All this research had led him to two conclusions: first, that the story he’d heard years before from Pilar María was pretty much accurate; and second, that someone had taken care to conceal information. Of the 597 pages in the official case file, nine had been removed.
Elías had decided to consult Alfredo, his uncle’s vicar. As usual, they had met at a restaurant in a dying orchard outside Murcia, a secluded locale that afforded them the privacy to discuss dossiers, artwork, and church relics over a good bottle of Jumilla and a grilled T-bone. Alfredo had suggested he check the archives at El Salvador Parish, the church second in importance to the Basilica of the True Cross. Almost all its files had been transferred to the municipal archives, but a few folders had been left behind in the dusty sacristy. It was a long shot, but Elías hadn’t known what else to try.
Now, as he visited the church the following day, he stopped before the altar. As he prayed, he had the sense that God was listening to him, and began to get his hopes up. The sacristy shelves yielded nothing of value, but the sexton was thrilled to hear about his search and told him about a locked trunk left undisturbed for decades within the Mora family’s gated chapel. Elías asked to see it. The man unlocked the gate and pointed to the right of the altar.
“Do you mind if I force the lock?” Elías asked.
The sexton shrugged. “If it’s at the bishop’s orders . . .” His broad smile betrayed his curiosity.
Elías made short work of it with his multipurpose knife. Then he raised the lid, pushed aside some ancient scraps of fabric, and found a cloth bag bulging with gold coins. He handed it to the sexton.
Underneath were a number of rolled-up documents tied with red ribbon. Some concerned inheritances, contracts, and deeds. And, God be praised, one bundle consisted of exactly nine sheets—the nine that had gone missing from the case of the stolen True Cross.
He glanced through the pages quickly, checked his Casio, and remembered he was due to meet with his uncle. After thanking the stunned sexton profusely, he hurried off. He followed the passageway through the great wall. A blast of cold air struck his face as he emerged, and the chill of old stone bit deep into his bones. He crossed himself as he passed in front of the altar, then pulled his coat tighter as he headed upstairs to the council chamber. Suddenly, a tall man with an apish face loomed over him, blocking his way. In recent weeks, Elías had caught glimpses of the fellow, apparently involved in minor errands and maintenance work.
“His Excellency is in a meeting.”
Not another word. Nor could one expect more from such a gorilla. Elías settled onto a bench, shivering with cold. Shortly afterward, he heard a murmur of voices and chairs scraping across the stone floor. The chamber doors opened. Half a dozen men and three women came out. All were over fifty and distinctly well dressed. They bustled away, apparently pleased. Under the vigilant gaze of the gorilla, Elías entered, grateful for the warmth of several space heaters. He paused just inside the door. His uncle sat at the far end of the room, in a massive chair that presided over a stately meeting table made of dark wood. Alfredo sat just to his right. The two were conversing with an elderly man whose long white beard and thick glasses gave him a sage-like air. Elías’s uncle smiled and gestured for him to approach. The sage nodded amiably as he took his leave.
“Elías! Please, have a seat.”
He indicated the chair across from Alfredo. The bishop was tall, with a florid complexion and a surprisingly athletic build for his age. He still had all his hair, and though it had recently started to silver, his eyes sparkled with keen apprehension, and a habitual smile played about his lips.
“Looks like you’ve already been hard at work this morning, Uncle.”
“There’s much to get done. Would you care for some coffee?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Alfredo went out for a moment and then returned. A few minutes later, the now-docile gorilla brought in a tray with cups, spoons, sugar, tea cakes, and several thermoses of coffee and milk. He discreetly closed the door as he left.
Elías’s uncle placed a cup before him. “Well, then, tell me how things are going. Alfredo was updating me about your efforts, but I have no idea of your conclusions.”
“None at all, as yet.”
“What? You’ve found nothing?”
“Not nothing.” He paused and filled his cup to the brim with coffee. “The truth is, I made a remarkable discovery just this morning.”
“That’s great!” Alfredo exclaimed.
