The Woman With The Green Eyes

David George listened to his voicemails between sips of his Starbucks venti soy latte, threading through the downtown LA traffic in his Mercedes. The messages were all from his assistant, Ashleigh, and they were almost exactly what he expected: deals that went through, others that got canceled, invitations she had refused on his behalf, and her own futile-but-hopeful invitation to an anniversary dinner for her parents.

“Also, we were contacted repeatedly by a law firm in Venice,” she said. The words “law firm” raised his hackles; legal trouble was never cheap. “Apparently you have an inheritance waiting for you from some relative? An Armani Giordano? Let me know if you want me to follow up on it.”

It sounded like a scam, except for the name Giordano. He knew the name was in his family lineage somewhere, but he never looked into it. Certainly he knew nothing about any living relatives in Venice. He texted Ashleigh to follow-through, which is why, a week later, he found himself in a dusty, dimly-lit law firm in Venice, talking with an aging state executor.

“According to our research, you were third cousins,” said the executor, sliding files across his desk.

David, having refused to sit down in the creased, red leather chair across from him, eyed the documents from afar. He checked the time on his phone and asked, “What did I inherit?”

The executor led him to a cage elevator that rattled as it plunged down past the ground floor into a state-of-the art, climate-controlled storage facility underneath. It was all concrete, motion-sensor lights and sliding steel doors. The door he brought him to looked like any other.

The reveal was disappointing: the twenty-foot by twenty-foot storage unit contained only a crate and a few paintings, covered in dirty, decaying rags.

“This was totally worth the trip,” he muttered.

The executor stood by while David inspected the haul. The crate contained useless baubles; old globes, prescription glasses, dried-up art supplies, three different bibles (all missing their covers), and assorted cutlery, most of it plastic.

Three paintings leaned against the crate: one was completely faded to a dusty brown, the only proof that paint had ever been there was just cracked, brown residue that flaked off when he touched it. The second wasn’t a painting at all but a half-finished pencil drawing of a fireplace on dried-up, flaking paper.

The last was a portrait of an olive-skinned woman wearing a blue robe and matching shawl. She stared at the viewer over her left shoulder with piercing green eyes, her expression placid and vaguely condescending. Even David, who knew nothing about art, was stunned with its quality and vibrancy. He stared at it until the executor cleared his throat.

“I’ll have my assistant look after the shipping,” he said.

Normally, he enjoyed flying first class. The time between boarding and stepping off was his real vacation, a time when nothing was expected of him. Except now, he was restless. He had already called Ashleigh before leaving Venice, giving her the details and the contact information she would need for shipping, but he couldn’t stop picturing the piercing green eyes of the woman in the painting.

He connected to the plane’s wifi and texted Ashleigh: “Painting of woman w/green eyes: have appraised ASAP.”

He had a feeling about it. Not necessarily a good or bad feeling, just… a feeling. But feelings like those usually came with numbers and statistics to back them up. 

It had been eight days since he’d sent the text, and in that time he had missed Ashleigh’s parent’s anniversary (but she had sent them a wonderful bouquet on his behalf) because of an incredible investment opportunity that had fallen in his lap.

The work consumed him. He spent late nights getting research reports comparing market trends, hosted short meetings with potential interested investors in the mornings, and investigated the concerned companies in the afternoons. This was the work he loved: crunching numbers, evaluating risk, projecting profits, and beating out the competition. He understood better than anyone else in his field that timing was everything.

It was Friday night and he sat back in his chair, stretching his arms backwards. It had been a particularly long and grueling call with investors. As a reward, he poured himself a finger of Yamazaki whisky, letting its sweet nutty smokiness linger in the back of his throat.

When the phone rang, it echoed through the entire house.

“I got that painting appraised,” Ashleigh said after he answered.

He sat up straight. Until that very moment, the memory of the painting was all but gone in his mind. Now, he felt an overwhelming urge to see it again but did his best to play it cool. “What are we looking at?”

“Are you sitting down?”

She told him the figure.

There was a long pause.

“Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “What’s the catch?”

“We still need to have it authenticated.”

“Okay.” His mind swam – first with a desire to see the painting, then with the ludicrous sum of money she had just named. “Where is it now?”

“Packed up,” she said and he felt a pang of regret. “I already contacted a lab that does this kind of thing. They’ll have results in a couple of weeks. Longer, if you want a more thorough analysis.”

