Winter Journey

Negotiation

hat's when he knew he was getting old, when he noticed the fine lines that had begun to chisel the passage of time into Yves Saulnier's face, giving it a vague air of fatigue. They sat down around the table in silence, the lawyers for the other side dressed impeccably in gray, as expectant as Monsignor Walzer, looking from him to Mr. Saulnier, probably amazed. The Vatican lawyer, Lambertini, who was wearing not gray but even more proper black and had been the first to take a seat, was the only one who wasn't looking nervously around. He closed his eyes as if getting ready to pray. Or to take a nap.

"It is my duty," Yves Saulnier said in a hard voice, "to protest in the strongest possible terms what can only be considered a slander on the part of the Church."

Monsignor Gaus looked straight at Saulnier and paused a long time before responding, as if he too had fallen asleep, like his lawyer.

"You may not know," he said when he woke up, "but it is not slanderous. It's an accusation based on evidence."

"We're prepared to take this to court," said the Vatican lawyer, emerging from sleep, "as far as we have to go." And he returned to his Nirvana-like state.

"Where is this evidence?"

"If Mr. Pierre Grossman doesn't want to settle, the evidence will go to court."

Saulnier leapt from his seat, indignant.

"You're bluffing!"

Monsignor Gaus stood up, imitating the other's outburst.

"Fine, we'll take it to court." Coldly, "Gentlemen…"

"1'm not authorized to…" On his feet, Saulnier wanted more time. "1 need proof that you're not lying to me."

Monsignor Gaus thought for a few seconds. He picked up a piece of paper and wrote a few words on it with his fountain pen. He blew lightly on the paper, folded it and handed it to the person next to him. The paper went from hand to hand, carefully folded, until it got to Saulnier. He sat down, unfolded the paper, read it and looked down the table, perplexed. Monsignor Gaus was amused by his expression. He answered the question that Saulnier hadn't yet asked.

"Monsieur Piere Grossman will understand it."

"1 should…," said Saulnier, looking from side to side.

Monsignor Gaus lifted his anointed hands in a very liturgical gesture that meant, Go right ahead, feel free. He pressed a button and immediately an attendant came in to usher Saulnier and his two lawyers through a side door that led to a discreet office. The two monsignors and the laconic lawyer were silent, motionless, prepared to wait. All of a sudden, Monsignor Gaus pointed to the telephone.

"1 want to hear the conversation with Grossman."

They're not that stupid," answered Monsignor Walzer. "They'll use their cell phones."

"Maybe not." Authoritarian: "Let's see."

Monsignor Walzer got up somewhat unwillingly and went to the telephone. He pressed a button and said in a low, cautious voice, "See if you can connect me with the outside office. Just to listen."

In a few seconds he hung up and turned to his superior without trying to hide his satisfaction.

"They're not using the Vatican phones."

"Grossman won't agree to anything by phone," said Lambertini, opening his eyes and looking at one of the empty chairs. "He'll only say yes or no.

"He'll say yes," said Monsignor Gaus.

Walzer couldn't keep from saying, "What did you write on that paper?"

Monsignor smiled and acted as if he hadn't noticed his subordinate's impertinence. To get out of an uncomfortable situation, Walzer went on the attack.

"It seems that you'd rather negotiate with criminals than turn them in."

"It seems that it's not a good idea to have enemies."

Neither of them saw the lawyer, who seemed to be in a world of his own, assent with an imperceptible nod of his head.

"Negotiating with thieves is stealing," insisted Walzer.

"Monsignor Walzer…" Now Gaus looked him in the eye as coldly as he could. "Enough of that tone, we're not children."

The impassive lawyer made a minimal gesture that meant he'd liked the response. Walzer, in contrast, was motionless, his mouth open in surprise. He continued in the same tone.

"If you've found some weak spot, whatever it is, now is the time to destroy them. As you did with Umberto de Luca."

"Umberto wasn't an enemy."

"But you ruined him."

"To avoid a major scandal."

Lambertini had nodded off again. Monsignor Walzer raised a finger in vindication.

"Fine, l agree. But these people are enemies."

"If you crowd your prey, you'll get hurt when they try to run."

