The Face in the Frame

I’ve never liked the phrase “ignorance is bliss”. It subscribes to a kitschy acceptance of stupidity, a devil’s bargain where knowledge is sacrificed for happiness. But I write now as a disciple of obtuseness, an ardent convert for who the scales have fallen, allowing me to appreciate the majesty of ignorance.

My conversion occurred over a six-week period last summer. I was broke, as usual, trying and mostly failing to eke out a living as a writer. My aunt, a kind soul with an unusual combination of both money and sense, had asked me to house-sit over the summer. She was an avid patron of the arts, and I think she liked the idea of supporting my creative endeavors by housing me. But she also believed that artists needed to experience “the struggle”, and so while she was generous in many ways, it never extended to money.

At first, I was excited to return to the house. It was a great pile of a place, about five miles outside Philadelphia, and full of fond memories from childhood holiday visits. The outside of the building was almost as I’d remembered, although there were far more locks covering the doors and windows. My aunt was not quite a conspiracy theorist, but she had developed a deep distrust of anything electronic, and had switched to more analog security measures.

Inside, the hallway was dominated by the staircase, which in turn was dominated by my aunt’s extensive collection of paintings that covered every inch of the walls. I smiled as I saw the small, rectangular frame at the top of the landing. It was a Picasso, which did not make it particularly unique among my Aunt’s collection, but it was special to me. The painting portrayed two faces, in technicolor cubism. But while the face on the left was painted in the artist’s trademark vibrant colors, the one on the right was drawn in child’s crayon, and there was an additional signature next to Picasso: Alex, age 6 ½.

When my creative handiwork had first been discovered my mother had revealed a depth of rage that I hadn’t known she possessed, and I had felt fear for the first time. But my aunt had simply laughed and said, “well Alex, you’d better become an artist now, then I can claim to have your first piece of work.”

I never developed into a master of the canvas, but I could occasionally put some words on paper that I was proud of. I’d managed to publish a few short stories, but a breakthrough novel, the “Big Cat” as I called it, still eluded me. In fact, my most regular source of income was as a columnist for a popular teen magazine. I was somewhat embarrassed by this gig, but it helped pay the bills, and I tried to view it as just another type of fiction.

My time at the house began to drag. My aunt had requested that I stay at the house the whole time I was there, even to the point of getting groceries delivered, and the confinement was getting to me. I couldn’t focus on my novel, and I was also starting to run low on funds. I started obsessively browsing the writing boards, looking for the next opportunity. And that’s when I saw the advert. In contrast to the other postings, it was extremely short, oddly specific, and very lucrative.

Writer wanted for 2-week non-fiction assignment. Must be available between the hours of 1 pm-10 pm. One-time fee of $20,000 payable upon completion of the project. Interested applicants should send a copy of their resume and two writing samples to [email protected].

There was no mention of transferring cash to bail out an African prince, but it still seemed almost too good to be true. But just as beggars can’t be choosers, struggling writers can’t turn down $20,000 opportunities. So, I sent Stefan my resume and two short stories, and began to fantasize about what I would do with all that money. I was still spinning dream palaces when I received an email, asking me to be in Central Philly at 12 pm tomorrow.

My heart sank. Of course, the offer was too good to be true. I’d promised my aunt that I’d remain at her house for the entire period she was gone. So far I’d been so nervous that I’d barely left the house to walk around the gardens. Leaving to go to Philly was out of the question. I replied to Stefan, asking to do the interview remotely. The reply was swift and curt.

In-person interview only.

And so, at 11:30 am the following morning I was on my way to Philly, squashing down the kernel of worry that was growing in my stomach. I’d checked and double-checked every lock and bolt on all the doors and windows. The house would be fine.

The interview was held in a part of the city that only the most brazen realtor would describe as up and coming. The office was in a cookie-cutter block, and the only indication I was in the right place was a piece of paper taped to the door with “ANG Trading” printed on it. The interviewer, Stefan, was not quite what I had envisaged. He was a large man, with plenty of padding, but I suspected there was some muscle underneath the fat. He wore a poorly tailored suit and kept tugging at his collar, which revealed the top of a complex tattoo. The interview consisted of him reading out the job description, in monotone, from a piece of paper.

“We’ve reviewed your writing. My client wants to hire you to write his memoirs. This is purely for posterity’s sake—the memoirs will remain in his family and are not to be published. My client is a secretive man, and places great value on his privacy.”