“Make it as thorough as possible,” he said. It was, after all, the logical thing to do. No need to leave anything to chance, even if it meant waiting that long before seeing the painting again..

The next weeks were excruciating. Not a day went by when he didn’t think of the painting and the woman’s haunting, green eyes. He closed his ongoing deals with spectacular success but turned down the new ones Ashleigh brought him. This puzzled his partners, but not a single one inquired as to why. They moved on just as quickly.

David convinced himself he wouldn’t need any more investments once he sold the painting – if it was authentic. There was no doubt in his mind it was. He had a feeling.

When the call finally came, it interrupted a daydream where he pictured himself hanging the portrait up in his home. It was an invitation down to the library Archives & Restoration department. In the building’s state-of-the-art lobby, he met an excited young man in a lab coat with goggles around his neck; the living trope of every generic scientist in every movie.

They exchanged pleasantries before the young man, who had introduced himself as Kieran, took David down to the lab where, under artificial lights and the overwhelming stench of chemicals, he showed him the painting, propped up in a sealed room and lit from several angles.

Kieran interrogated him lightly about the origins of the painting, but there was little David could provide. David’s attention was almost entirely taken up by the painting. He was relieved to see it, even so far removed.

“So, it’s authentic?” David asked without tearing his eyes away.

“Well, that’s just it,” Kieran answered after a long delay. “We’re not sure.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the pigments, the wood of the frame, the canvas… Chemical analyses all point to the Baroque Era. We’re talking 1600’s, which is already strange because portraits like these weren’t in style then. The closest thing to that would be The Girl With The Pearl Earring, which was in 1665, and Dutch, not Italian.”

“So the artist was ahead of his time. What’s the problem?”

Kieran exhaled sharply through his nostrils. “It’s the eyes,” he said. “They’re painted using Scheele’s Green.” When he saw that David had no reaction to this information, he went on. “Scheele’s Green wasn’t invented until 1775, almost two-hundred years after this was painted.”

Again, very little reaction from David. “What does that mean?”

Kieran sighed. “It means either this is a forgery – an incredibly convincing one – or the original artist somehow figured out how to synthesize a colour that would take the rest of the world about two hundred years to figure out.”

“Couldn’t someone have just, I don’t know, painted over the original eyes some two hundred years later?”

Kieran shook his head. “Those are the original eyes. The only way that could have been done is if the original artist left the eye sockets empty and waited over a century for someone else to fill them in.”

David stared at the painting as if it might provide answers, but the woman with the green eyes just stared back, her expression somehow more stern than before, as if she somehow disapproved of all these efforts of putting a price on her.

“So you’re not marking it as authentic?”

“Can’t,” he said with a shrug. “The results don’t add up to anything that makes sense.”

“So what happens now? Do I just take it home?”

Kieran scratched his cheek. “Well, that’s the other thing. Scheele’s Green isn’t used anymore because one of the key ingredients is arsenic. They say it’s the colour that killed Napoleon after he moved into a house where the walls were all painted with it.” This last bit he said with a coy smile.

“Arsenic.”

“Yeah. Her eyes are literally poison.”

He drove home with the painting boxed up in his trunk, sealed in several layers of plastic, paper and cardboard. The words “Her eyes are literally poison” kept repeating in his mind, accompanied by that piercing stare of hers.

When he brought the box inside, he leaned it against the counter and poured himself a drink. A part of his mind was going crazy with the idea that this was potentially worth more than he had, but the best authenticator in the city couldn’t say for sure it wasn’t a forgery.

Even through the layers of plastic and paper, he could feel her gaze.

Ashleigh showed up at his house several days later, concerned he hadn’t answered any of his messages. Dishes and half-empty take-out boxes littered the otherwise-immaculate marble kitchen counters. The living room had sheets of paper strewn about like some sort of xerox-themed autumn. As she threaded her way carefully between the stacks, she saw they were print-outs of art history, paint ingredients, the Baroque Era and Venetian family trees.

Next to the fireplace was the box, torn open, revealing the painting of the woman underneath. Though most of her was still hidden, her gaze wasn’t.

She found him pacing down the hall in his socks, his voice hoarse from arguing with someone over the phone. He hung up as soon as he saw her.

“Here’s what we have to do,” he said to her by way of greeting. “We just find someone reputable enough to give it a stamp of authenticity, but disreputable enough that they don’t look too closely at the eyes.”

