The Monster of Florence (15 page)

“Maybe.”

“I can see by your face that you don’t feel any sympathy for him.”

“No, no … It’s not—to tell you the truth, not long ago, I had a word with Dr. Biondini at the Palatine Gallery. I thought he might be able to throw a bit of light on your problem.”

“And could he?”

“He told me there’s no restorer in Florence by that name.”

“By that … Benozzetti?”

“Exactly.”

“But surely he can’t prove that? I mean, my father knew him.”

“I know. But that’s the point. To be specific, he said there was no restorer of that name at your father’s level. Those were more or less his words.”

“But we know there is. We’ve both just talked to him. You’ve met him.”

“We’ve talked to him. We don’t know that he’s a restorer.”

“You mean you think he’s a forger!” Marco’s face reddened and he jumped away from the desk and began moving about the room, picking things up and putting them down in almost the same place. Then he stopped and looked the Marshal in the face, pushing a hand angrily through the hair that fell on his forehead.

“I was the one to say it, wasn’t I? If it’s not stolen I’ll have to face up to the fact that it might be a forgery. I said it. D’you remember?”

“I remember.”

“And it’s true, only I didn’t want to face it. I still don’t want to face it because if this is a forgery it means …”

“What does it mean, Marco? Is there something else you should have told me?”

“What? No, of course not. It’s just that … There could have been others, couldn’t there? I mean, there wouldn’t be just this one …”

“That’s not necessarily true.”

“No, but … No. Oh God, I thought, I really thought I could go through with it and sell the wretched thing.” He looked at the picture now with hatred.

“So, sell it.”

“What?”

“I told you I talked to Dr. Biondini. He said if you want to sell it, sell it. There’s nothing illegal about that.”

“But you’ve practically said it’s a forgery.”

“I don’t know whether it is or not but, apparently, provided you make no claims as to what it is no harm can come of it.”

“But the auctioneers will make claims.”

“Biondini says they can protect themselves. I don’t know how but I never heard of them ending up inside so you can assume it’s true. Is there a photograph?”

“Of the painting? Yes. No … there will be. They kept it for their catalogue.”

The Marshal said nothing, realizing that this implied a decision already taken, and Marco’s face darkened still more.

“I don’t know. Once I’d seen Benozzetti and he seemed all right—besides, you’ve just said yourself I might as well sell it.”

“That’s right,” the Marshal said blandly. “If you could let me have a copy of the photograph for Biondini he’d be grateful. He’s something of an expert on this painter so he’d like to see it. Just out of interest, you understand.”

“All right. I’ll send it to you when I get it back. Don’t you think I should get him to look at the painting?”

“That’s up to you. The auctioneers must have had it looked at already to have made their decision—though Biondini did say he’d also be interested to know who’d seen it. Someone from London, he thought it probably was.”

He shifted his weight on the hard crate and spoke without looking the young man in the face, not wanting to embarrass him. “While our friend was letting things drop … he didn’t mention what might be in those two big safes he has there?”

“The safes …” Marco’s mind seemed to be elsewhere. “Yes, I know what’s in them. He opened one of them while I was there.”

“He did?”

“Yes. It’s just stuff he works with, ground minerals—that sort of thing—for making colours.”

“Colours …? In a safe hefty enough for a bank?”

“Oh yes, it’s very valuable stuff. He showed me some lapis lazuli, that’s what was always used for the Virgin’s cloak, the most expensive blue in the world.”

“Ah. And did he open the other safe, too?”

“No, but that’s where he keeps his paintings—not his own, the ones he buys; he’s spent everything he earned in a lifetime on paintings. Well, you can see he has nothing else. He said—this sounds weird but I suppose it might be true—that he had an Etruscan bronze packed in a metal crate and buried behind the studio. There’s a bit of a garden there.”

“Mmph.”

“You don’t believe it? But remember the floor. He’s on the ground floor and in nineteen sixty-six he lost a fortune. What wasn’t damaged in the studio was destroyed in the vaults of a bank in safe deposit boxes. He hadn’t declared or insured the contents—that’s him!”