"How can you let criminals go free?" And as if he couldn't think of a better argument: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God…"

"Monsignor," Monsignor Gaus cut him off, curt, harsh, fed up, "if you want to learn how to negotiate when there are millions at stake, keep your mouth shut and your morality up your ass."

Bright red, Monsignor Walzer opened his briefcase and started to rummage around in it as if searching for his lost principles.

After six minutes of leaden silence, the three negotiators came back into the room. Saulnier, struggling to seem relaxed, sat down and said, "All right. Monsieur Grossman agrees to negotiate."

"So now you call yourself Yves Saulnier."

"And you, Monsignor."

"Don't forget that I'm a bishop."

"I don't control this thing. 1 swear by your holy balls that I'm not in charge here."

"1'm sorry, but I have to do my duty."

"I would have killed you"

"What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into, Monsieur Saulnier?"

They stopped talking because the waiter was taking away their plates after having looked first at one of them and then at the other.

"What do zero, one, two and three mean?"

"If you think I'm going to explain that to you now, you're crazy."

"How do you expect me to… 1 heve no power to negotiate if 1 don't know the reason why Grossman…"

"The only thing you have to negotiate with me is how you're going to give the stolen paintings back to the Church."

Saulnier smiled at the waiter who was serving hake and potatoes, which looked excellent. When he'd gone away, Saulnier leaned over his plate and said quietly, "If I'm the one to blame for coming out on the losing end of these conversations, 1 could be killed."

Silence. The hake was getting cold. Hake with spring garlic and perfect tiny potatoes that smelled delicious. Now they didn't look at one another. A lot of time's gone by, there's a lot of distance between us, and you're in a business where you have to risk your neck.

Yves Saulnier gestured to the monsignor to begin. He set a good example by starting to eat, as if he hadn't just said, 1 could be killed. But the monsignor had lost his appetite. He put down his silverware and looked at the other man.

"You're going to lose. But I'm sure you'll land on your feet."

"What does zero, one, two, three mean?"

"1 can't tell you."

"That's shit. You can tell me everything."

"We're playing on opposite teams. How is it that of the twentysix paintings in the traveling show, the thieves took only the three that the Church had in storage in Oslo?"

"That's obvious. They were far and away the most valuable."

The monsignor took a bite of fish and chewed it unenthusiastically.

"Would they really kill you?"

"We can help each other. What does zero, one, two, three mean?"

"You want Grossman by the balls, don't you?"

Saulnier smiled, his fork in the air. He went back to eating. Monsignor Gaus made sure there was no waiter hanging around and took an envelope out of the pocket of his jacket. He put it in front of Saulnier, who wiped his lips with his napkin, put it on the table, and extended his fingers towards the envelope. He opened it and took out some photos. Four photos. When he realized what they showed, he quickly put them back in the envelope so that no wandering eye could see what it shouldn't see. it seemed to Monsignor Gaus that Saulnier had turned a little pale. Saulnier put the envelope in his pocket. He let a few seconds go by. Obviously, he was impressed by what he'd seen. A thousand centuries later, tapping his pocket, he said, "How do you know? How do you know that's him?"

Surprisingly, the negotiations were finalized in the offices of the Musei e Gallerie more rapidly than anyone expected. The celebration was in the Santa Clara salon. Cardinal Grimaldi, of the Pia Instituzione, radiated happiness as he made small talk, killing time, with the two notaries; the one hired by the Nasjonalgalleriet of Oslo and agreed to by the Vatican and the chief notary of Vatican City. When he saw Monsignor Gaus come in, impassive, escorted by a mute Walzer and a silent Lambertini, the cardinal went to embrace him. 1 haven't been this happy in eighteen years, he said. Gaus calculated that it must have been eighteen years ago when the Holy Father had told him he was making him a prince of the Church. Cardinal Grimaldi offered conventional congratulations to the other members of the team and they all fell silent. The ceremony had to be brief because the pianist who'd been hired to play some Chopin and things like that had tragically and unilaterally annuled the contract, despite having collected a five percent advance. The act itself was over in no time, because it consisted of nothing more than the Norwegian notary and the chief notary certifying that three works had been returned to their legal owners: Pintoricchio's The Coronation of the Virgin, Caravaggio's The Descent from the Cross and Rembrandt's The Philosopher, the most emblematic of the three because of its incalculable value if it were ever to reach the illegal market. A week earlier, the Vatican's experts had certified both their authenticity and their perfect condition.

