Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (2 page)

He had rented a small house on the outskirts of Florence, where he would rest while visiting the most famous landmarks of the Italian city. He wanted to relive his student years and remember everything which had fascinated him when young and which, to some extent, had shaped his approach to life.

According to his friends, James was a
bookworm
. While they had been debating some topic over coffee, whether related to history, art or even science, he had often stood up and gone straight to the library with the intention of researching and finding support for his ideas. He would not rest until he had found a possible solution, and even when he did he would not stop there, but instead devour almost any material which was related to the topic until his voracious appetite for knowledge was satisfied.

Being number one in his field, having three Masters degrees, a career dedicated to research and holding the position of head of his department for the last four years had made him the ideal candidate for the presidency at the university. However, it had been a long and painful road with no shortage of enemies along the way. Months before he was named president, his rival uncovered the most intimate secrets of his marriage, revealing the affair his wife had been having with a young police officer. This situation would have made the strongest person crumble but the very next day, first thing in the morning, James had more than enough strength to serve divorce papers and then attend a conference two hours later where, before a thousand-strong audience, he would go on to outline the most important concerns and initiatives he hoped to put in place should he be elected as president.

That inner strength you have will spur you on to glory,
his father would tell his young son, and he wasn’t wrong.

Suddenly, the sound of a folk tune echoed around the moldy walls of the room, bringing him back to cold reality.

Who could be calling at this time? It is two in the morning,
he thought, pressing the pillow against his ears as he tried to ignore the din coming from the cellphone. It was impossible.

Lily had the bad habit of fiddling with all her father’s electronic devices and, on this occasion, she had changed his phone’s ringtone to a song by a famous folk group. James had tried to switch it back many times and in so many ways, but although he had a flair for the arts, he was a true dunce when it came to electronics. He knew how to switch on a computer and then… switch it back off again.

The music sounded again.

It’s bound to be some professor moaning about the behavior of some student. I’ll show them who is in charge - now is not the time!

He jumped up, not knowing what annoyed him more: the fact that somebody had the clever idea of calling him at two in the morning, or having to get out of bed to answer the phone he had left inside his coat pocket. “Hello. Who is this?”

“Good evening. Is this James Oldrich?” A loud, gruff voice spoke on the other end of the phone, his speech punctuated by short pauses of breath taken to drag on a cigarette. “My name is Alfred Hilton. You must be wondering why I’ve disturbed you at this time in the morning”. There was a short silence as the caller exhaled deeply. “Well, I am the attorney for Gerald, your opponent for the university seat. From what I gather, these have not been pleasant days for you. I mean, all that business with your wife.”

James instantly understood the poisonous message and clenched his fist with rage. “I daresay your call will be extremely quick if you carry on down that route, Mr. Hilton”.

James knew perfectly well that his wife had been investigated by Gerald’s henchmen for the entire campaign and he was sure that it had all been an ambush designed to drag his name through the mud.

“Don’t be so arrogant, Mr. Oldrich. Perhaps we underestimated you when we thought that some mere photographs of your wife sleeping with another man would destroy you. In all honesty, I can tell you that we got it wrong. Anyway,” he continued as he had one last drag on his cigarette, “now we’ve put it right. Don’t go to work on Wednesday - it’s for your own good.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, I am giving you advice. Gerald has some very influential friends who want him to lead the university at whatever cost. I would bear that in mind if I were you.”

“That doesn’t worry me. Goodnight.”

Without delay, he hung up and switched off the phone. His body was nervous, tense, just like his right fist, completely rigid. He lay back down on the bed and covered himself again with the blankets while he closed his eyes and repeated in his head over and over:
Keep calm James, they’re just trying to intimidate you.

A
t last it was morning. The sun’s rays filtered through the slats in the shutters, projecting a beam of light across the room to the foot of the bed.
It was all a nightmare,
he reflected, stretching his body until he felt that light and pleasant morning sensation of relief, but he quickly realized that he was still in that old house and his body trembled with rage again when he remembered what had happened. He could not think about giving in, everything had been done. He had a few days to enjoy himself and relax; nobody would succeed in ruining that. For the moment, he was thinking about visiting what he had so admired as a child and what had channeled his life towards a new and marvelous understanding of art: Michelangelo’s David.

The old house was situated in a clearing next to a river, and was surrounded by a big wooden fence that restricted outside access. It was very airy, and the light managed to penetrate the deepest corner of the house thanks to its enormous windows. It was a two-storey house, with dark wooden floorboards that had cracked and rotten with the passage of time, and which creaked lightly with any human steps. The living room had been remodeled; two black leather sofas together with a huge oak table occupied virtually all the space. At either side of the front door were two sets of shelves with piles of old books, the majority of which written in Latin. Just to the side of them, although hidden upon first glance, was an old clock on the wall. Whenever its bells chimed, it was yet another headache for the young academic.

Some old wooden stairs led to the upper floor which was split into three rooms, two of which were empty, and a small bathroom. They were shadowy and looked totally neglected; in one of them a thin layer of mildew even extended from the upper corner in the ceiling all the way down to the floor. The third bedroom was decorated with fifteenth century furniture but until yesterday, it looked as if it hadn’t been used for a very long time. The bathroom, which, although cramped, seemed to be the cleanest area of the house despite lacking one small detail: a mirror.

The sound of a loud horn broke the silence in the house. A taxi was waiting outside. Twenty minutes had gone by and still nobody had deigned to come out, not even to ask him to wait a few minutes. Tired, he had lowered the handbrake to leave when a man of around thirty-eight, well-built and smart-looking, strode down the hall steps while he smoothed his mane of hair down to his shoulders.

“Good morning. Sorry about the delay but there was no hot water.”

