Picture of Defeat

by John Harris

  ‘Yes, there is. A bit.’ Suddenly it came out in a rush. ‘You’ve lost your paintings, Tamara. Every last one of them. A bomb hit the place where I had them hidden. The place went up in flames. There’s nothing left.’

  She lifted her head quickly to look at him, then she studied him gravely. ‘I think I would like a cigarette,’ she said quietly. She seemed to be fighting an urge to throw her arms round him and was only held back by his expression. ‘It doesn’t matter, Piu,’ she said finally. ‘You are safe and I was worried there would be killing. I had you dead and buried and was saying paters and aves over your coffin. It doesn’t matter if you’re all right.’

  He looked up. ‘You’ve nothing left,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all. Just that figurine.’

  She stared at him, her eyes shining but still touched with worry. ‘It is all right, Piu,’ she insisted. She made a helpless gesture with her hand and let it drop to her side, struggling to be rational and sensible, to keep her head against his bitterness. ‘It will be all right,’ she said again. ‘You’ll see. There was a message from Avvocato Tassinari while you were out. Your professor has arrived. He’s come to see the pictures.’

  ‘There’s nothing to see.’

  ‘Yes, there is, Piu. You forget. There are three. Small ones. I shall still be richer than I ever thought I was going to be. I never expected anything, so a little – even if it’s not the lot – is better than that.’

  As he reached out to take her hand, she looked at him with sad, compassionate eyes. ‘I think it is late, Piu,’ she said softly. ‘Perhaps we should go to bed.’

  They met at Tassinari’s place the following afternoon. Elated by their success over the drugs, Jones was happy to leave everything to Pugh, who borrowed the jeep and went to the station to pick up his expert.

  Though he wore a uniform, he was still a professor, a long, dry, desiccated man who moved slowly but clearly knew what he was talking about. Avvocato Tassinari’s man might almost have been his brother, and the two took to each other immediately. They had even heard of each other, had once written to each other before the war, and seemed to regard the meeting as a reunion of old friends.

  Tassinari had set up the three small paintings on a table so that they caught the full light from the window. They seemed to glow with colour and restored a little of Pugh’s self-confidence, which had been at a low ebb since the night before. Tamara waited quietly alongside him. Their lovemaking had been urgent and passionate and had left them exhausted, so that she had clung to him, insisting with all the power she possessed that the disaster to the hearse didn’t matter.

  To his surprise, Marco was also there. He looked sullen but far from poverty-stricken, and again Pugh sensed that the figurine he had caught him trying to sell was not the only thing he had acquired from his brother’s possessions.

  The two experts studied the paintings for a while in silence, then the Englishman looked at his Italian opposite number and smiled.

  ‘Such splendour,’ he said and Tamara looked quickly at Pugh, whose heart thumped suddenly.

  ‘Che colore!’ The Italian smiled back then they both bent down again, peering at the pictures.

  The Italian poked out a lean forefinger, seemed to pluck at the small canvas and nodded, then the Englishman produced a magnifying glass and bent with him. There was an enormous silence and Pugh could feel his breath thick in his throat. Then they rose and turned.

  ‘Absolutely magnificent,’ the Englishman said. ‘Boccaccio Detto Banti at his very very best. I would date them about 1920. They are English scenes and were painted when he was at his peak. I can identify this one as the Camp Near Tunbridge Wells. I’ve heard of it. I’ve even seen it. The other two I don’t know. But the one on the right with the soldiers seems to be a market in Colchester. It’s a street I know well. It was painted at roughly the same time. When Detto Banti was at his best, before he lost his skill, before he returned to Italy and threw in his lot with the Fascists. They are quite remarkable and quite, quite genuine.’

  There was a faint snort from Marco. ‘They were the only ones that were genuine,’ he said.

  They all turned to him, and he gave a lopsided grin. ‘The others were all fakes,’ he admitted. ‘Every one of them, Bocco started them but he never got beyond the outlines. He was hitting the bottle and did nothing more than sketch them out.’

  ‘How do you know this?’ Pugh snapped.

