Via Dolorosa(37)

“You’ve caught my soul, yes,” he said.

Isabella laughed. “What soul?”

“True,” he said, climbing down from the ladder. Wiping his hands down his pants, running his fingers through his corkscrew hair, he took a step toward Isabella and paused beside her. She was looking up at the mural. He, too, looked up. It looked wider, longer. He tried not to look at the smeared, blackened, charred face of dead Myles Granger. “What do you see?” he asked her.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes running the length of the mural, “I see much.”

“Do you?”

“I see pain and anger and anguish,” she told him. “I see hurt mixed with absolution. All of it, trapped like buzzing bees in a jar, all within the heart of the artist. But,” she said just as quick, “I also see a lot of love and compassion.” She nodded and looked as if she were about to take a step forward. “Yes,” she said, “I see much love and compassion.”

“You see all that?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Is it too much of a contradiction?”

“All true and honest art is a contradiction. Didn’t you know? It can never truly be real, and can never be like real life, if it is to be honest to the art of it.”

“Art is capturing real life,” he told her. “That’s its purpose.”

“No, Nicholas, you are wrong.”

“Am I?”

“Art,” she said, “is lying for art’s sake. Purely, simply. Art is not meant to be truth but, rather, to be the lie we wish the truth to be.”

“That’s very nice,” he said, turning to look at her. She did not return his look; she was still examining the mural. He had time to admire her profile. She looked poised for him, knowing full well that he was taking her in, all of her, every single angle, soaking her up—this lifeblood.

“You painted out that man’s face,” she said, pointing to what remained of Myles Granger. The black swipe of paint was like a mark of sin across the dead boy’s face. Looking at it, Nick was overwhelmed with disgrace. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he half-lied. “It became too real, I guess.”

“It scared you?”

“No,” he said. “I just didn’t like it.”

“It is a face,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “A real face.”

“Michelangelo painted Minos with the face of Biagio,” Isabella said, “and painted his penis in a snake’s mouth while surrounding him by devils.”

“Yes, I’ve seen the painting,” he said.

“Minos was one of three judges of the underworld,” she said. “He was one of three judges in Hell’s court.”

“It was meant as an insult,” he told Isabella.

“To be a judge of the underworld?”

“No, no,” he said. “I mean, Michelangelo painted it in retaliation to Biagio de Cesena’s harsh criticism of his rendition of the Last Judgment. He put Biagio’s face on Minos and surrounded him with devils as an insult.”

“The Last Judgment is the one where the angels force the damned down to justice,” Isabella said.

“Yes.”

“You know much about it,” she said. It was not a question.

“Some,” he said.

“You’ve been to see the works?”

“I’ve seen pictures,” he said, “in books.”

“It is not the same.”

“No,” he agreed, “it’s not.”

“It is said that Michelangelo also painted his whore in a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

“I’ve heard it.”

She was looking closely at the mural. “Where is your whore, Nicholas?”

Half smirking, shaking his head, he turned away from her and began rubbing the paint from his hands with an old, bleached washcloth. He tossed the cloth over one step of the ladder then bent and grabbed a bottle of Perrier, took a swig, set it back down. Almost unconsciously, he rolled his shirtsleeves up past his elbows. When he looked down (for whatever reason) and spied his ruined right arm, however, he quickly let the sleeves fall back down to his wrists even though it was something Isabella Rosales had already seen. They had talked about it, and had talked a little, too, about the war. He did not feel like having that conversation again.

“Every good artist,” she said, “has a whore.”

“You mean a muse,” he corrected.

Promoting what could have been nothing more than a passing casual disinterest, Isabella Rosales rolled her small, tanned shoulders and shifted her large, coffee-colored eyes in his direction. “Is there a difference?”

“The muses might think so.”

“Personally, I would rather be a whore than a muse,” she said. “Too much pressure to be a muse. People would expect too much.”

“Whores have it pretty rough, too, I would think.”

“Whores have it good,” she said. “Whores have it nice.”

“Is that right?”

“Of course,” she said. “They are never alone.”

“What about their pride? Their sense of morals?”