Empire of Light (35 page)

Whoa.

Both paintings? The two paintings I need to see are at the same museum at the same time. What the hell is
Martyrdom of Saint Ursula
doing at the museum?

“
Ho pensato la Banca Commerciale—”

“
Sì,”
she says cutting me off. “They own painting, but painting to be restored. So we have painting now, but
domani
, uh, tomorrow we must return. It goes home.
Capito
?

“So let me understand this. You have
two 
Caravaggio paintings.
Lei ha due quadri adesso!
Flagellation
and
Saint Ursula?”

“Yes. But you need to see it today because tomorrow—”

“I’m coming now,” I interrupt.
“Vengo adesso! Grazie!”

“
Prego,” 
the docent says, satisfied we finally broke the communication barrier.
“Ciao!”

My two last paintings. Here. In Naples. Under one roof.

Awesome.

I get dressed, snatch my sketchbook and bolt out the door.

“
Ciao!”
I say to the clerk as I jump down the stairs.

“No. Your camera is not here,” he moans, obviously tired of my normal greeting.

“No worries. I need to get to
il Museo Capodimonte
.”

“Oh!” he says, stoked to talk about anything other than a stupid camera to be hand-delivered by the Gomorrah crime syndicate.

He busts out one of the hotel maps of the city and points to a train stop.

“You need to walk to the
Piazza Cavour 
Metro stop—”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “By the time I get to that stop, I’m already halfway to the museum. I might as well walk the entire way.”

“You could do that,” he says with a smirk.

“Screw it. I’m going to walk.”

“
Va bene. Buon viaggio,”
he says to me as I bounce through the doors.

A half hour later, the bounce in my step has disappeared ‘bout a mile back.

My clothes are soaking wet with sweat, and it’s about forty degrees out here.

I fear hypothermia.

Folks, there are three big lessons to be learned here.

1. Cheap hotel maps are not made to scale.

2. Be wary of smirking hotel desk clerks. Especially the ones that you’ve managed to piss the hell off.

3. Cheap hotel maps don’t tell you squat about terrain.

The second half of this walk is straight up hill, God help me. God help me. I’m sucking wind like an old Hoover trying to clean 70s era shag. And when I finally get to where the museum entrance is supposed to be, according to my stupid map, I don’t even see a structure in the vicinity.

Where the hell is it?

“
Scusami
,” I say to an old lady passing by. “
Dov’è il museo
?”

The lady points to a flight of stairs, about seventy I would guess, that head straight up at a good eighty degree angle. She tells me that my destination is at the top of that mountain. My shoulders sag, and I sit on the bench, despondent.

“
Uffa,” 
I say. She laughs at my using the word.

“
Mi dispiace...” I’m sorry,
she says as she sits down next to me.
“Sei Americano?” 
she asks?

The lady feels for me. She sits, chats, and keeps me company as I rest. The old girl kills a good ten minutes talking to me, some foreign black kid, a stranger, as if I’m her grandchild.

You look cold.

Where are you staying?

Are you eating well?

How long are you here?

Stay safe.

Call home!

She’s even making an effort not to use dialect with me, speaking to me as if I’m a child, and it’s not in the least bit condescending, either. She’s just knows how to treat people.

I have to say this about the folks of Napoli. When they’re nice, they’re passionately nice. When they’re evil, they’re passionately evil. There seems to be little grey area, but at least you always know where you stand with them. I don’t give a damn what they say about this city. In my book, Napoli is a stand up town.

After my rest at base camp, I gather up my gear and make the climb to the final peak. By the time I arrive at the top stair, I want to plant my flag, take a picture and go the hell home. Not really, but almost.

As I walk into the museum and head in the direction of the gift shop to buy my ticket, I fan myself with my open jacket, hoping to air out and dry out before I stink up the joint.

“
Un biglietto, per favore,”
I say, requesting one ticket.

“
Certo
.”

As she rings me up, I think to ask her where, exactly, the Caravaggio’s are. If for no other reason that to confirm for one last time they are indeed here.

“
Dove posso trovare l’opera di Caravaggio?”

“
Primo piano in fondo,” First level. In the back,
she says, handing me my ticket.

I exit the bookstore and find another set of stairs, but I’m already on the first floor, so the galleries should be right here.

What’s that sign say?

It reads,
Primo Piano,
with an arrow pointing
up
the damn stairs. So in Italy, the first floor is actually the second floor. Learn something new every day.

I make a b-line for the elevator.

Oh look, another sign. The elevator’s broken!

Stairs. Goddamn stairs.

I reach the
Primo Piano
and there stands a docent, as if she was expecting me. I head in her direction with sick desperation.

“
Dirmi
,” she says with an inviting smile.

“Caravaggio?” I ask with a labored one.

“
Ah. Caravaggio. Secondo piano,” 
she says as she points up.

“
Secondo! Non sono qui?” 
I ask exasperated, wondering why they aren’t here.

