The Modigliani Scandal

III

THE PRIEST STOOPED ON the cobbled churchyard path to pick up a piece of litter: a stray candy bar wrapper. He crumpled it in his hand, and stood up slowly to placate the nagging rheumatism in his knee. The pain came from sleeping alone in an old house through many damp Italian winters, he knew: but priests ought to be poor. For how could a man be a priest if there was one man in the village who was poorer? The thought was a liturgy of his own invention, and by the time he had run through it in his mind, the pain had eased.

He left the yard to walk across the road to his house. In the middle of the street the rheumatism stabbed him again: a vicious, angry shaft of pain which made him stumble. He made it to the house and leaned on the wall, resting his weight on his good leg.

Looking down the road toward the center of the village he saw the youngsters whom he had spoken to earlier. They walked very slowly, their arms around each other; looking and smiling at each other. They seemed very much in love—more so than they had half an hour earlier. The understanding which the priest had gained through many years of listening to confessions told him that a change had been wrought in the relationship within the last few minutes. Perhaps it had something to do with their visit to the house of God: maybe he had given them spiritual help, after all.

He had sinned, almost certainly, in lying to them about Danielli. The untruth had come automatically, by force of a habit he had got into during the war. Then, when he had felt it imperative to conceal the Jewish family from all inquirers, the whole village had lied with his blessing. To tell the truth would have been sinful.

Today, when a couple of complete strangers had arrived out of the blue, and asked for Danielli by name, they had touched an old, raw nerve in the priest; and he had protected the Jews again. The inquiry was bound to be quite innocent: the Fascisti were thirty-five years in the past, and no longer worth sinning about. Still, he had not had time to think—which was the reason for most sins, and a poor excuse.

He toyed with the idea of going after them, apologizing, explaining, and telling the truth. It would expiate him a little. But there was little point: someone in the village would send them to the bar on the outskirts of Poglio where the Jews eked out their living.

His pain had gone. He went into the little house, treading on the loose flagstone at the foot of the stairs with the twinge of affection he reserved for familiar nuisances: like the rheumatism, and the unfailing sins he heard week after week from the irreformable black sheep in his little flock. He gave them a rueful paternal nod of acknowledgment, and granted absolution.

In the kitchen he took out a loaf and cut it with a blunt knife. He found the cheese and scraped off the mold; then he ate his lunch. The cheese tasted good—it was the better for the effect of the mold. There was something he would have not discovered if he had been rich.

When he had eaten the meal he wiped the plate with a towel and put it back into the wooden cupboard. The knock at the door surprised him.

People did not usually knock at his door: they opened it and called to him. A knock indicated a formal visit—but in Poglio, one always knew well in advance if someone was going to pay a formal visit. He went to the door with a pleasant sensation of curiosity.

He opened the door to a short man in his twenties, with straight fair hair growing over his ears. He was peculiarly dressed, by the priest′s standards, in a businessman′s suit and a bow tie. In poor Italian he said: ″Good morning, Father.″

A stranger, thought the priest. That explained the knock. It was most unusual to have so many strangers in the village.

The man said: ″May I talk to you for a few moments?″

″Surely.″ The priest ushered the stranger into the bare kitchen and offered him a hard wooden seat. ″Do you speak English?″

The priest shook his head regretfully.

″Ah. Well, I am an art dealer from London,″ the man continued haltingly. ʺI am looking for old paintings.″

The priest nodded wonderingly. Clearly, this man and the couple in the church were on the same mission. That two sets of people should come to Poglio on the same day looking for paintings was just too much of a coincidence to be credible.

He said: ″Well, I have none.″ He waved a hand at the bare walls of the room, as if to say that he would buy bare essentials first, if he had any money.

ʺPerhaps in the church?″

″No, the church has no paintings.″

The man thought for a moment, searching for words. ″Is there a museum in the village? Or perhaps someone with a few paintings in his house?″

The priest laughed. ″My son, this is a poor village. No one buys paintings. In good times, when they have a little extra money, they eat meat—or perhaps drink wine. There are no art collectors here.″

The stranger looked disappointed. The priest wondered whether to tell him about his rivals. But then he would be forced to mention Danielli, and he would have to give this man information he had withheld from the couple.

That seemed unfair. However, he would not lie again. He decided to tell the man about Danielli if he asked: otherwise, he would not volunteer the information.

The next question surprised him.

″Is there a family named Modigliani here?″

The priest raised his eyebrows. Quickly, the stranger said: ″Why does the question shock you?″

″Young man, do you really think there is a Modigliani here in Poglio? I am no student of these things, but even I know that Modigliani was the greatest Italian painter of this century. It is hardly likely that one of his works lies unnoticed anywhere in the world, let alone Poglio.″

″And there is no Modigliani family here,ʺ the man persisted.

″No.″

The man sighed. He stayed in his seat for a moment, staring at the toe of his shoe and wrinkling his brow. Then he stood up.

ʺThank you for your help,″ he said.

The priest saw him to the door. ʺI am sorry I could not give the answers you wanted to hear,″ he said. ″God bless you.″

When the door shut behind him, Julian stood outside the priest′s house for a moment, blinking in the sunshine and breathing the fresh air. God, the place was smelly. The poor old sod had probably never learned to look after himself—Italian men were used to being waited on hand and foot by their mothers and their wives, he seemed to recall reading.

It was amazing Italy could find enough priests, what with that and the celibacy ... He grinned as the thought reminded him of the recent abrupt end to his own celibacy. The elation which had come with the discovery of his own potency was still with him. He had proved it had all been Sarah′s fault. The bitch had tried to pretend she was not enjoying it at first, but the act had not lasted. What with that, and the sale of her car, and the Modigliani—maybe he was finding his form again.

