Ecce Homo
Italy, 1604
Raimundo Vecchio, dressed as always at the height of fashion - in disregard of all his city’s sumptuary laws, Monsieur Frasier noted sourly to himself - waved his hands and shook his head in amused outrage, causing the ostrich plume on his dark green velvet cap to waggle as if attempting flight.
‘Right here, Benedetto, here in our own little harbour town, at MY church - Francesca’s church - my MOTHER’s church! I know it’s an old scandal in Rome, well, you know Rome, they’ve seen everything, but here - ! So, what do you think?’
‘Surely it’s merely a rumour,’ Benedetto murmured calmly, which was his way. His entire being radiated calm and steadiness, from his tranquil blue eyes, straight nose and long, precise mouth to his nobly strong chin.
‘Rumour or no, it’s disgraceful, wouldn’t you agree?’
Benedetto lowered his gaze from the Heavens down to Raimundo. ‘I agree with the rest of the city magistrates: we need to view the altarpiece and the cartoons, and to question the painter - Signore Voltabufalo, is it? - as to his intentions.’
Raimundo eyed Benedetto with skepticism, amusement, and a bit of disgust. ‘Intentions - ! His intentions are to scandalize the city and to make a name for himself! This is his first major commission! I know you’re still new here, Bene, so maybe you haven’t seen this fellow Voltabufalo rushing around town like a whirlwind without a guiding intelligence, but he’s... Well, like a whirlwind: a disaster in the making. He probably can’t really paint, so this is how he’s planning to get Rome and Florence and Venice to notice him, by blatantly imitating Caravaggio, and not the light and shadows and naturalism everyone’s been talking about, just the outrageous conduct. You’ll see,’ Raimundo asserted.
Benedetto shook his head. Raimundo was a good man - a wonderful friend and generous to a fault - but he did tend to vault to conclusions, and then pass judgement based on said conclusions. Benedetto HAD seen Signore Voltabufalo, and, while like many master artists, he was obviously distracted, and perhaps a trifle disorganized, he also seemed quite genuinely concerned with creating, for the de L’Espina chapel at St. Michael’s, a worthy altarpiece painted in the old-fashioned Flemish manner.
Benedetto said: ‘Besides, Rai, why would the models for the artwork matter? If the finished piece inspires devotion and sincere meditation upon Christ’s sacrifice, isn’t that what’s important?’
They had reached Voltabufalo’s temporary studio in the de L’Espina Chapel recess of the cathedral, and Raimundo led Benedetto past a young apprentice grinding pigment to where a very tall man stood before a work table, unrolling a drawing and frowning over it. The man started at the sight of Magistrate Vecchio and his dark and handsome cohort.
‘Buon giorno,’ said the painter, smiling down obsequiously, ‘And how may I help you gentlemen?’
‘I’ve come at the request of my fellow city magistrates,’ Rai said, ‘Raimundo Vecchio. This is Monsieur Benedetto Frasier, who’s working with me on the city’s behalf, and we’re here to investigate the rumours concerning your studies for the de L’Espina altarpiece.’
Voltabufalo, a surprisingly young man, blinked his rather small, sharp eyes in apparent bafflement. ‘Rumours, sir?’ He seemed dismayed.
Benedetto stepped forward: ‘Have you planned the program for your painting?’
‘Why, yes,’ Voltabufalo said, brightening. ‘It’s a crucifixion, Our Lord and the two thieves on their crosses, St. Michael and Heavenly Hosts in the mid heavens balanced by Our Lady, the Magdalene, and St. Martha, sister of Lazarus, in a semicircle at the foot of the Holy Rood, echoing the triangular recession of the three crosses, with a rent mountain in the background and the Holy Ghost, represented by a dove, flying above the Crown of Thorns, all painted in the tempera-and-oil Flemish manner, allowing for a precision of detail and the most vibrant and jewel-like colours.’
‘That sounds... perfectly splendid,’ Bene said, though, as he’d pictured the grouping, it did, in actual fact, seem a bit chaotic and not quite like anything he’d seen before - particularly not like ANY work of Caravaggio’s.
‘Very splendid,’ Rai echoed, ‘Just what the church needs, another suffering Jesus, more winged angels. We’ve heard that you’ve prepared cartoons of the major figures, Christ, St. Michael, the thieves and the three Holy women. Who’d you use as models?’
For the first time, Voltabufalo looked abashed.
Frasier said: ‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to show us your drawings.’
‘Oh, yes. Surely.’ Voltabufalo turned to the shelves behind him and pulled out various scrolls, tossing some to the ground and placing others on the table. His voice as he spoke about his work grew more assured. ‘Now, for St. Michael, I drew from Tomaso Rugiadoso, you know, the son-in-law of the Conte de L’Espina, though actually I altered a few things, at his request, in order to idealize the image of the saint.’
The artist unrolled his drawings as he spoke, and Raimundo and Frasier helped hold down the edges.
‘I know that little poppinjay,’ Vecchio said, ‘You’ve just made him taller and given him a fuller head of hair!’
Otherwise, St. Michael was fully clothed, haloed, and unexceptional.
‘For the Virgin and the Magdalene, I did employ a young woman, but only to copy her form and the folds of the two gowns. The faces were, naturally, idealized, especially as the girl was quite plain. For St. Martha, for her visage, I was honoured to be invited to the Castello de L’Espina to sketch from the Contessa, Margherita de L’Espina, the wife of the painting’s patron, while for the body, in that case, well, I put my apprentice, Gian-Paolo, into costume. He also modeled the two thieves.’
All the drawings Voltabufalo had laid out were the competent, unobjectionable renderings of an artist’s usual stock, except, perhaps, for the nudity of the thieves, though certainly that was not unheard of. The young woman who’d modeled the Marys’ dresses might have been an outrageous whore or a nearly immaculate virgin, but the otherworldly faces Voltabufalo had created, symmetrical and blemishless, did not - except for a slight resemblance to Voltabufalo himself - describe anyone in the city, and so technically - as was usual in the cases of artists before the daring Caravaggio - no one could say that Voltabufalo had profaned the saints by presenting them as known commoners with saints’ attributes.
Contessa de L’Espina, like her son-in-law, was recognizable, if flattered, but patrons often sat in for portraits of saints, and who better than the respectable, civic-minded wife of an aristocrat to represent the actively domestic St. Martha?
As to the portrayals of the thieves, they were, oddly, morally elevated by resembling Gian-Paolo, because he was a local youth, known to be devout and dedicated, who wished to use his artistic talent - once accepted by the guild of painters upon completion of his master piece - in the service of the Church. And Raimundo was fairly certain that the request for nudity had come from Conte de L’Espina himself.
Raimundo, who’d frowned while studying the drawings, peered up with a smile now at the earnest young artist. Rai’s lovely green eyes twinkled. ‘I think we were misinformed,’ he said as he smiled, ‘Everything here seems to be - ‘
‘Rai.’
‘What, Bene?’
‘We haven’t seen the central figure.’
‘What?’
