Black Elvis (3 page)

To his surprise, he turned out to be a reasonably good guide. No one seemed to know that "Massachusetts State" was not a real school (he had in fact gone to Hopkins, studied English, and played bass, badly, in a retro-punk band, The Meretricious Popes). Even for the clients willing to pay for tours—he charged a hundred euros for five hours—visiting the museums and churches was still mostly a duty to be fulfilled, a required purgatory to pass through on the way to afternoon gelato. They were not suspicious. There was a Japanese family of four who nodded a great deal and had him take their photo in front of Pizza Ponte Vecchio, then took his; there were Carol and Cliff from Ohio who were mostly interested in counting angels ("Look, Cliff, look how many there are in that one!").

He told the Japanese family that the pictures underneath various altarpieces at the Accademia were called the
pudenda
, and even got them to repeat it. He explained to a woman from Van Nuys that the Medicis had been crypto-Jews. He told Carol and Cliff that since Saint Peter was always depicted holding a key, he was the patron saint of locksmiths (Cliff was a locksmith). Some of the information he gave out was accurate—he'd eavesdropped on a few real guides, studied a guide to Florence he picked up at a
tabacchi
, and had done his best to remember information from the Survey of Western Art class he'd taken sophomore year—but he also made a point of saying things that were simply outrageous (though the locksmith comment, to his surprise, had turned out to be true). He told the Frankenthaler family from Bayonne that Michelangelo had done a series of pornographic woodcuts at the request of the Pope, and that these were kept in a special vault at the Vatican, too valuable to be destroyed, too embarrassing to be acknowledged. Before 1500, he explained, all depictions of Jesus showed the holy genitalia—loincloths were painted over later, mostly by Titian.

They met in front of the information office at the train station, as arranged. Bob Seitz was gray haired, in his midfifties, of average height, with overly tanned skin and a nose that appeared to have been broken at some point—it took a distinct turn to the left. He wore the kind of "travel" clothes you find in SkyMall catalogs—khaki cargo pants, a white, short-sleeved shirt, and a vest with an absurd number of pockets in it. He was allergic to something, and behind his round glasses both his eyes were rimmed red.

It was a particularly hot Tuesday morning in July, and Larry's hangover was bad. He'd stayed out late drinking Scotch and listening to an Italian band called Hard Again do covers of Muddy Waters songs. Bob Seitz shook Larry's hand enthusiastically, his grip powerful, the backs of his hands, Larry noticed, practically cobwebbed with hair. "Pleased to meet you," he said, and he really did seem it. "I'm looking forward to this."

They walked together to Santa Maria Novella. "Masaccio basically scared the hell out of everyone with this painting," Larry said, when they were in front of the
Trinity
. "They thought it might be black magic. Look how the figure of Jesus comes out at you."

"Who are those people praying?"

"Rich people who paid for the painting. If you paid for a painting, you got to be in it. Even a crucifixion. Noblemen and clergy show up—in Renaissance outfits—at the Annunciation, the flight into Egypt, you name it."

"Like getting your photo taken in Washington with a cardboard cutout of the president?"

"Exactly. That skeleton at the bottom is a memento mori—a reminder about death."

"I spent two hours in that Uffizi yesterday," said Bob. "You know who I saw there? Jeff Goldblum. Honest. He was with some young blonde. Very cute. But she looked, I don't know, maybe sixteen. Tell me about Saint Francis. What's the deal with him? What did he do? He's like Dr. Dolittle, right? Talks to the animals?"

Francis was Larry's favorite. "Classic case of dementia. The guy had a fight with his father, who was a merchant, his father disowned him, so he went off to live in the woods, where he basically had a psychotic break, or found God—you choose. Came back covered with mud and preaching, which in those days was a reasonable career path. Pretty soon he had followers, and the next thing you know, he's on key chains and coffee mugs. One of his big miracles was that he saw demons flying over a city, then sent one of his monk buddies to chase them away. He didn't even go himself. Personally, I think the demons were swifts. They're all over the place at sunset around here, catching bugs, darting around."

Bob had wandered up to the altar area and was looking at the wooden crucifix that hung there.

