything wrong back then. You could not live with me. But let me have your painting.”