Paul Christopher: Michelangelo_s Notebook

Finn went back to the main menu yet again and accessed the museum’s biographical file on Santiago Urbino. A contemporary of both Michelangelo and da Vinci, Urbino was arrested for vivisection of animals for immoral purposes, excommunicated and eventually executed. Finn stared at the screen, pulling her hair back and holding it thoughtfully. It made sense historically, but she knew that a minor painter like Urbino simply could not have executed that drawing.

“May I ask what it is you think you’re doing, Miss Ryan?”

Finn jumped and turned in her seat. Alexander Crawley, the director, was standing directly behind her, the Michelangelo drawing in his hand and a furious expression on his face.

Crawley was a handsome man in his early sixties, his hair thick and gray, his face square, the eyes intelligent. He was no more than five eight or nine, and Finn was fairly sure he wore lifts in his expensive shoes. As always, he was dressed in a three-piece suit, but this afternoon he seemed even more dapper than usual, probably because of the fund-raiser tonight-the one she hadn’t been invited to. She also noticed there were no white gloves on his hands even though he was handling a piece of the museum’s inventory. Maybe when you got to be director your hands no longer had oils or potential pollutants on them. She commented on it to Crawley. His complexion went from red to purple.

“Whether I’m wearing gloves or not is none of your concern,” he said. “What I am concerned with is your removing this drawing when you had no business to.”

“It was in the drawer I was working on, Dr. Crawley. At first I thought it was just part of the regular inventory.”

“At first?”

“I think it’s been mislabeled.”

“How is that?”

“According to the inventory number it’s a drawing by Santiago Urbino, one of the minor Venetian painters.”

Crawley looked professionally pained. “I know who Santiago Urbino was.”

“I think it’s a mistake. I think it’s by Michelangelo.”

“Michelangelo Buonarroti?” said Crawley, astounded. “You’re insane.”

“I don’t think so, sir,” said Finn. “I’ve examined it closely. It has all the earmarks of a Michelangelo piece.”

“So we’ve been hoarding a page from Michelangelo’s lost notebook for the past sixty-five years without knowing about it, and suddenly a young intern who is still cramming for her master’s degree pops up with it out of the blue.” He let out a little hollow laugh. “I don’t think so, Miss Ryan.”

“I looked on the inventory listings,” said Finn, refusing to give up. “The museum doesn’t have any other pieces by Urbino. Why this one?”

“Presumably, my dear, because Mr. Parker or Mr. Hale decided that he liked it.”

“You’re not even willing to consider that it could be Michelangelo’s work?”

“And let you write a paper on it that would eventually lead to a great deal of embarrassment to the museum, and to myself as well? I prize neither your work here as an intern nor your ego that much, my dear.”

“ ‘My dear’? It’s Finn, or Miss Ryan,” she said angrily, “and my ego has nothing to do with it. The drawing is not by Urbino, it is by Michelangelo. Whoever inventoried it was mistaken.”

“Whom is the inventory of the piece credited to, and when?” asked Crawley. Finn tapped a few keys on the keyboard and tapped the space bar to move across to the end of the inventory line.

“AC, June 11, 2003.” Whoops. A little political incorrectness could take you a long way.

“Alexander Crawley. Me. Not too long ago.”

“Then perhaps it’s your ego that’s in question,” said Finn.

“No, Miss Ryan, not my ego, but your competence-and, I might add, your arrogance.”

“I studied Michelangelo’s work in Florence for an entire year.”

“And I have studied the masters all my working life. You’re wrong and your refusal to admit that you’re wrong and defer to a more educated judgment on the matter shows me that you’re not the kind of person we need here. When your own ego gets in the way of the work, any professional sense goes out the window. I’m afraid I’ll have to terminate your internship at Parker-Hale.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Of course I can.” Crawley smiled blandly. “I just did.” He smiled again. “I suggest that you gather up whatever personal belongings you have and leave now to avoid any further embarrassment.” He shook his head. “A shame, too. You were a very pretty addition to our little department.”

Finn stared at him for a long moment, not quite believing what the man had said, then walked out of the niche, grabbed her knapsack and ran off. She knew she was going to start crying and the last thing she wanted to do was show any weakness in front of that arrogant little son of a bitch. Five minutes later she was on her bike again and headed south to Alphabet City.

Once upon a time Alphabet City was the address heard crackling out of police radios on TV crime shows; now it’s more likely to be the latest rap-per’s address or the place to find the newest edgy restaurant. The fact that the city built a brand-new precinct house on the other side of Tompkins Square Park might have had something to do with it. But it probably had more to do with New York’s never-ending quest to renew itself as neighborhoods got hot for no particular reason, were gentrified, and then settled down to a comfortable, if boring respectability.

Finn’s place was a small five-story brick apartment building on the corner of Fourth and A that only rated as a walk-up because the single elevator was so cranky. To the left of the building were the shops, bars and restaurants that made Alphabet City fun, and to the right lay Houston Street, the southern border of the Lower East Side, which was the hot new neighborhood du jour. Directly behind her was Village View, one of the old slab-sided, high-rise, 1960s-era urban renewal “projects” that used to stain the neighborhood like giant crime-infested cancers.

Still furious, she pulled up in front of her building, keyed herself in and locked up the old bicycle in the dark alcove behind the stairwell. She punched the Up button and was surprised when the elevator lurched into view, its round mesh-glass window making it look like some Stephen King one-eyed monster rising out of the building’s depths. She climbed in and endured the slow jerking ride up to the top of the building.

The apartment was tiny by anything but New York standards. The extra-wide hallway leading from the front door was a living room at one end and a kitchen at the other. The kitchen looked out toward the Lower East Side, and had a table by the window big enough to accommodate a maximum of two guests for dinner. To the left was a small bedroom that looked out onto Fourth Street, complete with a chain lock on the window even though it was the fifth floor.

To the right of the kitchen was an alcove the super referred to as a “study” when he’d rented it to her. At the time it had looked like a walk-in closet or a nursery for an especially small baby, but she got a friend at school to build in some simple pine bookcases, then installed a drawing table that fit snugly and she had a place to work. Beyond that was a bathroom with the smallest sink, tub and toilet in the world. When she was sitting on the toilet, her knees were under the sink. If she wanted to she could put the lid down on the toilet and soak her feet in the tub. An actual bath meant tucking her knees up under her chin.

When Finn had taken the apartment, everything had been painted a sullen nicotine yellow, but now she’d brightened things up with pink in the bathroom, forest green in the bedroom and a fawn color in the living room/kitchen. The study alcove was a workmanlike flat white. In her spare time she’d torn up the swamp green linoleum tiles and had a sanding party for the old hardwood floors.