Thief of Venice
Page 17
Henchard drove his cart through the middle of the little square at top speed. The Americans stared, the man with the ladder turned his head, the children elbowed each other and snickered, the women stopped to watch the man in the drenched business suit pushing a carretto in such a hurry with such a wild tintinnabulation of bells.
To Henchard they were merely obstructions in his way. He stopped in sudden jerks to let them pass, then pushed ahead, then slowed down again to make a succession of quick turns. At the Rio di Ca’ Widman a short length of the canal was blocked off with heavy plates of rusty corrugated iron. Henchard glanced down with pitying scorn at the wretched men working in the slimy ooze of the bottom, shoveling mud into wheelbarrows, carrying on the perpetual job of clearing Venetian waterways of silt because their ruthless foreman, the engineer from the Ministry of Public Works, had ordered them back to work.
Beside the empty canal the fondamenta was obstructed by wooden trestles. There was hardly room to get by, and the cart kept wobbling dangerously to one side.
Mary and Homer Kelly were crowded together in the small cabin of the powerboat of the Nucleo Natanti in the company of three men in the smart dark uniforms of the carabinieri. The brigadier capo was at the wheel, sending the little craft whizzing under the Rialto Bridge into the Rio del Fontego dei Tedeschi. The staring headlight illuminated the turn into Rio de San Lio, the engine slowed and speeded up again, sending bow waves slapping against the Church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli. The brigadiere was making a shortcut in the direction of Rio dei Gesuiti, where Mary’s finger had come down so firmly on the map. Here, she had said, try here.
They never made it to Rio dei Gesuiti. “There,” cried Mary, “there he is, look! The man with the cart!”
Henchard saw the glaring headlight, he heard the roar of the engine, he heard it suddenly cut, he saw the carabinieri leaping up onto the fondamenta, he saw Mary Kelly pointing and shouting. Panicking, he backed up and collided with one of the trestles. A gate beside the empty canal swung open.
Slowly, as in a dream, he blundered sideways and lost his balance. The cart with all its priceless treasures lurched and threatened to tip over. The tarpaulin slipped off and a magnificent volume of Caesar’s Commentaries, adorned with the stemma of Cardinal Bessarion and illuminated with a splendid letter I (for Iulius), flew up in the air.
Homer, who sometimes didn’t know his right hand from his left, reached out one long arm and caught it neatly as it came down, and the brigadiere capo snatched up the painting before it hit the ground, and the other carabinieri grasped the handles of the cart and heaved it upright, while Richard Henchard fell slowly headfirst into the muddy bottom of the canal.
CHAPTER 51
When the doorbell rang, only Mrs. Wellesley was at home. She came running downstairs to the street door, her alarm about Ursula turning to indignation, angry words boiling up in her head.
But it was not Ursula at the door, it was a bedraggled woman, a perfect stranger, a disheveled-looking gypsy with wild hair and a rag around her arm. “Signora,” said the woman in limpid Italian, “mi chiamo Lucia Costanza. Per piacere, posso vedere il Signor Bell?” When Mrs. Wellesley only gaped at her, Lucia said it again in English, “My name is Lucia Constanza. Please, is Mr. Bell at home?”
If Dorothea Wellesley had been a reading woman, she might have seen this meeting as a scene right out of Dickens, like the fierce encounter in A Tale of Two Cities between Madame Defarge and Miss Pross.
Dorothea was not a reading woman, but she recognized the extraordinary apparition at the door as a dangerous enemy. The woman looked very much like a threat to everything Dorothea held dear. At once she vowed to protect her own.
“Mr. Bell is not home,” she said coldly. Then, standing squarely in the middle of the doorway, she added, “Why do you wish to see him?” It was a rude thing to say, but outrage and curiosity overwhelmed her sense of propriety.
“Sono una collega,” began Lucia, but then she faltered and started over in English. She gripped the rag on her arm, which was stained with blood. “I am a colleague of Doctor Bell’s. I am a procurator of Saint Mark.” Or I was, before I ran away.
