Farewell to the Flesh

by Edward Sklepowich

  The courses on San Servolo and at the Palazzo Spinelli would have been more than enough for his purposes, but he had become interested in restoration for its own sake and enjoyed helping, in his small way, to bring things back to the way they once had been.

  “I want to do something more,” he had said to the Contessa last September as they waited for the Regatta to begin. He had just finished telling her how thrilled he had been the other day on San Servolo when, his face covered with a plastic mask, he had removed some corrosion from the hem of a stone Madonna with the quartz cutter. “I want to do something more than what I’ve already done here in Venice.”

  “You’ve done enough already, caro, and you’ll continue to,” she said. “You’ve fixed up the Palazzo Uccello and you’re writing your biographies. And just think of all the pleasure you give me! My life would be empty without you. What more could you possibly want than all that?”

  “Maybe I’d like to be able to see some change—however small—that I’ve made here. A change for the better that I could reach out and touch. Something that other people could see, too. You’re right about restoring the Palazzo Uccello but I live there. It wasn’t completely selfless.”

  The Contessa shook her head and looked down at the Grand Canal.

  “Are you speaking from some strange kind of American guilt? You’ve already turned over the top floor to Natalia and her husband.”

  “I just want to do something more,” he repeated.

  “You Americans and your doing!” she said with the air of a person whose greater years and British heredity had allowed her to see so much ill-conceived American activity. “Work harder on your biographies! You’ve got the one on Proust to finish. Find another case to sleuth! Did you know that someone has been stealing the votive candles from the street shrine of the Madonna by the Ca’ da Capo? Try your hand at that. Until something better comes along you’re going to have to just sit tight and go through the motions of being content. Just don’t do anything drastic. Whenever I hear someone talking the way you are and see that same look on their face I think: Beware! You’re on the brink of a big mistake. If I didn’t know you had a few more years to go, I’d say that you were having a mid-life crisis.”

  Although the Contessa had continued to chide him about his dissatisfaction, she had ended up providing a solution. A month after the Regatta she decided to finance the restoration of the San Gabriele fresco. She secured the appointment of Josef Lubonski and arranged to have Urbino help him. Everything seemed to be working out well, except that both Urbino and the Pole had come down with the flu. Lubonski’s case was much more serious and he was being tended by the sisters at the Casa Crispina across the campo.

  Actually the San Gabriele fresco wasn’t in particularly bad shape compared to other frescoes more exposed to air currents but the pastor wanted to bring the church’s patron saint back to a semblance of what the older parishioners could remember as its much greater vividness.

  An architect and two contractors had dealt with the problem of the water-soaked plaster on the latticework behind the fresco, and now Lubonski was several weeks into what the Contessa liked to call the “cosmetics.”

  “If we could only restore ourselves to our original luster!” she had lamented. “Now that would be something! Every couple of years we could hang a sign on our doors that says ‘In restauro’ and emerge as fresh as we were at forty!”

  This afternoon Urbino had climbed the ladder to be alone with the fresco for a few moments. The small areas that Lubonski had worked on glowed with vitality. Several people, including the photographer Porfirio said that some of the paint was being taken off, that the colors originally hadn’t been so bright. From what he had learned and what he knew about the restoration of the Sistine frescoes, however, Urbino disagreed.

  He went down the ladder. He should stop by to see Lubonski before going to Florian’s to meet the Contessa.

  The English photographer staying at the Casa Crispina was standing near the foot of the ladder looking up at him as he descended the last few rungs. The photographer was burdened with several cameras. Behind him was Paolo, the sexton.

  Urbino had met Val Gibbon several times. Because he was lodging in the Casa Crispina and taking some photographs for the sisters, Sister Teresa had pressed the Contessa to have him take the photographs of the fresco for the church records. The Contessa, always easily swayed by Sister Teresa, had agreed, not taking into consideration Porfirio’s air of proprietorship about all things Venetian.