Elías had never gotten used to Alfredo’s lapses into English. Initially, he’d thought it an affectation, but later he learned that the man’s mother was from London, and Alfredo’s English was almost better than his Spanish. At times, Alfredo seemed a bit pedantic, but Caridad, Elías’s wife, had always been extremely fond of the vicar, and Elías had come to appreciate him as well.
“I’ve located the nine pages that were missing from the case file.”
Elías took a sip of the steaming coffee, then removed his coat and draped it over a vacant chair.
“Go on, nephew. We’re on the edge of our seats.”
“The nine missing pages contain the formal statement given by the chaplain.”
“Don Ildefonso Ramírez Alonso,” said the bishop. “A very melodious name.”
“As you know, people have batted around various theories about the theft. Right-wingers accused the leftists of destroying a Christian emblem, while the left said the conservatives knew that was nonsense and just wanted them to take the fall. There was also speculation that it was about money, but that didn’t make sense because the thieves didn’t take any of the church’s other treasures.”
There was a knock at the door, and the gorilla stuck his head in. “Excellency . . .”
The bishop nodded, and the man came forward to whisper in his ear. Elías took a closer look at him. With his jutting jaw, blue eyes, and brown hair, he looked Polish. Or perhaps Romanian.
“I can’t see him now, I’m in an important meeting.” His uncle’s tone left no room for protest.
The gorilla strode out, his face just as inexpressive as when he’d come in.
“Excuse me, nephew. We have a great deal of work concerning the arrival of His Holiness, and people bother me with stupid trifles. We cannot ask the Holy Father to visit some minor politician’s house to bless his disabled mother. It’s simply not possible.” His uncle shook his head. “God help me. Now, where were we?”
“With the last remaining theory.”
“And that is?” Alfredo prompted.
“That the theft was intended to protect the cross—remember, this all took place during the war—and that it was an inside job assisted by the chaplain.”
The bishop’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you have any proof?”
Elías finished his already lukewarm coffee and poured some more.
“As I said, the pages removed from the official file contain the chaplain’s formal statement. In them, the man breaks down and confesses that he let the thieves in.”
“What? The chaplain?” Alfredo asked.
“If I understand you correctly,” his uncle said, “the chaplain does not avow the theft of the True Cross but says that he allowed someone else to carry it away. Who?”
“He doesn’t say.”
The three men sat in silence for several seconds.
“What I’d like to know,” Elías went on, “is why did someone go to the trouble of hiding those nine pages. And why were they in the El Salvador Parish?”
The trio sank into silence once more.
“And then there’s the fact that Don Ildefonso didn’t go to prison,” Elías said at last.
“What are you implying?” Alfredo asked.
“If he didn’t wind up in jail, someone in power must have intervened. The chaplain died scarcely two years later and took his secret to the grave.”
“You make a compelling case,” his uncle said. “But if the theft was intended to protect the Tr
ue Cross, why didn’t the relic reappear after the war ended?”
“That’s what I have to find out. I think we’re getting there.”
“Do you know how much I had to do to convince the pope to visit?” His uncle’s voice was sharp.
Elías’s mother had told him that his uncle had known the Holy Father for many years, since well before he left Spain for the Vatican, and that the two were still in close contact. His uncle never spoke of it.
“‘Getting there’ isn’t good enough. You must recover the cross. If you do not, all our work will have been in vain.” The bishop took a moment to breathe.
“I won’t disappoint you, Uncle. I just need more time.”
“Well, you’ll have to defy adversity and conjure up some time, because I have another task for you.”
“What? His Holiness’s visit is only two weeks away!”
“I need you to go to Madrid the day after tomorrow. There’s an auction, and I want you to bid on something for me.”
“What?” Elías tried to conceal his dismay.
“A Bacon.”
