Dee crossed the hall to the dining room and sat down at a small circular table with a checked cloth. She glanced at the guidebook. ?The Lazaretto of San Leopoldo is one of the finest of its kind in Europe,? she read. She flicked a page. ?No visitor should miss seeing the famous Quattro Mori bronze.? She flicked again. ?Modigliani lived first on the via Roma, and later at 10 via Leonardo Cambini.?
The proprietor came in with a dish of Angel?s Hair soup, and Dee gave him a wide, happy smile.
The first priest was young, and his severely short haircut made him look like a teenager. His steel-rimmed spectacles balanced on a thin, pointed nose, and he continually wiped his hands on his robes with a nervous movement, as if drying the sweat from his palms. He seemed edgy in Dee?s presence, as anyone who had taken a vow of chastity was entitled to be; but he was eager to be helpful.
?We have many paintings here,? he said. ?There is a vault full of them in the crypt. No one has looked at them for years.?
?Would it be all right for me to go down there?? she asked.
?Of course. I doubt if you?ll find anything interesting.? As they stood talking in the aisle, the priest?s eyes flickered over Dee?s shoulders, as if he was worried that someone would come in and see him chatting to a young girl. ?Come with me,? he said.
He led her along the aisle to a door in the transept, and preceded her down a spiral staircase.
?The priest who was here around 1910—was he interested in painting??
The man looked back up the stairs at Dee and then looked quickly away again. ?I?ve no idea,? he said. ?I am the third or fourth since that time.?
Dee waited at the foot of the stairs while he lit a candle in a bracket on the wall. Her clogs clattered on the flagstones as she followed him, ducking her head, through a low arch into the vault.
?Here you are,? he said. He lit another candle. Dee looked around. There were about 100 pictures stacked on the floor and leaning against the walls of the little room. ?Well, I?ll have to leave you to it,? he said.
?Thank you very much.? Dee watched him shuffle away, and then looked at the paintings, suppressing a sigh. She had conceived this idea the day before: she would go to the churches nearest to Modigliani?s two homes and inquire whether they had any old paintings.
She had felt obliged to wear a shirt under her sleeveless dress, in order to cover her arms—strict Catholics would not allow bare arms in church—and she had got very hot walking the streets. But the crypt was deliciously cool.
She lifted the first painting from the top of a pile and held it up to the candle. A thick layer of dust on the glass obscured the canvas underneath. She needed a duster.
She looked around for something suitable. Of course, there would be nothing like that here. She did not have a handkerchief. With a sigh, she hitched up her dress and took off her panties. They would have to do. Now she would have to be extra careful not to get the priest beneath her on the spiral staircase. She giggled softly to herself and wiped the dust off the painting.
It was a thoroughly mediocre oil of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. She put its age at about 120 years, but it was done in an older style. The ornate frame would be worth more than the work itself. The signature was illegible.
She put the painting down on the floor and picked up the next. It was less dusty but just as worthless.
She worked her way through disciples, apostles, saints, martyrs, Holy Families, Last Suppers, Crucifixions, and dozens of dark-haired, black-dyed Christs. Her multicolored bikini briefs became black with ancient dust. She worked methodically, stacking the cleaned pictures together neatly, and working through one pile of dusty canvases before starting on the next.
It took her all morning, and there were no Modiglianis.
When the last frame was cleaned and stacked, Dee permitted herself one enormous sneeze. The dusty air in front of her face swirled madly in the blow. She snuffed the candle and went up into the church.
The priest was not around, so she left a donation in the box and went out into the sunshine. She dropped her dusty panties in the nearest litter bin: that would give the trash collectors food for thought.
She consulted her street map and began to make her way toward the second house. Something was bothering her: something she knew about Modigliani—his youth, or his parents, or something. She strained to bring the elusive thought to mind, but it was like chasing canned peaches around a dish: the thought was too slippery to be grasped.
She passed a cafe and realized it was lunchtime. She went in and ordered a pizza and a glass of wine. As she ate she wondered whether Mike would phone today.
She lingered over coffee and a cigarette, reluctant to face another priest, another church, more dusty paintings. She was still shooting in the dark, she realized ; her chances of finding the lost Modigliani were extremely slim. With a burst of determination, she stubbed her cigarette and got up.
The second priest was older and unhelpful. His gray eyebrows lifted a full inch over his narrowed eyes as he said: ?Why do you want to look at paintings??
?It?s my profession,? Dee explained. ?I?m an art historian.? She tried a smile, but it seemed to make the man more resentful.
?A church is for worshippers, not tourists, you see,? he said. His courtesy was a thin veil.
?I?ll be very quiet.?
?Anyway, we have very little art here. Only what you see as you walk around.?
?Then I?ll walk around, if I may.?
The priest nodded. ?Very well.? He stood in the nave watching as Dee walked quickly around. There was very little to see: one or two pictures in the small chapels. She came back to the west end of the church, nodded to the priest, and left. Perhaps he suspected her of wanting to steal.
She walked back to her hotel, feeling depressed. The sun was high and hot now, and the baking streets were almost deserted. Mad dogs and art historians, Dee thought. The private joke failed to cheer her up. She had played her last card. The only possible way to carry on now was to quarter the city and try every church.
She went up to her room and washed her hands and face to get rid of the dust of the crypt. A siesta was the only sensible way to spend this part of the day. She took off her clothes and lay on the narrow single bed.
When she closed her eyes the nagging feeling of having forgotten something came back. She tried to remember everything she had learned about Modigliani; but it was not a lot. She drifted into a doze.
As she slept the sun moved past the zenith and shone powerfully in through the open window, making the naked body perspire. She moved restlessly, her long face frowning slightly from time to time. The blonde hair became disarrayed and stuck to her cheeks.
She woke with a start and sat up straight. Her head throbbed from the heat of the sun, but she ignored it. She stared straight ahead of her like someone who has just had a revelation.
?I?m an idiot!? she exclaimed. ?He was a Jew!?
Dee liked the rabbi. He was a refreshing change from the holy men who had only been able to react to her as forbidden fruit. He had friendly brown eyes and gray streaks in his black beard. He was interested in her search, and she found herself telling him the whole story.
?The old man in Paris said a priest, and so I assumed it was a Catholic priest,? she was explaining. ?I had forgotten that the Modigliani family were Sephardic Jews, and quite orthodox.?
The rabbi smiled. ?Well, I know who the painting was given to! My predecessor here was very eccentric, as rabbis go. He was interested in all sorts of things—scientific experiments, psychoanalysis, Communism. He?s dead now, of course.?
?I don?t suppose there were any paintings among his effects??
?I don?t know. He became ill toward the end, and left the town. He went to live in a village called Poglio, which is on the Adriatic coast. Of course, I was very young then—I don?t remember him at all clearly. But I believe he lived with a sister in Poglio for a couple of years before he died. If the painting still exists, she may have it.?
?She?ll be dead.?
He laughed. ?Of course. Oh dear—you?ve set yourself quite a task, young lady. Still, there may be
