Painting Death

by Tim Parks

  ‘Sei splendido!’

  The noise was no more than a sharp thud. Zolla did not even cry out. Before he had clattered to the floor, Morris was rushing across the room toward the red bulk of the cardinal, waving the gun before him. No fainting this time. At last, he had surprised them. Shocked, the big clergyman raised his hands to his face, as if skin and bone could offer any protection.

  ‘Per l’amore di Dio!’ he protested.

  It occurred to Morris then, in the hallucinatory intensity of the moment, that he might now, if he so wished, as in a movie, force the cardinal to tell him all kinds of interesting things: about what really went on in the Museo di Castelvecchio, about the real nature of the confraternità, about the real identity of the Arab man in the photograph, about what really happened the night Volpi died. And so on. All this the cardinal could have been forced to disclose with the barrel of a gun in his gut. Especially a hot gun.

  ‘Don’t,’ Mimi said.

  Morris Duckworth hesitated.

  ‘Don’t waste time. Morrees. Don’t make this mistake.’

  She was right.

  ‘Turn round, Paolo, per favore,’ Morris said, ‘and lead me to where I have to do my job.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘You can give the opening speech. I’m sure you’ll do it better than our professor would have. Let’s go now.’

  Slowly the cardinal dropped his hands. His face, even his nose, had suddenly drained white, but there was the faintest smile on his lips now, a smile of intense recognition, as of a man confirmed at last in the opinion that he has met someone truly special: Morris Arthur Duckworth. It was a moment to be painted, Morris thought, if ever there was one.

  ‘As you will,’ the churchman stammered. ‘I’m sure we’ll, er, fix this, somehow. Yes. The important thing is Al Zuwaid.’

  That name!

  The cardinal turned to open the door. As he did so, Morris raised the gun so that it pointed upward from the bottom of the skull under the right ear and shot. The red pillar of righteousness crashed. Morris hurried back across the room, pointed the gun into one of Zolla’s eyes and fired again. This really was so much easier than bludgeoning people with candlesticks. The mature man’s weapon. If he’d had a gun that day, Stan wouldn’t have had a chance. Then back again to the cardinal. One bullet would have to do here. Morris crouched, found the man’s right hand, opened it and slipped in the gun. Uncannily the fingers closed around the butt of their own accord.

  ‘Just like when you were young,’ Mimi breathed.

  ‘Signori e signore, welcome to Painting Death!’

  Three minutes later, climbing on the dais of the conference room and stepping up to the microphone, Morris was not even short of breath. How long did he have? Not long.

  ‘As Professor Zolla will shortly be explaining to you, this is by far the most ambitious art exhibition that this wonderful museum has ever offered to a loyal citizenry, and probably the most innovative in all of Italy this year. If not Europe. Hence it is with immense pride, as one of the show’s sponsors, through the Duckworth Foundation, and perhaps its warmest advocate, that I stand before you now to, how can I put it, signori e signore, let’s say to prepare you for what you are about to see. Because this show is not for the squeamish or faint-hearted. It is dynamite.’

  Even as he spoke then, looking boldly into the crowd—and the room was packed with journalists, art historians and local dignitaries—even as he spoke Morris became aware of a fine spray of red dots on his left sleeve resting on the lectern.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mimi murmured. ‘Just keep going.’

  ‘Some of you, I’m sure, will have wondered whether it might not be rather morbid to offer the public no less than one hundred masterful depictions of murder and violent death. Believe me, the first time I actually saw the show in its entirety I was overwhelmed, stunned.’

  Suddenly an eye in the first row caught his. Mariella. If some of the others present looked surprised to see Morris on the podium, her expression was one of alarm. She seemed ready to jump to her feet and rush out. On the other hand she had the distinguished head of Florence’s Strozzi museum, James Bradburne, to her left and the equally distinguished Uffizi art historian, Cristina Acidini, to her right. Both of them were listening to Morris with great attention. Meantime, at the back of the room, half a dozen TV cameras were recording every word for news bulletins around the world, not to mention the video for Zolla’s mother; from the floor beneath the dais came the flashes of the newspaper photographers. A sense of occasion tends to intimidate, Morris knew; no one wishes to do something rash and appear ridiculous on camera. In a charming gesture of friendliness, Morris smiled into the woman’s eyes, as if to say, everything under control, cara.

