Restoration

by Olaf Olafsson

  “There is nothing here,” Pritchett said before he could stop himself.

  Kristín looked at him. She was relieved by his answer but tried not to show it. The sooner these men left, the better.

  Captain Duane smiled. He was neat for someone who’d been on the front for weeks but he looked tired.

  “We’re on our way to Montepulciano and were asked to look in on you. The troops didn’t see anyone here this morning. They thought it was strange.”

  Pritchett explained that all but a few of the household had left for Montepulciano two days before.

  “The rest of us have been hiding.”

  “And the Germans are all gone?”

  “As far as we can tell.”

  The afternoon sun bathed the hills, but down in the valley a light-blue haze was spreading over the cornfields. All was quiet nearby but in the distance they could hear explosions every now and then. Sour-smelling smoke rose from the bonfire they had built in the crater in the courtyard and drifted to them in long, thin veils.

  “It’s beautiful here,” the captain said, looking over the valley. “Despite all the destruction. You got off lightly compared to some of the other farms and villages we’ve seen.”

  Pritchett asked them about Montepulciano.

  “The Germans are still holding it but we’re closing in on them. It’s only a matter of hours.”

  They walked to the back of the villa. The number of arrivals from the farms had grown; they stood gloomily in groups in the courtyard waiting for Pritchett to talk to them. He asked Kristín to take the Americans into the kitchen and make sure they were properly fed before they continued their journey, then turned his attention to the group from the farms.

  Kristín led them inside. There was no one in the kitchen but the cook. The Americans sat down but Kristín went into the pantry and helped the cook fetch a loaf of bread, eggs, and ham.

  “Where are you from?” asked Lieutenant Hart, the younger of the two.

  She told them.

  “Really? Not too many of you around here.”

  She tried to smile and then, in as neutral a tone as she could muster, she asked them about their work.

  They both liked to talk. Not least Lieutenant Hart.

  “Are you interested in art?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, hesitantly.

  He was her age. Tall and slim, narrow across the shoulders, a bit hunched. His fingers, long and delicate, had a tendency to touch his face, which was recovering from sunburn.

  “There aren’t many of us,” he said. “Not yet. We’re on the front lines and go into the villages as soon as they’ve been liberated to see what can be done to save anything of cultural value. Frescoes, monuments, churches . . . Sometimes there’s nothing we can do. Everything has been destroyed. But more often than not we have some success.”

  The cook asked Kristín whether she thought Pritchett would want her to offer them wine, then put two glasses on the table and poured. They thanked her in poor Italian. Kristín watched the lieutenant cut up his ham, the movements of his lean, elegant fingers measured and precise.

  “Have you been here long?”

  “No,” she said. “Not long,” adding after a brief silence, “I had an injury. My train was bombed.”

  Uneasy talking about herself, she stood up and looked out the window. Pritchett was trying to organize the groups, pointing toward the fattoria. Fosco and Melchiorre carried a dead soldier across the courtyard, disappearing into the smoke from the bonfire.

  “Yesterday we found a Giovanni Bellini in a villa south of Chiusi,” Lieutenant Hart said. “The Germans had hidden it in an empty barrel in the wine cellar. It was an early tempera; the most beautiful Pietà. The colors soft and . . .”

  He stopped himself.

  “Sorry, I get carried away.”

  “How did you find it?” she asked.

  They both smiled.

  “Pure luck,” said the Captain. “Our soldiers were thirsty and broke the barrel . . .”

  “But we knew the Germans had it,” added Lieutenant Hart. “They kept such accurate accounts of everything they stole or bought. There were file cabinets full of information in the Gestapo headquarters on Via Tasso. Some of it they burned with other documents, some they must have taken with them, some we got. I guess it never occurred to them that they’d lose the war.”

  Her mind was turning. Did they have the signed contract between Hofer and Marshall? Did they have Marshall’s letter of authentication? Or was it all ashes now?