  ‘Because I painted them. Me. Marcopolo Detto Banti, the man everybody said couldn’t paint. I was good enough to fool a lot of people for a long time. It’s one of life’s ironies, isn’t it? Now they’re gone I can never boast about it because nobody will ever believe me.’

  There was a long silence. The two experts tried to appear absorbed in the small paintings to avoid the embarrassing silence.

  ‘Why?’ Tassinari asked.

  Marco grinned. ‘Because Bocco was no longer able. I’d painted one or two for him which we sold, then the war came and the Germans arrived in Italy. They kept enquiring about his work, and he sold what he had and did well, too. But then he couldn’t manage any more so I painted them for him. Sometimes I even had to help him sign them.’

  There was a long silence and Marco went on, lacking shame, even a little proud. ‘I’d been finishing his paintings for ages,’ he said. ‘I’d copied his style and I had his paint to work with. I even knew how to mix it because I’d been mixing it for him for a long time. First of all they were just for the Germans. I did them for the gauleiters and senior officers. But then when the experts came and said they were buying for Goering and Hitler himself – for the exhibition hall he wanted to start at Linz – I got scared and stuck them in the cellar. When the Germans were driven out, I decided I’d do better to get the paintings to Naples and sell them to the Americans. Everybody knows the Americans are mad about culture and that there are copies of the Mona Lisa all over the United States. Canalettos, too. I know because when I was over there, I saw more than one that I knew was a fake. I thought, why not Detto Bantis?’

  ‘And the ones from Vicinamontane?’

  ‘Some were what were left over from those I painted for the Germans. Some I painted in the last days before Bocco died. It started when one of the Germans who knew something about art found that he’d already got rid of all his paintings. When he found out I’d helped with them, he said, “Why not paint some more? We can get rid of them.” So I did, and we shared the proceeds. The German was eventually posted to Russia. I expect he’s dead now.’

  ‘And that’s why we never found any preliminary sketches?’ Pugh said.

  Marco smiled. ‘They were mine. I made them. I sold them, too. As genuine Detto Banti sketches, the originals for Detto Banti paintings. I even sold them a Remolo and a Pio Santemara which I said belonged to Bocco.’

  ‘Genuine?’

  ‘Of course not. I knew where to get the right canvas and I mixed the paints by copying from originals. They weren’t old masters and I was careful to make mistakes.’

  ‘Mistakes?’

  ‘So I could paint over them. Originals have spontaneity, mistakes that have been painted over. If there’s underpainting it indicates authenticity.’

  ‘You studied it well,’ Pugh growled.

  ‘It wasn’t hard.’ Marco smiled. ‘I also found two unfinished paintings in Matisse’s style and one in Cézanne’s. Perhaps Bocco had had ideas himself and lost his nerve.’

  ‘You didn’t lose your nerve.’

  ‘No. The Germans took them all right. It wasn’t difficult. I had his drawings and the remains of his paints and I knew all about his special colours. That red of his and the famous green. And most of the people who came to look at them didn’t know anything about art, anyway. When the Germans went I just kept it up.’

  Marco shrugged and looked at Tamara. ‘You can’t grumble,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the only genuine ones out of the whole lot.’

  Tassinari sighed. ‘After all we did to save them,’ he murmured.r />
  Marco gestured. ‘You didn’t save them,’ he said. ‘They saved you.’

  There seemed to be plenty of reasons for a celebration. It started at lunchtime and everyone was there – Jones, Tassinari, the two experts, even Paddy O’Mara and Marco Detto Banti. It went on all afternoon and started again in the evening in a private dinner for Pugh and Tamara in a small stone-flagged whitewashed trattoria in a backstreet. The proprietor produced spaghetti and what passed as veal, and instead of the inevitable spinach there were peas which he quietly picked one by one out of the soup. Finally, he recommended for dessert a sort of cake soaked with vermouth, and even went so far, instead of allowing them to find their coffee in a bar, to have it fetched for them, and produced it tepid and almost undrinkable after its long journey to their table.

  Pugh and Tamara went home arm-in-arm and made love gently and tenderly. By this time, they had accepted that they belonged to each other and nothing would ever part them, and the warm night convinced them.

