A Richer Dust Concealed

by R P Nathan

  “I told you I don’t,” I snapped at her. Not loud, but she knew me well enough after two years not to pursue it. I looked out the window, my head pulsing with a headache that hadn’t been there a moment ago, a pressure behind the eyes that I had no control over. I would be OK so long as she didn’t talk and thankfully, for the rest of the journey she didn’t.

  Chapter 16

  On my desk at the Gallery the following afternoon were eight books and one drawing. The drawing was sandwiched between two sheets of glass and the books were all open, most of them showing colour prints of the fresco cycle of the Brancacci chapel. The drawing, a study in charcoal on stained paper was of a crucified figure, his head bearded and bowed with a solid looking halo above his head, naked apart from a loin cloth.

  The door to the shared office opened and Robert returned. “Sorry. Too much coffee.” He sat at his desk which was at right angles to mine in the corner, trundled forward in his chair and then sat back and crossed his legs, flicking at a speck on his grey suit trousers, straightening his tie against his white shirt. “Where were we? Oh yes: that is not a Masaccio.”

  “I’m not saying it is,” I said irritably. “I’m saying it could be.”

  “I don’t see what you’re basing it on apart from blind faith and a dodgy provenance from a similarly dodgy Dutch collector.”

  “I’m basing it on knowledge of Masaccio.” I looked at him witheringly. “Radical as that might seem.”

  “Have you even confirmed its age yet?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to book it in for carbon dating.”

  “Well, what about the watermark?”

  “What about it?” I swivelled round so that I was facing the bright window and held the drawing up before it. A distinct watermark of a bull’s head showed through in the bottom right hand corner. “So?”

  “So, you can give a rough dating to drawings based on the watermarks in the paper. The paper makers used different marks the same way that printers did. That guy over at the drawings collection at Windsor has done a lot of work on this.”

  “Really?” I said disparagingly, irked and surprised in equal measure that my boss could have made a useful suggestion.

  “We’ve got his book in the library. It’s worth taking a look.”

  “Fine,” I said tersely.

  “How’s your piece for the catalogue?” He gave me a meaningful smile and I gave it back to him.

  “I’ll be done by the end of next week like you asked.”

  “Speaking of which,” he said checking his watch. “It being half past four on a Friday, I am done. What are you up to this weekend?”

  I sighed. I found Robert’s attempts at camaraderie quite wearing. “Seeing some of Madeleine’s friends on Saturday. I’ve got Sunday on my own as I’m doing a clear out.”

  “Well, I’ll probably do some work on the catalogue on Sunday. And I ought to do some prep for my Italian book expert since he’s coming in again next week.”

  I couldn’t be bothered to say anything in response so he continued, “I know he’s really over to see the chaps from the V&A but he said he’d drop by. I need to decide whether he can help us later in the year on that printing exhibition. Anyway, he’s in on Monday. You should join us for lunch this time. You really need to broaden your mind a bit.”

  “I will if I’ve got the time,” I said vaguely, having no intention of doing any such thing. “I’m going to get hold of a copy of that book before they shut up shop tonight.” And I jogged off to the library before he could say any more.

  Chapter 17

  I didn’t get round to looking at the book from the library until Sunday. I had woken with a hangover but alone and spread out in my bed luxuriating in the fact that Madeleine was not there. Bliss unconfined albeit filtered through a hangover from the drinks party she had taken me to the previous night. She couldn’t understand why I hadn’t wanted to spend the night with her afterwards. I thought to tell her that it was because she was drunk and embarrassing but that would have been a bit unnecessary even for me so I gave her a kiss and told her it made sense since we both had early starts the next morning, and would be seeing each other in the evening anyway.

  Having lain in for half an hour I made myself some eggs Benedict, adding the pan to the growing pile of washing up that needed to be done – my one vice – and ate them in the living room whilst reading the paper. Yawned and stretched and knew there was no point postponing the inevitable any longer. I went to my wardrobe and pulled out the four large cardboard boxes which took up nearly all the room on the right hand side and took them one by one to the living room.

