The Last Mona Lisa

by Jonathan Santlofer

  “One of my favorite paintings,” she said, “by one of my favorite artists.”

  “Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes.”

  “Are you reading the label, or do you know it by sight?”

  “It’s a pretty famous painting,” I said, though it was the first time I’d seen it outside a textbook. “I do an entire class on Artemisia.”

  “Really? My art history teachers hardly mentioned her. Amazing, isn’t it, all the action, as if it could start moving, like a movie, and the look on the general’s face—you can practically hear him screaming!”

  “One of the few great women artists of the Renaissance,” I said.

  “That we know of,” Alexandra said.

  “It was her father who taught her to paint.”

  Alexandra turned to me then. “Are you giving him the credit—her father?”

  “It’s a fact, that’s all.”

  “Either she had the talent, or she didn’t!” Alexandra bit off the word. “She’s as good as any of the Renaissance men!”

  “No argument from me,” I said, hands up in defense.

  We stood there a moment, and I could sense her anger.

  “Sorry,” she said, but I could still feel it coming off her, heated and indignant; then she turned and faced another painting. “If I believed in God, this painting would make me question his existence.”

  It was Caravaggio’s The Sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham about to sacrifice his only son, hand pressing the boy’s head to a rock, knife raised, the boy’s face distorted with fear.

  “What kind of sadistic God asks a father to kill his only child?” she said. “What sort of father could do that?” She shook her head as if trying to dislodge the thought, and I felt it again, a kind of white-hot anger that was out of proportion to the art or the moment.

  “Hardly anyone paints as well as Caravaggio,” I said, trying to bring our conversation back to the painting, pointing out Caravaggio’s dynamic composition, the way he swept your eye across the canvas, the combination of beauty and ugliness as well as something new and old, what artists had been trying to achieve for centuries, which had me thinking of Vincent in Picasso’s studio.

  Alexandra took hold of my arm and urged me forward though I didn’t see the need to rush. We had plenty of time, and I said so.

  “I don’t want you blaming me if you don’t get your research done—whatever it is,” she said with a note of sarcasm, which I chose to ignore.

  The next gallery had walls painted deep crimson and was the first to be packed with tourists.

  “More Caravaggio. He always draws a crowd,” Alexandra said.

  We sidled through for a closer look at his portrait of Bacchus, everything about the picture sensuous, the boy in the painting both masculine and feminine.

  “Ahead of his time,” I said, adding the salient details of Caravaggio’s tortured life—his bisexuality, the brawl that disfigured his face, the murder charge that forced him to flee Naples, the fact that when he died at thirty-eight, there was a question as to whether it was a fever that killed him or if he’d been murdered.

  “Wow!” Alex said, “My art history professors always stuck to the facts. Your class sounds a lot more fun.”

  I suggested she take it when we got home, which had me worrying I might not be teaching at all by then. I was glad to be distracted by Caravaggio’s painting of Medusa, decapitated, mouth open in a startled scream, eyes wide with horror, blood streaming from the neck, a thoroughly terrifying painting.

  “It’s a self-portrait, you know.”

  “Is it?” Alexandra looked surprised. “Why would he paint himself as Medusa—and with his head chopped off?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it was his meditation on mortality.” I moved in for a better look, but light reflected off the plexiglass box. “I hate these damn boxes,” I said, thinking of Vincent building glass ones to protect the Louvre’s most valuable artworks.

  “It gives me chills,” Alexandra said. “Those snakes look so real, as if they’re actually writhing.”

  20

  He stares at the metallic sheen of snakeskin, the decapitated head, red blood spewing from the severed neck, the glint of light in Medusa’s dying eyes, everything about the painting so intense and real, his hand itching to touch it, and he might have if it were not inside a box—but he has been distracted for too long.

  Where are they?

