The Girl With the Botticelli Eyes (16 page)

With the tip of his boot, Borghini swept the assorted odds and ends of paper aside, revealing beneath them the figure of an elderly man sleeping. Borghini knelt down beside what appeared to be a mound of rags. “Who has a match?” he asked.

Tenuto, crouching above the maestro, ignited a butane lighter and handed it down to him. Almost at once, a shaft of pale orange light rose from the ground up, casting a wavering light on the walls and ceiling inside the doorway. The shadows of the flame, greatly magnified, danced all about them.

The old man sprawled on the ground stirred drowsily. Half-rising, he fell back again, covering his eyes against the sudden unwanted light.

From where he was kneeling beside the old fellow, Borghini could smell the fetor of cheap wine and old clothing in which the man had fouled himself.

“He stinks,” Luccabrava muttered.

“Shit his pants,” another remarked.

Borghini moved the lighter down close to the old fellow’s face. It was a worn, tired face, deeply lined, scored even in sleep with the cares of a lifetime. He’d been cuffed about some; one of his eyes was swollen and purple; clots of dried blood spattered his forehead. The face itself was wreathed in a halo of filthy white beard. A gash of something crusty and yellow marked where the mouth ought to be. Within that gash, a ruin of brown stumpish teeth was just visible. A limp hand grimed with filth barely held on to a paper bag, out of which the neck of a near-empty bottle protruded.

No longer quite so amused, Borghini’s face had taken on a profoundly sad expression, as if there on the ground within that narrow frame of the doorway, he’d glimpsed the clearest picture of man’s fate. One of Giorgione’s Christs flashed before his eye—the
Deposition from the Cross.
He gazed long and hard at the scene, as if trying to memorize every shadow of it, each detail.

The Count rose and again jabbed the sleeping figure with his booted toe. “Hey, old man. Get up.”

The next time, it was a kick, placed squarely in the ribs. It must have hurt. The old man yelped and half-rose, then rolled to his side, trying to protect himself.

“Get up, you old shit. Get up.” Borghini grew furious, the others crowded about, laughing. Borghini started kicking him again. “Come on, you stinking, lice-ridden bug-life. Get up.”

The old man was either too drunk or too far gone to respond. He’d huddled himself into something like a fetal position, resolved to take the beating if only they’d let him sleep.

“I think we shall do this old man a favor.” Borghini had lapsed into the expansive locutions of stage farce. “I think he’s earned it. Wouldn’t you say, lads?”

“He has indeed, maestro,” young Beppe agreed. “This poor old trooper has been a victim far too long.”

The others crowded in, sniggering. A few of them kicked the prone figure.

“Far too long, maestro.”

“It isn’t fair.”

“How can we repay him for all he’s been made to suffer?”

“What can we do to redress the wrong, maestro?”

“I think,” the colonel began, his head tilted sideways as he mused aloud, “we shall do this poor tragic soul the supreme honor …”

“Yes, maestro.”

“The supreme honor, yes, maestro.”

“We shall martyr him,” Borghini said, his features aglow with a beatific light.

Cheers and roars of delight went up. Cars roared up the Aventino.

“By all means. Let’s martyr him. He’s earned martyrdom.”

They’d taken up the chant, their voices rising boyish and giddy above the roar of the river below.

“Luccabrava,” Borghini cried. “Get me some ash. Over there in the trash cans.”

A number of trash cans had been put out for the collection in front of a nearby office building. The trash had already been burned in the building’s incinerators, and the residue left behind was a cold mound of powdery ash.

Luccabrava, a stout, eager youth in his early twenties, returned with a huge fistful of the stuff, which he offered to the maestro. Borghini, regarding the opened fist with a look of quiet pleasure, moistened the tip of his finger with his tongue, then dipped it into the powdery mound, twisting it right and left several times until it was covered with a dark grayish paste.

Once more, the colonel knelt beside the sprawling figure, who was now snoring faintly, hiccupping a brownish fluid into his flowing scraggly beard. Smiling down and leaning over him, the colonel carefully inscribed the letters INRI across the old man’s forehead. When he’d finished, Borghini leaned back again to admire his work. Then he stood. “Okay, lads. Lift him.”

