Empire of Light (22 page)

For the rest of the train ride, I teach him the gospel of light. I tell him how I found the light, and my path ever since. I show him my sketches and the camera and its magic.

I don’t hold anything back. I just go for it, and I must’ve been convincing because he’s not reaching for his cell phone to call for a padded wagon.

“You screwed a ghost in the toilet of the Louvre?”

“Yep.”

“
Bello.”

That faith in my insane story tells me that there’s some cosmic reason for Matteo and me meeting today.

He believes me because he wants to believe.

Before I know it, we’re off the train and in the Vatican museum, standing under Caravaggio’s magnum opus. His masterpiece.

The Entombment of Christ.

“Wow,” says Matteo.

Wow, indeed, Homes.

It’s not just my favorite Caravaggio painting, it’s my favorite painting, period. And I saved it for last. I really couldn’t think of a better ending to this portion of the hunt than with this one, hung in the heart of the Vatican Museum.

Caravaggio just dialed it in on this one. The lighting, the color, the shading, the composition, every element is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do in order to move the viewer exactly where Caravaggio wants him to go.

The painting depicts Christ being lowered into his tomb by Nicodemus and John the disciple, surrounded by the three Mary’s: The Virgin; Cleophas (The Virgin Mary’s sister); and the Magdalene.

The composition is a visual waterfall, your eye spilling down an invisible descending line, defined by a cluster of followers, who mournfully lower their savior into his tomb.

Your eye starts at the top right frame with the hands of Mary of Cleophas, raised in the air in sorrow. Then like the first giant slope of a roller coaster, your eye falls rapidly down toward the heads of the Virgin Mary and Magdalene, symmetrically bowed as they look down at the body of Christ.

You follow their gaze and your own gaze tumbles to the outstretched arms of the Virgin Mother, which splits the frame in half as she blesses the entombment, mirroring the image of a crucifix. Her arms serve as a ledge for your eye to teeter on, for a brief second, just before cascading over the faces of Nicodemus and John and finally spilling like a waterfall onto the focus of the painting, the body of Christ.

The animation and the emotion are stunning.

I almost forget Matteo is here.

I look to my right and see him staring at the work, slack-jawed. He looks like I feel. I pull out my drawing tools with a smile on my face.

“Hey. Matteo? I’m going to go sit and sketch.”

“
Si. Vai
,” he says, not taking his eyes off of the painting.

My sketching is actually getting better, as is my Italian. There’s something to be said about being thrown in the deep end of the pool. I’m swimming, and I’m stoked.

My reverie is jarred by Matteo as I feel his stare once again, but this time he’s staring at my sketch. I quickly cover it, embarrassed that somebody was actually watching me draw. I feel like when my mom walked in on me when I was kid, strokin’ off to late night Showtime soft porn.

“Don’t quit your day job,” he says.

Jerk.

“Thanks.”

“So now you take a picture of it, right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say hesitantly.

“What’s the matter?” he asks me suspiciously.

The truth is, I don’t really want to take a shot. It’s my favorite painting, and I think I just want to remember it for what it is.

I hand the camera to Matteo. “You take this one. Have a good time.”

He gingerly takes hold of the camera, as if he understands the gravity of it all just by laying hands on it. Before firing the Brownie, he takes the time to run his hand across the beautiful art deco faceplate. He appreciates it, and this makes me feel better about giving up one of my precious shots.

He aims it at the Caravaggio.

“Wait!” I scream at him, but it’s too late. He’s released the shutter before I can give him the sunglasses.

But there was no flash.

“
Merda
! What was that?” he says as he stumbles back a few steps, rubbing his eyes.

“What was what?” I ask.

“That flash! You didn’t see it?”

“No,” I say a bit disappointed.

I guess this is going to be really just for him.

I guide him to the bench in the middle of the gallery so he can recover.

“Matteo, I’m going to jet. You stay, okay?”

“Where are you going?” he asks, still not able to focus on me.

“I got things to get packed for Napoli and you have someone to meet. I hope you still don’t hate me for talking you into leaving your job.”

“No, my friend. I think this is good. Did you say you were going to Napoli?” he says peering at me through his squinted eyes. “Well. You’re from Cleveland, so I guess it won’t be so bad for you.”

“Matteo. You say one more bad thing about my town, and I swear I’ll kick your grease ball ass all up and down the Vatican hallway.”

He slaps me gently on the face. “I like you.”

“
Ciao,
Matteo.”

“
Ciao. Grazie,
Jason.”

“Oh!” Matteo stops me before I leave.

He reaches into his pocket and the son of a bitch hands me my fifty dollars back and the ticket.

I leave Matteo and walk down the hall, but curiosity gets the better of me. I turn just in time to see this old gentleman approach him. I can only see him from behind, but I can tell by his crisp white hair and his perfectly tailored suit that this guy has weight. My guess, it’s the disciple John. He kind of looks like him. He sits down next to Matteo and they immediately begin talking about the painting
.

This is very cool.

I might’ve lost him his job, but at least he’s going to get a magic day out of the deal.

16 

I Want My Damn Picture Back

THE CINECITTÀ STUDIO OF 
Rome is
far
off the beaten path. It’s the second to last stop on the subway line. Evidently it’s so off the beaten path that the studio didn’t even feel it necessary to populate the guard shack with somebody who could speak a lick of English. Tourists simply don’t venture out this far from the Vatican.

