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This Short Story was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize

L’HOMME DE DIEU

In the early 21st century, fixed upon the wall opposite DaVinci’s Mona Lisa, behind mahogany bannisters, was the equally famous painting: L’Homme de Dieu.

 L’Homme de Dieu was a casein portrait measured at 92 cm by 73 cm, and on the 175th anniversary of its discovery; fitted with a sycamore frame with beech crosspieces. It depicted a nude man with blond curls and sapphire eyes, draped in white silk, standing before a window overlooking a vineyard. One hand caressing his abdomen whilst the other cradled a cluster of violet grapes. Art critic Valèrie Antoinette famously wrote: ‘There’s no question that L’Homme de Dieu is true to its title. The man portrayed is a beautiful creature and surely a depiction of God’s man, possibly even Adam.

Although the name and face behind the painting will forever remain a mystery, I have no doubt that this was their magnum opus.’ Many visitors, a total of 5,000 per day, came to feast their eyes upon both the Mona Lisa and L’Homme de Dieu, admiring both before queuing for half an hour to get the paintings’ phone case imitation from the gift shop. The two paintings, were they aware, would revel in their fame. And yet, whilst the two shared a room, could either have spoken, neither would have enjoyed sharing an audience.

In fact, could the Mona Lisa speak, she would have said: ‘You, sir, must surely be a fool for thinking you are of equal value as I.’

In which case, L’Homme de Dieu would have laughed, telling its rival: ‘You’re an old bag, Mona. Give me a proper smile and I might listen to you once in a while.’

Unlike DaVinci’s painting, L’Homme de Dieu was only recently added to the Louvre’s collection. And although many certainly did appreciate the technique and artistry of the image, its value was derived from its bizarre journey from conception to the Parisian art museum. Prior to The Louvre, it had been kept by art collector, Naadir Salsali, in his private gallery. For twenty years, L’Homme de Dieu was Mister Salsali’s most prized item, although not his favourite. That title would go to Salsali’s pet, a Siberian Tiger called Raqiq. Salsali would showcase the painting to his many friends – friends who were figuring out ways of adding themselves to Naadir’s will – he invited to his twenty-bathroom mansion in Dubai.

However, out of all the painting’s admirers, none were quite as enamoured by it as Salsali’s own wife, Aakila. Aakila spent hours staring at the unnamed blond man, she imagined her fingers caressing the chiselled figure whilst he fed her the grapes he so delicately cradled. She wondered how soft his hair was and how hard his chest would have felt beneath her touch. She would spend many hours beneath the Dubai sun, lounging beside the private pool, letting her mind wonder. Soon, Missus Salsali would come to hate the painter of L’Homme de Dieu for covering the man’s privates with the white silk fabric.

In fact, no one would ever learn that Aakila had once tried to scratch the silver paint off, hoping that there would be a girthy surprise beneath. Upon damaging the painting, she later commissioned a talented street artist, Omar Nahas, to fix the tiny defect. Mister Nahas was later killed in the comfort of his own newly bought linen bedsheets by mercenaries also hired by Missus Salsali to ensure this secret was never discovered.

Were he not killed then and there, Omar Nahas would have become one of Dubai’s national treasures, instead he rotted in his bedsheets for three days before he was found. The only reason modern day art inspectors don’t know about L’Homme de Dieu’s defect was because Aakila only scratched away half a centimetre’s worth of paint. Something L’Homme de Dieu may have been insulted by, had it a notion of male pride.

Aakila’s obsession with the painting only grew deeper with each passing day. Whenever she and Naadir were mid-throes of passion, Missus Salsali would instead imagine what the L’Homme de Dieu could be doing to her instead. She demanded the painting overlook their bed so his painted face would be the first thing she saw when she woke, and the last before she slept.

Were L’Homme de Dieu able to remark upon Aakila’s infatuation, it would have certainly said: ‘Darling, this doesn’t seem especially healthy.’

A few years later, Aakila would pocket Naadir’s Fabergé egg, the Royal Danish, to secretly buy herself passage to America where she hoped to meet a white man similar to L’Homme de Dieu, a search that resulted in years of disappointment and eventually a lonely tombstone.

The Royal Danish would later become one of six Fabergé eggs lost to history. Historians would be quite irate were they to find out that the Royal Danish had wound up in the pockets of an unnamed cargo ship sailor, later to be accidentally sat on and crushed into a thousand small pieces.

