“I wouldn’t denigrate your work like that, Miss Reeve,” Urbino said.
“Traditore, traduttore,” Basso said loudly with his small, round head thrown back, reciting a popular Italian saying that played on the similarity between the words “betrayer” and “translator.”
“I hope that my translations aren’t in any way a betrayal, Signor Basso. What you say is more appropriate for a translator of Dante or Petrarch.” Then, without any preliminary except for a slight intake of breath and as if she were doing the most natural thing in the world, Hazel Reeve recited the opening canto of Dante’s Inferno:
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
Che la diritta via era smarrita.”
After finishing she said quickly, as if to discourage any possible praise or criticism of her Italian, “I’ve read at least a dozen English translations of those lines and not one even comes close to the original. How would it be possible! When it comes to Dante,” she said, directing herself to the architect, “the translator is a betrayer, even if he does have the purest of hearts and the best of intentions.”
Urbino paid little attention to Basso’s response. Hazel Reeve’s recitation was still sounding in his ears. He, too, like Dante, was midway in his own life’s journey—if he were, in fact, to be blessed with the three score and ten the Bible allotted. In no way had he, like Dante, gone astray in a dark wood—or even among all the beauties of Venice that could be so disorienting. Yet Dante’s words, spoken so well by this young Englishwoman, had seemed to be speaking directly to him, reminding him somehow of the warning the Contessa had given him on the day of the Regatta.
“You seem lost in thought, Mr. Macintyre,” Hazel Reeve said. “I didn’t mean to be superior, rattling off Dante like that. You’ll have to forgive me. I love Italian so much that I forget it’s not a language most people are inclined to study, certainly not the way they do French and Spanish.”
“I know Italian well enough,” Urbino said with what he hoped would be taken as neither pride nor injured feelings. “It was just that the Dante—” He stopped. How could he explain something that he didn’t understand himself?
“It’s just that you spoke so well,” he finished.
“D’accordo!” Basso said with a lift of his glass. “But your Italian is equal to hers, Signor Macintyre. There’s no cause for envy.”
Feeling completely misunderstood and yet not up to explaining himself, Urbino said nothing. He drew comfort, however, from the look that Hazel Reeve gave him as she took a sip of her wine, another look from her brilliant green eyes.
She seemed to know exactly how he felt. He had no need to make explanations.
“Signor Macintyre is a writer,” Basso said.
Interest flickered in Hazel Reeve’s eyes.
“Do you write novels?”
“Not novels, although on occasion I’ve been accused of writing fiction. I write biographies—biographies about Venice.”
“Biographies about Venice?”
“Not about Venice itself but about some of the people who have had an association with it. Mainly writers and artists—and not only Italians.”
“But you have so many to choose from! Browning, Ruskin, Mann, Turner, Vivaldi, Tintoretto, James—there must be dozens!”
“Exactly, although so far I’ve done books only on Ruskin, Casanova, Canaletto, and Browning and monographs on Pound and a Venetian family of restorers. I’m doing one on Proust now. Porfirio is providing the photographs.”
“How interesting. I absolutely adore Proust.”
“Proust!” Basso said with a frown after taking a sip of his whiskey. “I tried to read the book years ago but never got any farther than the first pages. The man was using so many words but he wasn’t saying anything that I could see. Something about kissing his mother.”
“Perhaps you should try again, Signor Basso,” Hazel Reeve suggested. “The book is like a cathedral—but to begin to see that you would have to read more than just a few pages.”
The comment seemed directed less at Basso than Urbino. She smiled, her green eyes looking directly into his.
10
The Teatro La Fenice was ablaze with lights as Urbino slipped into the Contessa’s box in the second tier. The Contessa’s restrained black and ecru Pirovano gown and Bulgari ruby necklace complemented La Fenice’s dominant beiges, golds, and reds. She was talking with her friend Oriana Borelli, who was alone in the next box. They gave him a quick greeting and returned to their low conversation, which was probably about the most recent marital explosion at the Ca’ Borelli on the Giudecca.
