Idiots First Read online

  “Search anywhere,” he offered, “you won’t find anything except maybe half a stale pastry.”

  “Shut up,” said Angelo. “We came to make a proposition.”

  Fidelman slowly sat up. Scarpio produced the yellow sheet he had doodled on. “We notice you draw.” He pointed a dirty fingernail at the nude figure.

  “After a fashion,” Fidelman said modestly. “I doodle and see what happens.”

  “Could you copy a painting?”

  “What sort of painting?”

  “A nude. Tiziano’s ‘Venus of Urbino.’ The one after Giorgione.”

  “That one,” said Fidelman, thinking. “I doubt that I could.”

  “Any fool can.”

  “Shut up, Scarpio,” Angelo said. He sat his bulk at the foot of Fidelman’s narrow bed. Scarpio, with his good eye, moodily inspected the cheerless view from the window.

  “On Isola Bella in Lago Maggiore, about an hour from here,” said Angelo, “there’s a small castello full of lousy paintings, except for one which is a genuine Tiziano, authenticated by three art experts, including a brother-in-law of mine. It’s worth half a million dollars but the owner is richer than Olivetti and won’t sell though an American museum is breaking its head to get it.”

  “Very interesting,” Fidelman said.

  “Exactly,” said Angelo. “Anyway, it’s insured for at least $400,000. Of course if anyone stole it it would be impossible to sell.”

  “Then why bother?”

  “Bother what?”

  “Whatever it is,” Fidelman said lamely.

  “You’ll learn more by listening,” Angelo said. “Suppose it was stolen and held for ransom. What do you think of that?”

  “Ransom?” said Fidelman.

  “Ransom,” Scarpio said from the window.

  “At least $300,000,” said Angelo. “It would be a bargain for the insurance company. They’d save a hundred thousand on the deal.”

  He outlined a plan. They had photographed the Titian on both sides, from all angles and several distances and had collected from art books the best color plates. They also had the exact measurements of the canvas and every figure on it. If Fidelman could make a decent copy they would duplicate the frame and on a dark night sneak the reproduction into the castello gallery and exit with the original. The guards were stupid, and the advantage of the plan—instead of just slitting the canvas out of its frame—was that nobody would recognize the substitution for days, possibly longer. In the meantime they would row the picture across the lake and truck it out of the country down to the French Riviera. The Italian police had fantastic luck in recovering stolen paintings; one had a better chance in France. Once the picture was securely hidden, Angelo back at the hotel, Scarpio would get in touch with the insurance company. Imagine the sensation! Recognizing the brilliance of the execution, the company would have to kick in with the ransom money.

  “If you make a good copy, you’ll get yours,” said Angelo.

  “Mine? What would that be?” Fidelman asked.

  “Your passport,” Angelo said cagily. “Plus two hundred dollars in cash and a quick goodbye.”

  “Five hundred dollars,” said Fidelman.

  “Scarpio,” said the padrone patiently, “show him what you have in your pants.”

  Scarpio unbuttoned his jacket and drew a long mean-looking dagger from a sheath under his belt. Fidelman without trying, could feel the cold blade sinking into his ribs.

  “Three fifty,” he said. “I’ll need plane fare.”

  “Three fifty,” said Angelo. “Payable when you deliver the finished reproduction.”

  “And you pay for all supplies?”

  “I pay all expenses within reason. But if you try any monkey tricks—snitch or double cross you’ll wake up with your head gone, or something worse.”

  “Tell me,” Fidelman asked after a minute of contemplation, “what if I turn down the proposition? I mean in a friendly way?”

  Angelo rose sternly from the creaking bed. “Then you’ll stay here for the rest of your life. When you leave you leave in a coffin, very cheap wood.”

  “I see,” said Fidelman.

  “What do you say?”

  “What more can I say?”

  “Then it’s settled,” said Angelo.

  “Take the morning off,” said Scarpio.

  “Thanks,” Fidelman said.

  Angelo glared. “First finish the toilet bowls.”

