The Rossetti Letter (v5)

by Phillips, Christi

  “You’ve already forgotten Tattoo Boy and the rum and Cokes?”

  “It may have looked like fun to you, but trust me, it wasn’t that great.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m still not having any fun.”

  “After the library, we’re going to go sightseeing, okay?”

  “And see what?”

  Claire pointed ahead. “The Basilica and the Doge’s Palace.”

  “We’re going to look at buildings?”

  “They’re not just buildings.” Claire offered a compromise. “I need to do this today, but tomorrow we can do something that you want to do, okay?”

  They passed the Campanile and the entrance to the Biblioteca Marciana came into view. Claire recalled that Cardinal Bessarion, a Greek monk who had devoted himself to the preservation of Greek civilization, founded the library in 1468 when he donated his collection of ancient Greek literature to Venice, which he saw as the heir to Byzantium. Architect Jacopo Sansovino began work on the library in 1537; in 1560, it was opened to the public. Now the Marciana housed nearly one million volumes, including thirteen thousand manuscripts, nearly three thousand incunabula—books printed before 1501—and over twenty-four thousand books from the sixteenth century. The prospect of having this venerable collection at her disposal made Claire pick up her pace with excitement. They walked up a wide staircase framed by a vaulted hall of gilded stucco, which led to an ornate antechamber, its ceiling a mosaic of Renaissance paintings. In the middle of the room, two huge globes on pedestals stood nearly as high as Claire herself.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Gwen asked. “It doesn’t look like a library. There aren’t even any books.”

  “I think we have to go back here.” Claire led the way through a set of double doors to the main hall, a cavernous room that opened to a ceiling of skylights, three stories above. Long, solid wood study tables were arranged in two rows in the center; around the perimeter were three floors of arched arcades constructed of gray stone. A wall of windows at the far end yielded views of the lagoon and slanting shafts of dust-mote-speckled sunlight.

  A young, blond woman presided over the counter at the back of the hall. As they approached, Claire read the nameplate on the desk: Francesca Luponi.

  “Are you the librarian?”

  “Yes. May I help you?” Francesca smiled prettily. She was very sleek and stylish, Claire thought; certainly she looked nothing like the librarians at Harvard, who generally favored baggy sweaters in shades of mouse-brown and mushroom, and Birkenstocks paired with woolly socks. Claire handed over her university ID and her list of requested documents and books. Francesca donned a pair of dark-framed glasses and peered at both. Somehow the glasses made her appear even more stylish. Was it because she was Italian that she could pull that off? Claire had worn glasses much like that in high school, before she got contact lenses, and they’d made her look even more nerdy than she already did. Some women had style, she supposed, as did this rather self-assured librarian, as did Meredith. And some women, Claire thought ruefully as she tried to smooth out the wrinkles in her L.L. Bean clearance-catalog skirt, didn’t.

  “Ms. Donovan, yes, I remember your e-mail. You’re working on the Spanish Conspiracy, yes?” Her voice had a charming lilt to it. “I’ve already set aside a few items for you,” she said, turning away to the shelves of books and documentary materials behind her. Each stack was tagged with a name. At the top of the small collection Francesca handed her was a thin, cloth-bound volume with a bit of art nouveau decoration on the spine and cover and a gilt title: Diary of Ettore Battista Fazzini, volume IV, 1615–1618. Interesting, but she hadn’t requested it. She looked up at the librarian, who anticipated her question.

  “Fazzini was a chronicler of the early seventeenth century,” Francesca explained. “Rather like Marino Sanudo in the sixteenth, although not so well-known or so comprehensively published. There are just six volumes of excerpts from Fazzini’s diaries extant. They were first published in Venice in 1785, and then this 1891 English edition, published in London.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of him.”

  “Fazzini is out of favor. His recollections are colorful, but not considered entirely credible. But I believe he mentions Alessandra Rossetti once or twice, so I thought you might like to read it. You did say you had an interest in Alessandra Rossetti, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your other requests should be available later today or tomorrow morning. Just ask for them here at the desk—they’ll be on the shelf.”

