Conor Fitzgerald - Fatal Touch

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.

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.”

“No, you’re right. The colors are similar. You can’t tell properly because this is a reproduction, but you can still see they are muddy, green, gray, beige, and depressing, same as this painting. The theme, too, the mood, the size even. You saw the likeness before the differences, same as me.”

Caterina looked at the cover of the book she was holding. “Giorgio de Chirico,” she said. “I thought he only did surreal paintings.”

“What you’re looking at is a view of Villa Falconieri,” said Blume.

“Which?”

“The one in the book. De Chirico’s,” said Blume. “Now, listen to this,” he pulled over a battered old blue hardback and read:

“During his second visit to the Eternal City, Diego Velazquez was an honored guest at the graceful Villa Medici, where it was only natural that a mind of refined artistic temperament and an innate sense of the aesthetic…”

“God.” He tossed the book aside. “I can’t stand that sort of drivel. The point is when Velazquez was in Rome and painted the portrait of Pope Innocent X which we saw a few days ago, he was staying at the Villa Medici. Where the French Academy now is.”

She nodded.

“And when Velazquez was there, he did a painting, of the gardens. It’s not as well-known as his portrait works. Now listen: In 1946, Giorgio de Chirico painted two landscapes, one of Villa Falconieri, which I’ve just shown you, and one of Villa Medici. Both of them reference Velazquez’s painting. If you take the two de Chirico paintings and merge them, you get a sort of reproduction of Velazquez’s painting. It was de Chirico paying homage to but also copying the master. Treacy went on about it in his notes.

“Now, we also know from his notebooks that Treacy was a great fan of de Chirico, he talks about a sense of affinity. More to the point, he turned down a chance to pass off forged de Chirico works to de Chirico’s niece when they were stolen.

“Now that ugly painting there is not just homage to Angela, it’s a message, too. Personal and professional. It is also a variation on the de Chirico painting.”

“Which is a variation on Velazquez’s.”

“Right. But Treacy’s painting isn’t a casual variation. It’s a landscape of a specific place. A park, in which he used to live as a guest. A park that is now open to the public, but belonged to the Pamphili family for centuries. The park where he and Angela kissed and were interrupted by an Englishwoman with dogs.”

“Villa Pamphili,” said Caterina.

“That is where we’re going now. Bring the painting and the tactical bag.”

Blume drove across town, struggling to keep a light foot on the accelerator. At the San Pancrazio entrance he drove into the park. “Nice and slowly. Don’t want to kill any joggers,” he said. “Though those cyclists weaving in and out among people trying to walk are fair game.”

He drove slowly up the pebbled path toward the Quattro Venti triumphal arch.

“We’re going to go as far as the palace itself,” said Blume.

Blume stopped talking and they listened to the crunch of pebbles under the tires. “Looks like we’ve been spotted.”