This Crumbling Pageant Read online

  This Crumbling Pageant

  by

  David Fiore

  to Kendra

  Prologue

  On a day of tedious rain in the fall of 1872, the American painter John Frederick Kensett sat in his studio overlooking Washington Square Park, scribbling a letter. His “dearest Mary” was a society columnist of some renown at the time, and also a cousin. Kensett began by writing about his Italian gardener, whose son had recently died—or “moved into the windowless palace,” to quote the letter. In fact the boy had fallen into a vat of boiling peppermint at the Brooklyn soap factory where he worked. Two days later the child’s inconsolable mother killed herself by swallowing laudanum stolen from the drawer of her landlady’s Shaker table. When news of this latest calamity reached the unfortunate father and widower, he “put a period to his own life” by slashing his throat with a clasp knife.

  “Tragical affair,” writes Kensett. “It has moved me greatly, especially when I consider the plight of the gardener’s father, Signor Barba, a spry and honorable fogey who, incidentally, evinces a fine eye for oil on canvas. I have given him my picture of Indian Neck, the one which, in the generous breadth of your sympathies, you termed a potboiler.” Kensett proceeds to harp on some slight he received—too delicate for him to name in ink, but not too delicate, apparently, for the New York World, in their column, “Latest Dispatch from Our High-Class Correspondent.” No other mention of the potboiler painting is recorded.

  1

  Bologna, Italy

  This small corner of the square was occupied by an antique dealer. The white tent top shone in the gloomy sky like a sheeted ghost. Underneath was a jumble. Books, furniture, mirrors, pistols. Bits of china and glass. But just the one painting. It was leaning against a clothes chest on the mossy cobblestones. Over the past three weeks Scott had dutifully trooped through one museum after another, taking in numberless works on grand themes done in the Grand Manner. So when a break in the crowd unveiled this simple picture, with its green seawater, bland sky, and patch of dune vegetation, it stood out. Plus, Scott was already a little homesick, and the beach reminded him of Cape Cod, where he grew up.

  He turned to his wife, Holly. She had studied Art History at school, before switching majors and eventually dropping out altogether. He had no sooner pointed out the painting to her than she clutched his arm and told him to grab it.

  He picked his way through the puddles. Once the painting was in his hands and he was figuring its dimensions (about 18 X 36”), Holly came up beside him and said, “It’s probably nothing. I just thought it looked really similar to something by John Frederick Kensett. Is there a signature?”

  They inspected the dusty corners of the canvas. Next to them, a man was saying into his cell phone, “Si, si, si, si, si, si...” like a snake. A few others were sloshing around the little enclosure, carrying bags and furled umbrellas and wearing quilted jackets against the raw October weather. Opposite the tent, a vendor in a food truck cleared his throat and sang out in a fine baritone a mournful song about his pork sandwiches, about how sinfully cheap they were.

  “Nothing,” Scott said.

  “Let me see the back?” Holly asked. “There might be an inscription.”

  When that failed, he said, “Maybe the frame is covering up something.” It was a frilly wooden frame, painted gold, and it didn’t seem to go with the painting.

  “Maybe,” she said, “but it might not have been signed at all. Anyway, we should buy it.” She checked the price tag. “Oh wow, only twenty euros. We’re definitely buying it. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It’s great.”

  She beamed up at him. “And imagine if it really is by Kensett!”

  “I don’t know who that is,” Scott replied placidly.

  “He’s one of my favorite painters. He’s famous, but he’s not famous famous. Scusi, signore!” she peeped at the dealer, in a meek bid for his attention. He didn’t hear her. He had ambled out from under his tent and was arguing with the pork vendor. Holly continued, “He did a lot of marine scenes of the Northeast. Stuff just like this.” She tapped the canvas with the back of her nail.

  “So he was American,” Scott said. He watched as Holly put her face up to the canvas, squinting at the invisible brushwork. “Then how would one of his paintings end up here?”

  She continued to squint critically at the picture, and then stood up straight. “You’re right,” she said. “It wouldn’t.”