  Am I worthy? Fidelman thought. Can I do it? Do I dare? He had these and other doubts, felt melancholy, and wasted time.

  Angelo one morning called him into his office. “Have a Munich beer.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Cordial?”

  “Nothing now;”

  “What’s the matter with you? You look like you buried your mother.”

  Fidelman set down his mop and pail with a sigh and said nothing.

  “Why don’t you put those things away and get started?” the padrone asked. “I’ve had the portiere move six trunks and some broken furniture out of the storeroom where you have two big windows. Scarpio wheeled in an easel and he’s bought you brushes, colors and whatever else you need.”

  “It’s west light, not very even.”

  Angelo shrugged. “It’s the best I can do. This is our season and I can’t spare any rooms. If you’d rather work at night we can set up some lamps. It’s a waste of electricity but I’ll make that concession to your temperament if you work fast and produce the goods.”

  “What’s more I don’t know the first thing about forging paintings,” Fidelman said. “All I might do is just about copy the picture.”

  “That’s all we ask. Leave the technical business to us. First do a decent drawing. When you’re ready to paint I’ll get you a piece of sixteenth-century Belgian linen that’s been scraped clean of a former picture. You prime it with white lead and when it’s dry you sketch. Once you finish the nude, Scarpio and I will bake it, put in the cracks, and age them with soot. We’ll even stipple in fly spots before we varnish and glue. We’ll do what’s necessary. There are books on this subject and Scarpio reads like a demon. It isn’t as complicated as you think.”

  “What about the truth of the colors?”

  “I’ll mix them for you. I’ve made a life study of Tiziano’s work.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  But Fidelman’s eyes still looked unhappy.

  “What’s eating you now?” the padrone asked.

  “It’s stealing another painter’s ideas and work.”

  The padrone wheezed. “Tiziano will forgive you. Didn’t he steal the figure of the Urbino from Giorgione? Didn’t Rubens steal the Andrian nude from Tiziano? Art steals and so does everybody. You stole a wallet and tried to steal my lire. It’s the way of the world. We’re only human.”

  “Isn’t it sort of a desecration?”

  “Everybody desecrates. We live off the dead and they live off us. Take for instance religion.”

  “I don’t think I can do it without seeing the original,” Fidelman said. “The color plates you gave me aren’t true.”

  “Neither is the original any more. You don’t think Rembrandt painted in those sfumato browns? As for painting the Venus, you’ll have to do the job here. If you copied it in the castello gallery one of those cretin guards might remember your face and the next thing you know you’d have trouble. So would we, probably, and we naturally wouldn’t want that.”

  “I still ought to see it,” Fidelman said obstinately.

  The padrone then reluctantly consented to a one-day excursion to Isola Bella, assigning Scarpio to closely accompany the copyist.

  On the vaporetto to the island, Scarpio, wearing dark glasses and a light straw hat, turned to Fidelman.

  “In all confidence, what do you think of Angelo?”

  “He’s all right, I guess.”

  “Do you think he’s handsome?”

  “I haven’t given it a tho
ught. Possibly he was, once.”

  “You have many fine insights,” said Scarpio. He pointed in the distance where the long blue lake disappeared amid towering Alps. “Locarno, sixty kilometers.”

  “You don’t say.” At the thought of Switzerland so close by, freedom swelled in Fidelman’s heart but he did nothing about it. Scarpio clung to him like a long-lost brother and sixty kilometers was a long swim with a knife in your back.

  “That’s the castello over there,” the major domo said. “It looks like a joint.”

  The castello was pink on a high terraced hill amid tall trees in formal gardens. It was full of tourists and bad paintings. But in the last gallery, “infinite riches in a little room,” hung the “Venus of Urbino” alone.

  What a miracle, thought Fidelman.

  The golden brown-haired Venus, a woman of the real world, lay on her couch in serene beauty, her hand lightly touching her intimate mystery, the other holding red flowers, her nude body her truest accomplishment.

