The Vanishing of the Mona Lisa

by Martin Caparros

  It’s a novel, she tells him, called The Sorrows of Young Werther, by a German writer named Goethe. Enrique is quiet for a moment and then asks her what it’s about. Mercedes blushes, and recounts the story of an ill-fated love. Enrique asks her some more questions, then finally plucks up the courage to ask if he can borrow one of her books. She says of course, and the next day she comes down to the shop with a book called Amalia. The light is dim, and Enrique can’t be sure, but as she hands it to him he believes he sees her color.

  I became a reader. Ever since then—all these years. I might have seemed like some fellow, perfectly pleasant, a little bored, who served the customers in Don Simón Coutiño’s shop, who’d resigned himself early to Lord knows what, but that wasn’t who I was—I was a reader.

  Just as I used to in the big house with Diego and Marianita and Don Manuel, I read.

  Soon, the shop starts to seem to him like an accident, a trick of the eyes or of a world that wasn’t supposed to be there, in that space that was reserved for stories. Soon everything seems to him to be an accident or a confusion. Everything except for the stories he reads and the young lady who gives them to him and comments on them. She is now the only thing that seems real—her and the books, so alike.

  Now, afternoons in the shop are perfect. Afternoons in particular, the hour of the siesta, when Don Simón goes off to play cards, when the customers stay away, when Enrique and Mercedes settle themselves to read. Mercedes in the room where the bills and accounts are kept, Enrique in the straw chair behind the counter. They can’t see each other; each knows the other is there, and from time to time Mercedes will get up and offer him a yerba maté, or he will wander over to say something to her. Most of the time, though, they read—each in a chair, not looking at one another. Enrique has the strange feeling that he is finally with someone. He believes—wants to believe; so many doubts—that it’s the same for her. He wonders how it must be for her, and how it is for him, too. He searches for the answers in the books and sometimes finds them.

  “The man of whom I spoke yesterday—that happy madman—was secretary to Charlotte’s father, and the cause of his madness was an unseemly passion that he harbored for her. For years he kept his secret until finally, one day, the old judge learned the truth and threw him into the street. You will understand through these small, dry words,” says the book.

  It was during one of those afternoons that I came to believe that I had finally discovered love. I’d like to know what it was I was reading then—I seem to remember a scene in which a man looks at a woman and suddenly sees her as elderly and thinks that he is the old man walking with her, trailing behind the parasol she carries. He looks at her again, no longer considering her so attractive, surveying her anew with disparaging eyes. When he then shuts them, he sees her again as an old woman, this time with no parasol, and himself beside her. He recognizes himself instantly, though he is stooped and wrinkled—something in his face comforts and soothes him. I remember that I then closed the book, stood up without a noise, and went over to watch her, without her seeing me. Mercedes was immersed in her book, and I understood.

  I had a sudden flash of happiness, like a fire flaring up. I hadn’t had much experience with love. I’d found myself in jail very young; to say I hadn’t had much experience is really to say that I hadn’t had any. Marianita was a memory from another life. I had of course spent time in the brothels, but nothing more than that. This was as different from that as it could possibly be—this was love: a pure meeting of souls. This was a joining without impediments, unimaginably elevated from the impulses of the flesh. And I now knew—without my having to tell her or her telling me—that she shared this feeling, that without needing to say a word she felt the same for me.

  Love has its rules. What each place and time refers to as love is in fact a set of rules that is recast over and over. Love has many meanings: serenity, chaos, a prize, a goal, the impossible, a basic right, a reason for being, an insurmountable wall, a blanket. You can only speak the word—presume love, discern love—when you know those rules and think your situation fits them. Enrique did not know them, but he devoted so many hours to their study that he began to believe that one day he would.

  She didn’t exactly tell me, but yes—in the silent way she handed me my maté, the way she remarked on an author’s phrasing, or the fate of some poor character, or the beauty of a description, Merceditas was telling me how deeply we understood each other and what a privileged form of love we’d somehow known to build. We spoke to each other in the words of others; no one else could know what we were really saying. It was our own secret, one we hadn’t even needed to talk of, or give a name to: an infinite respect.

  I would watch her. Sometimes I’d watch her for ages, without her noticing me—without her noticing me?—and it would delight me to see that nothing clouded that purity, that what I felt for her was not sullied by the flesh. She was not sullied by her flesh. Her teeth were prominent, she had a broad and curving forehead, her cheekbones stood out—her flesh did not hide the bones beneath. The flesh was not what mattered in that face, which was so honest, so close to the skull.

  From time to time—once—I considered broaching the topic of our feelings, asking for her hand, holding her close, but I amazed myself with my ability to control these impulses. Any of these seemed like a betrayal—they would ruin everything in one animal moment. There was no doubt that we were so much more than that.

