Michelangelo's Ghost

by Gigi Pandian

  The question was: Did I want it?

  “All I ask is that you give me some of the credit for putting the pieces together,” she said before seeing me out. “You’re the only one I trust to not steal my ideas for yourself—and to see this through.”

  “I can’t promise anything,” I’d said. But after what I’d seen in the box…

  Before starting the car, there was a phone call I had to make. I wished I could have called Stefano as well, but I needed to respect Lilith’s wishes.

  My finger hovered over my phone for a few moments. I cared more about Lane Peters than I ever meant to, but he inspired mixed feelings in me. His influence played out in unexpected ways. Earlier in the year, on a trip to the Louvre in Paris, I’d learned something unexpected about myself. Henry North, a man who was blackmailing me, made an offhand comment that I was enjoying the thrill of being part of an art heist. As much as I wanted to deny it, North was more right than he knew.

  I wasn’t a criminal, nor did I have any intention of becoming one. But doing whatever it took to uncover precious knowledge lost to history, especially when it was a cross-cultural connection never previously known? That was a different question. And the answer that desperately wanted to roll off my tongue was that it was damn tempting to chase a lead, regardless of where it took me.

  It was late afternoon in San Francisco, meaning it was a decent hour of the morning in Portugal. I tapped the screen of my phone. The sound of ringing echoed through the car.

  Lane had gone to Lisbon to help a friend set up a new museum. He’d been taking on a lot of jobs like that lately. I understood his reasons, up to a point. He couldn’t return to his graduate program, and therefore he couldn’t get a teaching job like mine. He was also paranoid that someone from his past would try to destroy him. “Paranoid” was probably the wrong word, since there was a rational basis for his worry. Even if North kept his end of the bargain, there were others who might wish him harm.

  Lane had never hurt anyone, he’d only stolen things from exceedingly wealthy people, and he’d made up for his misdeeds many times over. Surely there was some way to set things right that didn’t involve going to jail or running forever. It wasn’t easy to see the solution though. That’s why we’d had a fight the last time we’d spoken. Yet all I could think about was the joy I’d see in his eyes if he could be a part of bringing an important piece of lost history to light. Finds like this were how he atoned for his past sins.

  The ringing stopped. The call had gone to voicemail. I asked Lane to call me back no matter the time. Frustrated that I’d failed to reach him, I drove off with a sharp screech of tires that offended two long-beaked birds that squawked at me as they flew away.

  I was supposed to play a set of tabla and sitar music with Sanjay at the Tandoori Palace that night. I hit a snarl of rush hour traffic and realized I wouldn’t make it back to San Francisco in time, so I called to let him know.

  “You worry too much, Jaya,” he said. “I’ll be fine. The sitar stands alone.”

  Normally I’d agree. Not in Sanjay’s case. My best friend didn’t realize he was one of this hemisphere’s worst sitar players, or that Raj turned his sitar microphone down and my tabla mic up. Raj hired professional musicians for the larger weekend crowds at the Indian restaurant. Sanjay and I played there for fun when we were free on weeknights.

  When I reached San Francisco, I squeezed the roadster into a semi-legal parking spot—all right, a mostly illegal parking spot—on a precariously steep hill next to Buena Vista Park. The box wasn’t too heavy, so I didn’t mind walking the three blocks to my apartment. My grumbling stomach was the bigger concern. Lilith had offered me several beverage choices, but she only had stale Girl Scout cookies to offer for sustenance.

  Before climbing the steps to my attic apartment I picked up a bowl of Bi Bim Bop—sizzling sesame-roasted rice with beef, vegetables, egg, and plenty of hot sauce—at one of my favorite Korean restaurants in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood near the Victorian.

  I kicked off my heels inside the door and stood at the sink as I drank two glasses of water. Sitting down at the round kitchen table that overlooked the entire studio apartment, I ate my steaming dinner as I contemplated what I should do. My next day at the university would be a long one, since there were only two weeks left in the semester. But I couldn’t resist the lure of the box from Lilith. I cleared my coffee table, took a deep breath as I glanced at the historical maps tacked to my wall, and opened the box.