At this point, he handed me a small, black notebook.

“Each day we will send a car for you at 12:30 pm. You will conduct interviews with my client between 1 pm and 4 pm. At this point, the client will leave, and I will bring you a laptop to type up your notes. You type for six hours, with a break for dinner. At the end of the day, you will leave the notebook and laptop here with me, and a car will take you home. There will be 12 days of interviews. On the last two days, you are to edit the story and submit.”

He paused, before adding one last stipulation.

“This is an urgent assignment. The memoir must be finished within two weeks. If you do not turn up one day, if you are sick, hungover, whatever, the contract will be terminated and you will receive nothing. Understood?”

I didn’t understand, but I nodded. The strictness and urgency were bizarre, but what did I care? All I had to do was turn up on time, write a passable memoir, and collect my money. And so, for the next two weeks, I lived like a monk, with no alcohol, bland foods, and early bedtimes.

The client, and his memoirs, were tedious. He’d made a fortune trading commodities and now wished to make a record of how clever he had been. The whole affair was somewhat strange—at times he seemed disinterested in his own story, and occasionally when I was asking follow-up questions he would get irritated and refuse to answer. It even got to the point where I started to feel nostalgic for my teen column. But the money was vastly better, and so I feigned interest and did my best to liven up the story.

The only real annoyance was the presence of Stefan. When the client was around he was cordial, if frosty, but when the client left his behavior changed. Things deteriorated toward the end of the first week. I had finished my work for the day and asked to leave early, around 7 pm. Stefan became strangely angry with me and shouted, “You will stay exactly where you are! The client is not paying you so you can slack off early! You’d better continue working for all of the hours you are being paid for or you won’t see a single dollar!”

Inside I was furious at being spoken to in such a manner and couldn’t understand his anger, but I kept my mouth shut and focused on the payoff. I dutifully logged my hours for the rest of the two-week period, and by the end had produced a memoir that, while no best-seller, was adequate for the client’s needs. On my last day I put the finishing touches to it, sat around until 10 pm, and then handed over the laptop and little black notebook to Stefan for the last time.

I was on my way home for the last time when I received an email from him.

The transfer has been confirmed.

My head filled with images of a great money hose being turned on, steadily filling my bank vault with gold coins, forming a lake that I could swim in like Scrooge McDuck. I opened my bank app on my phone and saw the more prosaic, still immensely satisfying, transfer of $20,000. I was rich!

I returned to the house. This had worked out perfectly. In three weeks, my aunt would return, which gave me plenty of time to formulate a plan for the next few months. I’d heard Thailand was an excellent place for expats to work from. And what better place for inspiration to hit than a picture-perfect beach, pina colada in hand.

I walked up the staircase and was about to enter my room when my subconscious triggered that something was wrong. I went back onto the landing and noticed what had triggered my unease. The Picasso was perfect. That is to say, it no longer had an extra face peering out of it. My crayon figure was gone.

The pieces of the puzzle began to rapidly slide into place. I checked the back of the painting and my stomach clenched as I saw that the nails fastening the canvas to the frame were slightly shiny. I’d once visited an art restorer with my aunt, and knew that the nails on an old painting were dull and tarnished. Shiny tops indicated that the nails had recently been removed and then hammered back in. I checked the rest of the paintings and found five others with shiny nails—all among the most valuable pieces in the collection. The implication was damning. At some point over the last two weeks, while I was writing a meaningless memoir, the crown jewels of my aunt’s collection had been replaced with counterfeits of exceptional quality. Except the Picasso was too flawless. There was simply no way for the counterfeiter to have known about the crayon doodles of my childhood.

I crashed to the floor, my legs splayed out underneath me. I’d ruined everything. My aunt, who didn’t care when I graffitied a Picasso when I was six, would not be so kind when she discovered the pride of her collection, paintings she had spent her life assembling, were fakes. I’d be ostracized. Excommunicated from the family. And that’s assuming I wasn’t suspected of being an accessory to the crime.

I lay there, immobile, for almost an hour. I ran through different explanations, different ways to apologize, searching for a narrative that would make the truth more palatable. Perhaps I could joke that the Picasso was now restored to its former glory? And then the solution hit me. A feeling of calm certainty settled over me and I rose and walked to the bedroom. I found the answer to my problems lying at the bottom of an old chest of toys in the closet. The box of crayons I had owned as a six-year-old. I picked them up and began to draw, happily spreading the bliss of ignorance.