Days Like Today

by Rachel Ingalls

  *

  One of Julia’s friends, a girl named Nina, telephoned Stratis. She wasn’t a very good friend. Sometimes he wondered if Julia knew what Nina was like; at others he suspected that she had actually told Nina to look after him in order to keep him a way from her – as if giving him another woman would erase her from his mind.

  He’d already found two girls for himself. Sex wasn’t the problem. They were both fun but they weren’t Julia. It wasn’t love. Nina wasn’t love, either. And she wasn’t even fun.

  ‘Want to see a movie?’ she asked.

  ‘On a spring day, when the sun’s shining?’

  ‘I thought you said any time was good for seeing a good movie.’

  ‘I’d rather try a museum. Or just go for a walk.’

  ‘I know what: there’s an exhibition of icons … where was it?’

  ‘Oh, right. There was something about it in the papers. You really want to see that stuff?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You can translate.’

  ‘Don’t bank on it. I can barely transliterate.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The alphabet. They have different letters. What are you majoring in?’

  ‘Soc. Rel.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Social Relations, he thought. Was he going to be cultural research as well as the object of her desires? That could be another kind of slumming: From Greece to the USA: A Case Study of Four Generations. He didn’t think Nina was smart enough for anything like that.

  He took a taxi to the gallery. She was waiting at the door and she handed him one of the free leaflets. He started to skim the text on the way in but as soon as they got through the doors, the light fell away and sounds were hushed. If anyone spoke, it was in a whisper. The place felt like a church or even a tomb. It wasn’t just the presence of the icons, nor the half-darkened surroundings, that produced the atmosphere of awe. Something in the attitude of the onlookers contributed to the impression of sanctity. The dimness was merely a practical necessity, as the paintings could be damaged by strong light.

  The show turned out to be huge. The most beautiful icons, and apparently the most unusual, were from Crete. Stratis knew nothing about the historical side of the painting – the monasteries, the tradition of the workshops, the composition of the materials used – but he could tell that the artistry itself was of a higher caliber than in other icons he’d seen. The excellence of the workmanship drew him to the characters portrayed and to the stories as well as the look of the people. He suddenly understood the strangeness and glory of sainthood as a naturally occurring complexity of spirit and emotion, unchangingly present in a world where religion was imposed from without. He’d always thought of the saints’ legends the way his grandfather described them: the product of ignorance and poverty. ‘Once people have running water and central heating, comfort and plenty,’ his grandfather used to tell him, ‘their belief changes. Religion may still mean something to them, but it’s no longer personal. That’s what all that belief is for – to compensate for the things you don’t have in this world.’

  Nina asked about a couple of words written at the top of a painting. After he’d spelled out the names of the saints for her, she reciprocated by making some remarks about the icons and the era from which each of them came. There was a typed information card on the wall at the side of every exhibit but Stratis paid no attention to them. Nina started a system: she’d take a brief look at the work itself and then go to the card and read aloud in a low voice while he continued to concentrate on the painting. Almost immediately she’d join him and whisper a comment. Gradually he began to ask questions and her answers became longer, as did his questions.

  Why did they make everything in those weird shapes, he wanted to know; what was the purpose of arranging the city buildings in the background to look like a bouquet of flowers? And the rocks or mountain crags, or whatever they were: why did they look like pieces of planking? And that orange color? And the black leaves over there?

  She talked about the light and what it meant and which part of the icon it came from. She told him that certain colors were traditional and that, in addition, some pigments faded or became unstable. And as for the shape of things, the general design: she said, ‘These paintings aren’t realistic. But they aren’t supposed to be. They had the technique to paint realistically, so this is what they wanted. They liked it this way. It’s a style. It’s meant to be beautiful and inspirational, not photographic. There are times when artists and their patrons begin to distrust work that’s highly accomplished in a kind of slick way, so that it seems to be lacking in feeling. Then the fashion changes to portraits that are more sort of blunt. And that can change too, until it develops into a style where, let’s say, the use of color is subtle but the line is deliberately … if you look over here: the general effect is polished, but the perspective – have you ever seen any Persian miniatures?’

  ‘As far as all this painting goes, I’m a hick. You know, I like movies.’

  ‘Everybody likes movies.’

  ‘But this is interesting. You really care about this kind of thing, don’t you?’

  She cared because she didn’t have the rest. She wasn’t good-looking, not even faintly pretty, and she loved handsome men.

  She said, ‘Most of that stuff is from a course I took last summer. I just thought it would be great to go to Europe with a group of other students, but we were studying for three weeks before we even got on the plane and I guess a lot of it stuck.’

  He could imagine it: everybody else would be going out at night and getting laid, while Nina was rereading her books. He said, ‘It never grabbed me before. I think I’ll get the catalogue.’ He’d buy the catalogue for the pictures and because some of the relatives might want to see it. He probably wouldn’t open it more than once himself.

  They moved to other rooms. After the Cretan paintings, the rest were disappointing. Stratis was still interested but he’d begun to feel that he’d seen a lot of icons for one day.