Dorothea stared at Lucia, taking in the handsome face, the curling mass of wet hair, the soaked and rumpled clothing. It was worse and worse. This dangerously attractive female was asserting a powerful claim on the husband of her own dead daughter. How was she to be defied?
The estimable Miss Pross had used physical violence to overcome Madame Defarge, but brutal muscular action was beyond the ken of Dorothea Wellesley, in spite of the passionate fury of her threats against priests and popes and the archbishop of Canterbury.
Reluctantly she introduced herself as Samuel Bell’s mother-in-law and the grandmother of his little daughter (in other words, as a privileged person who had a right to her presence in this house, not like some). And then at last she stood back and asked Lucia to come in.
It was not a surrender. She was prepared for battle. She would bring all her forces into it, she would play all her cards—hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds, and even, if necessary, the ace of gold.
Lucia struggled after her up the stairs. She was so tired she could barely walk across the sitting-room floor. Half fainting, she sank into a chair.
Mrs. Wellesley glowered down at her. Was the bitch putting on an art? As someone who had put on many an act herself, she recognized the symptoms. By cheating, the gypsy had won the first round in this battle of Titans. She would not win the second.
There was no time for another move. To her chagrin Mrs. Wellesley heard Sam stumping slowly up the stairs. She didn’t want to let him in. She opened the door and saw him standing on the top step with Ursula, who was holding the lid of a pot in each hand.
“You bad girl,” snapped Dorothea, “where have you been?” Then she said dryly to Sam, “You have a visitor.”
He murmured, “Oh, no,” and stepped reluctantly into the hall. At once he saw Lucia in the room beyond. She was rising slowly from her chair, and he ran to her with a cry of joy.
Lucia laughed and allowed herself to be embraced, but then she said, “Ohì,” and backed away, apologizing.
“Good God,” said Sam, seeing the bloodstained rag. Putting his arm around her, he glanced at his mother-in-law for guidance in the household care of miscellaneous injuries, but Dorothea sniffed and turned away. It was none of her affair.
So Sam took Lucia into the kitchen and cared for the torn skin of her arm with warm water and disinfectant and layers of gauze bandage. “We must call a doctor,” he whispered, kissing her gently.
“No, no,” said Lucia. “Not yet.” And together they returned to the sitting room, where Ursula beamed at them and banged her pot lids together with a crash.
For once Mrs. Wellesley failed to scold. She was in a state of shock. This was defeat, and she knew it. The battle was over before it had begun. Dorothea withdrew into the sanctuary of her bedroom. The gypsy woman’s ace of hearts had trumped her ace of gold.
But Ursula was glad. She looked at the pretty lady with the curly hair and at her father, whom she had saved. Her miracle had worked. Her father was not going to die. He had told her so.
CHAPTER 52
Slowly and haltingly, Sam and Lucia began putting together all their bits and pieces.
Sam Bell knew and loved Lucia, but he knew nothing about the treasure that had been discovered by his own physician, Doctor Richard Henchard, and seen thereafter by both Lucia and Mary Kelly.
He was also completely unaware of the turbulent history of the gold plates and candlesticks and scrolls, the painting and the five-hundred-year-old books, bundled so insanely by Doctor Henchard from one place to another and at last nearly flung into the slimy bottom of a drained canal.
Sam did not know why Lucia had disappeared from her house in the Ghetto Nuovo. He didn’t yet know that Doctor Henchard had taken her away at gunpoint and imprisoned her and tried to murder her.
And of course neither Sam
nor Lucia knew anything about Henchard’s dangerous pursuit of Mary Kelly through high water and low, nor about his escape and recapture with the help of the Nucleo Natanti.
It wasn’t until Mary and Homer knocked on the door and came hobbling in, exhilarated, worn out, and starving, that everything could be sorted out.
But first, of course, everyone had to be introduced to everyone else. Everyone, that is, but Dorothea, who had already begun packing in her bedroom, having seen the handwriting on the wall,
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN!
DOROTHEA WELLESLEY,
YOU’LL BE BETTER OFF ELSEWHERE.
