The Girl With the Botticelli Eyes (13 page)

With his pole, the colonel prodded each object to the edge of the pool, where he knelt to inspect. Then with a twist of the wrist, he pushed them back out on his pole to the middle of the pool, where, with a few slow circling motions, they sank noiselessly from sight.

“Think. Just imagine.” Borghini resumed his lecture, moving forward, deeper into the cellars beneath the Quattrocento galleries.

The boy, trailing behind him, listened, his eyes riveted to the spot where the objects had sunk beneath the surface of the pool.

“To take something dead and make it live again. That’s no small feat, ay, Beppe? Not unlike what great artists do with paint and canvas. That’s what art is, no? Creating life out of dead matter. But the tanner takes it one step further. He preserves matter in such a way so that it is no longer subject to the laws of entropy—decay.”

Borghini whirled suddenly. The boy reared back so as to avoid collision.

“But today, my young friend”—Borghini’s pedagogical drone resonated through the endless caverns winding beneath the Via Corso Margutta—“today we’re light-years beyond our ancestors. Where they practiced the art with primitive tools, we are privileged to work with the most advanced instruments. Things virtually indistinguishable from those in the surgeon’s kit. Scalpels, forceps, skinning knives, flensing beams. The very finest.”

The colonel paused before a tall glass vitrine in which hundreds of various knives of countless sizes and shapes hung from shelf hooks.

Young Beppe stood just behind the colonel, struck silent, as if in the presence of something holy. He was not unaware of the honor bestowed upon him—being invited there to share in such mysteries with the maestro himself, the lord of this underworld.

“The flensing beam.” Borghini paused before a long, curved wooden object. It lay against a sawhorse, and appeared to have been fashioned out of the staves of an old wine cask, the sort in which vintners age Chiantis and fine old Barolos. He slapped it affectionately with his hand as though it were some dear long-lost friend with whom he’d shared numerous adventures. “This, my young buck, is our operating table.”

Eyes tearing from the lye vapors wafting off the pool, Beppe, still awestruck, continued to gaze about at the surroundings.

It was a sizable area, every inch of it crammed like some disorderly curio shop with great cumbersome shapes—from the most prosaic, such as tables and shelves and benches, to others far more esoteric.

From the ceiling, suspended by means of ropes and pulleys, were plaster casts of torsos, appendages, arms, limbs, heads. A shelf just behind them contained dozens of masks—faces fashioned out of papier-mâché. Along another wall stood large open bins in which were stored objects that appeared to be bones of every anatomical type—femurs, ulnas, tibiae, scapulae, clavicles.

Another shelf directly above that was lined with glass canisters, each filled with pale yellowish liquid, within which floated a variety of small round objects.

Passing closer to get a better look, the boy was startled to see, somewhat magnified by the thickish walls of their glass containers, what appeared to be the pupils of eyes staring out at him.

Off in an entirely different area, bolts of rich fabrics—silks, cottons, batiks, woven materials, some as elaborate as old tapestry—were stacked high in a musty corner. Nearby were huge barrels brimming over with every conceivable type of button—brass, ivory, bone, wood.

Other shelves contained jewelry—rings, amulets, bracelets, pendants, chokers, brooches, tiaras, earrings—some of diamond, some of pearl. On the floor stood a huge barrel crammed with crucifixes of every imaginable variety, from the most crude to those studded with precious and semiprecious stones.

“Over here is our wardrobe area.” The colonel beckoned the boy on. Before him stretched aisle after aisle of plain pipes, from which hung an endless array of gowns, doublets, jerkins, breeches, tunics.

There were shoes, too, stacked high on tables. Old shoes, the boy noted, such as people no longer wore today—boots, buskins, sandals that laced up the length of one’s calf, and old clogs of wood that looked cruel to wear.

All the while the colonel spoke, Beppe had been unable to avert his gaze from something he’d glimpsed out of the corner of his eye. Approaching it, it took on the appearance of a large towel or, possibly, an article of dirty, discarded clothing. It was draped over what the maestro called a “flensing beam.” Coming closer, Beppe, for some reason, felt his heart race with a strange excitement.