The Marshal got up stiffly from his crate and waited hat in hand for Benozzetti’s entrance. He didn’t intend to stay long. There was no doubt in his mind that Benozzetti would tell Marco more than he would tell him. Even so, he was curious to see the man outside of his lair, in a more mundane setting. Not to mention watching his face as he looked at the portrait. Whether Benozzetti would be equally eager to see the Marshal again was another matter. Oddly enough, it seemed as if he were delighted.

“Well, well! The knowledgeable Marshal! So we’re to have your opinion, too. Perfect!”

And there wasn’t a trace of irony in his voice. They shook hands without the Marshal opening his mouth. Benozzetti seemed bigger and more impressive than ever—perhaps because the room was
small—and more elegant than ever, perhaps in contrast to Marco in his layers of shabby sweaters. Remembering the deathly cold in that great studio, the Marshal decided there was no danger of his suffering from the cellar-like chill in this windowless room.

As imperceptibly as he could manage, the Marshal stepped back from the waft of perfume the man carried with him, a vain attempt in such a small space. He never took his gaze from Benozzetti’s face and was fascinated to see that though he was directly in front of the painting he didn’t once look at it. There might have been a blank space where the easel stood and the glittering eyes slid around it in search of something else to fix on. They fixed on a photograph in a silver frame on the wall beyond the easel and he walked past the painting to look.

“Ha! Do you know who the man on your father’s left is?”

Marco went closer. “No. I know the senator but not that man.”

“He’s a famous London dealer. Very famous. I’ve done a great deal of business with him myself.”

“I never met him. I didn’t live with my father, so—I’m sorry there’s nowhere to sit.”

But Benozzetti was clearly in no mood for sitting. He shifted jerkily about the room, looking at drawings, boxes of inks, the computer.

“You need money. You must set up this studio properly. In a suitable style for receiving clients. This won’t do.”

He waved a manicured hand at the general mess.

In his left hand he was carrying a hat, the old-fashioned sort that men had worn in the forties and fifties but which nobody wore now. It looked new and expensive and exactly matched his heavy dark-blue overcoat. He was, of course, old fashioned in everything, as much in his ideas as in his clothes.

Marco pushed a hand into the pocket of his jeans and reddened a little.

“It’s what I intend to do. That is, if I can sell this painting.”

“Sell it.”

“You think it’s genuine?”

“Of course it’s genuine. Your father was slightly less of a fool than others of his kind. It’s a good painting. Sell. Sell. What does the Marshal here think you should do?”

“He says sell.”

“There you are then! It’s an excellent painting. The Marchese Anna Caterina Luisa dei Gherardini as Flora. It’s perfect. Sell. You need the money.”

He looked feverish, the Marshal thought, and too agitated to be confined in one room. There was nothing left for him to fix his snake’s eyes on except the Marshal or the painting.

“I have to leave. I have a great deal to do.”

“Of course.” Marco moved to open the door for him. “The auction—”

“I’ll be there.”

He left without saying goodbye to the Marshal, agitation having overcome his manners. The Marshal stood quietly where he was, watching. He noticed that Benozzetti put on his hat well before he was out the door and that he pulled it slightly to the left, covering part of the scar tissue and casting a shadow over the damaged ear. Perhaps not just old fashioned, then.

He also noticed, though he made no comment on it to Marco as he in his turn took leave, that Benozzetti had not once mentioned the name of Antonio Franchi, and not once had he looked at the painting.

“Oh, Salva, no!”

“I can’t help it.”

“But at Christmas!”

“It’s not my fault and I don’t see the use in talking about it.”

“You don’t see the use in talking about it? The first time since the day we met that we’ve been separated at Christmas? Even when I was still down home and you were here? And you don’t see the use in talking about it?”

Teresa had every intention of talking about it, and at length. The boys were out doing a little secret Christmas shopping in the square. That was a strategic mistake on his part. He should have made his
announcement when they were in, because she disapproved of quarrelling in front of the children. But then, he hadn’t been expecting a quarrel. He’d been expecting sympathy and couldn’t for the life of him understand what he’d done to deserve all this anger.

