The New Collected Short Stories (72 page)

Two hundred and ninety-eight years later . . .

It all began when a drop of rain fell on the chief sidesman’s forehead during Monsignor Grebenar’s Sunday morning sermon. Several members of the congregation looked up at the roof
and one of the choirboys pointed to a small crack.

Once Monsignor Grebenar had delivered his final blessing and the congregation began to depart, he approached an elder of the church to seek his advice. The master builder promised the priest he
would climb up on to the roof and inspect the timbers the following morning.

A preliminary opinion and a rough estimate as to the costs of repair were delivered to the Grebenars’ family home on the Wednesday afternoon, along with a warning that if the church
council did not act quickly, the roof might well collapse. Monsignor Grebenar received confirmation of the master builder’s opinion from above when, during Vespers on the following Sunday, a
steady trickle of rain began to fall on the front row of the choir as they chanted the ‘Nunc Dimittis’.

Monsignor Grebenar fell on his knees in front of the altar, looked up at Friedrich Bloch’s
Last Supper
and prayed for guidance.

The collection that followed raised the princely sum of 412 euros, which wasn’t going to make much of an impression on the master builder’s estimate of the 700,000 euros needed to
repair the roof.

If Monsignor Grebenar had been a more worldly man, he might not have considered what happened next to be divine intervention. When he had finished praying, he crossed himself, rose from his
knees, bowed to the altar and turned to find someone he had never seen before seated in the front pew.

‘I understand you have a problem, Father,’ the man said, looking up at the roof. ‘And I think I may be able to help you solve it.’

Monsignor Grebenar looked more closely at the stranger. ‘What did you have in mind, my son?’ he asked.

‘I would be willing to pay you seven hundred thousand euros for that painting,’ he said, glancing up at
The Last Supper
.

‘But it’s been in my family for over three hundred years,’ replied Monsignor Grebenar, turning to look at the painting.

‘I’ll leave you to think it over,’ said the stranger. When the priest turned round, he was gone.

Monsignor Grebenar once again fell to his knees and sought God’s guidance, but his prayer had not been answered by the time he rose to his feet an hour later. In fact, if anything, he was
in even more of a dilemma. Had the stranger really existed, or had he imagined the whole thing?

During the following week Monsignor Grebenar canvassed opinion among his parishioners, some of whom attended the following Sunday’s service with umbrellas. Once the service was over, he
sought advice from a lawyer, another elder of the church.

‘Your father left the painting to you in his will, as did his father before him,’ said the lawyer. ‘Therefore it is yours to dispose of as you wish. But if I may offer you one
piece of advice,’ he added.

‘Yes, of course, my son,’ said the priest hopefully.

‘Whatever you decide, Father, you should place the painting in the town’s museum before it’s damaged by water leaking from the roof.’

‘Do you consider seven hundred thousand a fair price?’ asked the priest.

‘I have no idea, Father. I’m a lawyer, not an art dealer. You should seek advice from an expert.’

As Monsignor Grebenar did not have an art dealer among his flock, he phoned the leading auction house in Frankfurt the following day. The head of the Renaissance department did not assist
matters when he told him there was no way of accurately estimating the true value of Bloch’s masterpiece, since none of his works had ever come on the market. Every known example was hanging
in one museum, with the notable exception of
The Last Supper
. The priest was about to thank him and put down the phone when the man added, ‘There is, of course, one way you could find
out its true value.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘Allow the painting to come under the hammer in our next Renaissance sale.’

‘When is that?’

‘Next October, in New York. We’re preparing the catalogue at the moment, and I can assure you your painting would attract considerable interest.’

‘But that’s not for another six months,’ said the priest. ‘By then I may not have a roof, just a swimming pool.’

When the service the following Sunday had to be moved to a church on the other side of town, Grebenar felt that Our Lord was giving him a sign, and most of his parishioners agreed with him.
However, like the lawyer, when it came to selling the painting they felt it had to be his decision.

