Michelangelo's Ghost

by Gigi Pandian

  “You take him for granted, JJ,” Mahilan said. “I hope you realize that before it’s too late.”

  “I’m a great best friend.”

  “There’s something you should know about my sister,” Mahilan said to Ava. “She’s brilliant, but clueless.”

  I said goodbye to Mahilan and Ava in the cliff-side parking lot overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A crescent-shaped sliver of the moon hung above us, with wisps of fog breaking up a cloudless night.

  Mahilan gave me a warm hug, and Ava shook my hand. But unlike the cold and formal handshake that had greeted me three hours before, this one was warm and friendly. She clasped my hand in both of hers.

  “I’m so glad this worked out to meet you,” she said.

  “Me too. Keep Fish out of trouble.”

  My phone buzzed. I’d missed three text messages from Sanjay, asking me to call him. This couldn’t be good.

  I waved goodbye to Mahilan and Ava, and called Sanjay back as I watched them drive out of the parking lot.

  “Sanjay, sorry I missed you. I’ve had the strangest day.”

  “It’s gone, Jaya,” he said “It’s all gone. All of my magic props. All of them. Gone.”

  I stared out at the black ocean. “You were burglarized too?”

  “It was the Napa Valley fire. The wind changed. The flames got too close to the theater. I wanted to go inside to save my things, but the fire department wasn’t letting anyone through. The fire got out of control. My theater burned down.”

  Chapter 13

  I looked up at the hazy night sky, realizing the ashes from nearby fires were mixing with the fog.

  “You’re okay?” I asked. “You and your crew weren’t hurt?” What would I do if anything happened to Sanjay?

  “We’re fine,” Sanjay said. “One firefighter was hospitalized, but he’s okay. But Jaya, the whole street burned.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. I’d never heard Sanjay sound so defeated.

  “What am I supposed to do? Wait. You said something a minute ago. You asked if I was robbed too. You were robbed?”

  “No, sorry. I wasn’t robbed.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “It wasn’t an actually robbery. It’s more complicated—”

  “The Hindi Houdini sees all. His magic sees through all falsehoods.”

  “Do the Hindi Houdini Heartbreakers love it when you speak about yourself in the third person?”

  “Yeah, they kinda do.” He laughed for a second, then stopped mid-chortle. “Don’t change the subject.”

  “You’re the one who was interrupting me! Nothing was stolen.”

  “That sounds like misdirection to me. You were mugged but nothing was taken? I always thought that neighborhood of yours was trouble.”

  “Someone was inside my office spying on my research. It’s a big deal because—”

  “Oh, is that all? Okay, good. That uptight colleague of yours isn’t a threat. I can go back to complaining. I had all of my new illusions there. I’ve been preparing for a new act for the summer season, so I’d moved nearly everything from my loft up to the theater. We’ve been monitoring the fires, and it was supposed to be safe. I didn’t know the winds could change so quickly. By the time I’d driven up, the area was already cordoned off. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Are you home? Do you want me to come over?”

  “You’re not too busy? You weren’t answering your phone.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  It was probably for the best that Sanjay had cut me off and not given me a chance to tell him about Lilith. In spite of his steadfastness, he’d always had an immaturity that made him seem much younger.

  I stopped in the Mission to pick up tamales on my way over to Sanjay’s loft in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. Sanjay was on the phone when I arrived, so he waved me inside before retreating to his office. I walked past his framed collection of classic magic show posters, underneath the gargoyle perched above the archway leading to the kitchen, and unpacked the food on the marble counter.

  “Insurance rep,” he said when he joined me a minute later. He was dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt. Not a good sign. Sanjay performed in a tuxedo, and his casual clothing wasn’t too many steps down from formal wear.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Nothing is okay.”

  I guessed it was one of those days.

  “I’m covered monetarily,” he continued, “but who cares? Those illusions were years of work.”

  “You could recreate them—”

  “And perform where? That winery was the perfect venue for me. It let me avoid the Vegas scene but still charge high ticket prices. I’d carved out my own unique niche in the world of magic. Oh, are those tamales from the Tamale Lady?”

  “What else?”

  He scooped me into a hug, squeezing me so tightly he lifted me off the black and white checkered kitchen floor. “Thanks for coming over,” he said into my hair. I felt more comforted and alive in his arms than I should have. The few seconds in which I thought he might have been hurt had been harrowing. More than I could take on this awful day.

  Sanjay poured more whiskey than was wise into two tumblers. Sitting on bar stools around the kitchen island of his loft, I drank too many glasses without realizing what I was doing. No, that wasn’t true. I knew exactly what I was doing. I was trying to distract myself from the knowledge that Lilith Vine had been murdered and I was in possession of her Renaissance sketchbooks.

  I helped myself to another tamale and made a mental note to go for an extra long run the next day. Though the way my head was spinning from the liquor, I doubted I’d remember. What had I been thinking a moment before?

  “Maybe it’s time for a change,” Sanjay said as he polished off the last tamale. “I can wallow or I can take steps to make my life better. What are you doing this summer? Want to go on a road trip? See Americana? Route 66. Goblin Valley. Jackalopes.”