“Why can’t somebody else take your place? Somebody who has their family here and won’t be alone?”

“Oh, Teresa, you know this is a particular case …”

“It’s particular, all right, if it means us going down without you and you spending your Christmas without a soul near you. I’ll say it’s particular! It’s nothing but a trumped-up story, anyway!”

“What!”

“Arresting this man, whatever he’s called. They’d have arrested him years ago if it had been him.”

“Teresa …”

“He’s just an old man. There’s no proof.”

“It’s our job to find it. Aren’t you being a bit unreasonable?”

“Of course I’m being unreasonable! And what are you being? Arresting an old man just for show and splashing that terrible picture all over the newspapers where children can see it!”

As always happened, the more agitated she got, the more quiet he became. Now he only murmured, “You surely aren’t blaming me for that …”

“No! I’m blaming you for ruining our Christmas!”

“What do you want us to do? Decide he’s not guilty so as not to spoil Christmas?”

“I don’t care what you do but I’ll tell you this: if you’re going to insist on persecuting that dreadful old man I’m stopping here and the boys with me.”

“But you’ve booked your tickets.”

“And you’ve booked yours. We’re not going.”

Later, in bed, she had a little cry.

“I’m not crying for that. I’m crying because I’m ashamed of myself, making a scene when you’ve got so much worry on your hands. It was no way to behave.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters. What’s the use of us being together if we don’t help each other?”

“You do help.” He stroked her head tentatively in the dark.

“I haven’t seen you in a state like this since Toto was a baby. There isn’t something else wrong, is there?”

“No.”

“You’re not ill?”

“No, give me your hanky.”

She felt for it and blew her nose. “It’s just …”

“What? As long as you’re not ill, there’s nothing that can’t be sorted out.”

“It’s just … Thinking of the long journey down without you. It brought it all back. When we had to do it, we did it. We just gritted our teeth and got on with it. The interminable journeys and then telephoning you once a week and sometimes I couldn’t hear you.”

“What do you mean, you couldn’t hear me? No, keep it, you’re still crying. What do you mean?”

“I could never hear you so well, sometimes because of the line and sometimes because you mumble and grumble.”

“I could always hear you.”

“I used to shout.”

“That’s true.”

“I never realized how miserable I was. Do you know, except when your mother died I don’t think I shed a tear in all those years? I couldn’t afford to let myself go.”

“But why are you crying now?”

“Because now I can afford to, I suppose. The minute I thought of that train journey it all came out. Years of it. I don’t want to go, Salva.”

“Stay here, then.” He pulled her head on to his shoulder. He went on stroking her head for some time until her breathing settled back to normal.

After a while he said, “I wonder what I was saying.”

“When?”

“When you couldn’t hear me.”

“Goodness knows. You never said much.”

“No.”

“Even so, it used to upset me when I couldn’t catch your words. I’ve just thought … The children are going to be upset if we don’t go down, aren’t they?”

“I suppose so. But your family even more so.”

“And what about your sister?”

“What about her?”

“She was supposed to spend Christmas with us, with my family. She was counting on it. You know how lonely she is now your mother’s gone and we’ve left.”

“She can still go.”

“Of course she can, but she won’t; not without us. It’s my family, after all. Do you think she’ll come up here?”

“You could ask her, but you know how she is about travelling alone.”

“I’ll have to phone her. And my sister—and see if I can get the money back on the tickets, and talk to the boys, and if we’re not going we should have posted the presents weeks ago …”

Sensing which way the wind was blowing, even half asleep as he was, he managed to murmur, “Don’t worry … and if you think you should go, I’m sure I can get at least a couple of days off and fly to Catania …”

She left with the boys on Christmas Eve, not without shedding a tear at the station.

“Did we make the right decision?”

“I think so. I’ll be working round the clock. At least I’ll feel better for knowing you’ve got your family around you and the boys are having a good time with their cousins.”

“Give me that parcel—now: the fridge is full and there are still two jars of that meat sauce. Don’t forget to use it up. It’ll not keep more than a few days. Salva, are you listening? Giovanni, keep hold of that bag, never let go of your bag on the station like that.”