THE CHIGI DRAWINGS WERE recorded by the earliest collector of information regarding Florentine art—the so-called Anonimo Gaddiano. Executed in the later part of 1496, for Botticelli’s patron Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, cousin of the great Lorenzo. He had also commissioned both the Primavera and the Birth of Venus.
All thirteen drawings, which measure 12½ by 18½ inches, were published together only once in what must be one of the most unwieldy …
It was going on four in the morning in the small study off the living room of 5 East Eighty-fifth Street, but Manship was wide awake, his eyes hungrily reviewing a newly printed fresh-off-the press catalog. A pot of coffee simmered on a small electric burner by his side. He read text and illustration captions over and over again. Forming words with his lips as if to certify the accuracy of their intent.
That was the sight that confronted Maeve when she came down the stairway the following morning. Attired in a pair of Manship’s pajamas and knotting the belt of his velour robe, she was on her way to the kitchen, where Mrs. McCooch was already up and puttering about. She happened to glance across toward the study and came to a dead halt.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Reading.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“I’m on my way this instant,” Manship replied without looking up. “Just going up for a shower.”
She gazed after him as he shot past her, taking the steps two at a time, then disappearing into his bedroom at the top of the stair.
When he clattered back down twenty minutes later, he was shaved, dressed in a business suit, and knotting his tie. Maeve came out from the kitchen, munching a slice of toast. “Well, don’t we look spiffy.” He whizzed past, stirring a faint breeze in his wake. “Hey,” she called after him. “Dinner tonight?”
“Sure. But here. I can’t go out. I’m too busy.”
“Fine, I’ll cook,” she said, her voice fading as the front door slammed. “Anyway, I’ll try to,” she added somewhat ruefully.
A dozen pale yellow call-back slips were stacked up on his desk when he entered his office that morning. Emily Taverner had marked “urgent” in red pencil under a message from Frettobaldi, suggesting that once again the Leonardo of lighting was unhappy with some aspect of the museum’s design. It seemed that it threatened to smother his obviously inexhaustible genius.
Critics from a half dozen periodicals, including Time, Newsweek, ARTnews and New York magazine, had all requested permission to preview the show. Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times had requested an interview and asked that Manship call back.
Atop the stack and appearing somewhat more ominous than the others was a cryptic message from Van Nuys, asking him to stop by later in the afternoon. Van Nuys seldom, if ever, called. It was more his style to walk in unannounced, feigning a breezy manner, then drop some bombshell on his desk. Manship felt a spasm clench his bowel.
With barely a cursory glance at his mail, he instructed Taverner that he would take no calls and see no visitors until further notice. When she started to protest, he clicked the phone down on what he sensed to be a slowly simmering panic rapidly coming to a boil. He knew where things were heading. The problems were real, but he would have to deal with them in the only way he could, and that was one at a time.
With that, he turned off his phone, then slipped into the deeply padded swivel chair behind his desk.
It was going on 5:00 P.M. when he reemerged from his office. He’d worked straight through without a lunch break. Stepping out into the outer office, he found Taverner, already moving toward him, clipboard in hand, an expression on her face somewhere between hysteria and relief.
“Are you all right?” she asked, as if he were a diver who’d just come up from a long submersion.
“Barely,” he said grimly, then flashed a wry smile. “What did you think I did in there, slash my wrists?”
“The thought did cross my mind.”
“I take it we’re nearing Armageddon.”
“Nearing, and on a direct collision course.” She waved a slip of paper at him.
“If that’s from Mr. Van Nuys …”
“He’s called three times.”
That got Manship’s attention. Already his mind had played out a half a dozen unpleasant scenarios. Turning sharply on his heels, he strode back into his office and put the call through.
Mr. Van Nuys was in conference, his administrative assistant informed him. He’d call back the moment he was free.
