The Modigliani Scandal (1976) Read online

  PART TWO

  The Landscape

  ″Mickey Mouse does not look very much like a real mouse, yet people do not write indignant letters to the papers about the length of his tail.″

  E. H. GOMBRlCH,

  art historian

  I

  THE TRAIN ROLLED SLOWLY through the north of Italy. The brilliant sunshine had given way to a heavy, chill cloud layer, and the scenery was misty and damp-smelling. Factories and vineyards alternated until they shimmered into a hazed blur.

  Dee′s elation had dissipated gradually on the journey. She did not yet have a find, she realized, only the smell of one. Without the picture at the end of the trail, what she had found out was worth no more than a footnote in a learned exegesis.

  Her money was now running low. She had never asked Mike for any; nor had she given him any reason to think she needed it. On the contrary, she had always given him the impression that her income was rather higher than it really was. Now she regretted the mild deception.

  She had enough to stay in Livorno for a few days, and for her fare home. She turned away from the mundanity of cash and lit a cigarette. In the clouds of smoke she daydreamed what she would do if she found the lost Modigliani. It would be the explosive beginning to her doctoral thesis on the relationship between drugs and art.

  On second thought, it might be worth rather more than that: it could make the centerpiece of an article on how wrong everyone else was about the greatest Italian painter of the twentieth century. There was bound to be enough of interest in the picture to start half-a-dozen academic disputes.

  It might even become known as the Sleign Modigliani—it would make her name. Her career would be secure for the rest of her life.

  It might, of course, turn out to be a moderately good line drawing like hundreds of others Modigliani had done. No, that was hardly possible: the picture had been given away as an example of work done under the influence of hashish.

  It had to be something strange, heterodox, ahead of its time, revolutionary even. What if it were an abstract—a turn-of-the-century Jackson Pollock?

  The art history world would be ringing up Miss Delia Sleign and collectively asking for directions to Livorno. She would have to publish an article saying exactly where the work was to be found. Or she could carry it in triumph to the town museum. Or to Rome. Or she could buy it and surprise the world by—

  Yes, she could buy it. What a thought.

  Then she could take it to London, and—

  ″My God,″ she said aloud. ″I could sell it.″

  Livorno was a shock. Dee had been expecting a small market town, with half-a-dozen churches, a main street, and a local character who knew everything about everyone who had lived here during the last 100 years. She found a town rather like Cardiff: docks, factories, a steelworks, and tourist attractions.

  She realized belatedly that the English name for Livorno was Leghorn—a major Mediterranean port and holiday resort. Vague history-book memories floated back: Mussolini had spent millions modernizing the harbor, only to have it all destroyed by Allied bombers; the town had something to do with the Medici; there had been an earthquake in the eighteenth century.

  She found an inexpensive hotel: a high, whitewashed building in a terrace, with long, arched windows and no front garden. Her room was bare, clean and cool. She unpacked her suitcase, hanging the two summer dresses in a louvered cupboard. She washed, put on jeans and sneakers, and went out into the town.

  The mist had gone and the early evening was mild. The cloud layer was moving on, and the sinking sun was visible behind its trailing edge out across the sea. Old women in aprons, their straight gray hair pulled back and fastened at the nape of the neck, stood or sat in doorways, watching the world go by.

  Nearer the town center, handsome Italian boys paraded the sidewalks in their tight-hipped, bell-bottomed jeans and close-fitting shirts, their thick dark hair carefully combed. One or two raised a speculative eyebrow at Dee, but none made a determined pass. The boys were display items, she realized: to be seen rather than touched.

  Dee strolled through the town aimlessly, killing time before dinner and wondering how to go about searching for the picture in this vast place. Clearly, anyone who knew of the picture′s existence could not know it was a Modigliani; and conversely, if anyone knew there was such a Modigliani they would not know where it was or how to find it.

  She passed through a series of fine, open squares, dotted with statues of former kings done in the good local marble. She found herself in the Piazza Vittorio, a wide avenue with central islands of trees and grass. She sat down on a low wall to admire the Renaissance arcades.