  ‘Which it is, Morrees. It is. Except . . .’

  ‘However, before we wonder about the wisdom of this decision, let’s remember some of the great names who have given us those depictions.’

  Morris paused and puffed up his chest. The slight pressure of the Tonbridge School tie around his neck was strangely thrilling.

  ‘Giotto, Botticelli, Bellini’—Zolla would have needed notes to remember the names—‘Masaccio, Caravaggio, Goya, Poussin, Titian’—the art historian was a nobody—‘Tiepolo, Gentileschi, Giorgione’—utterly without charisma—‘Rubens, Stuck, Klimt, Delacroix’—Morris beamed—‘and many many others.’

  Talk about idiota now, Mr. Sole Curator. Talk about buffone now, Mr. Dead Man!

  Glancing down for a moment, Morris noticed that there was actually a rather large splash of red on the toe of his left shoe. He felt elated. And to think that he had blown away that mountain of ecclesiastical presumption too, pulling the very trigger the pompous fool had put into his hand.

  ‘I’m so happy for you,’ Mimi frothed. ‘Only that . . .’

  ‘Signore e signori, why did these great minds feel the need to paint scenes that bring together two of the unhappiest aspects of human life, our mortality and our cruelty? Why did they want to show that? Why lavish their ineffable creative skills on Cain clubbing Abel to death, on Judith hacking through Holofernes’ neck, on the soldiers flaying San Bartolomeo, on Othello strangling Desdemona? Was it just because these stories are in the Bible, or at the centre of our cultural heritage? Was that all it was?’

  It was strange. Morris hadn’t prepared this speech in any way. Yet everything was coming out with the greatest ease and fluency. Perhaps it was because Mimi was back. As he spoke he even had time to scan the crowd. There was no sign, he saw, of his designated victim, Al Zuwaid. Samira’s father? Her uncle? He had got wind. She had warned him. But Antonella was there in the second row, with Mauro on her right and, yes, Stan on her left. Stan Albertini! For Christ’s sake. The meddling Californian was back again. He had heard that their marriage was over no doubt. He was trying to step into Morris Duckworth’s affluent shoes and take over the Trevisan fortune. For a moment Morris’s eyes met Antonella’s. Her round pale face was absolutely inscrutable.

  ‘. . . only it would be very nice, Morrees,’ Mimi whispered, ‘to have our older sister join us.’

  He mustn’t let himself be distracted.

  ‘She hates you, Morrees. She betrayed you.’

  ‘Signore e signori, we live in a country which is famous for its mysteries, for its conspiracies, for its occulting of power. One thinks of Aldo Moro, of Ustica, of Piazza Fontana. So many unexplained deaths. And we live in an age that does everything to hide our mortality behind hospital screens, to disguise the ugly reality of our prejudices in the sham of political correctness. Such hypocrisies are not new. So as you walk through the show, and I will detain you no longer . . .’

  As he said this Morris smiled at the mayor, in the front row beside Bradburne, recalling that moment, less than a year ago, when the Northern League man had been in such a hurry to meet the Arab delegation (could Al Zuwaid have been among them? Why hadn’t Samira told him who her father was?). He too, the mayor that is, seemed puzzled to have Morris at the microphone, but
clearly appreciated his public-speaking skills. Bradburne, who was wearing a rather ridiculous, but also rather marvellous mauve silk waistcoat, seemed hugely impressed. Then Morris realised that the pudgy presumptuous face behind him, with its holier-than-thou simper, the man with the bald spot and the turkey neck must be Parkes. Thirty years in Verona and they met at last! I’ll show the bastard who’s the real artist, Morris thought.