Urbino looked around the crowded theater. The crystal, gilt, and velvet enhanced the well-dressed audience, some of whom were in elegant masks and costumes. Urbino was curious about this new production of Rossini’s Otello. For him as well as the Contessa it would be the first production he had seen of the opera that had been eclipsed by Verdi’s version. He was familiar with the music but not the libretto. The librettist, the Marchese Berio di Salsa, was related by marriage to the da Capo-Zendrini family, and the Contessa hoped that her friend would disagree with the almost universal low opinion of his work. Her own opinion, it would seem, was a foregone conclusion. Ever since her marriage to Alvise da Capo-Zendrini—but especially since his death twelve years ago—she had become the champion of the family, drawing attention to their considerable contributions and deemphasizing, when not simply ignoring, their almost equally numerous peccadilloes.
The Contessa finished her conversation with Oriana and turned to Urbino. He was glad Barbara wanted to do most of the talking as they waited for the performance to begin. He was thinking about Hazel Reeve. She had managed to insinuate herself into his thoughts not only by what she had said but also by what she had left unsaid and implied. Urbino wasn’t flattered easily—or at least he didn’t think he was. Yet he had felt sought out, even favored in a subtle way by this young Englishwoman with the widely spaced green eyes and had stayed longer at Porfirio’s than he had intended. After Basso had gone off, they had discussed Browning and Proust.
When the performance began, it didn’t take Urbino long to realize that the libretto travestied Shakespeare’s tale of passion, pride, and jealousy.
During the intervals the Contessa, however, praised the opera, looking at him with an amused expression as she singled out the libretto for special comment, calling it “unique.” He didn’t dispute her for indeed the libretto was unique in the worst sense. He mumbled something innocuous about the recitatives and the similarity between one passage and a Verdi aria, surprised that aspects of the opera had managed to penetrate his abstraction.
“What did you think, Urbino?” the Contessa asked when the performance was over and they stepped out into the night air with Oriana Borelli.
“Any version that substitutes a love letter for the handkerchief can’t be anything but all wrong, but thank God he smothered her instead of forgiving her.”
Oriana, who knew that the Marchese Bario di Salsa was related to the da Capo-Zendrinis, reached out to touch the sleeve of the Contessa’s sable coat in consolation and turned surprised eyes, magnified behind her outsize black frames, in Urbino’s direction. Her gaze was transferred to the Contessa the next moment when the Contessa laughed and said,
“I couldn’t agree with you more, caro. Abominable, wasn’t it!” Then, with a tug at his arm as they went down the steps into the square after saying good night to Oriana, she added, “Alvise always said he wasn’t absolutely convinced that the da Capo-Zendrinis were related to the di Salsas.”
In the darkened cabin of the Contessa’s motorboat, the Contessa asked him about Porfirio’s party. Urbino didn’t go into much detail, not mentioning the photographer’s houseguest, but the little he said seemed to satisfy her. For most of the trip up the Grand Canal, she mused about the unexpected visit from her schoolgirl friend and said she was looking forward to getting Urbino’s opinion of her.
“I hope,” she said, “that you’ll be over whatever is troubling you. I also hope that you’ve noticed, with a keen appreciation for the reticence of true friendship, that I haven’t asked you one single, solitary question about the cause of that scrunched-up look on your face. At least I haven’t asked you yet. Go home and go to sleep. Good night and God keep you from any nightmares.”
11
When Urbino got back to the Palazzo Uccello, the phone was ringing. It was Lubonski.
“Remember that you promised not to go near the fresco until I am well,” he said in a barely coherent voice. “I want to be the only one responsible for any damage done.”
Not waiting for a response, the Pole hung up. Feeling somewhat put out by Lubonski’s reference to “damage”—even if he had included himself in it—Urbino went to the study and sat down to read Proust.