  Pugh was still elated when he went to the office the next morning. ‘It was a good celebration,’ he said.

  Jones’ face didn’t slip. ‘There’s just one thing,’ he said in a flat voice.

  His manner finally penetrated Pugh’s elation. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘What’s the snag?’

  ‘You’re the snag. You’ve been posted.’

  ‘What?’ Pleased at their success, delighted suddenly with his life, with discovering he was in love, Pugh felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his world. He had begun to feel settled and domesticated and now the emptiness rushed back. Enormous distances lay before him, and he could feel the wind blowing through them. He forced himself to speak calmly.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Tunisia.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘Tasker. It was the last thing he did. He was always after you.’

  ‘He’s gone now.’

  Jones shrugged. ‘His report hasn’t. It’s known you’ve got a girl in your room and it’s against regulations. The powers that be insist.’

  Pugh was shocked and indignant. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he bleated, ‘so has Paddy O’Mara! So has Plummer from time to time!’

  ‘They won’t have after today if they’ve got any sense.’

  ‘Probably Tasker had, too.’

  ‘I’m sure he had,’ Jones agreed. ‘But you’re the one who’s been named.’ He sighed. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? You nobble him but just too late to stop him nobbling you. What’s called a Pyrrhic victory, I believe.’

  ‘The bloody hypocrite!’ The calmness was vanishing and Pugh was growing angry as his quick temper boiled over. ‘What the hell does it matter, anyway?’

  Jones shrugged. ‘Something to do with morals, I think. You know there’s been a clamp-down about it. When the police find girls moving in with a soldier, they whizz her off to the questura, pile her with others into lorries, take her to the hospital and make her strip to the buff and submit to an examination. The VD rate’s been found to be too high.’

  ‘That’s a bloody insult!’

  ‘That’s exactly what the Italians say. And now that the war looks like ending before too long, our lot are trying to keep ’em sweet because we’re going to need ’em. The Italians say it’s humiliating because the girls are always given a yellow card, even if they’re proved free of disease, and that means they become registered as pros. Some aren’t – I know, and everybody knows – and that’s what the Italians are complaining about. They want to know why girls are subjected to this humiliation when often it’s the soldiers who do the propositioning. The Yanks started clamping down on it long since – big show of propriety – and our lot are now following suit.’

  ‘Tasker’s gone now,’ Pugh snorted. ‘Why can’t you just tear up the report?’

  ‘If I had my way I would. But I haven’t. Tasker sent the report direct to the general.’

  Pugh’s fury was passing. ‘He never liked me,’ he agreed. ‘He was just using this as an excuse.’

  Jones admitted the fact. ‘You’re not comfortable to have around,’ he said. ‘That’s the trouble. He was taking a cut from Baracca’s operations and you were buggering it up. He was also hoping to get his paws on those Detto Bantis and you buggered that up, too.’ He shrugged again. ‘I also think pressure’s being put on us by everybody – by the gangs, by the authorities who’re trying to clean the place up. You were too close. You’re dangerous.’

  ‘Can’t you speak to the general? After all, we’ve just put a feather in his bloody cap.’

  Jones’ own anger finally burst out. ‘You don’t think, for Christ’s sake, that I didn’t speak up for you, do you?’ he said. ‘That I didn’t point out what a bloody fine job you’ve just done? He agreed, and you’re going to get a gong and you’ll still get your commission – which is a consolation, though in your case, being a bit bloody-minded, you might think it isn’t. But you’ve got to be retired. Shunted to Welfare, put in charge of NAAFI, or the Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Airmens’ Whatsit. Whatever it is, you’ve got to go. You’re out. O-U-T. You can make a name for yourself in Tunisia, but here you’re finished.’ Jones looked as if he wanted to weep. ‘It’s one of the seven wonders of the world that a bastard like Tasker can nobble you, old Tom, but he has. He has! By God, he has! And there isn’t a thing you can do about it.’

