Текст книги "Memory of Bones"

Автор книги: Alex Connor

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

74

London

Later that night, while Abigail dozed on the sofa in the study, Ben sat down and looked at the skull, now sitting on his desk. Goya’s skull – for which three men had died and another had been tortured. Goya’s skull – which had been stolen from a corpse and temporarily housed on the shoulders of a great ape.

Thoughtful, Ben kept staring at it. From the day Leon had been given the skull to the poisoning of Emile Dwappa, everything had been permeated with a kind of sickness, a madness of greed. The madness of the art world, who sought to possess the skull at any lengths. The insanity of Leon, driven to the end by his own obsession. And the madness of the Black Paintings themselves. In awe, Ben touched the cool, dead bone of the skull and felt the holes under his fingers, and then he reached into the middle drawer of the desk and pulled out the battered envelope in which were Leon’s writings. All his jottings, his scribbled notes, his sketches, and his conclusion. The final and definitive meaning of the Black Paintings.

With the curtains drawn and the lamps turned on, Abi slept on while Ben hesitated, his right hand resting on the papers, preparing himself to read the last entries his brother had made. Now, finally, he was going to understand what had obsessed Leon for so long. The theory for which he had lived and died. The culmination of his brother’s life.

It was almost too much to bear. But he began to read.

… Coming to the painting later entitled The Reading. The meaning of this has been disputed for many years.

What are this disparate group of men reading? They represent communication. A testimony. Goya’s testimony. He is saying ‘Look on my works, read them as you would a book. Study what I have painted on these walls and find the message within.’ In the image there are three men fixed on reading a book, on the left is a skeleton, and behind them all is a man looking upwards to Heaven. ‘Read what I have written, not in ink but in paint,’ Goya is saying. ‘See death and look to Heaven – as I do – for deliverance.’ I believe he was also looking to Heaven to bear witness to what he was suffering, And, if possible, to intervene.

Read what I am telling you. See it.

And now is the time to consider The Cudgel Fight.

For how long have people studied this image without understanding it? But I humbly believe that it represents the most atavistic clash of wills – that of good and evil. A competition, each man fighting for the upper hand, both knee-deep in the mire. For Goya, it represented Spain and France. Light and dark. Life and death. Goya’s health against the onslaught of his illness. But most of all I believe that it represents the cause he believed in – the Liberals against the Spanish King. The very reason why Goya, ill and old, was so afraid, hiding within the suffocating walls of the Quinta del Sordo.

We then come to the penultimate image – The Fates. The Daughters of the Night.

These are the three women of allegory who depict the goddesses who determine the fate of man. One spins the thread of life, one determines its length and one severs it. With them is a bound man, whose fate they are determining. But do these creatures really represent the old fable of The Daughters of the Night? Perhaps, instead, Goya was updating his version and making it peculiar to him.

The three women I believe depict the three women of the greatest importance in Goya’s life: his wife Josefa, a gentle soul who spins the thread of life for him by giving him children and hope for a future; the Duchess of Alba, who Goya loved and who controlled him more than any other woman, determining his thread of his life – the thread that bound the painter to her; and lastly, Leocardia.

Ben leaned back in his seat, trying to assimilate what he had just read. Then, after a moment, he continued.

Goya wasn’t insane, but he was willing to be believed mad. Why? Because that was his protection. Hiding behind old age, infirmity and deafness – how much less of a threat would the great man seem? But madness wasn’t protection enough.

When I examined Goya’s skull I saw the small holes in the bone: three of them, of differing sizes. Then I spoke to several specialists who confirmed what I suspected. But I’m hurrying on too fast. I must go back … The last picture of the series, entitled The Witchy Brew, depicts an old woman eating, with a skull-headed figure next to her. This was the final painting Goya did in the Black Painting series. It is the conclusion – and it tells us what happened to him.

‘Christ!’ Ben said softly.

He had been poisoned for a long time, poisoned with lead, the doses of which were increased steadily.

Lead poisoning was common in painters when lead was in the pigments they used – like Flake White, which Goya must have ingested steadily over the years. But suddenly he appeared to have taken in large amounts. When I first obtained the skull I had many tests undertaken. The results were inconclusive because of the age and condition of the skull, but it was agreed that the holes suggested the very real possibility of lead poisoning.

