PERUGIA REALIZES THAT EVERYTHING WILL have to be resolved in the next fifteen minutes and tries not to think about how those fifteen minutes could change his life.
Clutching his broom, he walks toward the arcade that gives out onto the Salon Carré. Just before he leans out he hears voices coming from below. He tries to keep calm and finds a place from where he can see what’s happening without being seen.
“This is the most valuable painting we have in the museum, the one all our patrons want to see. It is said to be worth millions, if it were ever to be sold, which of course will never happen,” intones an old man whom Perugia knows—Georges Picquet, the head of staff for the museum. He is accompanied by eight or ten museum employees wearing new smocks.
“Needless to say, I expect this part of the museum to be kept extra clean,” Picquet instructs the recruits. Perugia cannot believe his bad luck. Once again the star has evaded him. He begins sweeping again and looks over at the brothers, across the Duchâtel Gallery, dusting frames with their cloths. Thanks to the sweat on his hands, his broom is on the verge of slipping from his grip. He listens to the voices below. If they are not gone within ten minutes, he will have to admit defeat. Please God, he thinks, make them go somewhere else!
“…of the museum. I also want to show you this area over here, where…”
He hears footsteps. The procession moves toward the Apollo Gallery. The white smocks drift out and the Salon Carré is empty. This is it, he says to himself, and, not really believing it, has to repeat it: This is it!
He finishes sweeping some tiles, telling himself not to rush. He thinks about the star, his grandmother, and, finally, about the fact that he cannot wait a moment longer. He looks over at the Lancelottis and makes a sign to them to follow him.
He cannot believe that she is up there, alone, hanging on the wall, just that easy, helpless—like a woman who no longer knows what to ask for in exchange for herself, who knows she can’t ask for anything. Perugia can’t believe that it’s this simple, that all he has to do is to reach up and take her down from the wall for the blessed Mona Lisa to be in his hands, but there is no one in the Salon Carré, Vincenzo Lancelotti is beside him, Michele is in the gallery keeping watch, and she is hanging right there, ripe for picking. For the first time in all those hours, Perugia smiles: whores, all of them whores, he thinks, and a wave of heat rolls up his face, reddening it. For the last time, he looks to either side. Then the yellow badge comes into his head and he is furious that he had to think of it just then. He again brushes his left testicle lightly, for luck. Then, slowly, as if he still cannot believe it, his hands reach up.