A Glancing Light

Bologna la Grassa—Bologna the Fat—they called it in the fourteenth century, and Bologna la Grassa they call it still. The words refer to the richness of the fare, but they might just as well apply to the richness of life in general, or to the people, who are so much more robust and hearty than their dark, lean cousins in the south that they seem to be from a different country. (Talk to the Bolognese and you get the impression that they are. Africa begins just below Rome, the northerners like to say.)

In the surrounding countryside are some of the aristocrats of Italian capitalism: Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini. Riunite, too. And in Bologna itself the boutiques tucked away among the arcaded, medieval streets display fashions that rival Rome's, and the cuisine in the grand old restaurants is the finest (and among the most expensive) in Italy, which is saying something. What makes it all so peculiar is that Bologna is Italy's center of leftist politics, and has been for forty-five years. It is a rare tourist here who realizes that he is doing his shopping and gourmandizing in the largest Communist-run city in the Western world.

Certainly you could never tell from looking at the decor, the menu prices or the flashy crowds in the Ristorante Notai, currently the foremost restaurant in Bologna and therefore, arguably, in Italy. It was here, in a private room, that the 'small, informal' reception and dinner in my honor was held, courtesy of the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna's most prestigious art museum, and co-sponsor of Northerners in Italy.

My experience with receptions in my honor is pretty limited, but I have to admit I don't seem to have any moral or constitutional aversion to them; as a matter of fact, I haven't been to a bum one yet. This one was no exception, although I found myself wishing I'd had a chance to catch up on my sleep first, and maybe my Italian too; I was having a hard time following the volatile conversation (a couple of Camparis to start with hadn't helped any). In any case, I was relieved when dinnertime came and I was seated at a small table with three old acquaintances who took pity on me and spoke English.

The topic of discussion was the one everybody had been talking about all evening: the finding of Clara Gozzi's Rubens. Of course, I had telephoned her the previous week, as soon as I'd left Blusher, but to my surprise the news hadn't gotten around to anyone else here until its appearance in today's papers, perhaps because Clara was something of a recluse. She lived in Ferrara, some thirty miles away, and didn't often mingle in the Bolognese mainstream.

'What do you think, Christopher? You've met this Blusher.' Amedeo Di Vecchio, Cinquecento scholar and eminent director of the Pinacoteca Nazionale, looked up from his tortellini di erbetta and squinted penetratingly at me through rectangular, gold-rimmed glasses that sat crookedly on a long, pinched nose. 'Is he involved in some way? Is he a crook?'

'I don't know, Amedeo,' I said as if the question hadn't been nibbling at my mind too. 'I only met him once. I wouldn't say I'd trust him with my life, but as to his having any part in the thefts . . .'

Max Cabot's rolling chuckle drowned me out. 'Mike Blusher? Impossible. Don't give it another thought. I've met the man too. Sold him a few things, as a matter of fact.'

That surprised me. He and Blusher were unlikely business associates. Max was an expatriate American who had lived in Bologna for over a decade, and had made a niche for himself as a respected art dealer and restorer. He was good too, a former conservator at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His work was sought-after and correspondingly expensive. So were the pictures he sold.

'I would have thought your stuff wasn't quite his style,' I said.

'This was two or three years ago, Chris. Blusher was just starting out in the art world. No shortage of money, though. He bought a few lots of eighteenth-century Venetian pictures at one of my auctions. Second-rate vedutisti, mostly, but expensive. I got the distinct impression he didn't have any idea what he was doing.' He laughed. 'I understand he's into a somewhat different level of quality now.'

I thought about the two dozen or so identical 'Rembrandts' in the warehouse in Seattle, each one lathered with a quarter-inch of gluey, enamel colored, guaranteed-tocrackle-within-two-days varnish. 'You could say that,' I said.

'Two or three years ago?' Di Vecchio said sharply. 'He was here when the Rubens was stolen?' His sinewy neck tilted eagerly forward. This was not mere curiosity on his part. The Pinacoteca had lost eighteen of its most precious paintings that night.