  The contents should have been in a museum or research library, but here they were in my sloped-ceiling four-hundred-square-foot studio apartment built illegally into the attic of a crumbling yet colorful Victorian house. In addition to Lilith’s notes were three original documents.

  The three surviving sketchbooks of Lazzaro Allegri.

  Lilith had discovered Lazzaro Allegri’s 16th-century sketchbooks in the attic of one of his descendants in the ancestral home in the province of Viterbo, Italy.

  Though I wasn’t an artist or an art historian, Lazzaro Allegri’s talent leapt from the pages into my world half a millennia after he’d touched them. I lost track of the hours as I slowly turned the pages, immersed in the details that brought the images to life. Deftly rendered crosshatching showed the life-like muscles of both humble farmers and brave men in battle, and the use of chalk-smudged shadows brought out the power of the mythological creatures that hovered above the mortals. The style of the sketches looked similar to that of Michelangelo. I could see why Lilith wanted to believe there was a connection between Lazzaro and the famous artist.

  But that’s not what fascinated me most. It was the subjects of the sketches. The setting wasn’t Italy. The subjects weren’t Italians. The majority of the sketches were of Indian landscapes and people dressed in late-medieval Indian clothing. The opulent style of dress and the heroic battlefield scenes suggested something more: Indian royalty. Did Lazzaro have a royal patron?

  Alongside the masterful drawings were notes that Lilith had translated into English. There was no mention of his patron, but something even more compelling. A hidden art studio where Lazzaro’s sketches had been realized as paintings. That’s what Lilith was searching for.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning, I scowled at my phone. Lane hadn’t returned my call.

  I was surprised I’d managed to sleep. In my dreams, lightning bolts splashed vibrant color onto black and white landscapes in India and Italy. The settings were vivid, but the people were faceless. Who had lured Lazzaro Allegri from Italy? And why did Lilith believe Lazzaro had a connection to Michelangelo? Neither question was answered in the sketchbooks or in Lilith’s notes. Those questions would be at the top of my list when I spoke with Lilith later that day.

  Though the sketchbooks contained a few snippets of text, they were mainly filled with hauntingly beautiful drawings of the people of India, plus a smaller number of eerie sketches of Italian settings. Lilith’s notes from an interview she had with the present-day Allegri family indicated they didn’t know the details of their ancestor, since they thought of him as a blot on their noble past. That’s why the sketchbooks had been relegated to the attic, forgotten for generations.

  Before heading to campus, I went for a run in Golden Gate Park. With my headphones on, I ran to bhangra beats that carried me past the Japanese Tea Garden, conservatory of flowers, and grove of redwood trees. I passed families on their way to the Cal Academy of Sciences, art students heading to the De Young Museum, and bicyclists enjoying the car-free paths.

  Bhangra music combined traditional Punjabi music with Western pop, a modern example of what’s gone on for millennia through human migration. Different cultures sharing and borrowing from each other. Unfortunately, all too often that convergence had turned from sharing to stealing, when powerful men decided it was more lucrative to conquer and subjugate. British trade with India began with mutual benefits, i
ncluding respect and intermarriage, but turned to war and eventually the rule of the entire country by the British Raj.

  On my way home, I picked up a croissant sandwich and a triple-shot Americano with three sugars at Coffee to the People, a café down the street from my apartment. Ever since my first trip to France that spring, croissants hadn’t tasted quite as good at home. But the tattooed staff at Coffee to the People no longer raised a pierced eyebrow at me when I asked for my usual topping—egg with honey and peanut butter—which almost made up for the disparity.

  I got to the university a few minutes before my office hours started. No time to visit the library, but time to look up Lazzaro Allegri online. A single paragraph had been repeated on multiple online encyclopedias, acknowledging him as a minor Renaissance painter from a noble family from Bomarzo, Italy, a town most famous for its sculpture garden known as the Park of Monsters. The short history didn’t include Lilith’s assertion that Lazzaro had been Michelangelo’s protégé.