James’ face looked honest. The long periods of time he had spent in the country, studying art and the architecture of its churches, meant he had picked up some Italian, although he spoke with a strong North American accent. He quickly opened the rear door and collapsed onto one of the seats.

Without taking his eyes off the rear-view mirror, the taxi driver replied aggressively. “I have been waiting for you for twenty minutes and I’m thinking about adding it to the fare, whether you like it or not.”

“Don’t worry. I want to go to the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Florence. I’d like to see - ”

“Michelangelo’s David,” interrupted the taxi driver again. When faced with the foreigner’s surprise, he tried to explain. “Almost half of the tourists who book a taxi want to visit David, but the vast majority aren’t capable of appreciating the great complexity of the work, or feeling what the artist was trying to convey.”

“I see that you understand art.”

“More than that, sir. You could say I am a true aesthete.”

James couldn’t stifle a grin. It had been a while since he had heard that expression, employed by all those who love art and consider it of essential value. However, judging by his scruffy appearance, his coarse vocabulary and his crude manners, he asked himself whether the driver was aware of another meaning of that word, one which would certainly be unfitting for him: an effeminate male.

“I’ve visited the vast majority of Italian museums,” he continued. “Many of them when I was young and studied Fine Art, but when I realized how hard it was to find a good job, I went into the same business as my father.”

“So I see,” said the academic, not mentioning his job for fear of starting a never ending conversation. Obviously, the taxi driver was annoyed by the wait. Even so, he seemed to want to engage James in conversation - something that didn’t appeal to him at the moment. Besides, the taxi driver was the one who had arrived before the agreed time and hadn’t given James enough time to shave; he sported a five-day old beard, which lent him an air of mystery. He reclined in the back seat and closed his eyes in the hope of finding a moment of peace.

James was an attractive man. His classes at the university were always full of people. Not just for his way with words and the ease with which he explained the most important ideas, but because three-quarters of those who attended the class were girls who could not take their eyes off him. He had sometimes told his closest friends how he felt as if some of his female students were undressing him with their eyes, and on more than one occasion he had had problems with some indecent proposal they had made to him.

He had an enviable body, rare for somebody approaching their forties. His eyes were brown but in summer they lightened to a honey color, his brows very thick and his styled shoulder-length locks made him seem several years younger. He was rather tall, around six feet, with a strong but well-defined build. He loved any kind of sport, especially basketball, which he had played since he was a boy and which had turned him into an extremely competitive person.

A traffic jam in the city center had had a massive impact on nearby traffic, to the extent that the taxi did not move but jump in fits and starts through the streets of Florence. A young woman had run a red light and two cars had collided into her from the side, one of which had then ricocheted off a fire hydrant from which copious amounts of water flowed down the road. Meanwhile, the other cars did not stop beeping, adding to the chaos of the situation.

“Sir, it looks as if the road is blocked. Do you want me to make a detour and drop you off at the back?”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll get out here.” He opened the back door after giving the taxi driver a fifty euro bill. “Keep the change. I hope it makes up for the twenty minutes I kept you waiting.”

The taxi driver seemed to catch on to the subtle sarcasm in James’ voice and he started the car, cursing repeatedly at the stupid Yankee.

The street brought back old memories of one of his trips to Venice in the rainy season. On that occasion, he had been unable to leave the hotel for two days due to a flood that had devastated the city. Fortunately, the hotel did not charge for the extra nights he had to stay there.

The museum could be seen in the distance. There didn’t seem to be many people waiting, so he took advantage and quickly moved behind a small group of primary school children who were carefully listening to the instructions of a young tour guide. He was probably a university student making a bit of extra cash between exams. It reminded him of his own university years, that rare energy which pulsed through his body and that unquenchable desire to share what he had learned, making people see the grandeur of architecture and ancient art. He would gladly tell the young tour guide just how difficult that job was, though he thought it best not to disillusion him.

“Good morning. How many tickets would you like?”

“One, please.” James couldn’t suppress a giggle as he mused how he was the last in the queue, so it wouldn’t take the sharpest tool in the box to realize that he was alone. However, he knew that he had to be polite and perhaps his sneering laughter had been uncalled for.

The Gallerie dell’Accademia was practically the same as when James had last visited. It is undoubtedly one of the premier sights in Florence to appreciate pre-Renaissance art, and especially the sculptures of Michelangelo. The collection is displayed across eight different rooms: the first room corresponds to the fourteenth century Florentine school; the second, third and fourth rooms are dedicated to Renaissance art; whereas the fifth, sixth and seventh rooms are devoted to all those artists who produced most of their work during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; in the final room, the eighth, are pieces from the mid-sixteenth century. After those, visitors move onto the Prisoners’ Gallery, in which are gathered all the works of sculpture which Michelangelo left unfinished between 1521 and 1523, and which were destined for the tomb of Pope Julius II. However, the most momentous and significant point of the visit is without question the majestic David. Originally intended for the Piazza della Signoria, it was later substituted for the replica which can be seen today.

A visit to the museum usually lasts about one and a half hours which allows sufficient time, more than enough, to take in the magnificence of the works on display. And although James had come with the express purpose of visiting David, he paused in some areas to appreciate canvases or sculptures which filled him with emotion. When he entered the Prisoners’ Gallery, his heart felt as if it had been set alight. Both sides were lined with a series of unfinished sculptures and, in a tribune right at the back, was the gigantic sculpture. This mass of marble was the main reason for the devotion which James felt towards art. He had been about eighteen years old when he saw it for the first time, and although he did not fully grasp the great majesty of the piece, he had been truly dumbfounded. Finally, after long years of study they had come face to face again, and now he understood everything. He saw its great anatomical perfection, its strength, vitality and beauty.