The Sergeant pinched the end of his cigarette before lighting it. “You can bank on that, young Ben. The Bill always comes back.”
II Firenze Farrago
Twenty-three
That part of the Ponte Vecchio that he could see from this upper story of the tiny hotel was drenched in light. Such a distillation, such a concentration of light, Melrose had never seen before. It cast a golden skin across the Arno and beaded the graceful arc of the bridge where the goldsmiths traded, as if even more gold were called for, as if there could never be too much of it, as if the city could dissolve into sheer light and luster.
Florence’s abundant charms had laid themselves at his feet last night when, after stowing their things in the high cool rooms of their small hotel, they had gone in search of dinner. Trueblood had picked this hotel, liking its seclusion on a street so narrow it could hardly accommodate more than the two of them walking abreast. The hotel seemed to occupy no more than a floor of a building that seemed otherwise tenantless. Melrose loved it; he loved the lobby-reception room, the antique furnishings of his own small room and everything going about in slippered silence.
Except Trueblood, who now stood in his doorway. “Come on come on come on come on” jabbered Trueblood, with the speed of an auctioneer.
It was, thought Melrose, an unseemly pace for this otherwise slow morning. “Good lord, allow me to enjoy this vision of Florence.”
“We want to go to the Brancacci Chapel. That’s first.”
Trueblood was carrying the brown-paper-wrapped Masaccio panel, about as convenient as lugging an oar around. There had been a bit of a row with a long-suffering flight attendant over the disposition of this long parcel: Trueblood wanted it sitting in the seat beside him (as if St. Who was not very sturdy on his legs), and the flight attendant had told him no. It must ride somewhere out of people’s way. And, no, he could not purchase another ticket for it. Trueblood had given in and put it overhead, but had not been happy. He got a crick in his neck from constantly having to look up.
As Melrose swept coins and credit cards off the nightstand and into his pocket, he said, “Aren’t you afraid you’ll lose that walking around?”
“No.”
They left the room, Melrose sighing and exclaiming he trusted he wasn’t to be herded around at this pace the entire time they would be here. Trueblood didn’t answer, just went on before him through the little lobby. Melrose loved the cool space of this lobby, with its blush-tinted stone flooring, rich dark moldings and white busts in alcoves. Reception consisted of a Regency desk and the chap behind it. The breakfast room, where Melrose was headed, though Trueblood was not, was large enough for only four tables and gave the impression, since the other three were unoccupied, that it was a dining room of one’s own.
Failing to steer Melrose off course, Trueblood resigned himself to sitting down at the table. They were served by the ubiquitous reception-desk-fellow and another young man. The service was swift and pleasant and the food delicious. It would have been an altogether relaxing experience had not Trueblood sat sighing and checking his watch every two minutes. Melrose ignored this and tucked into the hotel’s homemade granola. “This is quite good. Have some.”
“I did. I ate an hour ago.”
“You’ve already eaten and you’d starve me? No, don’t unwrap Masaccio again.”
Trueblood was carefully sliding a thumbnail under the tape and folding the brown paper back as tenderly as a baby’s bunting. He had acquired a small magnifying glass which he clicked out of its black case and went about moving it all over the exposed part of the panel.
“For God’s sakes, Marshall, you know every inch of that painting by now. Who is this chap you’re dragging me to see?”
“A man named Luzi. Aldo Luzi. An expert, perhaps the most expert in all of Italy on early Renaissance art.”
“Really? But what about the Ickley woman? She, you said, was the foremost authority.”
“Then she was; she was then.”
“What in hell are you talking about? ‘Then’? It was only yesterday. Are entire reputations to be made or broken over this suspect Masaccio?”
Trueblood inspected a small croissant, then took a bite. “She is the authority in Britain. I only mean I thought she was the foremost authority until she filled me in on this Luzi chap.”
“Ah!” Melrose looped a little spoon of plum jam on his toast and said, “Then ‘foremost’ authority cannot move across borders.”
“Don’t be a nitwit.”
“Okay. Anyway, the Ickley woman couldn’t tell if the painting’s authentic?”