Sam was in a state of solemn joy. Reasons One and Two had vanished, the logical arguments explaining why Lucia Costanza had been forbidden him from the beginning—Reason One, his illness, and Reason Two, the fact that she was married, and then the final appalling Reason Three, her disappearance. Now here she was, sitting warmly beside him while both of them struggled to maintain some sort of decorum, and Homer and Mary tried not to grin too broadly.
“Come on, Ursula, dear,” said Mary, jumping up and grasping her hand. “Let’s see what we can find to eat in the kitchen. And I’ve got some good things upstairs. Do you like pickles?”
Sam jumped up too and went to his mother-in-law’s bedroom and called through the door, “Dorothea, please join us. This is a celebration.”
But Mrs. Wellesley was still cowering from the dread words on her wall, YOU’LL BE BETTER OFF ELSEWHERE, and she stayed put.
They ate and drank and talked. Ursula fell asleep and Sam put her to bed. At last, when Lucia brought out her document, they were ready to listen.
It was only three pages long. They were the same three fragile handwritten pages that she had found fluttering across the floor in the room from which Henchard had so frantically removed his treasure.
She read them aloud, translating the Italian into English, pausing sometimes for the right word, then going inexorably on. Homer put down his glass and stared gravely at his knees. Mary looked soberly at the floor. Sam gazed grimly at the pattern in the rug. It was a harrowing document. Lucia read it slowly, her voice clear and without expression.
“CODICIL TO MY LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
“On this day, December 6, 1943, I bequeath to the named beneficiaries the following things:
“I. To my synagogue, the Scuola Spagnola, these ritual vessels and scrolls, which I have hidden in this place from capture by the invading forces of the German army—two Torah scrolls with crowns of gold, one Esther scroll for Purim, three Seder plates of gold, three gold Seder cups, two silver cups for Friday services, two menorahs, and three incense burners of silver gilt. These must of course be returned to the congregation for whose sake they are now to be hidden away.
“II. The illuminated manuscripts listed below, from the collection of Cardinal Bessarion, and the folio volume from the Aldine press are all to be donated to the Biblioteca Marciana. All three were acquired by me at public auction in Rome. They are as follows:
“1. From the library of Cardinal Bessarion, a trilingual Pentateuch or Torah in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, assembled in our fashion with Genesis at the back and Deuteronomy at the front. I note that the good cardinal proclaimed his Christianity by adding the words ‘ave M(ari)a’ at the top of every page.
“2. Also from the library of Cardinal Bessarion, a Latin codex, Caesar’s Commentaries.
“3. From the press of Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1499, a folio volume with printed text accompanied by woodcuts of obelisks, elephants, and mystic symbols, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, or The Dream of Poliphilius.
“III. Painting by Raphael, Portrait of a Young Man. Because I stole this painting from the Nazi Oberkommandant who had himself taken it from the collection of the Czartoryski Museum in Cracow, the painting is not mine. The museum’s stamp is on the back. I can only suggest that if the Polish museum continues to exist after this brutal war is over, the painting should be returned to their collection. Otherwise perhaps it might become the property of the Gallerie dell’Accademia. It is not for me to say.
“Signatures of witnesses:
Baruch Basevi
Beatrice Basevi
“Signature of testator: Armando Levi, December 6, 1943”
“Armando Levi!” Sam jumped up and leaned over Lucia’s shoulder to look.
Homer was mystified. “Who was Armando Levi?”
“Who was Armando Levi? My God.” Sam took a moment to collect himself. “Armando Levi was a highly respected doctor who committed suicide in 1943 rather than submit to being shipped off by the Nazis to a death camp.” Sam’s voice was shaking. He sat down again. “I’ve seen his grave in the Hebrew cemetery on the Lido.”
Lucia said quietly, “There’s more.”
“Read on,” said Sam.
“I must explain how the Raphael portrait has come into my possession.
“Two days after the German army began occupying this city, I was invited to an evening meeting in the headquarters of Nazi Oberkommandant Helmut Greetz. I suppose I was chosen for this honor because of my position as president of the Jewish community.
