A Distant Danger Nexis Pas Copyright 2007 by the author
It rained heavily during the night. The sound of the rain and wind against the house and the thunder on the other side of the river awakened me, and I pulled the curtains open to watch. The lightning played along the tops of the hills to the northeast, but by counting `one one-thousandth, two one-thousandth . . . ' between the flash and the arrival of the thunder, I determined that the storm was at a safe distance. Each succeeding bolt of lightning showed that it was moving slowly away.
I left the curtains open when I went back to bed and watched drowsily as the receding lightning briefly lit up the rectangles of the window from time to time. I lay there, feeling warm and safe in the cocoon of the bedcovers, listening to the gradually diminishing sound of the rain hitting the glass. It's odd how comforting a distant danger can be.
In the morning I awoke to find the shadows of leaves moving on the ceiling of the bedroom. The puddles left by the rain were reflecting the light of the sun up through the leaves of the lilac bushes below the window and casting images on the ceiling. The sharply defined heart-shaped shadows swayed gently in the dawn breeze. I had seen something like this before. Not in this room, though; some far place at the edge of memory. Another bed, another ceiling.
The vision nagged at me all day. At unexpected moments in the tedium of my workday, it surfaced, taunting me with the failure of my aging mind. What bothered me most was the certainty that the shadows on the ceiling were important, a remnant of my `jolly corner'. Somewhere in the detritus of my history, some event of significance lay buried, something suppressed lest it unravel me.
The etiolated geraniums in the pots on the narrow ledge were always dusty. The pots sat on an iron grill eight inches or so wide outside the window. A railing a few inches high around the edges of the grill was supposed to prevent them from falling four stories to the street below. The landlady, Signora Alberti, had been insistent that he not water them; she did it herself every Friday, a half-litre of water, no more, no less, per pot. When Galen opened the curtains every morning, he was always surprised to see the pots still there, the long, gnarled branches of the geraniums undamaged by the wind that always seemed to blow outside the window at night. Every morning, he expected to find the shattered remains of a pot adding to the litter of the road, a few bright red flowers lighting up the ordinariness of the narrow street until they were trodden into the dust.
Perhaps it had been a mistake to come to Florence at the end of Lent Term. Ten days in Italy in early April had beckoned in Cambridge in February, the promise of warmth and sun the impetus to muddle through his classes. The pictures of the Pensione Albertus in the brochure had looked inviting, and the price was only a bit above what he had budgeted. The reality was a small room at the top of a steep flight of stairs, a shared toilet and bathroom two floors below, and the eagle-eyed Signora Alberti every ready to complain about her guests and their shortcomings--volubly in Italian to her neighbours and in simple, broken English to Galen punctuated by gestures whose meaning was unmistakable. He had thought that by economising on meals, he would be able to afford the trip. Once there, he had discovered that even the minimally acceptable workman's cafes were beyond his means for more than one meal a day. For breakfast and the evening meal he made do with chunks of bread torn from a loaf and some fruit he bought every evening and finished every morning. He carefully removed all evidence of these meals as he left each day and threw the remains in a public trash bin. He suspected that Signora Alberti would find food in the room another grievance.
At first it had been enough to be in Italy. Florence was sunny and magnificent in the spring light. He had done the usual tourist things, visiting museums and churches. Each day a carefully planned round of sightseeing kept him busy until he had to return before the eleven o'clock lockup at the Pensione Albertus. La Signora's English was sufficient to make it clear that she would not be happy to be roused after eleven to open the door to anyone discourteous enough to disturb her nightly slumbers in the overstuffed chair before her television.
On the sixth day, the weather had turned hot and humid, and his room on the fourth floor grew stifling. Even with the window and the door left open, his body stuck to the sheets, and it proved impossible to find a position that did not leave him restless and uncomfortable. Beads of sweat rolling down his face woke him before dawn. He felt slightly nauseous and fled the boarding house as soon as he heard Signora Alberti greeting one of her neighbours in the street. The pavements were already radiating heat upward. His tickets for the Uffizi were for that day, and he walked around, keeping to the shaded side of the streets as much as possible until the doors opened just after 8:00. He fled gratefully out of the sun and heat. A slow meander through marble-cooled culture seemed the perfect option for the day.
