Restoration

by Olaf Olafsson

  Before we go to bed, I ask Pritchett about the painting. We’re standing outside, by the large crater in the courtyard where the fire is still burning.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve taken care of it.”

  I know I should feel relief, but there is something in his voice that troubles me.

  “What did you do with it?” I ask, lowering my voice.

  He looks at me, surprised.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I’m just nervous.”

  He takes my hand.

  “You don’t have to know that,” he says. “You just have to trust me.”

  IT IS THE PRIEST WHO COMES TO SEE ME WITH PRITCHETT just before noon. It is two days since I came back, and I’ve decided to tidy my room a bit. I’m not making much progress, feeling disjointed and tired. It is the priest who speaks for both of them, who takes my hands and looks into my eyes with his own clouded ones, who says:

  “They found him.”

  Pritchett is standing behind him with head lowered, clasping and releasing his fingers, slowly, as if performing an intricate task. I stare at them while the priest’s words echo in my head, those three words that turn the world upside down. The priest’s hands are cold, but his grip is surprisingly strong. I jerk; he doesn’t want to release me, but I take a step backward and hear myself ask, “Where is he?”

  They exchange glances, and I repeat my question, louder this time.

  “Where? I want to see him.”

  It is then that Pritchett looks up and says with difficulty, “Better not to.”

  Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve grabbed Pritchett’s shirt with both hands.

  “Where is he?”

  Shocked, he blurts out the answer.

  I set off at a run. He follows, calling repeatedly, “Alice, wait, Alice, don’t go . . .” But I don’t listen, I run as fast as I can, unaware of my legs, unaware of anything but the ache in my breast and the despair that has paralyzed everything but my feet.

  I don’t stop until I am east of the gardens, where no one ever has any reason to go. That’s where they found you, in the hollow at the foot of the wall we built when we decided to cultivate the area around the buildings. The hollow is overgrown with twisted bushes that give way farther east to stony ground, after which the land rises again toward the quarry. They found you lying facedown in the bushes and recognized your jacket and, when they drew closer, your watch and wedding ring.

  I can’t see you at first. Pritchett has reached my side. I can hear his breathing. He’s panting.

  “Alice,” he gasps, “Alice . . .”

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  “You don’t want to see him. Not in the state he’s in. It’s not a good idea.”

  I climb over the wall and he follows me. Once I am down in the hollow, I spot your jacket under the bushes. It looks as if you have fallen off the wall and rolled down the slope. Your legs are turned toward me, I can see right to the bone. I start to run, meaning to take you in my arms, crush you against me, but Pritchett grabs me and holds me back. I struggle in his arms, fighting frantically until I run out of strength.

  You have been lying there a long time and the animals have got at you. But your jacket removes all doubt; the jacket I gave you for your birthday the year before last. I tell Pritchett as much. I say, “I gave him that jacket for his birthday,” repeating it over and over again. And he strokes my cheek, holding me tight and saying, “I know. I remember him wearing it the day he disappeared.”

  He led me home. I don’t remember which way we went, don’t remember anything. I lay down in my room and Signorina Harris came and gave me some pills. As she was leaving my room, I sat up.

  “Can you check if he killed himself?” I asked.

  She paused for an instant and I thought she nodded. Then she was gone.

  When I wake up, the priest is sitting by my bed. The room is sunny and I raise a hand to my eyes because the light from the window is unbearably bright.

  On the bedside table is the picture Giovanni painted for you. It’s of our house. We are standing in front of it with him between us. You had it in your jacket pocket.

  “He didn’t take his own life,” I hear the priest say as I put down the picture. “He was shot.”

  “Shot?”

  “There was fighting in the hills that day. Pritchett remembers it clearly. A sudden flare-up. Claudio must’ve got hit by a stray bullet.”

  “But I hear his voice . . . When I speak with him, I can hear it . . .”

  “In your mind,” he says. “Where he’ll always be.”

