The Bernini Bust

16

Hector di Souza was buried twice; once after a requiem Mass in Santa Maria sopra Minerva with full choir, dozens of attendants – including a real cardinal archbishop, the sort he’d always had a weakness for – and more cloth-of-gold vestments than you could shake a stick at. Friends, colleagues and enemies turned up in full force, dressed in their best, and the incense was burned like it was going out of fashion. Hector would have loved it. The march to the grave was appropriately solemn, the grave itself suitably verdant and the requiem dinner afterwards agreeably fine. No gravestone, yet. Enormously expensive, gravestones.

The second time he was buried in the accounts of the Moresby Museum; Argyll sent them a combined bill for transporting di Souza and his antiquities back to Italy and he heard no more of the matter. The beechwood coffin with brass trimmings got lost under the heading of post and packing for unwanted goods and the Mass went down as administrative expenses. All true, in a way, but not exactly poetic.

However sneaky they may have been in the past, the jolt of recent events seemed to reform the museum somewhat. The removal of Langton, and Streeter’s decision to develop his consultancy on a more full-time basis lightened Samuel Thanet’s universe to such an extent that he became almost obliging. Certainly, as far as Argyll was concerned, the director kept his word; Argyll got a cheque for his cancellation fee and a post-dated contract for the Titian within a fortnight. He and Byrnes came to an arrangement regarding future commissions and thankfully put aside any thought of his returning to England. And, within three months, the cheques for his retainer started arriving with commendable regularity. Not big, by the standards of art dealing, but more than sufficient to live off and have money left over.

There was a problem of accommodation, of course; the housing shortage in Rome has been chronic since the days of the Renaissance popes and there is no sign of that changing before the end of the next millennium. In the end, he lodged with Flavia until he got organised. But the practical solution was largely disingenuous; both were primarily concerned to see what happened. To their mutual amazement, the arrangement worked extraordinarily well and he eventually gave up even the pretence of looking for anything of his own. Domestically speaking, she was a complete pig, having developed not a single housewifely skill in her entire life, but that was OK; Argyll was not exactly houseproud either.

Domestic matters sorted out, Flavia got back to work with a vengeance and a cheery insouciance that made Bottando both relieved at the change and complacent about his original diagnosis of her ill humour. Among more routine matters, she interrogated Collins at the Borghese, took a statement from him about his involvement with Langton, got him to admit burgling Alberghi, picked up the other oddments he’d stolen from his flat, sent them back to their rightful owner – together with a stern recommendation that he look after them this time – and packed the young and foolish man off to California for a little chat with Morelli. For her own part she persuaded Bottando not to bring any charges against him. No point in being vindictive; it just created paperwork and she doubted whether he’d ever do the like again. Not in Italy, anyway; not with a passport stamped like that.

And then it was truffle season, one of the highlights of any thinking person’s year. Black ones, white ones, and spotted ones. Cut thin and scattered as liberally as you can afford over fresh pasta. Worth travelling several hundred miles for, so you can eat them fresh. And to one restaurant in particular, which is so good that it appears in no guides, no gazettes and is scarcely known to anyone outside the Umbrian hilltown where it has been seducing tastebuds for a generation.

Flavia was even reluctant to tell Argyll where it was, but he got the information out of her eventually, and he decided that it was time to celebrate his return to full mobility by taking her to lunch. And en route, she had the brainwave of what to get him for his birthday. He was thirty-one and beginning to feel his age. It is the time of life when even the most optimistic get their first glimpse of senile decay looming up over the horizon.

A fine lunch of truffles, mushrooms and Frascati did something to reconcile him to the vale of tears through which he was passing at such alarming speed, however, and he was in a much more benevolent mood by the time he loaded himself into the passenger seat of Flavia’s car and they set off erratically on the road once more.

True to his Californian decision, he not only refrained from criticising the speed at which she drove, he even managed to avoid flinching every time she overtook. But as far as he could see there was no absolute ban on asking where they were going, even if it was a surprise.

She just smiled, and kept on driving. Only as they swept on to the road to Gubbio did he begin to have an inkling and even then he kept his conclusions to himself. It would be a pity to spoil it by guessing.

He was right though; she parked near the main square, led the way down the side streets and knocked on a door. Signora Borunna answered, and smiled as Flavia apologised for disturbing them.

The smile was not as gentle as before; rather there was a sad tinge about it which she found disconcerting. But they were invited in and Flavia explained that she wanted to take up the offer of a piece of sculpture. To buy, of course.

‘I’m sure Alceo would be honoured, my dear,’ she said quietly. ‘I shall go this minute and find him. He’s in the café up the road.’

She walked to the door and then hesitated.

‘Signorina, please,’ she said, turning round to face them. ‘I need to ask you something.’