Once again, the Monsignor prostrated himself before the masterpiece, wondering what his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather would have done if faced with the
same dilemma. His eyes settled on the thirty pieces of silver scattered around Judas’s feet. When he finally rose and crossed himself, he was still undecided. He was about to leave the
church, when he found the stranger once again sitting in the front pew. The stranger smiled, but did not speak. He extracted a cheque for seven hundred thousand euros from an inside pocket, handed
it over to the priest, then left without a word.

When they were told about the chance meeting, several of Monsignor Grebenar’s parishioners described it as a miracle. How else could the man have known the exact sum that was needed to
repair the roof? Others looked upon the stranger as their Good Samaritan. When a part of the roof caved in the following day, the priest handed the cheque to the master builder.

The stranger returned within the hour and took away the painting.

This tale might well have ended here, but for a further twist that Monsignor Grebenar surely would have described as divine intervention, but would have caused Herr Grebenar to
become suspicious.

On the day the new roof was finally completed, Monsignor Grebenar held a service of thanksgiving. The church was packed to hear his sermon. The words ‘miracle’, ‘Good
Samaritan’ and ‘divine intervention’ could be heard on the lips of several members of the congregation.

When Monsignor Grebenar had given the final blessing and his flock had departed, he once again thanked God for guiding him in his hour of need. He looked briefly at the blank, newly painted
white wall behind the altar and sighed. He then turned his eyes to the brand new roof and smiled, thanking the Almighty a second time.

After returning home for a simple lunch prepared by his housekeeper, the priest settled down by the fire to enjoy the
Hertzendorfer Gazette,
an indulgence he allowed himself once a week.
He read the headline several times before he fell to his knees and thanked God once again.

The London
Times
described the loss of Friedrich Bloch’s work as devastating, and far more significant than the destruction of the museum itself. After all, the
arts correspondent pointed out, Hertzendorf could always build another museum, while the portraits of Christ and his twelve disciples were works of true genius, and quite irreplaceable.

During his closing prayers the following Sunday, Monsignor Grebenar thanked God that he had not taken the lawyer’s advice and transferred
The Last Supper
to the museum for
safe-keeping; another miracle, he suggested.

‘Another miracle,’ murmured the congregation in unison.

Six months later,
The Last Supper
by Friedrich Bloch (1643-1679) came under the hammer at one of the leading auction houses in New York. In the catalogue were
Bloch’s
Christ’s Sermon on the Mount
(1662), while the portraits of the twelve disciples were displayed on separate pages. The cover of the catalogue carried an image of
The
Last Supper,
and its unique provenance reminded potential buyers of the tragic loss of the rest of Bloch’s work in a fire earlier that year. The foreword to the catalogue suggested this
tragedy had greatly increased the historic significance, and value, of Bloch’s only surviving work.

The following day a headline in the arts pages of the
New York Times
read:

‘P
INK FORTY-THREE
.’

‘You’ve won first prize,’ said Sybil excitedly as she looked down at the little strip of pink raffle tickets on the table in front of her husband.

Sidney frowned. He’d wanted to win the second prize – a set of gardening implements which included a wheelbarrow, a rake, a spade, a trowel, a fork and a pair of shears. Far more
useful than the first prize, he thought, especially when you’ve spent a pound on the tickets.

‘Go and collect your prize, Sidney,’ said Sybil sharply. ‘You mustn’t keep the chairman waiting.’

Sidney rose reluctantly from his place. A smattering of applause accompanied him as he made his way through the crowded tables and up to the front of the hall.

Shouts of ‘Well done, Sidney’, ‘I never win anything’ and ‘You’re a lucky bastard’ greeted him as he climbed up on to the stage.

‘Good show, Sidney,’ said the chairman of Southend Rotary Club, handing over a brand new set of golf clubs to the winner.

‘Blue one hundred and seven,’ the chairman announced as Sidney left the stage and headed back to his table, the golf clubs slung over his right shoulder. He slumped down in his chair
and managed a smile when his friends, including the member who had won the gardening implements, came over to congratulate him on drawing first prize in the annual raffle.

