“Is it?” said Caterina. “I don’t know anything about painting. I can see that maybe this isn’t great, but I don’t see parody in it.”
Blume propped the picture on the sofa and stood back. “Maybe not. It looks… it looks like a lot of correction effort went into it, which I suppose is not consistent with parody.”
“Also, you can tell from his letter that he meant this sincerely. He wanted to be forgiven.”
“You mean all that stuff about pentimenti?” said Blume. “It’s not just another way of saying sorry. It’s a technical term in painting. It means correction or second thoughts. When a painter starts drawing an open hand, then decides to turn it into a fist, or gets rid of a dog in the background, something like that, you can often see the traces of where the original was. That’s a pentimento. Come here.”
He led her closer to the painting and pointed to the center of the frame. “See, here? This, what is it, an empty grotto? It’s the focal point of the picture, and it is set at the center of the curving walls, only he made a real mess of the proportions here. The pentimenti are crowded around the focal point of the picture. It’s part of what makes it look so bad.”
“Do you suppose the Velazquez went up in flames in that house or is it hidden somewhere else?”
“I was wondering the same thing myself,” said Blume. “I think it was hidden somewhere, and he tells us where in his notebooks. And if that’s the case, then I think some American is going to find it in the end, since I have promised to give the notebooks to the embassy.”
“You’re an American. You find it,” said Caterina.
“Here,” said Blume. “This is made out for € 2,600. I didn’t put your name or the date or anything. Just signed it.” He handed her the check.
Caterina took it, went into the kitchen, and put it in a drawer, then returned to Blume in the living room.
“Tomorrow afternoon Elia is going on a school trip to Venice and Padua, then down to Rimini. I am a bit worried about all that water.”
“He’ll be fine. How many days?”
“Four days. Three nights.”
Chapter 49
The crematorium in Viterbo was not signposted, and Blume had to ask a local traffic cop for directions. He was told to follow the signs for McDonald’s, then for the Coop supermarket, and finally for the sports center.
He arrived with minutes to spare, and found he was one of a tiny group of mourners. There was Fabio, shuddering as much with rage as grief, his arm in the tight grip of his mother. She now had a Botox face, yellow hair, and strange leggings under her too-short skirt. She had aged, and without any grace. He raised his hand in greeting, but she did not seem to recognize him. Perhaps he, too, had aged without grace.
A very old couple-Paoloni’s parents? his ex-wife’s? — three middle-aged couples, and about eight others, three of whom Blume recognized as being former policemen.
Blume did not fancy himself a religious man, but the civic cremation of his friend was the most dismal and meaningless event he had ever witnessed. Within five minutes of the coffin being sent on a conveyer belt out of sight, everyone had left except for Fabio and his mother, but they were nowhere to be seen. Presumably they were waiting for the ashes. When he got into his car, the upholstery smelled of nickel and asphalt and made his head swim.
After ten minutes circling the city walls, Blume parked, got out of his car, and walked into the historical center looking for a bar. He found a pleasant one near the papal palace, had two cappuccinos and several pastries, and sat staring out the window at the zebra-striped bell tower of the city cathedral.
After his coffee, he lingered in front of the city cathedral, trying to remember its name but it wouldn’t come. He ambled around the side, and found a tourist information sign tucked against the wall. San Lorenzo. That was it. He had been here before, long ago, on a school trip or with his parents. He could not recall. What sense was there in being cremated next to a vandalized sports ground on the edge of town when a magnificent cathedral such as this stood empty and waiting? For some people, architecture like this was worth leaving all that was familiar and coming halfway across the globe to see.
Blume went up the flight of steps and into the cathedral, and found he was the only one there that morning.
He sat staring down the arcaded nave at the blank apse with the crucifix, and thought about Paoloni. It was a severe interior, with faded frescos and a few paintings. On impulse, he lit a candle for Paoloni. Then he lit one for his own father and mother, and fumbled in his pocket for change and found none. The smallest he had was a 20- euro note.
He toyed with the idea of dropping the full 20 euros into the collection box, but dismissed it as ridiculous. But he did not want to leave without contributing the one fifty he owed for the candles, and blowing them out seemed out of the question. He stood there in a paralysis of indecision.
Fuck it. He dropped in the twenty, and wandered over to look at the paintings. A guidebook at an unattended desk was on sale for fifteen euros. Great. He grabbed it, took it to a bench, and flicked idly through it. The painting in front of him showed the Holy Family and some saint, painted by Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, a native of Viterbo.
Blume looked at the painting, and heard his father’s voice saying “mannerist.” That had always been a term of abuse for him. He even had grave doubts about Michelangelo, and was generally dismissive of most of the three hundred years until the modernists arrived. Maybe someday, Blume thought, he would develop his own ideas about what was good. But the guidebook seemed to be on his father’s side. This was not the best of his works, it noted regretfully. Most of Romanelli’s important works were to be found in France not, for once, because the marauding Napoleonic armies had stolen them during their rape of this beautiful and incomparably more cultured country (Blume checked the name of the polemical art historian and found it was a priest), but because Romanelli had lost all his commissions in Rome after Pope Urban VIII, a Barberini prince, died and the throne was taken over by the pro-Spanish and violently anti-French Pope Innocent X, the great Pamphili Pope, immortalized in the famous portrait by Velazquez and the bust by Barberini. The art historian priest seemed to approve of the irascible Pamphili, even if his election to the papacy did mean that Viterbo’s best artist had to leave town.
Blume stood up, pulled out a 50-euro note from his wallet, and stuffed it in the collection box. He would have said a prayer of thanks if he had been a believer. Or maybe this was the beginning of faith.
He had just worked out where Treacy had hidden the Velazquez.
Chapter 50
Blume cleared space in his living room, turned on his laptop, and fetched a series of art books from his parents’ study.
But he knew he was right even before he had finished opening the art books and Web pages. He called Caterina at the station.
“I need you to get a tactical bag. We’re going to need a battering ram, a set of chain cutters, maybe a hammer, crowbar, screwdriver, and flashlight. When you have all that, go home, pick up that painting Emma left, and come here.”
“They wanted to know why I wanted a tactical bag,” she said when she arrived forty minutes later.
“Did you tell them?”
“How could I?” She handed him the painting.
“OK,” said Blume. “Now I want you to look at this.” He gave her an Editalia art book.
“That’s Treacy’s painting!” said Caterina. Immediately. “No, wait
… ” She looked more carefully at the picture, then at Treacy’s painting. “Well, except the trees are in a different place, and the wall and arch aren’t the same either, and… I think I’m going to stop now before I come across as a complete idiot.”