  Nina pointed to a far wall, saying, ‘That must be where the missing ones were supposed to be.’ A row of three spaces led to the corner; one was blank, the next had a photograph pinned at the center of it and the last displayed a piece of paper.

  She approached the empty space. It would have held a famous, miracle-working painting if the people of its island had been willing to let it go. They hadn’t even sanctioned a reproduction.

  The black and white snapshot to its right was of an icon out of a private collection; the object was too fragile to be transported. The photograph showed many places of wear and a missing edge.

  ‘It’s still good,’ she said.

  ‘Too bad it isn’t in color.’

  ‘Color never reproduces right. Sometimes it’s better to have black and white. But probably the reason is that the owner doesn’t want anybody trying to copy it. Art forgery is a big industry.’

  He walked ahead and stood in front of the piece of paper. Now that they were closer, it was obvious that it was a photostat of a lightly penciled sketch. Stratis looked, while Nina read the information card.

  ‘This is the stolen one,’ she whispered. ‘It was taken from its island and ever since then the place has had bad luck – the harvests fail, the children die, there are outbreaks of disease, the water goes bad and all they pray for is that the Madonna will come back to them.’ She moved closer, peering at the sketch. ‘Well, we didn’t miss much there,’ she decided. ‘It must have been one of those purely religious objects. But it’s sad that they’ve lost everything. They should stop hoping to get it back. They should paint a new one and start again.’

  The Madonna of New Beginnings, Stratis thought: holding a microwave and a concrete mixer. Or was she talking about his continued longing for Julia?

  ‘If there’s only one,’ he told her, ‘you can’t replace it.’

  ‘You actually like this thing?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t very good, but the eyes are nice.’


  Nina stiffened to attention, like a jealous woman who hears another woman’s looks praised by the man she loves. She pushed her head forward to examine the picture. Stratis stepped back. He’d already seen more than enough to know that inch for inch, and line for line, the sketch was copied from his grandfather’s icon.

  *

  Nina wanted to go on somewhere for a cup of coffee or a meal or maybe a film. As they walked to the subway entrance, she made sure of his interest by saying that she’d seen Julia recently, with the new boyfriend. ‘I don’t think he’s anything to worry about,’ she told him. ‘That won’t last.’

  How long did it last with me? he thought. And was there still a chance that she’d come back? If the situation had been reversed, he wouldn’t have gone back. He’d never return to someone he’d left. Apparently, other people did. He’d finally accepted the fact that she’d gone, but he still couldn’t believe that she preferred the total loser she was going out with now.

  Nina said, ‘I think it’s her way of getting to know people. A way of being democratic. She had this very sheltered upbringing and she wants to know about the world. For a man, that’s easy. But for some women – the only way you ever get to know a cross-section of society is to sleep around.’

  He shouldn’t listen. She wanted him herself; she’d speak against Julia in order to put herself in a better light. And maybe she’d already been telling him lies. He was so eager to hear any news, even to hear Julia’s name spoken, that he’d accept all information, true or made up. He’d never understood stories in the papers about men who set out to pursue women after being rejected, and who would then kidnap them or shoot them. Now he understood completely.

  ‘I have an aunt,’ he said, ‘who tells me that sometimes “young people”, as she puts it, use their sexuality to go slumming: to see how the other half loves.’

  ‘Slumming? I don’t see the connection.’

  ‘You attach yourself to the person without really having to enter the life, but that’s the way you find out about it.’

  ‘I still don’t see it,’ Nina said. ‘Slumming?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you were saying? Anyway, it’s just a theory. She has a lot of them.’

  *

  Later that day he began to feel unsure about the similarity of his grandfather’s icon to the sketch in the show. He went into the old man’s study – a thing no one else would dream of doing, and which he’d never done without permission except for that once in his childhood. His heart began to beat loudly and heavily, all the way up to his throat, as he pulled aside the curtain and looked at the painting. But, while he studied it, he forgot what the sketch had been like.

  The next day he went back to the gallery. Standing in front of the sketch again, he felt the same, odd sense of recognition. But now he had to laugh at the thought that – unless he could see the two together – he was never going to be able to tell for sure how closely his grandfather’s icon resembled the picture on the paper.

  Going out of the ground-level forecourt, he noticed a man sitting on the stairs to the building’s side door. The man looked like a beggar: he was old and emaciated and he wore a frayed suit, a stained shirt and a battered, antiquated hat; Stratis thought at first that he had stopped to rest before attempting the main staircase in the warm, sunny weather.

  As he came closer, he saw that the man had propped a shabby briefcase against the steps and a little sign that said, LOST, underneath which was pasted a copy of the museum sketch: the one of the stolen icon.

  When he got right up to the man, he was able to read what had been printed below the sketch: Please help to relieve the suffering of our people until the Virgin returns to the island. Next to the briefcase was a stack of photocopies of the picture.

  ‘How much?’ Stratis asked.

  The old man held up a finger, his grave demeanor making the motion seem like a warning. Stratis gave him a dollar and took one of the copies. Then, on impulse, he added a five-dollar bill.