“It wasn’t something she could swear to either way. She could tell the panel, the paint, the varnish, and so forth were right for that period.”
“The period being-”
“Early 1400s. You know the Renaissance better than I do.”
“But only the British version.” Melrose signaled the waiter for more coffee and Trueblood slid down in his chair, eyes closed. “Actually, there was no Renaissance anywhere else; Italy had the whole thing tied up and screaming.”
Trueblood sliced him a look as the waiter poured coffee. “Don’t prattle on, will you?”
“You sound exactly like Agatha.”
Trueblood rewrapped Masaccio, then bounced in his chair a couple of times, displaying the frustration and impatience of a child.
Melrose laughed. “Here’s a side of you I’ve never seen. You’re as determined as a four-year-old trying to get his parents to stop eating and get up and go. This, so he can also go and do absolutely nothing.”
“Well, I’m not going to do nothing.”
Melrose sighed. “All right. I’m ready; bring on the Brancacci.”
“Bran-kah-chi, Bran-kah-chi.” Trueblood separated each syllable as if slovenliness in pronunciation would show a lack of respect that would have all of Florence bolting its doors and turning its back. He rose suddenly and walked toward the door.
“Finished!” said Melrose, throwing up his hands. He carefully folded his big napkin while Trueblood lurked in the doorway.
They descended a marble staircase into the murky depths of the entryway. They walked through the door into white light on pocked gray stone while on the other side of the narrow street purple shadows filled the crouched doorways, watched over by stone sculptures of animals and angels.
They walked, Trueblood in front and occasionally looking back and waving Melrose along.
Finally, they were crossing the Ponte Vecchio, Trueblood giving no quarter for pausing by these windows filled with gold necklaces, bracelets, earrings. The goods, Melrose thought, might have been molded out of the golden surface of the Arno-this morning’s dream scene. He was yanked back by Trueblood’s iron grip; the only thing he would be allowed to stand and ogle would be inside the Brancacci Chapel.
Melrose insisted on looking in the window of the little glove shop just at the other end of the bridge. Nothing but gloves! They lapped over one another in tiny colored waves of turquoise, lemon yellow, lapis lazuli, cobalt blue, crimson. He got pulled away yet again, and Melrose thought Trueblood must really be smitten if he could ignore such an addition to his wardrobe.
The temptations of the Ponte Vecchio behind them, Trueblood once again got in front; he was pointing at some destination, which in a while composed itself into a piazza and a church. “I forgot this was on the way. It’s the Santa Feliceta and there’s a fresco in here we want to see, too.”
It was a painting of the Annunciation, and Melrose liked the startled I-can’t-believe-what-you-just-said look on the face of Mary, turning to look at the angel delivering what was supposed to be really good news.
“Marvelous,” said Trueblood.
“Have you ever seen an Annunciation painting where Mary looks as if she’s saying, ‘Hey, cool.’ Think about it. I’d probably wear that look if Agatha told me she was moving into Ardry End. Poor Mary.” Melrose wished he could tell the Virgin Mary she should be glad that was only the A
rchangel Gabriel before her and not Marshall Trueblood, who was disappearing up the shadowy nave.
When Melrose found him in the piazza, Trueblood said, “We can skip the Pitti Palace, if you don’t mind.”
If he didn’t mind? By no means did he mind. All he wanted was to get back to that glove shop. “Okay. Later.”
“Then come on,” Trueblood said testily, reclaiming his lead. Over his shoulder, he said, “Next stop, the church of the Carmine. Where the frescoes are. It’s on the way to Luzi’s.”
Nothing was on the way, thought Melrose, lost in a little maze of alley-like streets. They turned off the Via Sant’ Agostino to the Via De’ Serragli and the church sprang into view-at least into Trueblood’s, for he trumpeted, “There it is! You’ll be astonished!” He squared his shoulders and secured his picture before him like a shield, as if to defend himself against too much astonishment.
Melrose shrugged and said, “Okay, but listen, when we finish here, I want to go back to that glove shop…”
“Glove shop? Am I losing my mind?”