  He scans the gallery, finally spots them at the other end, heading toward the exit, moves quickly though as if without purpose, keeping a few people in between for safety, follows them into the bookshop where they linger, checking out pads and pencils, picture puzzles and games, everything decorated with art from the museum. The American is considering a smartphone cover with a picture of that painting—the naked woman on the shell—which he shows to the blond, who gives him a look, eyebrow arched, then laughs.

  Why is it that seeing them having a good time gets under his skin, an idea taking shape in his mind like a photograph being developed, fuzzy, as yet without details, though he is filling it in, as graphic and bloody as the Medusa reproduction he has just spied. He considers buying it, but too late; the American and the blond are already heading out of the shop.

  21

  The exit led us into a kind of nondescript courtyard, not really a courtyard at all, a semi-open space with a few afterthought wooden chaises that felt as if they belonged in a city housing-project playground, a couple of kids lounging on them while their parents consulted guidebooks.

  “God, this is ugly,” I said. “Couldn’t someone have painted a wall or spray-painted graffiti so there’d be some sort of art here, some small segue from the Uffizi into real life?”

  Alexandra looked at me with an unreadable smile, then leaned in and kissed me hard on the mouth, the tip of her tongue teasing mine before she pulled away.

  I was pretty sure my face was registering surprise—and delight—but Alexandra looked guilty now, sucking her lower lip like a little girl. “I’m sorry…”

  “I’m not.”

  “I shouldn’t have done that… It was just all your talk about an entire class on Artemisia and having an art segue out here…” She shook her head. “Forget it.”

  Not likely, I thought but didn’t say, though I could feel the smile on my lips.

  “The library is open now,” she said. “You should go.”

  “Trying to get rid of me?”

  “No,” she said and softened.

  “Okay then, let’s go back to the library together.”

  “I can’t. I need to…take care of a few things…”

  “Hey, if it’s about the kiss—”

  “I don’t know what came over me. Can we pretend it didn’t happen?”

  “Maybe you can,” I said and smiled.

  “See you later,” she said, already heading down the ramp so fast I didn’t have time to ask when.

  22

  Alexandra hurried down the exit ramp. What was she thinking, kissing him like that?

  Clearly, she wasn’t thinking at all. Or was she?

  She put a finger to her lips as if she could still feel it, the kiss lingering.

  But it was ridiculous. Too much. Too fast. She should go back and say something. But what? That would only make it worse, make her look even more foolish and reckless, something she rarely was and could not afford to be now.

  She dared a look back when she was a couple of blocks away, not because she expected Luke to be following but because she had the feeling someone was. Silly, of course, and no way to tell. There were people everywhere—another tour group, Italians toting shopping bags, vendors selling maps and trinkets. She made her way quickly across the piazza and kept going until she was on a narrow side street that ended in a small square with an old chapel. On impulse, she went in�
��she was all impulse today.

  Inside, the church was whitewashed and austere, with a series of beautiful frescoes in arches. Alex stopped to read a plaque that identified the chapel as the Oratorio dei Buonomini di San Martino, the fifteenth-century frescoes as depicting good works performed by the voluntary order whose chapel this had been. The frescoes were high above her head, but she strained to see them. In one, nuns tended to a woman in bed, the colors soft, the nuns’ expressions kind, the patient’s face pale and sickly.

  Suddenly, she was crying, tears coming fast and hot. She told herself to get a grip, but she knew why she was crying and she could not stop.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and spun around so fast she almost lost her balance.

  “Scusi,” said an elderly nun all in white, face soft, expression kind, almost as if she had come to life from the painting. “Stai bene?”

  “Oh, yes…fine…” Alex stuttered. She managed to thank the woman, then headed out of the chapel fast. Perhaps, she thought, this was an omen that she too needed to perform good works. But she was, in a way, wasn’t she?