  From time to time—more than once—those impulses of the flesh would come back to plague me. I was confused and disoriented, until I realized that she was not responsible for it. That it was just the freight I owed for my animal nature. And that it was easy to pay. Twice a month, on the first and third Sundays during the siesta hour, I would take the train to the center of town, and there I would spend half an hour in a room with the same stocky Calabrian woman in Doña Anunciación’s brothel, like someone who returns to his sunnier side upon completing an onerous task. The Calabrian woman was the complete opposite of Mercedes—extremely vulgar, a coarse mouth, a riot of flesh. She was the dark mass above which Mercedes’ bright soul shone. When I left the brothel—sated, content, without the least remorse—I would stroll about the center of town. Seeing the lively, hurrying crowds distressed me, and I would feel compassion and feel reaffirmed in the refuge I had chosen.

  On those nights, I would return home—I called it my home now—brimming over as never before with love. She never asked me where I went; she trusted me, she never asked a thing. And if she had—if we had needed to reach out to one another with such murmurings, I’d have been able to tell her that what I did I did for her, so that our love could continue at its most pure. I knew that such perfection could not last forever—nothing good ever does—but both of us were intent on trying to have it last as long as possible, on having nothing change.

  It was a very happy time, though the master Rousseau would call that a contradiction, the reward of happiness coming from making time beside the point, meaningless. I felt this: it required a real effort later—after what happened—to remember just how many years we spent living through that placid, moderated passion.

  “Marqués, forgive my interruption, but did it ever occur to you that she simply did not attract you as a woman?”

  “Of course it occurred to me, Newspaperman—I already said so. And I told myself I was wrong.”

  “Do you still think so?”

  “What are you saying? What would you like to hear, the story of my life or my opinion on the story of my life?”

  It’s odd how easy it is to believe that things will always be as they are now. By always I mean for far longer than the longest time one lets oneself imagine. Into another time.

  The morning that he first felt doubt was hard for him. Don Simón had risen in a foul mood—something that happened from time to time, and that almost always ended in drink—and shouted at him over something. It didn’t matter what, perhaps some yarn in the wrong drawer, a length
of embroidery gone yellow in the sunlight, a speck of dust. It didn’t matter, but the shouting was severe. Enrique didn’t care—he viewed these outbreaks as a part of his job—but while the old man was shouting he thought he might have seen a little glow of pleasure in Mercedes’ eyes. That morning he felt his first doubts, and for days he was on the point of asking her about it. Luckily, as he thought later, he didn’t know what to ask. Because it could have spoiled everything. Surely that hint of light had been an illusion, a mirage, and surely his question would have ruined everything. Luckily, he didn’t ask, and he would always tell himself that in not asking he had really learned something.

  4

  “SO, ARE YOU GOING TO make me a extraordinary offer?”

  “Well, I don’t know that I’d call it extraordinary.”

  “Come on, Marqués. Merryl-Addams told me that if you made an offer it would be a surprising one,” says Colonel Gladstone Burton, and Valfierno is surprised to see that, in spite of Burton’s apparently stolid character, the idea of a surprise brings a little shine to his eyes. Colonel Burton is about seventy and looks like someone for whom surprises have never been necessary in getting what he wanted in his life. He has hands like spades and that square jaw that Americans seem to consider a requirement for certain achievements, and sports a blazer of crimson velvet, which only someone who needed nothing would wear. Too solid to be certain—the type of man who has to show that he’s in control; the best type of person for this game.

  “I trust I won’t disappoint you, Colonel.”

  “Please, Marqués—no need to be modest.”

  “I have worse faults,” Valfierno replies, giving him his best between-you-and-me smile. He learned many years ago that nothing works so well at overcoming suspicion as telling a truth about oneself while pretending it’s a joke. But Colonel Burton does not look like a man who bothers with subtleties. His study is one of forty or fifty rooms in his new Fifth Avenue mansion, which overflows with every kind of art object of every conceivable origin: half a dozen classical busts—probably Roman copies of Greek originals; a winged lion that could well be Assyrian; two enormous wooded landscapes that appear to be Flemish; a half-dozen Spanish still lifes; and a street scene by Renoir, or one of his more gifted pupils.

  “Let’s play a game. If you could choose to have any of the paintings in the world, which would you choose?”

  “Well, I suppose it would be something Italian. I did once almost get my hands on a Raphael…”

  “That’s all? Colonel, you’ll forgive me, but I expected a little more ambition from the man who covered the entire United States with telephone cables!”

  “Well, if I really could choose any painting at all…”

  “Yes, of course, any painting! Imagine that you have power—true power!”

  Burton shoots him a dirty look. Valfierno is having fun; he is surprised to discover that, on top of everything, he is having fun. His script is working better each time he tries it; this is the fifth time using this formula—the same introduction, the same feints, the same measured tones—and he thinks he now has it close to perfection. Though there is always the possibility of a stumble, or even disaster. He cannot relax his attention for a second.

  “The truth, Marqués? If I was really that powerful I wouldn’t have to buy any paintings.”

  “Touché,” replies Valfierno and decides to try another approach. The stone in his tiepin sparkles as if it were real.

  “That Syrian piece belongs in a museum, one of the great museums.”

  “I agree. That’s where it’ll end up, once I’m gone. My kids have no interest in this stuff.”

  His gambit is a dead end, and once again Valfierno decides to switch tactics. He is beginning to worry, but he takes care that it doesn’t show. He has spent years of his life taking care that things not show, and much of the time he succeeds. For now, he chats with his host about a concert in Carnegie Hall, the winter’s snowfall, the possibility of war with Europe. After a few minutes, the Colonel edges a toe into the trap.