  ‘You!’ Mimi assured him. ‘Only you could bring three sisters together in heaven. Do it, Morrees!’

  ‘So as you walk through the show, signore e signori, with all its rich and varied representations of fratricide and matricide, of stabbing and stoning and beheading, may I invite you to reflect on this: what our artists are showing us is the stark reality of the fact, the baseline fact of violence ; violence beyond any explanation or mystification, beyond any motive and technique or fancy detective-story narrative of the variety that usually occupies our minds and distracts us from the awfulness of what has actually, physically happened. To the artist it hardly matters how or why each death occurs, the motives, the conspiracies, the techniques. Rather a terrible brutality is made briefly beautiful, seeable, in order that we may be reminded of what, in essence, we all are: savages.’

  At this point a cry was raised. ‘Aiuto, aiuto, o aiuto. Sono morti.’

  Someone was running along the corridor.

  ‘Aiuto! Chiamate la polizia. Sono morti ammazzati!’

  The door was thrown open. Morris recognised one of the young women who worked alongside Mariella. She held on to the door handle as if she might faint. People were getting to their feet, turning to the door.

  ‘Anto,’ Mimi told him. ‘Do it now! Quick.’

  So this was what she had come back for, Morris thought. Not to help him, but to fetch her sister.

  ‘She knows, Morrees. She knows about you. She’s got to go.’

  ‘But I don’t have the gun.’

  In the crush Antonella was moving arm in arm with Stan towards the exit.

  ‘When did you ever need a gun, Morrees?’

  ‘She’s the mother of my children, Mimi.’

  ‘She betrayed you with Don Lorenzo, Morris. She betrayed you with Stan.’

  What nonsense. Morris shook his head. He felt oddly queasy, faint even.

  ‘Morrees, you must—’

  ‘No!’

  Struggling to get a grip on rising nausea, Morris put aside the microphone and headed the opposite way from the crowd, across the dais, down along the front wall, through the corridor of screens that led to the entrance to the show. He mustn’t faint this time. If I faint I’m dead. Nodding to a uniformed attendant, he strode quickly past the introductory panels, past Cain and Abel, David and Goliath, Judith and Holofernes, Jael and Sisera, past Salome and John the Baptist—my glorious predecessors, he fleetingly thought, he felt better now, artists, killers and victims all—past St Steven, San Sebastian, San Bartolomeo—Morris too was a martyr, past St Peter crucified and Santa Chiara with her eyes poked out. But now Morris stopped a moment spying a canvas he wasn’t familiar with, a bearded man with a top knot poking out of a great black cauldron under which a bonfire had been lit. ‘Bhai Dayala Ji being boiled alive,’ the caption read, ‘by the orders of Mughul Emperor Aurangzeb in November 1675.’ Morris shook his head. What was Zolla thinking of ?

  ‘What are you thinking of?’ Mimi was petulant. ‘I’m so disappointed.’

  Morris stood staring at the awful painting. Boiling in his pot Dayala Ji wore a top knot and a heavily bearded smile.

  ‘There’s still time,’ she insisted.

  ‘Enough, Mimi,’ Morris muttered. ‘I’m my own man. I do what I want.’

  If all went to plan, Samira would be waiting. His mind was clearing now.

  ‘Go to your whore and you’ll never hear from me again.’

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ Morris told her sharply.

  Now he heard footsteps. Damn. Morris turned and resumed his previous pace, walking swiftly past Medea and Achilles and Perseus, past Sickert’s sad assassins and the waxy nudity of their pathetic victims. The footsteps were gaining on him.

  ‘Rot in hell,’ Mimi was calling.

  Oddly, this was exactly what Morris wanted to hear. He was through with her.