‘The central figure. The Christ, Rai. We haven’t seen the cartoon for that figure.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Voltabufalo.
Raimundo smiled in a rather less friendly way.
‘I do have the drawings,’ Voltabufalo said hesitantly, ‘But I’ve actually finished the Christ. That is, that figure, along with the Saints Martha and Michael, has already been painted.’
The artist walked around his table to where the altarpiece panel had been installed and carefully draped with linen.
‘I would have liked to have done this figure life-sized,’ the man said reverently. ‘I’ve never before worked with such an expressive subject. I had envisioned the image somewhat differently, but... having finally found such a wonderful model, I felt compelled to paint what I saw. Conte de L’Espina approved of the figure, and the Bishop will be consulted, of course, upon his return from Rome. At any rate, upon payment, the painting naturally belongs to the de L’Espina family and to the church, so whatever the Bishop decides will, I expect, settle the matter of any impropriety. But I... If the finished work has any merit, I fully believe it will be due to the Christ I’ve painted, if I may say so.’
Voltabufalo seemed sincere, and, at the same time, modest. He turned to the panel and pulled away the drape.
‘Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no,’ Raimundo began, shaking his head and gesticulating again, ‘Oh, no, this has to be a joke! Tell me it’s a joke. Him?! Like THAT?! Are you insane?!’
Rai was obviously reacting to the very precisely painted facial features of the thin, pale, crucified Christ - or perhaps it was the figure’s nudity. Or both.
But Benedetto, raised above Rai’s continuing rant by the profoundly surprising image, no longer took in Raimundo’s complaints.
The composition of the painting was decidedly peculiar: though largely unfinished, different layers of vibrant tempera colour overlaid with washes of rich, tinted oil showed the placements of the female saints, an exactly rendered St. Martha-as-Contessa-de L’Espina, the thieves on their crosses, the mountain split by a chasm, St. Michael-as-Tomaso-Rugiadoso with his army of angels, and the Holy Spirit in white dove form, all with the perspective skewed to concentrate the sightlines up from the foot of Christ’s cross, over his naked body, and to his face, if one read the picture from earth to Heaven rather than from right to left.
So it WAS, in fact, the Christ which made the picture remarkable. The pale skin was a luminous ivory, stark white with the faintest touch of gold, so tender that its ghastly wounds were newly shocking, as if freshly risen bread, its top crust slashed for decoration, suddenly spurted blood. And yet the figure’s body, radiantly pure, was at the same time a human, male body, the light in it - the spirit - glowing through somehow, despite the long feet, with their thick-jointed big toes and unclean nails; despite the hair on the shins, the scraped and bruised knees; despite the thinness of the long, muscular thighs and narrow flanks; despite the vulnerable, flaccid genitalia and rosy brown nipples, the sparse pubic hair that ran from between the legs up the flat belly in a line to the navel; despite the gore of the obscene lance-wound and the pitifully protruding bones of the torso; despite the slender, ropily muscled arms, stretched and grotesquely hammered to the True Cross; despite the narrow, elegant hands (with their distinctive thumbs) gesturing ‘why?’; despite the round, lined forehead pricked by thorns and dripping glistening blood like cabochon rubies.
Transcending all of these too-human details was the Spirit that shone from the face: for this was a Christ who suffered not only through His human body, but through His extraordinary capacity for love; through His compassion for all humanity. And what made that obvious was not only the masculine beauty of the endearingly sensitive face, nor the hurt, doubt, and still-enduring compassion of the expression: it was the truly novel position of this Christ’s head - not bowed to one side as in traditional iconography, but angled slightly downward and gazing straight at any viewer centered below the picture. This was a Christ who looked directly into the souls of sinners, who loved and forgave them even as he suffered and died for them, and at their hands.
Benedetto, who spoke five or six languages and read Latin and Greek, had an especial love for the English poets: he recalled, as he contemplated the painting, William Alabaster’s “Upon the Crucifix”, as if it had been written for him, for this very moment:
Now I have found thee I will evermore
Embrace this standard where thou sitts above,
Feede greedie eies, and from hence never rove;
Sucke hungrie soule of this eternall store;
Issue my hart from thie two leaved dore,
And lett my lippes from kissinge not remove.
O that I weare transformed into love,
And as a plant might springe uppon this flower,
Like wandring Ivy or sweete honnie suckle:
How would I with my twine about it buckle,
And kisse his feete with my ambitious boughes,
And clyme along uppon his sacred brest,
And make a garland for his wounded browes:
Lord soe I am, if heare my thoughts may rest.
Standing as if literally at the foot of The Cross, Benedetto felt the infinite mercy of God’s love pouring like a ray of light over and through him.
‘Remarkable,’ he breathed, ‘Unprecedented.’
The undercurrent of bluster fell silent as Raimundo turned to stare at his friend. ‘What?! What did you just say, Bene?’
Benedetto switched his attention to Rai. ‘The picture, well, the Christ anyhow, is magnificent. Extraordinary. Perhaps unique in the world!’
‘Oh, sir,’ Voltabufalo fawned in exaggerated relief, ‘It’s my first important commission! Unique? I don’t know, though I know I was inspired-- ‘
‘Bene! He’s a sodomite, a male prostitute! He’s painted Our Lord and Saviour with the face and body of a prostitute!’
The artist bristled in distress: ‘I didn’t! No, I would never -- ! The model was paid to pose nude, but I assure you nothing untoward -- ‘
‘ -- Not a prostitute for YOU,’ Rai cut in contemptuously, ‘This is Stanislaus, the barbarian, the pet of Llewellyn, the Welsh captain who sails the Stella Maris! Everyone knows who he is, what he does, cooped up night after night on that ship with no woman but the snooty-looking carving at the bow. And you’ve painted him as -- Jesus?!!’
‘How do you know he’s a prostitute, Raimundo? And why should it matter, when the work is so... so sublime?
Rai stared aghast at Benedetto. ‘Everyone in the city knows his reputation. He consorts with actors! And Englishmen! He’s beaten up other sailors for abusing cabin boys, probably because he was jealous! He’s sailed on that ship with Llewellyn for fifteen years or more, ever since the Stella began trading here! What else do you think he could be?’
‘Perhaps he’s simply a competent seaman, well-liked by his captain, whose conscience balks at the sexual usage of little boys,’ Frasier said, gazing into the wise, sad eyes of the Christ in the painting. ‘Rai. Rai. Rai, Rai, RAI!’ Bene said over his friend’s escalating protests until Raimundo stopped. ‘Rai, let yourself be still a moment, and come here and look, Rai. Look into the eyes. It’s extraordinary.’
Raimundo, shaking his head and sulking, turned back to the picture, assuming he’d see what he’d glimpsed when Voltabufalo had unmasked the panel, a face he knew, the lean, narrow, blue-eyed face of the scruffy blonde barbarian Stanislaus, the lanky sailor he’d had hauled before him in the Magistrates’ offices on several occasions to answer charges of brawling, carousing, and generally unauthorized behaviour.