In the early afternoon he wandered into the Rembrandt Room and found himself standing before Rembrandt's portrait of himself as a young man. The face could almost be English, Galen thought. The eyes, though, were so judgmental, as if the sitter had taken a look at the artist's work and become sceptical of Rembrandt's ability to render an accurate likeness and had grown rather disappointed about the painter's failings.
`You look like him.'
Galen turned to confront the speaker with a look of annoyance on his face. His initial impulse was to register his disapproval of this interruption of his contemplation of Art by stalking away without speaking. Instead he gasped in surprise. His eyes met those of a young man a few years older than himself, dressed in the brown duster of the museum staff. The speaker's body was dense and compact as if ordinary flesh had been compressed into a harder substance. He could have stepped out of one of the many portraits of cavaliers and noblemen and popes covering the walls of the Uffizi. Not ugly but masculine rather than handsome, someone practised in getting what he wanted and certain that he was entitled to it. Except the present incarnation was obviously very alive and not a portrait of a long-dead plunderer.
`But I don't look anything like Rembrandt.' Galen's voice came out strained and high-pitched, as if his throat had constricted. To his own ears, he sounded as if he were stammering.
The young man looked carefully at the painting and then at Galen. `My English is not good. I did not mean that you resemble the man in the picture. I mean that you look at the picture the same way he looks at us. The gaze, is that right? the way of the gazing is the same. The same look of doubt. But why are you suspicious of the portrait? It is one of Rembrandt's best. We are fortunate to have it at the Uffizi.'
`I don't know enough to be suspicious of the painting. I was just thinking that the man in the picture looks rather doubtful of the painter's ability to succeed in painting this portrait. Perhaps my thoughts were shaping my face.'
The young man examined Galen's face carefully, almost clinically, like a sculptor wondering if one final stroke of the chisel will bring perfection or destruction. When he had finished his perusal, he nodded as if he had reached a decision and then extended his hand. `I am Niccolo di Bardi. I am a conservator here. Of the wood objects.'
`Galen Nichols. I am a student, from England. I came to Florence for the break between terms.'
`Would you like a cup of coffee? Or something to eat? I was on my way to the employees' kitchen for my meal. We are allowed to bring a guest.'
`I would like that very much.'
`Perhaps later I can show you what I do.'
`I would also like that very much.'
Niccolo's face lit up with pleasure. `Then, Signore a la moda di Rembrandti, please to come with me.'
The employees' basement canteen was a simple affair. A coffee urn, salad, fruit, bread, a pot of tomato sauce kept warm on a hotplate, and an attendant who boiled a plate of pasta for those who asked. Niccolo had sat Galen at a table and then spoke to the attendant in Italian too rapid for Galen to follow. Shortly two plates of spaghetti appeared on the table, Galen's with noticeably more food on it than Niccolo's. The room was almost deserted. An elderly man sat at a table against the far wall and read a newspaper. The attendant walked in and out of the room, removing the food and apparently preparing to close the canteen.
`Galen? Like the doctor?'
`Yes, Galen Harvey Nichols. My father is a doctor. I think he hopes that my name will inspire me to become one too.'
`And you hope?'
`The usual things. A good life. Happiness. Comfort--not great wealth, but enough to be comfortable. Respect. Success. And you?'
`Love. And success--as an artist.'
`Are you a painter?'
`No, I want to be a sculptor. But for now, I only practice in clay. I cannot afford to have my works cast yet.'
`And you work here? That must be interesting.'
`I will show you later. I help preserve the wood carvings and the frames around the paintings. It gives me a chance to study them and to learn from them. I am learning to see. It is what my teachers say, that artists must learn to see, both what is there on the surface and what is hidden below, the bones and the mind that make the face.'
