“For what?” Nathan was getting annoyed.
“A contest has been announced. The town council of Florence wants a statue to represent the city and all it stands for and they want the sculptor to use a huge vertical slab of marble on which a previous sculptor had begun work and then abandoned.”
“You want us to be Michelangelo?” Amanda’s voice was filled with disbelief. Had Marc mentioned her love of the David statue to Wilde?
“Yes, in effect. I want us to accept the challenge. We all know what Buonarroti came up with: his David. But do we know where his inspiration came from? I posit there must have been an extraordinary young man, whether a professional model or no, in which he saw the possibilities of the marble. He must have made innumerable sketches. And now, we,” he paused and looked around dramatically, “can recreate that moment.”
He moved to a small, inlaid cabinet. “You have paper of the period.” He extracted small stoppered bottles and handed them out. “And, through the kind generosity of a chemist friend, you now have ink of the period, and…” He pulled out a handful of pens and brushes which he also offered the group, “instruments of the period.”
Wilde looked around with benevolent satisfaction at the astonished artists. “Now we, by the grace of Heaven, have been given this extraordinary young man.” He swept his hand toward Marc who was as caught up as the rest with Wilde’s fantasy.
“Antonio,” he instructed as he offered the model a strap of leather and a round glass paperweight, “give us David.”
Amanda looked at Marc. She felt the small hairs on the back of her neck rise and could see a similar elevation of excitement in the private investigator’s eyes. This was the moment he had prepared for, more dramatically set than he possibly could have done himself. If anything could, this moment should flush the forger.
Marc went to the front of the room, turned on the modeling lights, removed his robe, took a moment to concentrate his thoughts, threw the strap over his left shoulder, settled his weight on his right foot, held the paperweight in his relaxed right hand and became… David. His entire being concentrated on slinging the rock in his hand to slay the enemy of his people. He was powerful, sure, filled with the concentrated determination of youth.
The room was silent. Only the sound of distant street traffic invaded.
Professor Angeli pressed his fingers to his lips, blinking to sharpen his sight. Suddenly, with a sense of urgency that the apparition might vanish, he chose a pen, dipped it in the deep brown liquid, stared for a moment at the naked young man in front of him and then, after four hundred years, began to indelibly stain the precious paper with definitive strokes.
Wilde, who had watched mesmerized as Marc became the ancient Hebrew hero, released a held breath and attacked his paper with the same sureness.
Amanda pulled a sheet of ordinary drawing paper from her portfolio and laid it on top of the antique stock. “I have to at least practice first,” she explained to no one in particular. “Get used to the nibs.”
Christine stood frozen behind her easel, arms folded, clasping her elbows. She shook her head, staring at the ancient paper awaiting her stroke. Her eyes were moist.
“I told you you weren’t ready.” Nathan snatched the ancient paper resting on her drawing pad and stuffed it in his portfolio.
The older woman offered no resistance. After a moment she huffed a lung full of air and reached for a charcoal stick. “But I can still draw,” she announced, “and I sure as hell know a great naked man when I see one. Kid,” she called out, “you’re terrific!” And she began to sketch with gusto.
“He’s wrong,” Nathan commented, watching the others busy at their drawings. “He’s too big to be David.”
“Yes, yes, dear boy,” Wilde said, as he worked away, “obviously so. The statue itself is incorrect as we all know. The head is too large as are the hands and feet. We assume the master made those choices in order to emphasize the youthfulness of the body. One must make choices. It’s not merely a matter of reproducing what one sees.”
Amanda felt a stab in the center of her chest as she contemplated the magnificent man in front of her.
Professor Angeli hardly took his eyes from his work. “Art is all choice.”
Amanda began to draw but not on the four-hundred-year-old paper. Soon, everyone was immersed in their work except Nathan, who wandered about the room watching what the others were doing and occasionally staring at the model.
After a quarter of an hour they took a break. Hardly anyone spoke and they all remained near their easels. Nathan wandered out of the studio and returned with bottles of mineral water for the group.
He seemed to have relaxed, it appeared to Amanda. And from the creeping up of his lips and his knowing glances in the model’s direction, seemed to have discovered something that amused him in his attitude toward Antonio.
Perhaps he had realized the handsome, naked man was no threat to his affair with Christine, Amanda thought, as Nathan settled at his easel and began to sketch. She was grateful she could now dismiss her concern and concentrate on her drawing.
As the artists’ concentration intensified, costume hats were laid aside and doublets loosened. Amanda removed her over-robe, untied her sleeves and pushed them up. Everyone was intent on the work at hand.
Antonio offered to execute different poses but everyone agreed the David was the touchstone of the evening. Wilde mildly tried to keep the concept of the competition for the Florentine burghers going but finally succumbed, as had they all, to the palpable connection that had been established between the pose and each individual artist.
After a couple of more breaks, only reluctantly agreed to, in order to give Antonio a needed rest, the extraordinary session drew to a close. The four working artists began to finalize their efforts.
Wilde applied a contouring wash of reddish-brown ocher. “There,” he gave a snap of his brush to scatter minute drops of color over the paper. “I think I’m rather pleased.”
Almost reluctant to leave their own work, they all gathered round to look. A full-length figure in the familiar pose was in the center of the paper. To the side, one of the feet had been reworked, overdrawn in several positions. Other studies of various parts of the body- a hand, a profile, a shaded section of curls- gave the impression of a working drawing, quickly sketched over the space of a few hours, that could easily have come from the studio of Michelangelo.
Amanda felt breathless. Her mind whirled. It seemed as if she were back under Athenian skies, flown forward to a Roman temple, bent over an illuminated manuscript. Through her stinging eyes she glanced at Antonio.
Antonio, not “Marc.” Her magnificent creator of dreams and fantasies not the real flesh and blood, hard-working private investigator who excited her senses and drugged her hard-won self-assurance.
Marc focused on the drawing blankly, slowly raising his look to the man who had produced it. She could see it in the private investigator’s eyes. The case was solved. He seemed filled with the same mixture of admiration and sadness as she.
He looked at Amanda, his eyes hard. He turned and left the admiring group and sat apart. His broad shoulders hunched and his head slumped.
Amanda knelt in front of the naked man.
“Why would he do such a thing?” he quietly asked. “He doesn’t need the money. It’s not going to gain him any fame. He rants and raves but that’s just bluster. His ego is as solid as a rock. It makes no sense.” He shrugged, focusing intently on Amanda but thinking of the rash, foolish determination that had brought his brother down.
Amanda felt as if all emotion had been drained from her.
Poor Marc. He had broken the first commandment of a private investigator. He had gotten involved with his suspects. He cared. About her. About Wilde. About them all. And one of them had betrayed him.
As well as she knew her own, she was at a total loss to comprehend the mind of her beloved Wilde. Now they all knew what he was capable of. Did he mean to drag them all into the sordid mess when it would surely finally come to light? To make them accomplices to his sick joke?
He made her mad. He gives away his work. To the staff, for God’s sake. Heaven only knows to whom else. Sooner or later someone, somewhere would make the connection. It was almost as if he wanted to be discovered.
Her light-weight, detailed costume felt like suffocating, dragging sackcloth. She was grateful Marc seemed not to have caught the look of utter desolation in her eyes. She would be supportive, by his side until it was done.
And then they both would be gone from each other.