  I feel detached, as if I’m watching the scene from a distance. My thoughts stray to the cleft in your chin, and all of a sudden I’m filled with such a longing to touch it that I begin to tremble.

  Then I close my eyes again.

  THE CHURCH HAD BEEN BOMBED AND THE CHAPEL could not hold more than a fraction of those who came to pay their last respects to you. The doors were left open to the courtyard so that the crowd outside could listen to the echo of the sermon. Some of these people had lost everything but the clothes on their backs and were ashamed of turning up in such a state, but I believe that Pritchett and I managed by our combined efforts to reassure them. I’m not sure, though, because these are proud people, proud, dependable and kindhearted. They are my people, my dependents, and I draw strength from them, although they don’t know it.

  Now you lie buried beside our son, with a small plot between the two of you where I will rest when my turn comes. Next spring I’m going to plant bluebells on both your graves and a tall shrub or low tree in the middle to provide me with a little shade when I tend to them.

  I dug up my diary yesterday morning. I had considered leaving it there, saying to myself that the graveyard was where it belonged. But I can’t bury my sins and I need my memories, all the little details of our daily lives, the good and the bad, our joys and sorrows. I read it into the night and when I finally put it away, I saw the first sign of day in the east, a shy ray of light, barely penetrating the veil of darkness.

  I keep talking to you, keep asking you for forgiveness. I do not hold anything back, let alone try to justify my actions. We both know how wrong I was. I picture you sitting on Giovanni’s bed. I’m with you and I take your hand as I begin my confession. There is a pained look on your face and for a moment I sense that you’re about to leave. But you stay and, for whatever reason, I become more hopeful as I continue.

  I busy myself from morning to night and am pleased to say that we’ve largely escaped mishaps so far. One of the oxen trod on a mine down in the field but the driver was not hurt. Every able-bodied person lent a hand with the reaping, and it looks as if we’re going to save the harvest.

  Pritchett and I rode to the outlying farms the day before yesterday and did not return home until late. Most of them are in a bad way, some lie in ruins, the roof has collapsed in others; all have been plundered. Unfortunately, the Germans were not alone in that; some of the Allied units were as bad. At one farm there are thirteen people sleeping in two beds; in another, eleven have to sleep on the floor. Kitchen utensils, blankets, and furniture that people either made themselves or acquired over many years have been spirited away. Mice, now with a free run of the place, eat the few worldly goods that remain.

  We must raise a roof over the houses before winter, but the oven in which we fire bricks and tiles runs on lignite, which cannot be had for love or money. Yet we’ll find a way, I’m sure of that. We’ll have to.

  When we came back from doing the rounds, Pritchett and I went down to the vault by the old mill and fetched the belongings I’ve been hiding there for months, jewelry and various personal items with sentimental value, as well as important documents and the title deeds to our land. The crate with the painting was gone, but when I kept looking at the spot where it had been, he reassured me again that I would not have to worry about it.

  I took his hand and squeezed it. That morning the partisans had shot the barber in Chi
anciano after accusing him of collaborating with the Germans. I’m afraid his only crime was that he didn’t close his door to them.

  Repairs have begun on the top floor of the villa; today Giovanni’s room was cleared and they have started work on the roof. We are still without electricity but we now have running water and are scrubbing the place from top to bottom for the second time. The chickens that we hid are back in their coop and have started laying, and the rabbits and geese that survived are fattening up in their cages. Signorina Harris is run off her feet by the injured who flock to her with their wounds, some of them days old. For the moment we are free of disease, and there are fewer flies since we buried the bodies that we found on the property and burnt the animals that died, including the poor cow that was tethered to a tree beside our trench. But we’ve heard that elsewhere in the valley paratyphoid fever has broken out, which is a great worry.