Devastated by his wife’s departure, Naadir could not look upon L’Homme de Dieu without thinking of Aakila. It was in 1998 that Naadir made the decision to sell the painting to the Louvre. Prior to Salsali’s private collection, L’Homme de Dieu had another home between 1933 and 1945; in the Berghof, Adolf Hitler’s headquarters.

The German dictator had fallen deeply in love with L’Homme de Dieu and often pontificated about its almost prophetic depiction. Mister Hitler would even try to replicate the painting in his own image, depicting a generous portrayal of himself in the same setting and pose.

He would later call this painting Mann Gottes and for five years the two paintings would stare at each other from across opposing walls. Were it possible for L’Homme de Dieu to feel offended, he most certainly would have when looking at the poor impression of himself featuring the face of the führer.

Meanwhile, could Mann Gottes feel anything at all, it would no doubt be an astounding amount of loathing and self-interest. Hitler liked to claim that the man depicted by L’Homme de Dieu was the peak of humanity, an idealized Aryan in a beautiful post-war world.

Many war councils were started with the admiration of the painting. ‘Certainly, the man who painted this shares similar values as us,” Otto Skorzeny would announce to his fellow party members. “Any man who does not look like this cannot be worthy of our new world.”’

Overlooking the dark-haired and dark-eyed men, L’Homme de Dieu might have said: ‘Gentlemen, this all seems incredibly hypocritical.’

The painting spent many years listening and watching these men prattle on about their ideology. The men would turn to the portrait and point at it for motivation and justification for their war crimes. As much as L’Homme de Dieu adored attention, it began to think that perhaps these men’s fascination with it was a little too much.

L’Homme de Dieu was, could it feel emotions, thrilled to be found by a Russian soldier in the later part of 1945. This man would then go on to trade it with a French soldier for a pack of Gauloises Caporal cigarettes who in turn – after a decade of having it hung over his toilet – would go on to sell it for a hundred euros to mister Salsali.

Both soldiers would later discover its true worth would have been closer to 3 million francs at the time. 3 And yet, prior to being displayed on Mister Hitler’s mantlepiece, L’Homme de Dieu had spent fifteen years belonging to polish rabbi, Jakob Stroński before he was dragged to Belzec in 1943.

On the 6th of August 1928, Luis de La Palma, a hired art thief – who would later go on to infect mister Stroński with typhus and initiate a chain reaction that led to the saving of thousands of Polish lives from German labour camps – stumbled into Rozwadów’s place of worship battered and wounded.

Mister de La Palma was a professional thief who had been paid by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin to bring L’Homme de Dieu to Moscow. Stalin had expressed interest in the painting, believing it depicted a true working man. Someone who overlooked his vineyard with pride and integrity, ready to feed his own community.

The painting never made it to mister Stalin, as Luis de La Palma instead gave it to mister Stroński after the rabbi saved his life and offered him sanctuary. Preceding de La Palma’s arrival in Rozwadów, the Spaniard had strayed deep into the local woodlands, only to be welcomed by a two-meter-tall European elk. Beaten under hoof and partially gored by its antlers, de La Palma had little on hand to offer as thanks other than the rolled-up canvas he had carried across borders.

Jakob Stroński knew little about art and even less about L’Homme de Dieu, in fact the Pole thought the painting was a little too homoerotic and wanted to throw it into the river as soon as Luis de La Palma returned to Spain. Yet, there was a certain something that kept Jakob Stroński from disposing of the painting. He fitted it into a simple oak frame and hung it above his fireplace. Jakob lived alone and the only company he would share his home with would be with L’Homme de Dieu.

 Although Jakob was happy to devote himself to his faith, he – like many others – had carnal desires he indulged in when the kippah came off. Whilst Jakob usually thought of his neighbour Ester Nowak in the comforts of his own bed. On one occasion, he took to pleasuring himself in his living room, where L’Homme de Dieu watched.

Jakob soon discovered that looking upon the painted man during his minutes of lust brought him more pleasure than any imagined scenario with Ester. Could L’Homme de Dieu remark upon mister Stroński’s sexual awakening, he might have been flattered if not for the cat-like mewl the man would finish his performance with.

