The City of Falling Angels (22 page)
Read The City of Falling Angels Online
Authors: John Berendt
Tags: #History, #Social History, #Europe, #Italy
“It might be,” he said. “I’ll send you an application. Tell me your address.”
Three days later, a large envelope arrived with an application for admission to the “R. D. Curtis Library and Research Center.” I filled it out, writing “none” in the space provided for “Affiliations with Alien Spirits and Movements.” The signature box called for a toe print of the big toe on my right foot. Even as I pressed my toe onto an open can of brown Kiwi shoe wax, I figured the chances were about even that I had become the victim of a put-on. But I sent in the application anyway, and in a matter of days, Ralph Curtis was on the phone again, asking if I was free to come to Palazzo Barbaro at three o’clock the next afternoon. I said I was.
“Good,” he said. “We’ll have a ‘liftoff.’” He did not elaborate.
As agreed, I met him at a café in Campo Santo Stefano, immediately behind the Barbaro. He was seated at a table smoking a tapered green cigarette, the kind that usually had dried vegetables rolled into them. He was a man in his mid-fifties, slightly built and deeply tanned. He wore blue-tinted aviator glasses, neatly pressed jeans, and a brown suede jacket over a crew-neck sweater. He snuffed out the cigarette and stood up. “All set?”
A heavy wooden door at the rear of the palace opened onto an enchanting inner courtyard with walls of ancient brick and stucco and windows set at random intervals. To our left, a long, steep marble stairway with a vine-covered iron railing rose in two flights to the
piano nobile.
At the center of the courtyard, a luxurious rhododendron sprouted from a large marble wellhead made from the capital of an old column. Directly in front of us, a darkened arcade led to the sun-sparkling water of the Grand Canal. An old gondola rested on stilts as if waiting to be launched. Its
felze,
a small black passenger cabin of the sort not seen for decades in Venice, was still attached. I asked how old it was.
piano nobile.
At the center of the courtyard, a luxurious rhododendron sprouted from a large marble wellhead made from the capital of an old column. Directly in front of us, a darkened arcade led to the sun-sparkling water of the Grand Canal. An old gondola rested on stilts as if waiting to be launched. Its
felze,
a small black passenger cabin of the sort not seen for decades in Venice, was still attached. I asked how old it was.
“Over a hundred years,” said Ralph.
Which meant that Robert Browning, John Singer Sargent, and Henry James had probably gone for rides in it.
At the top of the stairs, we entered a tall, dim antechamber. A pair of polished doors stood to our right, and beyond them the formal
portego
and the storied rooms on the Grand Canal. But those doors remained closed. Ralph took a sharp left, toward a lesser door that led into his own apartment. It was a series of rooms, spacious but spare, at the back of the palace. Every room was painted plain white. The starkness of the place was heightened by its emptiness. What furniture there was amounted to a couple of chairs, a small wooden table, and some shelves. The apartment’s chandeliers and wall fixtures were fitted with small cobalt blue bulbs, the same color as those used to line airport landing strips. The name of each room was neatly stenciled on the walls: FLIGHT CONTROL CENTER, MOON ROOM, MARS ROOM, PEACE ROOM, EXTRATERRESTRIAL SEARCH ROOM.
portego
and the storied rooms on the Grand Canal. But those doors remained closed. Ralph took a sharp left, toward a lesser door that led into his own apartment. It was a series of rooms, spacious but spare, at the back of the palace. Every room was painted plain white. The starkness of the place was heightened by its emptiness. What furniture there was amounted to a couple of chairs, a small wooden table, and some shelves. The apartment’s chandeliers and wall fixtures were fitted with small cobalt blue bulbs, the same color as those used to line airport landing strips. The name of each room was neatly stenciled on the walls: FLIGHT CONTROL CENTER, MOON ROOM, MARS ROOM, PEACE ROOM, EXTRATERRESTRIAL SEARCH ROOM.
“Welcome to the Starship
Barbaro,
” said Ralph, leading me on a brief tour of the apartment, which he referred to as “the O.C. Wing of the Palazzo Barbaro.” O.C. stood for Odile Curtis, the name of his ex-wife.
Barbaro,
” said Ralph, leading me on a brief tour of the apartment, which he referred to as “the O.C. Wing of the Palazzo Barbaro.” O.C. stood for Odile Curtis, the name of his ex-wife.
In one room, three space suits were hung on the wall. A photograph of a stuffed animal, a monkey, was taped to the wall next to one of them, with a caption that read, “Monkeyface, Flight Commander, Starship
Barbaro.
” In another room, an inflatable, life-size plastic female in a lacy black bikini sat on the floor, propped up against the wall. Ralph walked past each of these items without comment. In the Situation Room, there was a machine labeled “AntiMatter Reactor.” Ralph took a stack of audiotape cassettes from a shelf and went back into the Moon Room.
Barbaro.
” In another room, an inflatable, life-size plastic female in a lacy black bikini sat on the floor, propped up against the wall. Ralph walked past each of these items without comment. In the Situation Room, there was a machine labeled “AntiMatter Reactor.” Ralph took a stack of audiotape cassettes from a shelf and went back into the Moon Room.
