SIMONE SNATCHES A RAG FROM HIS WORKTABLE and savagely wipes the tempera from the wooden panel. He has painted a dozen images of the dead man now and has destroyed them all, finding them bland and insipid—utterly lacking the force of that stark corpse laid on the floor of that stone cell; completely devoid even of the force of those charcoal sketches he made by flickering lamplight almost a decade before.
He returns, for the hundredth time, to the sketches. Unlike his polished attempts with paint, the charcoal images of the man are rough but powerful. Why can’t he render in paint what he captured in charcoal? Because, he thinks, a painting is too artful, too refined: a glittering object to be admired from a distance, not a force to be experienced and shaken by. The power of that scene, and of those sketches, lies in their rawness and immediacy. In the moment back then, and even in the sketches now, there is no possibility of distance, of a safe retreat into studied appreciation of color and technique, of composition and balance, figure and background, gilded borders and halos. The Death of Innocence cannot be a painting, he realizes; it must be something stark, spare, and haunting.
But sketches are not enough. Simone grasps the power of these rough sketches on coarse paper. But ordinary eyes—seeing humble materials—might be misled into dismissing the images as trifles; might not take them into their minds and hearts. Simone must help people let down their guard and open their hearts. To do justice to a man who was as innocent as a dove, Martini must be as cunning as a wolf.
An image pops unbidden into his mind: The Mourning of Christ, painted by Master Giotto on the wall of the chapel in Padua. The limp body of Jesus is surrounded by weeping followers; grieving angels hover overhead, their hands outstretched or clasped or clapped to their faces in dismay and grief. Behind the mourning people, a low rock ledge angles from the picture’s lower left to its upper right. But something about the rock ledge struck Simone as odd the first time he saw the fresco: The ledge’s surface seemed fluid, almost as if it were draped with fabric, and Simone had briefly wondered, all those years ago, if perhaps a burial shroud had been laid on the ledge to receive the body of Christ.
Now, that remembered painting and his own sketches of the dead man combine, and he knows how to proceed.
AT A WEAVER’S SHOP ON THE RUE DE TEINTURIERS, the street of dyers, he inspects and rejects half a dozen fabrics—too coarse, too shiny, too short—before finally settling on one: a long strip of pale linen woven with a herringbone pattern that adds heft and elegance without calling attention to itself.
He buys the entire roll and takes it back to the studio. Grinding one of his sinopia chalks into a fine dust, he mixes it with egg yolk to make a reddish-brown slurry of tempera. On a small corner of the fabric, he daubs a bit of the mixture, but he sees at once that the contrast is too jarring, the effect not at all mysterious or mystical. Frowning, he picks up another sinopia chalk and draws directly on the fabric with the dry crayon, sketching eyebrows and the bridge of a nose. It’s better, he decides, but still too obvious. To create the haunting effect he’s after, Simone must create a haunting face—the shadow of a face, the ghost of a face. Finally, doubtfully, he takes a sheet of parchment and shades the nose and eyebrows, followed by the rest of the face, but this time he deliberately makes the image dark and heavy. Then he lays another corner of linen atop the drawing. Using the blunt, curved end of the pestle with which he grinds pigments, he rubs gently from all directions, pressing the cloth against the image in dust. After several minutes of rubbing, he folds back the fabric.
Simone gasps. There on the linen, staring back at him, is the ghost of the murdered monk; the ghost of the crucified Christ; the ghost of innocence lost.
CHAPTER 36
Avignon
The Present
I GLANCED FOR THE TWENTIETH TIME AT THE DOORWAY of the library mezzanine, listening for the staccato cadence of Miranda’s clogs as she jogged up the stairs. I’d been waiting for half an hour, and I was getting anxious. It wasn’t like her to be this late, especially when she was the one who’d called the meeting. Our librarian friend, Philippe, who had by now taken an interest in our interests—Eckhart, Martini, and the Shroud—had phoned Miranda an hour before to say that he’d found something intriguing, and Miranda had wasted no time summoning me. Upon arriving at the library, I’d been surprised that Miranda wasn’t already waiting. Now, thirty minutes and a dozen unanswered cell phone calls later, my surprise was turning to genuine worry.
Finally I heard footsteps on the stairs, but they weren’t Miranda’s. Philippe appeared in the doorway. “Ah, good—I thought that was you sitting up here.”
“Yes, but we’re still waiting for Miranda.”
“Unfortunately, I cannot wait any longer,” he said. “I’m taking a class—art history—and I have an examination this morning. If I show you what I found, will you share it with her?”
“Of course, Philippe. Please.”