Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 13:56:11 +0100 (BST)
From: Nexis Pas <nexispas@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: A Distant Danger

A Distant Danger
Nexis Pas
Copyright 2007 by the author

It rained heavily during the night. The sound of the rain and wind against
the house and the thunder on the other side of the river awakened me, and I
pulled the curtains open to watch. The lightning played along the tops of
the hills to the northeast, but by counting `one one-thousandth, two
one-thousandth . . . ' between the flash and the arrival of the thunder, I
determined that the storm was at a safe distance. Each succeeding bolt of
lightning showed that it was moving slowly away.

I left the curtains open when I went back to bed and watched drowsily as
the receding lightning briefly lit up the rectangles of the window from
time to time. I lay there, feeling warm and safe in the cocoon of the
bedcovers, listening to the gradually diminishing sound of the rain hitting
the glass. It's odd how comforting a distant danger can be.

In the morning I awoke to find the shadows of leaves moving on the ceiling
of the bedroom. The puddles left by the rain were reflecting the light of
the sun up through the leaves of the lilac bushes below the window and
casting images on the ceiling. The sharply defined heart-shaped shadows
swayed gently in the dawn breeze. I had seen something like this before.
Not in this room, though; some far place at the edge of memory. Another
bed, another ceiling.

The vision nagged at me all day. At unexpected moments in the tedium of my
workday, it surfaced, taunting me with the failure of my aging mind. What
bothered me most was the certainty that the shadows on the ceiling were
important, a remnant of my `jolly corner'. Somewhere in the detritus of my
history, some event of significance lay buried, something suppressed lest
it unravel me.

******

The etiolated geraniums in the pots on the narrow ledge were always
dusty. The pots sat on an iron grill eight inches or so wide outside the
window. A railing a few inches high around the edges of the grill was
supposed to prevent them from falling four stories to the street below. The
landlady, Signora Alberti, had been insistent that he not water them; she
did it herself every Friday, a half-litre of water, no more, no less, per
pot. When Galen opened the curtains every morning, he was always surprised
to see the pots still there, the long, gnarled branches of the geraniums
undamaged by the wind that always seemed to blow outside the window at
night. Every morning, he expected to find the shattered remains of a pot
adding to the litter of the road, a few bright red flowers lighting up the
ordinariness of the narrow street until they were trodden into the dust.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to come to Florence at the end of Lent Term.
Ten days in Italy in early April had beckoned in Cambridge in February, the
promise of warmth and sun the impetus to muddle through his classes. The
pictures of the Pensione Albertus in the brochure had looked inviting, and
the price was only a bit above what he had budgeted. The reality was a
small room at the top of a steep flight of stairs, a shared toilet and
bathroom two floors below, and the eagle-eyed Signora Alberti every ready
to complain about her guests and their shortcomings--volubly in Italian to
her neighbours and in simple, broken English to Galen punctuated by
gestures whose meaning was unmistakable. He had thought that by economising
on meals, he would be able to afford the trip. Once there, he had
discovered that even the minimally acceptable workman's cafes were beyond
his means for more than one meal a day. For breakfast and the evening meal
he made do with chunks of bread torn from a loaf and some fruit he bought
every evening and finished every morning. He carefully removed all evidence
of these meals as he left each day and threw the remains in a public trash
bin. He suspected that Signora Alberti would find food in the room another
grievance.

At first it had been enough to be in Italy. Florence was sunny and
magnificent in the spring light. He had done the usual tourist things,
visiting museums and churches. Each day a carefully planned round of
sightseeing kept him busy until he had to return before the eleven o'clock
lockup at the Pensione Albertus. La Signora's English was sufficient to
make it clear that she would not be happy to be roused after eleven to open
the door to anyone discourteous enough to disturb her nightly slumbers in
the overstuffed chair before her television.

On the sixth day, the weather had turned hot and humid, and his room on the
fourth floor grew stifling. Even with the window and the door left open,
his body stuck to the sheets, and it proved impossible to find a position
that did not leave him restless and uncomfortable. Beads of sweat rolling
down his face woke him before dawn. He felt slightly nauseous and fled the
boarding house as soon as he heard Signora Alberti greeting one of her
neighbours in the street. The pavements were already radiating heat upward.
His tickets for the Uffizi were for that day, and he walked around, keeping
to the shaded side of the streets as much as possible until the doors
opened just after 8:00. He fled gratefully out of the sun and heat. A slow
meander through marble-cooled culture seemed the perfect option for the
day.