"Monsignor," His Eminence confessed, "if it weren't for the fact that we have no interest in material gain, 1'd be tempted to see to it that you were well rewarded for your intervention on behalf of the coffers of the Vatican."

Monsignor Gaus bowed his head, humbly. It was inappropriate to speak of compensation. But he discreetly suggested to the cardinal that he might think of granting a promotion to his lay colleague, Lambertini, or adding a bonus to his fee.

He'd never been in the presence of Pierre Grossman. He'd never even seen a picture of him. Pierre Grossman was discretion personified. One of the richest men in Europe, he lived in a kind of voluntary exile, dedicated to the preservation of his fortune and the supervision of the many businesses that made it possible, and to paying the losses occasioned by his wife's passion, a management agency that she managed very badly.

He hadn't imagined him like this. Grossman was wearing a jacket of a strange reddish color, which didn't look bad on him. He wore his white hair very short and the skin of his face wasn't tanned by the sun or the snow, but unevenly pale. It was impossible to tell how old he was.

They were in a suite in a Geneva hotel that had been decorated in a hurry. Unaccompanied, one on either side of the table, they sat at the same time. The monsignor wanted to spend as little time as possible across from that man whose eyes he found it hard to meet, because they bored into him like diamond drills. So, he got down to business and took out the envelope. Grossman took it and removed the photos, without bothering to hide them. He looked at them one by one, impassive, without showing any emotion.

"The negatives?"

"They're in the envelope. But these days that doesn't mean anything."

"So what do you suggest?"

"I'll consider the whole matter of the photos to be a secret of the confessional."

"1 don't give a damn about your secret of the confessional, Monsignor."

"1'm a priest. You must know what the term implies."

"1 blow your secrets of the confessional," now he was looking him patiently in the eye, "out my ass. Can I say it any plainer than that?"

"Then you can just go ahead and kill me now."

"How many people know?"

"The detective 1 hired and 1 myself."

"Who's the detective?"

"He's dead."

"How do 1 know he's really dead?"

"There's proof. A gas explosion in the hotel where he was staying." He passed him a sheet of paper. "Here's the information."

Pierre Grossman took the paper, looked over it calmly, folded it and put it in his pocket.

"Nobody else?" he said.

"Nobody else."

They didn't shake hands or say goodbye. They simply parted forever. Geneva was freezing and the monsignor, who had no desire to play tourist, went back to the Vatican immediately. In any case, he had a good reason for not staying away from home too long.

The entire room was dominated by dark ochres and a wonderful light, on the right, which was a splash of sun against the window. How 1 would have liked to be that peaceful man who spends his days reading, studying, wondering and thinking, now about God, now about the big questions, the Gran lnterrogatori, who am 1, where did 1 come from, where am 1 going. And after a frugal repast, to return to the books and learn the wisdom hidden there and be a small lantern, small but a lantern, to light the way of the Church. How 1 would like that. Instead I've been called to watch over the Church's material goods, l can rarely have a frugal meal, l can never while away the time with a good, fat book in my hands, and I'm not happy. My God, how 1 would like to be that philosopher.

Because Monsignor Gaus couldn't be that, he had to be content with having the painting hanging on the wall of his private gallery. For the first month, the monsignor spent a good hour every day sitting there, in front of the Rembrandt, looking at all of its details, trying to breathe in the the odor of some brush stroke snuffed out by the passage of time. Next to the Rembrandt, on the same panel of the wall, hung Leonardo's unfinished Saint Jerome. And in the same room, but on the opposite wall, Modest Urgell's The Cemetery, a huge, melancholy, perfect work, which he hadn't tired of loving since it disappeared for a few months from the Museu Dali fifteen years ago. In the other room, the king of the paintings was Fra Filippo Lippi's The Coronation of the Virgin, a charmer with colors that were somewhat dark but extraordinarily warm. He breathed in, full, satisfied, almost happy, for on his walls rested some of his great and eternal loves. He couldn't maintain this pleasurable state for long, because the bell rang three times-which called up a vague and distant memory.

