The Madonna of the Almonds (7 page)

When Father Anselmo watched Bernardino work he felt he was witnessing a miracle. His duties in these troubled times were often heartbreaking and onerous, so when he was not offering alms to the poor, comforting the bereaved or taking funeral masses for the dead soldiers, he refreshed his spirits by watching Bernardino attack the white walls of his church and bring them to life.

The priest watched as Luini cleaned the walls down with water and vinegar as assiduously as any washerwoman. Anselmo was there when Bernardino strode around with a rope and a stick, making measurements which he marked directly on the walls. He was there when Bernardino mixed his base plaster with chalk and tempera of egg. He was there when the first of the miracles began – the drawing of the cartoons with broad strokes of charcoal – from the black sweeping lines sprung wondrous monochrome depiction of Saints and sinners, angels and demons, apostles and heretics. And at length, as the colours began to be added, what
marvels did Anselmo behold then! He watched as Bernardino first laid down his shadows with pure colour laid on thick. Such strong reds, such blues, such greens and golds that Anselmo had not known existed in God’s spectrum! Bernardino made his paints himself as da Vinci had taught him, using the fruits of nature, but surely nature had never seen colours this vivid? Even the brightest flower or the gaudiest parrot would fade beneath the work of Bernardino! And after, for the definition, the lights of the same colour were thinly used and mixed with a little white. Then, what tender, muted tones of pure pastel appeared: mild blues of a summer sky, the faint blush of a rose and the lambent yellow of an egg yolk. Never had Anselmo seen such scenes, so carefully finished, so warm in colour. Such wonders Bernardino painted, as he balanced precariously on a rickety scaffold of planks and ropes, his brushes and palettes hanging about him on an ingenious system of belts and straps. Bernardino worked in just a shirt and hose, the shirt soon becoming as multi-coloured as stained glass as Bernardino wiped his fingers impatiently on its fabric. On warm days he would yank the shirt impatiently from his body when he grew hot from his work. At such times his very flesh assumed these tribal markings, his muscles giving them animation as if he wore the feathers of a bird of paradise.

When mass was taken each day Bernardino fidgeted impatiently at the back of the church while the congregation
gawped at the half-finished works that were appearing. Luini never took part in such observances, never uttered a response or knelt in prayer; he was merely anxious for the ritual to be over so that he could carry on. It was a source of great wonder to Anselmo that Luini could depict these scenes of such holiness, and give his figures faces of such sweetness with such an intense fervour of devotion, without having any belief himself. In fact his notions were, to be charitable, classical; and to be harsh, pagan.

Anselmo sat with Luini so often as he worked, and they conversed so much that the priest began to believe that he might be able to bring some small influence to bear upon his new friend. He felt drawn to the man – so talented yet so lost, a creature of God yet a stranger to Him. He wanted, in short, to save Bernardino’s soul, and to give Bernardino, through his teachings, some understanding of the divinity of man and his work. In this he was destined to be completely disappointed.

‘Bernardino, Saint Jerome held it that the painterly arts are the most divine of all, in that they draw the eyes of the faithful up towards God.’

Bernardino smiled and carried on painting. He knew the game well by now, and knew how he must answer. Anselmo would try to guide Luini, and Luini would attempt to shock Anselmo, and both would fail utterly. ‘In ancient Rome, Caesar’s painters used to capture the essence of the orgy for his friezes by having slaves copulate in front
of them.’

Anselmo tried again. ‘In the Vatican, there is a painting of the Virgin which is imbued with such divinity that she weeps real tears for the sins of man. This is just one example of how a talent such as yours can transform the lives of the faithful, if such works are painted with a Godly heart.’

‘The ancient Mayan peoples used to wall up live virgins in the foundations of their temples. Plenty of tears shed that day.’

‘In Constantinople there is a depiction of the Marriage at Cana which flows with real wine. It was painted by a monk who attributes the miracle to his own scourging and penitent prayers.’

Bernardino turned around on his plank which wobbled precariously. He stuck his brush behind his ear and drank from a skin of water at his waist. He looked down fondly at the rotund priest who had kept him company these many days and hours. ‘Are you saying,
padre
, that if I were to become devout, my painting would be better?’

