Stone Virgin (27 page)

Discounting all this, what do I really know? She was commissioned in the March of 1432 by the friars of the Supplicanti from a Piedmontese called Girolamo. If I am right she was delivered to them but not installed, remaining where she had been set down against the wall of the cloister until the church lands were sold. There she stayed, in what is now known as the Casa Fioret, through all its various owners, until 1743 when, in the belief that she had miraculous powers, she was installed on the façade of a completely different church by a benefactor unknown, under the auspices of one Piero Fornarini, Bishop of Venice, who subsequently choked on a chicken bone, or as some said, died laughing.

So the friars must have rejected her. On what grounds? Why would they reject a work of such outstanding quality? There is the position of the left hand, of course, which is unorthodox. This Girolamo was a Gothic man, at least in sensibility. He would see things in more extreme terms than they did in the later Renaissance. I have been wondering whether he was influenced by certain of the early Fathers who suggest that Mary’s first reaction to the Annunciation was fear of Gabriel’s magnificence. He came to her clothed in fire, after all. Could Girolamo have seen this as a sexual fear? The form below the draperies is very sensuously realized. I have mentioned already the moulding of the right leg, which looks almost unclothed, so closely does the drapery follow the contours of the limb – almost as if the stone had been abraded rather than cut. But it is not only the lower leg. The line of definition, and the same effect of abrading, is continued up the line of the right thigh, leading the eye straight to the pubic area. This too, the pubic triangle, is very carefully sculpted, the same effect of clinging drapery, due of course to the way the skirt of her robe is gathered up towards the high-waisted girdle, but the result is that we can trace the actual slope of the flesh between her legs, and this, in conjunction with the outstretched arm and the contrapposto, is erotic in effect. I don’t believe I am simply being ‘a perverted modern’, in Steadman’s words, to think this.

If she was rejected on those grounds, it is ironical that the Supplicanti themselves fell into disgrace within fifty or sixty years and for what must certainly have been sexual dereliction – probably institutionalized sodomy for them all to have been sent packing like that. Almost as if the good friars in their turn were corrupted by this image of the flesh dwelling in their midst.

Raikes stopped writing abruptly and after a moment or two got up and began walking about, prey to a sudden, inexplicable unrest. Not suspicion exactly, but the monstrous shadow of it, had fallen across his mind and he felt the kind of alarm that is experienced when associations form, almost with violence, beyond control, in a sort of mental spasming. Why that phrase? he thought.
In their turn
. He felt flushed and feverish, as he had on the occasion when his landlady, Signora Sapori, in her immaculate apron, had offered him some apple pie. In a further series of spasms he began to think of Chiara Litsov, the lonely figure in the red scarf standing above him, the beauty of her eyes and brows, her smiling mouth, the fingers pressing at the black earth round the roots of the seedlings, that strange, self-loving, self-protecting gesture, which had seemed so at odds with the openness of her manner … Had one of those trophy-tufts been hers? Was she the figure in the mist, waiting for Lattimer?

6

CROUCHED AGAINST THE
Madonna’s pelvis, through the dust-mottled visor of his mask and the dust-filled space beyond it, Raikes watched the diseased encrustation of the stone clear, blur, clear again, the skin emerging white, millimetre by millimetre. The instrument seemed to attack the contaminated surface with an appetite of its own, stroking off the dross eagerly.

He worked with concentration. No single diseased grain would be allowed to survive. However uncontrollably murky his thoughts, this work of his hands would emerge pure; his hands alone would achieve it; restored she would be his creation, and his only. The faint hiss of impact, the hum of the compressed nitrogen feeding the cutter, signals of his own control and power. There was no sound in the enclosure, in the universe, but this, no sight but the slowly spreading whiteness – an absorption surely similar, he drifted into thinking, to that of the obscure artist who had made her, this shadowy Piedmontese. Yes, surely similar – it was a consolation to think so, to think that he had not given up all share in the creative process when he had lost faith in his talents as a sculptor, settled for the safe hierarchy of the museum with its salary structure and pension scheme. Loss of nerve, acceptance of reality, he would never know now. He had not wanted to be second best.