“Well,” he said, “are you ready for liftoff?”
Ralph sat cross-legged on the floor next to a boom box. He shuffled through the cassettes.
“Let’s see, what ’ll it be.
Apollo 11?
That’s the first manned moon shot. You know, Neil Armstrong and ‘One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Here’s
Apollo 12 . . .
pretty good. . . .
Apollo 13 . . .
I guess we’ll skip that one—they had to abort the lunar landing, only orbited the moon and came home. We want a lunar landing as well as a liftoff, don’t we?” He looked over at me.
Apollo 11?
That’s the first manned moon shot. You know, Neil Armstrong and ‘One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’ Here’s
Apollo 12 . . .
pretty good. . . .
Apollo 13 . . .
I guess we’ll skip that one—they had to abort the lunar landing, only orbited the moon and came home. We want a lunar landing as well as a liftoff, don’t we?” He looked over at me.
“Sure,” I said. I had taken a seat on the floor as well.
“Apollo 14,”
he went on, “that’s when Alan Shepard hit a couple of golf balls after he landed on the moon.
Apollo 15,
Shepard was back at the control center in Houston. Let’s do that one.”
he went on, “that’s when Alan Shepard hit a couple of golf balls after he landed on the moon.
Apollo 15,
Shepard was back at the control center in Houston. Let’s do that one.”
Ralph put the cassette into the boom box, pressed the “play” button, and leaned back against the wall. The tape began with the ultracalm voice of Mission Control intoning the familiar mantra, “T minus two minutes and counting. . . .” We sat quietly, listening to the staccato back-and-forth between Houston and the astronauts. Then came the countdown: “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . ignition sequence started . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . zero. . . . Launch coming up. . . . We have liftoff!”
“Damn!” said Ralph.
The roar of the rockets burst through the speakers with a massive violence that seemed likely to rupture them. Even so, Ralph turned up the volume. Throbbing sound waves pounded my eardrums and sent vibrations humming in the walls and floors. As the noise of the rockets began to fade, Ralph lifted his gaze from the boom box. My ears popped at the sudden drop in air pressure.
“How often do you do this?” I asked.
“Oh, I’ve had liftoffs at three in the morning. Telephones start ringing. The neighbors call. Occasionally my sister Pat freaks out.”
“Is that why you do it?”
“No, I do it because it gives me hope. I imagine it’s the Starship
Barbaro
soaring out of the atmosphere and taking the nuclear fire codes to Mars. I wrote a letter to Bill Clinton offering to be the first person to go to Mars with the fire codes and not come back. It took a lot of courage to do that, you know, because people might have thought I was crazy.”
Barbaro
soaring out of the atmosphere and taking the nuclear fire codes to Mars. I wrote a letter to Bill Clinton offering to be the first person to go to Mars with the fire codes and not come back. It took a lot of courage to do that, you know, because people might have thought I was crazy.”
“Did Clinton write back?” I asked.
“Not yet. I sent Boris Yeltsin an artwork entitled
The Twelve Apostles from Planet Mars.
But I haven’t had a response from him yet either. It can be discouraging at times. That’s when I come here for a liftoff.”
The Twelve Apostles from Planet Mars.
But I haven’t had a response from him yet either. It can be discouraging at times. That’s when I come here for a liftoff.”
On the tape,
Apollo 15
was drawing farther away from Earth. We sat in the blue-white glow of Ralph Curtis’s Moon Room, listening to the conversations between Houston and the spacecraft interspersed with tiny beeps.
Apollo 15
would shortly be going into its Earth-orbit phase. Ralph pressed the “fast-forward” button. “Bear with me for a few minutes,” he said. “We’ll go right to the lunar landing.” When he resumed play, the voice of Mission Control was saying, “They’re at five thousand feet now.”
Apollo 15
was drawing farther away from Earth. We sat in the blue-white glow of Ralph Curtis’s Moon Room, listening to the conversations between Houston and the spacecraft interspersed with tiny beeps.
Apollo 15
would shortly be going into its Earth-orbit phase. Ralph pressed the “fast-forward” button. “Bear with me for a few minutes,” he said. “We’ll go right to the lunar landing.” When he resumed play, the voice of Mission Control was saying, “They’re at five thousand feet now.”
Fast forward.
“. . . twelve hundred . . .”
Fast forward.
“. . . eighty . . . forty . . . twenty . . . fifteen . . . ten . . . six . . . three . . . contact!”
“Damn!” said Ralph.
He sat quietly for a while, basking in whatever pleasure he was able to take from the replay of this trip to the moon. Then he gathered up the tapes, and while he was putting them away, I walked around the apartment again. The rooms were more barren than I had realized at first. There were no clothes in sight, no kitchen utensils, no towels or toiletries.
“But where are your belongings?” I asked. “Where do you sleep?”
