The Art Lover's Paradise

Moses receiving the Law from God on Mt. Sinai.

The next panel is essentially a single scene. Moses stands on Mt. Sinai, receiving the ten commandments from God, as the frightened people of Israel gather below. The turmoil of the crowd is contrasted with the majestic nature of the law giving, far above the cloud-like treetops. The story of Moses' successor Joshua is in the adjacent panel. Joshua directs the crossing into the promised land, across the miraculously dry River Jordan, as tribal members gather stones for a memorial monument. At top background, Joshua and the Israelites march around their first conquest, Jericho, as its walls crumbling at the sound of their trumpets and shouts. Jericho resembles a typical Italian hill-town of Ghiberti's day.

He hesitated only briefly. Not because he was thinking of the vitally important meeting that he’d set up in another one of his discreet business deals. It was the doors of the impressive building he stood before that grabbed his aesthetic sense of appreciation. But he would not waste time looking at them closely. Not that it was a waste of time, for it most definitely was not. Simply because he loathed being taken for a tourist. That he mightn’t be anything else but a tourist given his appearance in an Islamic country in the Middle East would be automatically assumed, he merely shrugged off. It was his gut reaction to being identified as such, his antipathy toward that feeling that compelled him to linger for the briefest of times, before continuing.

The doors, incredibly thickly-layered slabs of faintly gold-hued glass with their laser-impressioned stylistic Art Nouveau design, were breathtakingly beautiful. He’d seen them before, in photographs, but seeing them there, right before him, in touch-close proximity was far different. They glowed with an inner force of majesty, the relief-work subtle, embellishing the inner-depth, illuminating a sweeping glory of notionally-perfect nature at its finest. That the doors bore, seemingly, little stylistic relation to the Islamic-tinged architecture of the building itself seemed peculiar, a little jarring to his sensibilities, while at the same time impressing him with its transcendent beauty.

It was almost - though not quite - like the feeling of awe that had transfixed him, standing before 11th-Century Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, in the Baptistry in Florence, years ago, before he was so conceitedly sensitive about appearing to a critical onlooker like a tourist. He was a tourist back then, even though he was there also as a businessman, just as he was now, in Dubai. Then, he had been young and unaffected, and he had stood amazed before the giant splendour of those immense portals with their Medieval gilded-bronze panels illustrating Old Testament episodes.

He thought, briefly, as the great glass door swung effortlessly inward directing him to the interior of the hotel’s lobby, how more apt it might be if these glass doors had also been etched to commemorate biblical-era themes, given that Islam took to itself much of the earlier Old Testament towering figures of epiphanies leading toward and reflecting monotheistic belief. As a secularist himself, it was the outstanding sociology of human traits demonstrated by those old tales that fascinated him. He had studied sociology as a young man; he understood the pathologies of mystic belief leading to fanaticism that robbed humans of reason.

As he entered the lobby with its soaring, glass-enclosed atrium, simply understated in the height and magnificence of its sky-reaching ambition, he quickly glanced about. It too was vaguely familiar to him, for he had been given the opportunity to study its lay-out. The interior appointments an amazingly bold contrast to the simple vertical walls. Translucent marble floors, alternating immense white-and-black squares. Huge palms in equally-impressive ceramic planters. Outsized, extravagantly-carved and gilded easels adorned with putti, carrying gilt-framed Rubenesque-type paintings. Free-standing alabaster Romanesque pedestals and plinths holding larger-than-life-sized marble busts reflecting Greek antiquity. And the immense oriental porcelain vases stationed ostentatiously around the immense chamber. The provocatively opulent display simply floored him.

The impossibility of waterfalls cascading down the glass walls of the atrium was compellingly intriguing. He wondered how they managed to do that, as he briefly watched minuscule and occasionally not-so-small colourful aquatic creatures tumble over the walls, washed over by the waterfalls they remained trapped in for perpetuity, before he was able to tear himself away. He took especial note that very few people deigned to notice the display. Clearly, it was beneath them to gawk at what might appear to be beyond one’s biological imagination.

He had to actually force himself to peel his eyes away from the spectacle. All the more so that a shifting crowd of people garbed variously in kefiyehs, Western-style suits like his own, casual street wear, and more formal clothing as though the wearers had stepped directly out of a high-style clothing magazine, kept their eyes averted from the displays. In small groups, voices discreetly discussing social issues, and in single array, people streamed in and out of the immense lobby. Leaving him, a dapper, distinguished-appearing individual as no one to particularly stand out in the crowd.

