Lost and Found In Turin

American Paul Keller thought of himself as an extremely rational man, yet he now found himself 58 years old, living off his last month of savings, and in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin Italy without a train pass to return to his Airbnb.

“I think I’ve dropped my transit pass somewhere in the museum,” he explained to a bored, but sympathetic looking, young woman at the museum’s front reception desk

“We have not-a~ found a~ train pass to~day”, she replied in the charming accent many people in Italy use to speak English.

Paul tried to remember how much cash was still on the train pass. As he contemplated what his next move should be, a woman spoke in English behind him.

“Have you found an umbrella?” 

When he turned around, he saw a woman, who was not looking at him, but at the Italian clerk behind the counter.

“We have-a~ many a~ umbrella,” the reception desk clerk said cheerfully.

“And a black wallet?” the woman asked with a British accent.

“Which-a~ brand name?”

“It’s about this size…” 

Paul studied her. About his age, and dressed slightly haphazardly. She was gesturing the size of how large a wallet might be.

“Or a piece of jewelry…” the woman continued. She went through a laundry list of items that she might have dropped in the museum, while the Italian counter clerk nodded and took notes. 

Five minutes later, they both left empty-handed, except for a used black umbrella.

Having not had anyone to talk to for a long time, Paul felt a thrill to have someone to speak with in English. He caught her eye. “You lose a lot of things, don’t you?”

“I’m very forgetful.” She giggled in a charming, very feminine way. “Hi, I’m Helen.”

It took Paul a moment to realize he was then supposed to say his own name. He hadn’t approached a woman in decades. With a giddiness in his heart, he said, 

“I’m Paul. If you ever need someone to visit a museum with…” He held out a name card with his mobile number on it: Paul Green, Fine Art Collector. He didn’t have a job, but it sounded nice and wasn’t dishonest–he had bought a few pieces of street art when he first arrived in Turin.

“Thank you.” Helen grabbed his name card and dropped it into her handbag. His eyes tracked downward, and he saw her purse filled with a wide assortment of items. A bus was approaching, which caught her eye. “See you, Paul,” she said. In her hand, she pulled out a battered transit pass that looked very much like his own, stepped into the bus, and left without a wave or a goodbye.

**

Six months ago, late middle age found Paul bloated, unhappy, and worst of all, completely disinterested in anything in life. 

In a fit of impulsiveness, unexpected to all including himself, one Saturday morning, he collected his credit card, passport, and a few pieces of clothing, and called an Uber to take him to the nearest international airport.

Paul had been feuding with his wife. In contrast to Paul, she was very passionate about many things. The neighbor that looked at her the wrong way, the cars that drove too fast, the inflation at the supermarket. Loud about politics, she wasn’t happy when her candidate won, and was furiously angry when they lost. 

What does it all have to do with us? Paul had asked. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, was her reply. 

Where is the joy in living when life seems to be about being angry with distant politicians? was the question Paul had been asking himself for weeks before his unexpected departure. 

The magic of the modern age is that with a few dollars, and a brief period of boredom in a flying tin can, one can awake in a completely new world. One where local politicians become irrelevant. Loud neighbors are interesting characters to observe for a day or two before moving on. The tedium of paying one’s mortgage becomes transformed to the excitement of finding next week’s Airbnb.

Paul had done his research, found a place off the beaten track, where his money could stretch a long way. His first week in Turin was amazing. The snow-capped Alps in the distance, and the magic of Italy at his doorstep. 

He felt an intense euphoria at being completely on his own, free from everything and all expectations. He began to take Italian language classes and study oil painting, and appreciate the works of the greats, many of which had spent time in Turin during the heights of its greatness in the 1800s. His passion for life was unshackled. 

Days turned into weeks, which then turned into months. 

Whilst not wanting to return home to a life as an insurance agent endlessly explaining benefit packages to clients, he felt a growing sense of loneliness reaching over his shoulder. He kept it at bay, with visits to local museums and brief excursions to nearby sights, such as the famous wineries of Alba, and the monastery at Sacra di San Michele.

It was on one of those trips, to the Galleria Sabauda, which he had visited on multiple occasions to see its collections of Dutch masters amassed by the House of Savoy when they ruled Italy from Turin. It was there that he had met Helen at the lost and found desk.

**

That night, after visiting the museum, he received a text message from an unknown number.

[?] There’s a couple discount at the Palazzo Madama.

He was uncertain whether the message was a spam advertisement, and was considering blocking the number, when another message came, and then another.

[?] This is Helen

[Helen] We met at the museum today

[Paul] Wonderful! I’d love to go.

He sent the reply, then felt his tone might have been slightly too enthusiastic after sending it.