  23

  I opened the door to my hotel room and stopped, hit by an intense smell of tobacco, and saw the newspaper article I had propped on the mantel along with the mug shot of Peruggia, both lying on the floor. I didn’t move for a moment, taking in the small space. There weren’t many places to hide—the bathroom, under the bed? I checked both, then set the article back in place and wedged the photo deeper into the mirror’s frame. I made sure the window was closed, which it was, so it hadn’t been a breeze that sent those things to the floor.

  Had someone been in here? The maid?

  But the bed hadn’t been made, and a towel still draped over the tub where I had left it in the morning. I went back to the window, opened it, and peered into the alley, dark and quiet. No one but Spider-Man could scale this wall. Even as a teenager who had scrambled over walls and chain-link fences, I’d never have been able to climb something this steep. I closed the window and locked it, tried to shrug off the queasy feeling of invasion, told myself things fell down all the time.

  I finally relaxed enough to eat the slice of pizza I’d bought from a street vendor, washed it down with lukewarm Pellegrino, and thought about my three hours at the library. I got out the notes I’d made, fearing I would not remember as it had been hard to concentrate, Alexandra’s kiss loitering in my mind and on my lips, my mind doing somersaults: she likes me, she likes me not. But she must like me, she kissed me! Then why the sudden need to leave? Again. Regrets? Embarrassment? I didn’t know and had to stop thinking about her. I had not come to Florence looking for romance. In fact, I wanted a break from it. I thought about my last relationship, the ombudsman of my university, a supersmart redhead whom I’d met when I’d gone for advice about a difficult student. I came away with her phone number and six months of really great dinners, sex, overnights, and conversation. I ended it when she suggested we consider living together. Six months, then goodbye, my usual pattern.

  I looked back at my notes, forced myself to forget about Kathy the ombudsman, Amanda the food writer, Terri the poet—and Alexandra! I needed to concentrate.

  • Ticolat cuts Peruggia’s hours.

  • Simone’s cold gets worse and she is unable to work.

  • Funds getting low.

  • Peruggia meets Valfiero.

  I was trying to get a timeline that had led up to the theft, though how much actual time had passed between the events, I couldn’t be sure.

  I got up to wash the pizza grease from my fingers and caught a familiar glimpse of Kill Van Kull etched in inky blue just below the sleeve of my T-shirt, a memento from my former life, the Bayonne Bridge etched above it. At the time none of us had any idea of Kill Van Kull’s Dutch colonial roots, only that we liked the name because it sounded menacing and cool, like so many things do when you’re fifteen. I remembered the day my five Kill Van Kull brothers and I got inked, too high on booze and weed and feeling even cockier than usual, the watch-out-world attitude we displayed indelibly engraved on our arms.

  I made a muscle and watched the crisscross design of the bridge expand, something I had thought way cool back then, now glad I could hide it under long sleeves. The linked chain that circled the top of my other bicep was easier to conceal and did not require much explanation.

  I could hardly remember who I was back then, the school suspensions, joy rides with my buddies in stolen cars, all those drunken nights. Not that my posse was all bad. We hid behind the idea that we were modern-day Robin Hoods, seeking revenge for those who deserved it—though we made the rules and decided who deserved what.

  I read a few pages of a new biography of Leonardo I’d brought with me, the author going into detail about the fact of Leonardo being left-handed, and fell asleep thinking about how Leonardo drew from right to left so he wouldn’t smudge his drawings, then dreamed of wrenching Peruggia’s journal from the grip of an old man who lay in the street, bleeding, Alexandra watching from the curb, calling to me, then disappearing.

  In the morning, I awoke shivering, the room freezing. I got up and tapped the radiator—it was stone cold. I played with the knob, twisting until the steam came on with a hiss. But when had I turned it off? I tugged on jeans, unable to shake the feeling that someone had been in my room yesterday. The stale smell of cigarette smoke still lingered.