The two chatted on, while Galen finished his meal. He had been hungry, and somehow Niccolo had known that. They talked about the sites that Galen had visited, and Niccolo wrote out a list of out-of-the-way churches worth a visit. Soon they were the only ones left in the canteen. Niccolo took the dishes into the room where the attendant was working. A burst of laughter and loud comments greeted him. Obviously Niccolo was a great favourite of the older woman. Galen remained at the table while the two traded what sound like mutual gibes. He had made a mistake in coming alone to Florence. The brief conversation with Niccolo made him realise that he would have enjoyed it more if there had been someone to talk to.
Niccolo looked impish when he emerged. In high spirits he led Galen to the conservators' workrooms, pausing occasionally to explain the work being done. The two paused silent for several minutes before Caravaggio's great Head of the Medusa as a restorer working with minuscule bits of cotton daubed a fixative on a weak spot on the canvas. Galen shuddered inwardly at the anguish Caravaggio had depicted. To be deprived of life just as one saw one's face in the mirror of the assassin's shield--that would be terrible.
Niccolo's workroom was filled with bits of wood in various states of decay. It smelled, not unpleasantly, of varnishes and glues and old dust. His current project was the head of a fifteen-century wooden sculpture of Saint John the Evangelist. Dry rot and insects had damaged the back of the skull where it had rested against the wall of a church for centuries. Niccolo explained that he would be able to save only the front of the original head. The damaged back would be replaced by a rough carving shaped like the original. `But no one looked at the back of the head for centuries, so it will not be missed. It is the face that is important.'
The carver had chosen to represent John as the beloved apostle. Youthful, innocent, happy, content, unsuspecting that the object of his love and adoration would shortly be crucified. Not the best sculpture, but not the worst either. There had been an intelligent hand behind its making. `The bones.'
`What?' Niccolo glanced up from his work.
`The bones you were talking about earlier. They are there.'
Niccolo nodded. `And the mind.' He smiled and returned to his work. Galen sat and watched Niccolo's strong hands carefully remove centuries of grime. His confidence with his tools was reflected in the sure movements of his fingers across the face of the sculpture. His touch was almost sensual as he gently stroked the face with his brushes. From time to time he would stop and briefly explain what he was doing, and Galen would nod to indicate that he understood. Conversation seemed an intrusion into centuries of silence. It was extraordinarily peaceful to sit there and watch a labourer who could have just stepped from a Renaissance workshop.
I am ruining your visit to the Uffizi.' Niccolo had at last put down his tools and covered the head with a piece of cloth. You come to see our masterpieces, and instead you spend hours watching me clean a bit of rotten wood.'
`No. I enjoyed watching you work and see what you do. It was an introduction to how an artist works.'
`Not an artist. Here I am an artisan. When I leave at night, then I go home and become an artist. Or try to become one. Perhaps you would like to see what I do? My sister is about to give birth. My parents have gone to Rome to be with her. But my mother left much food for me. You would do me a favour, if you would help me eat it. That way, she will think that I am not forgetting to eat and starving myself while she is gone.' Niccolo grinned mischievously. He seemed to shed about ten years in age and become a teenage boy tricking his family.
Niccolo led him into a back courtyard and unlocked a yellow Vespa. He stowed his coat in the compartment under the seat and rolled up his shirt sleeves to expose his forearms. His tanned arms were covered with fine dark hair. With every movement, the muscles in his arms rippled beneath the surface of the skin. Galen thought that he had never seen such strong-looking wrists. He could almost feel what it would be like to lift one of Niccolo's arms to his mouth and kiss the inside of the wrist, there where the veins crossed dark and blue over the hollows formed by the tendons.
`You will have to ride behind me and hold to me.' That was Niccolo's only prelude to a wild dash through the streets of Florence. It occurred to Galen that Niccolo's ancestors must have galloped horses through these same streets with as much apparent disregard for safety and with as much precision. Galen was so worried about distracting Niccolo that he dared not moved. He tried to keep the various bits and pieces of his body tucked in as much as possible to prevent collisions with passers-by and the motorcars that seemed intent on squeezing past them with only a fraction of an inch to spare. The only consolation was that, unlike the many young women laden with packages and similarly ensconced behind other males driving motorbikes, at least he did not have to ride sitting sideways.
