The Colour of Heaven (24 page)

The less they listened, the more Paolo wanted to set forth once more, to live only as a traveller. The skills and the knowledge he had acquired were not applicable; the wisdom he had gained appeared irrelevant. Everything he had done, every risk he had taken, trade he had made, sight he had seen, or conversation he had undertaken carried no meaning. People listened to him as an exotic but distant traveller who could entertain but who had no value or importance.

He was a stranger, and he knew that he could feel more at ease in Constantinople, Herat, or Badakhshan – anywhere other than here.

‘You are restless,’ Teresa observed at last.

‘Everywhere I go I feel I must leave,’ Paolo replied. ‘I can never stay still. And I must return to the painter in Siena.’

‘Why must you go?’

‘Because I have made a promise.’

‘When will you leave?’

‘In the next few days.’

‘And you have nothing more to tell me?’ Teresa smiled.

Paolo realised that she had guessed. ‘How do you know?’

‘I think I am your mother.’

Paolo was so used to being defensive that he could not think how to tell his story. How would Teresa ever understand? And yet if she could not, then how could anyone?

And so he told her how he had found a love which he refused to forget; a love which gave his life its only meaning.

‘And you will return to her?’

‘I must. Although I know that I should say I am happier with you.’

‘It is not a choice between us. I am older. And I have seen you again.’

‘You would let me go back?’

‘If I knew that you could be happy. And God meant it to be.’

He looked at his mother and then felt, for the first time, the cost of her love and the price she had paid. Perhaps he had been able to leave in the past because he had never been able to look closely into her eyes as a child, or see her clearly. But now, with age and spectacles, Paolo recognised how vulnerable Teresa had become, and that he loved her more than he had ever done before. He wondered if perhaps Aisha had taught him this – to love his own mother. ‘I do not want to upset you.’

‘Perhaps you hurt me by staying, denying your own happiness.’

‘I do not know that I would be happy. But I know that I will have no rest until I see Aisha again and learn what this love has meant.’

‘Then you need only my blessing.’

‘And I have that?’

‘Always.’

Paolo had become so familiar with travel, arrival, and departure that his life still possessed the quality of dream. He took a horse and rode south through Padua, Ferrara, and Bologna, and over the foothills of the Apennines. The farmers had begun to cut away at the wheat and the barley as women looked to gather the second crops of olive and lemon. Grapes lay fermenting on the rooftops throughout the route south and he was offered wine wherever he travelled: Moscadello, Vernaccia, and Vin Santo poured from barrels of Slavonian oak. Vintners told him that there was nothing finer than the sangiovese grape; held up to the light, in a fine glass, the colour was richer than rubies. Paolo studied the blood-red liquid, drank, and rode on, looking out over long vistas of hill, farm, vineyard, and settlement. The land was more fertile than any he had known, replete with olives, vines, and cypress trees.

He was proud of the sheer fecundity of the countryside, far from the arid heat of the desert or the endless expanse of the ocean. He savoured the air and the breeze as he rode, the scent of wild garlic, myrtle, and lavender; and he loved the way in which the spread of the pine trees echoed the contours of the hills above them. Each time he stopped to rest he would examine the faded silver of their bark, yearning for light. Under the topmost canopy of sharp green leaves, the branches thinned into a filigree of lace, supporting each cluster of cone, arching away like all the generations of the world.

He rode through valleys and vineyards, crossing the River Arno to the east of Florence until at last he could see the city of Siena clearly in the distance, rising on the hillside as if it were a part of the landscape. Paolo felt strangely at ease, benevolent on seeing such a home once more, as if no danger could touch him.

He could see the cathedral and the tower of the Palazzo Pubblico standing proud against the skyline and remembered the great Campo, its slope and rise, the horses tethered by the market stalls, the hammering of blacksmiths, the shouts of children, and the mountebanks hawking miraculous cures. He stooped to take water from a well and began to think what the city had meant to him in the past: its strength and elegance, its trade, its people, and its faith. He remembered the gold altarpiece dedicated to the Virgin in the cathedral and the sad-eyed devotions of widows praying in the candlelight, their gnarled hands clasped together as tightly as those of children trapping butterflies.