Look at the three holes – these are typical of a longterm ingestion of lead.

Look at the symptoms – sleep disorders, seizures, raised blood pressure, hallucinations, impotence and hearing problems.

Goya was deaf. Sleep disorders were a trouble to him. And hallucinations would explain much of his work. But the fact that the skull has holes in it points to a sudden and drastic intake of the toxin. Not the gradual assimilation which a painter of Goya’s time might ingest, but a comprehensive attempt at poisoning.

Of course lead has a half-life of only 20–30 years, so there is no scientific proof which remains in the bone of the skull for scientists to measure. And permission would have to be sought from the Spanish authorities for further tests to be carried out on Goya’s body. But the symptoms from which he suffered indicatethat Goya had been slowly and summarily poisoned.

The greatest painter Spain had ever produced was being murdered. And he knew it.

‘Jesus!’ Ben whispered, glancing over at the sleeping Abi.

She was breathing evenly, her hands resting on the blanket which covered her.

Ben thought about what he had just read. Francisco Goya had been poisoned. Someone had set out to kill one of the most famous artists who had ever lived. He could imagine the furore Leon’s theory would cause when it was published, the consternation which would follow the final, diabolical solution of the Black Paintings.

Breathing in deeply, Ben turned back to his brother’s writings.

But then we have to ask, who poisoned Goya? And why?

Goya was a patriot who loved his country, but he was also reckless. I believe that this great artist exiled himself at the Quinta del Sordo when the degenerate Ferdinand VII return to the throne. The King who hated Liberals – of which Goya was one. The King who suspected that Goya had colluded with the French when Napoleon was in power. The King who had tortured and exiled Goya’s friends and peers. Ferdinand – who suspected Goya of funding the Liberals in their attempt to form an alternative Government. Ferdinand, the King who lost the throne, and thenregained it. And with it, absolute and revengeful power.

Knowing he was under threat, Goya had been in terror of his life.

He wrote his fear in words:

For being a liberal, it’s better to die.

He was no longer young, no longer strong, and he was at the mercy of a tyrant bent on revenge.

Ferdinand VII knew that he could not go directly after Goya. The painter was too famous to kill outright. So the artist was killed drip by drip, poisoned steadily. I imagine that the court, with the help of the Inquisition, set Leocardia to kill the old man. They probably pressurised her into the act, using her child as leverage. She had no choice – murder her lover or sacrifice her daughter. So she set about her task, appearing to look after Goya while she was, in fact, slowly poisoning him. Leocardia was his killer-in-waiting.

Look back at the picture of The Fates – the Daughters of the Night. I believe that Leocardia was the goddess who was hired to cut Goya’s tie to the world. To sever his lifeline.

If you doubt this theory, more evidence is in Goya’s will. After all her years of apparent devotion, Leocardia was left nothing. That would suggest that Goya suspected her, and I believe he did. I also believe that for a time he was too ill and too old to fight for his survival. And so, in an act of creative genius, the dying Goya left the evidence on the walls of the Quinta del Sordo.

He could not write down the names of his persecutors, or their methods – such evidence would have been destroyed immediately. But under the cloak of madness, Goya could leave a trail of oblique images to tell his story.

Look to the paintings – The Witchy Brew, the last work. The feeding of the poison, the figure of death on the left. Goya spells it out for us. It cries out from the wall. It is there for anyone to see. This was no madman, driven by hallucinations and misogyny. This was a man who was dying, knowing that he was being killed. This is not the work of insanity. This was the only way open for Goya to record what was being done to him.

Perhaps he thought he would never leave the Quinta del Sordo and used its walls to depict the images of his tormenters, the poison in the glass, the murderess leaning on his tomb. With the face of Leocardia. How inspired – as his body was slowly poisoned – to leave the truth among the camouflage of insanity! To hide reality among complete and anarchic madness.

Yes, the Black Paintings are dark. They were painted out of darkness, under the threat of death. No works in history were created out of such terror.

I know people will doubt this theory. Of course. I know they will insist that Goya was ill or mad. That there is not – nor was there ever – any cohesive meaning to these images. But I ask you to do him the honour of thinking again. If there is any doubt I beg you to look at the figure of Saturn, the largest and most famous picture in the series of the Black Paintings. The most urgent, most disturbing and most direct. In fact, the very painting which faced anyone entering the Quinta del Sordo. The painting which Goya used to depict his own murder. Saturn.