  Closing the show as it had opened, with a grand canvas in the centre of the thoroughfare, was Delacroix’s Sardanapalus. An excellent decision. Morris stopped and waited. He had guessed who his pursuer was. He might as well enjoy one long look at this magnificent painting, in the original flesh. The richness of its colour, the extraordinary reconciliation of chaos and violence with form and beauty, was breathtaking. So much finer than Forbes’s copy.

  ‘Mariella,’ he said as the footsteps approached. He didn’t turn.

  ‘A great picture, no?’

  ‘What in God’s name is going on?’ her voice quavered.

  ‘You’re a wonderful woman,’ Morris told her. ‘You deserved better than that pious old fraud.’

  ‘What did you do?’ she shrieked.

  Morris’s ear picked up the sound of sirens. Still without turning, he said: ‘It will be in your interest, Mariella, to agree that the cardinal was depressed and must have shot first Zolla, then himself. Out of guilt for their murdering Volpi. Think about it.’

  He walked round the painting and made for the exit.

  ‘If you get into that car, it’s all over with me,’ Mimi told him.

  Morris didn’t bother to reply. Outside, on Via Cavour, Samira’s Cinquecento was on the double yellow line. The sirens were coming from behind them. Morris opened the door with deliberate calm. There was no need to say anything. She pulled away. He watched her profile as she shifted gear, intent and practical, the lips puckering around the tip of the tongue. She had put her hair up. The neck was long and the chin firm. What a beautiful young woman she was. How mad of her to accept the challenge of going on the run with Morris. And how long could it last? Twenty-four hours? Forty-eight? What chances did they have? In a Cinquecento! Yet this madness had seemed so much better than a contract killer’s return to the suffocating marital propriety of Via Oberdan. This moment of wild freedom was what his whole life had pointed to, Morris thought. He wouldn’t let his woman down this time.

  ‘I love you, Samira,’ he breathed. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this for me.’

  She smiled, turned, smiled more warmly, and drove on through San Zeno, then the circular road. Near the stadium she turned off.

  ‘What’s up?’

  She stopped just before the stadium car park. Immediately in front of them was a large black luxury sedan. Again she smiled.

  ‘We’re changing cars, Mo.’

  Morris was alert, not alarmed, but ready to be so.

  ‘And the bags?’

  ‘Already in there.’ She motioned with her head to the larger car, a Mercedes of some kind. The windows were dark. Morris noticed an unusual licence plate. A blue Arab scrawl.

  ‘Quick now.’

  ‘But . . .’ Morris hesitated.

  Samira hurried forward and opened the back left door of the larger vehicle. Why the back? Wasn’t she driving? Morris had no alternative but to follow. As he opened the back door on the other side he saw two men in the front. For a second he thought of fleeing, but he had to trust the girl. Looking over his shoulder from the driving wheel, Tarik said: ‘Welcome to Libya, Morris. Next stop, Tripoli. You have just done our country an immense service.’

  Even though he hadn’t seen the face yet, Morris realised that the older man up front must be his designated victim, Al Zuwaid. He turned to look at Samira. She raised a plucked eyebrow and opened her arms, ‘New family, Morris,’ she smiled. ‘New country, new lady, new life.’

  Some weeks later, lounging beside a swimming pool with a gin and tonic in his right hand and a copy of L’Étranger in his left, it occurred to Morris that he had never asked anyone about that call from Volpi the same night the man was killed. Perhaps everything they had told him
, he thought, had been a pack of lies. Putting the book aside to let his fingers trail on the stomach of the beautiful woman beside him, his eyes dazzled by the Libyan sun dancing on the palace pool, Morris frowned and puzzled and speculated, until finally it occurred to him that he really had left Italy at last. He had left it behind, that country of conspiracies, and his old double life with it. Mimi too. The ghost was gone. His scarred face relaxed in a slow smile and at that very moment the surface of the bright water broke and a lithe figure climbed out. Square-shouldered and stark naked, Tarik was grinning at him. Morris Duckworth closed his own blue eyes in placid assent. A mellow old age lay before him.