The Last Pope Read Online Free PDF Page A

street, lined with cheap hotels and busy sidewalks, was very London. A porch supported by two columns, some plain and others a Corinthian imitation, depending on the taste of the architect, or owner, fronted most of the houses. With exposed red bricks or a new coat of paint, these Victorian houses were at least a hundred years old but very well kept.
    The taxi was approaching her home at the corner of her block when it had to brake suddenly. Sarah almost bumped her head against the glass separating driver from passengers. A black car with tinted windows had passed them, then abruptly cut in and stopped. The taxi driver honked hard, in a rage.
    “Get the fuck out of the way!” he shouted. The driver in the car ahead of them lowered his window, stuck his head out, and hollered, “Sorry, mate,” and sped away. Seconds later the taxi stopped in front of Sarah’s house, and the driver graciously took care of her luggage. Inside she found a mountain of mail strewn on the floor. Postcards from colleagues, the inevitable bills to pay, junk mail of all kinds and sizes, and some mail she didn’t feel like opening then. She took her suitcase to her bedroom on the second floor, went into the bathroom to fill her tub, and changed into something more comfortable. She was finally home. In two minutes she was enjoying her honey-scented bubble bath; she was out of vanilla, but the result was equally soothing—relaxing. She had already forgotten the surly customs officer at the airport, and the disturbing incident in the taxi. Downstairs by the entryway, in the midst of the scattered correspondence, was an envelope clearly displaying the sender’s name: Valdemar Firenzi.

5
    A lot could be said about the painting this man was contemplating. Infanta Margarita, a very young Spanish princess, was in the center, flanked in the right foreground by Isabel Velasco and Agustina Sarmiento, the two dwarfs, and María Bárbola and Nicolás Pertusato, with his foot on a dozing mastiff. In the dark background, Doña Marcela de Ulloa was with an unidentified man—something unusual, because the artists of that period didn’t usually include anonymous faces in their canvases. Everything had its meaning, and since he wasn’t a known figure, the artist, who had included his own self-portrait on the left, must have wanted it that way. This artist had held his post for life, painting the illustrious figures of Don Felipe IV and Doña Mariana, who were reflected in the mirror at the back. Only because of that mirror could one see the whole scene in the painting, since his canvas faced away from the viewer. The queen’s chamberlain, Don José Nieto Velázquez, was standing by the back door. It was a magnificent painting, no doubt, but the man of advanced age looking at it was of greater interest at the moment. Though it was almost closing time at the Prado in Madrid, the man in gallery three seemed unaware of this and kept looking, almost without blinking, at one of the museum’s jewels, Las Meninas, the famous masterpiece by Diego Velázquez.
    “Sir, the museum is closing. Please walk toward the exit,” a young guard advised. He was meticulous and needed to make sure that his polite suggestion was being followed. He had seen that man almost every day in the museum, in this same gallery, and always looking at the same painting, hour after hour, while tourists kept strolling by. It was almost like one picture looking into another.
    “Have you ever looked carefully at this painting?” the man asked.
    The guard glanced around and, seeing no one, said, “Are you talking to me?”
    The man kept gazing intently at the painting. “Have you ever looked carefully at this painting?” he repeated.
    “Of course. This painting is to this museum like the Mona Lisa is to the Louvre.”
    “Nonsense. Tell me what you see.”
    The guard felt intimidated. He had gone past this painting every day, aware of its importance but never knowing why. He was so used to