  She couldn’t sit still. She had to get to the painting and destroy it. There was constant ringing in her ears, voices that tried to outdo one another, voices of fear and hope and guilt. Why did she care anymore about what happened to him? What did she owe him? Nothing, she said to herself. I owe him nothing. Then, a breath later: but no matter how much I despise him, I cannot have this on my conscience.

  This. What did she think this might be? Her mind was racing, but she tried to slow it down and get control of it. She had gone through this a thousand times, even in her sleep. If the Allies found the painting and connected him to the sale of it, he would be prosecuted as a traitor. If the partisans found out about his involvement, they might execute him as they had so many others who had aided the Nazis. And as before, when she pondered all the possible outcomes, every permutation, she concluded that she had no choice but to destroy her own forgery.

  “It’s getting late,” Captain Duane said. “We don’t want to travel in the dark.”

  They stood up and walked outside. Pritchett saw them and hurried over.

  “Is there anything we can help with before we leave?”

  “We’ll manage. If you see Marchesa Orsini, please let her know we’re all right.”

  Captain Duane pointed at the chapel.

  “Anything of value there? Anything that might be compromised?”

  “No, there is nothing. But you’re welcome to take a look.”

  The captain said there was no reason. They shook hands.

  “By the way,” said the captain, “you may expect the French troops of the Fifth Army later today or tomorrow. I hate to tell you this, but the Moroccan Goums who fight alongside them consider loot the just reward for battle. They leave no stone unturned.”

  Pritchett and Kristín watched the two men climb into the jeep and make their way down the hill. The sunlight now illuminated only the tops of the hills, and the haze in the valley had darkened, except by the river where the reflected rays undulated in the gentle breeze.

  They were about to turn back when the jeep stopped. Pritchett’s heart jumped a little, but then Lieutenant Hart turned around with a smile, raised his hand, and quickly waved good-bye.

  THE EVENING DARKNESS WAS WARM, AND THE MOON was out when Pritchett headed up to the mill. In the cemetery the farmhands and the men from the tenant farms had begun digging graves by the light of a fire they had lit; when the smell of burning kindling reached Pritchett halfway up the slope, he paused for a moment.

  The Goums had not yet arrived. There had been no traffic down in the valley after the Monuments men left, but the bombing in the distance had grown more persistent. Outside the open doors to the fattoria, people stood in silence watching the ovens being fired up, waiting for the aroma of baking bread to start drifting out through the courtyard. All remaining blankets and rugs had been gathered and Kristín had supervised the cleaning of the new sleeping quarters, the chapel, and the corn store, before helping Signorina Harris find morphine bottles that had been hidden in the back of the greenhouse. There were two men from the farms in the clinic; one had stepped on a land mine and was badly injured, the other had been shot in the arm as he tried to prevent the Germans from leaving with his horse.

  Pritchett continued up the slope, Captain Duane’s warning echoing in his mind: they leave no stone unturned. He had tried to leave sooner but never got the chance; everything was now on his shoulders. He had never wanted to be the one in charge, had
always been content to defer to Claudio and Alice and play the role of a trusted friend; with responsibility came nothing but anxiety. This was his nature but he didn’t realize it till he was in his thirties, chafing under the pressure of running a small architectural business in Florence. That’s why he had left for the countryside, that’s why he had fled a life so many of his countrymen in the city had coveted.

  He stopped, wiping the sweat from his brow. There were fires burning in the distance, but the night had muted the sounds of battle. Where was she? Where were the children? Had they made it to Montepulciano unharmed? Were they safe? He wasn’t a religious man, but as he continued up the hill, he found himself mouthing the same prayer that had been on his lips since they left. It was banal, he knew that, the words of a child, but it didn’t matter.

  He had promised her that he would take care of the painting. Saving Robert Marshall was not what he had bargained for, but for her he would do anything. And she was right: they would not want the Allies to find out that they had been hiding a cultural treasure for the Germans. Neither the Allies nor the partisans who had never fully appreciated everything they had done for them could be allowed to know that. But that wasn’t the whole story. He knew that, more than anything, Alice did not wish to explain the reason why she had agreed to assist Robert Marshall in the first place.