There were differences of course, apart from the obvious one. It was difficult for modern man to feel at the heart of things, unless insane; but the man who had made this statue had seen himself, not as a random particle of matter, but as second only to the angels, in a world that was the centre of the universe, in a city that was the richest and strongest maritime power that world had ever seen. Marvellous to have that sense of centrality. The price of course was to be constantly in God’s eye. Signor Biagi’s words came back to him:
la parte esposta
, the exposed position. Strangely long ago that seemed now …

He was roused from these thoughts by shouts from below. He rose, moved rather stiffly to the edge of his small enclosure and peered down. He was wearing his mask still and the plastic visor was dusty, moreover tended to distort vision slightly at distances greater than a yard or two. He made out a small group of figures standing below him, a little way out into the square, several workmen in overalls, a dark-suited man, a woman in a light-coloured coat.

Even before removing the mask he had a certain breathless sense of who the woman might be. When he snatched it off it was as if his eyes were inundated with light. This flooding of the retinas, and the immediate recognition that the woman was indeed Chiara Litsov, combined somehow to impede his vision once again. He closed his eyes in a long blink, opened them, saw that the man in the suit was Biagi, that Chiara was smiling.

‘Can I come up and see what you’re doing?’ She had put her hands to the sides of her face, the better to wing these words to him.

Biagi, no doubt thinking that such a matter had to be discussed between men, acted as mediator. ‘
Chiede se può salire
,’ he shouted. ‘She asks if she may come up.’

Raikes was aware of hush below, a suspension of activity among the workmen. All sounds seemed to have stopped. Suddenly he felt a wave of pride; she was asking for
him
.

‘
Vuole guardare il lavoro
,’ Biagi shouted, continuing in his role of male herald of female desires.

‘Come up if you like,’ Raikes called. ‘It’s rather dirty up here. Be careful on the ladder.
Va bene, può salire
,’ he added to Biagi, feeling obliged to carry on the official, male side of the dialogue.

He watched the contractor escort her towards the foot of the ladder. Then they were both lost to sight, cut off by the edge of the platform on which he was standing. Signor Biagi did not reappear: he would be intent on the Signora’s progress up the ladder; so would all the workmen who happened to be outside the church at the moment. Raikes tried to remember, or perhaps he had not noticed, what she had been wearing under the coat. He found himself hoping, in the moments of waiting that now followed, that it had not been a skirt. Then her head appeared above the edge of the planks and he went forward to help her.

She needed little help, however, but was up on to the platform quickly and lightly, with a grasp of his outstretched hand that lasted a moment only. ‘So this is where you do your restoring,’ she said. ‘I was curious, after hearing you talk about it. I was in town and so I thought I would come and have a look.’

This came all in a breath and somehow prematurely, or so it seemed to Raikes, as if she were eager to account for this uninvited visit, or at least as if she were conscious, in the silence of his regard, of needing to make some defence. This gave him pleasure, he could not have said exactly why. If she was warning him not to presume, he was glad she thought him worth warning.

‘I see you’re wearing trousers,’ he said, for want of other notions of what to say, and because, in the terrific hush of her approach up the ladder, it had been on his mind.

‘Yes,’ she said, rather vaguely. Then, perhaps catching some note of satisfaction in his voice, she smiled and said, ‘They are best when it comes to climbing ladders.’

There was a pause while Raikes struggled to absorb this smile. Then he gestured towards the Madonna. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is my lady. She’s in a bit of a mess at present, I’m afraid. You may not be able to get a proper idea of her.’

It was true that the Madonna was unsightly, with the speckled dust lying over her, powdering her encrusted face, caught like dirty pollen in her robes.

‘This is the bit I’ve done so far,’ Raikes said, pointing. ‘It is slow work.’

She went nearer to inspect it. ‘There’s a huge difference,’ she said. ‘This is the pure stone again, isn’t it?’

‘As pure as it will ever be.’ Was she merely humouring him, showing polite interest? The suspicion conflicted with his proprietary enthusiasm. He said, ‘Something is always lost, you know.’

