Mistral's Daughter by Judith Krantz

exhibitions of work by a
group of new artists who had not been widely exhibited before and he had created
a fast-moving market for his discoveries.
    She turned her back on the
nudes.   There was something about them,
she thought, that utterly disgusted her, something sickening.   But the other work!   She was astounded by it. Mistral's earlier
work that still hung on the walls, and her own two paintings as well, all faded
in comparison with the new energy, the explosion of vitality that charged his
still lifes.   Here a single huge zinnia,
with its double circle of stiff pink petals, hovered against the sky, drawing
into itself the essence of every flower that ever grew.   Next to the zinnia, a big canvas showed a
corner of the studio, in which every object radiated a life force so powerful
that the canvas grew in mystery the longer she looked at it until, finally, it
blotted out its surroundings and she felt dizzy, mystified, overwhelmed.   Everywhere in the studio she felt as if there
were holes that had been punched into wonderment.
    "So?" Kate said at
last to Avigdor in English, which he spoke well.   To her it would always be the language of
business and business was what she had brought him here for.
    "I am indebted to you,
my dear," he said vaguely, as if in a dream turning back to the pictures
of Maggy on the green cushions.  
    "Adrien, pay
attention." Kate walked up to him and snapped her fingers under his
nose.   "I know the way you feel but
I didn't bring you here just to gape."
    "My God, Kate, my knees
are weak, my eyeballs are popping.   I
feel as if I've been struck by lightning — give me a chance to recover,
I can almost smell thunder," Avigdor said with his countryman's open
smile.
    "So," Kate pounced,
"you agree with me?"
    "Without
reservation."
    "Then what about the
one-man show?   You said you were totally
committed for the next year, that you had absolutely no way to fit in another
artist — what do you say now?"
    "I have suddenly
discovered a new month in 1926 — we will baptize it October."
    "The opening show of the
season?" Kate's thin eyebrows flew upward.
    "But naturally," he
said with the simplicity of a prosperous peasant discussing the price of beets.
    "Naturally," Kate
echoed, breathless with the magnitude of her victory.   She had been buying from Avigdor since he
opened and her respect for his astuteness had grown as she watched him moving
from strength to strength in the risky waters of the art market.   Now, as she saw him make a decision with the
same swiftness and commitment with which she operated, she understood the man
better than she ever had.
    How right had been the
calculation she had made to bring him here without even giving Julien a chance
to say he didn't want to see him.   Avigdor, like many dealers, bought outright the paintings he planned to
exhibit.   The difference between the
price that he paid for them, and the price that he sold them for, represented
not only the risk he took but his potential for profit.
    He would, she knew, pay
Mistral the least he could get away with, in all due fairness, but that suited
her perfectly.   Mistral's financial
independence was the last thing she wanted.   A painter who can control his dealer needs no patroness, Kate thought,
and when the time came, as it soon would, for his prices to go up, she intended
to be the agent of that particular piece of good news.
    They stood in a sudden
silence, conspiratorial yet with an edge of caution, each waiting for the other
to speak.   Finally Avigdor said,
"I'd better go and talk to him."
    "Oh, no, Adrien."
    "But, my dear Kate, one
thing must be understood.   This Mistral
of yours may be allergic to talk of money, as you told me, but unless I have
signed him to an exclusive contract we have nothing to discuss."
    "Adrian, trust me.   Today isn't the right time to mention the
contract to him.   Today isn't the right
time to tell him anything except that three months from now you're