Yves Saulnier went into the book-filled library room and waited patiently for the monsignor to return with a tray of coffee so steamily aromatic that it was entrancing. After the first sip, he took the envelope out of his pocket and put it on the coffee table.

"This is yours," he said.

Monsignor Gaus picked it up and checked the contents. The first photo, the most horrifying, showed a baby in a crib with its face destroyed from a bullet shot at close range. A little puff of skyblue smoke was the sole, useless witness to that horrible crime. The monsignor forced himself to look at all of them, despite their rawness. Two more photos of the child and then one presumably of the mother, sitting on a sofa with her head thrown back and her mouth destroyed, also by a bullet. The mother in a housecoat. In her lap, a pretty and hopeful bouquet of flowers that she was holding in her clenched, dead hands. And two or three other photos showing details of that horrifying double murder carried out in a room in a maternity clinic.

"Everything's there."

"Watch out for Grossman. He doesn't know you know. He doesn't know you've seen this."

"That's best. Just in case." Saulnier took a sip of coffee, made a discreet gesture to ask for permission to light a cigarette, and leaned back on the sofa.

"How is it," he asked, "that I work for Pierre Grossman and 1 had no idea about this aspect of your… activities, but you…?"

"I've always been more clever than you."

The monsignor put the photos back in the envelope and gave it to Saulnier.

"What do you mean?" Surprised. "1 can keep them?"

"They can help you or hurt you. It depends on how you use them." He leaned towards him as if about to tell a great secret. "He who is the first to know where the river is can become the owner of the water." He smiled. "An old Hebrew saying."

Saulnier emptied the cup. It was really good. He put the little cup on the table, delicately, while he thought about rivers of water and rivers of blood. He looked the monsignor in the eye.

"What does zero, one, two, three mean?"

Monsignor Gaus, prelate of the Vatican Curia, patiently explained to Saulnier that murder for hire was an extraordinarily lucrative business, that the various agents who had to carry out the assignment without leaving a trace were known by the names Zero, One and Two, that the whole thing was very sordid and he wanted nothing to do with the places where such things were arranged. Saulnier had no sympathy for these protestations.

"You have to show me your gallery."

It was part of the agreement. Monsignor Gaus took him through the secret door and spent more than an hour showing him the paintings that only his most trusted confidants could look at. They took Saulnier's breath away.

"Won't this ever be discovered?"

"Never. As long as I'm here, 1 control what goes on. And when I'm not, they can come looking for me."

Saulnier stopped next to The Philosopher and looked at the monsignor.

"Have you ever asked yourself which of us is the original and which is the copy?"

"Mother used to say that you were older because the twin that's born first was conceived last." Monsignor smiled at the memory, and continued, "But I'm convinced that you've always been a bad copy of me."

The two negotiators embraced surrounded by all the beauty on those walls. Yves Saulnier left, carrying the photos as a passport, without turning around, knowing that it might be twenty years before they saw each other again. Monsignor Gaus, however, indulged in the weakness of watching him until he went out the door of the apartment. He finished his coffee in silence.

"If I'm not mistaken, Monsignor, the fourteen paintings in this magnificent room are all originals."

Pale at the door to his gallery, the monsignor looked at the lawyer, Lambertini, dressed in black and seated in the comfortable armchair which he usually used for looking at The Philosopher, and the same detective with a cigarette in his mouth who'd helped him two years ago and who, quite obviously, had not been blown to smithereens in any hotel anywhere. How the fucking hell had they gotten into his gallery? How the fucking hell did they know it existed?

Lambertini, seated and looking down, was sleeping, as usual. From the depths of his sleep he said, if it hadn't been for the invaluable help of… — he made a polite gesture in the direction of the detective-1 would never have noticed that you're the one in charge of working out the details, with no witnesses, and the result is an original for you and an excellent fake for the place to which it was to be returned.

"All of this," the monsignor pointed to his collection with a trembling hand, "they're all copies."