  Val Gibbon was a handsome man in his late thirties, Urbino’s own age, with short, curly dark hair and dark eyes and almost-dead-white skin. The first time Urbino had met him he had been reminded of Caesar’s words about Cassius but he was fairly certain that Gibbon’s lean and hungry look usually evoked thoughts other than those of danger in the minds of impressionable women.

  “Finished dabbling for the day?” Gibbon said with an even, innocent gaze.

  “Just having a look. I only ‘dabble’ when Lubonski is here.”

  “That might be a while. He was looking like death yesterday. You’d think a Pole would be more hardy. I can’t say I mind having him out of the way for a time though. It makes my work easier.”

  “I thought you were finished with the fresco.”

  “Not quite. There are still a few things I want to do. I’m also photographing a few of the other frescoes and paintings as a favor to Sister Teresa—although I think I’d do it just to rile that pompous fool Porfirio. He doesn’t like the idea of my poaching in his territory—and by that I don’t mean only the church but the whole damn city.” He looked around the dark Gothic building. His eye rested on a statue of the Virgin to the left of the altar. One of the old women of the parish was arranging a fresh urn of flowers. “I’m also thinking of taking some time-lapse of the Virgin over there. The ridiculous Italian woman staying at the Casa Crispina says she saw a bright halo around the head yesterday. I’d like to give her proof of how foolish she is.”

  “I doubt if Xenia Campi would accept photographs as proof of anything but what happened not to be there at the time they were taken.”

  Gibbon’s immediate laugh had an unpleasant, conspiratorial ring to it. Before Urbino could make it clear that they didn’t share a condescending attitude toward Xenia Campi, however, the photographer excused himself and started up the ladder.

  6

  Josef Lubonski, an attractive man in his early forties with short sandy-colored hair and prominent cheekbones, lay in bed beneath several layers of blankets, His face was haggard, and his blue eyes were clouded with dark circles beneath them. He was hardly able to muster a smile of greeting.

  “I feel weak like a baby,” he told Urbino. “It makes me want to have my mother here, even an old man like me.”

  Lubonski’s mother was in Cracow. He phoned her every week and regularly sent her money. Even in these freer days for Poland, Lubonski preferred not to go back, and his mother, close to eighty, wasn’t well enough to visit him.

  “Don’t worry about anything, Josef. Carnevale is still young. As for the fresco, it will wait for you.”

  A ghost of a smile flickered over Lubonski’s face.

  “I know the fresco will wait, Urbino. But can you?”

  “To be honest, I was just looking at the fresco—but yes, I can wait.” Urbino meant it. No more climbing up the ladder and poking around. “Don’t worry about me or anyone else. Just get well. Besides, the photographer will be able to finish his work more easily without either of us around.”

  “I hope he knows he must not flash the bright lights all over!” Lubonski said with vehemence. “He has already given too much light to the three saints. He knows how to take pictures of rich people. He knows how to do it very well, I think. But frescoes and paintings, I am not sure.”

  A few moments later a sister came in to give Lubonski his medication.

  7

  Urbino was pushed almost the entire length of the exit ramp at the
San Marco boat landing by the crush of passengers behind him. The trip down the Grand Canal had been like a floating party with wine bottles being passed around and couples dancing in the aisle to the music from a transistor radio.

  As Urbino reached the end of the ramp, a muzzled cocker spaniel was almost trampled by a huge woman in a Borsalino and a kimono-style robe splashed with vibrant geometrical patterns. The dog’s owner, an elderly woman in a fur coat, snatched the dog up and drew as close to the side of the building as she could to let the crowd pass around her.

  Urbino joined the flow of people moving exuberantly up the calle past Harry’s Bar. Although he had never worn a full costume or “cracked the whip” in the Piazza along with a long line of revelers, he seldom tired of the spectacle of this “feast of fools,” as it had been called in the Middle Ages. The Contessa assumed that he had been corrupted by all the Mardi Gras back in New Orleans, all the parades and balls, all the business about Mystical Krewes and Comus and Rex.