Elías didn’t much care for any art later than that from the fifteenth-century siglo de oro. And he knew that his uncle found modern art tasteless. And yet, from time to time, his uncle would send him to examine a donation from some estate, participate in an auction, or negotiate with a private collector for a modern painting that then would be stored in a private room in the cellar of the bishop’s residence. The one time he’d dared to ask why, his uncle had admonished him that curiosity should be directed toward learning and understanding Holy Scripture and the Gospel of Christ.
“As you wish.”
“Perfect. Alfredo will give you the details.”
Elías swallowed his disappointment. He felt so close to presenting his uncle with the Lignum Crucis. Plus, he didn’t have the slightest interest in traveling to Madrid to bid on the work of an artist he considered completely devoid of aesthetic sense.
Alfredo picked up a briefcase and took out a large envelope.
“Here’s all the information you need. Don’t open it here, please; we’ve got another meeting now. If you have any questions, just call me. Bye.”
Elías got to his feet with the brown paper envelope in hand and went to the door.
“Elías.”
He turned. His uncle was contemplating him with a faint smile. A shaft of sunlight cast his silhouette in sharp relief and rendered his hair a dazzling silver.
“Good work!”
4
Street parking was hard to find in Madrid, and experience had taught him that leaving a luxury car unattended there was like setting a briefcase of cash on the front steps of Congress. So Elías followed his GPS to a secure garage right next door to his destination.
It was almost eleven o’clock when he approached the discreet display window with the name of the auction house etched into the glass. A pleasant young woman in a green uniform directed him to the appropriate exposition. The rooms were packed. He made his way past antique furniture; decorative objects in silver, marble, and real Chinese porcelain; glittering vintage jewelry; sculptures; engravings; and, of course, paintings of all sizes, eras, and styles.
He found what he was looking for at the back of the gallery. He stationed himself next to two men dressed entirely in black—black pants, black shirts, black double-breasted jackets. One nudged the other with an elbow, and they stepped to one side. Elías kept an eye on them as they headed toward the exit. They glanced at him and surveyed the room as if searching for something or someone.
Elías turned his attention back to the painting. It was a view of a bishop from behind, recognizable from his white vestments and ceremonial hat. He slumped on a dark-gray oval sofa reminiscent of a serving platter, as if they’d just plated him up for dinner. That impression was reinforced by the enormous bottle of wine set before him, black with a shiny label that reflected the man’s shadowy face, his withered mouth open wide to reveal a sharp set of teeth. The bottle, leaning slightly to the left, was resting on a slab of meat, a bloody ribcage, the remains of a slit-open calf. The floor was a plain field of orange, and in the background loomed a wall in a darker shade of the same color, semicircular and marked with a large black W.
Though no signature was visible, the symbolism was typical of Bacon. The ribcage, the bishop, the twisted expression, the circular room, the muted shades of red, orange, black, and white, the obvious allusion to The Toilet of Venus. Bacon had idolized Velázquez’s technical mastery, the master’s detail, brilliance, and colors. Velázquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X had led Bacon to create a revelatory series of paintings portraying the horrors of the human spirit, all the suffering and desperation lurking behind the serene visage of a golden age pope.
The Toilet of Venus was another of Velázquez’s works that had gripped Bacon’s imagination. He had sat before it in London’s National Gallery for hours and hours. The work had inspired many of Bacon’s portraits, which often featured partial or distorted reflections of his subjects—just as this painting of the bishop did. But the reference wasn’t normally so explicit. This unknown painting bore no title but would certainly have merited the name Study of the Toilet of Venus. After all, in the place of Velázquez’s Cupid, the painter offered up a slab of meat, alluding to carnal desire, which for Bacon was the only real kind of love. The substitution of a bishop for Venus, mother of Cupid, hinted at the promiscuity of some Catholic clergy; the piece of meat could represent the consequence of carnal relations, a bloody punishment for failing to respect one’s vows.
The theme, the colors, and the symbols were clear. Only the bottle of wine and the large W departed from Bacon’s visual vocabulary. At the same time, it was hardly unusual for the artist to illustrate Dionysus’s favorite indulgence. Bacon’s addiction to it was notorious, and he’d even declared that hangovers stimulated his creativity.