Niccolo stopped only once, to rush into a baker's to buy a loaf of bread, leaving the machine running and Galen steadying it and hoping that it didn't decide to take off on its own. Niccolo thrust the long, narrow loaf into Galen's hands, leaving his passenger with only one arm to cling to what he was increasingly sure would the last person he would ever touch. Niccolo's shouted assurance that they were almost there was accompanied by a spurt of speed down a narrow cobblestone path between high walls that did nothing to allay Galen's worries. Niccolo abruptly braked and brought the Vespa to a halt before a small door in a wall. Galen bounced against Niccolo's body. Niccolo turned his head and stared directly into Galen's eyes. Their faces were only an inch apart. Galen was acutely conscious of how beautiful Niccolo's eyes were and how close his lips were. As soon as they stopped moving, the dampness and humidity returned, and he felt the heat of Niccolo's body through the two layers of clothing separating them.
This is my home.' Niccolo grinned. If you will release me, I will open the door.'
Oh, I'm so sorry.' Galen jumped back and off the motorbike. I wasn't aware . . . I didn't realise I was holding on so tightly. I'm not used to moving so fast with so much traffic around.'
I was not making a complaint. I am enjoying being held by you. It is as if you rely on me to protect you. And I enjoy the speed. It removes the day from my brain.' Niccolo looked at Galen frankly. Do you understand?'
Galen's chest felt as if it were being crushed in a vise. Yes, I think I do.' For a second he contemplated shoving the loaf of bread into Niccolo's hands and then fleeing. Instead he cleared his throat and plunged ahead with a recklessness he seldom showed. And now that it is over, I can say that I think I enjoyed the ride. Thank you, Niccolo. It will become an unforgettable experience. But where are we?'
`This is the door to our back garden.' Niccolo unlocked the door and half-lifted, half-wheeled his motorbike over the raised threshold. From the other side of the door came the sound of the kickstand being pushed into place and of a chain and padlock being wrapped around the bike. Galen stood outside uncertain whether to enter or not. Visible through the doorway was a wall of climbing roses. A large stand of bamboo grew from a gigantic Chinese porcelain tub just inside the door. Water falling into a hidden basin and the hum of insects were the only sounds.
Niccolo's head appeared around the edge of the door. `If I am to give you dinner, you must come in. The neighbours will make angry if I feed you in the street.'
But this is beautiful.' Niccolo had locked the door behind them and then guided Galen through an opening in the wall of roses bushes, carefully holding a thorn-laden cane out of Galen's way. The small garden was filled with light and colour. Goldfish swam in a moss-covered basin overhung with flowering crape myrtles. Visible through the bushes and trees was a large stone house. Who are you, Niccolo di Bardi? This is not a museum worker's house.'
`My family has lived here for many years. We have had time to build and make for ourselves comfort. I think it will rain soon and then it will cool. It will be much better tonight. For now, we can use the elletroventola. I do not know this word in English. The electric machine that moves the air so that we feel better.'
`A fan. An electric fan, I think.'
`A fan. Uno ventaglio. Yes, that would be senseful.'
In the event, a fan was almost unnecessary in the cool, dark house. Niccolo led him to the kitchen and swiftly put a meal on the table with the same sure economy of motion he had shown in his work at the museum. The two quietly exchanged information about themselves as they ate. Galen offered to help with the washing up, but Niccolo poured him another glass of wine and made him sit while he dealt with the dishes. `You are nervous of me, I think,' he said as he dried the final plate and put it away.
`I'm not usually so brave. I am much more cautious and reserved at home.'
`It is a vacation for you. You can be braver. And I do not bite. Now you would like to see my work.' Niccolo took Galen by the hand and drew him out of the chair. He led the way down a long corridor and into another section of the house, into a large room filled with clay heads. Charcoal drawings were tacked to every surface. All of them of people. Extraordinarily alive people. People laughing. Faces contorted with rage, faces filled with joy. Hopeful faces. Pensive faces. Old, young, male, female, a vibrant human parade. A schoolboy bent over his studies, pencil rigidly held upright over a tablet of paper, sat at a table next to an old woman cutting up vegetables. A young man and woman drinking wine smiled at a shared joke. All captured in a few, swift, confident strokes, a smudge of the finger to create a shadow.