In the early afternoon he wandered into the Rembrandt Room and found
himself standing before Rembrandt's portrait of himself as a young man. The
face could almost be English, Galen thought. The eyes, though, were so
judgmental, as if the sitter had taken a look at the artist's work and
become sceptical of Rembrandt's ability to render an accurate likeness and
had grown rather disappointed about the painter's failings.

`You look like him.'

Galen turned to confront the speaker with a look of annoyance on his face.
His initial impulse was to register his disapproval of this interruption of
his contemplation of Art by stalking away without speaking. Instead he
gasped in surprise. His eyes met those of a young man a few years older
than himself, dressed in the brown duster of the museum staff. The
speaker's body was dense and compact as if ordinary flesh had been
compressed into a harder substance. He could have stepped out of one of the
many portraits of cavaliers and noblemen and popes covering the walls of
the Uffizi. Not ugly but masculine rather than handsome, someone practised
in getting what he wanted and certain that he was entitled to it. Except
the present incarnation was obviously very alive and not a portrait of a
long-dead plunderer.

`But I don't look anything like Rembrandt.' Galen's voice came out strained
and high-pitched, as if his throat had constricted. To his own ears, he
sounded as if he were stammering.

The young man looked carefully at the painting and then at Galen. `My
English is not good. I did not mean that you resemble the man in the
picture. I mean that you look at the picture the same way he looks at
us. The gaze, is that right? the way of the gazing is the same. The same
look of doubt. But why are you suspicious of the portrait? It is one of
Rembrandt's best. We are fortunate to have it at the Uffizi.'

`I don't know enough to be suspicious of the painting. I was just thinking
that the man in the picture looks rather doubtful of the painter's ability
to succeed in painting this portrait. Perhaps my thoughts were shaping my
face.'

The young man examined Galen's face carefully, almost clinically, like a
sculptor wondering if one final stroke of the chisel will bring perfection
or destruction. When he had finished his perusal, he nodded as if he had
reached a decision and then extended his hand. `I am Niccolo di Bardi. I am
a conservator here. Of the wood objects.'

`Galen Nichols. I am a student, from England. I came to Florence for the
break between terms.'

`Would you like a cup of coffee? Or something to eat? I was on my way to
the employees' kitchen for my meal. We are allowed to bring a guest.'

`I would like that very much.'

`Perhaps later I can show you what I do.'

`I would also like that very much.'

Niccolo's face lit up with pleasure. `Then, Signore a la moda di
Rembrandti, please to come with me.'

The employees' basement canteen was a simple affair. A coffee urn, salad,
fruit, bread, a pot of tomato sauce kept warm on a hotplate, and an
attendant who boiled a plate of pasta for those who asked. Niccolo had sat
Galen at a table and then spoke to the attendant in Italian too rapid for
Galen to follow. Shortly two plates of spaghetti appeared on the table,
Galen's with noticeably more food on it than Niccolo's. The room was almost
deserted. An elderly man sat at a table against the far wall and read a
newspaper. The attendant walked in and out of the room, removing the food
and apparently preparing to close the canteen.

`Galen? Like the doctor?'

`Yes, Galen Harvey Nichols. My father is a doctor. I think he hopes that my
name will inspire me to become one too.'

`And you hope?'

`The usual things. A good life. Happiness. Comfort--not great wealth, but
enough to be comfortable. Respect. Success. And you?'

`Love. And success--as an artist.'

`Are you a painter?'

`No, I want to be a sculptor. But for now, I only practice in clay. I
cannot afford to have my works cast yet.'

`And you work here? That must be interesting.'

`I will show you later. I help preserve the wood carvings and the frames
around the paintings. It gives me a chance to study them and to learn from
them. I am learning to see. It is what my teachers say, that artists must
learn to see, both what is there on the surface and what is hidden below,
the bones and the mind that make the face.'