  “Excuse me,” Gwen piped up, “is your dress a Missoni?”

  “Gwen…,” Claire chided.

  “It’s all right.” Francesca leaned on the counter. “I have a little secret. It’s not exactly a Missoni, it’s just a very good copy.” She shrugged and smiled. “It’s not so easy to buy designer clothes on a librarian’s salary.”

  “Wow, it looks like the real thing.”

  “There’s a shop near the Merceria San Zulian where you can find many items like this. But we don’t tell this to too many foreigners—only those like you, with a good eye for fashion.”

  As Gwen and Francesca debated the merits of various fashion designers, Claire found an empty table nearby and eagerly opened Fazzini’s diary. This was exactly what she had hoped to find in Venice: the long forgotten book, document, or manuscript that other historians might have overlooked. She flipped through the yellowing pages, running her finger down the lines of text, searching for Alessandra’s name. One hundred and eighty-eight pages later, the book ended and she hadn’t found it. She turned back to the beginning, this time going more slowly and reading a few of the anecdotes of seventeenth-century Venetian life that Fazzini related with a breathless delight.

  “My dear friends, I must relate the most astonishing piece of gossip. The esteemed lord Constantin Vasari has taken the courtesan Beatrice dalle Crosette as his wife! Although she is without doubt accomplished, with the singing voice of an angel, and so blessed with beauty that she can vie with any in Venice, she has continued her disgraceful habits and has licentiously given over her body to many men. Recently she had another lover in addition to this Vasari, but the latter seems not to have minded. Well, love knows no limits!…

  “The dashing abbé de Pomponne is the source of a scandalous feud between the abbess of Santa Chiara and Sister Eugenia, one of the nuns in her charge. The two women fought over their mutual lover in a poniard duel held in the convent courtyard late at night. No one is shocked that the women should fight—but to fight on consecrated ground! That is the scandal…

  “La Celestia owns a monkey which runs loose over the rooftops, sometimes entering into the open windows of other palazzi. One day he stole a diamond ring from Signora Grafia Corsa next door, and wore it about on his finger. Lorenzo Giambatti saw the monkey with the ring and confronted the courtesan: ‘Did you know your monkey stole Signora Corsa’s ring?’ he asked. ‘Why, no!’ she said. ‘But haven’t you noticed him wearing it?’ he asked. ‘Of course,’ she replied, ‘but I thought it was his!’”

  Claire looked up from the book as Gwen sat down next to her. “How long are we going to be stuck here?”

  “Not much longer.” She’d spend another half hour on Fazzini, then take a glance at the other books Francesca had given her. The Diary wasn’t so promising after all, but it was easy to become engrossed in, and quite different from the texts she was accustomed to reading. Venetian history could be surprisingly dry, a seemingly endless litany of doges and wars. The Republic’s aversion to anything approaching a “cult of personality” meant that intimate details about Venetian leaders, nobles, and citizens weren’t in great supply. Piecing together the personal lives of those involved in the Spanish Conspiracy had taken some effort, and no doubt it would require quite a bit more. Fazzini was a welcome find. Although he might be unreliable, he offered some insight into the mores and interests of the time
. She turned her attention back to the Diary.

  “La Celestia’s launching of a new cortigiana onestà in a most dramatic fashion at an exclusive banquet at her luxurious Ca’ Aragona has spawned a trend among those women who desire to be elevated above their designation of ‘sumptuous whore.’ Ever since La Celestia’s protégée La Sirena made her debut as a most delectable dessert, covered by nothing save the glimmer of gold dust, a few strands of pearls, and some well-placed gold leaf, courtesans have been adorning themselves in the most outrageous manner, clothed in nothing but jewels or bright feathers…”

  That name again: La Celestia. A courtesan named the Heavens? Unusual for a Venetian courtesan to have a nom de guerre, as it were. It had been much more common in Rome a century earlier, when Imperia and La Dolce were the stars of the age. Venetian courtesans generally went by their given names: Bianca Saraton, Elena Balbi, Gaspara Stampa, the Ballerini sisters.

