Stone Virgin (24 page)

Barfield looked sharply to his left then to his right. At once nearly all the lights in the room went out, the whirring of a projector made itself heard. ‘When you’re ready, Muriel,’ came Barfield’s voice in the dimness.

But the beam of light, when it came, did not hit the screen. It fell above and to the right, lighting up a square of blank wall. Edged purplish by this light, still leaning on his stick, Barfield gave directions. As if in an uneasy dream Raikes listened to this slightly peevish, reasonable voice.

‘You need to change the angle, Muriel,’ Barfield said. ‘Up a bit and about three inches over to the left, no,
your
left, Muriel … That’s better.’

An abstract image of extraordinary beauty now appeared on the screen, bands of dilated blue and glowing orange, this burning off at the edges to diffusions of crimson and ochre, with complex and exquisite interactions between the spreading colour and the containing bands.

‘There are seven layers of paint through this surface,’ Barfield said. ‘We are looking at them horizontally, highly magnified, of course – the actual paint thickness is 0.24 millimetres in this section. No, wait a minute, I tell a lie, there are
eight
layers if you count the nineteenth-century repainting here.’ The walking stick entered the zone of light, pointed briefly at dark lilac mist along the edge of the uppermost band.

Of course, Raikes thought, he might have received his injury by some other means, crushed under the weight of a Tintoretto for example. That would have been in keeping with the hectic and heroic note he had sounded – in fact all the Tintoretto people had sounded it – in the café that morning, when Miss Greenaway had slipped memorably out of her boilersuit top, and revealed, along with the beauty of her breasts, the existence of documents in the sacristy. Or he might simply have fallen downstairs …

‘We can’t decide whether to clean off this repainted area,’ Barfield said, ‘until we are sure about the nature and quality of the original. This is a tricky business. Tintoretto used an extraordinarily wide range of pigment. Microscopical and chemical analysis of paint samples from this one painting have revealed just about all the pigments available at the time. In addition to lead white, carbon blacks, red, yellow and brown ochres, we have identified natural ultramarine or lapis lazuli, azurite, smalt, indigo, malachite, verdigris, copper resinate glazes, orpiment, realgar …’

The hypnotic effect of this litany of colours, delivered in Barfield’s flat voice, combined with the glowing composition on the screen, lulled Raikes into a state of slightly somnolent reverie. He felt immune for the moment: while voice and picture continued no calls could be made on him. He found himself wondering again why Lattimer should have chosen to show up here. So that his presence should be noted? So that Rescue Venice should be reminded of his previous generosity? He did nothing without a purpose, as Wiseman had implied, and as Raikes had discovered for himself; but the urges of the man’s egotism seemed at least as strong as conscious purpose; it was impossible for example to know whether Lattimer had wanted mainly to offer him dubious employment, that evening of his visit, or to be admired and envied in the midst of his possessions, the souvenirs of war and business, the grisly trophies of his sexual exploits.

This brought him, by a process he did not pause to examine, to thoughts of Chiara Litsov, a resurgence of that slightly painful sense of her existence that had occupied some part of his mind ever since meeting her, a feeling half curious, half sorrowful. He was not conscious of any desire in this. In fact the heat that had plagued him earlier in his stay, when Venice had tormented him with its endless suggestions of sexual possibility, when he had gone around in a more or less permanent state of tumescence, all that had ended now – since meeting Mrs Litsov, he suddenly realized – stilled as effectively as a blow might still restless limbs, to be replaced by this painful mental scrutiny, this strange speculation which had no goal of discovery because no knowledge to proceed on, but fed on itself and was its own justification. She and the Madonna had been the twin bearings of his thoughts …

The glowing spectrum on the screen was extinguished. The lights went on. Barfield, clearly finished, limped to the wall and took the screen down, to the accompaniment of applause. Sir Hugo was on his feet again. Raikes waited until his name was uttered then made his way up to the platform.

