Sudden Death

First Set, Fourth Game

The Lombard was unstoppable at first, but then he got distracted. The score was love–30 when two women came by the court. They had just lunched and were dressed like what they were: whores. The Spaniard was so deep in the game that he didn’t register their arrival. But his linesman sat lost in contemplation of them for a moment, because there was something familiar about these women and because they were truly fantastic pieces of tail. Despite the sporting rivalry between Italy and Spain on the tennis court, Osuna was sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder with the Lombard’s linesman, so he could almost smell the women.

Without removing his gaze from their enticing skirts, the duke ran through the images he retained of the previous night. These two hadn’t been at the brothel or the tavern. It took him a while to pinpoint where he’d seen them: in a painting that he’d had the leisure to examine as he and the poet waited endlessly for an audience with a banker. The whores appeared in it as models for Martha and her cousin Mary Magdalene.

The matter was resolved when he recognized a seductive flaw — a big mark like a continent on Martha’s chin — which the painter had copied just as it was. They had even discussed it: Who would put a saint infected with some contagion in a painting? The poet had pointed out that Mary Magdalene, played by a strikingly lovely and spirited model, was holding the mirror of vanity in a hand with a crooked finger. The world turned upside down, he said.

Martha sat down next to Saint Matthew — an old cock among falcons — as if to calm the flurry that she and her friend had roused in the gallery. Meanwhile, Mary Magdalene, as defiant in the piazza as in her painted role of saint brought low by life, remained standing by the railing: her ass cocked, her cleavage a declaration of war. When she leaned forward, the duke noticed that the middle finger of her left hand was crooked. The artist who painted her hand hadn’t twisted reality to suit the biblical tale, he had done the opposite: he had twisted the biblical tale by painting reality. The duke raised his eyes a little and fixed them on Mary Magdalene’s breasts. He recognized them: they were, of course, the most defiant pair of tits in the history of art.

When the Spaniards had been received in the trophy hall of the banker’s palace, they’d had a look at another eye-catching painting, in which the same woman — he hadn’t realized it until just now, seeing her in person — appeared in a biblical scene, more jarring than the first, of a beheading in a bedchamber. The work was still propped on a chair: a place hadn’t been found for it yet, lacking as it was in decorum.

It was an oil painting depicting the moment when Judith, having seduced the Assyrian general Holofernes, beheads him as he sleeps. The painting is bloody, but it also stirs up other things: in it, the model and courtesan looks more sensuous than vengeful as she slits the throat of the enemy of the people of Israel. She’s seriously hot: her nipples are so hard that they show through her blouse, almost bursting out of it. The painting isn’t a heroic portrayal of a Jewish nationalist committing the patriotic act of killing the oppressor of her people but the portrait of a killer who finds carnal pleasure in spilling the blood of the man whose semen still runs down the inside of her thighs. The odd look on her face isn’t an expression of revulsion at the evildoer overcome or disgust at having to behead him; it’s an expression of pleasure: an orgasm.

Unlike the poet, who was still deep in the game, the artist let himself be distracted, and more: when the match permitted — and even when it didn’t — he added his own shouts to the jests of the audience, making ridiculous flourishes to return the ball, blowing kisses to Mary Magdalene.

Cacce per lo spagnolo, cried the mathematician after the poet’s last point, his fourth in a row since the arrival of the whores. The duke hurried onto the court to gather up his dividends from the line where the coins were stacked. It was a generous handful, the poet noted, because the professional gamblers were still mostly favoring the painter, even though the poet had a comfortable lead.

He didn’t remark upon it to the duke, who put the coins in his pocket and then handed him a handkerchief to dry his sweat. He took his time fanning himself with the rag before beginning to wipe his torso. He even moved into the shadow of the gallery to put on the second shirt of the match, as gentlemen did. The Lombard was still wearing the same black shirt he’d had on since the night before, and very likely since the day he’d bought it. He was standing on the court, hands resting on the rail, just in front of Mary Magdalene, who was in the gallery; he had rested his head on her chest, as if accepting that his own body was defeating him.

Then, a long way off down the piazza, the duke’s escort appeared. They approached the gallery with the clumsy, evasive humility of those who haven’t been earning their pay. How goes it, one of them asked Osuna. We’re winning; why don’t you put a little money on our man, said the duke, because this is serious business. The men dug in their pockets without protest. The soldier of highest rank, Otero Barral by name, presented a pitiful fistful of coins. He was the smallest of the four, but possibly as a result, the scrappiest. Knobby and ruddy, he was the duke’s favorite, because he could keep calm in any circumstance — the model of a certain type of Spaniard, specialized in persevering no matter what. Yesterday we spent like sultans, he whispered in excuse from behind his wolf-man beard. The duke shook his head, led him away from the court, and, when he was sure that no one could see them, gave him all the coins he had just won. He ordered him to hurry and put something on the line before the second set began. Otero looked at the money cradled in his hands and smacked his lips with undisguised greed. Put the thought from your mind, said his boss; we need the moral advantage. They returned to the gallery.

When he was back in his seat again, the duke noticed that the artist was watching Otero as he went to bet. He didn’t remove his face entirely from Mary Magdalene’s cleavage, but he was staring at the captain. He blew the hair out of his eyes, lowered his brows, sharpened one eye in a squint. It was a sticky look, which pierced Otero as he went about the insignificant business of bringing over the money, setting it on the line, returning to his seat. See how he watches Barral, the duke said to the poet; what can it mean — does he like his looks or does he want to start last night’s brawl again? The poet shook his head. I don’t think he even remembers what happened last night, he said.