  “But, my friend, surely you didn’t come to see me to talk about these things.”

  “No, but I’m not convinced it’s the right thing…”

  “Please.”

  “No, truly. I think you may not be the person I’m looking for.”

  It’s a risk. But while he might be risking too much, he feels he might otherwise forfeit the pleasure of having someone this powerful beg him.

  “Look, I’m not in the habit of having to ask for things, but I demand that you tell me what you came to tell me!”

  “Very well. I came to ask you what you would be prepared to do to possess something that all the world wants.”

  “Something all the world wants?”

  “Hypothetically: if you were to learn that La Joconde could be yours, what would you be prepared to give in exchange?”

  “I think you might be making a mistake here, Marqués.”

  It’s the critical moment, and Valfierno is on the point of admitting defeat. He starts to raise his hands as if to say not to bother, but the American stops him and finishes his sentence:

  “Everyone knows that La Joconde is in the Louvre.”

  “Yes, of course. But it could be somewhere else.”

  “It could?”

  “It could indeed. I could find a way for it to be here, for example, in this very room. Are you interested?”

  It’s a calculated risk. In preparation for his meetings with each of his clients, Valfierno has researched them carefully and found that, in almost every case, they have at least once bought a stolen work of art. So he pays little attention now to Colonel Burton’s protests.

  “Do you know what you’re proposing?”

  “Exactly what you heard, Colonel. Are you interested?”

  He knows, too, that this is the moment when the client realizes that he is supposed to have ethical misgivings, and that he will transfer these to Valfierno and disparage him to keep himself clean. It’s a small price, thinks Valfierno, and waits for it.

  “I’d have to see it,” says the Colonel. His gesture of disdain is his small alibi.

  “You’re not going to see it. This is hypothetical,” replies Valfierno. “But if I were to show up here with the painting, would you be prepared to pay half a million dollars for it?”

  “Half of that would be too much!”

  Valfierno makes an effort to hide his smile: his client is caught, like three of the last four.

  “No, a quarter of a million is insulting.”

  “Then three hundred thousand, let’s say. Though I see no reason to keep discussing hypotheses!”

  “It doesn’t have to be one, Colonel. It doesn’t have to be,” replies Valfierno, and thinks that he might have rushed unnecessarily. Colonel Burton, too, knows how to mount a distraction. Realizing that he’s exposed himself, he attempts one now.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, where is it you’re from?”

  “Not at all. I’m from Argentina.”

  “Now I understand.”

  “What is it that you understand, if I might?”

  Valfierno tries to show some wounded honor at the question—it’s what would be expected. The Colonel is not paying attention.

  “Now I know who I’m talking to. You guys are like us—you don’t let details hold you back! That’s why our two countries are going to be countries of the future! But I didn’t know, Marqués, that there was an aristocracy in Argentina.”

  “Well, Colonel, you know how our countries are: it’s important to us to be seen as republics, but without our aristocracies—without men like you and me—we’d keep on being just a band of savages, unable to appreciate true art, for example, as you and I do.”

  “La Joconde, eh? You did say La Joconde?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “And what is the chance that your hypothetical will become real?”

  “That depends, Colonel, among other things, on your three hundred
and fifty thousand dollars.”

  The Colonel is quiet now for several minutes, which begin to feel uncomfortably long. Valfierno lights himself a cigar. The Colonel remains quiet. When he finally starts to speak, his voice is almost a whisper.

  “A personal question, Valfierno: We both know that painting is pure gold, that you could offer it to anyone you wanted. Why did you choose me?”

  The Colonel strokes his mustache slowly and his eyes shine. Now is the time to stroke him. Valfierno knows only too well that what he is selling his clients is an image of themselves: “I have something that no one else has. I knew how to get it. I deserve it.”

  “Well, first, because I was told that your discretion is faultless. Obviously, whoever had this painting would never be able to let anyone know.”

  “Obviously. That would also be necessary to avoid…”

  “And above all, because it’s important to me that whoever has it should know how to appreciate it,” says Valfierno, and for a moment he fears he has played this last part too crudely.

  “Marqués, I don’t know how to thank you,” says the Colonel, from within the trap.

  5

  THEY SAID THAT IT WASN’T the Basque’s fault. It had been his horse, but an accident, pure bad luck that the dog had barked just at the moment when Arispe the Basque was riding by in his cart. Bad luck that the horse, who was normally used to dogs barking, should have taken fright and bolted just at that moment, just when she was coming out of the church and crossing the street. They were going to say that the Basque wasn’t usually there at that time of day, that just on that afternoon he’d been delayed at a customer’s, but they knew it made no sense to go on, fate having been so cruel, so unbelievably stupid.

  They said that the Basque was desperate with regret—unimaginable the regret that that poor old man was feeling, they said, but then it felt unseemly to keep emphasizing the old man’s pain to the wounded girl’s father and to the other one, the shop boy, and something had to be the matter there, his face had gone all chalky and white, like the full moon. Maybe all the rumors were true, after all.