He seldom had premonitions, if that was the name he might give to the uneasy feeling he now had as he opened the book. He had felt this way on the day of his parents’ accidental death and on a Mardi Gras evening almost fifteen years ago as he had paused in front of a closed door his wife had gone through half an hour before with her cousin, Reid.
As he sat stroking Serena absently, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen—unless it had already.
12
Ignazio Rigoletti, returning to the Corte Santa Scolastica after buying cigarettes, was glad he didn’t encounter anyone in costume. He wasn’t in a good mood and he didn’t know what he might say or do.
The only festa he enjoyed was the Regatta. As a teenager he had rowed in the two-oar puparino and had eventually been among the gondolini champions and a district representative for the six-oar caorlina. Hadn’t he even helped row the Bucintoro thirty years ago when the golden barge had carried Pope Pius X’s body in a crystal coffin down the Grand Canal? Now he only occasionally rowed for the Querini club, at the age of forty-nine leaving most of the rowing to his nephews.
Rigoletti had hoped that his son, Marco, killed in a car crash on the autostrada, would become a rowing champion. He had been a fine specimen of a young man and the Regatta was a festa for real men. Even though they now allowed women to row in the two-oar mascareta, it was nothing more than just something to appease the crazy women liberationists. All eyes—at least the ones that counted—were always on the men.
But Carnevale! Men and women indistinguishable from each other, behaving like inmates of an asylum, every one mocking the values he—and other upright Venetians—believed in. It was for the tourists, the merchants, and a small group of poor, confused Venetians for whom it was the pinnacle of the year. Even Marco’s old girlfriend made a living off it now.
Unfortunately, Rigoletti could hardly avoid the most boisterous aspects of Carnevale, for his apartment was off the Calle Santa Scolastica only a few minutes from the Piazza and practically within touching distance of the Bridge of Sighs. In addition to being so close to the crowds, the Calle Santa Scolastica, although it dead-ended on a canal, got quite a few tourists who had lost their way or wanted to take a photograph of the Bridge of Sighs from an unusual angle.
It wasn’t these people who bothered him, however. Although he hated Carnevale, he certainly didn’t want to see the city empty of tourists. Where would he be—a man who delivered supplies to the big hotels—without them? One of the many things he didn’t agree with his ex-wife, Xenia, about was keeping as many people as possible away from Venice.
No, he wasn’t bothered by the tourists but by the men who used the end of the calle by the water steps for furtive meetings, the kind of men who probably never rowed in the Regatta. He often came home late in the evening like this to find two or even three and four men merging in the dark under the portico, silhouetted against the Ducal Palace.
The calle’s attraction resulted from a topographical peculiarity that could be found throughout the city. All you could see from its entrance and for ten or fifteen feet of its length was the wall of the courtyard building beyond. Not until you reached the courtyard itself could you see that it extended farther to the canal. Men seeking privacy together took advantage of this typically Venetian formation. There was absolutely no chance that they might be observed by anyone passing along the main alley—the Calle degli Albanesi down which he was walking now—or by anyone who had ventured into the first part of the Calle Santa Scolastica.
Whenever he came upon these men, they would pretend an interest in the view or retrace their steps back to the Calle degli Albanesi. Fifteen minutes ago when he had stepped down from his apartment he had seen a man lounging against the wall. Sometimes Rigoletti lost his temper with these men, and he certainly had lost it tonight, hadn’t he? He still remembered the frightened, almost desperate look in the good-looking young man’s face. He laughed at the memory.
Tonight a wind was blowing up the Calle degli Albanesi from the lagoon. The narrow opening by the water channeled the wind into the alley with unusual force, creating an eerie noise that sounded like souls in infernal pain. Tonight, however, the wind wasn’t as strong as it could be on these February nights but carried a warmth and dampness that weren’t completely comfortable. A fog was already rolling in.
As he was turning into the Calle Santa Scolastica, he almost collided with a dark, attractive young man who was rushing from the calle with an impassive look on his face. He seemed in a desperate hurry but showed no emotion. Rigoletti watched him walking briskly toward the Riva degli Schiavoni.