  My parents had recently moved out of the house where we had grown up. They had boxed up some items they thought might be of sentimental value for me and driven them round; my father ignoring my assurances that he should simply take the whole lot to the dump. So I was lumbered with them and they had lain untouched taking up what little space I had for the previous eight weeks. Madeleine’s goading about the size of my flat had been the final straw. I put some on some Mahler and set to work.

  The first box was filled with toys: soldiers and cars and Lego and I was appalled that my father had thought to save them. I am not a sentimental person and having such things around depresses me. I kicked the box closer to the door as it could go out as it was.

  The other three boxes contained books. The first was tatty children’s paperbacks and the other two easy adult reads. I extracted a couple of the Jeeves books which I thought I might peruse once more before discarding. And then in the bottom of the final box I spotted a brown hardback that had long since lost its dust-cover. I pulled it out hoping it to be one of the Just William stories which I knew were very collectable and of which at one time I had possessed at least half a dozen. But the book cover was plain and the leather in good condition though there was no printing at all on the outside. Opening it, I looked at it puzzled. There was no frontispiece or printer’s marks and the printed text started after one blank page, the typeface definite, very black, the letters large:

  Questo diario e di Girolamo Polidoro, domestico e signorotto di Conte Francesco Bugon di Verona...

  I blinked and then started laughing. “Well, well, well,” I said. “Well, well, well.”

  I went over to the sofa and sat down and proceeded to flick through the pages attempting a cursory translation wherever my eye stopped. My Italian was rusty, and the language used was of an antiquated form, but I could still make out the sense of most of the passages I read. Then I came to a section at the end, the closing six pages and saw that instead of whole words there was simply a sequence of capital letters without punctuation.

  “The code,” I muttered and then laughed again.

  The whole book was no more than a hundred pages in length and I closed it and rested it upon my lap. I realised how I must have ended up with it of course. In the chaos of Venice Patrick and his friend John – John? What was his surname? – had left many of their belongings behind; belongings which I had then brought back to England. For some reason John had never come to collect his though he had rung about the book. Maybe it had got lost amongst some of my own things, but in any case I told him I didn’t know where it was; which he had accepted though it sounded like he didn’t believe me. He always had been immature. In any case that was the end of it. His other things had been certainly thrown out long ago. And now here was the book after all.

  I opened it again at random and began a halting translation from that point. I nodded with interest as the story of an explosion on-board a ship began to take shape, a ship carrying prisoners from Nicosia. I could see why John and Patrick had been interested in it, though looking at it again now, and feeling the modern leather of the cover, I couldn’t understand how they had thought it might actually be from the sixteenth century. That said, the paper inside was not modern as it had not aged the way cellulose paper would have done. My personal hunch was that the book was some publishing folly from the nineteenth centu
ry that had been re-bound at some point.

  I suddenly had an idea. Flicking through the pages I held them up to the light coming in from the window. It was a grey day but it was sufficient and almost immediately I noticed a watermark on successive pages. It was of a serpent entwined with a tree. I went to my satchel and pulled out the volume on watermarks I had borrowed from the Gallery library on Friday afternoon.

  I flicked through the catalogue of paper makers’ marks which made up almost half of the book, humming along to the symphony on the stereo. I was in high spirits as I thought I could perhaps use this as the basis of an amusing anecdote at the start of the research paper I planned to write on the Masaccio drawing – as I was convinced it was – later on in the year. I ran my finger down the lists of watermarks, flicking through page after page, becoming increasingly certain I would not find it and that this method was either extremely limited or that the paper used was so new that it did not even register. And then my finger drew level with a symbol on a page in the last third of the catalogue. I stopped my humming and felt my heart pound within me and my hand start to shake.

