Are We There Yet? (15 page)

In the morning, the phone winks red at him.

“Meet us at the Uffizi,” Elijah's voice says. “We'll see you at eleven.”

It's Julia's dope and Elijah's idea to go to the museum stoned. Julia rolls him a joint, and then—seeing the happiness in his smile—gives him a little extra to go. After they've smoked, they hold hands through the lobby. The
pensione
's owner nods a good morning. Julia and Elijah giggle and smile in return. When they reach the door, they break into a skip.

It is eleven-fifteen.

Danny waits by the entrance, and then he waits on line. He searches for his brother, and then he gives up. Perhaps Elijah is already inside. Perhaps he won't show at all. Danny is not in the mood for empty minutes. He can barely stand it when he wastes his own time; for someone else to waste it is unconscionable.

The line is very long and very slow. Danny is bracketed by American families—restless children and desperately agreeable parents. The walls of the museum are touched by graffiti: KURT 4-EVA and MARIA DEL MAR 4/4/98 and CLARE 27/03 FRANCESE…TI AMO JUSTIN. One of the American families is accompanied by an abusive tour guide, who takes the children's listlessness to task. “Boredom is a dirty habit,” she mutters. The American mother has murder in her eyes.

Five minutes and no Elijah …fifteen minutes and no Elijah …the ticket taker asks Danny to enter, and he does not argue. He decides to start at the beginning of the museum and work his way through history. Elijah will no doubt meet him somewhere in the middle, without realizing he's late.

Elijah isn't surprised that his brother hasn't waited. Really, it doesn't matter. Elijah is happy to be here, is happy to be with Julia. His buzz is just right—enough so things seem real close, but not so much that things seem real far away. He and Julia are surprised by the length of the line; luckily, Elijah strikes up a conversation with the trio of Australian women in front of them, so the time passes quickly. Maura's fortieth birthday is three days away; Judy and Helen are planning to take her to the most expensive restaurant in Siena, bringing at least four bottles of wine. They are legal secretaries—they met in high school and their fates have been tied together ever since. They ask Elijah and Julia how long they've been together, and Elijah revels in the fact that they've seen fit to ask.

“It's been ages,” Julia replies, wrapping her arm around Elijah and snuggling close.

“At least three hundred years,” Elijah adds.

Once inside the Uffizi, Elijah is dizzied by the ceilings. Julia has to remind him to watch where he steps. A guard looks at him curiously, so Elijah says hello, and the guard suddenly becomes less guarded.

There are so many paintings, all with the same plot. Mary looks stoned, and the Jesus babies are still scary. It's the glummest Sears Family Portrait in history. The angels are all the same person, and the skies are always the same blue.

“Come here,” Julia whispers, pulling Elijah to his first Annunciation of the day. “Look closely. I love this scene. Gabriel is
telling Mary the story of the rest of her life. Every artist has a different take on it. Like this one.”

Elijah leans closer. Indeed, Mary's slight boredom—all too evident in the mother-son shots—has disappeared. In this painting—by someone named Martini—Mary looks uncomfortable. She's not sure about what she's being told. Gabriel, meanwhile, wears a pleading expression. He knows what's at stake.

“Let's see all the Annunciations,” Elijah says, a little too eager, a little too loud.

“Absolutely,” Julia agrees.

Elijah takes one last look at Mary and Gabriel. Mary winks at him and tells him to move on.

Danny's guidebook talks about Piero della Francesca's “daring search for perspective”—and, quite frankly, Danny doesn't get it. How can you discover perspective? Why did it take thousands of years for artists to discover a third dimension? How can you discover something that is already there?

It's only the fifteenth century and already Danny is getting tired. All these people in robes, with their wooden pastures and wooden expressions. Then the burst of Botticelli. The people are no longer bloodless; Danny can almost believe they have hearts.

“Hey there,” someone says. Danny assumes she's talking to someone else. Then he feels a hand on his arm. He turns to find Julia.

“Where's Elijah?” he asks.

“Oh, around. I figured I'd try to find you.”

“He didn't want to join you?”

