I, Mona Lisa, page 24
He was almost shouting, so thrilled was he at this latest twist. I stared at Vincenzo in disgust and confusion. He ran his hands through his hair and then proceeded to read aloud from the Paris-Journal how Picasso had been brought before magistrates, and confessed to having the Iberian heads, although he claimed that it was his friend Apollinaire who had stolen them and given them to him. A story that Apollinaire did not deny – I thought it was typical that Pablo evoked such devotion amongst his circle that they would go to extraordinary lengths to protect him.
‘And Picasso kept the statues in his sock drawer,’ declared Vincenzo with glee. ‘He and Apollinaire panicked after you were stolen and took them in a bag and tried to dump them in the Seine. But they couldn’t do it.’
Of course they couldn’t. Pablo was a man of feeling. He could also be a monster but, like Michelangelo, he could not destroy a work of art.
Yet, I was also hurt. After my disappearance, it appeared that Pablo was preoccupied by his own guilt and his misfortune rather than concerned about mine. I knew I ought not to have been surprised at evidence of his selfishness and egotism. Perhaps, I told myself, I needed to be forcibly removed from his company in order to break the dubious hold that he had over me. I always knew he was a powerful and entertaining presence but a cruel one. Nonetheless, I still did not want to see him punished for a crime he had not committed. I couldn’t bear the way Vincenzo slathered over the news of Picasso’s arrest with such gruesome triumph.
Each evening for a week, Vincenzo read me further snippets, sitting curled up beside me, picking at his toenails.
‘Picasso is in a panic and a flap! He denies ever having had the statues, even though they were found in his apartment. What an idiot!’
For the first time, I pitied Pablo. The god and the genius, diminished, and made to lie. When I thought of him, it was now with anxiety and commiseration. On the sixth day, Vincenzo arrived back at the house in a fury, dropping his keys in a temper. He wrenched me out of the trunk and dropped me on the bed, yelling, ‘They have released Picasso! Not enough evidence. So they say. His high-up friends in the art world have made a fuss at his detention, that’s what it is.’
He raged and stormed and drank a good deal of cheap wine as he bellowed about the inequity of the class system. If he could have heard me, I would have told him that Pablo was working class too. He’d earned his place upon the Left Bank and I’d have reminded Vincenzo of the absurdity of his position – he, of all people, knew of Pablo’s innocence, but Vincenzo wasn’t interested in truth or reality. And, while Picasso had been released, I worried that I’d never be free.
Over the next year, the mourning for me became hysterical and then began to fade. Obituaries were written. It seemed that I was lost forever. The Louvre bought another painting, La Femme à la perle by Camille Corot, to hang in my stead. I had been replaced. I was removed from the Louvre catalogue. Soon, it seemed, I would be forgotten.
Florence, 1913
Winter
I could tell that Vincenzo had run out of money, as his nationalistic fervour suddenly increased. He began to pace his dingy room and declare in zealous and rambling speeches how he wished to return me to the bosom of Italy – and collect a handsome bounty. Of course, the greatest reward would be to see me where I belonged but he’d also accept the hard cash of a grateful nation. I was relieved, as each time my captor took me out of the trunk to feast upon me with hungry eyes, I had begun to fear that I was doomed to remain his hostage. For the first time in more than two years I had hope.
We travelled to Italy by train, me concealed in the trunk as baggage. Guards opened it at the border and searched it carefully but found nothing except some linen, clothes and items of Vincenzo’s trade as a restorer – brushes, a ruler, a small palette and some iron tools. I called out for help with little optimism. Sure enough, after a minute or two, my trunk was slammed shut without any of the border guards discovering my secret compartment.
On arrival in Florence, we hired a cart from the station and Vincenzo took lodgings in the Hotel Tripoli. He allowed me out of the trunk in the hotel room only for a few minutes while he changed his shirt and combed his hair. He prattled on in tremendous excitement about how I ought to be grateful to him for returning me to my place of birth. I ignored him.