"The cross is probably by Giotto," said Larry, who thought he hadn't said
Giotto
enough yet today. He liked the way it felt in his mouth, like chewing gum. People always nodded reverentially when he said
Giotto
. "Notice the bones at the bottom? The medieval understanding about the crucifixion was that it happened conveniently right over the spot where Adam's bones were buried. Jesus's blood trickles straight down to them and boom—Resurrection."

"That Jeff Goldblum, he's even taller than you think."

"Is that right?" said Larry.

"After here, I go to Venice," said Bob. "This was a trip my wife always wanted to take." He made his way to a bench along one wall of the nave and sat down suddenly.

"Are you okay?" Larry asked. Bob sniffed, took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and blew his nose loudly.

Larry figured the best thing to do was to keep going. "Here's how to know your saints. Peter holds keys—those are to heaven. John the Baptist is always shown in a hair shirt. Francis is usually on his knees looking surprised as he's getting zapped from above by holy rays."

"Holy rays?"

"Then there's Stephen, who looks a little like he's joined the Mickey Mouse Club, with these round ears over his head, which are actually supposed to be rocks. Lorenzo—that's my guy—holds the grill they barbecued him on. Agatha had her breasts cut off, and you'll often see her holding them on a plate. Like little custards or something."

Bob looked at him.

"Oh, it's a celebration of pain and suffering." Larry checked his watch. "
OK
, there's the
museo
next door, which has some pretty good frescoes, although they're weathered, and then we go to San Marco and look at the Fra Angelicos."

Bob stood and put away his handkerchief. "One more question," he said. "On this whole Resurrection business." He paused, blinking, then continued. "The guy died, then came back to life, as I understand it."

"That's the idea," said Larry.

"Then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, where is he? If he came back to life, shouldn't he be here?"

"Well, he went up to heaven."

"Alive?"

"Right."

"So, heaven is full of dead people, souls and all, and one living person?" Bob dug into a pocket of his vest and produced a small vial of pills, shook one out, and swallowed it with water from a bottle that emerged from a different pocket. "I'm not trying to be difficult. Honestly. Is it easier to care about these things, these saints and Last Judgments and whatnot, if you believe in them? Or do you just look at the pictures like it's a Superman comic?"

Larry saw that an actual guide—a young Italian man he'd run into before and who he was pretty sure was suspicious of him—had come into the church along with a middle-aged American couple. "Superman comic. The Roman Empire never went away, you know. It just transformed into Christianity, then continued to eat everything in its path. The cult of Minerva becomes the cult of the Madonna. Instead of lots of different gods to pray to, you substitute saints. People couldn't read, so the authorities gave them pictures to look at instead. The world hasn't changed so much. Back home, the cult of
Seinfeld
gives way to the cult of
Friends
, but it's all still the empire of American big business putting up the shrines."

"What do you plan to do with this degree when you get it?"

"I don't know," Larry said, thoughtfully. "Teach, maybe."

Bob poked a finger behind his glasses and rubbed his eye. "I'm in insurance. Claims investigation. Or I was. I'm retired now."

"You know
Double Indemnity
? I love that movie."

"Barbara Stanwyck," said Bob, revealing some teeth. "My wife was named Barbara."

Larry started toward the door. "Do you find many cases of fraud, then?" The real guide, a guy a year or two older than him, with Italian clothes—a dark silk shirt, expensive-looking trousers—was pointing at the cross and saying something about Brunelleschi. Their eyes met briefly, and they nodded at one another.

"Oh, sure. People stage or cause auto accidents, for instance, then sue for bodily injury. In Brooklyn, we get a lot of that."

"What do you do to them?"

But Bob didn't answer. His gaze had drifted back to the crucifix. Larry found a Life Saver and popped it in his mouth.

At the Museo, Larry identified various Old Testament stories for Bob in the frescoes, making up ones he didn't know. He should have been having fun—Julia had negotiated a fee of 150 euros from Bob—but he wasn't. He just wanted this to end.

In the Capella Spagnola, Larry pointed out the dogs on the upper right wall. "
Dominican
is Latin for
Dogs of God
," he said. "
Domine canes
. These guys thought of themselves as the Pope's
SWAT
team. Dominicans and Franciscans were the Crips and Bloods of their day. Some monks even engaged in bare-knuckle boxing in the Lord's name."