  Last night Kristín came to see me. She never says much, but it was obvious that she had something on her mind. I was folding the laundry. She started to help me, and we worked silently for a while until she announced that she was leaving. I replied that she could stay as long as she liked, and she thanked me, saying she could never repay me for all I had done for her. I changed the subject, asking her instead where she was headed. She said she intended to go first to Rome to fetch her belongings but did not expect to stay there long.

  I knew she had come from Rome where she had been studying art but that was the extent of my knowledge. She’s very reserved and, besides, we haven’t had much time for chitchats this summer. But, as I said, I sensed that she wanted to talk, so I asked her if she intended perhaps to go back home to Iceland.

  “I don’t know.”

  I was stunned at how lost she suddenly seemed.

  “Where were you going when your train got hit?”

  Maybe someone had told me when she arrived, but I couldn’t remember. People have found their way to our door from every direction over the last few months, sometimes because they had heard that we offered a refuge for those who had nowhere else to turn, sometimes by chance. I suppose I’d always assumed that she belonged to the latter group. Now it occurred to me that she might need help in getting to her destination but didn’t like to ask for it. Her reaction took me by surprise, however. She didn’t answer immediately but looked away, her fingers gripping the garment she had been folding.

  When she finally tried to open her mouth, I saw that her eyes were full of tears.

  “Would you mind if I didn’t answer that?” she asked.

  “Kristín dear . . . ,” I said.

  “I’d be very grateful if I didn’t have to,” she continued, and I sensed that her voice was on the point of breaking.

  Shocked to see her in such a state, I glanced down at her hands, which were still clenched on the piece of clothing, a light-colored shirt belonging to one of the girls. Before I knew it, I had taken her hands in mine.

  “Kristín dear,” I said, “do take care. Whatever you do, take care. Don’t be too hard on yourself; I sense you have a tendency to. Perhaps we’re not so very different in that respect.”

  She didn’t answer, but I felt her hands relaxing in my grasp. She didn’t move them though, and it was not until I let go that she withdrew them, then hugged me.

  We stood like that for a long time. She wept in silence at first, and her slender body shook in my arms, but then she grew calmer. After she had released me, she dried her eyes and tried to smile.

  She got a lift down the valley with Melchiorre this morning. He was supposed to be working on the repairs to the roof, but I hadn’t the heart to refuse him permission to take her. I watched them drive down the road until Signor Grandinetti came to me with a question. I realized that they had long since vanished from sight, and I couldn’t understand why I was still standing there.

  The harvest is exceeding all expectations, and I’m confident that we will be able to stock up the farms for the winter. We need oil, sugar, salt, and soap, but it looks as if the wool from the sheep that survived will be sufficient for clothing essentials. If not, we’ll find a way somehow.

  I don’t sleep much at night, yet I’m not tired. I lie awake with a little light on, thinking about you, our life together, our son. There are so many good memories despite everything, so much that I can be grateful for. Hopefully I gave you some happiness. Hopefully you weren’t angry when you died.

  Then I turn off the light, rest my head against the pillow, and wait for sleep to take me in its arms.

  MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED GUESTS ARE GATHERING in the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square—press, patrons, trustees, scholars, and staff. The ceremony is to take place in the Central Hall where the painting has been placed on a high easel and veiled with a white cloth. There is a lectern with a microphone next to it, and the area has been cordoned off with a red velvet rope. Black-clad waiters bearing trays of glasses and canapés move skillfully through the growing crowd, which has deposited umbrellas and coats in the cloakroom and is quickly shaking off the afternoon gloom.

  She walks slowly up the steps to the portico entrance, one hand holding the rail, the other an umbrella. She has a slight limp—it has worsened over the years—but in other respects she has mostly been spared the afflictions of old age. During the four decades that she worked in the museum’s conservation department, she seldom had a reason to use the main entrance, and then, as now, she found the long flight of steps from the square somewhat overwhelming.

