Next Life Might Be Kinder by Howard Norman Page B

something. She then joined me on the porch, tapped a cigarette out of its pack—“I allow myself one per day”—and lit it with a lighter, drawing in the smoke with her lips and cheeks with the succinct choreography of, say, Bette Davis. “My heart is beating a mile a minute,” she said. “I’m going to have a heart attack.”
    â€œWhat happened, Cynthia?”
    â€œI think—I
think—
oh, this is too much. Sam, I believe I’ve found a Diego Giacometti table. It’s got the tiny birds and everything.”
    â€œCome on. You’re having an antiquer’s hallucination or something.”
    â€œI’ve studied his tables for thirty years. It’s a signature Diego Giacometti.”
    â€œHere in Gunning Cove, Nova Scotia?”
    â€œI’ve read everything about Giacometti tables. I even attended lectures in Paris and Rome—Philip and I went. And one thing I remember is how American and Canadian servicemen in Europe would pick up amazing art for very small sums. It was the war, of course. Artists were letting things go for a pittance.”
    â€œSo you speculate that someone in this family was in France or Italy.”
    â€œThat’s my somewhat educated guess.”
    â€œGo back and look again, Cynthia.”
    Dropping the cigarette on the porch and pressing a heel to it, Cynthia returned to the ornate table, which had a china tea set on it and a dozen or so paperback books. She then got down on the ground and lay on her back (I didn’t see anyone else notice) and, elegant as she was, inelegantly slid halfway under the table. A few moments later, she slid out again, got to her feet, brushed off the back of her slacks and jacket, tapped a second cigarette from its package, lit it with her lighter, took a few puffs, then walked back to sit next to me on the porch.
    â€œIs it?” I asked.
    â€œDefinitely. I all but saw Diego Giacometti’s reflection in the glass.”
    â€œWhat’s it going for?”
    â€œTwenty-five dollars.”
    â€œChump change, like they say in the States.”
    â€œKnow what’s ringing in my ears? That goddamn thing Philip keeps saying: situational ethics. What are the options here, do you think, Sam? All right, should I just tell the granddaughter what the table is? Tell her its potential worth? You know?”
    â€œWhat do you think it might be worth?”
    â€œA hundred thousand, if Sotheby’s, or another of the big auction houses, was to appraise and sell it. Oh, I don’t know,” Cynthia said. “I may be high in my estimation. Then again, I might be short.”
    â€œA life-changing amount for most mortals.”
    â€œEven after the auctioneer’s fee. If one were to go that route.”
    â€œOkay, that’s one option,” I said. “You educate the granddaughter, your good deed for the day, and we go home. You could leave her your address. Maybe she’ll send you a thank-you note.”
    â€œOption number two: I buy the table and keep it,” Cynthia said. “An authentic Diego Giacometti table. The granddaughter remains in the dark. What she doesn’t know doesn’t hurt her. Or what is hurting her she’ll never know about. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.”
    Cynthia thought for a moment and added, “Option three: I sell it and send the granddaughter a big check. Or how about, I tell the granddaughter it’s a Diego Giacometti and say I feel she should know, in case someone in her family had been in Italy or France during the war, give her a context. Give her some history and say I feel it is very much underpriced, and can I offer her, say, a thousand dollars.”
    â€œOh, I get it. If you offer
five
thousand, she might get too strong a hint that it’s worth a lot more.”
    â€œI’m simply thinking out loud here. Okay, what if I rely—rare as it is in a person—on her sense of equity, and