“
Lei parla l’Inglese?
” I ask.

“No,” the guard answers back curtly. “
Siamo al Italia.
”

He tells me that we’re in Italy, as if I forgot which country I’m in.

Dick.

Edgerton told me that Trish, his contact here, is a Brit. It’s amazing how much I’m now looking forward to hearing some proper English.

“
Sono qui di visitare Trish Wood,
” I respond calmly.

“
Il tuo nome?”

“Jason Tisse.”

“
Un Momento.”

Jeez, does this ape ever smile?

As he checks out my story on his Super Friends crime computer, I try to imagine exactly what kind of insect crawled up his ass and made him so cranky. Somebody needs to shove an insect bomb ‘twixt his sphincter so this guy can find some happiness. My concern for the cranky security guard vaporizes as my walk-on pass begins to print. Seeing that Cinecittà pass with my name on it makes me all buzzy. It’s a buzz that quickly dissipates as the guard cracks his tiny mouth just enough to vomit out a torrent of Roman dialect Italian.

I have a feeling he’s giving me directions, but who the hell knows? The question now in play is this, am I going to be a normal person and ask this guy to repeat the directions, but slower? Or am I going to be that asshole who’d rather get lost than give this surly gorilla another opportunity to be a condescending prick?

“
Grazie!” 
I say with a smile as I snatch the pass from his paw and swagger through the gate with absolutely no earthly idea where I’m going.

Mussolini founded Cinecittà as a propaganda machine to brainwash the masses into buying into his fascist bullshit. It was a state of the art motion picture facility from square one. That is, until the Nazis goose-stepped into town and looted the place blind. After the war, Cinecittà became a camp for folks who lost their homes in the war, but soon after, it finally returned to just being about the business of making good films. The Italians stood up, knocked the rumble of war off their hats and began kicking ass and taking names with a new genre of filmmaking.

Italian Neo-Realism.

Neo-Realism was a hard documentary-style of fiction filmmaking. The stories were punishingly grim with endings so bleak they left you limp in your chair, astonished at the depths of sheer sadness a film could bury you in. If you put Vittorio de Sica’s
Umberto D
in your Netflix cue, you might want to chase that shit with a copy of
Dumb and Dumber
, just to prevent you from sitting in a hot bath with your wrists slit. You do
not
want a Neo-Realist film to be the last thing you see before going to bed.

After twenty minutes wandering aimlessly like a fool, I finally find Trish’s building. I can actually see the guard shack from the front door, only about a two minute stroll away. I guess I showed that security guard, huh? I’m an idiot.

I enter the building, turn the corner and there I find Trish in her office, sitting at her desk with perfect posture. What spooks me is the fact that she was already staring in my direction at the doorway, I merely stepped into the line of fire of her smile.

“You found us!” she says in a distinguished English accent. She leaps up from behind her desk and marches up to me, hand extended, arm straight and true like a well-bred Brit.

“Jason Tisse.
Piacere
,” I say as I shake her hand.

“
Piacare mio
,” she responds with a beaming smile.

“How have you found Rome?” she asks as she escorts me out of the building that just took me twenty minutes to find.

“It’s great. I love this damn town.”

“It is wonderful, isn’t it? I was just telling—” Her cell phone rings, interrupting her thought. “So sorry. I have to get this.” She answers the call with a cheery, “
Pronto
!”

Trish begins to speak perfect Italian with a crisp English accent. Upon hearing the juxtaposition of cultures, I immediately have to fight the chubby growing in my pants. This accent fetish I have is really beginning to scare me. I swear, if I ever meet a real crazy juxtaposition, like some chick from Zimbabwe who speaks fluent German, I might have a standing orgasm.

“I’m sorry,” she says to me as she finishes the call. “That’s going to happen a lot, I’m afraid. I’m the only English speaker on the lot.”

“Is that your job? Are you like the studio translator or something?”

“No. I’m the head of International Press and Marketing, but since I’m the only person who speaks English, I field calls for almost every department on the back lot.”

I’m immediately pissed with myself for not being fluent in the language. Getting a job at Cinecittà would be groovy.

Trish leads us through another building and we walk up to a door with a familiar nameplate.

Federico Fellini
.

“What? Didn’t he die in the nineties?”

“1993, to be exact,” says Trish.

“You guys still have his office here?”

“Open the door and see for yourself.”

I cautiously poke my head inside.

“Bananas.”

It’s his office, left exactly the way it was the last day he left the building. Even a jacket is thrown across the couch, as if Fellini tossed it through the door before dashing off to a meeting with Editorial. I have the creepy feeling he’s going to walk in at any minute and ask me what the hell I am doing mulling around his office.

“Man, you folks loves you some Federico, huh?”

“He’s beloved here. He helped uplift the morale of the country,” says Trish. “After Italy was done digging itself out from under the war, the country was eventually ready to move on from the dismal reality of Neo-Realism. It was Fellini who gave them their wish and he lathered their world with sex, carnival-styled fantasy and dreams.”

“This is why Fellini is my boy.”

“I have no doubt,” says Trish.

Fellini ended up shooting every one of his features here at Cinecittà, almost every one an unadulterated masterpiece. It’s no wonder they left his office the hell alone. He still owns this som’ bitch.