  She had made that clear to him the day the Germans brought the painting, and he had never asked her again. He didn’t need to; details aside, he could envision what had happened. He just hoped it hadn’t been with Marshall himself. The thought alone made him sick to his stomach.

  He loved them both dearly, but he was disappointed in Alice and Claudio. No, that wasn’t the right word. He was angry with them. How could they have let this happen? After all they had been through together, everything they had accomplished, hand in glove. Why?

  He was upset with himself. He should have sensed how much had gone wrong between them. He, who thought he knew them better than they knew themselves, had been caught off guard. There were signs, he saw that now, but he had ignored them, perhaps in the hope that they were nothing more than a passing cloud. He had once asked Claudio if everything was all right, but Claudio had only made light of it.

  “My friend,” he had said. “Marriage can be complicated. You Brits are a strange bunch . . .”

  That was all. A wry smile, then a change of subject.

  It came as a complete shock to him when Claudio disappeared. He hadn’t been himself since Giovanni’s death, and the arrival of the evacuee children from Genoa had only made things worse. But that he would pick up and leave without a word to anyone? Disappear a few days after the first bomb fell in the valley? That was unfathomable.

  He had made some discreet inquiries but to no avail. At first he had expected Claudio’s return any day, believing more than once that he’d heard his voice or even seen him in the distance. But that had just been his overactive mind at work. By now he feared the worst.

  He had brought along a hammer and a crowbar. He lifted the trapdoor and descended the stone steps slowly, lighting his lantern when he was down. He put it carefully on the floor before opening the crate and unwrapping the painting. Then he knelt down in front of it and reached for the lantern.

  In the feeble light, the girl in the white shift avoided his gaze, tilting her head slightly. He moved closer, staring at her delicate shoulders, wet hair, parted lips. Reaching out a finger, he raised it to the painting, allowing it to lightly touch her cheek. Then he slowly withdrew it.

  Where had he seen her before? The answer was in his mind somewhere, and he leant forward instinctively in anticipation of its arrival, his eyes glued to the painting. The light flickered and for a moment it was as if the girl was about to turn toward him, the shadow on her cheek disappearing, her eyes still avoiding contact. He brought the lantern closer, but the answer had slipped away; the girl receded into darkness and refused to reemerge, no matter how hard he tried.

  He was tired. He could feel it now after this unexpected rush, the sudden burst of energy gradually dissipating, leaving him deflated. Was his mind playing tricks on him? He had immediately detected the turbulence beneath the beautifully textured surface when he saw the painting with Alice, the sharp contrast between light and shadow, the alliance of guilt and innocence. He had immediately had the strangest sensation that he knew this young woman.

  He eased the canvas off the strainer. His hands were shaky, his eyelids ready to close. He dismantled the strainer and wrapped the canvas carefully around the pieces of wood, the image of the girl floating in and out of the shadows of his mind.

  He retraced his steps down the hill in the pale moonlight, and from there along the edge of the forest, not stopping until he was halfway down the drive, in the rough where no one ever had a reason to go. There he put the bundle in a bag, tied it up, and buried it under a bush before making his way back to the house.

  I’VE BEEN TALKING TO YOU INCESSANTLY EVER SINCE I left Montepulciano. The horse picks its way along the path, the sun shines on our progress, and I talk to you to try to dispel my anxiety. I’m scared. I tell you everything and you listen but I notice that you lower your head when I ask for forgiveness. It’s as if you are ashamed too. I’m not trying to make excuses but as I recall my mistakes, it’s like talking about a woman I don’t know except by reputation. I’m not saying this to throw dust in your eyes, you know that. I lost my way. Maybe you did as well. I thought you had when I saw you visiting the young widow. But that’s not an excuse either. And neither is your silence nor your occasional distance. How did we let this happen to us? How could we be so reckless? How could I be so selfish? One can find faults with everything; our marriage was no exception. But our problems were trivial in the scheme of things. We can see that now that the world lies in ruins.