‘By all means,’ she replied, a little puzzled by the woman’s manner.

‘It’s Alceo, you see. He’s not been the same – since he heard about poor Hector. He feels, well, he feels a little guilty.’

‘Why on earth should he feel guilty?’ Flavia asked, even more surprised.

‘Well, that’s it, you see. I was wondering if you would listen to him. Tell him he did nothing wrong. I know it was unforgivable, but it was with the very best intentions…’

‘Signora, I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying.’

‘I know. But it would be good if Alceo would unburden himself. And if you could find it in your heart to forgive him…’

‘I can’t imagine what there is to forgive. I’ll gladly listen, though.’

She nodded, apparently reassured, and went off to fetch her husband. While she was gone Argyll slowly went round examining the man’s handiwork. They were, he said, wonderful. Even though they were new, he would love one of these. And what a marvellous present, he added, giving her an appreciatory squeeze.

‘I wish I knew what’s got into Signora Borunna,’ she said as Argyll held up a madonna and indicated that his life would be complete if he were to be given that. ‘Seemed such a jolly person last time I was here.’

‘Soon find out,’ he replied as the door opened once more and the pair of them came in, the wife leading and the sculptor dragging in behind.

Borunna was greatly changed; grey and haggard, he looked as though he had aged a decade in a couple of months. He now looked old, and didn’t look happy. The tranquil contentment had vanished.

Flavia had been brought up to believe that telling people in their seventies that they looked awful was insensitive, so she confined herself to greeting him cautiously and introducing Argyll. She omitted to mention the madonna; that would have to wait until later. But what exactly was she meant to say to him?

Fortunately Borunna helped her out. Eyes cast down, he slumped into a battered armchair, took a deep breath and began for her.

‘I suppose you want a full confession,’ he said heavily.

Both of them were completely bemused by now. So she sat down and decided it would be best not to say anything at all.

He took that as agreement and began again. ‘Well, I’m glad. Especially now. I’ve felt so dreadful since I heard about Hector being killed. I should have told you everything then. But I wanted to protect him, you see. When I think I could have saved him…’

‘Perhaps you ought to start at the beginning?’ Flavia prompted, hoping that this would enable her to make some sense of it.

‘I was only acting for the best,’ he said. ‘I knew that Hector would lose the bust, but compared to being put in jail, or deported, that seemed to be getting off lightly. I thought he’d approve, you see. And he would have done, if I hadn’t made such a fearful mess. I provoked him, you see. It was my viciousness that caused all this.’

‘And how, exactly, was that? In your own words, that is,’ she said, looking up for inspiration at Signora Borunna.

He sighed heavily, rubbed his eyes, thought long and deeply and eventually brought himself to begin his tale. ‘Hector came round to our house when he got back from the Swiss border. He was in a dreadful state. Absolutely panicked. His life was coming to an end, he said. The bust had been confiscated, he’d already spent the money he’d been paid for it, he would be prosecuted for smuggling.’

‘This is 1951, you mean? Right?’

‘Of course.’

‘Just making sure. Carry on.’

‘He was worried that was just the beginning. What if they searched out where it had come from? I reminded him that he’d claimed to have bought it at a sale. He had, he told me. But he didn’t know how it got into the sale in the first place. What if it had been stolen? He didn’t know, but he knew who was going to get any blame.

‘It took us an entire evening to calm him down. He was completely distraught. Never, he said, would he do anything so stupid again.

‘It looked as though he wasn’t going to get away with it. About a week later he received two letters. One was from the Borghese saying that their examination of the bust was complete, they were convinced it was genuine and would he come round to discuss it. Another from the police, saying that papers in his case had been passed on to the public prosecutor’s office which would inform him in due course of any action to be taken. That, as you know, meant that some action would be taken.

‘Hector was crazy with worry. And, to be frank, he was driving us crazy as well. He was not a bad man, you see. If he’d been a real crook he would have handled it much better. He was careless and got caught out, that was all.

‘I felt sorry for him. We both did, my wife and I. She was particularly keen that we try and help him. They were such good, old friends. Then I got the idea…’

Here he lapsed into an introspective and depressed silence again. Flavia sat impassively, waiting for him to come out of it and continue the story.

He did eventually, looking at her properly for the first time with an almost defiant look.

‘It was a good idea. I went to the local library and found a picture of the bronze copy of the bust in Copenhagen…’

‘So that was how you knew about that,’ she said, speaking for almost the first time.

‘Yes, that’s right. And I studied it carefully, and made drawings. Dozens of them. Then I went to my workshop in the Vatican.

‘I didn’t have much time, so the workmanship was not my best, but it was passable. I used old fragments of marble that were left over from a job we’d done repairing bomb damage. In three days I had enough to pass muster. I made an appointment at the Borghese and went round, with my notepad and my fragments.