For the word SATURNISM means lead poisoning …

‘Dear God!’ Ben said, staring at the picture then turning back to his brother’s words.

Despite everything Goya was a resilient man, mentally and physically. He realised what was happening, and although frail, fought to live. The Quinta del Sordo was not to become his tomb. Rallying what strength remained, Goya applied to visit France for the good of his health.

He wrote:

Six years ago my health broke down completely.

My hearing in particular has suffered and I have grown so deaf that without sign language I cannot understand what people are saying …

The King could not refuse. Goya had outsmarted his persecutors. And so, people believed, it was for the good of Goya’s health that he left the Quinta del Sordo for Bordeaux. Whereas in reality, he had tricked them into granting his escape.

In France he recovered. Lived a few years more and never returned to the theme of the Black Paintings. Why would he? Goya had left his testimony on the walls of his old home: the history and destruction of Spain, the tyrant Dog of Spain and Saturn, the poison which was meant to kill him …

No one in the history of art has ever recorded their own murder. In this, as in so much, Francisco Goya was extraordinary: as courageous as the bulls he had painted so often; as resilient as the Spanish people, as hard and formidable as the dry earth of Madrid. This is his story, and by this should history judge him.

Taking in a deep breath, Ben leaned back in his seat, glancing over at Abigail again. She was still sleeping, a little nervous colour in her cheeks, her wound hidden under a clean bandage. Her beauty, all the more toxic for its imperfection, pinched at his heart.

And then, slowly and reluctantly, he turned back to the last entries Leon had made.

In recording Goya’s death I realise that I am recording my own. There could only be one outcome.

And then a little scrawled after-note.

Ben, See to it that this is read.

See Goya is vindicated.

I am done.

You were the best of brothers.

Leon

I am done … I am done …

And then Ben knew. He might have denied it repeatedly, insisted that it wasn’t true, but in the end he had to accept that Leon had killed himself. And then he knew what had happened in that hotel bathroom in Madrid. Knew that all the running, all the fear, the struggle to handle his instability had come to a close. Twice before, Leon had tried to flee a life that was too much for him. Twice before, Ben had saved him.

That night, alone and afraid, Leon Golding had tried for the third time. And succeeded.

75

One year later, Madrid

For the previous month Ben had undertaken numerous press and television interviews, talking about Leon Golding’s sensational theory about the Black Paintings. The book had caught the popular imagination and Goya had become a hero again, a would-be murder victim who had cheated his fate. And the dead author had become a celebrity.

Luckily for Leon he had a brother to speak for him, something Ben did willingly. He praised Leon’s intellect, his skill, his perception. He remembered him with pride and refused to answer when asked questions about his death. And every critic who had ever belittled Leon Golding’s work, or sneered at his eccentricities, felt themselves dimmed by the brilliance of his renown. In death, Leon triumphed. He was no longer uneasy, threatened or afraid. His words had no tremor or uncertainty about them. What he left behind was greater than the struggle of his life. And what the world would remember was that Leon Golding had scored an indelible mark on the history of art.

It was no more than he deserved.

Tired after a press conference at the Prado, Ben walked to his car. The heat of Spain was building. It was hot in the days and at night the air was liquid with moisture. The kind of heat which made a person sweat and leave their windows yawning wide. Arriving at the cemetery, Ben hoped that the massive iron gates would be open and was pleased to see that they were pinned back, almost as though they expected him, even so late at night. Slowly he drove down the main driveway and then parked, taking the box off the passenger seat and moving through the rows of graves. He knew where he was going and without effort he found the headstone.

Staring down at it, Ben could see the name Detita written in script, her dates obliterated by the night shadow of an overhanging tree. He thought she would resent being cheated of the sun. Memory, clear as a noon bell, came back to him – of her words, her beliefs. The way she educated the two Jewish brothers in daytime and, at night, taught them about the dark. But not alone. With her accomplice – the ghost of a long-dead man who had once lived near their land. Their neighbour on Spanish soil. The spirit who still haunted them all.