  It was true, but “corruption” wasn’t a word he would have used. Some of his happiest memories were of sitting safe and secure on his father’s shoulders watching the floats on Canal Street. And even as he had got older he had enjoyed watching the festivities more than taking an active part in them—something that had caused pointless arguments between him and his ex-wife, Evangeline, who had been Queen of Comus before their marriage.

  Urbino ducked into the shelter of a shop at the end of the calle where it funneled into a main route to the Piazza. Here he had a good view.

  An Arab sheikh passed by with the women of his harem dressed in blue veils that revealed considerably more than they concealed. One of them blew Urbino a kiss. Two children, dressed as an angel and a devil, were guided through the crowd by their father wearing a broad, smiling mask. Behind them three figures strolled along with red and purple feathered jackets, sequin-covered leggings, huge gauze fans, and black oval masks. They were followed by five purple-turbaned figures with gold-painted faces who were draped in shiny black material and sported saillike purple wings. They walked haughtily, as if they were royalty, and stopped every few minutes to assume frozen poses. A group of nuns passed by with bawdy laughter and suggestive gestures.

  Amid all this clamor five figures in long funereal capes, black capelets with hoods, severe white masks, and black tricorn hats walked in a silent cluster. Dressed in the bautta disguise worn by noblemen in the eighteenth century and seen in many Venetian paintings, they seemed to censure the madness around them, to be reminding the other revelers that although Carnevale might, by its very name, encourage a wanton farewell to the flesh, that the flesh wasn’t forever.

  Urbino rejoined the flow of people and soon entered the Piazza through one of the passages across from the mosquelike Basilica. Here the revelers spread out into the square, where pools of water from an acqua alta had seeped up through the paving stones. Raised planks provided dry passage over the deeper puddles in front of the Basilica.

  A temporary stage, its curtains drawn, faced the Basilica. Outside the café Quadri a covered deck had been set up with tables, chairs, and an area for the house orchestra. The orchestra wasn’t playing, but loudspeakers blared “Mack the Knife” so loudly that Urbino could feel it through his whole body. A raised wooden runway dominated the space in front of the stage. People sauntered up and down its ramps, posing, singing, waving, and shouting, while others sat on its edges, fortified against the cold with wine, beer, and their enthusiasm. A group of costumed men and women was dancing wildly to the music around two boys on stilts, dressed as crows. Above all this activity, a huge chandelier hung in the middle of the Piazza, waiting to be lighted the last evening of Carnevale, when the square would become an open ballroom.

  Photographers were everywhere in their high boots, posing the masqueraders who were only too eager to please someone other than themselves after hours in front of their mirrors. Sometimes one of them would seduce a photographer away from someone he was about to shoot. Fights erupted between the abandoned masquerader and the photographer’s new subject but they were usually short-lived. The maskers returned to their strolling and posing, seeking another opportunity to be the center of attention.

  Surely it would soon come their way. Wasn’t something new, something different and unexpected supposed to happen at Carnevale? Wasn’t it when anything could happen? When you could do anything you wanted?

  As Urbino sidestepped the fake Gucci purses, belts, and wallets spread out on a blanket at the feet of a glum-looking Senegalese, shouts farther down the arcade caught his attention. A group was gathered around a brightly costumed figure and a woman in a long dark cloak with a knit cap pulled low over her ears and forehead. A red-bearded man in a bridal dress stood next to the woman and mimicked her movements. She seemed unaware of what he was doing and of the amusement of the group around them. She was shouting shrilly in a rapid Italian at the blue-and-green-robed figure in a high headdress with silver baubles. This figure—whether a man or a woman Urbino couldn’t tell because of the turquoise and silver mask with Oriental features—held a large black feathered fan inset with tiny mirrors.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself! You’re just as bad as everyone else. Even worse! If the Venetians don’t care about what’s happening, then what hope is there? Everything is going to return to the hungry sea, every last building, bridge, and painting!” She looked the figure up and down with disdain. “Here”—she thrust at the masquerader a sheet of paper that fluttered down to the pavement—“spend your time reading this. Think of the future—yours and Venice’s! Either save yourself or prepare yourself!”