She furrowed her brow. “You mean forge a fake certificate of authenticity?”

“It’s not fake!” he hissed. “I know it isn’t! I can feel it. I’ve been digging into my family history, too, in Venice. My great-great-great grandfather was descended from a line of alchemists. Alchemists!”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“That could explain the anachronism, don’t you see? They could have figured it out, buried the method, and then someone else discovered it later!”

“Or,” she said, keeping her words slow and clear, “we could forget about this painting, go back to work and make money the normal way, yeah? Not do anything too illegal?”

“Look, I just need you to find me the right person, okay? Look for that person that is willing to toe the line. We’ll pay him whatever he wants. Just… I need you to do this, okay? This is all I need from you!”

She stared at him with owl-like eyes, took a hesitant look at the painting, and whispered, “Okay.”

A week later, due to the time difference, he got a call in the middle of the night from the Venetian law firm. “As best as we can determine from the origins,” the lawyer said, “the woman in the painting would have to have been a close relation to the artist. A wife or daughter, perhaps. Maybe a mistress.”

“So I’d be related to her?”

“I’d say that’s very likely.”

“Why is that likely?”

“Well, the place of origin was a very small, very poor village. Any working artist there, at that time, wouldn’t have been able to afford any models other than whoever happened to be around them. If the accuracy of the woman’s attire can be believed, they were commoners. And since the painting never left the family lineage, it’s unlikely they ever saw any money from their art.”

The painting, fully unveiled, leaned against the wall. The woman, his ancestor, stared at him unrelentingly. He felt her disapproval, but no anger or malice. What, then?

Disappointment. 

Accusation.

But why? He was successful. He was above-board. He went to all the charities. He donated to good causes. He never cheated on his taxes. He likely had more money than those commoners could ever think possible for anyone in their family. He was their ultimate success. If anything, she should be proud.

But he couldn’t ignore the twisted irony. She, herself, was now worth more than he had, if it wasn’t for those eyes. It was maddening. The idea of repainting the eyes floated through his mind more than once, but as Kieran and several others by now had assured him, any “restoration” attempts by anyone other than a professional team would severely impact the work’s value. She was his perfect enemy.

And so she stared, unblinking, judging, teasing, mocking.

And he was powerless against her.

He woke up with a start on the couch to the sound of someone clearing their throat. Ashleigh stood next to the kitchen table bathed in morning light.

“I found him,” she said, holding two large manila envelopes.

“What?” He was still groggy. “Found who?”

“Your guy. The guy you want to fake your painting’s certificate. It took some doing and I burned a few bridges – really tanked my credibility for this – but this is definitely your guy. All the information is in this envelope,” she showed one of the envelopes and placed it on the table, “along with my letter of resignation.”

That sobered him up. “Your what?”

“In this envelope,” she went on, “is a flyer. It’s for a band I’ve been following on social media for a while now, they’re having a show down at Tapper’s. Remember Tapper’s?”

“Uh, yeah.” He did remember. It was the bar they used to go to when they first started out.

“Great,” she said. “If you open the one with my resignation in it, then it’s legally binding. I had our lawyer confirm it. See? It’s sealed.”

He saw.

“Band starts playing at 11.”

“Okay.”

And she left.

The slam of the door echoed through the house.

Something clicked in his mind.

He stood off the couch and picked up the painting. For a moment, he pictured how it must have looked on its easel, half-finished in some unheated, low-ceiling, poorly lit hovel in the countryside while someone whose name history would immediately forget meticulously worked to capture the likeness of someone close to him, someone he cared about enough to immortalize for no money or reward. Willing to poison themselves – just to get the colour of their eyes right.

And then he saw it; the look in Ashleigh’s eyes right before she left – identical to that of the woman’s.

He carefully put it back down and went to his garage, digging around in containers until he found nails and wire. Perched on one of his awkward and uncomfortable kitchen stools, he pounded a nail into the wall above the fireplace, then pinned wire to the back of the frame (scuffing it in several places and even ripping a bit of the fabric) and then hung it up. It took twenty minutes of back-and-forth adjustments until he was satisfied it wasn’t crooked.

He showered. He cleaned the house. He ate a proper meal.

There were some overdue calls he had to make; a lot of investment opportunities he was going to miss if he didn’t act quickly.

But they would have to wait.

He picked up one of the envelopes and opened it.

He had a show at 11.