  “I would have painted somebody in bed with her,” Scarpio said.

  “Shut up,” said Fidelman.

  Scarpio, hurt, left the gallery.

  Fidelman, alone with Venus, worshipped the painting. What magnificent tones, what extraordinary flesh that can turn the body into spirit.

  While Scarpio was out talking to the guard, the copyist hastily sketched the Venus, and with a Leica Angelo had borrowed from a friend for the purpose, took several new color shots.

  Afterwards he approached the picture and kissed the lady’s hands, thighs, and breasts, but as he was murmuring, “I love you,” a guard struck him hard on the head with both fists.

  That night as they returned on the rapido to Milano, Scarpio fell asleep, snoring. He awoke in a hurry, tugging at his dagger, but Fidelman hadn’t moved.

  2.

  The copyist threw himself into his work with passion. He had swallowed lightning and hoped it would strike whatever he touched. Yet he had nagging doubts he could do the job right and feared he would never escape alive from the Hotel du Ville. He tried at once to paint the Titian directly on canvas but hurriedly scraped it clean when he saw what a garish mess he had made. The Venus was insanely disproportionate and the maids in the background foreshortened into dwarfs. He then took Angelo’s advice and made several drawings on paper to master the composition before committing it again to canvas.

  Angelo and Scarpio came up every night and shook their heads over the drawings.

  “Not even close,” said the padrone.

  “Far from it,” said Scarpio.

  “I’m trying,” Fidelman said, anguished.

  “Try harder,” Angelo said grimly.

  Fidelman had a sudden insight. “What happened to the last guy who tried?”

  “He’s still floating,” Scarpio said.

  “I’ll need some practice,” the copyist coughed. “My vision seems tight and the arm tires easily. I’d better go back to some exercises to loosen up.”

  “What kind of exercises?” Scarpio inquired.

  “Nothing physical, just some warm-up nudes to get me going.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” Angelo said. “You’ve got about a month, not much more. There’s a certain advantage in making the exchange of pictures during the tourist season.”

  “Only a month?”

  The padrone nodded.

  “Maybe you’d better trace it,” Scarpio said.

  “No.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said Angelo. “I could get you an old reclining nude you could paint over. You might get the form of this one by altering the form of another.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not honest. I mean to myself.”

  Everyone tittered.

  “Well, it’s your headache,” Angelo said.

  Fidelman, unwilling to ask what happened if he failed, after they had left, feverishly drew faster.

  Things went badly for the copyist. Working all day and often into the very early morning hours, he tried everything he could think of. Since he always distorted the figure of Venus, though he carried it perfect in his mind, he went back to a study of Greek statuary with ruler and compass to compute the mathematical proportions of the ideal nude. Scarpio accompanied him to one or two museums. Fidelman also worked with the Vetruvian square in the circle, experimented with Durer’s intersecting circles and triangles and studied Leonardo’s schematic heads and bodies. Nothing doing. He drew paper dolls, not women, certainly not Venus. He drew girls who would not grow up. He then tried sketching every nude he could lay eyes on in the art books Scarpio brought him from the library, from the Esquiline goddess to “Les Demoiselles ’Avignon.” Fidelman copied not badly many figures from classical statuary and modern painting, but when he returned to his Venus, with something of a laugh she eluded him. What am I, bewitched, the copyist asked himself, and if so by what? It’s only a copy job so what’s taking so long? He couldn’t even guess until he happened to see a naked whore cross the hall and enter a friend’s room. Maybe the ideal is cold and I like it hot? Nature over art? Inspiration—the live model? Fidelman. knocked on the door and tried to persuade the girl to pose for him but she wouldn’t for economic reasons. Neither would any of the others—there were four girls in the room.

  A red-head among them called out to Fidelman, “Shame on you, Arturo, are you too good to bring up pizzas and coffee any more?”

  “I’m busy on a job for Angelo.”

  The girls laughed.

  “Painting a picture, that is. A business proposition.”

  They laughed louder.