The next morning, she stood outside the museum, and being a gentleman, he bought reduced priced Couples Tuesdays tickets for both Helen and himself.

As he talked to the ticket vendor, Helen played with a pen that was on the reception counter. Suddenly, it fell into her handbag. While Paul fiddled handing over Euros to buy the tickets, Helen’s hand grabbed a fistful of chocolates from a bowl. The chocolates fell into her bag. The clerk seemed not to notice.

It was fascinating. Perhaps in Italy, this was normal.

Paul spent a joyful two hours viewing medieval art in the palatial rooms of the Palazzo Madama with Helen. She had studied sculpture in university, he was surprised to learn. At just before noon, they left the museum to find something to eat.

“Thanks for the tour, Paul,” she said. “I got something for you.” She pulled out a coffee table art book. The Palazzo Madama Collection was the title on front.

“Well, thank you, Helen!” Paul looked at the book. He felt happy to receive a gift. On the back of the book was a price tag: 39.00 Euros.

He recalled they had walked through the gift shop, but neither of them had bought anything. How dare she?! But, why not? After decades of following rules, Paul received a final result of being miserable. He should be flexible.

That afternoon, after a few Negroni cocktails on the Caffe Mulassano’s terrace on the Via Maria Vittoria, sparks flew between them. They held hands and Helen snuggled next to him for warmth on the chilly balcony. The gap between friend zone and romance isn’t wide for people in their fifties.

The next few weeks, they embarked on a series of magical outings around the city.  As thrilled as he was to have a companion to visit the sights of Turin, Paul couldn’t help but be filled with anxiety watching his bank balance steadily drop.

He began to learn that Helen sold the wide assortment of items she “borrowed” off of reception counters and store shelves, to an array of second hand goods vendors. A way to stretch the small amounts of money her family sent her into having a full life in Turin, she explained. 

Helen winked, “They say losing things is an art form.”

Her vagabond lifestyle sparked an idea. Being a logical man, he knew that committing petty crimes, again and again, with the inherent risk of being caught, wasn’t a wise decision. Perhaps, he could get away with one crime, just one time, and set himself up for life. To never go back to a life of drudgery, boredom, and resentment.

Over the next week, he planned, he prepared, he calculated.

“Helen, on Tuesday we shall visit the Pinacoteca Agnelli,” he said. “They have a special exhibition of Thomas Bayrle.”

The last time he had been in the Pinacoteca, he was the only visitor. A sole teenage attendant followed him through the gallery of Van Goghs and Picassos. It was a small museum, with just two floors, holding a minor collection of art put into trust when the head of Fiat, Giovanni Agnelli, no longer needed it to romance Hollywood starlets, as he passed into late retirement.

“By the way, I’m going to grab all the souvenirs on the 2nd floor, so perhaps you could stir things up a bit at reception.”

“Oh Paul!” She grabbed his hand. “I knew you had it in you to live vicariously.”

**

Helen loved living in Italy, free from her relatives in Norwich who constantly reminded her she wasn’t as successful as they were. 

In Italy, she could live life on her own terms. She was making ends meet, and now with Paul, she had a travel companion to spend time with. With his growing clinginess, she would eventually need to get rid of him, but a woman needs to live in the present.

She said good luck to Paul ten minutes earlier, when he went into the museum ahead of her. Paul’s skin looked blotchy. A reaction to the local canned fish, he explained. He would need to see a doctor soon if it didn’t clear up.

As she walked in, she recalled what Paul told her, ‘just be yourself, and turn up the volume a little bit’.

Helen approached the reception counter. A friendly looking young Italian woman greeted her, smiling, and Helen began her well practiced appeal:

“Last week, I think I dropped an umbrella in this museum–”

**

Miraculous things started to happen the day he met Helen. He felt alive again. The universe sparkled with possibilities as it did when he was young.

When was the best time to rob an art museum? Right before closing time, on a Tuesday. The staff would feel bored after standing around all day with nothing to do. They would be in a rush to lock up and go home and wouldn’t think about double-checking things, as they would after a busy Saturday or Sunday.

On the second floor of the museum, Paul studied the brush strokes on Pablo Picasso’s L’Hétaire. Outside, through the floor to ceiling windows, the sun was sinking below the snow covered Alps in the far distance, west of the city. The decaying rays cast an amber glow through the museum.

While he waited, he thought about how his very ordinary looks helped people to trust him. They might not remember him, but being very average appearance seemed to inspire trust. Last week, he read about facial recognition, how it depends on the pattern of freckles and moles on our faces. He carefully added an additional layer of fake moles and blotches on top of his own this morning.

He heard rising voices emanating from downstairs–Helen’s high-pitched voice above it all–and knew it was almost time.

“Put it back,” the Italian woman’s voice demanded. 

“But it’s mine!” howled Helen indignantly in her squeaky, nasally tone.

He would miss her, but not that voice.

The young Italian man who was keeping an eye on Paul nodded apologetically and went downstairs. That left him alone in the upstairs gallery of invaluable oil paintings.

He felt the equipment he carried within the hidden pocket of his long overcoat. 

The young man’s voice joined the cacophony of shouting downstairs. His signal to get to work. He should have five minutes, but he only needed two. He gazed in awe at Mattisse’s painting for a second, before he lifted its frame, removed it from the wall, and placed it face down on the museum floor. With a box cutter, he cut the canvas from the wooden stretcher frame. 

In his coat, he carried a replica of Femme et anémones, one ordered from an online supplier, it looked identical. He unrolled it, and using stretchy tape to pull it taut, affixed it to the aging frame. Each creak of the wood frame, sent a shiver down his spine.

His shaking hands pushed the stretcher and canvas back into the frame, and rehung it on the wall. It would be months before anyone lifted the painting and saw the hastily cutaway canvas and taped in replica. 

He put his tools away, rolled the Femme et anémones’s canvas tightly, and slid it into his overcoat. Looking at the replica on the wall and the floor beneath it, he could not see a speck out of place. 

He took a deep breath. It was important to appear calm. He was just here to kill some time before dinner. He sauntered down the staircase to the ground floor.

There was no one. No one behind the counter, and looking around the corner, he didn’t see anyone in the ground floor gallery either.

He pushed the elevator button. The light didn’t go on. He tried again. Nothing.

He couldn't remember when the voices downstairs stop shouting, he should have kept paying attention.

He checked the time: 6:50pm, ten minutes until closing. He flipped through the brochures at the reception desk and waited for the museum staff to return.

Thirty minutes later, he was still waiting. He searched for a way out, but every door was locked. In despair, he threw an office chair at a window. It bounced back. High security glass. He should have brought a hammer. He watched the lights of the city twinkle, studied the diners eating in the glass restaurant on the far side of the roof terrace, and realized he was trapped. A fish in a fishbowl.

**

At 9:45am the next morning, assistant curator Giulia Conti arrived at the Pinacoteca Agnelli Museum carrying keys to unlock the elevator and the front doors. Upon exiting the elevator, she was struck with an unusual sight. A tourist asleep on the reception floor. Bundled in his overcoat, he laid curled up and wasn’t moving. Was he dead? 

She tapped his shoulder.

“Uggh,” he grunted and rolled over on the white marble floor.

A moment later, he jolted upright, and looked at her with surprise in his eyes.

“I’m still in the museum?”

“Yes. The Pinacoteca. Why didn’t you call anyone? Your mobile?”

“Out of battery,” he said, and felt his mobile in his jacket pocket. 

She was speechless, it was the oddest sight she’s seen in the museum, 

The man stood up. “Well, thank you, and nice museum.” He walked over and pushed the elevator button.

Americanos were amusing. An Italian man would never say thank you after a night sleeping on the floor. Many foreigners visited the museum, and Americans were the ones she understood least.

The man stepped into the elevator and waved goodbye as the doors closed.

Giulia began to clean up the mess the British woman left last night. She and Max spent hours at the police station, but in the end, they wouldn’t do anything about it. A penniless tourist shoplifting knickknacks (at an art museum?) wasn’t anything new in Italy. At least if she stole at the Eataly across the street, she would have obtained something of more value than a handful of plastic toy automobiles.

**

Three weeks later, after hiding his traces, Paul found himself holed up in a cheap apartment in Genoa, a few hours away from Turin by train. The port city was rough, not as aristocratic as Turin. He didn’t go out The Femme et anémones, worth at least $10 million, was wrapped and hidden behind the wardrobe of his Airbnb. 

It was time for his next move, but without Helen, he wasn’t sure what to do. Does one advertise a stolen painting on Craigslist? How to contact the sort of people who would buy a stolen artwork, he had no idea. Even worse, if he did meet such a person, certainly a very dangerous individual, he had anyone to watch his back. 

And he was lonely again. What fun was it to pull off this century’s greatest art heist, and have no one to talk to about it? 

He decided to send a text. He looked at the wardrobe where Matisse’s painting was hidden. Half of a watermelon was still a lot of watermelon.

[PAUL] Helen, sorry for not being in touch, but I have a wonderful surprise for you! I would like to invite you to visit the La Venaria Reale with me next week.

After sending the message, he felt an overwhelming rush of exhilaration, and wondered what Helen’s response might be.