  It would take years to visit every house in the town and look at every old picture in attics and junk shops. The field had to be narrowed down, even though that meant reducing the chances of success.

  Ideas began to come at last. Dee got up and briskly walked back to the little hotel. She was beginning to feel hungry.

  The proprietor and his family occupied the ground floor of the building. There was no one in the entrance hall when Dee got back, so she knocked tentatively on the door of the family′s quarters. Music and the sound of children filtered through, but there was no reply to her knock.

  She pushed the door open and stepped into the room. It was a living room, with newish furniture of appallingly bad taste. A 1960s splayed-leg radio/ record player hummed in a comer. On the television a man′s head soundlessly mouthed the news. In the center, on top of an orange nylon rug, a vaguely Swedish coffee table bore ashtrays, piled newspapers, and a paperback book.

  A small child playing with a toy car at her feet ignored her. She stepped over him. The proprietor came through the far door. His stomach sagged hugely over the narrow plastic belt of his blue trousers, and a cigarette bearing a precarious finger of ash hung from the comer of his mouth. He looked at Dee inquiringly.

  She spoke in fast, liquid Italian. ″I knocked, but there was no reply.″

  The man′s lips hardly moved as he said: ″What is it?″

  ″I′d like to book a call to Paris.″

  He moved to a bowlegged kidney-table near the door and picked up the telephone. ″Tell me the number. I′ll get it.″

  Dee fished in her shirt pocket and took out the scrap of paper on which she had written the number at Mike′s flat.

  ″Is there a particular person you want to speak to?″ the proprietor asked. Dee shook her head. Mike was not likely to be back yet, but there was a chance that his char would be in the flat—when they were away she dropped in whenever she felt like it.

  The man took the cigarette out of his mouth and spoke a few sentences into the receiver. He put the phone down and said: ″It will only be a few minutes. Would you like to sit down?″

  Dee′s calves ached slightly after the walk. She sank gratefully into a tan leatherette armchair that could have come from a furniture store in Lewisham.

  The proprietor seemed to feel he should stay with her: either out of politeness, or for fear she might steal one of the china ornaments on the mantelpiece. He said: ″What brings you to livorno—the sulphur springs?″

  She was not inclined to tell him the whole story. ″I want to look at paintings,″ she said.

  ″Ah.″ He glanced around his walls. ″We have some fine work here, don′t you think?″

  ″Yes.″ Dee suppressed a shudder. The framed prints around the room were mostly gloomy ecclesiastical pictures of men with haloes. ″Are there any art treasures in the cathedral?″ she said, remembering one of her ideas.

  He shook his head. ″The cathedral was bombed in the war.″ He seemed a little embarrassed to mention the fact that his country had been at war with Dee′s.

  She changed the subject. ″I should like to visit Modigliani′s birthplace. Do you know where it is?″

  The man′s wife appeared in the doorway and threw a long, aggressive sentence at him. Her accent was too strong for Dee to follow. The man replied in an
aggrieved tone, and the wife went away.

  ″Modigliani′s birthplace?″ Dee prompted.

  ″I don′t know,″ he said. He took the cigarette out of his mouth again, and dropped it in the already-full ashtray. ″But we have some tourist guides for sale—perhaps they would help?″

  ″Yes. I′d like one.″

  The man left the room, and Dee watched the child, still playing his mysterious, absorbing game with the car. The wife walked through the room without looking at Dee. A moment later she walked back. She was not the most genial of hostesses, despite her husband′s Friendliness—or perhaps because of it.

  The telephone rang and Dee picked it up. ″Your Paris call,″ the operator said.

  A moment later a woman said: ″Allô?″

  Dee switched to French. ″Oh, Claire, is Mike not back yet?″

  ″No.″

  ″Will you make a note of my number, and get him to call?″ She read the number from the dial then hung up.