  He moved on, deciding that it was such a good day to be outdoors – despite the traffic and the crowds – that he’d walk back to his grandfather’s house.

  The picture-seller or beggar, or whatever he was, must have been close behind him, following an impulse of his own; or perhaps he’d read beyond the young man’s gesture of sympathy to a deeper interest that could be tapped. At any rate, the next morning, there he was on the front steps of the house.

  Stratis spoke to him and was answered in a Greek that was difficult to understand. Greek changed to halting, broken English that described the painting and installation of the icon in the sixteenth century, and the events leading up to its theft. That part of the speech must have been memorized as, immediately afterwards, the man reverted to his own language: he held up one of his photocopies and he kept touching the face of the Madonna as he talked. Stratis nodded. He handed over some more money but, as the words became more emotional and at the same time entirely unintelligible, he imitated one of his grandfather’s gestures – the one that meant ‘No more’ – and walked away down the street.

  On his return early that afternoon the man was still there, wanting to talk. Stratis turned his face away.

  He knocked on the study door as soon as his grandfather had finished his afternoon nap. He took the catalogue with him, and the piece of paper, which he opened up so that the sketch showed. He tapped his finger on a corner of it.

  ‘That old man outside says it was stolen.’

  ‘They aren’t the same,’ his grandfather told him. ‘Even if they look alike, they aren’t. Maybe mine was stolen once upon a time, but it isn’t stolen now. It belongs to me. I bought it in good faith.’

  ‘He says it was taken out of the church.’

  ‘It was probably sold by a priest or one of the monks. To get money for wine. They drink up all the wine and then they need more.’

  ‘It’s your island, isn’t it? And you’ve never been back.’

  ‘There’s nothing to go back for. It was always one of those places out of the Dark Ages and it’s even worse now. The people are like animals: they stare, they grunt; no thought ever enters their heads.’

  ‘That’s because they’re poor. That’s what poverty does to people.’

  ‘They aren’t poor. You don’t know what poverty is. Look at the poverty of the past and what all those people created in spite of it.’

  ‘Only a few did the creating. They were the ones with the money.’

  ‘No. They got the money because they deserved to have it. The others were all busy staring into the distance and grunting. It’s the same nowadays: they’ve got food and clothes and a roof over their heads and all the time in the world. So, what do they do with it? They go to those disco places. And when they’re not doing that, they’ve got the earphones on. You see their heads bobbing and their feet stamping. That isn’t music. What is that? It’s a constant rhythm over and over. No melody, no change. It’s a masturbation for the ears. That’s what they all need – some simple pattern that they can keep repeating. Then they’re happy. It’s like hypnotizing a chicken. And as if that isn’t enough, they take drugs.’

  ‘He says the picture was stolen out of the church by a choirboy.’

  ‘I bought that icon in Athens, in good faith. I don’t have the receipt because I lost it in the war. You think I was worrying about a piece of paper when we lost houses and people? And countries?’

  ‘You were right here in town during the war.’

  ‘The first war. I fought in the first war on the Albanian frontier. And after that we had the influenza: the Asian flu. We thought it came from the east but they’re saying now that it was like the Spanish flu. You could go down the streets in Athens and they were deserted. Everybody had it. The only reason I escaped was that I’d had malaria in the army. If you’d had malaria, you didn’t catch it.’

  ‘Grandfather, this man says that they’ve prayed for over seventy years to get their picture back. The luck of the isla
nd depends on it.’

  ‘Oh, really? Was that island so lucky in the days when they had it? Don’t forget what my name means.’

  ‘“The one who walks straight.”’

  ‘And your name too. That means you should have your head screwed on right, not that you should listen to lies and fables. I remember that church, all falling down, all rotting. And the priests in their long hair, like a bunch of dirty old women with beards. They could tell anybody what to do, because God told them, you know. I think it’s a good thing that somebody took that painting away. It’s another story like the Elgin marbles; what would they be now if the British hadn’t put them in the museum? The Turks used the Acropolis as a powder magazine: they could all have blown up. And that painting – that icon would be just shreds by now. But anyway, it isn’t the same one. I remember what it looked like and it isn’t the same.’

  ‘It looks exactly like the sketch. Here, I’ll show you.’

  ‘No. All those things were done to a standard. They kept on with the same face and pose for centuries. The experts say they can tell one from the other, if you want to believe them. But I don’t think so.’

  ‘You could have an expert look at yours.’

  ‘What for? I know what it is. Even if it’s a copy, I like it. And it isn’t insured. Nobody knows that it’s here. Some professor of art walks into this house and by the end of the week everybody has a note in a book that says these paintings can be found at this address. How do things get stolen? Because stupid people insure them and any crook can get a job in one of those companies, where he can look up the list of what you’ve got that’s worth stealing.’

  ‘Everything else you’ve got is insured.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this, Stratis. It doesn’t concern you or anybody else. So don’t go telling everybody what’s in your grandfather’s house, OK? You hear what I’m telling you?’