The two chatted on, while Galen finished his meal. He had been hungry, and
somehow Niccolo had known that. They talked about the sites that Galen had
visited, and Niccolo wrote out a list of out-of-the-way churches worth a
visit. Soon they were the only ones left in the canteen. Niccolo took the
dishes into the room where the attendant was working. A burst of laughter
and loud comments greeted him. Obviously Niccolo was a great favourite of
the older woman. Galen remained at the table while the two traded what
sound like mutual gibes. He had made a mistake in coming alone to Florence.
The brief conversation with Niccolo made him realise that he would have
enjoyed it more if there had been someone to talk to.

Niccolo looked impish when he emerged. In high spirits he led Galen to the
conservators' workrooms, pausing occasionally to explain the work being
done. The two paused silent for several minutes before Caravaggio's great
Head of the Medusa as a restorer working with minuscule bits of cotton
daubed a fixative on a weak spot on the canvas. Galen shuddered inwardly at
the anguish Caravaggio had depicted. To be deprived of life just as one saw
one's face in the mirror of the assassin's shield--that would be terrible.

Niccolo's workroom was filled with bits of wood in various states of decay.
It smelled, not unpleasantly, of varnishes and glues and old dust. His
current project was the head of a fifteen-century wooden sculpture of Saint
John the Evangelist. Dry rot and insects had damaged the back of the skull
where it had rested against the wall of a church for centuries. Niccolo
explained that he would be able to save only the front of the original
head. The damaged back would be replaced by a rough carving shaped like the
original. `But no one looked at the back of the head for centuries, so it
will not be missed. It is the face that is important.'

The carver had chosen to represent John as the beloved apostle. Youthful,
innocent, happy, content, unsuspecting that the object of his love and
adoration would shortly be crucified. Not the best sculpture, but not the
worst either. There had been an intelligent hand behind its making. `The
bones.'

`What?' Niccolo glanced up from his work.

`The bones you were talking about earlier. They are there.'

Niccolo nodded. `And the mind.' He smiled and returned to his work. Galen
sat and watched Niccolo's strong hands carefully remove centuries of grime.
His confidence with his tools was reflected in the sure movements of his
fingers across the face of the sculpture. His touch was almost sensual as
he gently stroked the face with his brushes. From time to time he would
stop and briefly explain what he was doing, and Galen would nod to indicate
that he understood. Conversation seemed an intrusion into centuries of
silence. It was extraordinarily peaceful to sit there and watch a labourer
who could have just stepped from a Renaissance workshop.

`I am ruining your visit to the Uffizi.' Niccolo had at last put down his
tools and covered the head with a piece of cloth. `You come to see our
masterpieces, and instead you spend hours watching me clean a bit of rotten
wood.'

`No. I enjoyed watching you work and see what you do. It was an
introduction to how an artist works.'

`Not an artist. Here I am an artisan. When I leave at night, then I go home
and become an artist. Or try to become one. Perhaps you would like to see
what I do? My sister is about to give birth. My parents have gone to Rome
to be with her. But my mother left much food for me. You would do me a
favour, if you would help me eat it. That way, she will think that I am not
forgetting to eat and starving myself while she is gone.' Niccolo grinned
mischievously. He seemed to shed about ten years in age and become a
teenage boy tricking his family.

Niccolo led him into a back courtyard and unlocked a yellow Vespa. He
stowed his coat in the compartment under the seat and rolled up his shirt
sleeves to expose his forearms. His tanned arms were covered with fine dark
hair. With every movement, the muscles in his arms rippled beneath the
surface of the skin. Galen thought that he had never seen such
strong-looking wrists. He could almost feel what it would be like to lift
one of Niccolo's arms to his mouth and kiss the inside of the wrist, there
where the veins crossed dark and blue over the hollows formed by the
tendons.

`You will have to ride behind me and hold to me.' That was Niccolo's only
prelude to a wild dash through the streets of Florence. It occurred to
Galen that Niccolo's ancestors must have galloped horses through these same
streets with as much apparent disregard for safety and with as much
precision. Galen was so worried about distracting Niccolo that he dared not
moved. He tried to keep the various bits and pieces of his body tucked in
as much as possible to prevent collisions with passers-by and the motorcars
that seemed intent on squeezing past them with only a fraction of an inch
to spare. The only consolation was that, unlike the many young women laden
with packages and similarly ensconced behind other males driving
motorbikes, at least he did not have to ride sitting sideways.