Hands reached out, grabbing the old fellow at different parts of his body. Borghini himself took the area under each armpit. For some reason, the taller boys had gravitated toward the feet and lower limbs, the net effect of which was that the body was hoisted with the legs higher than the head. Indeed, the area of the head, where Borghini alone stood, hung low; the long mane of filthy white hair drooping almost vertically downward swung from side to side, sweeping the cobbled roadway across the Lungo.

Airborne and in motion, the old man appeared to waken, to sense finally some hint of danger before him. In his fear, he started to moan and thrash about. But they held him firm, marching across the Lungo in the direction of the embankment. All the way, they sang cheers and old party rallying songs.

“Hey, what’s up?” The old man flailed helplessly. “What’s going on? Give an old wreck a break, will you! For Christ sake.”

“We intend to, father,” Luccabrava reassured him kindly, “a big break.”

The others howled with delight.

A shallow stone wall marked the embankment. It served as a kind of guardrail for the safety of pedestrians. Beyond that lay a steep dirt parapet towering some seventy feet above the Tiber.

In the darkness, one could scarcely see the river below, but its churning could be heard. Recent heavy rains had swelled it, and its badly roiled current thrashed about, slapping hard against the rocks and boulders littering the streambed. Where the foaming, current swirled past, it was possible to see whitecaps bobbing downstream like tiny fleeting phantoms.

Reaching the embankment, they peered down over the stone wall. The roar of it had sobered them for a moment as they stood about silent and puzzled, not entirely certain what to do next.

“All right, lads,” Borghini barked. “Hoist this bag of shit high. We’ll launch him up to heaven in grand style.”

They did so eagerly. The old tramp was fully awake now, panicked and thrashing his legs.

“Listen—I meant no harm. Let me go. I’ll be out of your way in a minute.” The whites of the old man’s eyes rolled in his head.

“Over the side with him now, lads,” Borghini directed. “That’s good. Good. Now hold him aloft there just like that till I give the signal to launch him.”

Borghini could hear the old fellow whimper as they hoisted him over the top of the wall and held him dangling and kicking, eyes glaring down at the yawning space below. Leaning out over the wall, the maestro shouted to him above the roar.

“It’s better this way, old soldier. Better than some cold doorway at night. You’re going to like where you’re going. The gates of heaven. Far better than this piss hole down here. Trust me on this, old chap.” He snapped off a sharp military salute to the scrawny figure squirming above the dark void.

“All right, lads. One … two … and three.”

For the briefest moment, it looked like a large bird hovering in space. Then there was nothing, just a black emptiness where seconds before the old tramp had squirmed and wriggled like a hooked fish.

In the sky across the river, still glowing red from the lights of Trastevere, Colonel Ludovico, Borghini watched in wonder a hand holding a sword. He watched it cleave the clouds, moving slowly back and forth as if saluting him. There was thunder and a rush of rain and he thought he heard a child crying.

“W
ELL, I MUST SAY
, you always did have a gift for surprise.”

“Trust me, Mark. I didn’t plan it this way. If there was some other alternative …”

“Well, there isn’t. And don’t be ridiculous. I’m delighted to see you.”

“Sure you are. I can see the gnashing of teeth under that big welcoming grin of yours.”

“Here, give me your bag.” Manship snatched the light overnight carryall, nearly yanking her over the threshold. “Go inside by the fire. You’re soaking wet.”

“I didn’t pack a raincoat. This all happened so fast.”

“Bad things generally do.”

She followed him into the living room, her quick, shrewd gaze darting left and right in appraisal. “Looks about the same. You still have those mothy old drapes, I see.”

“And always will, if I can help it.”

She smiled at his annoyance. “Mrs. McCooch taking good care of you?”

“Reliable as clockwork. Still goes home for the weekends.” Manship stood there at the foot of the stairs, holding her bag and looking at a loss. He watched her go to the fire, kicking off her shoes and dropping to her knees on the rug beside it. “A fire. Heavenly.”

“Just drying out the place. We’ve had rain for a week straight.” He started up the stair. “I’m putting you in our—my room. I’ll take the guest room.”

“Absolutely not.” She was on her feet, bounding after him. “Mark—I can’t stay if you do that. The guest room is fine for me. As it is, I feel guilty enough …”

He was about to protest, then shrugged. “Have it your way. Pour yourself a drink. You know where everything is. I’ll be right down.”

Moments later, he was back in the living room. She was seated on a cushion on the floor, sipping a sherry, stretching her legs before the fire. The static electricity of her stockings brushing against each other gave him an oddly arousing sensation.