Niccolo waited at the doorway while Galen walked around the edges of the room examining the drawings and the sculptures. `I do not understand the process. These clay heads will be cast in metal?'
`Eventually. If I can convince someone to buy the results.'
`But they are wonderful.'
`Perhaps. They are, I do not know how to say this, too bright. Like shoes that are new and have no character yet. I do not have sharp edges and scars from use yet. My teacher says that I have had too easy a life so far. I need to experience sorrow and unhappiness. I am too optimistic, too happy.'
`Your teacher is a fool. You have a great talent.'
`No, she is not. Talent is not enough. I need to understand all life in order to put it in my work. But I will learn. And I will get better. And now, may I ask a favour?'
`Anything, Niccolo.'
May I draw you? It will not take long. I am quick.' Niccolo held up a pad of paper and a stick of charcoal and motioned Galen toward a chair. He was as good as his word. He moved about the room, making rapid sketches of Galen from various angles, his work interrupted only long enough to tear one sheet from the pad and place it on the table. When he finished, he tacked the sheets up along the wall, covering up a layer of other drawings. I will make a head from these.' Niccolo examined the drawings carefully, the model for them apparently forgotten, his mind moving toward the clay sculpture that he would make.
Galen didn't trust himself to speak. He walked over to Niccolo and embraced him from behind. `May I, may we, . . .'
Niccolo turned in his arms to face Galen and returned the embrace. His body felt taut with desire. Yes, let us go to my bedroom. You will spend the night here. It is late and I do not want to take you back through the rain.' Galen became aware for the first time that it had started to rain. In the distance there was the rumble of thunder. By the time that Niccolo had closed up the house and turned off the lights, the flashes of the lightning were closer. The two paused on the stairs to look out a window at the storm. After the next flash of lightning, Galen automatically began to count one one-thousandth, two one-thousandth . . .'
`What is this?'
`It's what we do in England. We say that in the time it takes to say "one one-thousandth', the sound travels 1,000 feet--300 meters perhaps. So you count the time between the flash and the start of the sound of the thunder in this way, and you know how far away the lightning is. If the time grows less with each stroke, then you know the storm is moving closer. If the time increases, then you know the danger is passing.'
The next flash of lightning was nearly overhead, and the boom of the thunder shook the house immediately after. Niccolo laughed. `I think the storm is here. But there is no danger. The house has the rods on the roof that carry the electricity to the ground. We are safe here.' He took Galen's hand and led him to his bedroom.
`But the bed is so narrow. We won't both be able to fit in it.'
`It is big enough. You will see. It will be enough space.' And it was.
It rained heavily during the night. When Galen awoke in the morning, he found the shadows of leaves moving on the ceiling. Light reflecting off the pond in the garden was shining upward through the bushes and trees surrounding the house and casting shadows on the ceiling of Niccolo's bedroom. The leaves and branches were apparent in great detail. Through some trick of the light, the image appeared to be three-dimensional, as if one of Niccolo's charcoal drawings had moved from the paper and taken on volume and life. Galen turned on his side toward the sleeping Niccolo. Every time Niccolo breathed in, his stomach expanded against Galen's body, a moving circle of contact. Galen wished he had the talent to capture the life in that face. With a finger, he lightly traced the line of Niccolo's nose and then the curve of his jaw. He brought his lips as close to Niccolo's as he could, just allowing them to touch, near enough to feel Niccolo's breath on his face. Niccolo stirred and then wrapped his arms around Galen and pulled him in, an embrace that became even fiercer as he awoke.
They spent as much of the next three days together as possible. As he headed to the museum, Niccolo would drop Galen off for his day of sightseeing. They would meet at a prearranged place after Niccolo was through with his work. Galen felt so much joy and happiness when he saw Niccolo's head zooming toward him through the traffic, a hand waving a boisterous greeting at him, the Vespa coming to a halt precisely before him. Evenings they spent together in Niccolo's workroom or in his bed. On the night before Galen had to return to England, they lay together in bed talking and making plans. Galen would return during the summer or Niccolo would come to visit him in London. `I would like to show you around London, but we won't be able to be together like this in my parents' house.'
