Finally, Topo quieted himself. He knew there was no taking it back; no undoing. It was done. At last he asked softly, “I won’t be able to live here anymore, will I?”
Leo shook his head.
After a moment Topo sighed. “I could live in Firenze maybe . . . maybe Milano.”
“Milano’s nice,” Leo replied.
“I think Roma would be too big. You know?”
Leo nodded.
Topo got to his feet and brushed himself off. “I’ve gotta go home. The shop’s a mess, but I’ve gotta get some sleep.” He stood by the door and stared at the face of the saint, who seemed to be looking in his direction, but not quite meeting his gaze. “My God, Leo—what have we done?”
“We rescued it.”
Topo chuckled to himself. “We did, didn’t we? We rescued it.” And he was gone.
Once Leo was alone, he thought of his words to Topo— “Milano’s nice.” He was living in Milano when he went to his first museum. He didn’t remember its name, but it was big. It was there that he saw a painted wooden panel that reminded him of the Mystery back in Santo Fico, but not as pretty. A small plaque explained that someone named Cimabue painted the wooden panel, “. . . in the Byzantine style.” It also said that Cimabue was the teacher of Giotto di Bondone. He remembered how the name Giotto leapt off the plaque at him. He knew that name. That was the name whispered by the two fat men from Roma. He asked a pretty girl in the gift shop what she knew about Giotto di Bondone and she told him that if he was interested in Giotto, then he needed to go to a particular room on the far side of that museum.
What he found was a room filled from floor to ceiling with beautiful paintings. There were even frescoes painted on the ceiling, but he couldn’t see them very well. The subject of all of the paintings was pretty much the life of Christ and some were even painted by the famous Giotto. But as beautiful as they were, he didn’t see anything that he could connect to the Mystery back in Santo Fico.
When he went back to the gift shop he asked the pretty girl if there were any other museums in Milano that had any frescoes by Giotto and she suggested he look at some of the art books in the back of the shop. So, sitting there among racks of Michelangelo key chains and stacks of da Vinci coffee mugs and Botticelli plates, Leo thumbed through rows of glossy art books. He was in the midst of a fervent prayer that he might never again hear the name Giotto when he saw something that took his breath away.
Staring at him from off a shiny page was the same boyish, melancholy face of Saint Francis that he had seen all his life— the sad, knowing eyes, the gentle mouth, and the look of eternal youth and innocence. It was the same face, the same robe, the same hair, but now there was no fig tree. This was a completely different wall painting than the Mystery of Santo Fico, but the same face. Across the page was another photograph of a different fresco, and again there was the same Saint Francis—his Saint Francis. The caption in the book even identified the character as Saint Francis, but neither fresco depicted him sitting casually beneath a fig tree. One was a mournful thing showing
The Death of Saint Francis
. The other was something called
The Apparition at Arles,
and, according to the book, the famous Giotto di Bondone painted both. Leo had found the link he needed to that phrase, “could be worth a fortune.” He found it in the gentle face of the saint.
Leo spent the rest of that day wandering the halls of the museum, but he wasn’t interested in the paintings and statues anymore. He spent his time questioning everyone he could about the possible value of a work of art. Mostly he wanted to know how much a fresco by Giotto might be worth if it somehow happened to fall off a wall. By late afternoon he had made the guards nervous enough for them to suggest that it was time for him to go. And it was. He had learned all he needed.
Now, sixteen years later, sitting in the stifling stone hut and staring into those enigmatic plaster eyes that seemed to see something just over his shoulder, Leo was again plagued by “could be worth a fortune.” He used his sleeve to wipe away the torrent of sweat that drenched his forehead, and when he looked down he discovered a dirty stain he’d just left on the arm of his linen jacket. The suit was ruined. He shouldn’t have worn it yesterday morning. Was that just yesterday morning? He took off the tired jacket and thought of the little tailor shop off State Street. He’d had a date with someone and needed something nice. Who was she? Women’s faces catalogued through his mind like a Rolodex. It struck him as odd that he could remember the face of the tailor that sold it to him. He could even remember who was tending bar the evening he strutted into the Chop House wearing his new linen suit for the first time, but he couldn’t remember the face of the woman on his arm. He couldn’t remember any of their faces or their names. There had been lots of women. Why couldn’t he remember them? He remembered his suit. To hell with it. With what they were going to get for the fresco, he could buy a closetful of linen suits.