  She stops midway up the steps and looks back. The pigeons are in their place, fluttering down by the fountains where tourists gather, poring over their maps and guides. In the summer she used to go for walks during her lunch break and sometimes in winter too, weather permitting. She would feed the pigeons before making her way to St. James’s Park, where she always found the peace and quiet she was looking for. She has not visited her old workplace for years but feels as if she never left—as if she’s coming back from a lunch break in the park, having enjoyed the company of squirrels, moorhens, and tufted ducks.

  For the first few years after she retired, her opinion was occasionally sought on problematic restoration jobs, but she made every effort to train her successors to the best of her ability. The museum director had mentioned this especially in his speech at her farewell party; she had tried to get out of attending but was given no choice. He had described her as generous.

  She doesn’t want to arrive too early, doesn’t want to have to talk to anyone, doesn’t trust herself when confronted with the painting after all this time. During her first years at the museum, hardly a day passed when she didn’t check to see whether an undocumented Caravaggio had been unearthed somewhere in the world, but gradually she did so less and less. And then she received this invitation in the mail one Tuesday just over a week ago, when she was coming home with some tulips she had bought from the florist on the corner. She opened it walking into the kitchen but had to support herself against the doorframe with both hands when she had read it; the strength left her legs, and before she knew it, she had slumped to the floor with an unbearable ringing in her ears.

  The guests are moving closer to the easel, waiting for the ceremony to begin. There is a loud buzz coming from the room; she hears it after giving her umbrella to the young man in the cloakroom, senses anticipation in the din of voices, and hesitates before making her way to the Central Hall where she takes her place in the back.

  She tries to make herself invisible as she watches her former colleagues enter the room—the museum director, the head of the conservation department and his counterpart from the scientific department, the press secretary and her two young assistants. But she doesn’t have to worry: they’re too busy to notice her hiding in the back. The press secretary, who is very dedicated but always a little nervous, goes over the final arrangements with the director, who nods politely but is quickly distracted by guests he has to greet on his way to the lectern.

  The press secretary helps him turn on
the microphone, and he calls for quiet with a soft “Ladies and gentlemen . . .” A fidgety silence descends on the room, but even then she can only hear the echo of his speech. She moves closer, slowly, stopping when she reaches the photographers who have lined up against the wall, waiting to be invited to come forward after the unveiling.

  “Although closely related to his picture of Mary Magdalene, this is a more mature work,” she hears him say. “The hints of sorrow and remorse are more subtle, the revelation of the most intimate sentiments not quite as forthcoming. Whereas Mary Magdalene, in her determination to leave her past behind, has unequivocally discarded her coins and pearls, symbols of the material world, the young woman in our painting has one hand closed, possibly holding on to a connection to her past or concealing an important secret . . . The model may be the same, the prostitute Anna Bianchini, though this is only conjecture . . .”

  There is a buzzing in her ears and the words blur, becoming nothing but a distant reverberation. She is no longer standing in the Central Hall of the National Gallery but in the damp vault the night after the visit from Captain Duane and Lieutenant Hart, holding a lantern, looking at the open crate on the floor. She had not dared set off with the tools she had gathered until everyone had gone to bed, guided by the moonlight up the slope that Pritchett had climbed only a few hours earlier. She is looking at the crate and the straw that is scattered on the floor when she spots a splinter that broke off the strainer when Pritchett took it apart. She picks it up and raises it to her nose. The lantern is behind her, halfway up the steps, but she doesn’t have to hold the wood up to the light, needs no confirmation, immediately recognizes its texture and smell. For a while she stands still, then puts the splinter in her pocket, reaches for the tools, blows out the lantern, and climbs back up the steps into the moonlight.

  She retreats from the memories, from the vault and the moonlight and the despair that gripped her and wouldn’t let go as she made her way down the hill. Why had she come here? Why hadn’t she thrown the invitation in the bin and carried on with her painting of tulips, a modest still life that she had been amusing herself with for the past few days? Why had she allowed the shadows to emerge once more, the sleepless nights to return, the fear and helplessness to gain the upper hand?