The anomalous situation of his being there, of the international elite that crowded the city made wealthy by its siting and its natural resources, struck him, as did the presence of all the overwhelming displays of art and architecture. Medieval and Renaissance Italy, wedded to its love affair with excellence in the arts owing much to its great patrician noblesse oblige. Contrasted with the Arab Gulf States enamoured of their new economic status, eager to display their immense fossil-fuel-based wealth to the world, possessing anything that echoed excess.

Odd, he thought, the edifice exterior reminiscent of the region's fine archaic architectural tradition, yet its interior an unsettling jab, as though to express a tinge of triumph; western art absorbed by the orientalism of conquest in all spheres of human endeavour.

He shrugged that idle thought away and confirmed his reservation at the front desk. The young woman, with flowing dark hair, uniformed in a designer-inspired outfit flashing a pacific, welcoming smile. And an archly discreet comment in French-accented English, that "Monsieur" would find his accommodation on the 21st floor superlative.

"I'm most certain I will", he responded dryly, waving his hand toward the impressive lobby display, remembering to flash his own disingenuous smile at the beautiful countenance that surveyed his own with a disquieting hint of interest. Doubtless, he told himself, she's seen the world of entitled presence pass by her casual scrutiny.

Such people always raised an uneasy awareness in him. The servants, as it were, of the privileged, yet confident enough in themselves that they were not intimidated, felt at ease in the presence of power, prestige, celebrity, wealth. His problem? Too old-fashioned, despite his continentalist sense of equal entitlements.

His wife - his second wife - kept telling him he was getting a little old to be involved in this business. Their children - not his older son and daughter, but the infants he’d had with his second, younger wife - needed their father around; they hardly recognized him, she said, when he was home. Which was rather overstating the case, since his forays abroad had become less frequent as the years progressed.

He loved her, and he loved his kids, but he also loved his job. The younger cadres had a lot to learn from him. He’d had experiences they could only dream about. There weren’t that many of the old school around who could challenge his reputation. And he felt jealous of it, wasn’t quite yet prepared to retire. He was not all that old, after all. But it was true, in this business you had an advantage if you were young, aggressive and not easily deterred from your goal.

Import-and-export was like that. He had always been intrigued by the world of art, antiquities, the Renaissance, the Baroque era, and he soon discovered in his market research forays, that other people too had a yen to acquire faux works of art for themselves. It had become his business to search out top-quality replicas of noted art; paintings, statuary, objets d'art, furniture, oriental rugs.

He’d been just about everywhere in the world, in his years as a professional, spoke a half-dozen languages, had contacts - discreet, of course - just about anywhere, everywhere. He liked to think of himself as a modern-day incarnation of the hardy travellers engaged in trade and commerce who travelled the fabled Yellow Silk Road. He favoured small local workshops with an emphasis on creative hand-work and avoided mass-production enterprises like the plague.

On an entirely other level, he worried back and forth in his mind the personal problems that plagued his consciousness. His kids growing into this world of international intrigues. A growing threat from countries resentful of their disempowerment in a new, barely-disguised era of economic imperialism. Facing off against a tide of religious fanaticism spurred by resentment and an unassailably incandescent drive to exact revenge from their purported oppressors. The real problem as he saw it, was the misidentification of their real oppressors. But, it was ever thus.

He might hope his children and their children would inherit a better world, but nowhere in his experience was he ever able to detect a better world lingering hopefully on the outskirts of the dysfunction readily identified across the Globe, ready to enter at even the barest glimmer of opportunity. Humanity, he thought grimly, as he did increasingly, was propelling itself unerringly toward utter disaster. It pained him to think of his innocent kids inextricably tangled in this chaotic mess the world had made of itself.

As he entered the elevator, he compelled himself to turn from the personal to the practical. All the preliminary work had been concluded. The game-ending meeting was scheduled for early the following morning. That’s when the final transaction, the agreement, to be signed on the dotted line, would take place. Nothing like the import-export business to bring personal relief from boredom. Why that should be, he wondered, was curious, since this was most certainly not a boring time in world history.

There, he was going off on one of those personal tangents again. He mentally shook himself back into the public persona that he was always so careful to convey; that of a successful businessman working in an elite environment. And that was very true, every bit of it. He took note of others sharing the elevator that ran up one of the glass walls of the atrium. Peering down from the glass floor of the elevator, it seemed to him that the swiftly receding spectacle somehow resembled history; fleeting, painfully beautiful, illusory.

He took the same care to avoid making eye contact with those sharing the elevator space as they so meticulously did. With the exception of a young couple holding hands and whispering what might very well be sweet nothings to one another, no one else spoke. It was not a completely silent environment as the elevator moved swiftly upward however; there was a barely-heard musical background, the kind of white sound one expects everywhere.