This had a pompous sound, even to him, but she did not look up. She had crouched and was running a slim hand down the line of the Madonna’s right flank. ‘He knew what a leg looks like, didn’t he? How white the stone is.’ Her hand had a warm pallor, almost vivid against the cleaned stone.

‘It looks whiter by comparison, or so I am hoping. It should be a very pale cream colour. In its pristine state, I mean. That is one of the things that is bothering me, whether this blasting process will take the warmth from the stone. It’s Istrian stone, you know.’

Somewhere in the midst of these words his feelings had quickened, changed course. Whether it was the sight of the woman’s living hand on the stone, or the angle of her head as she crouched there, the dark hair falling forward to reveal the pale skin of her nape above the coat collar, something childlike and wondering about her caressing of the ancient texture of the limestone – something of reverence too, as if she were paying her respects; somewhere among all this there was a factor not accidental, striking him with the sense of something foretold, fulfilled. She chose this moment to turn, throwing back her hair, and look at him; still not rising, however.

‘Istrian stone,’ he plunged, ‘as perhaps you know, is a very dense form of limestone. When I say dense … the capillaries are very close together, much closer than in marble, for example. Marble is more permeable …’

He fell helplessly silent. In the pause that followed their eyes met. She seemed at first to be waiting for him to say more. Then her expression changed. She stood up and after a moment said, ‘I’d be really interested to see the work actually in progress. Would you mind very much?’

This request changed the quality of his hesitation – as perhaps she had intended. To refuse her anything was scarcely conceivable. On the other hand, there was the shining hair, her lashes and eyes, the clear skin of her face, her narrow hands even; and then the coat, obviously of good quality. All this must be protected, down to the last pore, follicle and fibre.

‘It’s rather a messy operation,’ he said. ‘The dust, you know.’

‘I could wear something over my face.’

‘Perhaps we could find you something to put on. I keep a spare mask here. If you really want to, that is.’

‘I do, yes.’

The tone of this made further discussion superfluous. He left her there and began clambering down the ladder, his heart beating in his ears. In certain states of disturbance one becomes self-conscious, pausing where one would not pause, noting the trivial as if it were significant; Raikes found himself registering the paint-flaked rungs of the ladder and his own momentous feet, in their shabby tennis shoes, descending.

At ground level, however, consulting Signor Biagi, several of the workmen within earshot, dignity demanded a leisurely style, an attitude of good-humoured indulgence towards female caprice. He hoped this was what showed on his face.

‘They get these ideas,’ he said, smiling, trying to control his breathing. ‘
Si mettono in testa queste idee
…’

This sentiment was deeply familiar to Biagi, who shrugged and nodded humorously. ‘
Che ci possiamo fare
?’ he said. ‘What can we do?’

‘Strange creatures.’ A terrible impatience to be back up the ladder assailed Raikes. He shook his head, smiling indulgently. ‘
Non si sa mai
,’ he said. ‘You never know what they will get into their heads.’

One or two of the nearby workmen laughed and exclaimed approvingly at this. ‘
Non si sa mai
,’ one of them echoed. Raikes became aware that his stock had gone up since Chiara’s visit – here at ground level at least.

‘
Che ci possiamo fare
?’ he repeated, smiling and shrugging at the workmen, united with them in resignation and indomitable logic.

Biagi was so pleased with this that he went so far as to clap the Englishman on the shoulder. ‘
Non si sa mai, eh
?’ he said, chuckling. ‘
Non si sa mai cosa gli salta in mente
.’

Raikes obtained some overalls and a reasonably clean-looking cap. Clutching these, calmed by social success, he began to climb back up the ladder.

She was looking at the Madonna’s face when he returned, her own face held close. She was of a height with the statue and when she turned towards him the two faces were level, close together, flesh and stone, the one vivid with life, the other blurred and streaked with ancient lamentation. Once again a fugitive sense of recognition stirred in him. Then she moved away and the moment was lost.

He helped her off with the coat, not touching her, aware of not touching her. The overalls were too large, slipping off at the shoulders, needing to be rolled up at the ankles. She pushed up her hair, bunching it under the cap with both hands, lowering her face at the same time, gestures hasty and careless, though piercing to Raikes. He gave her the spare mask and showed her how to put it on.