The Flanders Panel

Beneath the brim of his hat, Cesar arched a peevish eyebrow as he swung his umbrella and looked about with the disdain, tempered by the most exquisite boredom, in which he usually entrenched himself when reality confirmed his worst fears. The Rastro, it must be said, did not look terribly welcoming that morning. The grey sky threatened rain, and the owners of the stalls set up along the streets occupied by the market were taking precautions against a possible downpour. In some places, walking became a tortuous process of dodging people and skirting the canvas and grimy plastic with which the stalls were hung.

“In fact,” he said to Julia, who was looking at a pair of battered brass candlesticks displayed on a blanket on the ground, “this is a complete waste of time. I haven’t found anything decent here for ages.”

This wasn’t quite true, and Julia knew it. From time to time, thanks to his expert eye, Cesar would unearth from the pile of discarded junk in the old market – drawn from that vast cemetery of dreams swept out into the street on the tide of many an anonymous shipwreck – some forgotten pearl, some tiny treasure that chance had chosen to conceal from the eyes of others: an eighteenth-century crystal tumbler, an antique frame, a diminutive porcelain objet d’art. Once, in a shabby little shop selling books and old magazines, he’d found two beautiful chapter headings delicately and skillfully illuminated by some nameless thirteenth-century monk, which, once restored by Julia, he had sold for a small fortune.

They slowly made their way to the upper part of the market, to the short row of buildings with peeling walls and gloomy inner courtyards connected by alleyways with wrought-iron gates, that were home to those specialist antiques shops more or less worthy of the name -although Cesar wore a look of prudent scepticism when he spoke of them.

“What time did you arrange to meet your dealer?”

Cesar shifted his umbrella – a very expensive piece with a beautifully turned silver grip – to his other hand, pushed up his cuff and studied the face of his gold watch. He was looking very elegant in a light brown felt hat with broad brim and silk band, a camel’s-hair coat draped over his shoulders and a handsome cravat at the open neck of his silk shirt. He always dressed perilously close to the limits of good taste, though without ever overstepping the mark.

“In about fifteen minutes.”

They browsed amongst the stalls. Under Cesar’s mocking gaze, Julia picked up a painted wooden plate showing a yellowing landscape rather crudely done, a rural scene with an ox cart moving down a path edged by trees.

“Surely you’re not going to buy that, my dear?” Cesar said, enjoying his own disapproval. “It’s revolting. Aren’t you even going to haggle?”

Julia opened her shoulder bag and took out her purse, ignoring Cesar’s protests.

“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” she said as the plate was being wrapped for her in a few pages from an illustrated magazine. “You’ve always said that people, comme il faut, never discuss the price of anything: you pay on the nail and walk away with your head held high.”

“That rule doesn’t apply here.” Cesar, looking about with an air of professional detachment, wrinkled his nose at the plebeian sight of junk-laden stalls. “Not when you’re dealing with people like this.”

Julia put the package into her bag.

“Even so you might have had the decency to buy it for me. When I was a child, you bought me anything I fancied.”

“I spoiled you horribly when you were a child. Anyway, I refuse to pay good money for trash like that.”

“You’re getting mean in your old age, that’s your problem.”

“Be silent, viper!” The brim of his hat cast a shadow over his face as he bent to light a cigarette outside a shop crammed with dusty old dolls. “One more word and I write you out of my will.”

Julia watched him climbing the flight of steps as he left for his meeting. He did so with great dignity, keeping the hand that held the ivory cigarette holder slightly raised, and wearing the half-disdainful, half-bored air of one who does not expect to find very much at the end of the road, but who, for aesthetic reasons, takes pains to walk that road as elegantly as possible. Like a Charles Stuart climbing to the scaffold almost as if he were doing so as a favour to the executioner, with his already rehearsed “Remember” on his lips and in the hope that he would be beheaded in profile, as he appeared on the coins struck in his image.

Clutching her bag, as a precaution against pickpockets, Julia threaded her way amongst the stalls. There were too many people in that part of the market, so she decided to go back to the steps and the balustrade overlooking the square and the market’s main street, where people were milling about beneath endless rows of awnings and plastic sheets.