Failing to steer Melrose off course, Trueblood resigned himself to sitting down at the table. They were served by the ubiquitous reception-desk-fellow and another young man. The service was swift and pleasant and the food delicious. It would have been an altogether relaxing experience had not Trueblood sat sighing and checking his watch every two minutes. Melrose ignored this and tucked into the hotel’s homemade granola. “This is quite good. Have some.”
“I did. I ate an hour ago.”
“You’ve already eaten and you’d starve me? No, don’t unwrap Masaccio again.”
Trueblood was carefully sliding a thumbnail under the tape and folding the brown paper back as tenderly as a baby’s bunting. He had acquired a small magnifying glass which he clicked out of its black case and went about moving it all over the exposed part of the panel.
“For God’s sakes, Marshall, you know every inch of that painting by now. Who is this chap you’re dragging me to see?”
“A man named Luzi. Aldo Luzi. An expert, perhaps the most expert in all of Italy on early Renaissance art.”
“Really? But what about the Ickley woman? She, you said, was the foremost authority.”
“Then she was; she was then.”
“What in hell are you talking about? ‘Then’? It was only yesterday. Are entire reputations to be made or broken over this suspect Masaccio?”
Trueblood inspected a small croissant, then took a bite. “She is the authority in Britain. I only mean I thought she was the foremost authority until she filled me in on this Luzi chap.”
“Ah!” Melrose looped a little spoon of plum jam on his toast and said, “Then ‘foremost’ authority cannot move across borders.”
“Don’t be a nitwit.”
“Okay. Anyway, the Ickley woman couldn’t tell if the painting’s authentic?”
“It wasn’t something she could swear to either way. She could tell the panel, the paint, the varnish, and so forth were right for that period.”
“The period being-”
“Early 1400s. You know the Renaissance better than I do.”
“But only the British version.” Melrose signaled the waiter for more coffee and Trueblood slid down in his chair, eyes closed. “Actually, there was no Renaissance anywhere else; Italy had the whole thing tied up and screaming.”
Trueblood sliced him a look as the waiter poured coffee. “Don’t prattle on, will you?”
“You sound exactly like Agatha.”
Trueblood rewrapped Masaccio, then bounced in his chair a couple of times, displaying the frustration and impatience of a child.
Melrose laughed. “Here’s a side of you I’ve never seen. You’re as determined as a four-year-old trying to get his parents to stop eating and get up and go. This, so he can also go and do absolutely nothing.”
“Well, I’m not going to do nothing.”
Melrose sighed. “All right. I’m ready; bring on the Brancacci.”
“Bran-kah-chi, Bran-kah-chi.” Trueblood separated each syllable as if slovenliness in pronunciation would show a lack of respect that would have all of Florence bolting its doors and turning its back. He rose suddenly and walked toward the door.
“Finished!” said Melrose, throwing up his hands. He carefully folded his big napkin while Trueblood lurked in the doorway.
They descended a marble staircase into the murky depths of the entryway. They walked through the door into white light on pocked gray stone while on the other side of the narrow street purple shadows filled the crouched doorways, watched over by stone sculptures of animals and angels.
They walked, Trueblood in front and occasionally looking back and waving Melrose along.
Finally, they were crossing the Ponte Vecchio, Trueblood giving no quarter for pausing by these windows filled with gold necklaces, bracelets, earrings. The goods, Melrose thought, might have been molded out of the golden surface of the Arno-this morning’s dream scene. He was yanked back by Trueblood’s iron grip; the only thing he would be allowed to stand and ogle would be inside the Brancacci Chapel.
Melrose insisted on looking in the window of the little glove shop just at the other end of the bridge. Nothing but gloves! They lapped over one another in tiny colored waves of turquoise, lemon yellow, lapis lazuli, cobalt blue, crimson. He got pulled away yet again, and Melrose thought Trueblood must really be smitten if he could ignore such an addition to his wardrobe.
The temptations of the Ponte Vecchio behind them, Trueblood once again got in front; he was pointing at some destination, which in a while composed itself into a piazza and a church. “I forgot this was on the way. It’s the Santa Feliceta and there’s a fresco in here we want to see, too.”
It was a painting of the Annunciation, and Melrose liked the startled I-can’t-believe-what-you-just-said look on the face of Mary, turning to look at the angel delivering what was supposed to be really good news.
“Marvelous,” said Trueblood.
“Have you ever seen an Annunciation painting where Mary looks as if she’s saying, ‘Hey, cool.’ Think about it. I’d probably wear that look if Agatha told me she was moving into Ardry End. Poor Mary.” Melrose wished he could tell the Virgin Mary she should be glad that was only the Archangel Gabriel before her and not Marshall Trueblood, who was disappearing up the shadowy nave.
When Melrose found him in the piazza, Trueblood said, “We can skip the Pitti Palace, if you don’t mind.”
If he didn’t mind? By no means did he mind. All he wanted was to get back to that glove shop. “Okay. Later.”
“Then come on,” Trueblood said testily, reclaiming his lead. Over his shoulder, he said, “Next stop, the church of the Carmine. Where the frescoes are. It’s on the way to Luzi’s.”
Nothing was on the way, thought Melrose, lost in a little maze of alley-like streets. They turned off the Via Sant’ Agostino to the Via De’ Serragli and the church sprang into view-at least into Trueblood’s, for he trumpeted, “There it is! You’ll be astonished!” He squared his shoulders and secured his picture before him like a shield, as if to defend himself against too much astonishment.
Melrose shrugged and said, “Okay, but listen, when we finish here, I want to go back to that glove shop…”
“Glove shop? Am I losing my mind?”
Again, Melrose shrugged. “I don’t know.” He decided he would take dumb rhetorical questions literally from now on. “But I want some gloves even if you don’t.”
This exchange had taken them into the chapel and down the nave to Trueblood’s cherished frescoes, where they now stood. “Melrose, we’re standing before perhaps the greatest frescoes ever painted.”
“I know, but I’m serious about the glove shop.”
Trueblood was carefully undoing the brown paper, which had begun, it appeared, to molt at the creases, light showing through the frayed folds, like a much-read love letter or a whore’s stockings. Holding it up, he looked from St. Who upward to St. Peter, nodding and nodding.
“It looks like the same painter,” said Melrose, “and looks like the same style, still, you’ve got to ask yourself-”
“I’ve asked myself every question in the book,” Trueblood’s eyes riveted on the fresco. Melrose had to admit all of this was astonishing. He’d seen many representations of Adam and Eve’s being drummed out of Paradise, but never with such expressiveness. Eve’s expression was especially harrowing: the mouth a rictus of pain, eyelids closed and slanting down as if she’d just been blinded. There were various scenes from the life of St. Peter: the tribute money, healing the sick with his shadow. “The thing is, didn’t Masolino paint some of this? Didn’t you tell me they worked together?” Melrose looked on the other side of St. Peter’s raising someone from the dead, he wasn’t sure who, to another rendering of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from Paradise. “That’s what I mean. Obviously, another painter painted that representation; everything about it is different.” The two figures seemed completely calm and courtly. “That’s a traditional depiction.”