However - with Frasier’s hand on his shoulder and deep, steady breathing behind him - Raimundo calmed himself and looked again, up the length of the broken body and into the sad, compassionate eyes; and while the face was recognizable - it WAS Stanislaus - the expression did, truly, belong to someone else, someone infinitely greater. And Rai understood anew the profundity of Christ’s message, in a way he hadn’t since childhood.
Rai took a deep breath, closed his eyes and said: ‘All right. All right, Bene, I see what you mean. This isn’t exactly the barbarian, whoever he is or whatever he does. But in a way it IS Stanislaus, anyone could recognize him, and people who do will be outraged.’
Benedetto frowned. ‘I think any outrage visited upon this picture will most likely come from the Bishop, and not because of the choice of model, especially as Conte de L’Espina made no objection.’
Rai bit his tongue to keep from explaining why the Count’s proclivities might account for a nude male prostitute Christ and naked teenaged thieves in the first place.
‘Oh, my,’ Voltabufalo said, ‘I had hoped the Bishop, like the Count, would also find the picture uplifting. Why do you suppose he’ll object to it, sir?’
‘Your painting, as it is, encourages the viewer to look directly into the eyes of Christ.’
‘Exactly! I wanted people to see what I saw, the infinite mercy of God, even God embodied in a suffering, dying man - to know that by appealing to God’s mercy, and manifesting God’s love on Earth, our salvation is possible.’
‘An admirable goal, but... What you appear to be offering here, Signore Voltabufalo, is direct contemplation of, and communion with, God. Without the intercession of the Church.’
Voltabufalo blanched, and began to hyperventilate. Between gasps, he squeaked out: ‘I could be excommunicated! I could be accused of - of - PROTESTANTISM!’ He sank to sit down on a plank of scaffolding. He held his head.
‘Oh, nobody would accuse you of that,’ Raimundo said, with his usual generosity. ‘Bene and I could vouch for you. You obviously didn’t intend anything THAT radical.’
‘Thank you! Thank you, I’d be much obliged.’
Bene leaned in to comfort the young artist. ‘Think nothing of it. Perhaps you could begin a second panel, with the more standard iconography of Jesus with closed eyes, or His gaze upturned to Heaven.’
Voltabufalo’s young assistant threw down his grinding pestle and walked away muttering.
Looking after him, Frasier said: ‘Of course, it would be a shame to have to paint over this picture. It is remarkable. Perhaps it could be smuggled into Germany?’
‘Bene! I can’t be hearing this! You’d give spiritual aid to God’s enemies?! How about... Instead of starting a brand new panel, why not just paint the eyes closed on this one?’
‘I suppose I’ll have to wait for the Bishop to decide, when he gets back,’ Voltabufalo said morosely, ‘Or ask Conte de L’Espina for his suggestions.’
‘Perhaps,’ Frasier agreed, mysteriously. ‘In the meantime, I think you and I, Rai, should seek out this Stanislaus. And until we get back to you, Signore Voltabufalo, don’t show your painting to anyone. Well, unless the Bishop arrives early.’
Voltabufalo nodded; Bene turned to Rai as they exited, asking: ‘This Stanislaus - why do you call him a barbarian?’
Frasier received the look from Raimundo that indicated Bene had three heads, each as dense as a block of wood.
‘We are in Italy, Frasier. Italy. The centre of the universe, the full blossom of the highest branch of the Christian world, the only world that counts. All right, I know you think fondly of Paris, but compared to Rome or Florence or Venice, it’s a backwater, a provincial village surrounded by nowhere. And this guy, this Stanislaus - he’s not only NOT Italian, he’s not French, not Spanish, not English, not even one of your Germans! He’s from Poland, Frasier. Poland. I think they live in caves out there.’
‘Well, I beg to differ with you, Rai. It’s quite different from Italy, I’m sure, but simply because they do things differently doesn’t imply a lack of civilized behaviour. Not so long ago,’ Bene confided, ‘The Poles began electing their kings. How could a people be MORE civilized?’
‘Electing their kings?! How can you ELECT a king?!!’
And so they argued their way down to the seaport.
The docks were filthy and crowded with men; any women there were strumpets, or no better than. Foreigners of every sort wandered through, mostly sailors or merchant traders who’d come on one of the ships; Rai saw freckle-peppered, pale white, red-headed Irish and Scotsmen; Greeks and Levantines with oiled black curls; Frenchmen, Englishmen, ebony dark Africans; bearded Swiss and Germans; the occasional white-blonde Dane or Swede; Rai even thought he saw an actual Oriental, but the man moved too quickly for Rai to be sure. And brazenly mixed amongst the men and the shameless women were the scandalously pretty, beardless youths who serviced the sailors, on ship and off.
Raimundo rolled his eyes, sighed, and began stopping local boys to inquire about Stanislaus, and eventually they tracked him down taking lunch at a public house, sitting at a private booth across from a lad of twelve or thirteen.
‘You going to break someone’s jaw over this one, too, Stanislaus?’ Rai asked wearily.
Benedetto stood behind and to one side of Rai, observing the sailor. In reality - as himself, rather than an image of Christ - the man was both more and less than his painted image: less pale, less vulnerable, less open; and more weathered, more vigorous, and more... vitally beautiful. His brass-brown hair, springing up from a widow’s peak and combed back, shone gold where light hit it; his eyes, deep-set and protectively narrowed, were lined with long, starry lashes; his nose, not quite pointed, was neither too long, too broad, nor too short; and his lips: they were pink, and finely shaped, and just plump enough to suggest pouting while at the same time entirely masculine, creased with tiny lines, encircled by quick-growing stubble. The face was narrow, angular and asymmetric, regularly shaven unlike the bearded Christ: Stanislaus was a uniquely attractive man.
At the sound of Rai’s voice, Stanislaus had peered down at Rai’s ridiculous shoes and had slowly run his gaze up each colourful item of Rai’s costume, past his face and velvet cap and up to the top of his ostrich plume.
‘Oh, Magistrate Vecchio,’ Stanislaus drawled at the curled feather-tip, ‘I almost didn’t recognize you.’ His eyes flicked over to Benedetto and widened. ‘Hey, this must be your French friend. People are talking about you two.’ And when he then smiled, Benedetto was dazzled. Never in his life had he seen such a kind, teasing, magnificent smile. <
br />‘That’s a fairly dangerous insinuation, Stanislaus, especially as you’re the one who’s here ready to... pluck... this fresh bit of chicken.’ Rai’s eyes settled on the young boy.
Stanislaus was on his feet with his right fist pulled back quick as smoke, snarling: ‘Lay off, Vecchio, or it’s your jaw that’ll be broken!’
The boy took that opportunity to slip away, and Benedetto chased after him while Raimundo calmed things down in the pub. He’d forgotten just how volatile Stanislaus could get over youngsters.
Benedetto knew better than to call the boy before catching up to him. When he did, he took hold of the boy’s arm and said: ‘Son? Son, wait a moment, I need to ask -- ‘
‘Let me go, let me go! I need to get home!’ The boy struggled in vain: Benedetto held fast.