“I don't think he realizes I left. He's rather transfixed.”

“Good for him.”

Julia gestures to the painting, Perugino's
Crucifixion
.“I wonder about the red hat on the ground.”

Danny nods. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

“I also wonder why they're so clean.”

“As opposed to what? A pornographic crucifixion?”

“No. I mean
clean.
Think about it. People in the sixteenth century—not to mention in Jesus's time—didn't look like this: perfect skin, perfect hairdos, spotless clothes. These are people who went to the bathroom in the street, for God's sake. There's
no way they looked like this. But that's how we're going to remember them. Our alabaster past. When nothing else is left, art will become the truth of the time. Then people will get to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and wonder what hap-pened—how we all became so imperfect.”

Danny doesn't know what to say to this, and Julia becomes immediately self-conscious.

“Sorry,” she says, ducking her head down. “Shove me into shallow water, you know.”

“No—you're absolutely right. I've never thought of it that way.”

Danny sees that Julia can't decide whether he's being true or whether he's just being kind. It doesn't occur to her that the two can be one and the same.

Elijah figures Julia has made her way to the ladies' room or something, so he continues on his trail of Annunciations.
Primavera
momentarily gets in the way—Elijah is shocked at how dark it has become. Elijah has always looked to the painting for joy, but now the dark angel in the corner gains prominence. The right-hand maiden is trapped in his grasp. The woman in the center of it all seems detached, resigned.

Still, people flock to her. Elijah stands in front of the tourist flashbulbs, trying to protect her. A torrent of foreign words tells him to move. But he will not. Each time a camera is raised, he gets in the way. There are signs everywhere saying not to take pictures. And yet everyone acts like he's the one doing something wrong.

Once the latest tour group has passed, Elijah returns to Mary and Gabriel. In Botticelli's version, Mary seems demure, almost faint. Gabriel looks like a woman—perhaps an easier way to convey the news, with a flower held like a pen in his hand. Elijah wishes Julia were around to ask—
How did Gabriel persuade her? Why isn't she frightened by the sight of his wings?
In the frame, Mary sits on the edge of what looks like a tomb.
Isn't she surprised the angel is kneeling at her feet?

DaVinci's
Annunciation
is almost like a sequel to Botticelli's. Gabriel is in the same pose, but Mary seems to be acknowledging him. She has become regal, undoubting. She is no longer sitting in a room, with the wide world merely alluded to through a window. It is the opposite now. Elijah does not like this Mary. She is too steely, whereas Botticelli's is too weak.

A few galleries later, Elijah gazes again at the ceiling. The details are surreal. A knight stands atop a dragon, about to swing his sword at an armless angel who has breasts, a tail, and a mermaid limb that trails off into a small tree.

“Man, that's so messed up,” Elijah murmurs.

It's like the ceiling has dredged the dope back into his bloodstream. The paintings are going freaky. Caravaggio's
Medusa
is a scary, screaming bitch.

A very papal-looking portrait watches over
Slaughter of the Innocents
. Elijah can't believe how sexy the slaughter seems. He's strangely turned on. Gentileschi's
Santa Caterina d'Alessandria
holds her breasts in a very provocative way, leading Elijah to wonder what kind of saints they had, way back when.

The rooms are beginning to tip a little. Elijah sits on a bench and stares again at the ceiling. A woman plays violin as a dog and a donkey sit and listen. A man raises a hammer to a bull's head. Three naked women dance, while human heads are superimposed onto the wings of a red butterfly.

“There you are,” Julia's voice calls. Elijah is afraid to turn to her, afraid that she too will be written on the wings of an insect, poised to fly away. The dog and the donkey are getting up to leave now. The hammer falls short, and the bull laughs and laughs. Julia sits down next to him and asks if everything is okay.

Elijah closes his eyes and opens them. All the variations go away. Julia is the only real thing he can see.

“I found Danny,” she says.

“Good for you. How annoyed is he?”

“Not that annoyed.”

“That's probably because I wasn't with you.”

Julia sighs. “I told him we'd meet him by Veronese's
Annunciation
.”