Anselmo sat on the chancel steps, and his tonsured circle disappeared as he raised his head to his friend where he hung suspended above. ‘Truly, my son, you are prodigiously talented. But it is your own soul I fear for. And perhaps there may be
some
improvement even in
your
work, for only God creates perfection.’

‘Rubbish. My work is already perfect. You’re wasting your time,’ countered Bernardino shortly. ‘Painting is closer
to science than religion. A painter without perspective is a Doctor without grammar. I see in measurements and equations; I need no spiritual crutch. I find comfort in a good wine and heaven in the arms of a bad woman.’ He smacked his lips with relish. ‘Is that the purpose of these catechisms? To convert me?’

Anselmo smiled. ‘Why else would I come? ’Tis not for your company, that is sure.’

Bernardino turned back to the figure of Saint Agatha. ‘I assume that you were here to stare at the female form, as is the manner of the scurrilous priest. But you will be cheated – tomorrow Saint Agatha will be robed and there will be no more meat for your licentiousness.’

Anselmo shook his head. He could never confide in Bernardino that, in his opinion, the male form held a great deal more charm than the female. But for him, such comparisons were merely aesthetic, barred as he was by his orders from any pleasures of the flesh. He was happy in his celibate state, but he knew Bernardino was not. Such musings put him in mind of Simonetta di Saronno, and her troubling absence from mass. He hoped it was nothing to do with Bernardino’s impropriety on her last visit. Perhaps he should travel to the Villa Castello, and hear her confession at home if she chose to give it.

Bernardino noted the silence. ‘What, no more scripture for today? Am I released from the schoolroom?’

Anselmo had no wish to reawaken Luini’s interest in
the widow by admitting where his thoughts tended, so he cast around for something to say. ‘I was merely admiring the work,’ he said. Then his eye was caught by a vast space in the presbytery of the
Cappella Maggiore
– virgin white and untouched by charcoal. Not a mark was there – not the nails and strings that Bernardino placed in the wall for guidance, not the charcoal cartoons. Nothing. ‘What is that space meant for, Bernardino? Have you run out of materials? For I am instructed by the Cardinal to advance you monies should you need them.’

Bernardino jumped down from his perch, wiping his fingers on his chest, turning the hairs that grew there vermilion. He stared at the void beside the priest. ‘No, that’s the space for the Adoration of the Magi.’

‘And you have no wish to begin it yet?’

‘The Virgin is central to the piece. At the birth of her son, she is at her most glorious and most beautiful. So I’m waiting for Simonetta.’ Bernardino stared at the wall, as if he could already see the greatness that would one day be there.

Anselmo sighed, and when he spoke it was in measured tones as if to a child. ‘
Signora
di Saronno will not model for you. She has not been near this place since you insulted her last.’

‘That’s because she’s in love with me.’

The priest snorted with derision. ‘You certainly take a good deal upon yourself. You inflate your own charms and
insult that lady and the memory of her husband. I advise you to put her out of your mind.’

Bernardino began to clean his hands on a rag. He favoured Anselmo with his wolf’s grin. ‘She could certainly inflate my charms. She’ll be back. And she’ll model for me. You’ll see.’

At that very moment the great doors at the head of the nave swung open and the lady herself entered. She was wearing a man’s weeds and her hair curled above her shoulders. She was sorely changed but her beauty was undimmed. She resembled an avenging angel as she strode toward them.

Simonetta’s hauteur was an illusion. She held her chin high to give her courage. She kept her eyes on the two widely different men who awaited her. One, portly, and diminutive with a kindly face that held a great deal of surprise. And the other, slim, saturnine, wearing – Saints preserve us – no shirt, painted like a savage and showing no surprise at all on the face she could not forget. She addressed the latter with a simple, rehearsed question. ‘How much?’

Simonetta sat as still as she could. She was practiced in the art, for all of those days and nights she had spent at her window grieving for Lorenzo. Well, now she may think of him at her leisure for hours at a time, with the comfort of being paid for the privilege. But she did not think of Lorenzo, much as she wished to. Now, against her will, she thought of another.