‘You’re a local boy, then.’
The kid nodded, and began to calm down under Bene’s understanding scrutiny.
‘I though you might belong to one of the ships. A cabin boy for the Stella Maris, perhaps. What brings you down to the docks?’
‘I came to look for work! I needed money for my family!’
‘And Stanislaus paid you for... let’s call it a... lascivious act?’
‘No! No, I -- I was desperate! If I signed on to a ship, my mother and sister would have no one, so I came here... just to look for work. Whatever anyone wanted from me.’
‘And... Stanislaus? What did he want?’
The ashamed child looked up at Benedetto. ‘Nothing. He didn’t want anything. He saw me bargaining with another sailor and offered me double. Then he brought me to the public house, to get a room, I thought. Instead he gave me the money and bought me lunch and told me what it might be like if I... if I went through with what I’d planned.’
‘And he persuaded you to go home.’
‘Well, I... Not at first. I need work! He said many men would say what they wanted, do exactly what we agreed, and pay the price we set, but a few would be dangerous. I said I knew I might be robbed or beaten or treated roughly, but better me than my sister or my mother. He asked me if the idea of being with a man that way seemed exciting to me. I said no! It’s not what I want! Then he asked about my family, and what my father had done before he died, and what I thought I would do for a trade if he were still alive. And after that, he told me to go tomorrow to Giacomo Tinta, the carriage maker, and say that Stanislaus had sent me. He swore he’d work out an apprenticeship contract for me with Signore Giacomo, one that would afford me a bit of money each week.’
‘And in return?’
The child’s eyes opened wide. ‘Nothing. He wanted nothing. He just said that love - even the coarsest, most physical kind - should never be bought nor paid for.’
‘Hardly,’ Frasier thought, ‘The sort of thing a whore would say.’ Though to call such congress - intimate while it might be - “love”: that was... What could he have meant by that?
Frasier, unlike the boy, HAD found “the idea of being with a man that way” exciting: unbeknownst to Raimundo, he had, in fact, sought out such congress on occasion, years ago, up North. However, in so doing, he had found only physical release devoid of any other significance, hurried couplings with men ashamed of their desires and afraid to show affection for him in public. ‘Hardly love,’ Frasier thought, ‘How could Stanislaus call it love?’
Benedetto let the boy go and hurried back to the public house. He found Vecchio seated at the booth across from Stanislaus, reminiscing about the sailor’s previous arrests. The two of them were sharing bread, cheese and wine.
Frasier squeezed in next to Rai. ‘There was nothing untoward going on with the boy,’ he announced.
The three-wooden-headed stare. ‘No, Bene, there never is.’
The sailor flashed Bene his brilliant smile of crinkled eyes and broad, bright teeth. And WINKED at him. ‘Every time, every time, I tell him I don’t screw around with boys, and every time he won’t believe me.’ Stanislaus glared at Rai and challenged: ‘What, you think they’re so attractive? Little guys like that?’
Mellowed by the good food and wine, Rai shrugged. ‘If I had no choice but to crawl in bed with someone who had a penis, sure, I’d prefer a soft, pretty, beardless face, and a smooth, small, hairless body. How else could you even... do anything? Pull someone like him into bed,’ and here Rai gestured at Frasier, ‘Nice enough face, but the size and the stubble and the body hair and the smell? - no offense, Frasier - it’d be impossible to pretend he was a woman.’
‘But here’s the thing,’ Stanislaus said, leaning forward, speaking in a low voice, ‘What if you didn’t want a woman, didn’t want to pretend? What if you wanted a man - what if you wanted the size and the strength, the roughness and the guy smell? Take him, like you said,’ Stanislaus’s voice was quietly rough, and he turned his piercing eyes on Frasier, ‘What if you wanted his big, solid size up against you, in your arms? What if you wanted him, instead of some watery little woman, touching your body, handling and... tasting you? And you wanted all of his body to yourself, to squeeze and caress, to kiss, to take? What good would a little slip of a boy do?’
‘A-ha, finally! So you’re finally admitting that’s what you like, someone big and tall like your Welsh captain,’ Rai said gleefully.
Bene, aware of the sailor’s intense staring at him, said - barely able to breathe - ‘Or someone like ... me?’
Stanislaus leaned back against the booth grinning his wicked grin and looking amused and devilish. He shrugged and said, ‘I’m not admitting anything! Except I don’t screw around with kids. Even if the only lady in my life IS the Stella.’ He shoved his gleaming hair back from his face, and confided to Frasier: ‘I tell him every time that I don’t sleep with Llewellyn, either, but he can’t take it in. Tell me, does Vecchio sleep with HIS boss? Is that it? Thinks he can use his big nose to sniff out sodomy ... ‘
‘At any rate, that’s not what we came to see you about, is it, Rai?’ Frasier asked, pulling himself together.
‘No,’ Vecchio said slowly, noticing Bene’s flushed face and flustered manner. ‘No, we were sent to look at Signore Voltabufalo’s altarpiece panel for the de L’Espina chapel. I couldn’t believe it when I saw he’d picked YOU to model Our Saviour.’
Stanislaus crossed his arms. ‘That was René’s idea.’
‘Even so, there’s already talk,’ Bene told him. ‘You’ve been here often enough, and over such a length of time, that people here do know you, and I understand you have acquired a somewhat dubious - even if ill-founded - reputation.’
Rai jibed: ‘I’m not the only one who heard all about you cuddled up drunk in Kit Marlowe’s lap, letting him suck on your fingers!’
Bene’s eyes flew straight to the sailor’s long-fingered, narrow hands, the wildly curved thick-jointed thumbs, before he stuttered: ‘K-k-k-it Marlowe? CHRISTOPHER Marlowe, the English poet and playwright?!’
Stanislaus looked suddenly worn and sad and pained. ‘That was a long time ago,’ he said softly, ‘Back in London. Hell, I was just a kid myself then, before Kit was truly famous. Before he was murdered.’
‘Yeah, but not before he scandalized every Puritan in England, carrying on with young men.’
‘He had the courage to be true to himself,’ Stanislaus replied, ‘Even though he knew the consequences.’
‘Edward the Second,’ Frasier stated gravely.
‘Exactly.’ Stanislaus drained his wine glass and muttered: ‘At least Kit died before his trial, so they couldn’t ram a red hot poker up his ass.’
‘Ugh!’ Rai said, disgusted, ‘The English are barbaric!’
Stanislaus sneered: ‘What about Giordano Bruno? Being burnt at an Italian stake is what? Enlightened? Literally?’
Vecchio shrugged. ‘I hear that lots of times you get strangled before being burned. That’s a little more civilized than up North in France, right, Bene? Joan the Maid was alive, the way I heard it.’
‘Quite alive,’ Frasier said, ‘Asking for a Cross to look at as she died, and calling out to Jesus. Of course, that was nearly two centuries ago.’ Frasier lost himself in thought for a moment, then said: ‘I think she was as pure as the flames that carried her to God. What would France have been without her?’
