The Perfect Landscape by Ragna Sigurðardóttir

always someone who is trying to get forged paintings onto the market. She doesn’t want to be too pushy and have the person on the other end get defensive as a result.
    Steinn is still waiting for the X-rays. He knows someone who works in the radiology department at the hospital, but he has not found time to X-ray the painting yet. In the meantime,they will have to look for clues elsewhere by tracing the painting’s history, looking for inconsistencies, something that doesn’t ring true.
    Finally Hanna takes the plunge and dials the number. She starts off trying to make do with her high school Danish in the hopes that any Dane would be pleased to hear an Icelander trying to speak Danish. The auction house’s phone number is on the home page; she has the website open in front of her on the screen as she dials.
    “Vabeha?”
    The voice on the other end is impatient, and Hanna decides straightaway not to attempt any further Danish and switches over to English. That works better, and the voice softens very slightly.
    “The painting was attributed to the Icelandic painter Gudrun Johannsdottir,” she repeats in English, but the man at the auction house is not really listening. Hanna tries her best to pronounce the name in some sort of international way that could be understood anywhere. “Gudrun Johannsdottir.” She pronounces the
j
as
dj
as she would in English. “Djo-hanns-dot-tir,” she repeats, trying to remain as friendly and polite as she can. She feels that a member of staff at the auction house should recognize the name. Gudrun was very much a key player among Icelandic painters and exhibited a lot abroad. Mostly in Paris but also in Scandinavia. Evidently before this man’s time, because he now asks her to spell the name. In her head Hanna quickly tries to find words to match the letters in Gudrun’s name while spelling it correctly. “
G
as in George.
U
as in...” She falls silent for a moment.
U
as in what, an English or a Danish word? “
U
as in under,” she says hesitantly, but themessage seems to transmit across the sea. “
D
as in David.” She continues to spell Gudrun’s name out in full. “And
dottir
like the Danish word
datter
,” she says finally, but the man on the other end doesn’t understand what she means and so she has to spell
dottir
, daughter, as well.
    “And when was the painting purchased?” The man on the other end is clearly jotting down her inquiry about the painting’s ownership history. He is probably just someone who answers the phone; at least that’s how he comes across. Judging by the range of items on offer on their website, it is a big auction house that operates on a considerable scale—it is hardly likely the staff are all specialist art historians. The auction house has much more than paintings on offer, and Hanna looks through the selection of goods for sale while she is talking. The collectors’ pages remind her of the Duke of Berry’s treasures. She is attracted by a Russian damask doll, embroidered with a crown and a monogram. It costs around one hundred thousand Icelandic kronur. Someone has bid nearly fifty thousand. While she is answering the man’s questions, Hanna tries to imagine what sort of person buys these things.
    “I think it was purchased just before New Year’s, but I don’t have an exact date,” she says. She can hear the keyboard tapping. He is searching. Hanna clicks on a picture of a decorative Chinese tree with flowers and leaves made of valuable stones. The tree is set to go for around forty thousand Icelandic kronur. However, a monk’s figurine carved from wood from the seventeenth century is valued at well over a hundred thousand. Would she give Frederico something like that for Christmas if they were rich? She smiles to herself until she remembers. Depending on whether they have another Christmas together.
    “I need to look into this more,” says the voice on the phone. “If you give me your number I’ll call you later in