  Before I realized what I was saying, the words “I’m going to Italy” popped out of my mouth. Followed by a hiccup. How many drinks had Sanjay poured us?

  “Since when?”

  “It just came up.” I hiccupped again. “A research project is leading me to Bomarzo’s Park of Monsters. It’s a Renaissance sculpture garden filled with giant stone beasts: There’s a dragon, a sphinx, an ogre, and other mythological creatures.” What had Lilith wanted to tell me about those monsters right before she died? “Sanjay, there’s more I should tell you about what happened—”

  “Is it like the gardens at Hellbrunn Palace?”

  My spinning head tried to focus. “That doesn’t sound like a very Italian name.”

  “It’s not. It’s a palace near Salzburg, Germany that has hydraulic lever sculptures. They’re still functioning, so when I was on tour in Europe a few years ago I made a detour to visit. You’d get a kick out of them. They’re called ‘water jokes’ because unsuspecting guests are sprayed with water from hidden holes in the stones.”

  “Sounds rather immature.”

  Sanjay was laughing so hard he didn’t hear my comment.

  I was in no shape to drive home. I grabbed his spare sleeping bag and tossed it on the couch. I checked my email before going to sleep. Stefano had written me back.

  You sound like a spy, my dear Jaya. 7:15 a.m. in front of the northern-most café outside security in the International Terminal at LAX? And not to tell anyone I’m coming? You have my curiosity piqued, as usual. It’s a date.

  Chapter 14

  The next morning, I let myself out of Sanjay’s loft before dawn to catch a six a.m. flight from SFO to LAX.

  While I waited to board, my sleep-deprived brain decided it would be a good idea to do an internet search for something I’d been trying to avoid. Lane hadn’t w
anted to tell me more about Mia’s death. But he’d given me enough information to look it up. I knew it was a museum theft that had taken place when Lane was in college and that a guard was killed. I didn’t know the location, but luckily most art thefts didn’t lead to murder, so there weren’t many choices.

  A chill swept over me when I found what had to be the theft in question. Instead of photos of the dead guard, the press had instead opted for something I presumed they thought would be less grisly. But the effect was the opposite. The sight of a blood-splattered calling card sent my imagination into overdrive.

  It was a letterpress business card, elegant for its simplicity, with a set of symbols: ^V^. The card had been left at the scene of dozens of unsolved art thefts at museums and private homes. Two thieves, the article stated, had killed a security guard. After that incident, the thief who used the calling card had kept a lower profile and never again used his calling card.

  Lane was right. I wished I hadn’t looked for more details. I didn’t want to know.

  After the hour-long flight touched down, I made my way to the international terminal. It wasn’t easy to identify the northern-most café outside security, but Stefano Gopal was hard to miss. He stood taller than most men, and his full head of thick white hair made him seem even taller. The white hair stood out in high contrast to his brown skin.

  I spotted him standing at a high coffee counter, a child-size paper cup of espresso in his hand as he scanned the crowd through thick glasses. He didn’t see me until I was a foot in front of him.

  “I feel like I’m in a spy movie,” he said with a grin, after kissing both my cheeks. Like my brother’s new girlfriend, Stefano spoke with a mostly American accent mixed with an unidentifiable hint of something else. I knew his history, so this was an accent I could place: a combination of Indian and Italian that had mostly washed away after he came to the United States at sixteen. Nearly sixty years had gone by, but there would always be some things we couldn’t forget from our pasts.

  “It’s almost time for finals,” he continued, “but I couldn’t pass up your invitation.”

  “Are you finally going to retire this year?”

  “Why would I do a silly thing like that?” Deep lines covered his face, more numerous than the last time I’d seen him.

  “You’ve been threatening to since I first met you nearly a decade ago.”

  He swatted away the comment like a mosquito. “Can you imagine me if I retired? I’d wither away. They’d find my skeleton sitting upright at my home office desk. My students keep me young.”

  “You’ve still got us, even when we’re no longer your students.”

  “That I do. Now what have you dragged an old man out of bed for?”

  On the flight, through the fog of a hangover, I’d thought about what would be best to tell Dr. Stefano Gopal, the history professor who’d served as my advisor in graduate school after I turned down the offer to follow Lilith. He’d seen promise in me when I wasn’t sure it was there myself and helped make me into the scholar I became. He was someone I trusted without reservation. But there was no sense in worrying him about a burglary and possible murder. Nobody had followed me to Los Angeles. I’d booked the flight at midnight and boarded less than six hours later.

  I also wasn’t sure how he’d respond to the name Lilith Vine. I thought I’d let the evidence speak for itself to get his unbiased opinion. I unwrapped Lazzaro Allegri’s sketchbooks, which I’d wrapped in scarves and a plastic bag.

  “We have two hours,” I said. “I have a class to teach at one o’clock, so I’m on a ten-thirty flight back to San Francisco.”

  “Let’s get to it.”

  Stefano’s face paled as I flipped open the first sketchbook. “Ada-kadavulae, Jaya.” He flipped the scarf wrapping back on top of the notebook. “My God, what have you done?” He looked furtively around. “I was joking when I said we were in a spy movie. But you—we—these—” His protruding Adam’s apple bobbled in his long neck as he swallowed hard.

