The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith Page A

with the private museum in Leiden?”
    â€œI oversee handling there, among other things.”
    â€œExcellent. So you know how these cases were put together? Perhaps you have some diagrams?”
    â€œI made them and packed the art myself,” Hendrik says. “Down to the last nail.”
    Q looks at his underlings, gives them a stagey wink. “I do hope there are no nails.”
    â€œOf course. I was using an expression.”
    The hostility between Hendrik and Q is immediate.
    Hendrik says, “Even though the cases are about one hundred pounds each, I recommend using a hydraulic hand truck to remove them from the vehicle. The cases are fitted with skids on the bottom.”
    With his backpack, surly disposition, and his pale, gaunt face, Hendrik looks like he’s auditioning for a film role as a Dutch hacker. Ellie suspects he doesn’t mean to sound arrogant or bossy; it’s just the curse of a certain nonnative English speaker, a kind of mechanical efficiency that comes off as rude. But she also knows Q and his men aren’t making any such calculations or allowances. Hendrik has become a scab on the knee of a Wednesday afternoon and they’re eager to pick at it.
    Ed goes to fetch the hand truck while the packer and the framer get inside the van to slide the cases to the rear. The ramp is perfectly level with the dock so that Ed can easily snug the tines of the hand truck beneath the cases, between the wooden skids. He lifts each case six inches from the ground and rolls it onto the dock. Normal practice is to leave the packing crates in the exhibition space overnight and then open them in the courier’s presence for immediate hanging. But water damage to a skylight and ongoing repairs has meant that none of the exhibition space is available yet. All of the paintings will hang in storage until the gallery is ready. Ellie explains all this to Hendrik as the crates are wheeled toward the storage room. He stares at her, a look of incomprehension on his face.
    Ellie can see from the outside of the cases, from the carefully planed corners and the countersunk brass screws and the barcode stickers, that these are exceptionally well made. Q is accustomed to receiving cases that sometimes look like they’ve been dropped from a height. She watches as he walks around the cases warily, like he’s sizing up an unknown dog. Hendrik stands back with his bundle of papers. Ellie can tell that Q is impressed with the workmanship of the cases but also a little riled.
    Abruptly, Hendrik says, “This is highly unusual, not putting them in the gallery space.”
    â€œWe did notify your institution of the delay,” Q says.
    Hendrik looks down at his paperwork. “Well, I will need signatures of receipt and also to know of the security detail for the overnight period.” He looks up at a clock on the wall. “I will return at this time tomorrow.”
    Ellie wishes, for his own sake, that he could stop sounding like a German spy from a World War II movie. Q takes the paperwork and a pen from Hendrik and studies the receipt under one of the lights. After a moment, he says, “We’ll have to make some amendments to this, if that’s all right. For starters, we won’t know what’s in these cases until tomorrow. Could be two boxes of rocks for all we know. So this part here where it lists the painting descriptions and asks for a signature, we’ll have to change the wording to the cases with the barcodes you’ve provided. We’ll sign the rest after we open our presents tomorrow. How does that sound?”
    â€œThat will be fine.”
    Q continues to flip through the bundle of papers. “Good. And we have our own condition report we’ll use tomorrow. In addition to the Leiden one.”
    â€œNaturally.”
    It occurs to Ellie that these loans are never quite received with gratitude at the loading dock. It’s always just another crate to