Midnight at the Tuscany Hotel

by James Markert

  “Excuse me?”

  “The grenade. How’d I do?”

  Vitto laughed, and his heart grew warm. Maybe laughter was even better medicine than that water. But William was serious, and Vitto wanted to take him seriously. How’d I do? How many times had he asked that question inside his own head when he’d finish one of his paintings or frescoes and Robert came in to gaze upon it, only to grunt and walk away as if annoyed or disappointed.

  Vitto sat back on Valerie’s bed and faced his son. “You did good, William. The throw must have been executed perfectly with the arc you put on it. Sailed right over that fountain statue. Thought for a minute I saw Cronus’s head move to watch it.”

  “Who’s Cronus?”

  “God of time, the guy in that fountain statue. But I was kidding. Statue heads don’t move.”

  William grinned. “I did feel like I really let it loose.”

  “That you did. Perfect throw.”

  They sat for a minute, looking around the room. William gazed up at the ceiling, pointed. “Mommy said you painted that when you were fourteen. All the girls have Mommy’s face.”

  Vitto eyed the ceiling, already knowing he’d painted all the faces to look like Valerie but feeling the need to look anyway. It’s probably why she’d picked this room out of all the others; it had been a big surprise to her that summer to see what Vitto had painted for her.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a replica,” said Vitto. “Of Raphael’s fresco, The Triumph of Galatea. I was going to paint it on the wall but decided to paint the ceiling instead. That’s Galatea in the middle there, in the red robe, eyeing the heavens. She’s in a clamshell chariot pulled by dolphins.”

  “Why not horses?”

  “Horses can’t swim. And she’s a nymph of the sea.”

  “What’s a nymph?”

  “Uh, they’re minor divinities. Mythological spirits of nature . . . typically beautiful maidens.”

  William blinked at the big words, clearly not following. But he knew beautiful. “That’s why you painted Mommy?”

  “Yes, that’s why I painted your mother.”

  William looked back up. “What else?”

  “Well, there’s a Triton—half man, half fish—abducting another sea nymph.”

  “Like the fountain outside.”

  “Yes, sort of.”

  “Why are men always stealing all the mommies?”

  Vitto chuckled, said under his breath. “I don’t know.”

  “Why’s everybody naked?”

  This, too, gave him pause. “They’re not all naked. Galatea has the red robe on.”

  “Those naked babies got wings on. I didn’t know naked babies could fly. Why are they shooting her with those bows and arrows?”

  “Those are putti. You see them a lot in Italian art. They’re toddler boys—often chubby and winged.”

  “Little fat baby boys with wings.”

  “Yes, little fat winged baby boys.” Vitto pointed again. “In this painting they’re firing Cupid’s bow and arrows. Cupid is the god of . . .” He hesitated; Magdalena had told him the story of Galatea when he was a few years older than William. “. . . the god of attraction and affection. Galatea was known as the goddess of calm seas. She attracted the attention of the giant Cyclops Polyphemus, who tried to woo her with music from his rustic pipes. But she instead fell for a youth from Sicily named Acis. Polyphemus grew jealous and crushed the boy beneath a big rock. Galatea was stricken with grief, so she transformed the boy Acis into a stream.”

  Vitto watched William for a reaction but saw only confusion or boredom or a combination of both. “What’s depicted on the ceiling is Galatea sailing through the water. She hears the giant’s love song and turns her head with a smile.”

  “Which one are you? The giant? Or one of the little fat baby boys shooting the arrows? Or the guy stealing that woman?”

  “None,” said Vitto. “It’s not real.”

  “Oh,” said William, still staring.

  “Let’s get you in bed.” It was part of Valerie’s deal—go in and discipline the boy and then get him tucked in for bed. Apparently he didn’t frighten William anymore; otherwise their conversation wouldn’t have gone as deep as it had gone.

  Vitto ripped the first page from the notepad, folded it, and shoved it in his shirt pocket. William kicked his shoes off and slid under the covers. “How many times you gonna tell Mommy I copied that sentence.”