‘England?’ Stanislaus asked sarcastically, ‘With the red hot poker for her virginity? Look, this is why I agreed to model for Voltabufalo. At first, he seemed like sort of a big, dumb, buffoon, but when he talked about wanting his painting to remind people to have compassion for each other the way God had enough compassion to sacrifice His Son - I could go with that. Not anywhere near enough of that down here, mercy and compassion. You sail long enough, going from port to port, country to country, religion to religion, you see things... You get to wonder why God doesn’t send another flood, or why the Black Death didn’t finish off all our ancestors.
‘So I figured if René wanted me for a picture like that, it’d be worth it. And now you’re saying what, the painting’s no good because of my - bad reputation?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ Vecchio said, ‘Ultimately, it may be up to the Bishop to decide.’
‘Whose idea was it to show the Christ figure looking straight at the congregation?’ Bene asked.
‘René did a number of sketches trying to get me to capture the look of suffering and compassion he wanted. We both thought the direct one was the best. The most, uh, evocative of... what he was after.’
‘Yes, well, it’s the most provocative as well, I’m afraid,’ Frasier said.
‘Look, I’ve seen the picture! There’s nothing smutty or sexual about it, even with the, uh, nudity!’
‘I didn’t mean that sort of provocative,’ Bene soothed, ‘Though the body - your body - if you don’t mind my saying so, is quite beautiful, as a masculine form. No, the provocation will, I imagine, be seen in the direct gaze of the Christ figure. I’ve urged Signore Voltabufalo to begin again with a more standard pose. Magistrate Vecchio suggested that the artist might paint over a differently posed head, or even merely paint the eyes shut.’
Stanislaus slumped in his seat. ‘But that’d ruin it.’
‘I agree, but if Signore Voltabufalo insists on proffering the picture as it is for installation in the cathedral, he may put himself in danger, if not spiritually, then at the very least economically. The Church as a whole, anywhere he goes, would likely refuse to commission him, and his opportunities for portraiture would undoubtedly likewise fall off as a consequence. I think you should go to Signore Voltabufalo and persuade him to begin again. Perhaps offer to model for the new painting.’
Stanislaus nodded regretfully.
Raimundo said: ‘Bene, as long as that picture exists, Voltabufalo could be in danger. He’s done something that isn’t done, and he’s not in Rome, and he’s not a Caravaggio who could maybe, just maybe, get away with it. People have seen the painting, and if Voltabufalo finishes it, even if he keeps it as a private devotional work, people will know. If the Bishop finds it suspect, it’ll have to be painted over, end of story, and that’s if he’s not so insulted that he accuses Voltabufalo of heresy. ‘I’ve got enough for my report,’ Vecchio said, and nudged Frasier so he could exit the booth. He turned before leaving the public house and said to Stanislaus: ‘You stick to Llewellyn and your English poets and your players, here at the port.’ He’d caught Bene’s line about the barbarian’s “beautiful masculine form” and he didn’t like it, not a bit.
‘Always a joy to chat with you, Vecchio,’ the sailor teased, adding, in somewhat awkward French, to Frasier: ‘J’espère voir à bientôt, beau Benedetto.’
‘Moi aussi, mon ami,’ Frasier replied quietly.
Rai took Frasier’s arm and hustled him out, hurrying his friend away from the seaport and, more importantly, away from Stanislaus, muttering: ‘“Mon ami,” are you joking? He’s not your “ami,” Bene, he’s not the “ami” of any decent person in this town,’ and on and on while they walked back to the city square, Rai spouting complaint after calumny about the barbarian while his mind fretted on an entirely different track: for the first time ever, he was worried about Benedetto.
His friend had always been a bit strange, with his exaggerated manners and his spells of quiet broken by endless talk about the oddest things, wolves, for instance, and the ancient Vikings of the far North, and the poetry and plays of England, but then Bene was French, and the French had to know about everything, if only to prove that they knew best after all, so, up until now, Bene’s eccentricities had made a bit of sense. Bene wasn’t married, either, nor even betrothed, and that was peculiar, too, but Rai had always assumed that his apparent lack of interest in women had to do with Frasier’s courtly and spiritual nature, and the fact that Bene was so far from home: he undoubtedly desired a wife of his own kind, an innocent, decent, unsophisticated French country girl. Afterall, he’s shown no interest in Rai’s young sister Francesca.
But the fact that he’d seemed captivated - fascinated - by a common as mud barbarian sailor: that was troubling, as was the nature Stanislaus’s behaviour towards Frasier, smiling, teasing, confiding - even imagining (Rai shuddered) Bene in degradation, winking at him - very troubling. And even more troubling was the fact that Bene had made no objection to the fellow’s perverse flights of fancy; the way he’d asked if the sailor would want “someone like me?”, in an ambiguous tone, as if he were afraid of the answer, whether it was “yes” OR “no” - ! And the “beautiful body” remark, as if Frasier hadn’t seen proper, robust Roman statuary. And “mon ami” - !! Raimundo didn’t have a great deal of French; he wasn’t sure what-all Stanislaus and Bene had said as they parted - but “mon ami”, that was far too generous on Bene’s part.
Except, Rai thought, that WAS Bene, polite and generous, unable to see or act on social distinctions. Maybe that was all there was to this business with Stanislaus, Bene refusing to see him for the scum he was. Sure, that had to be it. Stanislaus could be charming and all - once he’d calmed down in the pub, he’d chattered with Rai as if they were old friends rather than semi-adversaries, even poured him a glass of wine - but he was a queer little poorly dressed nothing, and Bene couldn’t... Well, that would be impossible. Not Bene.
Still, Raimundo watched for a long while as Benedetto headed home, praying that Bene wouldn’t turn back to the docks.
Benedetto went towards his lodging house but then kept walking, away from the seaport, along the road leading out of the city, wishing all the while that his legs could outpace his thoughts. Things the sailor had said kept repeating in Frasier’s mind, over and over in Stanislaus’s rough, hushed voice: “What if you didn’t want to pretend... What if you wanted a man... What if you wanted all of his body to yourself... ?” And Bene’s own voice added, ‘What if you wanted a man like that man?,’ and he pictured Stanislaus, with his piercing eyes and teasing smile, “cuddled in his lap,” the taut-muscled ivory-gold body in his arms, and him sucking those long fingers, and burying his face in the coarse strands of that sun-streaked hair...
It wasn’t simply the vitality of the sailor’s charm and prettiness that had shaken Benedetto, though: the larger part was the idea Stanislaus had voiced aloud, the idea that a man might not want a woman, or the male underage counterfeit of one, to master and use sexually; that he might instead go in pleasure to the strength of a grown man, to find tenderness - cherishing - as well as sexual release there. And the idea that Stanislaus, having quieted, and closed the pretty pinkness of his lips, might lean to brush their cracked plumpness against a whiskered jaw, might trail his long fingers slowly and sensually through coarse chest curls; that he might even delight in the unspeakable, proceeding with infinite gentleness to complete those acts which, in Frasier’s few attempts, had been done roughly, furtively, and astonishingly quickly: this idea was more revolutionary to Benedetto than even Voltabufalo’s directly loving Christ. Especially if it were true, as it seemed to be, that Stanislaus might be offering himself to Bene.