But he did not have the picture yet. That last stroke of genius was essential, to put the crowning touch to his personal renaissance. The postcard from the girl who signed herself ʺDʺ was a shaky foundation on which to build his hopes, he knew: yet it was by following up dubious leads that great finds were made.

The prospect of the Modigliani had receded a long way during the interview with the priest. If it was here in Poglio it was going to be hard to find. There was one consolation: it looked as if Julian was the first here. For if a painting had been bought in a little place like this, every villager would know about it within hours.

He stood beside his rented baby Fiat, wondering what was the next step. He had entered the village from the south, and the church was one of the first buildings he had come across. He could look around for a public building: a village hall, maybe, or a police station. The priest had said there was no museum.

He decided on a quick reconnaissance, and jumped into the little car. Its engine whirred tinnily as he started it and drove slowly into the village. In less than five minutes he had looked at every building. None of them looked promising. The blue Mercedes coupe parked outside the bar must belong to a rich man: the owner obviously did not live in the village.

He drove back to his first parking-spot and got out of the car. There was nothing else for it: he would have to knock on doors. If he went to every house in the village, it could not take all afternoon.

He looked at the small, whitewashed houses: some set back behind kitchen-gardens, others shoulder-to-shoulder at the roadside. He wondered where to start. Since they were equally improbable places to find a Modigliani, he chose the nearest and walked to the door.

There was no knocker, so he banged on the brown paintwork with his knuckles and waited.

The woman who came to the door had a baby in one arm, its small fist clenched in her unwashed brown hair. Her eyes were set close together about a high, narrow nose, giving her a shifty look.

Julian said: ″I am an art dealer from England, looking for old paintings. Have you any pictures I could look at, please?″

She stared at him silently for a long minute, a look of disbelief and wariness on her face. Then she shook her head silently and closed the door.

Julian turned away dispirited. He wanted very badly to give up the door-to-door stratagem—it made him feel like a salesman. The next house confronted him forbiddingly. Small windows on either side of a narrow door reminded him of the face of the woman with the child.

He willed his legs to carry him forward. This door had a knocker: an ornate one, in the shape of a lion′s head. The paintwork was new and the windows clean.

A man came, in shirtsleeves and an open waistcoat, smoking a pipe with a badly chewed stem. He was about fifty. Julian repeated his question.

The man frowned; then his face cleared as he penetrated Julian′s bad Italian. ″Come in,″ he smiled. Inside, the house was dean and prettily furnished: the floors were scrubbed and the paintwork gleamed. The man sat Julian down.

″You want to see some pictures?″ The man spoke slowly and a little too loudly, as if talking to someone who was deaf and senile. Julian assumed his accent was the cause of this. He nodded dumbly.

The man raised a finger in a gesture meaning ″Wait″ and left the room. He came back a moment later with a pile of framed photographs, brown with age and obscured by dust.

Julian shook his head. ″I mean paintings,″ he said, miming the act of brushing paint onto canvas.

Puzzlement and a trace of exasperation crossed the man′s face, and he fingered his mustache. He lifted a small, cheap print of Christ from a nail on the wail and offered it.

Julian took it, pretended to examine it, shook his head, and handed it back. ʺAny more?″

ʺNo.ʺ

Julian stood up. He tried to put gratitude into his smile. ″I am sorry,″ he said. ″You have been kind.″

The man shrugged, and opened the door.

Julian′s reluctance to go on was even greater now. Disconsolate and indecisive, he stood in the street and felt the hot sun on his neck. He would have to take care not to get burned, he thought inconsequentially.

He considered going for a drink. The bar was a few dozen yards down the road, by the blue Mercedes. But a drink would not progress matters.

A girl came out of the bar and opened the car door. Julian looked at her. Was she a bitch like Sarah? Any girl rich enough to own one of those had a right to be a bitch. She tossed her hair over one shoulder as she climbed in. The spoiled daughter of a wealthy man, Julian thought.

A man came out of the bar and got into the other side of the car, and the girl said something to him. Her voice carried up the street.

Suddenly Julian′s mind clicked into gear.

He had assumed that the girl was going to drive, but now that he looked more carefully he could see that the steering wheel was on the right-hand side of the car.

The girl′s words to the man had sounded like English.

The car had British registration plates.

The Mercedes came to life with a throaty chuckle. Julian turned on his heel and walked briskly to where his Fiat was parked. The other car passed him as he keyed the ignition, and he did a three-point turn.

A wealthy English girl in a British car in Poglio: it had to be the girl who sent the postcard.

Julian could not take the chance that it was not.

He raced after the Mercedes, letting the tiny engine of the Fiat scream in low gear. The blue car took a right turn, following the west road out of the village. Julian took the same turning.

The driver of the Mercedes went fast, handling the powerful car with skill. Julian soon lost the flashing brakelights in the bends of the lane. He squeezed the last ounce of speed from his car.

When he shot past the Mercedes he almost missed it. He braked to a halt at a crossroads and reversed.

The other car had pulled in off the road. The building it was outside looked at first like a farmhouse, until Julian saw the beer advertisement in the window.

The young couple had got out and were entering the door to the bar. Julian drove the Fiat in next to their car.

On the other side of the Mercedes was a third car: another Fiat, only this was a big, prestige model, painted a hideous metallic green. Julian wondered who it could belong to.

He got out of his car and followed the others into the bar.