L’Homme de Dieu’s home prior to being stolen by Luis de La Palma and gifted to Jakob Stroński was within Miss Beatriz Caldera’s seaside mansion between 1918 and 1928. Beatriz was a spinster who lived in her late husband’s manor with her two young daughters, Maria and Elena.

Mister Caldera had been given the painting by a dear friend he fought alongside during the Franco-Prussian. The painting was intended as a gift from Mister Caldera to his wife upon the passing of their son, Pedro Caldera, to the Great War. However, shortly after gifting his wife, mister Caldera would be one of the first men to succumb to a flu which would later be recorded as the most severe pandemic in recorded history.

The Caldera matriarch would be blamed for the deaths of both men of the family, nicknamed La Bruja Caldera. Both Beatriz and her two daughters were dubbed an unlucky family in which all men were fated to an early death. As such, Maria and Elena were never the objects of desire to men and thus were able to spend many years dedicating themselves to their own passions.

 Inspired by L’Homme de Dieu, Maria and Elena would often debate its true meaning and what the painting was intended to represent.

‘Considering the title, he must be a depiction of Adam,’ Maria would suggest.

‘I disagree,’ Elena would say, ‘He is not Adam, rather is every man of God. You need not look further than the very grapes he holds.’

‘What of them? Do they not represent the fertility and salvation in their symbolic link to the blood of Christ, this only furthers my point.’

‘Perhaps that’s one way to look at it. But grapes are also symbolic of the dangers of debauchery. And is not every man a symbol of debauchery?’ Elena would explain, at which point both sisters would laugh and return to caring for their aging mother.

It was these many conversations the two sisters had that eventually led them to pursue a career in the arts. Maria Caldera became a famous painter after her death, with some of her work being portrayed in the National Gallery in London in the late 20th century. Elena Caldera dove into artistic literature and later went on to teach other young girls art theory behind their father’s backs.

Only after the two Caldera sisters moved out of their childhood home, and Beatriz Caldera’s only other company was her nurse, was L’Homme de Dieu stolen by Luis de Palma.

 Before having been gifted to the Caldera family, which in turn would then be stolen by Luis de la Palma, given to Jakob Stroński, taken by the Nazi party, purchased by Naadir Salsali, and eventually given to the Louvre; L’Homme de Dieu’s first home was with Prince Albert Honoré Charles Grimaldi of Monaco.

Albert’s interest in the painting came from the man’s own interest in the origins of man. The prince was a scientific man with an eagerness to understand the world around him, and when he looked at the painting, he didn’t see any ulterior meaning within the canvas. He did not contemplate its religious meaning, or any kind of symbolism. Instead, he saw the brilliant work of a painter whom many had walked past without so much as a second glance.

It was one day prior to his third oceanographic exploration of Svalbard that the Prince spent some time in the French town of Nice. He sat outside of the Café des Etoiles, watching the waves lap against the Beau Rivage beach. He watched people bathe in the beautiful riviera sea, men, women and children indulging in the summer sun. Eventually, Albert abandoned the café behind him and made his way down the Promenade des Anglais.

The prince averted his gaze from the ocean for a moment to shield himself from the bright sun. His attention was then, in that moment, stolen by a street busker, a black man sat at the edge of the promenade with an assortment of paintings at his side. The man wore colourful garbs, colours that were reflected in the many paintings that surrounded him. He had a collection of paints beside him and a half-finished piece in front of him. Albert approached the painter, admiring the various paintings at his side before his eyes settled on the one in front of the man. Only then did he notice, the painter was hunched over, fast asleep under the hot summer sun.

‘Sir, it would be unwise to sleep and leave all this unwatched,’Albert said, crouching down and gently patting the man’s shoulder. The painter groaned softly before he peaked an eye open.

‘None here wish to steal, let alone buy from an African man,’ the painter chuckled, adjusting himself, ‘Unless you would be the first, sir?’

The prince looked over the various paintings, whilst he wasn’t one who often appreciated art, he appreciated hard work.

‘Why try to sell then, if you think none will buy?’Albert asked.

‘I don’t wish to sell,’ the man smiled, picking up a paintbrush at his feet and dipping it into a small pot of purple paint.

‘Oh?’

‘No… Art is meant to be seen, whether it is bought or not. Here, my art has some of the finest audiences in all of France!’ Albert turned to look over the Promenade, where dozens of rich aristocrats gathered. Whilst most overlooked the man’s paintings, the occasional one might walk slower and cast a wayward gaze towards the art for just a second.