He had come armed with several photographs, blown up to poster size, together with weights to make them hang properly and a suction-plug device for attaching them to the wall. The first one he showed was of the Madonna as she had been when he arrived, exhibiting her travestied form and face, the encrusted sores of her disease. This public display of her, combining with his feelings of nervousness, affected his emotions. It was only with reluctance that he had agreed to speak; basically he thought of the whole affair as a stunt of Sir Hugo’s and had a certain distaste for it, while conceding it was probably necessary; but the presence of the newspaper people and the number of what seemed ordinary members of the public had made him see that this might be something of an opportunity. When he turned from the photograph to face his audience, holding his single page of notes, he felt suddenly like the Madonna’s champion, speaking out on her behalf, belied and travestied as she was. This gave from the start an accent of feeling to his voice.

‘This is the lady as I first saw her,’ he said. ‘No one seeing this, I imagine, would claim that weathering improves the look of stone sculpture. She is made of Istrian stone, which is a dense limestone of very common use in Venice. She is therefore an example of what is happening to the external stonework of this beautiful city.

‘Weathering of course is a very long and gradual process. It may be broadly defined as the process of adjustment of minerals and rocks from the original place of formation to their present environment on the earth’s surface. The same thing applies to human beings. Adjustment to life outside the womb involves a shock to the system.’

This was a prepared joke and there was some laughter at it, or rather the collective murmur that denotes audience awareness of humorous intention. Raikes paused, noticing faces he knew here and there. A camera flashed, recording this moment of pause.

‘So,’ he said, ‘there was damage done to the Madonna even before she was made. There was the shock of the quarrying. The deterioration really begins there. Afterwards, over the centuries, there was a long process of recrystallization, impaired density, increased solution rate. Helped of course by the carbon dioxide always present in the atmosphere. But it wasn’t this that caused the appalling disfigurements you see in the photograph. She is suffering from a specifically twentieth-century disease.

‘Many of you will be familiar with the process. Sulphur dioxide is given off when fossil fuels are burned. The chimneys of Mestre and Maraghera have been pumping SO
₂
into the atmosphere for a long time now. And Venice is a humid place, notoriously so. In winter cold and humid, in summer hot and humid. So we have a perfect formula for disaster. The SO
₂
combines with the moisture always present in the atmosphere to produce sulphuric acid. This acts on all exposed stone surfaces to form calcium sulphate, which spreads over the stone like a tumour, rotting it to gypsum. Those are the encrustations you can see. Underneath them of course the decay is still going on.’

Raikes replaced the photograph with one of a highly magnified stone sample and explained the process of electron-microscopic examination done by sectioning. He pointed out the symptoms of soluble salts accumulated on the stone in the presence of water, the powdery deposits, humid stains, loss of cohesion; the deadly ‘efflorescence’ – white needle-like crystals caused by dissolved salts sweated from the pores and crusting on the surface. Then he showed a picture of the Madonna as she was now, cleaned almost to the waist. He spoke about the progress of his work, the excellent results obtained with the air-abrasion instrument, his hopes for a complete restoration. At this point he paused. He had gained confidence in speaking but now some of his tension returned. He was about to say something he knew not to be politic.

‘This is just one statue,’ he said. ‘Venice is full of rotting statues. The Madonna shown here is about five and a half centuries old. If the rate of decay could be shown on a graph, there would be a very slightly rising line for the first five hundred years and an almost vertical one for the last fifty. The problem is one of time and human resources. It has taken one man rather more than one month to clean rather less than one half of one Madonna. To put the matter bluntly, Venice cannot go on relying to the extent she does at present on foreign enterprises. Unless more active steps are taken on the part of the authorities to recruit and train restorers at sufficiently attractive rates of pay, and to shoulder the financial burden of large-scale restoration projects, it will be too late. Quite soon it will be too late. This lady behind me was caught just in time. A few more years and she would have had no fingers and no nose. A few more after that and she would just have been a piece of limestone.’

He was conscious of clapping as he took down the photograph and left the platform. As he walked back to his place he saw Muriel standing near the film projector. She had her left arm in a sling.