"I used to box," Bob said, quietly, staring at the kaleidoscope of figures and scenes sprawling across the ceilings and walls. "How I got this nose."

They walked along Via Nazionale to Via Guelfa to Via Cavour through the heat and smog and traffic, Larry keeping up a steady patter of nonsense about Guelphs and Ghibellines. By the time they got to the convent of San Marco, he was exhausted. He checked his watch. "Listen, the monks' cells are upstairs. Fra Angelicos, one in each room. He's the guy the liqueur is named after. Heavy drinker, actually. I'm going to hit the bathroom. How about I meet you up there?"

"All right," said Bob, mopping his red face with the back of his hand.

When he got out of the bathroom, Larry sat on a chair and rested. A group of nuns passed by in light blue robes, their dark skin suggesting that they might be from Latin America. Then he climbed the stairs to look for Bob. He stuck his head in one cell after another, pausing to admire the frescoes. His favorite was
The Mocking of Christ
, with a disembodied head blowing air at the blindfolded Jesus. He was standing looking at this one, feeling the slight breeze that wafted through the window, imagining himself as the subject of the mockery, when he heard a moan.

He hurried out into the hall and tried to decide from which direction the sound had come. The he heard it again. Three cells down, he found Bob, crumpled on the floor.

"Hey," Larry said, kneeling beside him. "Are you okay? Do you need a doctor?" Larry had no idea how you even got a doctor in Italy. He didn't speak Italian, other than the few phrases he'd picked up to use in restaurants and bars. Bob looked up at him, his eyes lit with a kind of distant terror, and held out his hands, palms up. The center of each was bloody.

It occurred to Larry, just for a second, that this might be some kind of elaborate prank, perhaps even one Julia had dreamed up. But there was nothing particularly funny about what was happening, and no one shouted "Surprise!" Bob attempted to speak, but seemed incapable, and instead just mumbled. His wounds were real, and they were still bleeding. There was some blood on the front of his shirt, and on his cargo pants, as well as on the floor.

"What happened?" Larry looked up at the fresco in this room, which was of the Coronation of the Virgin, with various arrayed saints watching. Front right was Saint Francis, his hands upheld, clearly showing his stigmata. He looked back at Bob, who had the appearance of a person waking from a dream. There was no immediate apparent source of his injury—nothing sharp on which he might have gouged himself. The man was simply semiconscious and bleeding from the hands.

Bob said something else unintelligible.

"What happened?" Larry repeated, slowly.

"I'm not sure," Bob said. He got unsteadily to his feet and examined his palms. "I've got a handkerchief in my vest. Would you get it out for me? I'm a mess." Larry patted his pockets, found it and removed it. Bob wrapped this around his right hand, then carefully withdrew his other, used handkerchief, and balled it up in his left. He stood for a good thirty seconds, feet apart, eyes half-closed, as if waiting for an ice cream headache to pass. "
OK
," he said. "I'm fine."

Larry looked down at the blood smear on the floor. "Did you cut yourself on something?"

"I guess," said Bob. "I don't remember. One minute I was looking at the painting, the next . . ." He stared down at his two hands, now both closed into loose fists. "Oh, boy."

"I can try to find you a doctor," said Larry. "I think that might be the thing to do. I mean, if you want. Would you like to go to a doctor?"

"I hate doctors, and I don't speak the language. I go to some Italian doctor, I'll end up having my tonsils out."

"Are your feet okay?"

"What do you mean? What would be wrong with my feet?"

"Never mind," said Larry. "I'm sure you're right. It's nothing."

Bob brought his hands up in front of his chest and peered cautiously inside, then let them fall again. "Maybe we should go now."

"Yes," said Larry. "Absolutely. Where would you like to go?"

"I don't know."

"How about your hotel?"

"Sure. Okay."

But when they were outside, it became clear that Bob was confused. He leaned up against the side of a building. "Could we go back to your place?" he asked.

"Not the hotel?"

"This is hard to admit, but I'm afraid to be alone."