Niccolo stopped only once, to rush into a baker's to buy a loaf of bread,
leaving the machine running and Galen steadying it and hoping that it
didn't decide to take off on its own. Niccolo thrust the long, narrow loaf
into Galen's hands, leaving his passenger with only one arm to cling to
what he was increasingly sure would the last person he would ever touch.
Niccolo's shouted assurance that they were almost there was accompanied by
a spurt of speed down a narrow cobblestone path between high walls that did
nothing to allay Galen's worries. Niccolo abruptly braked and brought the
Vespa to a halt before a small door in a wall. Galen bounced against
Niccolo's body. Niccolo turned his head and stared directly into Galen's
eyes. Their faces were only an inch apart. Galen was acutely conscious of
how beautiful Niccolo's eyes were and how close his lips were. As soon as
they stopped moving, the dampness and humidity returned, and he felt the
heat of Niccolo's body through the two layers of clothing separating them.

`This is my home.' Niccolo grinned. `If you will release me, I will open
the door.'

`Oh, I'm so sorry.' Galen jumped back and off the motorbike. `I wasn't
aware . . . I didn't realise I was holding on so tightly. I'm not used to
moving so fast with so much traffic around.'

`I was not making a complaint. I am enjoying being held by you. It is as if
you rely on me to protect you. And I enjoy the speed. It removes the day
from my brain.' Niccolo looked at Galen frankly. `Do you understand?'

Galen's chest felt as if it were being crushed in a vise. `Yes, I think I
do.' For a second he contemplated shoving the loaf of bread into Niccolo's
hands and then fleeing. Instead he cleared his throat and plunged ahead
with a recklessness he seldom showed. `And now that it is over, I can say
that I think I enjoyed the ride. Thank you, Niccolo. It will become an
unforgettable experience. But where are we?'

`This is the door to our back garden.' Niccolo unlocked the door and
half-lifted, half-wheeled his motorbike over the raised threshold. From the
other side of the door came the sound of the kickstand being pushed into
place and of a chain and padlock being wrapped around the bike. Galen stood
outside uncertain whether to enter or not. Visible through the doorway was
a wall of climbing roses. A large stand of bamboo grew from a gigantic
Chinese porcelain tub just inside the door. Water falling into a hidden
basin and the hum of insects were the only sounds.

Niccolo's head appeared around the edge of the door. `If I am to give you
dinner, you must come in. The neighbours will make angry if I feed you in
the street.'

`But this is beautiful.' Niccolo had locked the door behind them and then
guided Galen through an opening in the wall of roses bushes, carefully
holding a thorn-laden cane out of Galen's way. The small garden was filled
with light and colour. Goldfish swam in a moss-covered basin overhung with
flowering crape myrtles. Visible through the bushes and trees was a large
stone house. `Who are you, Niccolo di Bardi? This is not a museum worker's
house.'

`My family has lived here for many years. We have had time to build and
make for ourselves comfort. I think it will rain soon and then it will
cool. It will be much better tonight. For now, we can use the
elletroventola. I do not know this word in English. The electric machine
that moves the air so that we feel better.'

`A fan. An electric fan, I think.'

`A fan. Uno ventaglio. Yes, that would be senseful.'

In the event, a fan was almost unnecessary in the cool, dark house. Niccolo
led him to the kitchen and swiftly put a meal on the table with the same
sure economy of motion he had shown in his work at the museum. The two
quietly exchanged information about themselves as they ate. Galen offered
to help with the washing up, but Niccolo poured him another glass of wine
and made him sit while he dealt with the dishes. `You are nervous of me, I
think,' he said as he dried the final plate and put it away.

`I'm not usually so brave. I am much more cautious and reserved at home.'

`It is a vacation for you. You can be braver. And I do not bite. Now you
would like to see my work.' Niccolo took Galen by the hand and drew him out
of the chair. He led the way down a long corridor and into another section
of the house, into a large room filled with clay heads. Charcoal drawings
were tacked to every surface. All of them of people. Extraordinarily alive
people. People laughing. Faces contorted with rage, faces filled with
joy. Hopeful faces. Pensive faces. Old, young, male, female, a vibrant
human parade. A schoolboy bent over his studies, pencil rigidly held
upright over a tablet of paper, sat at a table next to an old woman cutting
up vegetables. A young man and woman drinking wine smiled at a shared
joke. All captured in a few, swift, confident strokes, a smudge of the
finger to create a shadow.