  “If anything,” he pursued, “it would be in someone’s attic back home.”

  “Or at the Met.”

  “But let’s say this is one of those undiscovered American masterpieces. Those things are always picked up at flea markets or yard sales, not in medieval piazzas.”

  “You’re right.”

  Scott contemplated his wife, a pretty, black-haired twenty-six-year-old with small features and dark eyes and a snowy throat. She was from Minnesota originally, a black Swede in a flock of blonds. Good stock she came from. Readers. Her parents were prominent doctors. She had no TV in the house growing up, something Scott could never wrap his mind around. Holly had smarts, school smarts. He liked to tell her, playing off the one line he remembered from Moby Dick, that a baseball diamond was his Harvard. It was supposed to be a fond jab at Holly, who went to the real thing. But when he saw her wrinkling her nose again over the painting, Scott could almost picture the neurochemistry fizzing inside her head. Who was he to question her judgment?

  “On the other hand,” he went on, “what the fuck do I know. Maybe one of his paintings slipped through the cracks and ended up here somehow. Actually, it makes sense. No one would expect to find this in Italy, right? I can see something like this getting passed around for a long time.”

  She looked at him brightly. “That’s what I was thinking!”

  “Good,” Scott said in a stout voice. He glanced over at the antique dealer, who was still feuding with the pork guy. Scott weighed the painting in his hands. “Now, how much are we talkin’ here? Let’s get to the nitty-gritty.”

  “Value? I have no idea.”

  “Ballpark it.”

  “Please, I don’t even want to let myself fantasize about it,” she told him, before blurting out her first guess. “Five million dollars!”

  “Sh!” he checked her—but only jokingly. First of all, he didn’t really believe it. And second, this was not Florence but Bologna, where it was unlikely anyone could understand their conversation. The English language rarely showed its fat face in these parts. Nevertheless, he leaned in to her ear. “Keep it down, baby. Let’s try to keep this between us for now.” Then he peered at her. “Are you serious? Five million?”

  Holly met his gaze. “At least,” she said.

  “Hey signor!” Scott roared at the merchant.

  The man came over grudgingly. He got behind the table, squared off with Holly—which was fine by Scott, since she was the one who knew Italian—and greeted her with a clouded eye and a severe “Salve.”

  “Salve,” she returned in a tame voice. “Vorrei comprare questo quaderno, per favore.” She motioned toward her husband. Wary, the man regarded Scott askance, and then eyed the painting in his hands jealously.

  Scott heard someone shouting his name.

  “Whittier! Whittier!”

  Several stalls away, a man was waving at him above the throng of people. He was a big oaf, and he had on a Red Sox baseball cap.

  A fan. Scott couldn’t believe it. This never, ever happened to him at home. So, to be recognized out here, in a country that was not, by any stretch, Baseball Country—he had to laugh. He had to laugh, or else weep out of self-pity.

  The fan cupped his mouth. “You
suck!” he crowed.

  &

  Scott watched Holly to see if he could get a sense of how things were developing, but her face conveyed nothing. What was taking so long? Why did every transaction in this place take forever? Her eyes were trained on the deft flight patterns of the dealer’s stubby hands. As he spoke, the merchant kept one sulfurous eye locked on her face to see if she was comprehending. Then all at once Holly was clucking her tongue and the dealer was shuffling away and Scott asked in a panic, “What happened?”

  She turned to him. “Who was that guy yelling your name?”

  Suddenly Scott felt drained of his essence. “Nobody,” he said. “Forget it. What happened with the painting?”

  Holly touched his shoulder and said in a broken voice, “He said he already sold it.”

  Scott was stricken. “That’s awful!” he cried. “Why is it still here, then? Who’d he sell it to?”

  Holly had taken the painting from him and was studying it thoughtfully. She trudged back over to the clothes chest. Scott followed her and asked in a low voice, “Do you still think it’s by that painter?”