  “I didn’t steal these, Stefano. They were purchased from an old Italian family who found them in an attic. They’ll go to a museum as soon as I’m done with them.” I wondered, now that Lilith was dead, if that were true. Had she bought them legitimately as she’d told me? And she hadn’t actually given them to me, just left them with me.

  “Good.”

  “How could you think that I would—?”

  “Nothing you do surprises me.” Stefano wiped his brow with a tiny napkin from the coffee counter. “Do you remember what I said when you defended your thesis?”

  “How could I forget? You said I got inside the minds of the figures in the British East India Company like narrative non-fiction that’s being adapted as a screenplay for a big-budget movie. I believe you also added that you were worried I’d give one of the other members of the committee a heart attack, since you were certain he hadn’t read anything so exciting since reading Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels as a young man.”

  He chuckled. “That imagination of yours. You bring history to life.”

  “And that makes you think I’d steal from a museum?” It was truer than he knew, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

  “Why don’t we get back to this notebook,” he said. “Who’s the artist?”

  “I’d like your opinion from what you see, before I tell you more.”

  “I’m not an art historian, as you very well know.”

  “I do. You’re the one who taught me the importance of specializing to attain deeper knowledge. That’s why I think you’ll spot clues in these sketches that you, as someone who studies cross-cultural historical influences on India, will see. I’ve said too much already. Take a look and tell me what you see.”

  “The student has become the teacher.” Stefano chuckled as he pulled protective gloves from his jacket pocket to turn the pages.

  He jotted down notes in his own notebook as he squinted at the sketchbook. He nodded and gasped at regular intervals, occasionally muttering a few words. I caught “a late-medieval kingdom,” “not Hindustani classical art,” and “sultanate.” I watched him while he worked, though I doubted he noticed me or any of the thousands of people hurrying past us.

  “Double espresso,” he said, not looking up. “Two sugars. And seltzer water.”

  I obliged, and got myself the same. Stefano wriggled his nose at the soggy paper cup and the plastic bottle of fizzy water. After sixty years, he still missed the way Italians served coffee.

  Twenty minutes later, he tucked his pencil into his jacket pocket and met my gaze with fire in his eyes. “I thought, at first, that this was the artwork of a late-medieval kingdom Indian artist who traveled to Italy and learned their techniques and mythology, but these notes…This was an Italian.” His lips trembled. “It’s not Michelangelo, is it?”

  “No, but you’re close. Very close.”

  He nodded slowly, the excitement in his eyes growing. “These are sketches of Bomarzo’s Parco dei Mostri. The Park of Monsters, sometimes referred to as the Sacred Wood.” He pronounced the village name not as I’d been imagining, but as Bomartzo, adding a T sound to the word, like the pronunciation of pizza.

  “You know it?”

  “I know it well. Most people outside Italy haven’t heard of it, but in Italy it’s a big draw for families. With these mythological stone creatures, it’s a cross between an amusement park and peaceful gardens. Something for the whole family. I visited several times as a child. That’s why my mind leapt to Michelangelo.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Stefano adjusted his thick glasses. “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Michelangelo is said to have been the artist who designed the Park of Monsters.”

  Chapter 15

  “Are you sure that’s not just a local legend that Michelangelo designed the Park
of Monsters?” I crossed my arms. “Wasn’t your mom a storyteller who embellished everything? My research didn’t come up with anything that indicated—”

  “In your email,” Stefano said, “you said you’d only come into possession of this information a couple of days ago. You couldn’t possibly have visited Bomarzo in person. What has your research entailed?”

  I mumbled an answer.

  “What was that?”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I’ve only had time to do online research so far.”

  Stefano shook his finger at me. “You know what a mistake that is.”

  “It’s worse. Much of what I found was conflicting. And after looking at these beautiful drawings, looking at amateur photographs felt like blasphemy.”

  “What do you think you learned about Bomarzo and its Park of Monsters?”

  “In 1552, or thereabouts, nobleman Pier Francesco ‘Vicino’ Orsini had recently returned from being a prisoner of war in one of the Italian Wars raging across Europe. He envisioned a garden that would shock people’s sensibilities, rather than please them with beauty, so he transformed the heavily forested hunting grounds of Bomarzo into a labyrinthine garden of mythological creatures. Nobody can agree on Vicino’s motivation for designing the garden. Was it a tribute to his late wife, or the effort of a man broken by war trying to make sense of religion and the world, or simply an attempt to outdo other noblemen? At the time, it was dubbed a Villa of Wonders and drew visitors including the pope. But Vicino’s family never approved. Shortly after his death, his Park of Monsters was overrun by the forests surrounding it. In most of the articles I unearthed, which were few and far between, Vicino’s Mannerist sculpture garden was attributed to architect Pirro Ligorio—not Michelangelo.”

  “Not bad. Pirro worked with Michelangelo on other projects, and according to some art historians, the craftsmanship of many of the beasts suggests Michelangelo’s hand more than Pirro’s.” Stefano shrugged. “Art historians never agree on anything.”