Again, Melrose shrugged. “I don’t know.” He decided he would take dumb rhetorical questions literally from now on. “But I want some gloves even if you don’t.”
This exchange had taken them into the chapel and down the nave to Trueblood’s cherished frescoes, where they now stood. “Melrose, we’re standing before perhaps the greatest frescoes ever painted.”
“I know, but I’m serious about the glove shop.”
Trueblood was carefully undoing the brown paper, which had begun, it appeared, to molt at the creases, light showing through the frayed folds, like a much-read love letter or a whore’s stockings. Holding it up, he looked from St. Who upward to St. Peter, nodding and nodding.
“It looks like the same painter,” said Melrose, “and looks like the same style, still, you’ve got to ask yourself-”
“I’ve asked myself every question in the book,” Trueblood’s eyes riveted on the fresco. Melrose had to admit all of this was astonishing. He’d seen many representations of Adam and Eve’s being drummed out of Paradise, but never with such expressiveness. Eve’s expression was especially harrowing: the mouth a rictus of pain, eyelids closed and slanting down as if she’d just been blinded. There were various scenes from the life of St. Peter: the tribute money, healing the sick with his shadow. “The thing is, didn’t Masolino paint some of this? Didn’t you tell me they worked together?” Melrose looked on the other side of St. Peter’s raising someone from the dead, he wasn’t sure who, to another rendering of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise. “That’s what I mean. Obviously, another painter painted that representation; everything about it is different.” The two figures seemed completely calm and courtly. “That’s a traditional depiction.”
Trueblood nodded. “That’s the difference between them.” He stood and gawked at the frescoes for a good twenty minutes and paced before the frescoes for another ten while Melrose wandered around, stopped at the top of the nave and wondered what would happen if he tossed holy water on his face. Better not. There could be a thunderbolt.
“Time to go!” yelled Trueblood, rewrapping his painting-warmly, as if they were about to be heaved into a Russian winter.
Aldo Luzi lived in the Oltrano in a flaking stone building on a dead-end street running parallel to the river. The flat itself took up all of an upper floor, exquisitely decorated and luxuriously furnished. The materials covering sofas and chairs and footstools ran to damask, velvet, silk and brocade.
Signore Luzi was a scholar; thus, Melrose had expected a small rundown room overflowing with books, more than the bookshelves could accommodate, and stacked in piles and spilling over the worn carpet. Papers, journals in uneven towers. The room should look as crowded as the man’s intellect, heaps of quarterlies and journals reflecting heaps of intelligence. Perhaps an owl on a dusty mantel. Something like that.
Nor did Signore Luzi himself fit Melrose’s preformed idea of a “foremost expert.” One, he was too young (late thirties? early forties?); two, he was too good-looking (where was the bent back, the owlish eye, the spectacles, the unruly gray hair?); three, he was too well dressed, even for informality. The blue shirt was undoubtedly designer, the scarf Hermès. His mind might not belong in this sumptuous setting, but his body did.
They were seated in the spacious living room, Melrose on a dark green damask cloud, Trueblood on its dark blue twin cloud. They had bypassed the usual small talk, Melrose was glad to see, to get to the point. The only concession to the stock formalities was the espresso Luzi had served. Now, he set down his cup on the sleek coffee table to take up Trueblood’s picture.
Luzi nodded at Trueblood’s story of his acquiring this panel while his eyes stayed on the picture. He had a black mustache which he liked to tug at, thoughtfully.
For some moments, Luzi said nothing, but let his eyes rove the room as if trying to decide whether to buy the place. Melrose looked at his host’s painting-covered walls. They were largely Renaissance, and he was surprised to see among them one of those village-nightmare works of Stanley Spencer. Higher up was a picture of a man with a bowed head, stark naked and looking as if he were being stoned to death. It could be a Lucian Freud. There was one dreamy pre-Raphaelite painting that might have been Holman Hunt’s as it resembled his Ophelia. It showed a young woman lying by a brook amid wild flowers that blew like waves gusting back.
Trueblood set his small cup in its saucer and the clink dragged Melrose back from the shores of dreams.