It seemed that her past had done with her. Her life had carried on, much as she might wish it had not. She was living and breathing in a world of four elements. She had the use of her five senses, and she employed all of them in her time at the church of the miracles. She felt the cold of the church as the blue cloth wrapped around her offered little comfort against the winter. She could smell the oil of the paints and the woodsmoke of the brazier that the kindly priest had placed near. She could feel the stone beneath her feet and legs, leeching the warmth from her flesh to its freezing blocks. She could taste the familiar bitter tang of
perpetual hunger on her tongue. But what she saw overwhelmed all, and her other senses retreated.

How incredible was his work, this loutish, insolent man? How divine his talent, how angelic, how Godlike? How could a man, any man, not just one such as he, create such things? Lambent Saints with their sufferings writ large, angels with wings that seemed to fully support their weight, so tenderly was each filament of each feather described. Simonetta could not believe that she too was to be transformed, transcended into such an expression, turned from three dimensions into two, immortalized in such colour and form. An apotheosis indeed.

And yet, it was the human, not the Holy that assailed her sight. Despite the marvels that surrounded her, why did her eye return to their creator? Why, with all that there was to occupy her sight, could she not turn her eyes from his face? He worked with a passion, quickly and accurately, scrutinising her face and form with eyes that seemed not to truly see her. What calculations and comparisons took place in that quick brain, what mathematical equations, that he might hold out his brush to her nose, mark off a distance with his thumb, and then have it appear on the white wall? And yet it was no science that he practiced, but an art of the highest form. She could not but admire the work, as much as she hated the man. As he painted her form, she scrutinised his. Tall, but somewhat shorter than Lorenzo, his height was disquietingly similar to her own, so that when they were
facing, their eyes were at a level. Those eyes, strange silver like a wolf ’s, raised the hairs on her neck with a prickle of danger. They were alive, intelligent and rapacious. His gaze was never still, it rested nowhere. It looked for ever but never saw. He calculated, and set down. He thought but he did not feel. So believed Simonetta. But she was wrong.

Bernardino looked at Simonetta and knew he had been born to paint her. There were no false starts, no hesitations or erasures. He could not take his eyes from her. Her figure, the moulding of her shoulders, the soft muscling of the arms, the peerless face. The length of the leg and the arched feet, and the soft swelling of her breasts beneath the blue cloak, all bewitched him. Even her hair had retained its beauty – the shortness of it now curled and framed her face as her long braids had never done. She was perfection. But yet not so: for the Creator had given her those hands, those hands of such pleasing asymmetry.
Those hands
: wrong but yet right, freakish yet more beautiful than any other woman’s. For the artist, this joke of the Creator, this token imperfection, meant that when the fingers were parted like callipers to cartograph a map they appeared still the same length. Such faults did the Arabs weave into their rugs or their Moorish patterns for the very reasons that, as Anselmo had said, only God should create perfection. But if God, or Allah, could create perfection he had decided to leave Simonetta flawed, and the faithless Bernardino gave thanks
for it. He could not think of her as the Queen of Heaven; she was flesh and blood to him. Despite her ethereal manner. For the first time he looked at a woman and truly
saw
her, not as an empirical model of beauty but as a living breathing woman. Her husband was dead but she
lived
. And now Bernardino did too.

‘What do you mean, how much?’ Bernardino had taken the offensive, even though he knew full well why Simonetta had come, and had expected her long.

‘I mean I’ll do it. You said you’d pay. Well now I need money. So how much?’

Bernardino circled her, his eyes lively. She excited him, and he was determined to bait her in order to see the fire in her eyes. ‘Well, the price may have reduced somewhat. You are wearing – how would I describe it? – a man’s hunting outfit. And you look deliciously dirty. And
God
knows what you’ve done to your hair.’

Simonetta held her tongue, hating him. Anselmo eventually found the use of his mouth, hanging as it was in an ‘O’ of surprise. ‘Signora di Saronno! I rejoice to see you here! I have been troubled by your absence. But is all well with you? These weeds! Your hair? Some…private penance perhaps?’

Simonetta shook her head, her hair flying about her neck, newly short in the way she could not get used to. ‘Not penance father, for what have I to atone for?’ she pushed
the thought of Bernardino from her mind. ‘Just necessity, the same necessity that brings me here. I do not look for sympathy, merely for work, for which I need to be paid.’

Bernardino stroked his chin. ‘Hmmm.’ Then he looked up with decision. ‘Four months, three hours a week, two francs an hour.’