  I’d do some digging at the library, but I wasn’t hopeful. Lazzaro hadn’t been deemed important enough to history to merit more than a poorly cited paragraph. If Lilith was right, that was about to change.

  I thought about the period of time in which Lazzaro had been in India. 1528 to 1550. The first two Mughal emperors had ruled during that time, but the sketches in Lazzaro’s notebooks didn’t look like either of them.

  A knock on my office door brought me from the 16th century back to the present. A frazzled undergraduate stood in the doorway. It was nearly time for spring semester finals, so I was holding extended office hours. I’d scheduled appointments with more than a dozen students, but there were several more hopeful ones waiting in the hallway when it was time for me to wrap up office hours and grab a late lunch.

  Of course I stayed. In spite of their tendency to procrastinate, I loved my students. They were far more important than an artist who’d been dead for centuries.

  My students’ questions kept me occupied longer than I realized. It was late afternoon by the time I saw the last one who needed help. The blinking light on the phone told me I’d missed a call from Lilith. In her message she said she was going out and asked me to call her back the following afternoon. I squeezed the phone with frustration. I’d have to wait another day to get answers.

  If I hurried, at least I’d have time to stop briefly at the library before it was time to head to the Tandoori Palace. I wanted to find Tamarind, the university librarian who was my dear friend and confidante, but she wasn’t working when I got there. I left for the restaurant, hoping I’d have time to eat something before our first set of music. Whenever Sanjay and I arrived before the dinner rush, the restaurant’s head chef, Juan, insisted on cooking us whatever we wanted. If the kitchen was already bustling, we could feast on whatever extras were already cooked.

  My stomach rumbled as I stepped into the fragrant kitchen. I was starving after skipping lunch. The scents of garlic, fennel seed, and toasted coconut made my mouth water.

  “Anything new this week?” I asked.

  Juan handed me the secret menu. I never knew what would be on it, because a new version was printed every few days or weeks, depending on the seasonal vegetables available. Diners had to know to ask for it. It contained dishes with a higher decibel of spices than most Americans could stomach. For people who grew up in India, however, spicy food was a given, so most dishes at Indian restaurants in America proved disappointing. Nearly everyone who requested the Tandoori Palace secret menu was originally from India or had lived there for longer than a two-week holiday.

  “How spicy is the red snapper coconut curry?”

  Juan grinned. “Off the charts. You’ll love it.”

  Sanjay stuck his head into the kitchen. His bowler hat still sat on his head, and he carried an old-fashioned suitcase in one hand and a sitar case in the other. He looked like he was ready for a 1960s train trip with the Beatles.

  “Saag Paneer and Chicken Tikka Masala, Sanjay?” Juan asked.

  “Thanks. Extra mild would be great.”

  Juan winked at me, then got back to work with the cook who was chopping onions while Sanjay and I retreated into the break room.

  “What’s with the miniature steamer trunk suitcase?” I asked.

  Sanjay tossed his hat onto a coat hook on the other side of the room. The weighted hat for his stage magic act fell perfectly on the hook, complete with a theatrical twirl. “Can’t you guess?”

  “New illusion?”

  “Even better.” He unlatched the one-foot square case, which I saw now was only faux antique, and showed me what rested inside.

  “A replica of a severed hand holding a pen? I didn’t think your act was so macabre.”

  Sanjay clicked his tongue. “It’s a replica of the Houdini Automaton.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  “It recreates Houdini’s signature.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was distracted by Lazzaro Allegri’s treasure or if Sanjay was being particularly obtuse.

  “You know what an automaton is.” My best friend spoke slowly as if he were addressing a small child. “Sébastien loves to build them.”

  “I understand the concept of a mechanical device that’s an early form of robot, but a wax hand that channels Houdini?”