  “I do,” she said without hesitation. “Look at the horizon, for example. See those tiny little flecks of white, indicating sails? That’s another very Kensett touch. It’s so pretty,” she whimpered. Then she pulled herself together and put the painting back where it belonged. “Ah, what do I know! For all I know it was painted by some Italian imitator.”

  Scott wasn’t convinced. “Offer him more money.”

  “Alright.” She got up on tiptoe and was about to raise her hand. “Wait, how much should we offer?”

  “One hundred dollars,” he answered decisively. “No! I’m being an idiot. That’s too much. He’ll become suspicious. We have to make an offer that won’t tip him off, but it has to be enough to sway him.”

  “So how much?”

  Scott thought it over, pulling on his earlobe.

  “Forty euros,” he said.

  “I’m not good at bargaining.”

  “You gotta get into it.” He moved behind her and massaged her shoulders. “Have fun with it.”

  “I’ll feel bad if we cheat him out of a fortune.”

  “He already sold it for twenty-five bucks. We’ll give him a cut if it turns out to be valuable.”

  “What about whoever he sold it to?”

  “Screw ‘em.”

  Holly laughed. Then she steeled herself and cried out once more, “Scusi, signore!”

  &

  Scott had misjudged the antique dealer. They weren’t swaying him. Rather, the outbidding seemed only to embarrass the worthy merchant.

  “What’s he saying?” Scott asked.

  “He’s saying he’s a man of honor,” Holly told him.

  “Oh no.”

  She continued to listen.

  “What’s he saying now?” Scott wanted to know.

  “Wait a second.” She let the dealer finish. “Okay, he told me the woman he sold it to is a true signora—”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “She’s a real lady. Anyway, she’s American, but lives here, and every week she comes and buys stuff from him. She’s like his best customer. Because of her, his thirty-five-year-old son was finally able to get braces.”

  The man started speaking directly to Scott.

  Holly translated, “He says he’s really sorry. The woman lives in the city center, and at the end of every market day he drives to her place and delivers the stuff she bought. That’s why the painting is still here.” She looked up at Scott. “Should I ask where he got the painting?”

  He wavered. “Better not. Not just yet. We have to think about this first.”

  “What’s there to think about? It’s over. The least I can do is suggest he look into its provenance. He seems like a sweet man. He told me his wife has family in Florida, and he’s always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. He thinks it’s in Florida.”

  The dealer started speaking again. Holly listened and then broke out, “Oh, that’s wonderful! He says he can talk to the lady later today and tell her about us. Then maybe she’ll be willing to sell it to us herself.”

  “Ah!” the man exclaimed, pointing. “Eccola!”

  “Ah!” she echoed. “There she is! She’s still here.”

  Scott peered into the crowd. “Which one is she?” he asked.

  Holly turned back to the merchant to find out.

  “Quella bassa con la pancia,” he told her.

  “The short one with the stomach.”

  A squat hobgoblin of a woman, dressed in black leather pants and red leather jacket, was aggressively going through a bin of shoes. Scott was wrong about this city. It was lousy with Americans.

  He thanked the dealer, took Holly by the elbow, and propelled her from the antique stand. Quickly he framed his thoughts.

  He wanted to be careful how he approached this woman. If he acted the least bit funny, she would smell him out. If she sensed a false note in his laugh, or caught a shifty look in his eye, or caught him wringing his hands, his motives would be made plain. He had to be careful not to be pushy, or desperate, and under no circumstances could he show any signs of the vigorous id stirring inside him.

  “Porco!” the pork vendor said in a voice like a foghorn.

  For some nervous reason, Holly started speaking to the American woman in Italian. All of a sudden Scott wanted to go hide. Don’t let her see you, said a voice in his head. Discreetly, he took a step back, effectively melting away into the flow of people and very gallantly stranding his wife.

  The woman dropped a pair of kitten heel boots into the bin. She took Holly in at a glance and, in the nasty strains of a New Jersey accent, said outrageously, “I don’t speak Italian!” Then she walked away, on speedy feet.

  Scott eased in beside Holly.

  “And where were you?” she asked.

  “I ran away,” he said naturally.

