The Chapel

by Michael Downing

  Sometime late Friday night, after the Valium had kicked in, I’d dug up Andre’s stick-figure cartoon and glued it to one of the many blank pages in my Journal of Discovery.

  I had never known that there was more to this story, more to this moment, a woman who was not there in Boston or Cambridge, a nameless woman elegantly robed in pink, a woman of uncertain role and status, a woman who was only present in Padua, not secret but mysterious—not insignificant, but not yet identified.

  BY TWELVE-FORTY-FIVE, I WAS CLEAN, AND DRY, AND BUTTONING up my blue shirtdress, backing away from the mirror so I didn’t have to see what a mess of wrinkles I was from behind. My plan was to run to the Metro for coffee and something involving bread to fortify myself for the chaos that was about to break out when I started reading to T. from my Book of Revelation, but my phone dinged with a text before I got out the door.

  T. owed me at least another twenty minutes.

  And then another text dinged in, and then another.

  All three were from Sam.

  Morning, Mom—

  Thanks, thanks, thanks for the money. What a boon to get it now when I need it. (I’m understanding from what you wrote that I can get a lump-sum payout. Rachel mentioned a trustee, but maybe that’s other money coming to us at a later date?)

  Why did you send that picture of that painter? (sorry to miss the point)

  Oh—Sound the All Clear. I am the bald man.

  I looked but didn’t find anything stronger than aspirin in the house. Rachel checked the freezer (?) but says you finally cleared it out. Suggestions?

  I dialed Rachel’s number and got her voicemail, so I hung up and I typed a text to Sam.

  1.Why are you bald?

  2.There is no more money till I die.

  3.Didn’t that statue of Giotto remind you of anyone?

  And then I dialed Rachel again, and got her voicemail again, so I hung up and texted Sam again.

  4.Vicodin in an orange juice can in the freezer. Take one. Two if you’re desperate and you don’t tell R.

  I dialed T. and got his voicemail, so I hung up, and then another text from Sam arrived.

  1.Lost a bet. Told the girls I would shave my head if they won their first tournament game. (They lost the next day, or else it would be painted green and white—school colors.)

  2.Don’t die.

  3.Giotto—One of the Seven Dwarfs?

  4.Vicodin—bonus.

  And then my phone rang, and Sam said, “Do you think it would be weird if I borrowed a couple of Dad’s old blazers? Rachel has been saying for months that I should take the suits, too, but I don’t really wear suits anywhere.”

  I said, “What is going on there?”

  He said, “I was here for Steve Kaiser’s bachelor party last night, which is still going on. I told you I was coming back for that, didn’t I?”

  I said, “No.”

  Sam said, “I think I did. But I definitely forgot to cc Anandi and Samir.”

  I said, “Take the blazers. You should also look at the sweaters in the cedar chest. A lot of them are cashmere. Steve Kaiser is getting married?”

  Sam said, “I know. That’s what everybody thinks.”

  I said, “Why is Rachel in the house with you?”

  “She’s outside talking to someone,” Sam said.

  I felt the top of my head rise a few inches above the rest of my skull. I said, “Someone tall with silver hair?”

  Sam said, “I have no idea. Hold on.” And then he didn’t say anything for several seconds, and I hoped he was peeking out a window to confirm my worst fears. I heard a lot of something going on. Sam said, “Is it okay if I just put the sweaters in this duffel bag in the closet? It’s brown.”

  It was a handsome leather overnight bag I gave Mitchell when he got his first promotion and began to travel more often. “Take it,” I said. I knew the sweaters had already been stuffed into it, probably with a few carpets. “Rachel?”

  “She’s talking on her phone with somebody,” Sam said, as if he’d told me that already. “We drove down together yesterday. She was hoping she could get that trainer guy who lives two floors below her to buy her place this weekend. Don’t ask. I don’t know how that went. We were supposed to leave at six o’clock this morning, but I didn’t even get back from Steve’s till six-thirty, so she isn’t officially speaking to me yet.”

  I had a text from T.

  Sam said, “Did I send you the pictures of those two condos Susie found in Red Hook?”

  I didn’t say anything. T.’s text was brief.

  Thirsty?

  Sam said, “Mom?”

  A green plastic bottle of fizzy water was balanced on the cement ledge of the balcony railing. I walked halfway to the open sliders. As I stood there, a cool breeze swept in from somewhere, and the bottle wobbled and finally tipped over and spilled onto the tiled balcony floor.

  I said, “I have to go, Sam.”

  He said, “Who doesn’t?”

  “Before you leave, give Anandi your key to the house,” I said.

  “I’ll give her Rachel’s key,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  Sam said, “Are you there?”