Signore Luzi had been talking: “… They were so much in and out of one another’s pockets-Masaccio, Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi, Masolino. There were always the concori-the, uh, competitions-and, also, several different artists might work on one painting or sculpture at different times and in different years. Masolino and Filippino Lippi worked on Masaccio’s Saint Peter Enthroned.” Luzi took up Trueblood’s picture again. “The Pisa polyptych…” He interrupted himself to inquire whether they’d planned to go there.
“To Pisa?” said Trueblood. “Of course; it’s our next stop.”
Oh? thought Melrose. No one had bothered to tell him.
“Ah, I am sorry to disappoint you, but that part of the polyptych has been covered or removed temporarily for some small restoration.”
Trueblood slid down in his chair, looking forlorn. “Well. Oh, well.”
Signore Luzi continued. “Now, several pieces have been discovered in churches, true. It’s just that in your circumstance, finding this in an antique shop, I would think, no, this cannot be.” Still holding the painting, he continued. “Masaccio. It’s hard for me to imagine such talent and reputation in a man so young. Does that happen much anymore?”
Trueblood interrupted. “But it is possible. Eleanor Ickley-do you know her?”
“Of course. I was just reading an article by her.” He pulled again at the tip of his mustache. “Now,” Luzi said, “one real authority on Masaccio is in Siena. A Signore Di Bada-”
Melrose sat bolt upright. Real as opposed to foremost? In Siena? Now that Pisa was dead in a ditch, would they still be making side trips? Oh, surely not!
Oh, surely, yes was Trueblood’s response. “Di Bada. Siena, it’s not far. It’s only-”
“Sixty-five, seventy kilometers.” Luzi shrugged. “An hour’s drive.” Luzi shrugged this distance away.
Trueblood looked at Melrose, not to ask if he acquiesced in the matter of this short journey-it was assumed anyone, even Melrose, would be thrilled to go sleuthing after Masaccio-but to see how soon Melrose wanted to go.
Melrose said nothing.
“We could leave now,” said Trueblood.
“We could,” said Melrose, “but we won’t. I want to go to the glove shop.”
Aldo Luzi laughed. “But of course! Such wonderful leathers! And such colors!”
They all took the glove shop as a point of departure, rose and headed for the door. As they shook hands and said their good-byes, Aldo Luzi leane
d against the doorjamb and said, “He was only twenty-seven when he died.” It was so sad, the way he said it. “Masaccio.”
Melrose asked, “What did he die of?”
Luzi thought for a moment. “Want. He died of want.”
Melrose colored, thinking that was something none of them, none of their three untalented selves, would die of, and felt diminished.
Outside, with the heavy door and its lion head knocker bolted, Melrose said, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, “You can’t really mean to go to Siena to yet one more foremost-authority-leading-expert?”
“I certainly do. Should I ditch the whole plan when I’m this close? Come on, Siena’s scarcely an hour’s drive. We can rent some really fast car.”
“Close? Marshall, you are not one inch or ounce closer to knowing this-” he tapped the package (once more wrapped and taped and tied) “-is genuine or not.”
Trueblood made a show of thinking this over, which Melrose knew he was not. “There’re car hire places at the airport.”
Melrose took a few steps to the curb and appeared to be throwing himself in front of a Vespa which had materialized out of nowhere, out of the fuel-shocked air of Florence, before dematerializing into the dusk, failing to claim, this time, the life of one more Florentine. Melrose really wanted one of those scooters.
Taking the suicide-attempt hint, Trueblood threw his hands up (one not rising much above chest level, as the package was securely under his arm), “Okay, okay. We can go tomorrow. Let’s find a drink.”
“But first, but first to the glove shop. Thataway.” Melrose pointed in the general direction of the Ponte Vecchio.
“I never knew you to be so glove addicted,” said Trueblood, as they strolled along. “Maybe there’s a twelve-step glove program you could try.”
“Come on.” Melrose said, taking command.
The knock-you-into-the-Arno scent of leather engulfed him when they entered the little shop. The gloves were in glass cases and also stacked by the hundreds-thousands?-in their own little plastic cases in cubbyholed wooden shelving.
The Blue Last Page 15