Niccolo waited at the doorway while Galen walked around the edges of the
room examining the drawings and the sculptures. `I do not understand the
process. These clay heads will be cast in metal?'

`Eventually. If I can convince someone to buy the results.'

`But they are wonderful.'

`Perhaps. They are, I do not know how to say this, too bright. Like shoes
that are new and have no character yet. I do not have sharp edges and scars
from use yet. My teacher says that I have had too easy a life so far. I
need to experience sorrow and unhappiness. I am too optimistic, too happy.'

`Your teacher is a fool. You have a great talent.'

`No, she is not. Talent is not enough. I need to understand all life in
order to put it in my work. But I will learn. And I will get better. And
now, may I ask a favour?'

`Anything, Niccolo.'

`May I draw you? It will not take long. I am quick.' Niccolo held up a pad
of paper and a stick of charcoal and motioned Galen toward a chair. He was
as good as his word. He moved about the room, making rapid sketches of
Galen from various angles, his work interrupted only long enough to tear
one sheet from the pad and place it on the table. When he finished, he
tacked the sheets up along the wall, covering up a layer of other
drawings. `I will make a head from these.' Niccolo examined the drawings
carefully, the model for them apparently forgotten, his mind moving toward
the clay sculpture that he would make.

Galen didn't trust himself to speak. He walked over to Niccolo and embraced
him from behind. `May I, may we, . . .'

Niccolo turned in his arms to face Galen and returned the embrace. His body
felt taut with desire. `Yes, let us go to my bedroom. You will spend the
night here. It is late and I do not want to take you back through the
rain.' Galen became aware for the first time that it had started to rain.
In the distance there was the rumble of thunder. By the time that Niccolo
had closed up the house and turned off the lights, the flashes of the
lightning were closer. The two paused on the stairs to look out a window at
the storm. After the next flash of lightning, Galen automatically began to
count `one one-thousandth, two one-thousandth . . .'

`What is this?'

`It's what we do in England. We say that in the time it takes to say "one
one-thousandth', the sound travels 1,000 feet--300 meters perhaps. So you
count the time between the flash and the start of the sound of the thunder
in this way, and you know how far away the lightning is. If the time grows
less with each stroke, then you know the storm is moving closer. If the
time increases, then you know the danger is passing.'

The next flash of lightning was nearly overhead, and the boom of the
thunder shook the house immediately after. Niccolo laughed. `I think the
storm is here. But there is no danger. The house has the rods on the roof
that carry the electricity to the ground. We are safe here.' He took
Galen's hand and led him to his bedroom.

`But the bed is so narrow. We won't both be able to fit in it.'

`It is big enough. You will see. It will be enough space.' And it was.

It rained heavily during the night. When Galen awoke in the morning, he
found the shadows of leaves moving on the ceiling. Light reflecting off the
pond in the garden was shining upward through the bushes and trees
surrounding the house and casting shadows on the ceiling of Niccolo's
bedroom. The leaves and branches were apparent in great detail. Through
some trick of the light, the image appeared to be three-dimensional, as if
one of Niccolo's charcoal drawings had moved from the paper and taken on
volume and life. Galen turned on his side toward the sleeping Niccolo.
Every time Niccolo breathed in, his stomach expanded against Galen's body,
a moving circle of contact. Galen wished he had the talent to capture the
life in that face. With a finger, he lightly traced the line of Niccolo's
nose and then the curve of his jaw. He brought his lips as close to
Niccolo's as he could, just allowing them to touch, near enough to feel
Niccolo's breath on his face. Niccolo stirred and then wrapped his arms
around Galen and pulled him in, an embrace that became even fiercer as he
awoke.

They spent as much of the next three days together as possible. As he
headed to the museum, Niccolo would drop Galen off for his day of
sightseeing. They would meet at a prearranged place after Niccolo was
through with his work. Galen felt so much joy and happiness when he saw
Niccolo's head zooming toward him through the traffic, a hand waving a
boisterous greeting at him, the Vespa coming to a halt precisely before
him. Evenings they spent together in Niccolo's workroom or in his bed. On
the night before Galen had to return to England, they lay together in bed
talking and making plans. Galen would return during the summer or Niccolo
would come to visit him in London. `I would like to show you around London,
but we won't be able to be together like this in my parents' house.'