  I heard a few sharp blasts from a car horn—maybe Rachel, maybe someone parked below my balcony. Sam hung up. I didn’t move.

  I heard T. say, “Very fizzy. If you were here, I’d offer you a sip of mine.”

  I said, “If you were here—” I couldn’t speak after that. I was weeping, and I really couldn’t see almost anything but the blurry lightness ahead of me. I walked to the open slider and leaned on the threshold. I think T. was sitting on the railing, or else someone had installed a statue overnight.

  T. said, “Ricardo let me out here, but I think a maid may have locked up my exit. I’m going to have to leave through your room.”

  “Okay,” I said. I still couldn’t see him, but I recognized the bright blueness in front of me as T. I said, “I was thinking of going to the chapel.”

  “Oh, E.,” he said. “We’ve both been to the chapel.”

  “Oh, T.,” I said, trying to get some of the air blowing around out there into my lungs. “I don’t know where else to go.”

  “Me neither,” T. said. “That’s why I rented us a car. There’s a map in the glove compartment.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was all packed. “Okay,” I said.

  He hopped down from his perch but left his bottle of water on the ledge. He took a few steps toward me, and I turned and walked into the room.

  From behind me, T. said, “How’s your back today?”

  “Oh, it’s fine,” I said, and then I felt his hands on my shoulders, and I wasn’t so sure my spine would hold me erect for much longer. But I didn’t move. I sensed the smooth contours of his chest against me, and then his head was next to mine. I could feel the heat of him against my neck, which meant one of us was still breathing.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I said.

  “I would feel better if you let me examine your back,” T. said. “We have a long ride ahead of us.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning to him. I told myself I was in good hands. T. was a doctor in another life.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Three images appear here courtesy of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston:

  1.The photograph of the central courtyard in the museum.

  2.The downloaded detail of Giotto’s Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple.

  3.The reproduction of Giotto’s Presentation of the Infant Jesus in the Temple.

  The map of the fresco program reproduced as “Sara’s map” originally appeared in Giotto by Francesca Flores d’Arcais (Milano: 24 ORE Cultura, 2011; English-language edition, New York: Abbeville Press, 1995). My gratitude and debts extend from the great Italian painter Cimabue, who recognized and cultivated the unprecedented genius of Giotto, to the devoted and welcoming staffs of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
in Boston and the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, where my lifelong addiction to the work of Giotto ultimately took shape as this novel. I am especially grateful to Kendra Slaughter, who connected me with Davide Banzato, who generously provided me with the most precious of currencies—time in the Arena Chapel.

  My understanding of the history of the chapel building and the fresco cycle, and many of the ideas and opinions expressed by characters in the novel, was informed by the rich scholarship and endless speculation about Giotto that dates from Dante and extends through the indispensable work of Rachel Jacoff, who edited The Cambridge Companion to Dante, and James Stubblebine, editor of the oft-cited, much-admired collection Giotto: The Arena Chapel Frescoes.

  The literature devoted to Giotto represents a vast and often contradictory treasury of facts, myths, analysis, and speculation. I’m grateful for every word of it. Two recent books are standouts: The Usurer’s Heart: Giotto, Enrico Scrovegni, and the Arena Chapel in Padua by Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona; and Giotto and the Arena Chapel: Art, Architecture and Experience by Laura Jacobus. These are among the most original and illuminating books I’ve ever read on any topic. Both books were especially useful to me as I attempted to represent how our understanding of the history of the chapel has evolved over the centuries and to explore the questions and the controversies that still engage the chapel’s most ardent and skilled interpreters.

  GAIL HOCHMAN, MY AGENT, BREATHED LIFE INTO THE original manuscript—and its writer. My longtime editor, Jack Shoemaker, and all of his colleagues at Counterpoint made something beautiful of what I had done.

  Mary Ann Matthews read and responded to every sentence I wrote, listened to every word I had to say when I wasn’t writing, and opened her big heart and generous mind to me every time I asked for help. Michelle Blake read and improved every draft of the novel, and she repeatedly made me believe there was a book in there, even when I couldn’t see it.

  Many friends and fellow writers lent me much-needed support, and many went well beyond the call of duty. I am especially grateful to Alexandra Zapruder, who is as crazy about Giotto as I am, and much funnier than either of us; Jessica Francis Kane—again and again; Perrin Ireland, for lending me her pitch-perfect sensibility; James Lecesne, whose first response to the novel was to open doors into the wider world for it; and Elizabeth Reluga, Valentine Talland, Gisella Portelli, Maria Pia Cingolani, Verrall Dunlop, Valerie Martin, Elizabeth Benedict, Dennis McFarland, and Joan Wickersham.

  Peter Bryant was, as always, my first and most trusted reader. He is first and most trusted in all ways.