  “Enough. You copied it enough. How’s that?”

  “Good.”

  Vitto tucked him in, although he was a little unsure exactly how to do so. He had helped with the boy as an infant but hadn’t been involved with any bedtime ritual since he returned from the war. The boy smiled, so he must have done something right.

  “I forgot to brush my teeth.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t.” He ruffled William’s hair, shut off the light, and headed for the door.

  William’s voice caught him at the threshold. “Paint the real.”

  Vitto turned toward the bed, found his son eyeing the ceiling again. “The real?”

  “You said this wasn’t real,” said William. “So you should paint the real.”

  Twenty-Three

  Vitto hurried through the loggia outside the hotel’s southern wing, wooden easel in one hand and a freshly stretched canvas in the other.

  Valerie followed excitedly in his wake. “Vitto, what are you doing?”

  I’m painting the real. He looked over his shoulder as he moved through an archway and out onto the piazza. “What does it look like I’m doing, Valerie?” He said it with a smile, not as a wise guy, and her positive reaction spurred him faster. She covered her grin with the same hand he’d kissed—surprising them both—moments ago, right after he’d closed the door to the room, finding Valerie waiting and possibly spying just outside. “I need my paints!”

  It wasn’t a demand or even a suggestion—he’d planned on retrieving them himself—but she was off in an instant, running for his satchel of tubes and brushes before he could change his mind. He walked past the fountain and set down his easel twenty paces from where Robert sat slumped in a chair, staring at the untouched slab of stone before him.

  At first, after the surge of adrenaline he’d had after leaving the room and running into the eavesdropping Valerie, he hadn’t been sure what to paint; he’d only known he had to paint something. But then it had quickly dawned on him that the subject was right in front of him, out there on the piazza.

  Vitto moved the easel a few steps to the left for a better angle of Robert’s position, slouched in his chair with a fist propping his chin up—a clothed, elderly version of Rodin’s The Thinker. The slight up-and-down movement of his chest signified he was alive. Otherwise, he gave no sign that he saw his son suddenly set up to paint him. Or perhaps he had seen but didn’t care.

  Valerie returned a minute later with Vitto’s satchel and an old jacket—“It will get chilly in an hour or two”—and watched over his shoulder while he centered the canvas on the easel, readied his stained palette, and focused on his father across the way.

  “Is he asleep?” Valerie whispered.

  “I dunno.”

  “I’m not asleep.” Robert sat up straight as if he’d been toying with them all along. “And you two cake-eaters interrupted my train of thought.” He stood from the chair, shuffled slowly into the shadows on the edge of the piazza. A few seconds later, the closing of his door echoed like a gunshot.

  Valerie folded her arms in defeat. She patted Vitto’s shoulder. “I’m going to bed. Don’t lose the inspiration.”

  Her door closed a minute later, leaving him alone on the piazza. All was silent except the familiar sound of ocean waves pounding the rocks below the cliff. Memories flashed like perfect snapshots: his mother’s hair tousled by coastal breeze, Father Embry’s choked voice during the eulogy, Robert unable to look at the casket they were about to bury in the ground. Valerie at the violin. Wil
liam in the olive grove.

  Vitto looked toward the chair his father had just vacated and pictured him there exactly as he’d been moments before. He didn’t need him to pose; the scene had already engraved itself in his memory, just as all the classic Renaissance paintings he’d copied over the years had done. Except his father was real, and now he would paint the real. Something of his own experience. From his own life.

  He needed better light, though. The moon and the lampposts that circled the piazza gave sufficient light for sculpting in white marble, but not for painting in color. Vitto surveyed the piazza, thought a minute, then picked up his supplies and crossed over to the deserted bar, where he switched the lights on. Vitto shoved a few little tables against the far wall and set up his easel in the middle of the floor. And then, for the first time since the weeks before the war, Vitto put brush to canvas. The initial touch of the stiff bristle crunched against the tightly pulled cloth, but soon the paint ran smooth, his strokes more confident, and within an hour he’d captured the vision of his father sitting slumped and thinking in that chair, the untouched slab of marble looming like a mountain of unanswerable questions.