It was over four hundred years since I had last been in Florence and it sounded different. The train station was new, yet already grey with smut and coal dust. The city held the rattle and clang of modernity. Yet, beneath it all, I felt something familiar stir. The Hotel Tripoli was located close to the Baptistery of St John where the newborn Lisa del Giocondo had been brought in swaddling clothes to be blessed at the door by the priest, before dangers or devils could steal her eternal soul. The cobbled streets were the same; here the feet of my friends had walked. Along here Leonardo had carried me to the Piazza della Signoria to glimpse Pope Leo’s festa. In the raised voices outside the windows, not angry but ardent, I heard echoes of Salaì and men I had known. The Florentines themselves were unchanged. Then I heard the tolling of the duomo bell. It pealed low and deep, ringing through time, pealing through the years, splitting them open like the layers of an onion. We were close to Leonardo’s bottega. I could almost persuade myself that I could smell the linseed oil and hear little Cecco grinding red beetles with a pestle to make cochineal.
And then foul Vincenzo seized me and kissed me on the lips with his rank breath. I wished I could wipe my hands across my lips and scrub away the feeling of his mouth on mine.
‘My Mona, mio amore, the time is coming for us to be parted. I am sorry for us that I must share you with the world again. I do this for Italy,’ he said.
‘And for the cash reward,’ I said.
He placed me back in the wretched trunk with muttered apologies. Then stashed it under the bed and hurried out, leaving me alone in the room.
Later that afternoon, Vincenzo returned, accompanied with, from the sound of their voices, two other men.
‘Where is she?’ asked one.
‘Here. Like I said,’ replied Vincenzo.
The trunk was yanked out from under the bed. He unlocked it and, revealing the secret compartment, carefully lifted me out and handed me to one of the men.
‘There she is, Dr Poggi,’ said Vincenzo, a note of pride in his voice. ‘La Gioconda.’
I stared up at Dr Poggi as he held me in his arms, and as the small, polite man stared down at me, he pinked in wonder and delight, and then quickly drew a mask over his features. The other man, curly-haired, well fed and wearing an extraordinarily well-cut suit, came and peered at me over Dr Poggi’s shoulder, his mouth forming a round ‘o’ of surprise, which he turned into a nonchalant whistle. Neither man, it appeared, wanted Vincenzo to know they were agitated.
‘Well, Alfredo,’ said Dr Poggi, ‘what do you think?’
‘She’s certainly very like the real La Gioconda. But I’m only a humble art dealer. You’re the expert, Giovanni.’
‘We need better light to examine her. Can we take her to the window, Leonard?’ asked Dr Poggi.
I looked around for the fourth man, Leonard, and then realised to my amusement that they were talking to Vincenzo who’d picked an absurd false name for subterfuge. Vincenzo/ Leonard shrugged and leaned against the door, studying his nails. He knew I was the genuine Mona Lisa and was not interested in their scrutiny. Alfredo Geri and Dr Poggi retreated to the window, cradling me with loving reverence. I smiled up at them. They smiled back and then quickly concealed their expressions again. Dr Poggi took out a magnifying glass and started to look at me closely. I noticed that his neck flushed carmine beneath the starch of his collar.
‘She really is uncannily like the genuine Mona Lisa. But I must take her to the Uffizi to be sure,’ said Dr Poggi.
‘Of course it’s her! Any idiot can see!’ exclaimed Vincenzo.
‘Yes, but lots of idiots have claimed to find her. I had ten last week. I need to compare the craquelure on her face with the photograph of the missing picture,’ said Dr Poggi, patient.
I wondered what the Uffizi was. I’d never heard of it. I guessed it to be a museum like the Louvre. It didn’t exist when I’d last been in Florence.
‘Bring her to the Uffizi, okay?’ he said to Vincenzo. ‘We want to see her properly. Let’s do it now, Leonard.’
‘Then you can collect your reward,’ added Alfredo.
There was a long pause. Vincenzo stared at me in the two men’s arms. For a moment it seemed that he might cross the room and snatch me back. Everyone waited. The air felt hot. I felt Dr Poggi’s grip around me tighten.
‘All right. We’ll go now,’ said Vincenzo.
Dr Giovanni Poggi and Alfredo Geri watched in dismay as Vincenzo wrapped me up, cringing as I was smothered in a sheet.
‘Do you not have anything more suitable?’ asked Dr Poggi, unable to bear it any longer.
‘No. Unless you want to pack her away again in my travelling trunk.’