The color of weak tea, the thing draped on the beam hung slack, edges of it grazing the floor. Obviously, it had once been wet and appeared now to be drying out. Nearby, a vat of fluid of some sort dripped noisily into the shadows. A gradual awareness of what he saw made the boy giddy, made him want to laugh out loud.

He had to hurry to catch up with the maestro, who’d disappeared into a dark curtained-off area. Stepping somewhat hesitantly through the draperies, he stood there, his eyes adjusting to the dark. Up ahead, the colonel was looking up at an illuminated scanning screen. On it had been mounted dozens of eight-by-six-inch color slides. Running left to right were contact sheets showing a man and a woman in time-lapse sequence. They appeared to be in a restaurant, eating. Two or three slides showed a waiter serving food and pouring wine at their table; in several, it was possible to glimpse other diners at nearby tables. The last three slides in particular were blowups of the woman herself.

“Pretty, ay?” Borghini remarked to the boy standing just behind him.”

“Yes, maestro.”

“How old, would you guess?”

“She? Oh, between twenty-five and thirty.”

“Closer to the latter than the former. But close enough. And the man?”

“Late thirties to early forties, maestro.”

Borghini pondered. “He looks older than he may actually be. Scholarly type—soft, sedentary, bookish, lazy. Given to good food and drink. That type ages quickly. What line of work do you suppose he’s in?”

The boy thought a moment. He knew he was being tested and that much depended on his answer. “A professional of some sort—a teacher perhaps, at the university. He doesn’t look Italian, though. His suit and haircut are American.”

“Bravo.” Borghini laughed appreciatively. “And the young lady? What do you make of her?”

“Do you mean what she does—her line of work, maestro?”

“Precisely.”

A faint, almost impudent smile creased the corners of the boy’s mouth. “Something in the theater? A performer of some sort?”

“Not bad, Beppe. Not bad.” The colonel flicked the button of a VCR and vivid colored views of the same young woman, demonstrating cosmetics in a television commercial, flooded the screen.

“Who is she, maestro?”

Borghini’s gaze lingered a while over the images, then slowly lifted as he flicked off the machine. “I’ve known this one for years, Beppe. Had my eye on her for a long time, although she doesn’t know it. However, she will soon.”

The boy gave a faint smile.

Borghini laughed and slapped the boy playfully across the cheek. “
Motto bravo,
Beppe.” He clapped lightly. “I think it is time now for your first lesson. What do you say?”

“Very good, maestro.”

“We start small, ay?”

There had always been cats. The cellars beneath the Quattrocento galleries overflowed with them. Borghini had always encouraged them, leaving makeshift entryways in the sides of the building just large enough for the numerous strays outside to creep in at night, drawn by the warmth and shelter, and by the scent of rats and other small rodents that occupied the place in abundance.

Borghini himself would put out food at night—gizzards, fish crumbs, bowls of milk. He had a genuine fondness for cats, and they for him, sensing in him a generous provider.

The one that rubbed against his leg now purred when he bent down to scratch her head, stroking backward and completing the stroke with a long, lingering caress of the tail.

She was a plump young calico—playful, affectionate, with white blazing running from the forehead to her pink rubbery nose. She licked the back of his hand when he knelt to lift her; then, cradling her in his arms, he nuzzled her with his nose.

The boy watched transfixed as the maestro chucked the cat’s chin with his finger and whispered into her ear. By the time they’d reached the big copper sink and the boy had turned the spigots on full force, the cat was in a state of ecstasy.

“Good kitty. Good girl,” Borghini cooed affectionately. “We’re going to have our bath now. That’s a good girl. What a good girl. Just a bit more there. That’s good, Beppe. That’s fine. Just beneath the rim there. You don’t want it any higher. Now, if you’ll turn off the spigots. Good. And if you’ll be so good as to hand me that can of putty there. Good. Open it.”

The colonel had placed the cat gently down on the drain-board and proceeded to roll up his sleeves. The cat, head tilted sideways, watched him with a mixture of curiosity and obedience. Borghini continued to talk to the cat gently, soothingly, all the while drawing her closer with his free hand.

“Now watch closely,” the colonel instructed as he dipped a finger into the putty. “We must be certain to seal off each orifice so there will be no stains on the skin.”