  He stood, stepped back to view it from a different perspective, approved of what he saw, and a title popped into his head: A God, Fallen. He didn’t know if Robert would love it or hate it, kiss it or put a fist through it, but he didn’t much care. He’d finished the first painting of his rebirth—he’d painted the real—and now he yearned to do more. In the basement, where earlier he’d dusted off the canvas for what would become A God, Fallen, he grabbed five more canvas-stretched frames and brought them out to the piazza.

  Alone, except for the waves and the breeze and snoring reverberating from behind colorful closed doors, he squeezed color after color onto his wooden palette and painted through the night, finishing four more paintings before sunrise.

  The first one recreated a vivid memory from Buchenwald. It depicted the back of a soldier standing, head lowered in defeat, while the furnace glowed in the background, bodies in stacks all around. Although the face never showed, in his mind the soldier was him.

  He named the painting A Soldier’s Lesson.

  The second painting showed the instant Valerie had stepped out onto the porch the day he returned from the war. The joy on her face warmed him—at the time, he had hardly been able to feel a thing. That one he named A Soldier’s Return.

  The next canvas captured a memory from only hours before, of himself and William sitting in profile on two beds facing each other. He named it A Father’s Return.

  The last painting of the night showed a memory from back at the veteran’s hospital, when he’d opened his eyes to find Johnny Two-Times sitting on the side of the neighboring bed, watching over him and smiling. As soon as it was finished, he marched it right to the door of John’s Caravaggio room and knocked. He knew he was awake because he could hear him crying. Apparently the loss of the only woman he claimed would ever love a big baby like him had reversed the progress he’d been making—at least temporarily.

  “Who is it?” he called now through the door.

  “It’s Gandy.”

  “Go away.”

  Vitto opened the door and closed it behind him. John was sitting up in bed with his back against the headboard, legs drawn up and in, his wrists hanging lazily off his trouser-covered kneecaps, boots still on like he never intended to go to sleep.

  “What do you want, Gandy?”

  Vitto showed him the painting.

  “Why’d you paint me?”

  “Felt like painting a big, ugly crybaby.”

  John nodded, resigned. “It’s good.”

  “I’m calling it A Soldier’s Calling.”

  John scoffed. “Ain’t no soldier, Gandy. Never was.”

  “That’s not the point,” said Vitto. “And yes you are. Look at your face.”

  John pointed across the room toward the desk. “Bring me that mirror. Although I already know what I look like.”

  “No, your face in the painting. What are you doing?”

  “I’m smiling.”

  “Yes, John. You’re smiling.”

  “So?”

  “So . . . barrel of sunshine or a barrel of stones.”

  John nodded as a grin formed. “Barrel of sunshine, Gandy.”

  “Right. Barrel of sunshine. Your outlook on life can save lives.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so. And Beverly will be back. Trust me.”

  John smiled like he believed it now himself. “But she slapped me, Gandy.”

  “She was upset over the news. You asked for her hand in marriage at the worst possible time, John. Why did you do that?”

  “Just felt it, Gandy, you know?”

  “Did you tell her you’d been faking the nightmares so she’d come up to your room?”

  He nodded. “Right after I asked her to marry me. It just came out. Then she slapped me.”

  “She’ll be back, John.”

  “Do you think so?” He considered the idea. “I hope so.”

  “But both knees? I warned you, nobody does that.”

  “I told you, Gandy. I was feeling it.”

  They shared a laugh, then shook hands. Before Vitto walked out the door, John pointed at the painting propped against the bed. “Gandy, your painting.”

  Vitto nodded toward it. “I didn’t paint that for myself, John. It’s yours.”

  Vitto stood outside his father’s room for a good minute before he knocked.

  “What?” The voice was weak, almost inaudible.