  Jones pushed the papers on his desk around for a while, then he looked up, pink in the face. ‘The general thought about it a long time but there wasn’t much he could do. The complaint had been made and he has to uphold it.’

  ‘A bastard like Tasker!’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that. The general doesn’t want someone to find you down a back alley with your throat slit. Propaganda comes into it, too, you see. We’re just beginning to hold our own with the bloody racketeers, which is why we’re making such a fuss about letting everyone know about Tasker and Baracca and Tirandolo, and it would look too bloody bad if our hero – you – got knocked off. The other side would be able to crow that, in spite of minor setbacks, they were still in control.’

  Jones looked up with an earnest expression, appealing to Pugh to understand. It made sense, Pugh had to admit, staring through the window at the sea. It was blue with the blue he loved, the blue he’d often tried to paint.

  ‘What about Tamara?’ he asked.

  Jones frowned. ‘Is she important?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on her.’

  ‘She might need someone,’ Pugh said slowly. ‘She’s going to be worth a lot of money.’

  It was difficult telling Tamara.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ Pugh said. ‘Avvoccato Tassinari’s looking after your affairs and he’s as honest as they come. Do what he says. After all, you’re not going to be short of money.’

  Her eyes were red with weeping. ‘What shall I do?’

  ‘Register the pictures.’

  ‘I don’t mean the pictures. I mean you. What shall I do without you?’

  Pugh didn’t know, in the same way that he didn’t know what he was going to do without her. He tried to draw her attention away from the problem.

  ‘Place them with a reputable dealer or a gallery. Tassinari will advise you. Then sell them and stick the money in the bank.’

  ‘Must I sell all of them. Can’t I keep one?’

  ‘That’s your affair.’ Pugh’s face was grim. ‘See Captain Jones. He’s promised to help, too. Then go somewhere quiet, away from Naples, until it blows over and the armies are gone.’

  ‘You’ll be killed.’

  ‘No. The fighting’s finished in North Africa.’

  ‘Will you come back?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was bitten off because Pugh knew that, with the war still not over, there were other places he could be sent to.

  ‘I’ll wait for you.’

  ‘I’ve no hold on you.’

  She turned on him angrily. ‘Of course you have! I’ve shared yo
ur bed. That makes things different.’

  ‘You might meet somebody else. An Italian, like yourself. Somebody younger than me.’

  She studied him, a strong figure with curves of humour on his face. It was a face in which she’d seen joy, disappointment and triumph, a face that was capable, as she knew, of tenderness as well as sarcasm. He could be infuriating, unpredictable, but also extravagantly generous, and all the gentleness, all the warm comfort of shared troubles that had sometimes seemed too big for her to bear, came from Pugh in a way she had never had from anyone else.

  ‘I don’t think so, Piu,’ she said quietly.

  Their parting was a long one. He had helped her find a new apartment in the Vomero – which was a much better district, where there was air to breathe – and Tassinari had promised to keep an eye on her.

  ‘It is like having my daughter alive again,’ he admitted. ‘I’ll no longer feel as alone as I did.’

  But she had refused to move until Pugh had gone. As they parted, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him fiercely.

  ‘I shall wait,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t have to. You’re a free agent.’

  ‘No,’ she insisted. ‘I’m not a free agent.’ She kissed him again. Then she turned abruptly and walked away. In the square nearby she could catch the funicular and, as she paused on the corner, he thought she would turn and wave. But she didn’t, and it left him feeling hollow and empty.

  When the Jeep came to take him to the harbour, he stood staring at the sea for a while. He wasn’t sure what the future held, either for him or for her. He’d said he’d be back and she’d said she’d wait for him. But a lot could happen before he could make it.

  The driver shifted restlessly and Pugh realised he was getting impatient.

  ‘I’m coming,’ he said.

  At the harbour, the ship, a transport converted to carry troops, was waiting. She was tall and high and old fashioned and smelled of rotten potatoes. She had brought troops from North Africa and was going back virtually empty.

  As she swung away from the quayside and moved stern-first to where she could get seaway, the siren boomed and the propeller thrashed the water to a yeasty foam. Then the ship’s head turned and she began to head southwards.