  “It’s plastic. The gears form cursive letters: They’re a forgery of Houdini’s signature that a magician made long after his death. I still need to get a Houdini dummy to go with the pieces I’ve got here, but it’s still pretty cool, isn’t it?”

  I picked up the creepy hand. “Sorry I couldn’t make it last night. I had the weirdest day. An old professor got in touch and—”

  “Not a problem. I might have to bail later this week myself. There’s a chance I’ll have to go to the theater.”

  “I thought your summer season shows weren’t starting for a couple of weeks.”

  “With the fires, they’re evacuating some areas. If the fire gets anywhere near the winery theater, I’ll disassemble some of the illusions and store them in my loft. Truly, you don’t see how cool this is? The Hindi Houdini collecting Houdini memorabilia.”

  “It’s disturbing when you refer to yourself in the third person, Sanjay.”

  Juan brought us our respective spicy and bland dinners and we focused on eating for the few minutes we had before performing. When we were nearly through, Raj popped his head into the break room. “Children! The diners are waiting.”

  Most patrons didn’t know we had a schedule, let alone know we’d be providing background music at all. But we obliged. I slipped off my heels and carried my tabla case to the corner stage.

  Sanjay and I had a great rhythm together, in spite of the questionable sounds that emanated from his sitar. Although, was it my imagination or was he getting better? Sanjay had been my best friend since the day I moved to San Francisco. That was two years ago, but I felt like I’d known him my entire life. There was a brief moment when I’d wondered if we might become more than friends, but life hadn’t played out that way.

  I changed the pace of my tabla beats to keep pace with Sanjay’s sitar riff. It was a tough instrument to master, and it was only a hobby for Sanjay to blow off steam when he wasn’t performing stage magic to sold-out crowds an hour north of San Francisco in northern California wine country. I smiled to myself as I watched Sanjay’s lips part, deep in concentration. He felt my gaze and looked up at me. I don’t know why, but I was suddenly embarrassed. I looked away, out at the tables.

  One of the diners had requested the secret menu. He was a man sitting alone with his back to me, but I could see he wasn’t a native of India. At least that was a decent guess. He was blond. I wondered if he’d get a shock when his food arrived, or if he knew what he was in for with the super-spicy order. As he spoke to the waiter, I caught a glimpse of his profile.

  My right hand slipped off the
tabla, causing the tapping rhythm of the raga to come to a halt. Nobody noticed except for Sanjay and the man sitting alone.

  His true profile was concealed behind a false nose and most likely something placed in his mouth to give his angular cheeks a rounder shape.

  But I’d know him anywhere.

  Lane Peters wasn’t in Lisbon. He was ten feet away from me at the Tandoori Palace.

  Chapter 7

  As my hand slipped off the tabla, Lane turned toward me. When our eyes met, I could have sworn I ceased drumming, but when I came to my senses a moment later I realized I’d been playing by rote.

  Sanjay had met Lane, but he didn’t give the man with new features a second glance.

  Lane’s eyes smiled at me through thick horn-rimmed glasses, and he mouthed the word “sorry” to me.

  His eyes stayed locked on mine, and I felt as if he was looking through me. Sanjay knew everything about me—all the outward facts about my life. But Lane was the one who saw through my defenses. Lane was the one who understood what it was like to be so close to fitting in but always be an outsider, without even a country to truly call our own. Lane had never lived in any single country for more than a few years, attending the American schools in whatever country his father’s business took him to. Sanjay was born and raised in the affluent Silicon Valley, and had only left California for magic act tours and vacations. My own life was a mix of the two.

  Miraculously, I got through the set, during which Lane ate every bite of his spicy secret menu selection. The twenty-minute set wasn’t long enough for me to figure out how I was going to explain Lane’s disguise, or even his presence, to Sanjay, who didn’t know about Lane’s past as a thief. All Sanjay knew, or thought he knew, was that I’d had a short relationship with a guy who lived abroad, but the strain of a long-distance relationship had broken us up. It wasn’t that far from the truth.