‘I was shown into the office of a little man in the museum. I must say, I didn’t like him. One of those cold, arrogant, snobbish little men you come across sometimes. The sort who rhapsodise about sculpture but sneer at sculptors. I was a communist in those days, and perhaps a bit more sensitive to these things. It made me all the more determined, especially when it came out that he was the man who’d been assessing Hector’s Bernini.

‘So I ask him, “Are you finished?”

‘“Oh, indeed,” says he.

‘“And what do you think?”

‘“I don’t see how it concerns you. But, if you’re interested, it’s a very fine piece. One of The Master’s best early works. It would have been scandalous had it been lost to the country.”

‘“I’m sure Hector didn’t mean…”

‘“Signor di Souza is a scoundrel and a crook,” he says, in a nasty tone. “And I intend to ensure personally that he pays the price. I had a word with the prosecutor only this morning, and he is in full agreement. This sort of behaviour must be stamped out. An exemplary punishment will warn others.”

‘So you could see, that it didn’t look good for Hector at all. This man was out to get him. I hated him, I must confess. There he was, all sleek and well-dressed. He didn’t have to search around for food or worry where the next meal was coming from. He, with his family and his connections and his money, didn’t have to concern himself with making a living. And he was so sure of himself. So self-righteous.

‘“You’re impressed by the bust, then?” I ask him.

‘“Yes,” he replies. “Bernini has been my life’s work, and I have never seen a better example.”

‘So I say: “Well, I’m flattered. Thank you. I must say I was pleased as well. Though I say it myself.”

‘“What do you mean?”

‘“What do you think I mean? I sculpted that bust. Me. In my workshop. It’s not Bernini at all.”

‘Now, that rattled him good and proper. But he wasn’t having it. “You?” he says with a nasty sneer in his voice. “A common labourer? You expect me to believe a cock-and-bull story like that.”

‘“Common labourer I may be,” I say, proper mad now. “But an uncommon sculptor, if I might say so. Good enough, it seems, to make a fool out of a man who’s spent his life studying The Master, as you put it.”

‘You see, signorina, I’d all but forgotten Hector by now. I didn’t like being called a common labourer. Originally I just wanted to get him to leave Hector alone. But now, I was determined to humiliate him. He still didn’t believe me, so I whip out my drawings, and show them to him. Then I bring out my little pieces. A nose, an ear, a chin. You know. Practice pieces, I say. To get it just right on the finished marble.

‘You could see him getting uncertain, all his arrogance draining away. He looked at the drawings – I’m a good draughtsman – then at the lumps of stone I’d carved, and you could see him worrying. Maybe, he was thinking. Just maybe. You must remember what turmoil the art world was in. It wasn’t long since the Van Meegeren business in Holland, where the greatest experts had authenticated the most awful fakes. And everyone had a good laugh at their expense. This Alberghi man was not the sort to take a joke.

‘So I ploughed on with my story. I did my very best to convince him that I’d made the bust for Hector to sell to a foolish collector in Switzerland, who thought it was a great bargain. There was nothing illegal in it; you didn’t need a permit to export modern works. And then the Borghese comes in and authenticates it. Thank you very much, says I. Greatly increased in value now, I tell him. Hector will be pleased.

‘This was where I went too far, wanting to rub his nose in it. He snaps his head up and says, “What?”

‘And I say, “Well, in the letter you wrote to Hector you say it’s genuine. So, a bust with an authentication by you…”

‘“You will not use that letter…” he says, furiously.

‘And I smirk at him. “Try and stop us,” I say. “I will,” he replies.

‘So he calls a guard from the museum, and they go into the next room. Where the Bernini was. The first time I’d seen it, and it really was beautiful. Everything Alberghi and Hector said was true. Obviously the real thing. I could tell, just by looking. A lovely, lovely piece…’

He stopped again for a while before restarting, clearly hating every word that he uttered.

‘Anyway, Alberghi gestures at the bust, and tells the guard to pick it up. He does, even though it’s heavy, and Alberghi leads the way out. They go all the way through the museum, out to the back, to a little courtyard where some builders are doing work, and the guard puts it on the ground. I followed after them, you see. And Alberghi goes up to a workman, and takes a heavy sledgehammer from him. It was before I could do anything to stop him, you see…’

‘What happened?’

‘What do you think? He hit it just once, with enormous force. Right on the head. The blow spread straight through the marble, and the entire bust broke into pieces. A dozen, maybe more, and hundreds of shards. Irreparable damage. I just looked at what he’d done, and Alberghi threw the sledgehammer down and came up to me.

‘“Well, sculptor,” he says, all the nastiness back in his voice. “So much for that. That’s what you get if you try to pull a fast one on me. Now take your work and go.”

