Chapter 33
Emma
I expect to be paralyzed with terror when Lucie and I knock on the service door to the Musée d’Orsay an hour before the stroke of midnight.
Yet, I’ve never felt more calm.
I’ve weathered so much fear and uncertainty over the years. First with my mother and then when I lost the scholarship. For most of my life I’ve been constantly on edge and ready to flee or to fight. Now danger feels like an invitation to thrive.
“Bonsoir,” the night security guard says as he opens the door.
“Bonsoir, sir,” Lucie responds in the most authoritative voice I’ve ever heard her use. She flashes her badge while slowly and carefully explaining that she is with the gendarmerie unit that investigates bomb threats. She then rolls her eyes to make all of this seem silly and routine.
“This is the tenth check I’ve done tonight. Some kids making prank calls, I think. We’ve been to Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, Sacré-Coeur. I told my boss we can stop responding, but you know how bosses are,” she says, trying to establish some camaraderie with the workingman.
“What do you need?” he asks, opening the door wide to allow us in. Behind him the lights in the museum are dim. I love how all museum security guards in Paris wear black baseball caps with the word SéCURITé on it in all caps. Just in case the black uniform and badge didn’t tip you off.
“We need to do a walk-through. Won’t take more than twenty minutes or so.”
I pull up on Clovis’s collar as he leans forward to smell the guard’s crotch. The man recoils as though he’s afraid his balls contain contraband. Given the dank smell of marijuana wafting off him, they might.
Lucie pats the formidable dog on the head.
“He can sniff just about anything out. We’ll also be using this handheld detector.
” She holds up a machine inexplicably called the Explonix that looks like a ray gun from Star Wars and cost us a fortune.
“We can run all our tests right here if we find anything. We have an entire mobile laboratory.” She motions to the cases we’re rolling next to us that contain my copies of the paintings.
His eyes are glassy but he looks vaguely impressed.
“We will need you to turn off the electrical system,” Lucie continues.
“They interfere with the internal calibration system of the picogram levels. And try not to get in our way. Saber here gets real protective when he’s working.
” I let the dog get close again and the guard flinches.
We decided at the last minute that the dog is the only thief who gets a nickname.
Saber is much more formidable than Clovis.
“I’ll have to check in with the boss.”
“Of course,” Lucie says. “But we need to get started while you do. As you can imagine, time is of the essence.” Behind us someone releases a firecracker.
The night is filled with joyous sounds. Everyone is spilling out of the cafés now for the fireworks show that will explode above the Eiffel Tower at the turn of the New Year.
The dog and guard are both startled by the crack, but Lucie and I don’t move.
We’re unflappable. “We have to get started. We’ve got to get to the Arc by midnight.
This won’t take long.” I purposely haven’t said anything.
I can’t risk a bad accent. Lucie is making prolonged eye contact and he’s sweating.
She’s a head taller than him, which doesn’t hurt.
“Go, go,” he says, ushering us in.
“Who else is here?” Lucie asks him as I try to keep Clovis on as short a leash as possible.
“Ten of us during the shift change.”
“Let’s start in the main security control room,” Lucie says. “Call everyone to meet us. I want them all down here. We don’t take any chances. My colleague and Saber will start sweeping the galleries.” Lucie hands me the ridiculous electronic device she’s been hauling around.
Clovis and I stride quickly onto the main floor. I let him sniff into corners and along the edges of the marble pedestals of the statues.
I’m halfway up the stairs when the lights flicker once and then everything goes black.
Lucie must have been able to cut the electricals.
I have a flashlight clipped to the massive utility belt on my waist. It’s in a holster next to a stun gun, the only weapon I’m carrying.
French police are not usually armed, and we aren’t planning on using it.
I know this museum as well as I would know my own home.
Even in the dark, I know how to reach the Van Gogh salon once I make it to the fifth floor.
Lucie has told him we will start at the top of the building and work our way down, but they also no longer have a way to track us with the electricity shut down.
She will have also explained that the threat was highly specific to the fifth floor so we can make a quick exit after we’ve loaded up the paintings.
I hear heavy breathing on the stairs behind me and feel a shiver of fear for the first time since we’ve walked in.
“It’s just me,” Lucie whispers. “Keep going.”