  The proprietor had returned meanwhile. He handed her a small glossy booklet with curling edges. Dee took some coins from her jeans pocket and paid him, wondering how many times the same book had been sold to guests who left it behind in their rooms.

  ″I must help my wife to serve dinner,″ the man said.

  ″I′ll go in. Thank you.″

  Dee crossed the hall to the dining room and sat down at a small circular table with a checked cloth. She glanced at the guidebook. ″The Lazaretto of San Leopoldo is one of the finest of its kind in Europe,″ she read. She flicked a page. ″No visitor should miss seeing the famous Quattro Mori bronze.″ She flicked again. ″Modigliani lived first on the via Roma, and later at 10 via Leonardo Cambini.″

  The proprietor came in with a dish of Angel′s Hair soup, and Dee gave him a wide, happy smile.

  The first priest was young, and his severely short haircut made him look like a teenager. His steel-rimmed spectacles balanced on a thin, pointed nose, and he continually wiped his hands on his robes with a nervous movement, as if drying the sweat from his palms. He seemed edgy in Dee′s presence, as anyone who had taken a vow of chastity was entitled to be; but he was eager to be helpful.

  ″We have many paintings here,″ he said. ″There is a vault full of them in the crypt. No one has looked at them for years.″

  ″Would it be all right for me to go down there?″ she asked.

  ″Of course. I doubt if you′ll find anything interesting.″ As they stood talking in the aisle, the priest′s eyes flickered over Dee′s shoulders, as if he was worried that someone would come in and see him chatting to a young girl. ″Come with me,″ he said.

  He led her along the aisle to a door in the transept, and preceded her down a spiral staircase.

  ″The priest who was here around 1910—was he interested in painting?″

  The man looked back up the stairs at Dee and then looked quickly away again. ″I′ve no idea,″ he said. ″I am the third or fourth since that time.″

  Dee waited at the foot of the stairs while he lit a candle in a bracket on the wall. Her clogs clattered on the flagstones as she followed him, ducking her head, through a low arch into the vault.

  ″Here you are,″ he said. He lit another candle. Dee looked around. There were about 100 pictures stacked on the floor and leaning against the walls of the little room. ″Well, I′ll have to leave you to it,″ he said.

  ″Thank you very much.″ Dee watched him shuffle away, and then looked at the paintings, suppressing a sigh. She had conceived this idea the day before: she would go to the churches nearest to Modigliani′s two homes and inquire whether they had any old paintings.

  She had felt obliged to wear a shirt under her sleeveless dress, in order to cover her arms—strict Catholics would not allow bare arms in church—and she had got very hot walking the streets. But the crypt was deliciously cool.

  She lifted the first painting from the top of a pile and held it up to the candle. A thick layer of dust on the glass obscured the canvas underneath. She needed a duster.

  She looked around for something suitable. Of course, there would be nothing like that here. She did not have a handkerchief. With a sigh, she hitched up her dress and took off her panties. They would have to do. Now she would have to be extra careful not to get the priest beneath her on the spiral staircase. She giggled softly to herself and wiped the dust off the painting.

  It was a thoroughly mediocre oil of the martyrdom of St. Stephen. She put its age at about 120 years, but it was done in an older style. The ornate frame would be worth more than the work itself. The signature was illegible.

  She put the painting down on the floor and picked up the next. It was less dusty but just as worthless.

  She worked her way through disciples, apostles, saints, martyrs, Holy Families, Last Suppers, Crucifixions, and dozens of dark-haired, black-dyed Christs. Her multicolored bikini briefs became black with ancient dust. She worked methodically, stacking the cleaned pictures together neatly, and working through one pile of dusty canvases before starting on the next.

  It took her all morning, and there were no Modiglianis.

  When the last frame was cleaned and stacked, Dee permitted herself one enormous sneeze. The dusty air in front of her face swirled madly in the blow. She snuffed the candle and went up into the church.

  The priest was not around, so she left a donation in the box and went out into the sunshine. She dropped her dusty panties in the nearest litter bin: that would give the trash collectors food for thought.