And as at the moment of Jesus’s death, when the earth shook in terror, and all who loved Him were poised at the edge of the abyss of despair, not knowing what was to come, so Benedetto felt shaken, rent, terrified and bereft, as though his entire world had changed.
One Week Later...
Raimundo Vecchio smiled in relief to see his friend Benedetto walking with his usual purposefulness into the Magistrates’ offices. It had been a few days since they’d talked, and while that wasn’t particularly unusual - Bene did have his own work, enforcing trade agreements between French and Italian merchants - Rai had been afraid word might reach him - as it would in a busy, talkative city - that Frasier had been seen spending these several days - or worse, nights! - at the seaport, in the company of the barbarian Stanislaus. Thank God, there’d been no reports about either man.
‘Bene!’ Rai smiled again and hurried to greet Frasier with a handclasp.
‘Rai,’ Benedetto said with simple, honest affection.
Frasier seemed... well, reserved, as always, but - not quite as reserved - ; he seemed relaxed - ; his hair, shockingly, was a bit out of place; he seemed... happy. Not stoically content, but happy! This made him more wildly attractive than ever, which Raimundo couldn’t help noticing, even though he had, for quite some time, taken his friend’s handsomeness for granted.
Raimundo tilted his head to one side, considering the changes in his strikingly beautiful friend; and then he smiled in delight. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ Rai exclaimed, recognizing the signs, ‘You’re in love! Bene, you’re in love! Who is she, some lovely young ma-de-mwa-zel-la?’
Frasier’s blush was like rich Burgundy poured over snow, and it wasn’t because of Rai’s general refusal to pronounce French words without Italianate flourishes. ‘It’s not important, Rai,’ Bene said, though he couldn’t help smiling, ‘What is important is that I got your message that Signore Voltabufalo sent his apprentice to ask us to come to the Cathedral.’
‘“Not important,”’ Rai muttered as he gather his things, ‘The most unexpected, exciting event in your life is unimportant - ! The parents don’t know yet, is that it? That’s why you won’t say who she is, because you haven’t asked the parents for her hand?’
Frasier smiled a private smile - almost as if he thought Rai had three wooden heads - and said: ‘I can assure you that no, the parents have not been consulted.’
‘Then she’s traveling with a chaperone... so she IS a French girl! I knew that’s what you were waiting for - I’ve told Francesca a thousand times... Traveling with a chaperone, on her way to Rome on a pilgrimage, I bet, so that must mean her family’s well set up... Good going, Frasier, this is perfect for you...’ And Rai rattled on, imagining an estate full of junior Benedettos and Maries, with Bene’s time split between Rai’s city and the North.
‘At least,’ Frasier thought, ‘He realizes that I will be leaving.’ He would miss Raimundo’s kindness and generosity, the warm inclusion of his friendship: Raimundo was as close to a brother as Frasier had ever known.
When they reached the cathedral, Voltabufalo, daubed with paint, rushed to greet them, and managed to trip over his long-suffering apprentice along the way. The painter scrambled to his feet, pulled Gian-Paolo up, and, in dusting him off, managed to cover him with paint. The boy stomped away as Vecchio expertly avoided shaking Voltabufalo’s hand.
‘Good to see you again, Signore,’ Frasier said, and naturally, when HE shook the artist’s hand, NOTHING stuck to him. (Rai rolled his eyes.)
‘Monsieur Frasier, Magistrate Vecchio! Thank you for coming. I discussed your concerns with Conte de L’Espina, and when he viewed the painting again, I’m afraid he was, indeed, dismayed. To be truthful, I’d been quite flattered by his first reaction to the work - perhaps my pride needed the corrective of your criticism, because he agreed with Magistrate Vecchio’s opinion that painting the Christ’s eyes shut would be the prudent course. As well, he insisted on draperies for the crucified men, to be entirely on the safe side. He simply hadn’t considered the implications of the iconography until I brought your concerns to his attention.
‘My model, Stanislaus, was kind enough to return for more sketches, and, in order to lay to rest all the rumours running around town, I thought you both should see the alterations for yourself, though I’ve only completed the central figure, the Christ - now that that’s finished, Gian-Paolo will pose with the thieves’ draperies.’
Voltabufalo - without tripping - led the way to the altarpiece panel, and pulled aside its covering.
‘Oh dear,’ Bene said: now he was dismayed. With closed eyes but head still angled directly to the viewer, the Christ’s suffering seemed equal parts sacrifice and reproach. The sense of compassion remained, to a lesser degree than before; but with the astonishing innovation of a direct gaze painted away, the flaws in composition seemed glaringly awkward. The busy throngs of angels sectioning off the upper quarter of the image had no counter-balance on the barren earth below; the semi-circular grouping of the three prostrate women saints was dwarfed by the stark parallels of the three towering crosses; the chasm that gaped in the background’s mountain seemed ready to swallow up the hovering dove of the Holy Spirit. Individually, all the figures were beautifully limned, and the radiance of the Christ’s flesh, and the precise rendering of blood and gore showed Voltabufalo’s technical mastery; but now the viewer’s eye, reading up from the foot of the Cross, found the exquisitely detailed, vulnerably slender, bruised and all too human details of the Christ’s body interrupted by the curved folds of cloth covering the pelvis, so that the prominent ribs and gaping lance-wound were thoroughly anticipated, and therefore less than shocking.
It was not a worthless picture; as an altarpiece in the Cathedral of a large port city, it would be admired and enjoyed for decades to come. But it had contained a vision of genius, and that was gone.
‘Much better,’ Raimundo said with satisfaction, ‘Right, Bene? This painting could stand in any true church in Christendom.’
‘Yes,’ Frasier echoed, ‘Any church at all.’
‘Well,’ Voltabufalo said, frowning, ‘I would have liked to have kept it as it was, but as you pointed out, sir, the image was commissioned for St. Michael’s, and of course the panel was cut and prepared specifically for this chapel’s altar... ‘
‘I expect it’s an... entirely suitable compromise,’ Frasier said.
‘I knew you’d be disappointed!’ Voltabufalo said, ‘And that upset me, after your kindness in praising the original. Luckily, Stanislaus proposed a solution. It’s not yet finished, but I’d like you to have it when it is. Come.’
Voltabufalo led them to his private quarters where a much smaller rectangular panel stood on an easel near the artist’s bedside table, which was crowded with paint pots and brushes. And on the panel, life-sized now, was the thorn-crowned visage of Voltabufalo’s compassionate Christ, wise, steady eyes piercing directly, as Bene contemplated them, through Frasier’s eyes, to his soul; and loving him still, in spite of all his sins.
The face, now even more accurately drawn, was Stanislaus’s lean, asymmetric, human face, his tender lips parted in pain, his head encircled by, and bleeding from, the Crown of Thorns, though so far, only the plain, dark background had been painted; the colour, highlights and shadows of the face, and all the fine detail of hair and blood and wrinkles and whiskers remained to be added, once the layers of pigment and oil had been carefully built up. But that was Voltabufalo’s forté: it would be more beautiful, if less radical, than the original.