Goya painted murder because he knew all about it. He was obsessed by struggle and the power of evil …

Leaving Detita’s grave, Ben walked between the headstones till he arrived at the recent burial ground of his brother. The earth had not completely levelled out, the rounded mound catching the moonlight. Gently he rested his hand on the headstone, feeling for an instant the warmth of his brother’s flesh as an owl, high in some night tree, hooted sullenly, the moon riding the corner of a passing cloud.

‘I love you,’ Ben said simply, reaching for the spade he had brought with him.

Under the moonlight he dug, under the moonlight and silence. Deep down into the earth Ben scratched until he reached Leon’s coffin. Then he picked up the small square box which held Goya’s skull. Gently he placed it on top of his dead brother’s coffin, then scrambled out of the grave and began to refill it, the soil echoing as it hit the coffin. Slowly Ben watched the box which contained Francisco Goya’s skull disappear under the press of dry earth. Within minutes, there was no trace of the coffin or the skull. And finally, when all the earth was replaced, he stood back and stared at the grave.

He could not have returned the skull to Goya’s body. Not without political and bureaucratic wrangling. Not without the risk of its being stolen again. So instead, after much deliberation, he had buried it with the man who was its rightful guardian. It seemed a fitting tribute to his dead brother.

‘Rest in peace, Leon,’ he said finally. ‘Rest in peace.’

As he walked away, a hoarse wind blew some loose soil over the ground and within seconds there was nothing to indicate that the grave had ever been touched.

Heading for the airport, Ben was surprised to find himself taking a detour, turning off on to another road, one which he knew well. The night was very warm, full of insects, traffic and noise, and over the dark water of the Manzanares River steam sprites lingered among reeds and crept under the arc of the bridge. In the distance the lights of Madrid flickered lazily, the sky deepening into purple at the edge of the horizon.

Driving slowly, Ben came back to the worn farmhouse where he had spent so much of his childhood. The place was deserted, silent, a grinning moon riding over the rooftop, the weathervane dancing eerily in a manic breeze. Getting out of the car, Ben moved into the garden, then turned and glanced up at the window of the bedroom he had once shared with his brother. Memories came to him as he walked around the house, the windows looking out at him blankly, all life gone. But as Ben got back into his car he felt some premonition and, startled, looked up in time to see a shape crossing the upper window – the shape of a young man watching him. It moved towards the glass and looked out, resting its hands on the sill.

Calling out for his brother, Ben left the car and ran back to the house – but the ghost had gone. Leon Golding had walked back into the rooms he had loved, back to the library he had studied in, back to the empty corridors and silent walls.

When he drove away Ben kept his eyes fixed on the road. And never looked back.

POSTSCRIPT

Sixteen years after Leon Golding died there was an incident at the cemetery outside Madrid. Vandals had defaced monuments and broken headstones. When Ben was called over to visit Leon’s desecrated grave he found the stone smashed and a pentangle scratched into the tablet. Incensed, he asked that his brother’s body be removed. He would see to its reburial himself, in an unknown place.

When the earth was removed from over the grave Leon’s coffin was found in perfect order – but the box which had been placed on top had disappeared.

The tomb of Francisco Goya, in San Antoine da Florida, Madrid, contains two corpses: those of his mistress, Leocadia, and himself.

Originally Goya was buried in France, but when his body was moved back to Spain in 1899 – seventy years after his death – the head was missing.

Rumour has it that the skull was stolen by a Bordeaux phrenologist, who had wanted to study the skull of a genius. Rumour also intimates that Goya not only painted – but could have been involved – with Satanism.

As an old man he created the Black Paintings, the enigma of which has never been fully explained. Until, perhaps, now.

The head of Francisco Goya has never been found.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GOYA – Robert Hughes – (Vintage)

GOYA – Enriqueta Harris – (Phaidon)

THE BLACK PAINTINGS OF GOYA – Juan Jose Junquera – (Scala)

Healthcave.com

Soylent Communications

Spanish Tourist Board

Prado Museum

Dundee University – Reconstructive Department

Copies of the Black Paintings by the author, Alex Connor.

Official works are in the Prado Museum and Art Gallery, Madrid.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Research has been extensive and I would like to thank everyone for their support. The curators of The Prado, Madrid, and The Louvre, Paris, have given generous assistance. Dr G. Altman has advised on facial/maxillary surgery, and Dr C. Wilkinson on facial reconstruction.

Thanks to you all.