Manship’s fingers drummed his desktop for several moments, then, for reasons not entirely clear, he began rummaging through his drawer for his address book. He scarcely knew what he was doing until he’d dialed the long distance operator and gave her Isobel Cattaneo’s number in Fiesole, where it would be going on 11:00 P.M. Late to call, but not outrageously for Italy.
Sitting there listening to a succession of bell tones and a burst of rapid-fire Italian captured momentarily in crossed wires, Manship felt a surge of free-floating anxiety.
The phone was ringing on the other end. He thought of hanging up before she could answer. Three rings, four, then a fifth. He was certain she wasn’t home. Almost relieved, he let it ring several times more, berating himself for calling. He was about to hang up.
“Pronto.” The voice came low, drowsy, a bit annoyed.
“Miss Cattaneo …” He could hear the quaver in his voice. “Mark Manship in New York. I know it’s late. I hope I haven’t …”
Her response lagged, so that he wondered if he had awakened her, or, more dismally, if she simply didn’t recall anyone by that name.
“You know, the Metropolitan Museum fellow.” He laughed uneasily.
“Yes. Yes, of course. That Botticelli thing.”
He was certain he’d detected a note of irritation.
They exchanged a few awkward pleasantries.
“Did you ever find your missing drawings?” she asked.
“The Chigi sketches? No, I’m afraid not. I did see your friend in Rome.”
“Yes, I know; He was here last week. He told me he’d seen you. He said he’d given you someone to look up.”
“That’s right. He did. Some sort of a gallery in Parioli.”
“The Quattrocento. I know it. And did you contact them?”
“Yes—well, not exactly. I went there. But the place was closed. They were off on vacation.”
“Yes,” she said almost apologetically. “Everyone in Italy is at that time. I’d completely forgotten.”
Their conversation sputtered on as if they’d ran out of things to say.
“I have no special reason for calling,” he said, certain she was waiting for him to renew his pleas that she appear in New York as some sort of featured event at his opening. He was determined to make no such plea. “I just wanted to say hello,” he went on, realizing at the same time that 11:00 P.M. was a strange time to call just to say hello.
“I see,” she said with a cool brevity, and let it hang there like that.
There was another longish silence. He could sense her irritation. She hadn’t the foggiest notion what he was driving at. For that matter, neither did he.
“I was just checking … I mean, rather, I had a funny intuition.” It was all coming out wrong, but he couldn’t stop himself now. “I just wanted to check and see that you were okay.”
“I can assure you I am.”
“You are?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? What exactly were you worried about?”
He realized he couldn’t tell her what he was worried about. “Nothing in particular,” he said. “As I say, I just wanted to say hello.”
“That was nice of you. And, as I say, I’m fine. Just fine. Thank you very much.”
He laughed nervously. “Yes, I can hear you are. Well, I’ll say good night then.”
He found himself hoping she might prolong the conversation, and providentially, she did.
“I still have your plane tickets to New York,” she said. “Do you want me to send them back?”
“No, Not at all. You keep them.” His generosity sounded a bit too eager. It smacked of the bribe. “You may change your mind someday. Oh … I don’t mean about coming for the show,” he hastened to add. “You might just want to visit.”
“Yes,” she said, and let it drop at that.
“If you do come … for whatever reason, I hope you’ll call.”
There was another of those lengthy pauses.
“Well, then. I guess I’ll say good night,” he said again and feared he’d come off sounding pathetic.
“Thank you for your concern,” she said, and rang off with an abrupt, almost rude click.
He sat there for several seconds longer, the phone receiver still pressed to his ear. Outside the big skylight window of his office, the dusk had begun to gather, and as it fell softly over the park, he felt dejection overtake him. Brooding on his disastrous attempt at a friendly call to Isobel Cattaneo, he felt what a jackass he’d made of himself, then wondered why he even cared.
He was jarred from these gloomy thoughts by the phone ringing on his desk. It was Helen Mirkin, Van Nuys’s assistant, calling to tell him that the great man was free.
Climbing the short flight of stairs to Van Nuys’s suite, Manship felt as though he were mounting the gallows.