“Did they call the curator?”
“I don’t think so,” Lucie says. “We got lucky. I think they’re all super high.
The security room reeked of pot. The last thing they want is someone coming down here and asking them questions.
I loosened them all up with a story about the time I defused a bomb in the toilet of the prime minister’s house. ”
“Oh, did you?”
“It was a hilarious shit storm the way I told it.”
We’re silent as we finish the climb, but every sound echoes.
Each squeak of my black sneakers sounds like a fire alarm.
I lift the heavy case up each stair so it doesn’t clatter, and curse Stella for choosing paintings on such a high floor of the museum as I try to catch my breath at the top.
I quickly pull out the walkie-talkie from my pocket and whisper into it.
“Everything good out there?”
“All clear, nothing to see except some teenagers mooning me off the Pont Royal,” Colette whispers back through the crackly speaker.
We make our way to salon 36 and I begin removing La Chambre à Arles, the painting of Van Gogh’s bedroom in the yellow house he shared with Paul Gauguin before he sliced off his ear and was committed to an asylum. Lucie slips into the next salon to take the Renoir.
We’re working mostly in the dark, our flashlights bobbing on our belts to keep our hands free. I’ve clipped the dog to my waist, but he has no interest in doing anything but sniffing my pocket for the bacon I’ve put in there to reward him when we’re finished.
My hands are steady despite everything at stake.
This is the moment we’ve prepared for. I extend my arms as wide as I can and grasp the gilded frame on either end, lifting it slightly in expectation of a standard wall mount.
It will only come about four inches from the wall.
I run my hand into the narrow space between the canvas and the wall, only to find a thin metal wire running from the back of the frame to somewhere inside the plaster.
“Lucie,” I whisper, keeping my voice low, though it easily carries into the next room. “There’s a security wire.”
She turns, her flashlight briefly illuminating my face. “Remember, we prepared for this.”
I run my fingers along the wire, tracing it to where it disappears into a small hole in the wall.
My mind races. We did prepare for this, but even Colette’s sources said only a third of the paintings have these kinds of wires. If we cut it, it could trigger an alarm once the electricity returns. If we don’t remove it properly, we can’t take the painting. The minutes are ticking by.
“Can we detach it from the frame?” Lucie asks, now at my side. She’s finished her work with the Renoir and already has it packed in the case.
I examine the connection point, my fingers working delicately in the dim light. “It’s attached with some kind of specialized screw. I need…” I trail off, searching through the utility belt for something that might help.
Clovis whines softly, growing restless. I pat his head absently, my other hand still exploring the unexpected security feature. Then I feel the multi-tool dangling off my belt. Stella insisted I bring it. Always be prepared for the unexpected, she’d said.
“Hold your flashlight here,” I whisper to Lucie.
She aims her light precisely where I need it. I fumble for the smallest attachment from the multi-tool and carefully insert it into the specialized screw on the back of the canvas.
“It’s not budging,” I breathe, feeling sweat bead on my forehead despite the cool air.
“Let me try,” Lucie says, handing me her flashlight. Her fingers are longer, stronger from years of sculpting. She applies steady pressure, turning the tool with painful slowness. A full minute passes in silence.
Then we hear a faint click.
“Got it,” she whispers, carefully disconnecting the security wire from the frame.
Despite their small size compared to some of the massive pieces in the Orsay, the painting is still heavy and unwieldy in its frame.
I feel like I’m maneuvering a corpse into a body bag as I take it from the wall and slip it into the protective sheath and then into the hard-shelled rolling suitcase.
Lucie works on resecuring the wire to my copy of the painting before hanging it on the wall.
Within minutes my forgery is in place and we’re making our way back toward the stairs. We’re out of the gallery when an explosion of sound and light erupts around us. Lucie grabs me from behind and pulls me down onto the floor.
“What the hell?”
The next flash of white and crack of gunpowder reveal that the fireworks have started early.
We’re standing in my favorite spot in front of the grand clock window on the fifth floor.
Its glass and thin metal framing shudder from the booming explosions outside and Lucie and I release a sigh of relief at the same time as we both try to muffle a laugh.
We stand and clutch each other, watching the spectacle of light reflected in the Seine.