“In accepting the invitation I was of course on my guard, but the evening began cordially enough. The Oberkommandant has settled himself comfortably in a house in Castello, long since confiscated by the Fascisti because the owners were Jews. He offered me wine, which I refused, and then talked proudly about the paintings on the wall. These works of art, he said, had accompanied him throughout the war.
“Among them was the Raphael portrait. The Oberkommandant bragged that it had fallen his way when the collettion of a museum in Cracow was looted in 1940. He asked me, ‘Do you not think it a masterpiece?’ I said that I did. I did not express my disgust that this great Italian work should be the toy of an animal like Greetz.
“After these friendly overtures, the real business of the evening began. The Oberkommandant gave me writing materials and asked me to put down the location of every Venetian synagogue and make a list of all my fellow jews. The implication was that I, too, might benefit in some material way from this simple secretarial act.
“When I refused, the threats began, and it became clear to me at once how grim and terrible are the times that have come upon us. I have lost all hope that we Jews may be spared. Man, woman, and child are to be rounded up from every neighborhood in the city, from every hole and corner and hiding place, and herded away to the town of Fossoli. From there they will be taken north into Germany and Poland to be interned in concentration camps and put to death.
“I listened in dumb despair, wanting to ask how such inhumanity could exist, how he could speak of it without revulsion. And then the phone rang in another part of the house, and to my surprise he went out of the room to answer it. At once I snatched the painting off the wall and ran out into the street.
“Of course I was pursued, and there was a hue and cry. But having grown up in this city, I know every twist and turn. I took off my coat to cover the painting and made my way to this place, where I have now hidden the ritual vessels of my synagogue as well as my own beloved books. Here I have deposited the Raphael. Only my friends Signor and Signora Basevi know where they are.”
Sam interrupted, murmuring, “Sei stanca, cara?”
She shook her head. “No, no, I’m not tired. There’s only a little more.”
“The end of my life is near. I will not live to see the day in which my beloved country will be free and master of itself again, when there will at last be an end to the folly that has created such iniquity in the world and broken my heart.
“Armando Levi.”
CHAPTER 53
At the carabinieri station on Campo San Zaccaria, Richard Henchard sat in a chair facing the capitano of the investigative branch of the service, the Nucleo Operative Surrounding Henchard, looking down at him with expressionless faces, were other officers, including several from the Questura. In an obscure corner sat Mary Kelly, somber and reluctant.
The celebrated legal adviser muttered something, and Henchard fell silent.
“It’s not a Titian,” corrected the capitano softly. “It’s a Raphael.” Everyone glanced at the picture, which hung on the wall above a table on which lay Armando Levi’s five-hundred-year-old books and all his synagogue treasures.
The young man in the Raphael portrait looked at Henchard with a knowing smile. The gold of the plates and cups glittered and gleamed.
There was gold too on the hat of the capitano, a sparkling insignia with thirteen flames, each having stalwart significance—Loyalty! Readiness! Courage!
“These things,” said the capitano, waving his hand at the table, “non sono importanti.” He stood up and offered his chair to a distinguished-looking broad-shouldered man with four gold stars on the shoulders of his uniform. “Generale Palma of the polizia has issued a report. Generale?”
From her corner Mary listened to the general’s report. It was interrupted again and again by the sharp objections of the expensive legal adviser from the law courts of Bologna, but his complaints were ignored. With extreme courtesy the general recited an itemized list of devastating conclusions.
“Item 1: The firearm that was at first thought to have killed Signor Lorenzo Costanza, the handgun bearing the fingerprints of his wife Lucia, was not, after all, the weapon that fired the fatal shot. The cartridge extracted from Costanza’s skull is indeed the right size, but the scratches do not match those inside the barrel of the gun in question, which, in fact, shows few signs of having been fired at all. They match instead the scratches in the barrel of the weapon found on the person of Doctor Henchard at the time of his arrest by Brigadiere Capo Cardoso in the drained canal of Rio di Ca’ Widman.