  This thrusting of the sheet of paper at the masquerader and her comments identified the woman for Urbino. Beneath that cap was Xenia Campi, whom Val Gibbon had mentioned earlier. She lived at the Casa Crispina, partly on the eponymous charity of the sisters and partly on what she got from her ex-husband Ignazio Rigoletti. Her ranting and raving against commercialism and her predictions of the “final destruction of the Serene Republic” had made her a source of both amusement and irritation to the Venetians. Her proselytizing and claims to clairvoyance had begun more than ten years ago, shortly after the death of her teenage son in a car crash.

  The masquerader responded to Xenia Campi’s diatribe not by picking up the flyer but by standing up straighter and, with one quick motion, taking off the Oriental mask. When it was completely removed, Xenia Campi gasped, for the unmasked face beneath the headdress was clearly hers: the same small eyes, square face, thin mouth, and cleft chin.

  It was a portrait mask, the kind gallants wore beneath another mask in the seventeenth century to deceive women with the face of their lovers or husbands—or, in some cases, to give the women a good excuse to claim they had been deceived. The man would briefly lift the first mask, revealing the familiar features beneath, and then proceed to take advantage of the apparently deceived woman.

  Xenia Campi grabbed the mask. The high-pitched laugh of her mocker gave no clue to its owner’s sex. Not until Xenia Campi held her papier-mâché image of herself triumphantly in her hand did Urbino recognize one of the most familiar figures of Carnevale beneath the headdress.

  It was Giovanni Firpo, a pharmacist at the Municipal Hospital. Ever since Venice’s Department for Tourism and Cultural Activities had resurrected Carnevale ten years ago, Firpo had been one of its most enthusiastic participants, sporting a different costume every year. Like many other masqueraders who came to Carnevale decked out in elaborate costumes, he hoped to get on a postcard, a poster, or a calendar, to have not only these brief days of fun and attention but something more substantial, something that distinguished him above all the others.

  Firpo didn’t seem to mind that his mask had been confiscated. It had already had the best effect possible. Putting on the Oriental mask again, he laughed and walked into the Piazza toward the ramp.

  Xenia Campi stuffed the portrait mask into her carpetbag. The little group around her and Firpo dispersed
, off to seek fresh amusement. As Urbino approached the woman, he smiled. He knew she was eccentric, even somewhat offensive at times, but he couldn’t help admiring her enthusiasm and her love for Venice. It still rankled that Val Gibbon had been left with the impression earlier that Urbino considered the woman a fool.

  Xenia Campi’s response to Urbino’s smile was a frown.

  “Read it, Signor Macintyre, read it and do something!” She thrust one of the sheets into his hand, then took another from the pile cradled in the crook of her arm. “And one for your friend the Contessa. I notice she’s enjoying herself in Florian’s as usual. Maybe the two of you can do something more than pay a fortune for tea and little cakes while everything is falling down around your ears.”

  She set off down the arcade, handing out more sheets as she went.

  Urbino looked at the flyer. There were several short paragraphs in Italian, French, Spanish, German, and English. They all said the same thing, in better or poorer style, with more or fewer errors, depending on the translation:

  THIS IS NOT VENICE! THIS IS MADNESS!

  Carnevale brings this city closer to destruction every year. I mean moral and physical destruction.

  What you see destroying this beautiful city is the Venice of speculators, money-crazed merchants, and a corrupt civil government. Everyone who encourages this madness—foreigners, Italians, and (most shameful of all!) Venetians themselves—gives death blows to the serene city.

  Venice is a peaceful and peace-loving city, a city of art and culture. Do you want to see all this destroyed during Carnevale? Do you want to see our dream city become a nightmare? Do you want to murder Venice? Where will it all end?

  VENICE IS NOT DISNEYLAND!

  Urbino smiled to himself. The irrepressible Xenia Campi! Not a stylist perhaps, but—as always—there was more than a little sense in what she said.