  The mark was there. The serpent and the tree. But it was not from the nineteenth century after all. The watermark confirmed that the book had been printed in Venice. And the date was somewhere between 1570 and 1610.

  Chapter 18

  I lay there that evening and watched Madeleine dress, watched her pulling on her knickers and stockings; but I did not really see her at all.

  Il panno è caduto dal pacco e improvvisamente una croce dorata è stata rivelata fissato con i gioielli come le stelle.

  The cloth fell from the bundle and suddenly a golden cross was revealed studded with jewels like stars.

  “You were a bit languid today darling. Somewhat lacking your usual energy.” She put her bra on and turned to look at me straight on.

  L’insieme nell’oro era gioielli da dappertutto: diamanti, rubini, smeraldi ed ametisti. E nel centro della croce ci era uno zaffiro, blu quanto il cielo...

  Set in the gold were jewels from all over the world: diamonds, rubies, emeralds and amethysts. And in the centre of the cross there was a sapphire, blue as the sky...

  “You’re not listening to me at all are you?” She stood up in her underwear and stalked over to the chair where her clothes had been carefully folded. She picked up her blouse and gave me a wry smile. “You obviously overdid it during your clear-out. I hope you get some vigour back for this evening.”

  “The thing is,” I said looking through her. “Let’s say the book really is from when it purports to be: the end of the sixteenth century. So printed only a few years after the events it describes. What does that mean?”

  Madeleine heaved a sigh. “I have no idea.” She wandered into the bathroom to do her make-up.

  “It means the whole thing could be a contemporaneous hoax… But why would anyone bother?”

  “A very good question.”

  “Or it could mean that the treasure was hidden and then the Turks – or whoever else – discovered it and subsequently broke the piece up so that it no longer existed in its complete form. But if the Venetians really had buried it, surely they would have done it properly. So... if it is true and the treasure was buried then...” I felt a shiver run down my spine like ice-water. “Then it’s probably still there.”

  I jumped out of bed and skipped naked into the bathroom and stood behind Madeleine. She thought I’d come to give her a kiss and she turned, one eye mascara’d, the other not. I gave her a peck on the cheek almost absent-mindedly.

  “Robert has a chap over tomorrow. An Italian book expert. I’m going to collar him and see what he thinks.”

  “Oh really darling?” she said coolly, looking back into the mirror, rolling the brush over her long lashes. Staring wide, then blinking wide, then smiling. “How thrilling for you both. And will you be getting dressed at all this evening? Hugh and Daisy like you, darling. Really they do. But I’m not sure they’d want your pubes on display over whatever Jamie Oliver bastardisation they’re serving up for us tonight.”

  I looked at her, my head still abuzz but I realised I could do nothing more until the morning in any case. I hopped into the shower, was out again within two minutes and was dressed two minutes after that. Slicked my hair back, slipped on a pair of loafers and was ready at the same time as Madeleine emerged from the bathroom, her cosmetic transformation complete.

  “Do you like this lipstick?”

  She pouted her lips out for me. They were blood red. Ruby red. I smiled. “Yes, very much.”

  She was pleased. “Shall we go. And you will be good tonight, won’t you darling. You will unwind and not go on about that book or talk shop about art history. They’ll all be lawyers there and they just won’t be interested in that sort of thing.” She gave me a little kiss and smiled at me indulgently.

  She was wearing a pair of slacks and a delicate chiffon blouse through which you could see her lacy bra. It was a good look, a sexy look and, since I could do no more this evening, I decided that I would enjoy her later.

  The phone rang just as we were walking out.

  “Leave it,” she said.

  “Let me just see who it is.”

  It rang twice more before the answerphone kicked in.

  “Can we leave it please?” said Madeleine, irritably now. “They’re only round the corner so we don’t have any excuse to be late.”

  “...please leave me a message.”