The cat squirmed as he inserted a plump gob of the putty into her rectum. The squirms grew increasingly violent, accompanied by yowls when he inserted more putty by means of cotton swabs into her nostrils and ears. By the time he’d started to fill the oral cavity, she was actively struggling against him—gagging, trying to scratch him with her paws, which he held firm in one hand.

Borghini was quite adept at the operation. He’d done it often enough so that he had perfected a method of holding the terrified animal in such a way that it could never get at him.

Sensing the danger she was in, the cat struggled fiercely. But Borghini’s hands, unnaturally large for a small man, were strong and quick. “Now for your bath, kitty.”

He continued to coo as he lowered the cat into the water. Fascinated, Beppe watched her front legs stiffen and shoot out as if trying to fend off the water. In the next moment, she slipped beneath the surface. The boy watched the clear outline of the creature fade to a watery white blur beneath the surface as she churned frantically with her legs. He could see the creature pinned to the floor of the sink, the maestro’s two hands interlocked about her middle.

“Good, kitty. Good girl,” Borghini cooed softly. The boy thought he heard a note of grief in the maestro’s voice as the cat struggled more feebly in his grip.

The last act of life young Beppe saw was the animal hunching its back, retracting its head into its shoulders. The powerful hind legs appeared to sag and relax as the creature slumped.

Still holding the body firmly, the maestro bent forward, squinting his eyes so as to peer beneath the surface. “Good girl, kitty.” He shook his head sadly. “You see, Beppe,” he continued, still gazing down at the cat under the water, “the key to it all is never to let them suffer. When you dispatch them, you must be quick and merciful. Do you understand?”

“Yes, maestro,” the boy replied, trying to ignore the rush of warmth between his legs.

“I
’M SORRY. I FAIL
to see your point.”

“It’s not all that complicated.”

“Then explain it to me again.”

They sat in Walter Van Nuys’s office—Van Nuys, Osgood, and Manship, although Manship didn’t sit. He was up and down, on his feet most of the time, then retreating to his chair, a long streak of angry red flaming each cheek.

It was a big office, pompous and presidential in every way. The principal function of its design was to impress visitors and intimidate subordinates. Van Nuys himself sat at a large formal desk of the size and type upon which declarations of war and treaties of peace are usually signed. Heightening the effect were the exquisite Persian carpets, priceless paintings from the museum’s own collections, and rare bibelots—everything from Chinese jade pillboxes and Greek funerary jars to a collection of eighteenth-century Italian music boxes—displayed all about.

Manship took a breath. Then, with a shrug of despair, he began to restate his position for the third time that morning, “I’m opposed to opening the show one week early for several reasons, the most obvious being that with all we have left to do, we can’t possibly be ready by the fifteenth. The lighting alone—”

“And I’ve already told you, hire more electricians. Work all night Pay time and a half.”

“I was under the impression we were trying to save money rather than spend more.”

“Not quite the same thing, Mark,” Osgood inserted, trying to head off the fatal collision he knew was coming. “I think what Walter is saying is that he’s willing to spend the extra money it takes to open the show a week early because the additional revenues the museum will realize as a result will probably be ten times the amount expended on a half a dozen or so additional electricians working overtime.”

“We’re expecting upward of twenty thousand visitors a day to see the Botticelli,” Van Nuys interrupted. “Twenty thousand. That’s a hundred and forty thousand dollars per week. That approaches a half a million dollars in admissions, not to mention the thousands of additional meals served in the restaurant. We’re talking here three-quarters of a million dollars to our badly depleted coffers. Nothing to be sneezed at.”

The mention of large sums of money had turned Walter Van Nuys florid. He was a small, fleshy man who tended to wear his custom-tailored shirts a size too small, which may have contributed to the impression he gave at that moment of swelling dangerously.

“My second point,” Manship went on, “is that the Botticelli was originally conceived as the five hundred and fiftieth-celebration of the painter’s birthday. There’s a powerful symbolic significance to opening the show on precisely that date. I realize this is a point that will elude ninety-nine out of every one hundred visitors who attend the show.”

“If they give a damn at all,” Van Nuys fumed.

“They probably won’t, but it’s a point that won’t be lost on the dozens of critics, teachers, scholars, gallery owners, and other museum heads who’ll be watching us closely. By this, I mean the movers and shakers, the opinion makes whose articles and reviews and word of mouth will spell the difference between success or failure.”