Dr Poggi peered at me. ‘Not the trunk. See, it’s chipped her varnish.’
‘Well, did you not bring something, if you care so much?’ demanded Vincenzo, annoyed.
They had not. They were not truly expecting to find me here in this railway hotel. They would not return to the museum and leave me alone with Vincenzo in case he vanished with me again. The sheet must suffice. Our peculiar caravan, me still clasped in Dr Poggi’s arms, left the hotel room and climbed down the twisting stone steps to reception. As Alfredo opened the door into the street, the hotel manager scurried out, shouting with alarm, gesticulating wildly at me, wrapped up badly in the sheet.
‘What are you doing, signori? You can’t take our pictures! They’re hotel property. I’ll summon the carabinieri!’
‘Signora, I assure you, the painting is not the hotel’s,’ replied Poggi, perfectly calm. He handed me to Alfredo, and he then must have handed his card to the manager, as she read his name aloud. ‘Dr Giovanni Poggi, Director of the Uffizi. Ah, of course. Apologies, signore.’
‘None necessary,’ he said, lifting his hat.
I merely observed ruefully that the security of the Hotel Tripoli was considerably tighter than that of the Louvre.
We took a horse-drawn carriage to the gallery. I at least was glad that the covering was inadequate as it meant I could see. Even the names on the shopfronts had not changed so much. In a few minutes, I was back in the Piazza della Signoria after so many years. Here was Il Gigante, haughtily ignoring all admirers. Yet the giant seemed different, wrong, blanched and battered. He’d aged worse than me. As I looked again, I realised he was a copy. Leonardo had got his wish in the end. The real Il Gigante no longer loomed over the piazza.
In the cloisters of what they now called the Uffizi, I observed a statue of Leonardo himself, while Michelangelo glowered back at him. With rueful pleasure, I saw that I was surrounded by old friends. Alfredo paid the driver and handed us down. The square was quiet and a chill wind blew, grasping at my covering. I glanced around for the lions, but I knew they weren’t there – their stench had gone. I smelt only the Arno, coiling through the city, which clung to its back on either side. Opposite us was the ominous red brick of the Palazzo Vecchio. I was tracing my own past. Glancing up, I saw a kite circling in the sky high above and I felt for a moment as if Leonardo himself was watching my return. I longed to linger, but immediately I was torn away and taken inside.
The building was cool and dark and hushed. Half at a run, as if afraid Vincenzo would change his mind at any second, Dr Poggi led us deep into the museum, twisting and turning through corridors until we reached his office. Everyone who saw us stopped to greet him, but he barely registered them, such was his hurry. As we entered, he and Alfredo removed the last vestiges of the sheet. The room was meticulously neat and well ordered, with books stacked in symmetrical rows.
‘Help me set her on the easel,’ commanded Dr Poggi to Alfredo.
They produced a torch and a magnifying glass, and a photograph sent by the Louvre, and began to mutter with excitement as they examined my craquelure. I winced inwardly. No woman likes her wrinkles scrutinised.
‘Now, help me turn her.’
The two men reversed me with the utmost care and studied the back of my panel. I heard Alfredo rustle paper and murmur, ‘It’s the Louvre catalogue number. It’s her.’
Vincenzo muttered, ‘I told you it was her already. I stole her from the Louvre for the glory of Italy.’
Alfredo turned me around again and beamed at me. ‘My apologies, Mona Lisa, you shouldn’t stare at the back of an easel. You’ve suffered enough indignities.’ He glanced at his friend. ‘Any more damage?’
Dr Poggi peered at me. ‘She seems to be in remarkably good condition, despite her ordeal. She’s a survivor, this one.’
Alfredo was busy behind the desk with the telephone.
‘Can we talk about the reward? Two million lire?’ whined Vincenzo.
The afternoon was broken by the wail of carabinieri sirens.
To my disgust, though not surprise, Vincenzo was prosecuted for theft not kidnap. Some even considered him a patriot and his punishment was a pitiful twelve-month prison sentence. I resolved never to think of him again. I had endured and survived. I listened to the curators discuss my venerable age and the fragility of my woodwork and the historic damage inflicted by worms and beetles and grotesque varnish by ignorant restorers, and I thought how little they knew. I have endured centuries of assaults by men and miasmas and insects. I am chipped, scuffed, eaten and I have suffered, yet I am unbroken.