The only way to confirm this as a true Bacon was to apply the Morelli method, a formal authentication procedure based on the subtlest details of an artist’s style. A painter’s brushstroke is like handwriting, unique in that it consistently resorts to learned but subconscious techniques to resolve specific problems, such as the shape of a secondary figure’s ear, and evidences certain obsessions, like retouching a pupil or an eyebrow three or four times. Elías studied the length and the direction of the strokes used to compose the background. Then he focused on the piece of meat, its rounded form and indistinct contours. They evoked the prostrate Christ of Cimabue in the detail of the spine and suspended ribs. There were astonishing similarities to the Three Studies for a Crucifixion.
He turned his attention to the bishop. First to the hand upon his hip, the fingers clenched and poorly defined, almost a stump; and then to the ear, the details of the bishop’s hat, and the folds of his chasuble. Each was consistent with Bacon’s style.
Last of all, he examined the partly reflected face. The mouth’s distorted cry was extremely typical of Bacon’s work, recalling the disturbing scene in The Battleship Potemkin where the nurse has just lost an eye. But Elías frowned at the delicate lips of the heart-shaped mouth, upper teeth straight and lower teeth irregular against a black background, no tongue visible. Here the departures from Bacon’s style were obvious. First of all, these teeth weren’t straight but pointed, like canines, and stained in blood. And this mouth was rectangular, baring those incisors almost as if to spit them out, suggesting that the subject, instead of crying out, was threatening to lunge and bite at any second. The open mouth and its mute outcry violated Bacon’s basic principles, his intention to convey emotion while scorning all narrative, so anyone stopping in front of one of his paintings would feel slammed in the guts. Whereas this particular work, this exclamation that conveyed neither pain nor heartbreak but menace, did seem to be telling a story, almost warning the viewer: Beware of this bishop!
Surely it must have been this departure, along with those other odd elements—the bottle of wine and the large W�
��that had caused the gallery owners to decide against listing it as an authentic Bacon. Elías would have done the same. He didn’t believe this was Bacon’s work, despite his uncle’s insistence that he purchase it.
The auction was scheduled for six p.m., so he had time for a stroll and a bite to eat. He took a walk through Serrano before heading to the Hotel Único. After doing justice to one of the most expensive offerings on Ramón Freixa’s menu, he went out to the courtyard to enjoy an Irish coffee, savoring the lingering pleasure of the baked mullet and glazed suckling pig. The air outside was cool, but the sunshine warmed his skin. The drink, combined with the gracious surroundings, infused in him a sense of well-being, further stimulated by the pure air of this oasis in the center of the city.
A few moments later, a young woman sat down at the adjoining table. She was blond, slim, and stylish—expensive jewelry, subtle makeup, and a form-fitting dress tight against her breasts. She ordered a gin and tonic and gave Elías a slight nod. He responded with the same and looked down at his newspaper. He’d seen enough of these brazen women, most of them prostitutes hawking their wares in high-class hotels, others adventurers intent on snaring a rich husband. He didn’t care for either type. He was happily married, and he had no intention of offering the slightest encouragement to that kind of woman. It was a shame to see them wasting their lives like that. Their parents must not have provided them with a religious education, or they’d have turned out better.
Setting aside the newspaper, he reviewed some of his notes. The asking price for the painting was 30 thousand euros, a derisory sum for a true Bacon. The artist’s works had broken all the auction sales records. His Portrait of George Dyer Talking had gone for more than 50 million euros and his triptych of Lucian Freud for 142 million.
Elías finished his coffee and went back to the auction house. The hall had seats for fifty, about half of which were occupied. He spotted the two guys in black he’d seen earlier, seated on a sofa in an alcove. He took a chair in the last row so he could survey the entire room. Gradually, the place filled up until there was standing room only. Near the front of the room was a table where six women were seated, each with a telephone. The auctioneer explained basic procedures and then, with British precision, started the session exactly on time.
The Dark Circus Page 2