‘You’re very talented, sir,’ Albert smiled, standing to get a better look at the paintings carefully pinned to the ground by rocks on each corner. He then shifted his interest in the half-finished canvas at the painter’s feet; a man standing over a vineyard.

‘You have my thanks,’ the painter chuckled.

‘Your French is excellent, where are you from?’

The painter looked up for a second, only to return to his painting. ‘I can assure you I was born here, sir.’

‘Forgive me, I assumed your being on the street…’

‘No, I live locally,’ Albert, concerned that his assumption had offended the painter, was ready to apologise when the painter chuckled.

‘Rather, I lived locally. My home is to be sold,’ the painter said, ‘My home does not belong to me, so much as it does to another. Louis Arquette.’

Albert’s brow furrowed upon recognising the name, ‘Monsieur Arquette? Is he not the owner of Chateau Arquette? The vineyard?’

‘Yes,’ the painter said, dipping his brush into a pot of golden paint and delicately tracing it upon the paper in front of him. ‘He died a week ago, it was very sudden. The castle is to be sold to the highest bidder.’

‘Were you close?’Albert asked, a thought crossed his mind, but he didn’t want to risk offending the painter again.

‘Yes, we were good friends,’ the man sighed. ‘Sadly, Louis never had children and died without anyone able to inherit his riches, it’s all for sale. I have no place there.’

‘Did he not name you in any will?’Albert asked, though looking at the man, he didn’t need to hear an answer to know what had likely happened.

‘I’m sure if he could have decided, he might have given it to me. But there were others who wouldn’t want that land to belong to a person like myself,’ The painter’s smile returned as he lifted his brush from the painting at his feet.

This was the birth of L’Homme de Dieu, although then it was only called Louis Arquette.

Could the painting utter its first words, it might have looked upon the painter and said: ‘Hello again, love.’

‘He was a good man; he gave me a home all in exchange for my art. He loved my work. The least I can do is to immortalise him in paint.’

‘And should anyone be worthy of immortality, is it not I?’ Louis Arquette would then say.

‘Although he was famed for his wine, I’d say he was better known for his wit,’ the painter chuckled. ‘But I am being rude, what of you sir?’

‘What of me? Well, I am Albert, Prince of Monaco. Though I’d be remiss in claiming to be a good prince. I am a day away from abandoning my principality for ocean travels for the third time,’Albert explained.

‘A traveller!’ The painter’s face shifted to joy, he quickly rose to his feet and Albert was both surprised and amused that the painter disregarded the prince’s noble title. ‘I would ask one thing of you; would you be kind enough to listen.’

‘By all means.’ The painter turned his attention to the canvas at his feet which had started the slow process of drying under the heat of sunlight, ‘Take him with you, to see and be seen!’

Initially confused, Albert was at a loss for words for a moment. He cleared his throat, looking down to Louis Arquette.

‘Do you not wish to keep it? To remember his face?’

‘Oh, I don’t need the painting to remember him,’ the painter assured.

‘I’d hope so! I would have hoped I left a lasting impression,’ Louis Arquette would have added.

‘I’m no art collector or even much of an enthusiast. I fear I wouldn’t be able to give it the care it needs’ the prince admitted with pursed lips, something he would later know to be his greatest lie.

‘You need not coddle it, no matter the wear and tear, art will always remain art as long as colour remains! You wouldn’t need to take him far, nor would you need to keep him for long, just as long as he continues living,’ the painter said.

The prince was quiet for a moment but looking upon the man whom he knew had been left with nothing, it was hard to refuse his request. ‘Very well, my friend. I will take it.’

The painter’s lips stretched from ear to ear as his eyes welled with tears, he turned down to his painting and laughed.

‘Louis, today I say goodbye. I don’t know where you might go, what you might see. I hope you live longer, far longer than I, and see great wonders. See the world and all the beauty and ugliness it has to offer. And should you too be seen? Perhaps you’ll be seen by a small handful or perhaps you’ll be seen by millions.’

Before the two parted ways indefinitely, before the painting would embark upon a brilliant journey across Europe; if it could have spoken, it might have said some words of comfort to the painter. Or perhaps it would have said something only the two would understand. But it’s equally possible that it might have simply said:

“I may be viewed by millions, darling. But you’re the only one that’s ever really seen the real me.”