He remembered the pride of young men parading through the city, hoisting the flags of each district and throwing them into the air on the feast of the Assumption, the cloth unfurling against a clear blue sky to the sound of the drums below.

In the evening light Paolo could see women calling to their children from high windows as the swifts circled over the Campo. He knew this place: the resolution of its stone, the smell of earth and paint, wood smoke from the blacksmith’s forge, sweat on the horses, the crowded streets emptying as night fell.

And then, as he approached the workshop, he remembered the absurdity of Simone’s velvet doublets and the way he would scent himself with rosewater against the stench of the streets, his head held proudly high; and he recalled how easy it had been to forgive such vanity because of Simone’s zest for life, his sudden smile, and the upturned corners of his mouth before he laughed. Now, with his spectacles, he would be able to see that smile dawn.

As he neared the narrow courtyard of the workshop, Paolo realised that if there was one person he had looked forward to seeing again it was Simone. The painter would be pleased, proud even, without ever knowing what such a journey had meant.

Paolo stopped and breathed out slowly, savouring the moment, wanting this sense of achievement to last, journey’s end. He realised that he was happy, here, now, in this city, carrying the lapis lazuli to his friend.

Now he could see the panels of poplar stacked under the eaves, the sacks of lime, the barrows, buckets, and bottles, work in progress.

He thought he could hear a voice calling for pigment, and woke from his reverie, frightened that he might be discovered waiting, as if he had done something wrong. He unlatched the door and pushed it open to reveal his former world, a workshop of paint and gold.

To his right he could see Simone hunched over a series of small bowls, inspecting their contents, examining each grain. ‘What a fine vermilion,’ he cried.

Paolo saw that Simone’s hair had grown almost ridiculously long, that there was a splash of pigment on his right cheek, terre-verte perhaps, and that his hands were more delicate than he had remembered.

He watched and waited. Then one of the apprentices cried out.

‘Paolo.’

At last Simone looked up. Distracted from his concentration, he was almost annoyed, as if, for a moment, he had entirely forgotten his former pupil. Paolo put down his bag and opened his arms. Simone rose from his chair without a word, and walked across the room to embrace him.

‘Where have you been, boy? I have nearly finished.’

‘I have travelled to the ends of the earth.’

‘And yet you live.’

‘I do.’

Simone could scarcely believe it. Paolo wondered how long it would take him to ask about the stone. He wanted to wait, but realised that he could not do so. ‘I have found it.’

The painter looked surprised, uncertain. ‘And what have you found?’

For a moment Paolo stopped. Surely he could not have forgotten? Or was he joking?

‘The stone. The blue.’

Simone raised his hand to his head in mock astonishment, pretending he had suddenly remembered. ‘You have? Then let me see it,’ he exclaimed. ‘But what have you got on your face?’

‘Later.’

‘No, tell me now, tell me everything.’

Paolo unfolded his knapsack and picked out a piece of lapis. ‘Look.’

Simone picked it up. ‘Is this it?’

‘Don’t sound so disappointed.’

Simone tried to scratch the stone with his fingernail, testing its durability. Then he took it into the light. ‘Like azure, only paler.’

‘It is pale now but I know that it can yield colour,’ said Paolo. ‘I have ground it down and I have seen it polished. This is not azurite or indigo, but the truest blue you longed to see. We will turn stone into pigment, paint into eternity.’

‘I can see the silver in the blue, and the gold. But the stone seems chalky. Look at the white.’

‘Crush it. Wash it. And separate it. Then mix it with tempera. The colour is not as it seems.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Trust me.’

Simone placed the lapis in a bronze mortar which he then covered to prevent the dust escaping. He took a heavy pestle and pounded the stone, breaking it into small fragments of shattered blue, flecked with silver and gold. Then he transferred the pieces into a smaller mortar and pulverised the stone until it was ready to sift.