“Oh, I don’t live here,” he said. “I have no home, no fixed address. I prefer it that way.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope. I stay with friends. I leave my clothes in suitcases in various apartments.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key ring jangling with keys. “I’ve got keys to the apartments of ten friends. These are my ‘house keys.’”
Ralph Curtis’s rooms could have made a very comfortable apartment. I ventured to say that it baffled me why anyone who could live in a palace on the Grand Canal would choose instead to live out of a suitcase in other people’s apartments.
“I don’t like possessions,” he said. “I don’t want to own anything.”
“But you’re an owner of Palazzo Barbaro.”
“I prefer to think of myself as the Barbaro’s ‘spiritual custodian. ’”
“In what way?” I asked.
“For four hundred years, the Barbaro family lived here. They were scholars, philosophers, diplomats, you name it—seekers of wisdom and harmony. That’s the heritage of this palace, and it has to be protected.”
“Protected from what?”
“Well, anything inappropriate, offensive, debasing. For a while, we rented out the
piano nobile
for private parties, hoping it would be a harmless way to help pay expenses. We signed a contract with Jim Sherwood, who owns the ‘21’ Club in New York and the Cipriani Hotel here, to do the catering. He went to great expense. He bought a lot of equipment and even installed a standard industrial kitchen, but it all got to be too much. He created a menu with really objectionable phony names like ‘Tournedos Barbaro,’ and he commissioned sets of glasses and dishes that had the Barbaro insignia, which is a red circle on a white background.
piano nobile
for private parties, hoping it would be a harmless way to help pay expenses. We signed a contract with Jim Sherwood, who owns the ‘21’ Club in New York and the Cipriani Hotel here, to do the catering. He went to great expense. He bought a lot of equipment and even installed a standard industrial kitchen, but it all got to be too much. He created a menu with really objectionable phony names like ‘Tournedos Barbaro,’ and he commissioned sets of glasses and dishes that had the Barbaro insignia, which is a red circle on a white background.
“I said to him, ‘Jim, do you know where that insignia comes from?’ He didn’t know. I said, ‘It’s from a battle during the Crusades when a Barbaro commander sliced an arm off a Saracen infidel and swabbed a bloody circle with it on a white cloth to make a battle flag.’ I said, ‘This is scandalous!’ He’d spent eighty thousand dollars on the glassware and the dishes, and I made him throw them out. I told him, ‘You’re lucky I didn’t break them all!’ And then finally I made him tear out the kitchen. Now the kitchen is being put to better use. It’s the Peace Room.”
“And the
piano nobile
is up for sale,” I said.
piano nobile
is up for sale,” I said.
“I’d rather not sell it. I’d prefer to donate the
piano nobile
to the National Gallery of Art as a symbolic gesture. I wrote them about it, but they said it would cost too much money to maintain.”
piano nobile
to the National Gallery of Art as a symbolic gesture. I wrote them about it, but they said it would cost too much money to maintain.”
“But it is being sold, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Probably,” he said. “Pat isn’t happy about it. She wrote a letter to my sister Lisa and me, accusing us of wanting to
smembrare
the family’s artistic and cultural patrimony, which means, literally, to ‘dismember’ it. She wrote the letter in Italian. She’s very Italian at heart, which at times irritates me a little. Her dedication to the house is almost a sickness.
smembrare
the family’s artistic and cultural patrimony, which means, literally, to ‘dismember’ it. She wrote the letter in Italian. She’s very Italian at heart, which at times irritates me a little. Her dedication to the house is almost a sickness.
“Patricia’s portrait was painted in the Barbaro when she was about twenty. It was done in the style of Sargent and Boldini, and I think it had a profound effect on her. It gave her a sense of not only having to live up to the house and the family but also the portrait. I told her, ‘It will destroy you.’”
Ralph returned to his favorite topic as we put our coats on and went back out into the antechamber. “If you like, I’ll send you copies of the letters I mailed to the heads of state. They’re on file in the Peace Room.” We were halfway down the courtyard stairs when I realized he had forgotten to show me the rest of the
piano nobile,
but I let it pass.
piano nobile,
but I let it pass.
“I can send you other material, too, but only if you’re really interested. I’ve written out the Martian National Anthem in Cyrillic lettering.”
We parted where we had met, in Campo Santo Stefano.
“You know,” he said, “whoever buys the
piano nobile
will become the new spiritual custodian of the Barbaro. I just hope it’ll be someone who understands what that means. We’ll have to see what happens.”
piano nobile
will become the new spiritual custodian of the Barbaro. I just hope it’ll be someone who understands what that means. We’ll have to see what happens.”
He glanced around the
campo,
as if looking to see whether anyone was eavesdropping. “Anyway,” he said, “I have a plan. After the new custodians have had it for a while, once they’ve really settled in, I’ll go over there and tell them about the Barbaro Project. You never know.”
campo,
as if looking to see whether anyone was eavesdropping. “Anyway,” he said, “I have a plan. After the new custodians have had it for a while, once they’ve really settled in, I’ll go over there and tell them about the Barbaro Project. You never know.”
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