When he disembarked at his floor, he appreciated the soft ambiance of muted lighting, softly pastel-painted walls, ornate mirrors hung at intervals, and yes, that white background music drifting down the hall as he himself did, looking at the numbers, then slipping himself into his suite. He discussed with himself the pros and cons of eating in the suite, or going down to one of the hotel’s restaurants. As he was musing on this, a discreet knock at the door, and his suitcase was brought inside by the bell-hop.

Who insisted on showing him about, as though he could not possibly manage that on his own. It would make for a more expansive tip, he knew, and he couldn’t after all, begrudge the fellow. Whatever he made he likely sent home to the Philippines. The glass-walled exterior of his suite was impressive for the view it gave him; desert on one side, ocean on the other. He could almost swear he could see in the far-off distance, flares coming off oil rigs; now that was most certainly a mirage. Closer to the hotel, within the city itself, the landscape was brilliantly verdant, Paradisaical, it seemed.

The suite was beautifully appointed, as one might anticipate, reflecting any expensive accommodation at any of the world’s premiere hotels within cities of note. But he’d seen these interiors before, and as far as he was concerned, absent a few decidedly mid-eastern touches, they were all the same. Reminding him that he might begin to admit to himself that he was finding import-and-export wearing a bit.

Maybe he was, after all, too old to continue. Perhaps it was time he set aside his ego, consider his legacy to have been set in impermeable stone, and retire. Really, he shook himself, his thought processes were galloping away in the direction of the irksome. And he wondered what the hell was wrong with him?

He wasn’t tired, since it had been a series of relatively short flights, but time-consuming withal; he'd been away for the better part of a month setting up ... background. But he thought it best, given the oddly introspective state he found himself in, to perhaps isolate himself, and order from the room-service menu. To better compose himself.

Tomorrow’s meeting was an important one. His business was highly reliant on the success of such contacts and the future contacts that might result from them. Tomorrow’s contact was a wily and admittedly successful professional in the trade; he needed to be as fresh for the meeting, as resolutely committed to a successful outcome as with any previous such conferences.

And he had slept well enough, as it happened. Showered, did a few push-ups, carefully consulted the full-length mirror in the marble-clad bathroom and found his reflection more than satisfactory, then dressed himself, made a critical call on his cellphone, and sat down quietly to reimagine the scenario before him.

When he entered the hallway it was still quite early; obviously too early for most, for the corridor was clear of any one else, but for two people casually striding down toward a door not too far from his own. They were not together, but were walking several paces from one another. He recognized them both. Had taken note of their presence yesterday afternoon after he had signed in at the lobby.

He took a few paces forward, then stopped. Watched in hushed silence as the tall young blonde woman approached the door, while the man who stood close by her now flattened himself against the wall adjacent the door, just as he himself was now doing on the alternate side. The woman looked at him enquiringly, and he nodded, whereupon she knocked, lightly, at the door. No response. Another, slightly more assertive knock.

A sleep-muffled voice responded. The woman’s softly seductive voice responded to the man’s enquiry. A few minutes passed in silence but for the faint shuffling sounds in the suite’s interior. Finally, the door was opened a crack and a man’s voice spoke again. The young woman spoke in the affirmative, and the door was opened sufficiently wide to admit her. Which was when the young man deftly shoved it, so it had the effect of knocking the breath out of the man inside, holding it in its half-open position.

While he was struggling to regain his breath and get back up on his feet, they all three swiftly entered and softly closed the door. He locked the door. Slipped the hypodermic needle out of his breast pocket, while the young man held the struggling man in his tight grip, and the young woman whispered assuring endearments to the stranger who had trustingly opened his door to her. Whatever she said did not assuage the man’s fears, and his eyes were dark depths of despair before he lost consciousness.

“This one“, he observed quietly to his two companions, "appears not to have invested himself in martyrdom. He does not appear prepared to enter Paradise, to greet his adoringly dutiful virgins, as is his rightful claim. But that”, he laughed deprecatingly, “is for the foot soldiers, the credulous simpletons delusionally enthused by the promise of God-sanctioned sex, not the veterans who own to no such illusions.”

David beheads Goliath.

Full of detail, because of its low position, the last main panel at left features David's defeat of Goliath. As David decapitates the fallen giant with the latter's sword, the Israelite army under King Saul take heart and press forward to victory against the disorganized and demoralized Phillistines. The battle scene is starkly realistic, and reflects Venetian/Ottoman battles of the day. In the background, a victorious David brings Goliath's head to Jerusalem, a large walled city not unlike Ghiberti's Florence.