Read Online Midnight Angels by Lorenzo Carcaterra - Free Book Online

remain there today. You know why?”
    “He couldn’t stand the smell of the butchered meat,” Kate said, “especially during the summer months.”
    “And that doesn’t sound like the action of an arrogant man?” Marco asked.
    “Maybe he was just a sensible one,” she said, stopping to gaze at one of the seven hundred paintings which, along with five hundred artists’ self-portraits, hung on each wall and ran the full length of the corridor.
    The Vasari Corridor was designed and built as a place to observe the daily activities of the town without any fear of being seen. The small windows can barely be discerned from streets below. Today, an unarmed guard walks the full length of the corridor every hour on the hour, and a series of prison bars blocks access from one section to another. While security cameras are clearly visible throughout the corridor, there is no alarm system.
    “You would think with all the valuable art hanging here, there would be a higher level of security,” Kate said.
    “Truth is, not many people even know it is here,” Marco said, “and that may well be the best security system of all.”
    “It’s still a target,” she said. “What about that car bombing in 1993? The one that killed five people? It happened just down the street from this window.”
    “That was a tragedy,” Marco said, “but it had nothing to do with the corridor, even though a few paintings were damaged and one or two ruined.”
    “Some of the articles I read attributed the attack to homegrown terrorists,” Kate said. “They had to be looking to damage either the museum or the corridor.”
    “If you want to call the Mafia homegrown terrorists, then those articles are correct,” Marco said. “The bomb was set off to show displeasureat police crackdowns on their activities. The car was parked where it was because it was near the center of town, no other reason.”
    “You never think of the Mafia having any business at all in a city like Florence,” Kate said. “I don’t really know why, but the two images don’t seem to fit together.”
    “If you spend enough time in Italy,” he said, “you will see the Mafia leave their fingerprints everywhere. They are our original sin and we may never be free of their grip.”
    They turned into the second part of the corridor, crossing above Via della Ninna, which links one end of the Uffizi with the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of the Florentine government since the thirteenth century.
    “The windows are so small,” Kate said, peeking through one to gaze at the bustling street below. “But even so, you can see pretty much everything you need to see.”
    She and Marco walked down a short flight of wide steps and stood before two large windows, the only two of their kind in the entire corridor, both offering a wide view of the Arno and the apartment buildings lining both sides of the river.
    “These were not part of the original design,” the elderly guard explained. “And they should never have been built, if you ask me.”
    “Why were they?” Kate asked.
    “In 1938, Hitler came to Florence and decided he wanted to give a speech from inside the corridor,” Marco said. “Not even Mussolini could talk him out of it. There was no other choice but to build the windows and allow him access to the people below.”
    “That dark day was the first and last time the windows have been opened,” the old guard said, a look of pride on his face. “In return for the gesture of the windows, the Nazis blew up all the bridges in Florence except for the one you see standing on this spot. The same one Hitler saw, the Ponte Vecchio.”
    Kate and Marco walked in silence for a few moments, their footsteps muted on the carpeted stairwells, the guard following slowly behind them.
    “He walked the same path we’re walking now,” Kate said, her eyes fixed on the white stone steps and the rich ornate tapestry covering them. “Most likely alone, lost in thought, troubled or relieved