`I will stay at a hotel and you will visit me. And perhaps your parents
will not mind if you have a lover.'

`I'm afraid that they would mind very much, even if you were a
woman. Wouldn't your parents mind if they were here?'

`It is not what they would choose for me, no. But I would find a way to
love.'

`You are much braver than I. It is not as easy in England as it is here for
me to do what I want. I'm not sure I have the courage to be that alive, to
risk the danger of love.' The bedroom was dark when he said that. Even so,
he did not trust his self-control enough to look at Niccolo. Nor did
Niccolo seem to want to push him into a stronger commitment. They had left
it at that. They would write and make their plans later.

The letter from Niccolo arrived a few days after he returned to Cambridge.
The post came just as Galen was leaving for class, and he didn't have a
private moment to open the letter. Then a group of friends carried him off
to a pub. It was late when he returned to his rooms, and only then did he
read the letter. Niccolo proposed that he return to Florence in July. His
parents would be away for their annual summer visit to the Alps, and Galen
could stay in the Bardis' house. Niccolo would take a week off from work,
and they could make day trips around northern Italy. He enclosed a picture
of the clay bust he had made from the drawings of Galen.

It was too late to write an answer that evening, and Galen put it off until
the weekend. The weekend came, and he couldn't decide if he would be free
in July until he had spoken with his parents to see if they would pay for
another trip to Italy so soon. In the cool northern light, it seemed less
and less urgent to reply immediately. There was always time. The letter
with its foreign stamps set on his bookcase under a growing stack of papers
and books until the end of term, when he swept it almost without thought
into the trash bin along with the litter of that term's work.

******

Galen next encountered the name Niccolo di Bardi in an article in the Times
reviewing a special exhibition of contemporary Italian sculpture at the
Tate. It was the same year that his father died. Galen had joined his
father's practice after qualifying. Earlier that year, his father had asked
Galen to check a spot on his back, and Galen had discovered the carcinoma
that led to his father's death a few months later. He was alone in the
practice now. When his widowed mother decided to buy a flat, he took over
their house as well and lived in that. It was too large for one person, but
he was comfortable there.

Until he read the article, Galen hadn't thought of Niccolo in years. He had
been totally unaware that Niccolo had been successful in his goal of
becoming an artist. The critic for the Times was enthusiastic in his praise
of Niccolo's works and drew especial attention to one piece: `A highlight
of the exhibit is the bust by Niccolo di Bardi labelled "The English
Student". A face quintessentially British looks with cool disdain at the
world. It is the face of someone who observes life in preference to living
it, the face of someone who distances himself from danger, a man who
experiences life only in books and other persons' narratives. Bardi's art
is nowhere more apparent than in this eloquently wordless biography of a
man who has rejected the possibility of engagement and shut himself off
from all human relationships.'

Galen jotted down the dates of the exhibition and tacked the piece of paper
to the board in the kitchen. He intended to make time to attend the
exhibit. He found the note there several months later when he engaged in
his semiannual clearing of the reminders of things he had not found the
time to do.

******

I think sometimes about returning to Italy. I should like to visit Florence
again and the museums there now that I have more time, not to mention
enough money to stay in comfort. On my previous trip, I was still a student
and had very little money to spare. I stayed in the cheapest pensione I
could find and nearly starved because I couldn't afford to eat. My last few
days there passed almost in a fog because of the heat and humidity and low
blood sugar brought on by a lack of food. I don't know why I didn't leave,
I was so miserable. This time I will go during the winter. Heat bothers me
so much anymore, and strong light and bright colours can trigger my
megrims. And there won't be so many people about during the
winter--tourists, I mean. Presumably there will be as many Italians as
usual, but I won't have to interact much with them. Thankfully the museums
shouldn't be so crowded. There are some pictures at the Uffizi in
particular that I would like to look at again.

******

Note: If you're interested in the pictures mentioned in this story, you can
find images at the Virtual Uffizi. For the Rembrandt self-portrait:

	http://www.virtualuffizi.com/uffizi1/Uffizi_Pictures.asp?Contatore=480

and for Caravaggio's Head of the Medusa:

	http://www.virtualuffizi.com/uffizi/img/1351.jpg