  “I hate that woman. She doesn’t deserve such a beautiful painting. I can tell just by looking at her. Now I hope I’m wrong about it being by Kensett.”

  Scott massaged his temples. “Well, what do you think? Is it or isn’t it?”

  After a pause, Holly said, “I have an idea. Grab the painting again.”

  They headed back. The antique dealer was playing a little sub-Saharan thumb piano in front of a college-aged girl with dreadlocks. Scott sauntered over to the painting and picked it up, while Holly moved in next to him, tight by his side. Her eyes darted back and forth. She licked her thumb, and then ran it along the bottom corner of the dusty canvas. Blood red, the letters materialized:

  JFK

  “How about that!” Scott said, as delighted as if she had performed a magic trick. “John F. Kennedy painted this.”

  Holly gave him a look, waiting for it to compute.

  “Wait,” he said. “Holy shit. What was that artist’s name again?”

  2

  Scott was drafted straight out of high school as a reliever. They started him in the Minor Leagues so he could “hone his craft,” the usual protocol. He was considered a good prospect, and diligently climbed his way up to Triple-A—one step away from the Majors—when something happened to his mechanics, and his arm became wild. He lingered around while a succession of pitching coaches went to work on him. During this time he took a trip up from Pawtucket to Boston and met Holly in a raw bar near Faneuil Hall. Before long, they fell in love. Scott thought she was impressed with his career, which even then seemed full of promise. He thought she was impressed, or maybe she didn’t give a shit. He could never tell with her. Anyway her friends were impressed. For his part, Scott thought Holly was great: smart, loving, wily, and hauntingly beautiful. He was already growing sick of hanging out with his teammates, going out for steak dinners and salsa dancing every night, spending well over his twenty-dollar per diem, and he was ready to settle down.

  Marriage had a weird effect on Scot
t. He got into reading. His mother, a school librarian who used to read Longfellow to him as a child, was floored. His vision weakened slightly and he wore glasses on the mound. In the clubhouse his nickname became “the professor,” because for road games he would sometimes travel with a book. And his game improved. Scott was never quite sure what had happened, what curse had been lifted, but his pitching abilities not only returned, they flourished. Maybe he just stopped overthinking it. The coaches marveled at the change and congratulated themselves on their success.

  Eleven percent of those drafted make the big leagues. And yet for some reason no one ever imagines he will be part of the crowd that doesn’t. It was like that for Scott, too. He had no back-up plan. He was betting on his future. And to make matters worse, he allowed Holly to get caught up in the same gamble. Whenever she started hyperventilating about her future—about what field she wanted to study or what career, if any, she wanted to pursue—Scott would stroke her hair and rebuke her. Why was she worrying about such things, when she had him to support her? They were going to be rich and famous, remember? He was going to take her away from all this, he would say, sweeping his hand over her dorm room. Holly let herself be soothed by Scott’s mock heroics, by his sweeping hand. Harmless pillow talk, they thought. But it exerted a more material influence than they realized. Scott continued to stake his future on making a roster that comprised only twenty-five men, while Holly began, imperceptibly at first, to ease her grip on her schoolwork.

  When the long-awaited call came from the Brass, there were two people ready to fill a slot: Scott, and another reliever named Kinjoh, a young sidewinder from Japan. Their stats were nearly identical. The manager resolved to call them both up. The idea was to see how well they performed in the spotlight.

  Scott was told to book a flight, get his ass over to the dome in Toronto that night, and save all the receipts. Eight hours later he was in the bullpen with the boys. The phone rang, and someone told him to start getting loose. In the bottom of the ninth, bottom of the Jays’ order, he was summoned to the mound. He had a three-run cushion. There were two outs, with one man dancing around needlessly on first. That fan from the marketplace had summed up the rest of the story rather nicely. Scott sucked. The old wildness in his arm acted up again, and he kept missing his spots. The batters, meanwhile, were happy to take pitches and make the rookie throw strikes. In short order, Scott loaded the bases on balls. The pitching coach called time and paid him a visit. “You okay, kid?”