‘And he dusted off his hands and walked off. If I hadn’t goaded him, it might never have occurred to him to destroy it. I don’t know why I did it. I collected a few fragments, the least damaged bits, but there was nothing to be done with them.’

There was a long pause, during which Borunna didn’t feel like talking and Flavia could think of nothing to say.

‘How very unfortunate,’ Argyll put in rather lamely. Borunna glanced at him.

‘Unfortunate? Yes. But the trouble is…’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t know how to tell you. You’ll think I’m a monster…’

‘Just try us.’

‘I felt happy.’

‘Happy?’

‘Yes. When that sledgehammer came down and that beautiful work was smashed into pieces, I was exultant. Triumphant. I can’t explain it. I’ve felt guilty about it ever since.’

He looked at her as though she could confer some form of absolution for his feeling. Which she felt unable to offer.

‘And Hector wasn’t prosecuted?’

‘Oh, no. There were no charges. Alberghi thought that any defence would have involved saying the bust was a copy and that could have made him a laughing-stock. Hector still had the letter. So all Hector heard was that the bust had been confiscated. And that was it.’

‘And you never told him?’

‘How could I? It would have broken his heart. I was destroyed by it. And Maria said it was best forgotten. So I forgot it all, until you turned up. I should have told you everything then. But as I knew that the bust in America couldn’t be genuine, I assumed Hector had been forging again. But if I had said something, at least he would still be alive.’

‘Is that what worries you most?’

He nodded.

‘Well, you can set your mind at rest there,’ she said gently. ‘By the time I saw you he was already dead.’

‘I think he did know,’ Argyll added. ‘It was why he wanted to examine the bust. And that was why he was killed, in fact. If he hadn’t known, he would never have insisted on talking to Moresby alone, and wouldn’t have been in the way. He was going to come back to Italy to get you to corroborate what had happened.’

‘But how could he possibly have known…’

Flavia glanced up, beyond Borunna, and saw his wife, framed in the doorway. She remembered everything she’d heard. Di Souza’s reputation as a bit of a womaniser. The younger woman alone with him while her older husband was off working. How he had got to know di Souza through his wife, how the sculptor often came home and found them together, how they were so close, how she was so keen that Hector be helped out of trouble. And she understood perfectly why Borunna had felt so happy when he had seen Hector’s head smashed into bits by that sledgehammer. Perfectly natural.

And she also saw the look of fright on the old lady’s face that she might bring it all up, and remembered the look of sadness and devotion when she’d said how worried she was about her Alceo’s fit of depression.

‘He must have found out through contacts in the Borghese,’ she said hastily. ‘I don’t know when, but as far as I can see he dealt with the blow well enough. He certainly didn’t seem to bear you any grudge.’

‘So you don’t think my not telling you made any difference?’

‘None at all,’ said Flavia robustly. ‘If that’s all that’s worrying you then you can put your mind at rest. Even the little you told me was crucial and the full story wouldn’t have made the slightest difference. I confess it’s a shock to find out about the bust, but it was a long time ago. What happened to the bits?’

Borunna was reluctantly and slowly coming out of his gloom, encouraged along by her reassuring comments. Full rehabilitation would take some time, and the ministrations of a doting wife. Still, he at least began the process of coming back to normality. The bits of the bust, he said, were in a box down in his workshop by the cathedral. If they wanted to see them, he’d show them. But only after they had selected and taken a piece of his carving.

‘From both of us,’ his wife added. ‘With our thanks.’

As Argyll had already made up his mind, and Flavia was more than happy with the choice, that bit was easy. So, clutching the madonna wrapped in a piece of old newspaper, and with the old couple holding hands like a pair of adolescents, they walked slowly through the narrow streets to the workyard.

The box was covered in drawings and tools and a thick layer of dust, the lid was formidably heavy, and the contents were covered by old sheets. But underneath them all was the source of their recent problems. One by one, Borunna pulled them out and laid them on a bench, organising them to show how the bust had looked.

Most of the face was there, but he was certainly correct in saying that the piece was irreparable. About half had vanished, and much of the rest was badly chipped.

All four of them looked at it in silence for some time.

‘What a pity,’ Flavia said, a statement so self-evident that it needed little comment from the others.

‘The trouble is I’ve never known what to do with it. It would be criminal just to throw the pieces away, but I don’t know what else to do.’

They stared a while longer, and Argyll got the glimmerings of an idea. Properly set in an upright piece of marble, the face would look almost unblemished. If restored by an expert. A nice bit of lettering…

‘Do you still want to make some apology to Hector?’ he asked.

Borunna shrugged. A bit late now, he said, but yes. How?

Argyll held the face up until it glinted in the autumn light.

‘Don’t you think this could be turned into a wonderful gravestone?’