Max frowned. 'Well, let's see. . . . The Venetian paintings were knocked down, oh, some time in April 1987. Or maybe May? The thefts weren't until June twenty-second and as far as I know he was long gone.'

Max's certainty about the latter date was understandable. It had been from his workshop, where it had been undergoing restoration, that Clara Gozzi's Rubens had been stolen.

'But he could have been here,' Di Vecchio persisted.

'No, you can forget it, believe me. Whoever took those paintings knew what they were doing. They were selective. Only the best. They didn't take any junk, either from me or Gozzi or the Pinacoteca. Nothing but the best.'

'The Pinacoteca Nazionale,' Di Vecchio said severely, 'does not have 'junk.' '

Max laughed appreciatively. 'Well, I do, or did at the time. I had four eighteenth-century canvases of very dubious provenance in the basement for cleaning. You know, 'School of Somebody' kinds of things. They were sitting about five feet from the Rubens, and to an uninformed eye they would have looked every bit as good. But only the one painting was taken. That kind of discrimination would have been beyond Blusher, I'm afraid.'

Di Vecchio made a tight, irritated little movement with his mouth. 'I'm not suggesting he carried it out personally, my dear Massimiliano. But he might have had something to do with it.'

Max shrugged amicably. 'Could be, Amedeo.' Behind his soup-strainer of a mustache he chewed contentedly on a mouthful of torteilini.

Amedeo Di Vecchio and Max Cabot made an interesting study in contrasts. If someone asked you to guess by looking at them which was a son of Emilia-Romagna and which of Durham, New Hampshire, you'd answer without hesitation, but you'd be wrong. Di Vecchio was a bony six-two, a pallid, Yankeeish-looking man with a short, carroty Abraham Lincoln beard beginning to show some grizzling at its none-too-carefully groomed edges. Max was three or four inches shorter and thirty pounds heavier, graying and running comfortably to fat these days, with a smooth, padded complexion that made him look as if he'd been reared on tagliatelle and olive oil.

They were opposites in temperament, too. Max was easygoing and easy to be around, radiating satisfaction with his life. Di Vecchio was dour, itchy, critical, with a febrile glitter to his eyes like an Old Testament prophet's, at least if you can believe Bellini or El Greco.

'Well,' our other tablemate said in his rich baritone, 'at least we can be grateful that the painting's safe, what do you say?'

The speaker was Benedetto Luca, Regional Superintendent of the National Ministry of Fine Arts. Despite his imposing title, I had never gotten his precise function quite straight. But he had been extremely helpful in tunneling through the bureaucratic maze—sometimes terrifying, sometimes slapstick—that had to be negotiated in getting the thirty- two paintings in Northerners in Italy out of the country for a year. He was, therefore, a man of power and fortitude, and he was made for the part: white, leonine mane; patrician nose; craggy, lined face; voice as mellow and subtly colored as a bassoon.

The impression he made was so commanding, so mesmerizing, in fact, that I had known him for a year before I realized I had never heard him say anything intelligent, let alone profound. It was one banality after another—but, ah, what style.

'God willing,' his resonant voice continued with conviction, 'we'll get the others back, too.'

'I hope so, dottore,' Di Vecchio said absently. As host, he topped off our glasses with delicate, fruity red wine; Zuffa Sangiovese, locally made, and as pleasant and relaxing a wine as Italy produces.

By now the pasta course had been removed and the main dish brought: cuscinetti di vitello, veal scallops stuffed with prosciutto and cheese. The reverence with which the waiter and his assistant set it down made it clear that we were to give it our full attention, at least for a while, and we complied willingly. We concentrated on our plates and made discreetly appreciative noises.

That is, most of us did. Di Vecchio wasn't the type to murmur agreeably over food. For him, eating was a necessity, and from the looks of it, a grim one. He chewed in silence, slowly and methodically, sweating slightly, his mind somewhere else, his jaw ligaments shifting and cracking. Periodically, the fork was forced between unyielding lips, carrying one morsel of food at a time, at an unvarying rate; swallow one piece, shove in another, chewing