A Glancing Light

This produced the first real show of interest in a while. 'They say, you know of Sylvester Stallone the actor?'

 'What? Yes. '

'Cugino!' the bald man exclaimed.

'Cousin,' Basilio translated dutifully. 'A distant cousin. His people come from nearby.'

The bald man nodded vigorously, 'Si! ' he said. 'Si!'

 'Ah,' I said. The conversation had edged over into the surreal. 'Very interesting. Molto interessante.'

More smiles, and the white-haired man stood up and held out his hand. Basilio looked meaningfully at me. I got up, too. There were bows and handshakes all around.

'Good-bye,' said the white-haired man in labored, almost impenetrable English, 'and good luck.'

Half an hour later, as Ugo, Mary, and I were leaving, Ugo was summoned briefly back to their table. He joined us outside, all smiles.

'They liked you,' he told me blissfully. 'The insurance is arranged, the customs are taken care of.'

I stared at him. 'You mean those are the officials you were talking about? It's the Mafia that's helping me get that picture to The Hague?'

'Sure,' he said. 'Who else?'

Possibly it's occurred to you to wonder why I was so willing to personally convey a suspect painting to The Hague (even, as it now appeared, under the dubious sponsorship of the Mafia). Why not simply have it shipped there for van de Graaf's inspection? There was plenty of time, after all; Northerners in Italy was still months from opening. Why complicate my life?

If, however, you know your European geography, then all is clear. The Hague is even closer to Amsterdam than Rotterdam is; a mere nine miles, with fast, frequent trains between the two. This isn't to say that! manufactured an excuse to go there. Everything I'd told Ugo about the painting and about van de Graaf was true. All the same, my scrupulous if malleable conscience was not displeased at having a justifiable, work-related reason for a diversion to the west coast of Holland. I would fly there directly from Sicily,

From Ugo's I checked with Alitalia to make sure there was an early Monday morning flight with seats available. There was. I thanked the clerk without making a reservation; this time I would do my booking just before I boarded. Then I called van de Graaf to set up a 10:30 meeting at the Mauritshuis. And finally, saving the best for last, I called Anne to ask her to meet me at The Hague museum at noon.

'Can you be there?' I asked.

'With bells on,' she said.

Chapter 18

'Hm,' said the eminent Dr. Willem van de Graaf.

The remark was wholly in character. A stringy, puckered old man, dry as ashes, his taciturnity had been a joke among my fellow students at Berkeley. Not his expertise, however. He had taken part in a colloquium on the Early Netherlandish School, and whenever a few sequential sentences could be wrenched out of him, he had bowled us over with the depth and specificity of his knowledge. Since then he and I had been friends of a sort, and I had turned to him more than once for help.

We were leaning over a table in the basement of the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, having just gotten Ugo's Uytewael out of its carton and unwrapped it.

'What do you think?' I asked when he straightened up after a few minutes.

He repeated his earlier opinion: 'Hm.'

I asked what he thought about the black material encrusting the edges.

It was called canamograss, I was tersely informed. It was typical of Catalan panels, less so of those from the north. The fibrous material in it was usually hemp. It was unusual for it to be so lavishly applied. As to whether it was too soft to be four hundred years old, he preferred to reserve judgment until some tests could be applied.

I pressed him. What about the picture itself?

What did I think was wrong with it? he wanted to know.

'I'm not sure if anything is. I don't know Uytewael that well, but the colors seem flat to me. The whole thing seems . . . well, insipid, pedestrian. Not up to his standards.'

'Not up to his standards. Did you ever hear what the painter Max Lieberman had to say about us poor art historians?'

I shook my head. Laconic he might be, but all the same van de Graaf had a sizable store of obscure but pithy quotations.

' 'Let us honor the art historians,' ' he quoted. ' 'It is they who will later purify our oeuvre by rejecting less successful works as 'certainly not by the artist's own hand.' ' '

He cackled and I laughed along with him. 'All the same, I'm just not comfortable with it, Willem.'

He leaned over it again. His nose wrinkled. 'Don't I smell copaiba balsam? Has someone been working on it?'

'It was just cleaned. 'Touched up,' according to Ugo. I'm not sure just what that means, but I don't think that's what hurt the colors. According to Ugo, the guy is an expert.'

'Ah, but you know what Max Doerner said about experts.'

I didn't, of course.

''There are no experts in the field of picture restoration,'' van de Graaf said. ''There are only students.'' He tucked in his chin, folded his arms, laid a forefinger vertically along his upper lip, and continued to peer at the painting with lidded eyes. 'Hm,' he said.

We were back where we started. 'What now?' I asked.

'Now? As soon as you give me some peace, I'll take this in back and see what I see.'

'Will you be able to tell me anything today? At least whether or not there are two panels glued together under all the gunk?'

He hunched his shoulders. 'Today, tomorrow, next week. It can't be hurried.'

He meant he couldn't be hurried, but I'd known that when I'd come. Still, there wasn't any particular rush, no reason the painting couldn't be left with him and shipped later.

'I'll call you, then,' I said.

He was already heading for the double swinging doors to the work area, holding the picture in front of him, studying it intently.

'Hm,' he replied.

I went upstairs to the museum's public galleries. Anne would be there by now.

If anyone ever asks me, not that anyone is likely to, what the finest small art museum in Europe is, I will unhesitatingly name the Mauritshuis. There isn't a second-rate piece of work in the place. Not one. Every painting, every object, is a jewel. It's like the Wallace Collection in London or the Frick in New York: a limited but superb collection in an elegant old town house. Walking through the building would be a pleasure even without the pictures. And with them, one can see them all—really see them—and be done in under two hours, still fresh and appreciative. Try that in the Louvre.

I had arranged with Anne to meet in one of the second- floor galleries, but at the foot of the staircase I