Nothing is Black Read Free Page B

like. Reproductions never do full justice to works of art, and it’s particularly the case with mosaics.’
    ‘Why is that?’
    ‘Well, the colours aren’t accurate, for one thing. You can’t get the effect of light and space in a photograph like that either, and the mosaics are integral to the architecture of the churches. The scale, the light, the texture, even the atmosphere: it’s all so different when you’re actually there.’
    ‘You really think so?’ said Nuala. ‘Funny, I always enjoy looking at pictures in books much more. You can see the details better there. Sometimes in churches the paintings are so high up you can hardly see them properly at all. And art galleries are generally far too crowded, you can’t get close enough to the paintings to have a proper look. I remember going to see the Mona Lisa in Paris, and I just couldn’t believe that this was what people were making such a fuss about: just this dark, ugly painting, so far away behind a pane of glass. After that I thought, well, I’ll never believe anything people tell me again. You can tell the biggest lie and people will believe it. I bet out of every hundred people who go to see the Mona Lisa ninety-nine of them are disappointed, but they’re too unsure of themselves to admit it.’
    ‘But you should always remember when you go to a gallery,’ Claire said, ‘that the paintings you see there were never meant to be displayed or viewed in such a way. I doubt if Ravenna would disappoint you.’
    But Ravenna had disappointed Claire on her first arrival there, for the town itself was not as she had expected it to be. Ravenna, Corinth, Carthage, Rome: she had realized afterwards that cities with such names could never adequately fulfil the expectations one had of them. And so it had been with Ravenna. Never beforehad she seen a place from which history had so evidently and dramatically withdrawn. Only when she went to the churches did she find what she had looked for, found more than she had expected. Nothing could have prepared her for the impact made by that strange combination of dimness and vibrant colour, the coolness of the buildings and the vivid, shimmering images they contained. The frieze of women on a gold field: she remembered the sense of motion conveyed by their pointing feet, each figure different, each an individual with her shawl and almond eyes. She remembered the looped curtains of the Emperor’s Palace, the curved boats on a sea of tessellated glass …
    It was a long time now since she had visited Ravenna, but her memory of it was still strong. She realized there how her beliefs had changed, without her even having noticed it: faith had withdrawn, just as the sea had abandoned the city. And yet it was in Ravenna that she had begun to appreciate for the first time the spiritual dimension of art. The arrogance of it, for Theodora and Justinian to have their portraits put up like that in a church, above the high altar beside representations of Christ and the saints. For all that, the images of the dead faces touched her more than she could understand. Is this the only possible immortality? Nothing more than this? The decadence of it, the richness of the gold, and the shimmering colours. The Imperial portraits were a strange combination of vulnerability and brute power. She remembered going outside afterwards into the curious lightness of the air, and how frail and lovely the world had looked. For days afterwards she could not stop thinking about the mosaics, was haunted by them,not wanting to believe how much of existence was embodied in those stern faces.
    She realized that Nuala was looking at her expectantly , and somewhat ironically. She was glad when, just at that moment, the phone rang. It was Kevin, calling for Nuala. Claire discreetly closed the sitting-room door. When Nuala came back into the room a short while later, she looked abstracted and had evidently forgotten about the mosaics.
    The next morning, immediately