I was put on display in the Uffizi before being returned to Paris. Now I was back in Italy, I was glad to remain for a little while. I wanted the scent of spring, to breathe in orange blossom and magnolia and to hear the first larks call. Thousands wanted to see and admire me. Now that I’d returned like Persephone from the underworld, they wanted to pay tribute, certain I’d been lost for good. A curator in white cotton gloves carried me with the utmost care and solemnity into a cordoned-off section of the gallery, partitioned to make way for the crush of the expected crowd. My new fame now required a pilot ship to clear the way for me. As the curator conveyed me into the room, I glanced around the chamber displaying lapis Madonnas with flat noses and lumpen babes, and the Magi on their wooden horses come to adore the squirming, wormlike holy infants. I was nothing like any of those Renaissance pictures, even though they were supposedly my contemporaries. Leonardo had painted me and together we changed how everyone saw the world. Art wasn’t the same after me. I would have been embarrassed for these Byzantine atrocities, but they were asleep.
Then one painting caught me by surprise and, amazed, I cried out.
There, on the wall opposite me, was a Leda. My heart faltered. She was almost as old as me. Was it possible? By some magic had I willed her back to life? Here she was – naked and flawless while Jupiter the white swan slid his wing around her waist. Could it really be her? With a sigh of anguish, I realised it wasn’t her at all. I was staring at a lifeless echo of my beloved. This was merely a sixteenth-century copy of my Leda.
So many artists had visited us in Milan while Leonardo was painting Leda, and like everyone else they had been transfixed by her beauty and had sought the master’s permission to copy her. I tried to consider who might have painted this Leda. Cesare da Sesto? Bernardino Luini? It did not matter. The copy was very good. Almost excellent. He had made careful variations. Dandelions and violets and buttery primroses bloomed around her toes. The blue-tinged mountains were replaced by a cavern or grotto. None of these details mattered. She was silent and unseeing, her expression blank and voided. Exquisitely pretty but devoid of the sharpness that gave the true Leda such sweetness and vivacity, as if she were but a moment away from glancing up. It seemed as if I was staring at a wax death mask of my Leda. This version was but a lifeless doll. I couldn’t bear to look at her, and yet I found myself transfixed. She was like her, and nothing like. It was torture and the sweetest relief. If I looked too long, would the flawed, dead features of this Leda replace the perfect Leda in my memory? Still, she reopened the wound of my loss. In the evenings when the gallery was empty I heard my Leda laugh, and I watched her burn, cry out for me, call my name and die again. I was haunted by my own memories, summoning my own unhappy ghosts.
The months in the Uffizi were almost unbearable, filled with bitter charm and regret for my lost friend and love, and I was relieved to leave. Then, when the moment came, I was suddenly sad to go – eager for one last glance. I called out farewell. She did not answer.
When I returned to Paris, they put me behind a thick and suffocating layer of glass. I was enraged. Isn’t the victim supposed to be freed? The queues of people lining up to see me were even longer than those in the Uffizi. To my surprise, Picasso came on the first day. He arrived a little before closing and, ignoring the guards, came right up to the glass.
‘Oi, monsieur, s’il vous plaît, stand back! Not so close.’
He took no notice. He was still Picasso.
‘I’m glad you’re home. I missed you,’ he said.
He held his hand up against the glass, and then pressed his lips against it, placing a smacking kiss. Standing back, he unwrapped a large parcel he’d brought, and lifted up a picture to show me. It was me and not me, rendered in black and white. I sported a dashing hat, and my round nipples were displayed like the puckered buttons of a tightly upholstered armchair.
‘See, I painted you again. Do you like it?’
‘Yes and no. Do you care for my opinion?’ I said.
‘Yes and no,’ he answered, smiling.
I laughed, glad to see my diabolical friend. In the time we’d been apart, and during my ordeal, I had changed. I was glad to see him, but no longer frantic that he return tomorrow. Whether I saw him in a week, or month or even a year, I would be satisfied. It was a relief because, as with all my friends, there’d come a time when I would no longer see him again.
