Chapter Twenty-seven

ALONE, SITTING IN a budget hotel in a backstreet of bodrum, writing my last will and testament, I had to decide what would happen to a treasure trove of canvases which most museum curators would die for.

The collection was completely intact. Although I had spent a lot of time in the silence of the tea warehouse – wandering among the towering racks of paintings, pulling out masterly works that nobody had seen in decades – I had never sold any of them. They were too much a part of Bill, and my feelings about them – as well as the wealth they represented – were still far too raw for me to deal with.

Strangely, though, the disposition of them in the event of my death presented no problem to me. I figured the answer must have been bubbling away on the back burner of my mind for hours, if not longer.

I wrote that I wanted the Museum of Modern Art to be given one hundred canvases of their choice, on condition that they put them on permanent display. I directed that they should also be granted the folio of Rauschenberg drawings that was the reason Bill and I had visited Strasbourg so long ago. I then described the photograph of the peasant woman and her children walking to the gas chamber that I had seen at the Natzweiler death camp – the photo that had haunted so many of my dreams – and requested that the museum acquire a copy of it.

I said that the rest of the canvases, including the warehouse in which they were stored, were to be sold and the proceeds used to endow a William J. Murdoch Home for Orphaned Roma or Gypsy Children.

I then came to the most difficult part of the exercise. In conclusion, I said, I wanted the Museum of Modern Art to mount a small display at the entrance to whatever gallery featured the one hundred works. The display should consist of the Rauschenberg drawings, the copy of the photo from the death camp and the following dedication: ‘Bequeathed to the people of New York in memory of Bill …’

I sat very still for a long time and then laid my pen down. I was unsure what to say next, incapable of finding the words that would do proper honour to Bill’s memory. I thought of us driving up through the pine forest of the Vosges mountains, I remembered the crouching evil of the gas chamber, I felt again the strength of him as I slipped my hand unbidden into his, I saw the instant happiness in his eyes as he looked down at me, and suddenly I knew the words that would mean everything to my foster father: ‘Bequeathed to the people of New York in memory of Bill Murdoch – by his loving son, Scott. ’

I finished by appointing Finbar Hanrahan, counsel-at-law of Park Avenue, and James Balthazar Grosvenor, President of the United States, as executors. I figured if I was going to die for my country it was the least he could do.

I called down to the front desk, heard the young duty manager’s sleep-addled voice and asked him to come to my room. Without letting him see the content of the document, I had him witness my signature and I then sealed it in an envelope and addressed it to Finbar.

I put that envelope inside another, scrawled Ben’s name on it and a note: ‘In the event of my death, please deliver the enclosed letter by hand when you return to New York. ’

I slipped it under the door of Ben’s darkened room and went back to my own. I locked the door, kicked off my shoes and lay fully clothed on the bed. In the stillness of the night, two lines from an old poem whose name or author I couldn’t remember drifted into my head:

I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;

I woke, and found that life was duty.

Life was duty. Like any soldier going into battle, I thought of the conflict that lay ahead. To be honest, I didn’t hope for success or glory. I just hoped that I would acquit myself with honour and courage.