  “It’s Vitto. Can I come in?” He waited, but after no answer he tried the knob, found it unlocked, and let himself in. Robert was in bed with his head and shoulders propped up on pillows, the blanket pulled up to a chest that didn’t look so strong anymore. In the corner of the room a candle flickered, and in the shadows Robert’s eye sockets looked so sunken, his head resembled a skull. “Dad, you okay?”

  “What do you want?”

  Robert seemed confused; his eyes wandered. On the bedside table was a tray with three medicine cups of water, still full.

  “You stopped taking your medicine, Dad.” Robert’s eyes flashed, but he didn’t answer. Vitto repeated, “You stopped taking your medicine.”

  “So?”

  “Why?”

  Robert didn’t answer; he just looked toward the wall as if he’d given up. Vitto said, “You afraid to die?”

  Robert swallowed, licked chapped lips. “I can’t work anymore. I haven’t carved anything of worth since she died.” A smile flickered, then hid back in the shadows. “But what we created together . . . Vittorio, I never was at a loss for inspiration. It was instant, came to me the moment I saw her. She was more than a wife. She was my muse.”

  He said it like there’d never been a more rock-hard truth ever spoken. And then, softer. “My muse.”

  “You created brilliant sculptures before you met Mamma,” said Vitto. “You can do it again.”

  Robert’s head swiveled toward his son. “Can I? Seems I have two choices. Drink my medicine and remember, only to realize I can no longer create. Or not drink it and let my mind go.”

  “I can’t make that decision for you.” And didn’t know what he would choose if the decision was his to make. Watching his father die was painful, but seeing him return to what he’d been months before could prove even more so.

  “What about what you said earlier? Dad?”

  “What did I say earlier?”

  “I said that all the guests were coming here to die. You said no, they’re coming here so they can live.”

  “So?”

  “Then live.” He couldn’t believe he’d just said that, and he wondered how much it had come from his own selfishness. Not wanting to deal with his father’s affliction, as Valerie had for so many months. Not wanting to help him dress and eat and do every little piece of daily life they all took for granted until it was gone. And it was true. He hated the idea o
f all that.

  But there was something else, too, something deeper. He’d never felt closer to his father than he did right now. After the hours he’d just spent painting on the piazza, he felt like he was finally alive again too. Like he’d already practiced what he was now preaching. He’d lived most of his childhood and all of his adult life with questions about both of his parents and felt he was suddenly on the verge of learning some answers. Like a bridge had begun to construct itself over the chasm.

  Robert’s eyes settled on the framed canvas Vitto had propped against the bed. “Show me.”

  Vitto hesitated, suddenly wished he hadn’t painted it, hadn’t brought it here. Maybe painting the real wasn’t what was best for everyone. Truth medicine was often hard to swallow. And what would he do if his father responded the way he always had—that familiar shrug, like nothing Vitto did was ever good enough in his eyes, when in truth, he’d never been able to really see what his son had created.

  He steeled his nerves and turned the painting and showed it to his father anyway.

  Robert stared, blinked, and clenched his jaw as he viewed himself on canvas—the slumped posture and the blank gaze toward that untouched slab of marble. At least he didn’t look away or eye it as if it mattered little. The painting had clearly struck some chord.

  Vitto cleared the nerves from his throat. “I didn’t use any color on this one.” He tapped the canvas. “Just used black and grays. So you could see it as it is.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “It was an attempt.”

  Moisture pooled in Robert’s eyes. “What’s it called?” Vitto didn’t answer right away, was even considering changing the name at the last second, when Robert said, “Every masterpiece has a name, Vitto.”

  Masterpiece? Vitto’s eyes lifted, and his heart swelled from the apparent approval. “It’s called . . . A God, Fallen.”

  He waited, waited. The hint of a grin showed on Robert’s unshaven jawline, so Vitto allowed his own to emerge.

  And then Robert said, “Get out.”

  With those two words Vitto’s heart stopped, then seemed to lurch into his throat. Two words laced with what he construed as hate and venom—whether aimed at himself or his son, Vitto couldn’t yet tell.