“
Su,” 
she responds, pointing up.

“
Su?” 
I ask pointing up.

“
Sì. Su. Secondo piano.”

“
Secondo piano!
But the girl downstairs said—”

“I’m sorry but I don’t understand English,” she tells me in Italian.

“I’d like to kiss you passionately on the lips, and then move up to your belly button.”

“
Cosa?” 
she says confused.

“I’m sorry. I’m just trying to rest before tackling another set of stairs, and since you can’t understand English, I thought I’d try some pick up lines out loud. Is that a keg in your pants? 'Cause I would love to tap that ass.”

“
Secondo piano,” 
she says.

“
Secondo piano. Si, ciao.”

More stairs.

More goddamn stairs.

On the second (third) level, I encounter a high security bulletproof glass cage standing between me and the galleries. The cage has a set of sliding glass doors at the front and rear, like the security entrances you’d find in banks these days.

The first set of doors slide open as I approach. I walk through and enter the cage, and the back doors deftly close behind me. For a few seconds I’m trapped inside until…

Ding!

The front doors slide open. Finally! I take a step into the main room.

Hell breaks lose.

WOOOOOUUUUUP!!!! WOOOOOUUUUUP!!!! WOOOOOUUUUUP!!!!

An alarm blares!

I freak the hell out and dive back into the glass cage. The cage doors slam shut and lock down, trapping me inside.

“What the hell?”

My heart begins to race as my claustrophobia kicks in.

The alarm continues to blare, preventing me from thinking clearly.

I can’t control my breathing.

I drop my bag to the ground and strip off my coat.

It’s so goddamn hot!

I press my hand against the front glass.

I’m seconds from screaming like an asshole.

Wait…

The alarms stop.

Ding!

The front glass door slides open.

I timidly stick my head outside the cage, like a calf approaching a waterhole full of gators. I look up and see a security camera aimed right at me.

Great. Somewhere sits a security guard who is laughin’ his ass off, watching me dive through doors like I’m Wonder Woman.

I place my foot cautiously over the cage’s threshold.

Silence.

I’m clear.

I speed-walk though the first galleries as if they’re radioactive. I don’t want to see shit but my two targets and then get back to the hotel and pack for home.

I turn the corner, and suddenly there it is. Six galleries away.

The Flagellation of Christ.

Six rectangular doorways in a straight line, shrinking into perspective, create horizon lines that focus your eyes like a laser beam into the center of Christ’s torso. I approach the painting, transfixed.

I get within four feet of it, and I’m suddenly racked with emotion. I want to touch it, but all I can manage is to double over, my hands propped on my knees.

It’s speaking to me.

I try to gather myself.

Get my bearings.

I notice the painting has been given its own room; and instead of the heavily diffused light that illuminates the other paintings, this one has but a single lamp which bathes the painting in a voluptuous warm light.

It’s the heart of the museum.

Out of the corner of my eye, to my left, I discover
The Martyrdom of St. Ursula
.

It’s the richest, blackest painting I’ve ever seen. The ebony paint glistens as if it were just brushed on yesterday.

After all this time, I’m close to the end of this long, strange trip.

The last two paintings on my list are within of ten yards of me.

“Jesus.”

I snatch out my pad o’ paper and pencils and begin to sketch the
Usula
painting. I can’t help but notice how much both Caravaggio and I have changed by this point. My first drawing in the Louvre was incredibly stiff, but now, here in Naples, I feel like I’m finally getting it. Don’t get me wrong, my skills are still weak, but now at least I can see some animation in my drawings. I can see the figures shifting of their weight, and they all have a good
center line
.

As for Caravaggio, he arrived in Naples as a wanted murderer, on the run after killing that fool on the tennis court. He came to this town and sunk deeper into a very dark place. His canvasses reflected it, becoming almost completely black, with only enough light to tell the story. Case in point,
The Martyrdom of St. Ursula
is a snapshot of an impending death.

Ursula was a princess who had set upon a holy pilgrimage with eleven thousand virgin handmaidens. The caravan was captured by Huns, and all of the handmaidens were slaughtered, beheaded, by order of the king. However, he was so smitten with the beauty of Ursula that he promised to spare her life if she would do him a solid and marry him.

Ursula apparently told him to go pound sand up his ass, which pissed the king off, so much so that he shot her with an arrow. Judging by the painting, the shot came at an intimately close range.

Caravaggio captures the moment where Ursula is shot in the stomach, point blank, the king’s fingers coming out of flex, having just released the arrow’s flight, allowing the projectile to fly across the canvas and into Ursula. The arrow is almost translucent, obscured by its speed.

Motion blur!

This painting was made centuries before photography was even dreamed of, yet somehow Caravaggio instilled a sense of blurred movement, mimicking the slow shutter of a camera attempting to capture the image of a speeding arrow onto film. The arrow is
actively
burrowing into the belly of Ursula. It’s as if some madness had allowed Caravaggio to see little idiosyncratic traits of the future.