  “I’m so sorry.” Francesca stood beside the table. “I checked the records and it seems I’ve given you the wrong book. The mention of Alessandra Rossetti is in Fazzini’s volume Five, not Four. But you’re welcome to keep it, if you like.”

  “No thanks. It’s entertaining, but there’s nothing in it I can use.”

  Francesca took volume Four from her and put volume Five on the table. “It’s on page twenty-four.”

  Fazzini’s fifth volume covered the years 1619 to 1623—after the conspiracy. Did gossipy Ettore know what happened to Alessandra? She skipped to the page Francesca had flagged and began to read.

  “Ever since Alessandra Rossetti’s letter was passed to the Great Council, the presence of mercenary soldiers in Venice is greatly reduced, with both good and ill effects. It’s easier to get a table in a tavern, but one mourns the loss of the nightly fights and skirmishes that made life so exciting…”

  Claire sighed. That was it? She felt a pang of disappointment. Perhaps, she thought as she closed Fazzini’s Diary, she should have known better than to get her hopes up so high.

  Chapter Ten

  “MY FEET ARE killing me,” said Gwen, plopping down in a chair outside a café in the tiny Campiello degli Squellini with her usual lack of grace. She took off one of her sandals and rubbed her toes. “I didn’t know we were going to walk all over Venice.”

  The journey from the Doge’s Palace through the chic streets of San Marco, then across the Accademia Bridge to Dorsoduro hadn’t seemed all that far to Claire, but it did feel good to sit down. To her dismay she’d discovered that there was no such thing as a truly accurate map of Venice. There wasn’t one in her possession, at any rate.

  A waiter appeared and she ordered a cappuccino, and a lemonade for Gwen. They weren’t far from Ca’ Foscari, but she needed a few minutes to relax and revive herself before she faced the conference. Her thoughts, as they often had in the past ten days, turned to Andrea Kent. Finally, she would meet the woman who was her closest professional counterpart, or perhaps her nemesis. Would she be friend or foe, ally or adversary? There was a possibility that Andrea would consider her a threat, even though, from Claire’s point of view, Andrea held all the cards: she taught at one of England’s oldest universities, and her work on the Spanish Conspiracy was about to be published. How could she even hope to compete? Not for the first time did she wish that Andrea Kent was a professor almost anywhere other than Cambridge. Why couldn’t she teach at some obscure little college instead of at one of the few universities in the entire English-speaking world more illustrious than Harvard?

  And how was she going to introduce herself, anyway? “Hi, just happen to be working on the same thing you are, how about we get together and compare notes?” Ha. While she was a teaching assistant at Columbia, she’d witnessed academic squabbles so vicious, one would have thought they were based on something intensely personal instead of professional.

  All historians defended their territory; that’s how careers were made and furthered. It was unlikely that Andrea Kent would share anything more than what she was willing to reveal in her lectures, so Claire would simply have to glean as much as she could from them. Perhaps it would be better to keep the subject of her dissertation and her particular interest in Andrea’s work to herself. She imagined being introduced to the professor, complimenting her on her work, then making casual inquiries: What a fascinating subject! So you’ve written a book? When will it be published?

  As soon as she thought of it, she felt disgusted. She hated dissimulation, and it was only partly because she had no knack for it. Which left her back at, “Hi, just happen to be working on the same thing you are…”

  Gwen slurped the last of her lemonade through a straw. “It’s weird, but it doesn’t really look like the movie,” she said. “I mean, sometimes it does, but a lot of times it doesn’t.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?”

  “Venice. It doesn’t look like the movie.”

  “What movie?”

  “It’s this movie my mom watches all the time. It’s like her favorite movie.” Gwen scrunched her eyes as she remembered the title. “Summertime. With Katharine Hepburn.”

  Claire vaguely recalled seeing the film, years and years ago. She hardly remembered anything about it, except—“Doesn’t Katharine Hepburn fall into a canal?”

  “Yeah, and that’s where she meets the guy—he’s got this antiques shop. Oh!” Gwen exclaimed. “Could we go there?”

  “Where?”