‘It needs to be as refined as possible, finer than flour. We must make it last.’

He placed a sieve over a brass bowl and scooped in the mixture, letting the powder fall, blue against gold. He repeated these actions four times, pounding and sifting, coaxing the colour, as if seeking the heart of the stone. They would create ultramarine – sea, sky, and eternity – as if it were the last missing colour on earth.

Simone took another bowl and placed it over a low flame. He asked Paolo to measure out six ounces of pine rosin, three ounces of gum mastic, and three ounces of new wax for each pound of lapis lazuli. These were then blended, stirred, and mixed together over the heat until they melted.

‘We will make batches combining this mixture with the powdered stone,’ said Simone. ‘As this cools let us start another.’

They began to pound the stone again, breaking the colour, releasing the blue. When the gum mastic mixture had cooled they strained it through a white linen cloth into a glazed washbasin. Simone asked Paolo to coat his hands with linseed oil and work the lapis powder and the gum mastic together into a dough, as if this blue were nothing less than the bread of life. They folded it over and over, coaxing the colour, releasing the violet hue at its heart.

Then Simone added a warm bowl of alkaline water and vegetable ash. This was the lye. He began to pummel and squeeze the dough, his hands looking as if they bled blue blood.

When the lye had turned its deepest ultramarine, they drew the liquid off into another container, and began again.

‘Let us see how much we can make. Take seven porringers,’ said Simone. ‘Lay them out. We will add as much lye as we can to this first bowl, letting it blue, and then decant it into each of those bowls. We will go on until the blue is exhausted. The first washing will, I think, be the darkest.’

‘When will it be ready?’ asked Paolo.

‘We must be patient. Imagine this is a feast, a banquet of colour. It will take time, and it must not spoil. The blue will sink through the lye and settle on the bottom of each bowl. Then, when it has done so, we will drain it, and collect the pigment. Only after it has dried can we add the egg yolks and make the tempera to paint.’

‘Do you think it will work?’

The painter smiled. ‘I have never seen such a colour. Where did you find it?’

‘There was a woman,’ Paolo replied. ‘She could see more colour than any I have ever known. She could sense the colour between colours.’

‘She could hear it?’

‘Can you?’

‘Sometimes I think I can taste it.’

When the powdered ultramarine was finally ready, Simone cracked an egg, separated the yolk, and began to mix in the powder, folding the paste over and over with a knife. The golden yolk made the ultramarine swell into life, a deep, eternal blue, luminously rich, infinite in density.

Now every memory of Aisha seemed to return to Paolo at once. The first time he had seen her, the stone, and the mountain; her eyes, her hair, and her laugh like silver. He imagined her voice, calling him, telling him that all would be well. Was it the last voice? Yes, he thought now, yes it is, it is the only voice.

‘Let me show the men,’ said Simone. ‘This is how we will paint heaven.’

They crossed the square and entered the Palazzo Pubblico, climbing the great marble stairs to the Consiglio della Campana. A large scaffolding structure obscured much of the wall to the east where Simone’s assistants were working. Beneath the fresco one man was slaking quicklime, the steam rising around him. A boy carried buckets of water up a ladder and began to wet the wall in preparation for that day’s plastering; another cracked eggs for the tempera; while the paint grinder began to mix pigments into ready-made colour: malachite, verdigris, lime white, and
giallorino
.

Paolo looked at the half-finished Maestà, the Virgin and Child accompanied by saints and angels in the Court of Heaven. The fresco was not just painted but carved, incised with coloured glass and raised surfaces. Simone had insisted on inserting glass directly into the plaster as jewels of the Virgin and the Christ child.

The assistants smoothed the plaster over the underlying design, spreading just enough to cover that day’s painting, and Simone began to work on the face of St Paul. He balanced three dishes on a low stool, each containing a different flesh colour, and started picking out the halftones of the face, hands, and feet. Then he accented the shadows, blending one flesh colour into another. When he had finished, he turned his attention to the eyebrows, the relief of the nose, the top of the chin, and the eyelid.