  I haven’t thought about Connor for a long time. When I stopped seeing him, whatever feelings I had quickly evaporated. I suppose that says it all. He wrote to me, but I didn’t answer his letters. He even wrote to Pritchett on some pretext, though they hardly knew each other, and asked after me. I suspect that Pritchett saw through him, though he was careful not to imply any impropriety when he brought up Connor’s name. I asked him not to mention me in his reply.

  I haven’t spoken to my mother in two months. She’s more self-centered than ever, and besides, I cannot bear listening to her questions about you. She’s always been so unfair to you and while I can only blame myself for my mistakes, she certainly didn’t help. I tell myself that maybe I should try to get a message to her that I’m all right, knowing full well that I’m unlikely to make that a priority.

  I’m nearing our home now. The horse is lathered in sweat; I stroke his neck and turn him down to the river where he drinks. I have no idea what awaits me. I imagine that you’ve come home; I picture you in front of the buildings like the first time we went there. Do you remember running up the stairs and calling down to us from the glassless window in the master bedroom: “This is paradise!” Do you remember? Do you remember how happy we were?

  When I reach for my water bottle, I see a horseman on the road ahead. He’s far off and appears to be hardly moving. I narrow the distance between us and see as I draw closer that it is the priest. He sits stooping on his horse, which is walking slowly in the heat.

  The priest lifts his head when he hears me ride up.

  “I looked for you in Montepulciano,” I say. “Where were you?”

  He tells me he didn’t reach Montepulciano but was forced to seek shelter in a Franciscan monastery on the way. He looks like a crow sitting there on his horse, so terribly small and hunched, and I have to pull up my horse and strain my ears to hear what he says. When we carry on again, I tell him how afraid I am, how terribly afraid that something bad has happened to our people.

  “Do you want to pray?” he says.

  “Yes,” I answer without hesitation. We pray together for the rest of the way, my voice as low as his, a whisper that the gentle
breeze carries across the cornfields.

  My heart starts pounding when I see the roof of the villa emerge from behind the last hill. Paralyzed by fear, I sit motionless in the saddle and stare into the distance as if waiting for a sign that I should continue. The priest stops and waits patiently until I gather the will to face what awaits us. Finally, I urge my horse on and the priest follows a little way behind, his lips continuing to move in a silent prayer.

  Halfway up the slope, I see smoke curling into the air. The road is so badly cratered that I get off the horse and continue up the hill on foot.

  The villa is just coming into view when I see someone running toward me. For a moment, I’m convinced it’s you. But my sudden euphoria evaporates when I wipe the sweat from my eyes and see Pritchett’s smiling face and outstretched arms. He calls my name and, hearing the sound of his voice, I start to cry. We embrace for a long time, and when we finally let go, I am completely exhausted.

  It’s evening now. We’re sitting at the kitchen table in the glow of the candles. We’ve buried the dead, those from the storehouse and others whom we found today in the forest. It’s a terrible thing to witness, all these young men disappearing into the ground. The trees conceal even more bodies but we can’t look for them until tomorrow when the postmaster from Chianciano is due. He knows how to handle explosives; apparently he’s already deactivated innumerable mines in the village. The Germans were generous with their parting gifts; the forest is teeming with mines, though fortunately most lie on the surface. There’s an unexploded bomb lying outside the garden door and another by the door to the cellar, both hastily constructed but no less powerful for that.

  In the face of so much death, the priest seemed to revive suddenly. His voice rang out clearly in the chapel, and his gaze was sharp as if he could see something that had been hidden from him for a long time. But now he is silent as he sits hunched over the table beside Kristín and opposite me, and his shadow lies on the wall, unobtrusive and still.