  “Julius.” The voice rang out loud and squawked with feedback from the old machine. “Julius, I hope you’re doing fine. Haven’t seen you for a few months. But I got an invitation to a College reunion thing the other day, so I assume you got one as well? Just wondering whether you were going or not. Anyway give me a call if you get the chance. See you.” And then just as we were actually leaving and the door swinging shut behind us we heard the sound of the receiver being juggled and lifted again at the last minute, and the voice again, embarrassed, “Oh sorry. It’s Patrick by the way.”

  Chapter 19

  By eight o’clock on Monday morning I had taken up residence in a corner of the Gallery library, my mind ringing with the same thought that had occupied me throughout that interminable dinner and the long hours of sleeplessness which had followed: could the book really be genuine?

  If it was of the age the watermark suggested then surely it must be. I would show it to Robert’s book expert at lunchtime. He’d be able to tell me. I could get the pages carbon dated to be confirm it. And if the book was contemporary with the events described in it then why would it not be a true account? And if it was true, then the cross must have existed; must still exist.

  I tried to stay calm.

  To go forwards I would need to produce a full translation of the text. Fine. For the moment though I just needed something to prevent my mind from racing. I went to the bookshelves and pulled down Norwich’s A History of Venice, and The Venetian Empire by Morris, and read through the basic story: from the sack of Nicosia, through the siege of Famagusta and all the way to Bragadino’s grisly end. Polidoro was mentioned in both. According to Norwich:

  ...a certain Girolamo Polidoro, one of the few survivors of the siege, managed to steal the skin from the Arsenal of Constantinople and return it to Bragadino’s sons, who deposited it in the church of S. Gregorio. From here, on 18 May 1596, it was transferred to SS. Giovanni e Paolo and placed in a niche behind the urn which forms part of the hero’s memorial. Here it still remains today … The niche was opened on 24 November 1961 at the instigation of the leading authority on Bragadino – and his direct descendant – Signora Maria Grazia Siliato. It was found to contain a leaden casket in which were several pieces of tanned human skin. They were replaced in March 1962, after a restoration of the monument.

  Immediately there was a discrepancy though. According to Morris:

  Finally it [Bragadino’s skin] was taken to Constantinople by Mustapha Pasha himself, and presented as a trophy of victory to
the Sultan. It was placed in the Arsenal in the Golden Horn, directly opposite the place where, 350 years before, the Venetian forces had breached the walls of Constantinople and begun their imperial history. In 1650 a citizen of Verona, Jerome Polidoro, was persuaded by the Bragadino family to steal it. It was brought to Venice, and laid at last, all torments ended, in the church of San Zanipolo. As for Polidoro, the Turks caught him and tortured him appallingly, but he was ransomed by the Bragadinos, and given a pension of five ducats a month by the grateful Signory.

  The names were different, Girolamo versus Jerome, but that was a trivial matter of anglicisation. More to the point the dates were wildly out. If Morris was correct then there was no way that Polidoro could have been a survivor of the siege at all and hence his account as an eyewitness must be a fiction.

  On other points the two accounts were in agreement but there was no mention of the Cross of St Peter and Paul – and certainly not its hiding – in either. This did not perturb me unduly as it lent credence to the notion that it was an exclusive gathering who had been present when the treasure was buried. Also, Norwich again:

  Nicosia was a rich city, generously endowed with treasures ecclesiastical and secular, western and Byzantine. It was a full week [after the defeat] before all the gold and silver, the precious stones and enamelled reliquaries, the jewelled vestments, the velvets and brocades had been loaded on to the carts and trundled away – the richest spoils to fall into Turkish hands since the capture of Constantinople itself, well over a century before.

  So could a treasure such as the cross have existed in Nicosia? Certainly it seemed possible.

  At the back of Norwich was a full list of the Doges of Venice with their dates:

  I scanned down the list till I got to the time of the siege: Alvise Mocenigo, 1570-1577. From my as yet highly unsystematic reading of the journal, I remembered that Polidoro had referred to him as the new Doge. It was at least consistent.