The Fresco Restorers – Part 1: Scaffold

"We cannot paint him a face," said Lorenzo.

"We can suggest one."

"We cannot invent one."

Eight metres above the marble floor, in the half-light of a Florentine palazzo hall, two restorers stood on a scaffold and glared at each other. The fresco above them was five hundred years old: a vast sky of blue and gold, peopled with gods and clouds and one winged messenger with no face. A leak had taken it forty years ago.

Beatrice was thirty-three, small and quick, in a paint-splattered boiler suit, with her hair in a scarf and a magnifying visor on her brow. Lorenzo was thirty-seven, taller, patient, with a thoughtful beard and steady hands.

"A visitor looks up," she said, "and sees a hole."

"A visitor looks up and sees the truth."

"The truth is ugly."

"The truth is honest."

The restoration board had given them six months. They worked side by side on the narrow planks, he cleaning grime with swabs, she consolidating plaster with a syringe. They argued over lunch, over the radio, over the best way to remove three centuries of candle soot. In the evenings, when the light faded through the high windows and the hall turned deep blue, they sat on the scaffold and ate pastries from a paper bag.

"You are impossible," said Beatrice.

"You are stubborn."

"I'm right."

"You are often right," said Lorenzo, to her surprise. "That's what makes it difficult."

She stared at him. His face was open, a little rueful. He handed her a cannoli.

"Can I ask you something?" said Beatrice.

"Yes."

"What would you do with the messenger?"

"I would paint a veil," he said. "Soft. Neutral. A promise, not a lie."

She was silent, thinking. "That's... elegant."

"You think so?"

"Green?" she said, a word from their pigment chart.

"Green," said Lorenzo, smiling. "Very green. Shall we try it?"

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Veil.