“When did all this happen?” he asked, pouring himself a sherry. “Was it expected?”

“Oh, yes. He’d been failing for the past year. The doctor told us it could be anytime.”

“You don’t have to believe this. I was fond of your father.” He dropped into the big wing chair opposite her, sliding down into his characteristic tailbone, cross-kneed slouch. “Even though I’m sure he couldn’t abide me.”

“Let’s face it, Mark. You weren’t quite the son-in-law he’d bargained for.”

“I wasn’t a banker, a broker, a world force, if that’s what you mean.”

“None of the above.” She laughed.

“Just an impoverished curator! Have you had supper?”

“Just a doughnut at the airport.”

“You must be starved. There are some eggs. I can throw a salad together.”

“Sounds perfect.”

He started into the kitchen. She followed him through the long, narrow hallway, on past the big swinging kitchen door that made a gulping sound each time it opened or closed.

“This is very kind of you, Mark. I swear I didn’t plan this.”

“How do you plan death? It just comes.”

“If I could’ve gotten a hotel room …”

“Anything even just okay is three hundred dollars a night, and they don’t have the decency to throw in a cup of coffee for that. Ah,” Manship proclaimed, peering into the refrigerator. “You’re in luck. Mrs. McCooch has laid in some fresh raspberries. And there’s a bit of Stilton left over from the other night.”

Her ears pricked. “Did you have guests the other night?”

“Not what you’re thinking. Just Bill Osgood.”

Manship plucked an endive and a cucumber from the vegetable bin.

“He’d be more fun for me than you.” She followed after him with a cruet of oil and vinegar. “He still looking for a new wife?”

“Yes … Well, maybe not a wife, but a full-time sleep-in lady friend. If only he could get the old one out of his hair.”

“She still so ditsy?”

“Yes. Still. Omelette or over easy?”

“Over easy’s fine. I like my yolks runny.”

“I know perfectly well how you like your yolks.” There was an edge to his voice. Their gazes bumped, then held a moment. She looked away first.

“Tell me about your big Botticelli show. There was a cover story in
ARTnews.
”

“Did you read it?”

“Partially,” she paused, considering. “Typical for them—you know, pompous.”

“In that case, you know more about the show than I do. I didn’t read the story.”

“Sure, sure. If I know you, you probably bought a thousand copies of the magazine and mailed them out all over the country.”

“There’s not much to tell.” He cracked eggs into a sizzling skillet. “It opens on the twenty-second. I’ve been on it for a couple of years.”

“What is this mysterious series of drawings you’ve been running down?”

“Oh, you mean the Chigis? Nothing mysterious about it. They’re just that. A series of sketches—thirteen. Botticelli did them in the 1490s. Preparation for painting the
Chigi Madonna.
Never before shown. I’ve only been able to find ten.”

“How come?”

“Don’t ask. I’m just about sick of the whole thing by now.” He tossed salt on the gently pulsing yolks. “Speaking of shows, I read about yours in the
Times.
Pretty fast company for a little girl from Scarsdale.”

“I got lucky, I guess. The Getty was doing a show of female American moderns—O’Keeffe, Frankenthaler, Alice Neel, Susan Rothenberg—you know, the usual suspects.” She went on, animated, much revived from the drowned rat that had washed up on the doorstep shortly before. “They asked me if I wanted to show. I wasn’t sure. I said I’d call back in twenty-four hours. I called Jane out in the Hamptons and asked if I should do it. ‘Of course you should, you idiot’” She rattled on, imitating the throaty locutions of an old artist friend. “Well, you know Jane.”

“So?”

“So I got back to the Getty the next day and said, ‘I’ll be delighted.’”

He set out the eggs and tossed the salad, then sat across from her and watched her devour them—greedily, the way she did everything, as if she didn’t expect to be around long and had no idea where she was going next.

He marveled at how pretty she still was. One of those serendipitously lucky people for whom everything just falls into place, she had looks, talent, opportunities—all with no special effort on her part. Still young, too, just thirty-four, she never took many pains with her looks. It wasn’t typical magazine prettiness, either, but something else—hard to put one’s finger on. She had a long, narrow face, angular, with good bones; a bladelike Roman nose, a straight line down from the forehead with a little break at the bridge; a bony, thrusting chin; a slightly snaggled front tooth; a wide expanse of shrewd, darting eyes that never seemed to rest.