`I will stay at a hotel and you will visit me. And perhaps your parents will not mind if you have a lover.'
`I'm afraid that they would mind very much, even if you were a woman. Wouldn't your parents mind if they were here?'
`It is not what they would choose for me, no. But I would find a way to love.'
`You are much braver than I. It is not as easy in England as it is here for me to do what I want. I'm not sure I have the courage to be that alive, to risk the danger of love.' The bedroom was dark when he said that. Even so, he did not trust his self-control enough to look at Niccolo. Nor did Niccolo seem to want to push him into a stronger commitment. They had left it at that. They would write and make their plans later.
The letter from Niccolo arrived a few days after he returned to Cambridge. The post came just as Galen was leaving for class, and he didn't have a private moment to open the letter. Then a group of friends carried him off to a pub. It was late when he returned to his rooms, and only then did he read the letter. Niccolo proposed that he return to Florence in July. His parents would be away for their annual summer visit to the Alps, and Galen could stay in the Bardis' house. Niccolo would take a week off from work, and they could make day trips around northern Italy. He enclosed a picture of the clay bust he had made from the drawings of Galen.
It was too late to write an answer that evening, and Galen put it off until the weekend. The weekend came, and he couldn't decide if he would be free in July until he had spoken with his parents to see if they would pay for another trip to Italy so soon. In the cool northern light, it seemed less and less urgent to reply immediately. There was always time. The letter with its foreign stamps set on his bookcase under a growing stack of papers and books until the end of term, when he swept it almost without thought into the trash bin along with the litter of that term's work.
Galen next encountered the name Niccolo di Bardi in an article in the Times reviewing a special exhibition of contemporary Italian sculpture at the Tate. It was the same year that his father died. Galen had joined his father's practice after qualifying. Earlier that year, his father had asked Galen to check a spot on his back, and Galen had discovered the carcinoma that led to his father's death a few months later. He was alone in the practice now. When his widowed mother decided to buy a flat, he took over their house as well and lived in that. It was too large for one person, but he was comfortable there.
Until he read the article, Galen hadn't thought of Niccolo in years. He had been totally unaware that Niccolo had been successful in his goal of becoming an artist. The critic for the Times was enthusiastic in his praise of Niccolo's works and drew especial attention to one piece: `A highlight of the exhibit is the bust by Niccolo di Bardi labelled "The English Student". A face quintessentially British looks with cool disdain at the world. It is the face of someone who observes life in preference to living it, the face of someone who distances himself from danger, a man who experiences life only in books and other persons' narratives. Bardi's art is nowhere more apparent than in this eloquently wordless biography of a man who has rejected the possibility of engagement and shut himself off from all human relationships.'
Galen jotted down the dates of the exhibition and tacked the piece of paper to the board in the kitchen. He intended to make time to attend the exhibit. He found the note there several months later when he engaged in his semiannual clearing of the reminders of things he had not found the time to do.
I think sometimes about returning to Italy. I should like to visit Florence again and the museums there now that I have more time, not to mention enough money to stay in comfort. On my previous trip, I was still a student and had very little money to spare. I stayed in the cheapest pensione I could find and nearly starved because I couldn't afford to eat. My last few days there passed almost in a fog because of the heat and humidity and low blood sugar brought on by a lack of food. I don't know why I didn't leave, I was so miserable. This time I will go during the winter. Heat bothers me so much anymore, and strong light and bright colours can trigger my megrims. And there won't be so many people about during the winter--tourists, I mean. Presumably there will be as many Italians as usual, but I won't have to interact much with them. Thankfully the museums shouldn't be so crowded. There are some pictures at the Uffizi in particular that I would like to look at again.
Note: If you're interested in the pictures mentioned in this story, you can find images at the Virtual Uffizi. For the Rembrandt self-portrait:
http://www.virtualuffizi.com/uffizi1/Uffizi_Pictures.asp?Contatore=480
and for Caravaggio's Head of the Medusa:
http://www.virtualuffizi.com/uffizi/img/1351.jpg