Topo had actually raised a couple of good questions and so he tried to put his weary mind to some productive use. It was obvious that two things were going to be difficult. The first was finding the right person to handle the transaction. He knew guys who knew guys in Chicago—or maybe he just knew guys who said they knew guys. Once, in a bar, one of these marginal underworld guys, known as Sally Bones, was pointed out to him. Leo was disappointed to discover a small, nervous little fellow who probably dealt in cheap watches and fake jewelry. Leo thought Sally Bones looked like Topo after too much coffee. But to find a real fence in Italy, one who understood great art—because this was, no doubt, great art—they would probably have to go to Firenze, maybe even to Roma.
The other touchy part was going to be finding out how much to ask. Should they sell them individually or as a set? They might even want to break them up a bit more. A couple of quick shots with a hammer and they have twice, three times as many little Giottos. Leo rejected that idea immediately. Also, how much is an original, undiscovered Giotto fresco worth on the open, or in this case the unopen, market? The original estimate of “could be worth a fortune” was now a bit too vague. When it came time to actually talk to someone, Leo would have to have some reasonable figures in mind. Of course, yesterday at the hotel he’d done pretty well with, “Oh, whatever you think is fair.”
A harsh pounding on the front door sent him spinning out of his chair. It rattled everything in the room, most especially his fragile brain. It seemed as though the pounding might shatter the door and he almost called out angrily to Topo, but Topo would be home by now. And even if it were Topo, he would never pound on Leo’s door with such ferocity. Thoughts buzzed around his fuzzy brain like fireflies, flashing in all directions at once and all too quick to grasp.
The painting! Saint Francis was resting comfortably on the cot, staring at something just beyond Leo’s shoulder. The pounding began again, even more insistent, and suddenly, for the first time in his life, Leo knew where Saint Francis was looking and what he was thinking. The angelic saint was staring just beyond his shoulder at the door of the hut and he was thinking, “Why don’t you answer the door, stupid!”
“Just a second!”
Leo rushed to the cot, laid the broken face of the saint flat, and threw a sheet over it.
When he opened the door and poked his head outside, the midday sun blinded him like a beacon, but Leo still almost made out the shape of Marta’s hand an instant before it cracked across his cheek. The slap stung, but what genuinely hurt was banging the side of his head against the hut’s stone wall trying to dodge her well-aimed palm.
“You rotten son of a bitch!”
Leo stepped outside and closed the door. Everything considered, he correctly appraised the situation remarkably fast.
“What the hell’d you do that for?”
“You know what I did that for, you rotten son of a bitch!” Marta telegraphed her next roundhouse right and Leo was able to dodge this one. Confronted with the fury of Marta’s rage, armed as she was with truth, and possessing the tenacity of an avenging angel, Leo chose the only safe course of action—lie as though your life depended on it.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he denied indignantly—maintaining his most sincere look of hurt bewilderment.
Marta’s fury encompassed everything. It was that ridiculous look of innocence on Leo’s long face, of course, but it was also dark years of disappointment, unspoken fears for her girls, a lifetime of hollow loneliness, and now the pain she felt from Uncle Elio. Everything swirled together and her brain crackled with electric blue flames. Leo watched a sort of madness enter her black eyes, as she screamed at him in tones that made him think his head was locked in a tightening vise. The sound made his teeth hurt. It seemed to Leo that Marta’s fingernails were growing longer the closer she swung her claws toward his eyes. She struggled to express herself, but all that came out were spurts of shrieks and horrible sounds that, in better times, probably had some relationship to speech. At last, after pawing her feet in the dirt and sputtering like a demented coffeepot, she suddenly doubled her fist and hit Leo in the stomach. Strangely enough, this seemed to calm the moment as Leo bent over gasping for breath and Marta danced in small circles clutching the wrist she feared she had just broken.