  Their laughter further depressed his spirits. No inspiration from whores. Maybe too many naked women around made it impossible to draw a nude. Still he’d better try a live model, having tried everything else and failed.

  In desperation, practically on the verge of panic because time was going so fast, he thought of Teresa, the chambermaid. She was a poor specimen of feminine beauty but the imagination could enhance anything. Fidelman asked her to pose for him, and Teresa, after a shy laugh, consented.

  “I will if you promise not to tell anybody.”

  Fidelman promised.

  She got undressed, a meager, bony girl, breathing heavily, and he drew her with flat chest, distended belly, thin hips and hairy legs, unable to alter a single detail. Van Eyck would have loved her. When Teresa saw the drawing she wept profusely.

  “I thought you would make me beautiful.”

  “I had that in mind.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  “It’s hard to say,” said Fidelman.

  “I’m not in the least bit sexy,” she wept.

  Considering her body with half-open eyes, Fidelman told her to go borrow a long slip.

  “Get one from one of the girls and I’ll draw you sexy.”

  She returned in a frilly white slip and looked so attractive that instead of painting her, Fidelman, with a lump in his throat, got her to lie down with him on a dusty mattress in the room. Clasping her slip-encased form, the copyist shut both eyes and concentrated on his elusive Venus. He felt about to recapture a rapturous experience and was looking forward to it but at the last minute it turned into a limerick he didn’t know he knew:

  “Whilst Titian was mixing rose madder,

  His model was crouched on a ladder;

  Her position to Titian suggested coition,

  So he stopped mixing madder and had ’er.”

  Angelo entering the storeroom just then, let out a furious bellow. He fired Teresa on her naked knees pleading with him not to, and Fidelman had to go back to latrine duty the rest of the day.

  “You might just as well keep me doing this permanently,” Fidelman, disheartened, told the padrone in his office afterward. “I’ll never finish that cursed picture.”

  “Why not? What’s eating you? I’ve treated you like a son.”

  “I’m blocked, that’s what.”

  “Get to work,
you’ll feel better.”

  “I just can’t paint.”

  “For what reason?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because you’ve had it too good here.” Angelo angrily struck Fidelman across the face. When the copyist wept, he booted him hard in the rear.

  That night Fidelman went on a hunger strike but the padrone, hearing of it, threatened force feeding.

  After midnight Fidelman stole some clothes from a sleeping whore, dressed quickly, tied on a kerchief, made up his eyes and lips, and walked out the door past Scarpio sitting on a bar stool, enjoying the night breeze. Having gone a block, fearing he would be chased, Fidelman broke into a high-heeled run but it was too late. Scarpio had recognized him in aftermath and called the portiere. Fidelman kicked off his slippers and ran furiously but the skirt impeded him. The major domo and portiere caught up with him and dragged him, kicking and struggling, back to the hotel. A carabiniere, hearing the commotion, appeared on the scene, but seeing how Fidelman was dressed, would do nothing for him. In the cellar Angelo hit him with a short rubber hose until he collapsed.

  Fidelman lay in bed three days, refusing to eat or get up.

  “What’ll we do now?” Angelo, worried, whispered. “How about a fortune teller? Either that or let’s bury him.”

  “Astrology is better,” Scarpio advised. “I’ll check his planets. If that doesn’t work we’ll try psychology.”

  “Well, make it fast,” said Angelo.

  The next morning Scarpio entered Fidelman’s room with an American breakfast on a tray and two thick books under his arm. Fidelman was still in bed, smoking a butt. He wouldn’t eat.

  Scarpio set down his books and took a chair close to the bed.

  “What’s your birthday, Arturo?” he asked gently, feeling Fidelman’s pulse.

  Fidelman told him, also the hour of birth and the place: Bronx, New York.

  Scarpio, consulting the zodiacal tables, drew up Fidelman’s horoscope on a sheet of paper and studied it thoroughly with his good eye. After a few minutes he shook his head. “It’s no wonder.”

  “What’s wrong?” Fidelman sat up weakly.