‘
What
?’ Simonetta had been accustomed to spend
three
francs on a ribbon for her shoe. And another three for the other foot.

‘Take it or leave it. The Cardinal is not paying for models, be they ever so noble, so it’s all coming from my own pocket.’

‘Signor Luini…’ put in Anselmo. ‘You cannot ask this of the Signora. She must be treated according to her rank.’

‘Padre, padre.’ Bernardino was enjoying himself. ‘Let me transact this business the only way I know. She is no longer a lady if she works for me, she is a model and I am her employer. I am her superior. And as such I may set such rates, which are more than fair. But, that said, I am not a monster; the Signora may increase her wages if she agrees to…undertake services over and above her modelling.’

Simonetta closed her eyes, and the mild Anselmo erupted. ‘Signor Luini! You will respect this lady as is her due, or leave this church. Signora di Saronno is a noblewoman, she is a widow and above all, this is the house of God.’

‘Oh, alright. Three francs, then.’

‘That is not the point. Signora,’ Anselmo approached Simonetta.
‘You do not have to do this. Times are terribly hard, but perhaps I could offer you alms…’

She shook her head. ‘No father. I have a house, I am clothed, and I have enough to eat. There are those that are more needful than I; save your alms for them. I can do this work, and however this man treats me I must bear it as best I can. God tests us in many ways. It seemes that these past months and these future ones, are to be my test.’

Bernardino scratched his head. A devout one. This was going to be harder than he thought. He turned down the nave walking quickly, and motioned for her to follow him. Anselmo, feeling that a chaperone was needed, followed behind. When they reached the apse Bernardino tossed her a voluminous blue cape. ‘Get your clothes off,’ he commanded without ceremony. ‘Wrap yourself in that. Bare feet too if you please.’

Simonetta held the cape as if it burned her. ‘But it’s not seemly. And I’ll freeze.’

‘Stop bellyaching. I need to see the form of your flesh underneath the folds, how the material falls and drapes. I need to see the colours that the hue brings out of your skin. And I need you to stop complaining. This is
my
time now. Sit here, beneath this great space.’

‘Now?’

‘No time like the present.’

Anselmo sighed. ‘I will bring a brazier.’ He pointed his finger at Bernardino. ‘One hour to begin with. No more.
And be respectful.’

Bernardino made no answer but waited for the priest to go. He began to mix his palette, but watched under his lashes as Simonetta wriggled out of her clothes beneath the cover of the robe. She was perfection, and the blue colour made her eyes sing and brought out the rainbow in her skin; he could see every colour in her flesh like the inside of an oyster. She looked at him defiantly. He came closer till they were eye to eye.

‘Now, Simonetta,’ he said, ‘I’m just going to arrange the cloak over you. But don’t worry. We will not be fornicating today. Such things can come later.’

Simonetta made to slap his cheek, but he caught her wrist maddeningly and grinned. ‘It’s Signora di Saronno, you ape,’ she spat. ‘And if you touch me again, I’ll kill you.’

Bernardino tutted as if to a child. ‘Now, now, Simonetta. Don’t be like that.’ He pulled her close and she thought he would kiss her. He leant in till she could feel the warmth of his breath, but he merely said: ‘You need the money, I need a model. Let’s begin.’

The first session had passed in stony silence on Simonetta’s part. Bernardino spoke only to correct the turn of her head or the placement of a hand. She made the adjustments accurately and without a word. She was the best model he had ever had. When the bells had rung for nones she dressed, took her money and walked out of the doors without a
word. When she had gone Bernardino climbed wearily to the bell tower. He felt wrung out and spent in the way he only usually felt after he had been with a woman. He lit his candle and threw himself down on the straw pallet, pulling his fur over his head. He broke his bread and poured his wine, but put them aside. He leafed through the
Libricciolo
but even Leonardo’s book of grotesques could not distract him tonight. In a moment he was up and at the window, watching Simonetta ride away. She vaulted onto her horse like a man, riding bareback – he suspected she had sold her saddle. What disaster, what desperation had made her seek him out again, despite what he knew she felt? He watched her kick the animal with her heels – she rode as if to escape, as if trying to outrun the Devil. He watched until she was out of sight, then pressed his head against the cool church wall and closed his eyes. What was the matter with him?