The calle itself was empty. When Rigoletti reached the courtyard, he looked down the remaining length of the calle to where it ended at the water.
There under the portico he saw the dark form looking like a pile of trash.
He went over to the prone man sprawled on the wet stones, whose hands were reaching out toward the water steps. He nudged his foot with his shoe tip but the man just lay there motionless in his rubber boots and flannel shirt jacket.
Rigoletti kneeled down. Thick dark hair curled over the man’s jacket collar. He turned the face toward him. The bulb encaged in metal in the portico gave Rigoletti just enough light to peer into the open eye of the man.
The eye, frozen in focus elsewhere and on a former time, didn’t peer back. Rigoletti’s hand touched the man’s flannel shirt and came away damp and sticky.
He stood up. He had to call the Questura.
Rigoletti left the dead body and went into the courtyard, only to stop suddenly, undecided if he should go back. Could he have left fingerprints on the body? But surely the police would accept his explanation, wouldn’t they? He had had to turn the man around to see if he was all right. It would be more suspicious if his fingerprints weren’t found.
Not exactly sure if he had made a mistake or not, Rigoletti crossed the courtyard. He would call the Questura from the restaurant where he had just bought his cigarettes. He went into the other part of the Calle Santa Scolastica that led to the Calle degli Albanesi.
A young blond man was coming down the Calle Santa Scolastica tentatively, looking warily ahead of him. When he saw Rigoletti, he started, and a frightened look came over his face. He turned quickly back into the Calle degli Albanesi. Rigoletti was right behind him. The young man was hurrying toward the Riva degli Schiavoni and the lagoon.
Rigoletti went to the restaurant to call the Questura.
Part Two
VEILS
1
The first thing that occurred to Urbino when he went into the Contessa’s salotto blu at five the next afternoon was that the woman looking up at the Veronese over the fireplace, crackling in homey fashion with wood brought down from near the Contessa’s villa in Asolo, could not possibly be named Pillow even if by marriage.
She was at least five ten and all sharp angles, from her gaunt face with prominent cheekbones and aquiline nose to her narrow feet shod in stylish black flats. Her dress in thin violet and black vertical stripes accentuated her long spare lines as did the gold chains and pendant th
at fell from her neck. With her reddish hair, fading into yellow-gray and pulled back in a bun, she did look about ten years older than the Contessa. Urbino wondered if the look of weariness in her face was something that several nights’ good sleep would banish or if it was the look she usually wore.
A young man about twenty-five in a dark-gray, generously cut suit and a crisp black T-shirt sat in the rococo chair next to the Contessa. He had one of those handsome narrow faces with Florentine lips that stares out from so many Italian portraits. His hair was matte black and medium long. Parted in the center, it swept down to either side of his forehead in two bold waves that drew attention to his large dark eyes.
“Urbino, you have the most marvelous capacity of turning up just when I need you. My friend Berenice was just asking me about the Veronese and I give you the question to answer.”
Before explaining further, she made the introductions. The young man, Antonio Vico, gave Urbino a firm handshake.
“He’s Berenice’s son—her stepson, excuse me.”
“We make no distinctions either way, Barbara dear,” Berenice Pillow said with a fond look at Vico. “Tony is my first husband’s son, yes, but he’s my own son as well.”
“You can see, Urbino, that she’s made his name into her own as well! I prefer Tonio!”
“So does he, but if mothers aren’t entitled to their own pet names for their children, then who is?”
“But, Berenice dear, it puts me in a difficult situation to choose between an old friend and a handsome young man.”
“Remembering what you were like at St. Brigid’s, Barbara, I think I know what the decision will be.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Berenice!” But the Contessa seemed pleased. “As a matter of fact, I was rather backward in those areas but I remember how—how impassioned you got over that rude stable boy. I always thought it was your red hair that drove you to it.”
Farewell to the Flesh Page 5