Montesereno. Benjamin W. Farley
asked to assist, even to act as a consultant on private sexual anomalies. With a wave of angst in the pit of his stomach, he realized how inadequate his background for counseling of any sort. Still, as he mulled the matter, his task didn’t require him to “fix” anyone’s problem, only to listen. No one can fix another person’s problem, he assured himself. They have to do that on their own. Yet, he wanted to help.
Opening his laptop, he leaned back in the couch and stared down at its screen. He clicked on the document From Wittenberg to Weimar, but his mind rebelled against anything metaphysical. Stephanie’s image cried for his attention, along with Tunstan’s dilemma. Moreover, fall’s seasonal colors and azure skies begged for priority. Why not pick out a book and sit in the Garden and ruminate? Winds would soon scatter the Villa’s red and golden leaves, whirling them into rusty piles for Jon Paul, or Hettie’s husband, to mow under or rake away. He closed his computer, picked up a book, and slipped out the door.
As he entered the Garden, he caught sight of Stephanie, gathering apples in the orchard. A quality of enthusiasm emanated about her, an excitement in engaging in so simple an activity. She was dragging a large burlap sack and filling it with the choicest fruit she could find. Occasionally, she’d pick up an apple, turn it in her fingers, laugh and hurl it at a tree trunk. The rotten missile would disintegrate in a loud splatter. He laid his book down and walked in her direction.
“May I join you?” he called, as he slid on a slick core.
“Oh! You scared me!” she laughed with a startle. “Yes!” Suddenly she bent down, scooped up a mushy apple, and lobbed it in a playful arc toward him.
He dodged the slop as it splattered near his feet. He bent down and picked up an apple of his own.
Stephanie shrieked and ran toward the closest tree. Darby hurled it so as to miss her but, nonetheless, create a gushy splash. “Oh, gross!” she groaned as flecks of peeling struck her shoes.
For the next few minutes, the two lobbed a dozen or more overripe apples at each other. “Truce! Truce!” Darby finally called. “You win! Here, what are you doing with all these anyway? They’ll rot before you get them home.”
The word “home” suddenly brought a cessation to her smile. Her ebullient countenance fell. She stopped, looked down at her sack, and peered inside. “I’ve bruised them!” she muttered. “They’re just a brown mess! Look!” she exclaimed, as she turned the sack upside down and dumped its contents on the ground. Her faced turned sad and eyes glistened in the bright air.
“I’m sorry. Come, look, there are plenty of apples in the trees. They’ll last a lot longer. What you say?”
“Ok!” she replied. “Actually, Jon Paul sent me out. He said he’d make us a pie for supper, if I’d pick enough. But these are a pretty sorry lot.”
“Well! Don’t worry. Let’s get the firmest and most luscious we can.”
Her faced filled with smiles. Soon, the two filled the sack with a bulging load of firm red apples.
* * *
Lunch at the Villa was never more than a tray of sandwiches, chips, fruit, tea, soda, or water. Garnett had mandated the policy since assuming management of the Inn. Linda arranged the mid-day repast in buffet style in the dining room, and guests were free to serve themselves between noon and one o’clock. Darby carried his sandwich of tuna fish, pickle, and chips to the cottage and ate in the privacy of its nook, alone.
Afterwards, he turned anew to his “Weimar book,” but, once again, the pleasant October air and warm sunny skies lured him outside. For a long while, he walked about the grounds and up its exquisite driveway. Pausing, he stared back at the grand palazzo before returning to the Garden to meditate and read.
Someone had beaten him, however, to his favorite bench. Tunstan! The man looked up from a large book he held in his lap and motioned for Darby to come over. “I want you to see this!” he stated. “I want you to see what I mean, first hand.”
Darby peered down at a painting of the Mona Lisa. As he stared at the famous work, Tunstan ran a large magnifying glass slowly across the painting’s face. “Note the symmetry and geometrical lines, the way Da Vinci employs proportion and shadows. He’s famous for that. You can’t see the brush strokes or true pigments in this photo, but Da Vinci’s style is recognizable anywhere. Fakes can’t quite capture the haunting quality the master packed in his work. What counterfeiters do is create sketches they try to pass off as authentic drafts. Right now they’re the bane of the market. And who wouldn’t want an original sketch with all its delicate and intricate lines? He was an engineer, remember? A master designer of bridges and war machines. They were in huge demand in his day. But if you’ve ever seen the originals, then you recognize a fake the moment you see it. What’s so aggravating, however, is that today’s counterfeiters can create the spidery cracks and multiple coats of varnish so common to masterworks. But what they fail to capture is the authentic dress and hairstyles of an era, or the right length of a nose, or brow, or a smudge that plagued the original. But, damn if they don’t come close.
“Now take a look at these Impressionist pieces of Van Gogh and Renoir,” he continued as he turned several pages. “They’re unique, and you can generally detect a copy in an instant. Nonetheless, they’re out there and hanging in a lot of galleries, too. You just don’t know about them until they show up at an auction.”
“I fear I’d be duped in a second,” Darby confessed. “Of all the courses I neglected in college, art appreciation leads the list.”
“Don’t they, for most!”
“As a young man my wife and I saw our share of great paintings in galleries all across France, Spain, and Italy. I can still see the Mona Lisa, Rembrandt’s Bathsheba, and Goya’s May 3 Firing Squad. For that matter El Greco’s Annunciation also, along with Raphael’s The Transfiguration, and Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. I especially enjoyed the battle paintings that hang in one of the galleries at Versailles, along with Jean-Louise’s Napoleon’s Coronation. What a colossal scene!”
“And color!” Tunstan added. “Speaking of which, I can never behold autumn leaves without thinking of the Austro-Italo-French War. At the Battle of Solferino, the multi-sided forces lost a total of 38,000 maimed and dead. Think of it! The battlefield glowed with blood as evening fell across the carnage. Armies of 242,000 troops had fired volley after volley into each other. That was on June 24, 1859. The Minnie ball had just come into vogue. My God, if the South had had an observer present, would there have been a Civil War? The color solferino was coined that day. See those trees. Those tall ones with the purplish, blood-red hue?”
“Sweet gums. They’re called ‘Sweet gums.’”
“That’s the hue artists call solferino. Imagine! A field scintillating in purplish-dark red! Several painters tried to capture it. You might have seen the more famous of the paintings at Versailles. Aldophe Yvon painted it. You probably wandered right past it without realizing the savagery that Yvon’s work masks. Forgive me, but all these sweet gums ooze of that sorrow.”
Darby looked up at the rich, purplish red leaves. Soon they would be gone. “Solferino,” he whispered. “I think I’ll take a walk. See you at dinner.”
Once past the Garden, Darby sauntered around to the front of the Villa, entered, and sought out Garnett’s study. As he jiggled the key in the lock, he glanced quietly over his shoulder. He didn’t want to be observed. Surely Garnett’s office housed enough books to cast light on Celeste’s behavior. He opened the door, entered the room, and locked it silently behind him.
He switched on the light and began browsing through the shelves. Books on schizophrenia, psychotherapy, the borderline patient, and other disorders lined Garnett’s many bookcases. Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind caught his eye, along with a host of pop-therapy books. A brown accordion folder tied with a shiny shoelace lay wedged between several volumes on sexual disorders. He slipped the folder out and unwound the lace. He peered in. It contained sheets of printed studies on “Compulsive Sexual Behavior,” all