The Swede by Robert Karjel Page A

lighthouses under the clouds.
    One night they sat in one of the few restaurants that hadn’t yet closed for the season. Ben had downed a couple of martinis before dinner, and they were on their second bottle of red. Ben squinted so it stretched even the corner of his mouth when he poured the last in Grip’s glass.
    “You’re security police,” he said, waving the bottle to the girl at the bar. “Most art is just stuff. Dead things.” He took a big gulp from his glass and cleared his throat. “I appraise art, you know. All kinds of fools want to hear what a man like me thinks.” He rubbed his mouth drunkenly. “Their eyes shine when they find out what it’s worth. Then if you can find some new thing for their walls or their pedestals, they’ll pay anything. It has to cost them, that’s the thing.” He let the knife spin on the tablecloth.
    “Jean Arp,” he said then, “what do you know about Arp?”
    Grip was only half listening to what Ben was saying. “Nothing,” he replied.
    “Sculptures,” said Ben, and raised his hand dismissively. “There are people who”—he paused, drank of the wine—“people who need help.”
    Now Grip knew it would be about money. That was the dark side, the eclipse—until death do us part. They needed money, lots of money, to postpone the prophecies that faced them. Sums that caused them to sit up at night staring at each other. Until the momentnearly twenty years ago when the nurse handed him a slip that said “positive,” Ben had been living like an immortal. He couldn’t afford anything else anyhow: as a freelance art writer, at best money meant paying the rent on time. He knew better, knew damn well he needed to do better, but health insurance, he’d get to that later. Later, later, later, until he sat with that slip in his hand. He tried to fix it, but it turned into a gauntlet of pitying glances. Sooner or later a remark about the disease always came up, and the insurance agent would shoot the application forms a little too far to the side. He had to take out a loan, he had to have care. In those days, the doctors in their white coats offered a lot, but nothing that would help. He arranged creditors, endorsements by others wandering in the same desert. They signed for each other. Almost every one of them was dead now. And then the probates ended the pyramid game against the banks. Ben came to dread phone calls from lawyers more than the notes saying that another emaciated friend had given up the ghost, among addicts and homeless people in some county hospital. While the insurance agents had at least been sympathetic, the faces of the bankers and the lawyers they hired were cold.
    To save himself, falsity became second nature: to throw out mail, to lie under oath, to question the authenticity of his own old signatures. To hunt for medical certificates that said he was dying and therefore not available. Everything was about procrastination. It was a decades-long war of broken promises and betrayed confidences. Everyone and no one was the enemy. Or—the banks and lawyers were the enemy. Always.
    And it had worked, it had just barely worked. These days Grip took care of the most pressing bills, the overdue fees that keep Ben from being sued by his own lawyers. But more than that he could not manage, and Ben needed doctors more than ever. His lungs rattled,and now and then the shortness of breath forced him down on his knees with blue lips. But the doctors who could treat him only took cold cash.
    “. . . people that need a bit of help,” said Ben. “They pay well.” Drinking deep drafts of the wine again, Grip lowered his eyes from the deserted street outside the restaurant.
    “Help?” he said. They had both agreed that Grip would never get mixed up in the paper war over money, that his name or signature would never show up in those battles. There were many reasons for that.
    “Help, with Jean Arp,” said Ben, putting the glass down. “I will certify its