  “It’s called…Barnaba. I remember it ’cause the kid points it out to her: ‘Ponte Barnaba, Campo Barnaba.’ I have to go there before I leave. I promised my mom I’d take a picture of the store.”

  “So, it’s your mom’s favorite movie?” It seemed an unusual choice for a woman so familiar with firearms.

  “It makes her cry,” she said, nodding.

  “Really? How come?” Maybe if she got Gwen talking about her mom, she’d divulge why she shot her dad.

  Gwen shrugged.

  “Does it make you cry, too?”

  “No, it just makes me mad. Katharine Hepburn comes to Venice and she meets this Italian guy and they fall in love but then at the end she goes home.”

  “Isn’t he married?”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t live with his wife anymore.”

  “I think the movie was made a long time ago—in the fifties or something—and back then, Italians couldn’t get divorced. Ever. Maybe that’s why she goes home.”

  “So why doesn’t she just live with him? Honestly, I don’t get it. All that’s waiting for her back home is a boring life and a boring job.”

  “I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to be thinking about at the end of the movie.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking about. Katharine Hepburn leaves Venice, leaves the guy she loves, and for what? It’s the stupidest movie I’ve ever seen.”

  It may have been the stupidest movie Gwen had ever seen, but something about it obviously struck a chord. Claire hadn’t seen her get so worked up about anything else; for a moment the terminally bored look in her eyes had been replaced with anger or even sadness. Perhaps memories of her mother had brought on the surge of emotion. The question was on the tip of Claire’s tongue: So, why did your mom shoot your dad?

  Then Gwen gave her a piercing look and said, “Why haven’t you asked me why my mom shot my dad? I mean, that’s all anybody at home wanted to talk about. I swear, everyone I’ve known since third grade called to ask me.” Gwen’s voice rose in mimicry: “‘Why’d your mom shoot your dad?’ ‘Why’d your mom shoot your dad?’ ‘Why’d your mom shoot your dad?’”

  “I got the feeling that you didn’t want to talk about it,” said Claire.

  “I don’t,” said Gwen.

  Ca’ Foscari, the Grand Canal palazzo occupied by the University of Venice, was a prime example of the fifteenth-century Gothic style. In 1574, it had famously housed Henri III of France, on his way to Paris to assume the throne. A stone patio, bordered by low walls covered with climbing vi
nes, marked the entrance on the landward side. A small banner announcing the conference hung above the palazzo door, and people stood about in small groups, chatting and smoking.

  Claire stepped up to a folding table manned by a student wearing a red T-shirt with a picture of Karl Marx on the front. She handed her registration confirmation to him and in return got a name tag for herself and a guest pass for Gwen, whom she described, sotto voce, as her daughter. About Andrea Kent—she had decided that she would take the high road and hope for the best. She’d be honest and explain her dilemma. There was always the possibility that Andrea was a magnanimous person who would foster another historian’s career instead of sabotage it.

  They walked through a milling crowd in the foyer, up a massive staircase to the second floor—the piano nobile, traditionally the floor used by the Venetian aristocracy for entertaining—and stepped into the main hall just as a harried man placed a poster-size sign on an easel near the door.

  The placard announced the name of the next speaker, along with the speaker’s photo. It was someone both Claire and Gwen recognized at once, and they stood stock-still in front of it.

  “It’s that English guy,” Gwen said, her voice breathy with bewilderment.

  It was him. Unmistakably him. Just beneath the photo (in which he looked appropriately serious and scholarly, and was posed before an artistically blurred background that hinted strongly of classical columns and laurel leaves, as if he were the human repository of all knowledge dating from the Hellenic era) was his name: Andrew Kent. Andrew, with a w not an a, Kent. Andrew Kent.

  In the main hall, a podium on a two-foot riser faced eight rows of long, narrow tables and chairs. It looked much like other seminars she’d attended, except that the Ca’ Foscari conference room had once been the portego of a wealthy fifteenth-century Venetian family. Large landscapes in gilded frames adorned the walls; the high, domed ceiling offered a celestial scene of gold-flecked clouds populated by larger-than-life-size mythical figures and rosy-cheeked cherubs.