‘Ecce homo.’
Benedetto pulled his eyes from the portrait to the artist, who had spoken. ‘You are too kind,’ he whispered, overcome, ‘Far too kind in offering something so profound to me.’
‘I insist. You and Magistrate Vecchio may have saved my life, Monsieur; you most certainly saved my livelihood. It’s the least I can do. I can’t even imagine a way to repay Signore Vecchio, unless he would permit me to paint a portrait for him. Of yourself, sir, or one of your loved ones,’ the painter said, turning to Raimundo.
‘Truly?’ Rai asked in delight, ‘You mean I could have a likeness of my mother?! Bene, can you imagine her face when I tell her? A portrait, just like a Principessa!’
‘It would be an honour,’ Voltabufalo promised, and then hesitated and added: ‘Of course, I will have to finish the altarpiece before I can offer to begin sittings for a lady. She couldn’t, after all, come to my quarters in the evenings, as Stanislaus can.’
‘All right,’ Rai said, ‘As long as you mean it. I’d never hear the end of it if something better turns up, and off you go to another cathedral, leaving Mama without her portrait.’
‘On my honour, sir. I would never - ‘
‘He comes here? In the evenings?’ Bene asked, appalled. ‘Stanislaus, the sailor?’ Frasier had been looking intently about the small room and at the wide bed.
‘No, he will come. When I’ve built up enough of the preliminary layers over the drawing - when I’ve completed the underpainting. The days will be a bit longer then, and with additional candlelight, I’ll be able to work on the Ecce Homo after painting on the altarpiece during the day, as contracted.
‘Stanislaus told me to assure you, should occasion arise, that he has been, and will be, completely professional while he’s here, and to say that at least this time he’ll have his clothes on!’
Raimundo, having observed Bene’s pallor and Voltabufalo’s knowing smile, fumbled for a chair and sank down into it. ‘Oh, Bene, you didn’t. You couldn’t! Oh, God, Bene, this morning, on the way over, THAT was all about HIM?!!’ Rai was up on his feet again, pacing, throwing his hands about and ranting. ‘Stanislaus! That God-damned, shabby barbarian! It’s not enough to corrupt minors down at the docks, or service notorious Englishmen, or live as a common-law wife to his captain, or carouse with actors, oh, no, he meets a perfectly sober and respectable Frenchman and has to seduce and corrupt him, too! And how could that be POSSIBLE, I wonder, seduction by a scrawny, scruffy, poorly dressed bag of bones like that, with his outlandish fair hair and those deformed thumbs, how could it be POSSIBLE for HIM to SEDUCE anyone?! I’ll tell you how it’s possible! He got you drunk, didn’t he, Frasier, and did the sort of OBSCENE things to you only a sailor or a woman of easy virtue would do - ’
(‘ - Rai. Rai. Rai - ‘ Frasier began.)
‘ - But just because he does them, doesn’t make it right! It’s a lure, a temptation to sin, and you have to resist, Bene, ‘cause this isn’t you. Even if it’s new and wild and exciting, which, God, I can’t imagine it being with a GUY, especially an old low-life guy like STANISLAUS, even so, there’s more to life than sex!’
‘ - RAI! I know that, Rai. I do know that. There’s also love.’
Rai sank down into the chair again. Voltabufalo stood frozen like a six foot four inch statue.
‘Love? Love, Bene? Between two grown men, love? Love with - STANISLAUS?!! That’s like adding one plus one and getting - infinity. It doesn’t figure, it’s outside all logic, it’s not part of any known system, it simply CAN NOT exist!’
‘Rai, listen. Listen. Just over one hundred years ago, a whole half of the world was an impossibility, and didn’t exist. And yet it was there the whole time, an entirely new world. Stanislaus is my new world, Rai, and like it or not, I belong there. I always have. It’s just that until I beheld the man, that particular man, I didn’t know, and couldn’t have known, that such love and compassion and gentleness could exist in a man who could offer that - all of that - to me.
‘Stanislaus tells me that if we go to London - in spite of the red hot pokers - and live circumspectly near the theatres where the actors live, that no one will find us shocking. I’ve asked for a transfer, to continue my work in trade enforcement, though now between France and England, and he says he can find work shipbuilding. He knows actors and playwrights there - he says a new world is being created at the Globe Theatre, by Christopher Marlowe’s friend and rival, William Shakespeare. We mean to risk the boldness Marlowe had, to live our lives as they’re meant to be lived, truthfully and lovingly, cleaving to each other in sacred union.’
‘Sacred union,’ Rai scoffed in disgust.
‘The Stella Maris sails west in two months’ time, and my orders and affairs should be settled by then. We’ll go together, and take the Ecce Homo with us. It will be finished by then, won’t it, Signore?’
‘All but the varnishing, and any reputable artists’ guild can arrange for that to be done.’
Rai, who had slumped lower and lower as Bene spoke, suddenly lifted his head up. ‘Two months. Two months? That’s good, that’s really good, Bene. What was I worried about?! In two months, all this will be a dream, well, a nightmare! You’ll see. This is a nice, exciting little fantasia the barbarian’s singing for you: London, theatres, hobnobbing with those poets you like so much; and it all probably seems amazingly wonderful right now, especially with your pretty head spinning from Stanislaus’s tongue’s other talent, but you’ve known him what? Not even a week! And you really think you’ll want this life of danger and wallowing in sin for the rest of your days?’ Rai got up and took Bene’s arm, waving a goodbye to Voltabufalo as he led Bene back through the church grounds and into the town square. ‘I give it two more weeks, no, two weeks altogether. Then you’ll wake back up to reality, and that cesspit on the Thames, London, won’t seem worth spitting at.
‘Look, you might need a change, I can understand that - I’ll take you to Rome, WE’LL go on a pilgrimage - you know you’ll need one after what you’ll be confessing to - so, we’ll go on a pilgrimage and try to find you that sweet little French girl with the chaperone. Hell, just in case, we can bring Francesca along, who knows, away from Ma, alone on the road with you, things might happen. I could be willing to look the other way for the sake of your soul, if you promised to marry her, I mean. You could do worse than Francesca, my friend. Well, you ARE doing worse... ‘
Frasier, reassured by the familiar cadence of Raimundo’s affectionate - misguided - complaining, allowed the focus of his mind to slip back, to that night a week ago, the night after he’d met Stanislaus. He’d wandered outside the city and then back to his lodgings in a daze, sad and shocked and feeling physically hurt. He’d slept restlessly, not knowing what to do - not knowing what he wanted. And throughout the next day and the next his confusion continued, as experience battled with hope.
On the third day, hope - or desperation - had won, and he slipped away to the seaport that evening to look for Stanislaus, first at the public house; then in the streets; and finally down the long quay to the Stella Maris herself.
Captain Llewellyn, a handsome man older, taller and heavier than Frasier, invited Frasier to the galley for wine, and Frasier, uninterested in liquor, had agreed.