  The library was not yet open, so I checked my email, one from my TA saying the department chair had sat in on my class. He thought it had gone well and wanted to let me know. I pictured the chair, a sour look on his face, making notes about the class and the fact that I wasn’t there or, worse, that my TA taught the class better than I did. I considered sending him another note saying that my research was going well, but was it? Would I really have anything to show for my time here? There was an email from my sculptor cousin too, the one living in my loft, saying he was having a great time in New York and had connected with a gallery in Chelsea that wanted to give him a show. I wrote back “great” and closed my laptop, trying hard not to feel envious that my cousin—who had spent less than a week in the city—was going to get an exhibition when I had just lost my gallery.

  I buttoned my shirt, got my jacket, thought I should probably buy a sweater, maybe at that trendy store off San Lorenzo square, the place I’d passed with Alexandra. That was all I needed to start thinking about her again, not that I’d stopped replaying the kiss and the electric touch of her hand. I hoped she’d be at the library, in the way I’d hoped to see my junior-high-school crush, but it was a lot more than that: she’d gotten under my skin.

  I stopped at the hotel front desk, asked if the maid had been in my room.

  The same guy was there as always, puffing on a cigarette, the air around him a toxic nicotine cloud. He managed to tear himself from an Italian tabloid and raised his head in slow motion. “The maid?”

  “La domestica,” I said.

  “Perche? A problem?”

  I told him no, I was just curious. He sighed as if the conversation were exhausting, then said the maid was ill and had not been in at all.

  What about you? I thought, but the idea of him attempting to clean a room was ridiculous.

  Still early, I forced myself to walk slowly from Piazza di Madonna along the side of San Lorenzo, stopped at the coffee bar I had been to the other day, and was greeted like an old friend. I sipped espresso, chatting with the barman about the weather, colder than usual, politics, never a good idea, then Italian soccer, about which I knew nothing.

  The combination of caffeine and conversation made me feel better, but as I reached the square, I sensed it again, that feeling of being followed. I looked over my shoulder: some obvious tourists, Italians with briefcases heading to work, no one on my tail that I could see, though I couldn’t shake the feeling, my antenna well honed, something that had come in handy in my Bayonne days. I looked a
round again but didn’t stop, anxious to get back to the journal as I cut into the dark alley that led into the cloister. Just beside me, a couple of monks, hoods pulled up against the cold, looked more ominous than righteous. We nodded hello, then they headed into the garden as I headed up the stairs to the library, the whole time feeling as if I were not alone.

  24

  He stares at his cell phone. The red dot that represents the American’s movement from hotel to espresso bar has stopped, the red dot idling.

  It had not been difficult to install the camera and sensor, only an eighth of an inch square, in a corner of the hotel room to gather information from the American’s laptop and phone, good for a distance of up to three hundred feet, thanks to recent products from FFI Software Solutions, a spyware firm he has used before in his work, both activated from his cell phone. The American will have no idea that every one of his emails and texts are being read, his calls listened to, GPS following his every move.

  That part of the job was accomplished with ease. The other part, not so successful. He had searched the room, every drawer, the narrow closet, under the bed, stopped to read articles the American had on top of the dresser, but what he had been searching for was not in the room. It must be in the library. He would have to go and see for himself. But how to break in? And how to remove it without getting caught and, if successful, without rousing suspicion? That is imperative, his mission.

  The red dot begins to move again, and he follows, a block behind, but no need to rush; with the spyware installed, he will not lose the American or be surprised by any sudden movements. He enlarges the map on his cell with thumb and forefinger, sees the dot move along the street and enter the Laurentian Library. No surprise. He takes his time catching up, stops at an espresso bar, the same place the American had stopped, nice that they like the same establishment, even makes small talk with the owner, then continues on to his usual spot, where he sits on the stone steps and lights a cigarette. The square is quiet this morning, few tourists, the kiosks selling leather belts and shoes across from the church still closed. He peers into the dark alleyway to the cloister at the end, sees the same monk he has seen before loitering at the edge and gazing out. He does not look away. Why should he? He is just a man sitting in the square enjoying his morning coffee and a smoke. Nothing wrong with that.