Picasso In The Dustbin, Windmills On The Wall

On Saturday morning Joe calls me to the window. I have been writing e-mail letters home to my children and sister and have just called the Compuserve phone number in Rome. I am counting the scatti as they click by in rapid fire while I am waiting for the “connected” signal to appear on my computer screen.

“Come right now,” says Joe, and I jump up thinking the Mafia bus must be passing at this unlikely hour or that a monster has risen straight out of the Arno.

As I approach the living room window, Joe says, “A woman just dropped a painting in the dumpster out there, a big framed painting, and then she jumped in her car and drove away.”

“And?”

“Well, I know you don’t like the decorations in this apartment very much…”

“And?”

“I thought you might want to go down and look.”

“You want me to go hunting in the garbage? I thought you don’t approve of me doing that sort of thing.”

“Well, I thought you might want to see what she put in there.”

“What if someone sees me?”

I don’t even want my husband watching. I still remember, all-too-clearly, the magazines-in-the-trash episode and how Joe responded to it. I prefer to be alone when I pick up discards. Still, I get my key and tell him I’ll be right back. The tiny elevator carries me down. On the first floor landing I smell the aroma of vegetable soup coming from Signora Carezza’s apartment.

The garbage dumpster is just across the road from our outer gate; at least I should have remembered to take down our own kitchen trash. Even when I tie it up in a plastic bag and leave it directly in front of the door, I tend to forget to take it down when I go out.

The dumpster (which is what Cornelia calls a “dustbin”) is a large blue metal container on wheels; it has the distinct advantage of being able to be opened by a foot pedal. I put my weight on the pedal and the lid flies up. I peer over the edge. Sure enough, there’s a large framed painting inside, sitting on top of the bags of trash. I haul it out. It’s heavy, I have to use two hands (and still keep my foot on the pedal). For a moment I fear my keys will slip out of my right hand and fall to the bottom of the garbage heap.

But I manage to hang onto my keys and keep my grip on the painting, too. It’s a Picasso, of course. If you’re going to find a painting in the trash it might as well be a Picasso. This one is a charcoal drawing of Don Quixote (with his sword and shield) and Sancho Panza, both slumped on their nags, on their way down the hill to where the windmills sit. It’s a portrait of two adventuresome souls, like Joe and me these days. And, like us, they go on, exploring the world, looking a little dopey, a little bedraggled. Providence must have sent me this picture.

I hoist the painting in my arms and glance up toward our apartment. Joe is out on our kitchen terrace watching me. Why doesn’t he come down and carry this!

Now I begin to worry about why it was left here. Why would anyone throw away a beautifully framed-behind-glass print? Unless, maybe it isn’t a print. Maybe it’s a stolen original. Maybe this is a drop-off point for hot merchandise and in one minute the pickup guy will be coming along to get it. He’ll find me here with it, stealing it, and he’ll mow me down with a machine-gun! No wonder Joe sent me down and stayed safely upstairs. No wonder he’s watching from up there, in case he has to wave his final good-bye to me.

I had better make my getaway while I can. If I’m murdered, Joe will never find our plane tickets in the cereal box and will never get home to our daughters. He won’t have any money left, either, since whatever traveler’s checks remain require my signature.

Does he think it’s so easy for me to carry this thing first through the gate, then through the door, and then try to fit it into the elevator? I can’t get over the fact that I’m holding three famous men in my arms, Don Quixote, Sancho Panza, and Picasso.

When I get upstairs, I set the Picasso on the couch. It seems to be in perfect condition, the paper backing is untorn, unmarked. The frame is metallic silver, modern and elegant. I worry a little that Joe will make me go down and put it back for some reason, but he’s already checking out the window for further suspicious activity—and sure enough! He calls me over to see—a white van has just pulled up behind the dumpster, a man gets out, looks around, then lights a cigarette and stands leaning against the side of his vehicle.

We confer about the meaning of this, considering the timing. Is the man waiting for the drop-off of stolen goods? Why doesn’t he look in the dumpster if that was the pre-arranged plan? After twenty minutes of standing there, I get tired of watching. The van looks like some kind of repair truck. The driver just seems to be taking a break.

I try to think of another reason a woman would throw out a Picasso. She was tired of it? She hates it because it was a gift from Picasso, her lover?

“Was she an old woman?” I ask Joe.

He says he couldn’t really see.

Maybe she found out from certain recent biographies of the artist that he was unfaithful to her (an easy guess) so she wants it out of her house; she never wants to look at it again. If that’s the case, then it’s an original, and is worth millions! Should I even share this windfall with my husband, who did none of the work of retrieving the treasure? On the other hand, it was he who gave me the hot tip.

The man downstairs finishes his last smoke, gets in his truck and drives away, leaving us, as usual, without an answer.

I hang the artwork on the wall opposite our bed and spend a good deal of time studying the two travelers. In the white space of blank paper, with just a few evocative strokes of his charcoal pencil, Picasso has captured the entire story of travel: excitement, anticipation, challenge, weariness, confusion, exhaustion. Even thus challenged, his duo of travelers go forth undaunted, persevering, tilting at windmills. It’s a lesson for Joe and for me as—daily—we apply ourselves as best we can to unraveling the mysteries of Italy.