Once midnight struck and the band had played the last waltz, everyone stood and joined in a lusty rendering of ‘God Save the King’.

As Mr and Mrs Chapman made their way home, Sidney received some strange looks from passers-by who had rarely seen a man carrying a set of golf clubs along the seafront, and certainly not at
twenty to one on a Sunday morning.

‘Well, Sidney,’ said Sybil as she took the front door key out of her handbag, who would have thought you’d win first prize?’

‘What use is a set of golf clubs when you don’t play golf?’ Sidney moaned as he followed his wife into the house.

‘Perhaps you should take up the game,’ suggested Sybil. ‘After all, it’s not long before you retire.’

Sidney didn’t bother to respond as he climbed the stairs. When he reached the landing he pushed open the hatch in the ceiling, pulled down the folding ladder, climbed the steps and dumped
the golf clubs in the loft. He didn’t give them another thought until the family sat down for Christmas dinner six months later.

Christmas dinner at the Chapman household wouldn’t have differed greatly from that in a thousand other homes in Southend in 1921.

Once grace had been said, Sidney rose from his place at the top of the table to carve the turkey. Sybil sat proudly at the other end of the table while their two sons, Robin and Malcolm, waited
impatiently for their plates to be laden with turkey, Brussels sprouts, roast potatoes and sage and onion stuffing. Once Sidney had finished carving the bird, he drowned his plate with thick Bisto
gravy until the meat was almost floating.

‘Superb, quite superb,’ declared Sidney, digging into a leg. After a second mouthful he added, ‘But then, Sybil, everyone knows you’re the finest cook in
Southend.’

Sybil beamed with satisfaction, even though her husband had paid her the same compliment every Christmas Day for the past eighteen years.

Only snippets of conversation passed between the Chapman family as they dug contentedly into their well-filled plates. It wasn’t until second helpings had been served that Sidney addressed
them again.

‘It’s been another capital year for Chapman’s Cleaning Services,’ he declared as he emptied the gravy boat over the second leg, ‘even if I do say so myself.’
The rest of the family didn’t comment, as they were well aware that the chairman had only just begun his annual speech to the shareholders.

‘The company enjoyed a record turnover, and declared slightly higher profits than last year,’ said Sidney, placing his knife and fork on his plate, ‘despite the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, in his wisdom, raising taxes to fifteen per cent,’ he added solemnly. Sidney didn’t like Mr Lloyd George’s coalition government. He wanted the Conservatives to
return to power and bring stability back to the country. ‘And what’s more,’ Sidney continued, nodding in the direction of his older son, ‘Robin is to be congratulated on
passing his Higher Certificate. Southend Grammar School has done him proud,’ he added, raising a glass of sherry that the boy wouldn’t be allowed to sample for another year. ‘We
can only hope that young Malcolm’ – he turned his attention to the other side of the table – ‘will, in time, follow in his brother’s footsteps. And talking of
following in another’s footsteps, when the school year is over I look forward to welcoming Robin into the firm where he will begin work as an apprentice, just as I did thirty-six years
ago.’ Sidney raised his glass a second time. ‘Let us never forget the company’s motto: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.”’

This was the signal that the annual speech had come to an end, which was always followed by Sidney rolling a cigar lovingly between his fingers. He was just about to light up when Sybil said
firmly, ‘Not until after you’ve had your Christmas pudding, dear.’

Sidney reluctantly placed the cigar back on the table as Sybil disappeared into the kitchen.

She reappeared a few moments later, carrying a large Christmas pudding which she placed in the centre of the table. Once again, Sidney rose to conduct the annual ceremony. He slowly uncorked a
bottle of brandy that had not been touched since the previous year, poured a liberal amount over the burnt offering, then lit a match and set light to the pudding as if he were a high priest
performing a pagan sacrifice. Little blue flames spluttered into the air and were greeted by a round of applause.