When Leo was finally able to breathe again his aggravation with Marta became pointed and he dared to face her defiantly.
“What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Marta had determined that her wrist probably wasn’t broken and she struggled against an impulse to kick him, but remained calm enough to speak.
“The Mystery! You stole the Mystery!”
Leo’s jaw dropped almost to his chest and he stuttered in amazement, “Some . . . somebody stole . . . the Mystery?” He knew he’d overdone it.
Marta hissed through clenched teeth, “You stole it, you rotten son of a bitch!”
“Hey! Don’t call me that. You knew my mother. That isn’t nice to her memory. You shouldn’t call me that.”
He was right. Leo’s mother had been beautiful and kind and Marta had loved her like her own.
“And wouldn’t she be proud of you now. Stealing from the church, you . . .”
She wanted to call him a bastard, but that cast aspersions on his mother
and
his father.
“You think I stole the Mystery from the church?”
“I know you stole it.”
Leo walked to his hut, threw open the door and stepped back contemptuously. “Would you like to take a look for yourself?”
His heart pounded. If she went inside he was dead. She would have no qualms about sending him to jail if she had a chance. But Leo’s bold stare and his belligerent challenge unnerved Marta and for a moment she doubted herself. If he had the fresco, would he offer to let her search for it? The dark room just beyond the opened door seemed shadowed and forbidding to her. There was something unexpectedly dangerous in this moment that Marta found unsettling. Her brain was telling her to just go inside the little pigsty, retrieve the fresco, and prove Leo Pizzola to be a liar up to his teeth. But there was something else in her heart, more mysterious and sinister, telling her to beware.
Leo had counted on her apprehension. He tested his advantage just a little.
“Well? Come on in.”
“Does it smell as bad as you?”
“I didn’t steal the painting.” And he pulled the door closed with a secret sigh of relief.
“I saw you take it.”
Leo had been prepared to play this game as far as possible, but there was something in her quiet, controlled tone that told him she had just pitched a third strike. He managed to clear his throat with, “You saw me . . . What does that mean?”
“I saw you and Topo carrying the pieces out of the church.” Leo gazed out to sea and the moment hung in the air like one of the low clouds on the horizon. He was struck by how quiet everything was. There were no gulls crying loudly as they circled over the cliff. There were no cicadas screaming from the thistles in the fields. At this particular moment even the breeze stopped swirling around them; everything was still and his dream was over. He was tired and all he wanted was sleep.
“Okay. Fine. You saw us. Call the police.”
“I’m not going to call the police.”
“Okay. Fine. Don’t call the police. I’ll take it back to the church tomorrow.”
“You won’t take it back to the church tomorrow.” “Okay! Fine! I won’t take it back tomorrow. I’ll take it back to the church this afternoon!”
“You won’t take it back to the church at all!”
“Okay! Fine! I won’t . . . ! Would you tell me what the hell you want?”
“I want you to undo what you did!”
She hadn’t really understood what she hoped to accomplish or even why she’d come here until this moment, but suddenly she knew. Leo had created this grief and he would fix it. How could he have been so selfish? Was he just pretending that he didn’t understand?
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
But Leo’s dumb stare said it all—he honestly hadn’t the least notion. And so she told him about finding Father Elio sitting alone in the church, staring at that blank wall. She told him of the old priest’s tears and guilt, of how he blamed himself for the desecration, of how he felt that God was punishing him because he hadn’t been a good enough priest or steward or something. God had taken the Mystery away from the village because of Father Elio’s sin, whatever that meant. Father Elio knew this was a sign that God had abandoned him and it would take a miracle to restore God’s love to his life. And she told him of the old man’s determination to atone with an act of contrition—fasting and praying until God forgave him. This was as much as Marta could tell before anger took away her voice again and tears blurred her eyes.
Father Elio was a bigger fool than he had imagined, Leo thought to himself. Still, he didn’t like the notion of the old man sitting around blaming himself and not eating.
“How long is he going to fast?”
“As long as it takes.”