  She consulted her street map and began to make her way toward the second house. Something was bothering her: something she knew about Modigliani—his youth, or his parents, or something. She strained to bring the elusive thought to mind, but it was like chasing canned peaches around a dish: the thought was too slippery to be grasped.

  She passed a café and realized it was lunchtime. She went in and ordered a pizza and a glass of wine. As she ate she wondered whether Mike would phone today.

  She lingered over coffee and a cigarette, reluctant to face another priest, another church, more dusty paintings. She was still shooting in the dark, she realized ; her chances of finding the lost Modigliani were extremely slim. With a burst of determination, she stubbed her cigarette and got up.

  The second priest was older and unhelpful. His gray eyebrows lifted a full inch over his narrowed eyes as he said: ″Why do you want to look at paintings?″

  ″It′s my profession,″ Dee explained. ″I′m an art historian.″ She tried a smile, but it seemed to make the man more resentful.

  ″A church is for worshippers, not tourists, you see,″ he said. His courtesy was a thin veil.

  ″I′ll be very quiet.″

  ″Anyway, we have very little art here. Only what you see as you walk around.″

  ″Then I′ll walk around, if I may.″

  The priest nodded. ″Very well.″ He stood in the nave watching as Dee walked quickly around. There was very little to see: one or two pictures in the small chapels. She came back to the west end of the church, nodded to the priest, and left. Perhaps he suspected her of wanting to steal.

  She walked back to her hotel, feeling depressed. The sun was high and hot now, and the baking streets were almost deserted. Mad dogs and art historians, Dee thought. The private joke failed to cheer her up. She had played her last card. The only possible way to carry on now was to quarter the city and try every church.

  She went up to her room and washed her hands and face to get rid of the dust of the crypt. A siesta was the only sensible way to spend this part of the day. She took off her clothes and lay on the narrow single bed.

  When she closed her eyes the nagging feeling of having forgotten something came back. She tried to remember everything she had learned about Modigliani; but it was not a lot. She drifted into a doze.

  As she slept the sun moved past the zenith and shone powerfully in through the open window, making the naked body perspire. She moved restlessly, her long fa
ce frowning slightly from time to time. The blonde hair became disarrayed and stuck to her cheeks.

  She woke with a start and sat up straight. Her head throbbed from the heat of the sun, but she ignored it. She stared straight ahead of her like someone who has just had a revelation.

  ″I′m an idiot!″ she exclaimed. ″He was a Jew!″

  Dee liked the rabbi. He was a refreshing change from the holy men who had only been able to react to her as forbidden fruit. He had friendly brown eyes and gray streaks in his black beard. He was interested in her search, and she found herself telling him the whole story.

  ″The old man in Paris said a priest, and so I assumed it was a Catholic priest,″ she was explaining. ″I had forgotten that the Modigliani family were Sephardic Jews, and quite orthodox.″

  The rabbi smiled. ″Well, I know who the painting was given to! My predecessor here was very eccentric, as rabbis go. He was interested in all sorts of things—scientific experiments, psychoanalysis, Communism. He′s dead now, of course.″

  ″I don′t suppose there were any paintings among his effects?″

  ″I don′t know. He became ill toward the end, and left the town. He went to live in a village called Poglio, which is on the Adriatic coast. Of course, I was very young then—I don′t remember him at all clearly. But I believe he lived with a sister in Poglio for a couple of years before he died. If the painting still exists, she may have it.″

  ″She′ll be dead.″

  He laughed. ″Of course. Oh dear—you′ve set yourself quite a task, young lady. Still, there may be descendants.″

  Dee shook the man′s hand. ″You′ve been very kind,″ she said.

  ″My pleasure,″ he said. He seemed to mean it.

  Dee ignored her aching feet as she walked back to the hotel again. She made plans: she would have to hire a car and drive to this village. She decided she would leave in the morning.

  She wanted to tell somebody, to spread the good news. She remembered what she had done last time she felt this way. She stopped at a shop and bought a postcard. She wrote: