A lift on the wildside

Write about a gallery whose paintings come alive at night.

Charles Lytton-Cobbolt had never been afraid of finding himself in an elevator except the day he died. As a matter of fact, on his last day on earth, he had entered such a device fully happy with not a worry on his mind. He worked at Mancini-Duffy. It was a New York-based architecture and interior design firm. The firm provided a full range of interior planning, design, and architecture services. As he was the V.P. and chief of PR, he had been in charge of organizing the firm's fiftieth anniversary. Alfred Mancini had founded the house in 1951. The old man was still there in the office that had the most windows. Now, Mancini-Duffy had become so big that it needed two full stories in the World Trade South Tower.

They were supervising renovation work at the New York City Museum. The people in charge had needed to move its Venetian collection out of the way in order to renovate the galleries where the masterpieces had been shown previously. Painting in Renaissance Venice represents one of the most vital chapters in the entire history of European art. Its enormous influence was due above all to the achievement of its dominant personality, Titian. But Titian was merely the greatest in a constellation of pictorial geniuses and extraordinary craftsmen. This included the artists Giovanni Bellini, Lorenzo Lotto, Jacopo Bassano, Canaletto, Jacopo Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese.

That had been two months before in July; his wife had come up with the idea. Why not get the pictures out of the warehouse, take them where he worked and get the fifty-year festivities to take place under the benevolent eye of the Tintoretto. This had been a marvellous idea and except for a few hassles with the insurance companies, nobody anywhere had opposed the project. Over the last weekend, employees under Charles's scrupulous supervision installed all fifty-one of the New York City Museum paintings on the walls in the Mancini-Duffy great entry hall.

Something strange had happened late that Sunday afternoon though. Charles had found himself in front of a view of the Piazza San Marco in Venice, a painting by Canaletto. Much of Canaletto's early artwork was painted "from nature", differing from the then-customary practice of completing paintings in the studio. His paintings were always notable for their accuracy. This one made him think of the hyperrealism trend in the art of the seventies. The picture must have been three feet high and five feet wide. He was marvelling at the details of the piece, the incredible labour it must have cost its creator in order to reproduce the buildings around him with so much precision and perfection.

As Charles was being amazed by the artisan's artistry and dexterity, something quite implausible happened. Amongst the people that walked the Piazza, all of a sudden, against all reason, he recognized Billy Trudup. There was no doubt about it. It was him all right. His hair brown and receding, his nose bulbous, his eyes under bushy eyebrows that always needed plucking, his mouth that opened on horse's teeth so much so that you felt they were made to chew grass.

Billy Trudup worked for Aon Corp on the hundredth floor of the World Trade Center. In the Canaletto picture, it looked like he was talking to another gentleman who seemed vaguely familiar to Charles. But all you could see of the second fellow was his back. Both men were dressed in the ways of the time. Trudup in a black outfit, his interlocutor in a light-coloured one.

He went home and told his wife about his strange experience. She didn't make much of it. But then, she hadn't seen what he had looked at. That night, their four-year-old daughter Thelma had a nightmare that had them both up on their feet and in her room. The child told them about having dreamed of her papa holding a bird in his hand. And then he had let the bird fly away just for the feathered creature to crash violently against a window nearby and drop dead on the ground. They reassured the frightened little girl the best they could, his wife doing most of the work as he stared feeling inadequate and useless. Somehow, Thelma calmed down and they went back to sleep.

Tomorrow was a big day. September 11, 2001. It would be fifty years this day that Mancini-Duffy had begun operating. Starting at five in the afternoon, they would all enjoy the party Charles had organized. The Venetian art collection he had put together would ensure that all those who counted for something in the city would be there. With this happy thought sleep engulfed him.

The first thing he did when he arrived for work that Monday at eight sharp was to look again at the Canaletto of the Piazza San Marco. He must have Billy come down and see what he looked like in the middle of a Venetian crowd. This would be a sight worth seeing, to stare at Billy's astonished face when he realized it was him in the painting.

Next, Charles was distracted by a phone call, then another and he forgot all about Billy Trudup until twenty before nine. He tried to call him at Aon but couldn't get through. So he decided to use the lift and climb to the hundredth floor. That way, he would get back the art book he had lent his friend in order to interest him in those painters that were now being shown on the Mancini-Duffy's walls downstairs.

The elevator stopped on the twentieth floor and he got in. There were a few people in it that he recognized from Sun Microsystems on floor twenty-five and twenty-six and from Morgan Stanley that occupied most of the floors between forty-five and seventy-five. The door closed. As they went up, he heard someone calling his name: "Hi, Charlie.”

He recognized Billy's cracked voice instantly. On floor 25, the elevator's door opened and the man that had hidden Billy got off with the only two women they had been riding with. This left the five middle-aged men from Morgan Stanley that were discussing one take over or another of a group in Portugal that was sure to go broke and they had this strategy to short the English consortium that was involved. They stepped out of the lift on the forty-sixth floor. The elevator's door closed on both of Charles and Billy. They were left alone.

Billy showed him the book that he was holding in his hands: The Art of the Venetian Renaissance. Before Charles could take it out of his grasp, the cabin they were in stopped with a disquieting shudder and the sound of metal grating on metal. All light went out and for a few seconds they were plunged into total blackness. Then, a very feeble gleam of reddish luminosity enveloped them. Both men looked at each other.

"Damn!" Charles erupted. "Of all days, not this one."

Then, the excitement he derived from the story he wanted to impart with took over and he told Billy about his improbable presence in the Canaletto's painting downstairs. He didn't receive the response he thought the revelation deserved and this unsettled him a bit. Looking vexed, Charles pressed on the 20th-floor button.

"What are you doing?" a very composed Billy Trudup asked him, showing his hoofed teeth.

"You must come down with me and you will see by yourself."

"Well, you will not change this device's mind to get to my floor first but it may consent to go back to yours after."

"We are stuck." Charles lamented.

"It's never for very long." Billy, the eternal optimist, countered.

Then, he surprised Charles by saying something intelligent. "This painting of yours, it might be in the book you are presently holding. Why don't you look it up right now and see if you can find it." He then proceeds to extract from his pocket a pen that he pointed on the book Charles was holding. Well, the last thought, that Billy, he always manages to show up with the right instrument when there is a need.

Under the glare thus provided, Charles perused through the book for one minute or two and then he exclaimed: "I got it!" The painting by Canaletto of the Piazza San Marco was covering half of page seventy-eight and he could well see all of the masterpiece's smallest details and fine points. As he was about to let his friend look up the painting, something hit him hard in the stomach. His vision blurred and at once he became dizzy, his footing suddenly unsure. He crashed against the nearest wall and would have fallen to the floor if not for Billy's help.

"What's wrong with you?" Billy asked him. "It's like you have seen a ghost."

Charles was as white as the shirt he was wearing. He said in a voice bland and lifeless with a bit of panic in it: "I must get out of here."

"Sorry mate but that ain't possible right this minute." Billy answered with a smile on his otherwise worried face.

His friend's eyes were no longer focused. They had the crazy aspect of the void where matter had once occupied space. Charles Lytton-Cobbolt collapsed at that moment. He let go of the book that fell from his hand and stayed open at Canaletto's masterpiece. After making sure Charles wasn’t dying on him, Billy took hold of the volume and looked at the painting trying to find out what was in it that might explain his friend's rapid breakdown.

And then he saw it. In the middle of the composition, there were two men talking. One was Charles. He could recognize his architect friend as easily as if it had been a snapshot. Well, that was a coincidence. Not worth making such a show, though. Then he gazed at the picture a bit more. It looked like Charles had held a bird that had managed to free himself a second before. One could see the creature flying toward a building nearby.

"Well!" Billy said, as his companion besides him was howling nonsense. Next, he heard a noise that challenged his definition of the word. The edifice shuddered as though it were a tree that had been caught in a great wind. He had the time to form one last thought. This sure was an elevator with an attitude. The good news though was that now, it would go up again.

And then, everything went black as he and Charles coalesced in a bonfire of flashing incandescence.

A former tenant of Two World Trade Center, Mancini-Duffy New York offices were destroyed in the September 11, 2001, attack. At 8:46 a.m., five hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center's North Tower (1 WTC), and at 9:03 a.m., another five hijackers crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower.

THE END