‘I haven’t seen him in the past few days,’ the Welshman said, staring rather rudely at Frasier. ‘So you’re the Frenchman.’ He shook his head, picked up and drained his wineglass. ‘You’ve spooked my sailor, Monsieur. The Stella embarks for the South five days from now and I’d like my first mate on board.’
‘But I haven’t seen him either! I hoped he’d be here.’ Frasier, not drinking, rolled the stem of his glass between his thumb and forefinger. ‘What has he... said about me? How have I spooked him?’
‘Who knows?’ Llewellyn drank again. ‘Stanislaus, he’ll curl your hair with the things he does, climbing the rigging in thunderstorms, lashing down the decks when the waves are at thirty feet, charging headfirst into boarding parties of pirates; but then he’ll get irrational about the strangest things. Afraid of the water! Practically useless in a fire. Can’t bear to watch an execution.
‘He came back here the other day babbling that he’d had another run in with Magistrate Vecchio, who’d brought along his friend the Frenchman, and he said he was done for, finished, the end. He said he needed to visit that painter again - ‘
‘Voltabufalo.’
‘Yes, and to talk to Giacomo Tinta, the carriage maker, but other than that he just said he needed some time to think, which - in his case - isn’t necessarily a good idea.’
Frasier, still fretting, asked: ‘He wouldn’t have... jumped ship?’
‘Oh, no, no, no. Leave the Stella? No, he’ll be back. He loves this old boat. The boy’s a handful, excitable and impulsive, but he belongs to the sea.’
‘And... to you, sir?’ Frasier had to ask, despite Stanislaus’s earlier denials.
Llewellyn was silent. Finally he said: ‘Stanislaus is like a son to me. I know you land-locked people imagine that terrible things go on between men without women, and I won’t deny that sometimes, such things occur. But ships sail into ports, and men have wives there, and if they don’t, you and I both know there are still women to be had. Stanislaus has been uncommonly loyal to me, but that’s his nature, not some sort of lover’s obligation, no matter what kind of talk you’ve heard.’
‘Forgive me, Captain. I’ve simply been... worried. About him. Stanislaus.’ Frasier took a deep breath to stop himself from babbling. ‘When he does come back - if there’s time before the ship sails - will you ask him to find me? It’s very important that we talk.’
The Welshman nodded, and saw Frasier off the ship.
It had begun to rain, but Frasier was too disconsolate at not finding Stanislaus to hurry. He was thoroughly soaked when he turned down the lane to his lodgings, drenched in rain and despair and sinful longing, and he fumbled to find his keys with no sense of hope left. But when his fingers closed around the cold iron, he looked up towards his door to find a tall, slender, blonde-haired figure shivering there.
‘Stanislaus!’
‘Touch me,’ he’d whispered, with a despair that echoed Frasier’s.
And they had embraced desperately. And kissed desperately. But when Frasier had unlocked his door, and brought Stanislaus inside; and when Stanislaus had flung away his clothing and stripped Bene of his; and when Frasier had pulled him onto the bed and embraced his beautiful, shivering body: then the frenzy had slowed, and calmed, and Stanislaus, like an angel still falling, had brushed him with a thousand touches as light as floating feathers, and stroked him with firm sure strokes like wings swooping, and enveloped him in rhythmic heat like the steady beating of wings.
Slowly, inexorably, the intensity of their gentle congress had mounted, until Frasier and Stanislaus, ascending like eagles through a storm towards the heights of heaven, in desperate effort and effortless flight at once, having reached the celestial apex, shattered in bursts of brilliant lightning and echoing rolls of thunder, to fall, as a pair of eagles will, tangled together, whirling in gasping relief, and to settle delicately, as if wisps of down, gently breathed to earth at last.
And even afterwards, Stanislaus had caressed him, and sucked at his skin, and let Bene lay him on his back to gaze at and fondle. And they had slept, and woken in the dawn’s light to find that each had discovered that impossible love, which could not exist, but always had, and always would.
Chicago, 1997
‘Ray! Ray, you have to see this,’ Fraser said, all excited, planting himself, fully dressed, back on their bed. Dief jumped up, too, and nudged his freezing cold nose against Ray’s neck, which in Ray’s opinion would even make a guy lucky enough to be in a coma, where he COULD get some sleep, start up wide awake.
‘Uh?’ Ray Kowalski twisted his head around to peer up at Benton Fraser, blinking pathetically.
‘You look like your turtle,’ Fraser said lovingly, pushing up the hair on Ray’s head.
‘Fraser! It’s Sunday morning. What do I want to do Sunday morning, EVERY Sunday morning, even if it’s Christmas or my birthday, especially when we’ve had the... God! crazy, beautiful, ten-course sex-banquet with a cherry on top AND aperitifs like we had last night?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Grrr!’
‘No, but Ray, listen to this.’ Fraser rattled the Sunday paper because naturally, even though he’d been the only other attendee at the same sex-banquet as Ray, and Ray knew - because he’d made quite sure of it - that Fraser’d been as completely over-stuffed and beyond satiated as Ray had been - even so, naturally, Fraser’d been up at the crack of dawn, running with Dief and picking up the paper!
‘In Italy,’ Fraser began, in his quiet, narrating voice, ‘A graduate student, as part of an art restoration project, completed an X-ray analysis of an obscure late Renaissance church altarpiece panel, and the analysis showed that the original painting - the one the X-ray revealed - is one of the first known images in Western art of a realistically portrayed crucified Christ looked directly at his worshippers. The student’s faculty advisors, all professors of art history, objected that after all, since the image WAS painted over to accord with established iconography, it wasn’t really anything revolutionary. But the student searched through dozens of museum archives until she located a second painting, this one in London, from the same period, and it turned out to be the same image, only done as an Ecce Homo portrait.’
‘A what homo portrait? Eckchay? So they were painting portraits of gay Czech guys back then? Cool!’
‘No, Ray, well, I mean, yes, of course portraits of gay people were painted, but - ' Fraser paused, truly mystified by one of Ray's comments, as he occasionally was. 'Czech gay guys?' he had to ask.
'Czech in pig latin, Echczey. Keep up, Fraser.'
'And I thought you were all tired out. No, this is an Ecce Homo, a portrait of Christ crowned with thorns. It’s Latin for “Behold the man.”'
‘Ohhh. Okay... ? So?’
‘So, the London painting is not only the same concept, the same pose, the same style, and by the same hand as the altarpiece, it uses the same MODEL! She’s proven that the choice of altering the church image had to have been done despite the artist’s intentions, which means that she’s discovered a previously unknown MASTER.’
Ray rubbed his eyes slowly and yawned. ‘Okay. Okay, that’s, uh... very nice, Fraser, and I’m thrilled for graduate art history students everywhere, but... how come I had to hear about it at this unGodly hour of a SUNDAY MORNING when the ONLY thing I wanted to do was SLEEP OFF the FANTASTIC fucking SEX we had LAST NIGHT?!!’
[Continued in next journal entry]