The Museum of Fine Arts

The fourth in a series of settings from the novel Silverman: Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

In Chapter 19, as his second marriage is falling apart, Ben visits the museum, “seeking silence. Beauty. Art.”

“In Gallery 243A, he came to ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Hippolytus,’ a fifteenth-century triptych of the naked saint suspended by ropes lashing his ankles and wrists to the saddles of four  horsemen. Two of the horses charged into the external panels of the triptych, as if the frame of the central painting could not contain the cruelty of their masters.” Sadly, this painting is no longer on view at the MFA, so I couldn’t include a picture here, but you can view it via the link above. Now, back to the story:

“Gazing at the pale, naked body, Ben wondered if it had been worth it for the priest, who gazed steadily at the sky, with only a furrowed brow, a slight frown, to acknowledge his situation. Couldn’t he have gone underground, or denied his religion, and died of old age?

“Maybe Ben had wanted his relationship with Alison to be found out. Maybe that was why he had invited her to the museum in the first place. It was mid-September, a few weeks after their second meeting. She had appeared in a sleeveless dress that revealed her smooth, white legs, her body giving off that tantalizing scent of sea grass and citrus and the fresh, cold air of an oncoming storm. On that quiet Wednesday morning, he two-stepped her into the wood-paneled Renaissance room to press his face to her copper hair, still hot from the sun. They kissed in the medieval church, the Chinese carpentry exhibit, and the auditorium, and barely managed to maintain any sense of propriety in the mummy’s tomb. The hotel was a spontaneous choice, something they both had to have, after a few minutes in her prehistoric Saab revealed the drawbacks to bucket seats and a stick shift.

“And here he was again, standing in front of the painting of the naked saint. If Ben possessed the faith of a martyr, maybe he could stand to be drawn and quartered. But he was only human, and he saw no evidence of an afterlife. The rewards and punishments of life would be visited upon him here on Earth.”