"That's shit, Monsignor," said Lambertini without raising his voice. He waved his hand in the direction of the paintings. "They exist only so you can look at them?" And as if he could barely suppress his irritation, "It took me months of work to figure out that what's in the Gallerie are fakes."

"Would you mind leaving us alone?" said Monsignor to the Judas detective. And, ironically, "I suppose you know by now where 1 keep the coffee."

Lambertini nodded his head slightly towards the detective, who left the room.

Once they were alone, the monsignor sat down in the other armchair.

"I'd like to make it worth your while," he said, testing the ground.

"No. I'll turn you in if you don't kill me first."

"I'm not a murderer. What do you want? The Caravaggio?" With a pain in his heart that almost took his breath away, he continued, "Do you want the Leonardo?"

"The fakes are magnificent. How is it that the experts in the Vatican haven't…" He stopped. His eyes widened in admiration. "Of course. It's them, they make the fakes."

"This is just talk. You can't prove anything."

"1 want the Rembrandt."

"What?"

Silence. It had been said. Now it was his move. He moved his king.

"No."

Lambertini moved the black queen to check. "Fine. We'll accuse you of robbery and forgery in the Italian and the Vatican courts." And with the knight and the castle in place, "The press will eat it up, Monsignor."

Monsignor took the bishop on the black square in his unsteady hand and put it in front of the king, to protect it from the faithless black queen.

"You can't do this to me, Lambertini."

He hadn't noticed where the black knight and the black castle were.

"As you wish." The lawyer stood and looked greedily at the paintings. "I'll go to court." Nodding towards the interior of the apartment, "My associate is staying here to make sure you don't do anything stupid."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"Animam pro anima, oculum pro oculo, dentem pro dente," recited Lambertini in a deep voice.

"1 don't understand."

Lambertini put a finger to his mouth and lifted his cheek to show his teeth. He pointed to a space between his molars. The only thing that occurred to the monsignor was that Lambertini, his customary good manners abandoned, was making crude gestures, and this meant things were serious.

"1 still don't understand."

"In Montescaglioso we say that showing an enemy the space between your teeth indicates utter contempt."

"Why? What have 1 done to you?" The monsignor didn't know which piece to move.

"You had Umberto de Luca fired."

"Yes. For immorality. And why do you care about…"

"A public scandal," went on Lambertini, serious, "cruel speculation about male lovers… Umberto de Luca is ruined and contemplates suicide." The lawyer again showed the space next to his molar. "You don't know how much I hate you, Monsignor."

Monsignor Gaus got to his feet. He offered a castle.

"We can negotiate."

Lambertini made an effort to get back into the conversation, and resumed his usual cold manner of speaking.

"My negotiation is that 1 want the Rembrandt."

"You wouldn't know how to appreciate it."

"Don't jump to conclusions." With a polite smile, "I've learned a lot from you."

"You…"

"Look, Monsignor, even if 1 didn't feel like looking at the painting… knowing how much it's worth on the black market makes it even more remarkable to Umberto and me."

Monsignor moved closer to the painting, intent on resisting the assault of the black queen, the knight, the castle and now the other castle.

"Checkmate," Lambertini said softly. He signalled that the monsignor should stand aside. "I only want the Rembrandt, Monsignor." He made a slight bow. "If you crowd your prey, you'll get hurt when they try to run."

"1'm not planning to run."

"It's a saying. 1 hope that, starting tomorrow, we can continue to work together regularly with no hard feelings."

The armchair was where Lambertini had left it. The monsignor sat in it, forlorn. After a while he raised his head: the empty space on the wall was worse than a blow to the face. The Philosopher hadn't yet had time to leave a shadow on the paint. But the monsignor understood the profound sorrow that the contemplation of a nonpainting could produce. He wasn't willing to accept that absence in his life. Desolate, he touched the orphaned wall. He went to the kitchen, made another aromatic coffee, the sixth, and, while he was drinking it, took out his private diary and placed a call. He waited patiently for someone to answer. After a long time, a professionalsounding voice picked up.

"1 want to speak with Monsieur Grossman," the monsignor said.