4

ONE OF THE
people from Venezia Nostra spoke next, in Italian, about the work currently being done at the Palazzo Dolfin-Manin. In the course of his remarks he pointed out with noticeable emphasis that this was an Italian project, that all the people involved in it were Italians, that it was financed entirely by Italian funds. The same thing applied to the restoration of the Carpaccios at San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, recently completed. This too had been an all-Italian enterprise, he said.

Then Sir Hugo was to the fore again, one hand in pocket, one hand extended, making his final remarks, winding things up. There was some final clapping and people began to leave. The room thinned out quite quickly. Raikes found himself standing with Steadman in the centre. The representatives of Venezia Nostra were gathered around Sir Hugo, talking eagerly. None of them glanced in Raikes’s direction, however. ‘I rather wish I hadn’t made those remarks,’ he said. After the heightened emotion of his address he was feeling depressed and slightly apprehensive now.

The saturnine cast of Steadman’s face did not change but his grey eyes below their dark brows looked amused. ‘It won’t make you any friends at court’ he said. ‘There’s something about you that is distinctly self-destructive, Simon.’ He looked at Raikes for a moment then quite suddenly he broke into one of his rare smiles. ‘Paradoxically enough, it saves you,’ he said.

Raikes returned the smile, rather ruefully. He was aware for the first time of genuine feelings of friendship between Steadman and himself and he was glad of it.

They were joined by Miss Greenaway who said, ‘Enjoyed your talk, jolly good, made those Italians sit up.’ Her face shone with cheerful prejudice. She was wearing a green dress of thin woollen material, fitting closely, revealing the splendours of her breasts. These looked even more magnificent than usual. ‘Are we going to have a drink, Albert?’ she said to Steadman. First-name terms – Steadman’s gloomy persistence had paid off, it seemed. Miss Greenaway looked happy and her voice was quieter.

‘Are you coming?’ Steadman said. ‘We need a drink, after listening to Sir Hugo.’

Before any move could be made, the rest of the Tintoretto people came up, Barfield hobbling on his stick, Muriel with her arm held in its sling, Owen walking between them like an attendant taking two patients out for an airing.

‘Accident?’ Raikes said.

‘One of the Tintorettos fell on them.’ Steadman spoke in hushed and reverential tones.

It was obvious that Barfield did not find this at all funny. ‘We are soldiering on,’ he said. ‘It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.’

‘Fall, was it?’ Raikes did not know why he persisted with this questioning. Not malice, but a sort of fascinated politeness led him on.

‘We were working late,’ Muriel said, in her usual snappish way. ‘Gerald got his feet caught in some rope. I don’t know who left a coil of rope where anyone could get tangled up in it.’

‘It wasn’t me, Gerald,’ Owen said.

‘He brought me down with him,’ Muriel said, looking sternly at Owen.

Wiseman, in company with his fellow American, Slingsby, now approached, to say appreciative things about Raikes’s talk and to take his leave – he had some work on a report still to do. Slingsby stood beside him, taller by a head, nodding as if in full assent. It always surprised Raikes that these two were fellow-countrymen, Wiseman being so cherubically elegant and urbane, and so gregarious that he seemed to move at more ease and with more grace and certainty in crowded places, as if he took on extra bodily accomplishment at such times; and Slingsby so huge and awkward in movement, in billowing crumpled flannel suit, pink countenance of a shrewd baby and vast pale hands, which he held unusually high up, at chest level, and which fluttered when he spoke into quick and surprisingly neat gestures in the air below his chin.

‘I want to say how much I enjoyed your talk,’ he said to Raikes. ‘It was interesting, it was instructive.’

‘I don’t know if you have met Steadman, have you?’ Wiseman said. ‘This is Harold Slingsby. He is here in Venice with the American Committee to Rescue Italian Art.’

‘ACRIA for short,’ Slingsby said. ‘
Per acria ad astra
.’

This was clearly a joke he had made before. He laughed in a whinnying, hesitant way. His small blue eyes were alarmed-looking. ‘Had an accident?’ he said to Barfield.

‘I got involved in some rope that had been left lying around,’ Barfield said, looking at Owen.

‘We were working late on the picture surface,’ Muriel said. ‘He brought me down with him.’