Farewell to the Flesh

by Edward Sklepowich

  6

  Little Stella Maris Spaak was sitting in the room’s only chair, dressed in a dark-blue pants suit. Fluffy childlike pink slippers, similar to the ones her daughter wore, were on her feet. She didn’t look as well as she had a few days ago. Her face was flushed and her breathing was a little labored. Urbino detected an occasional wheeze that sounded like the cooing of a dove. Her machine squatted on the floor next to the bed and her medications were scattered over the night table.

  He sat self-consciously on the edge of the bed that was covered with magazines, clippings anchored by scissors, and a paperback biography of a movie queen of the thirties and forties.

  Mrs. Spaak didn’t spend any time on small talk.

  “It’s about Nicky. No, he isn’t here at the Casa Crispina now. He and Dora went shopping and are eating out at a restaurant. I wouldn’t have had a chance to talk with you like this if he were here. You’re a son, of course, Mr. Macintyre. You know how sons want to protect their mothers from the time they’re little boys. And mothers want to do the same for their children, of course. It’s even more natural. But once I’m gone there’s not going to be anybody who will look after them the way I do. Not even if they marry. Dora came close to marrying two years ago but the young man—he was a doctor at the hospital—broke off their engagement. As for Nicky, he could marry if he wanted to. But even if they have a husband and a wife, they still won’t have a mother.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “A mother always worries about her children, Mr. Macintyre, is always looking for ways to help them through life. I feel Nicky needs me now, needs me to take you aside like this and talk to you. It’s not going behind his back,” she was quick to assure him, “even if I wouldn’t be able to talk to you like this if he were here. I know my son well, maybe more than most mothers know their sons. Ever since he was a little boy he’s told me almost everything that has happened to him. When he was away at college, he called me at least once a week and wrote me every single day. Do you know what that means, Mr. Macintyre? Every single day! He wanted to include me in his life. I know that he couldn’t tell me everything, of course. He needed to keep things to himself—for his sake and for my own sake, he thought. But compared to your average son, you could say he told me just about everything.”

  Mrs. Spaak paused. Urbino didn’t know what to say or even if he should say anything.

  “He still feels it’s necessary to keep things from me, and it’s only the way it should be. He’s a young man now.” Urbino was happy to see that Stella Maris Spaak at least made this concession. “But if he’s trying to protect me and doing some possible harm to himself, then, in that case, I can’t allow it, can I, Mr. Macintyre?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, Mrs. Spaak.”

  “There you are. It’s for his own good that I tell you. But you needn’t tell him that I told you anything.”

  The concealment, deception, and even self-deception woven through the fabric of what Stella Maris Spaak was telling him struck Urbino as touching, pathetic, and typical of the majority of love relationships, whether or not loves of passion. Where was the love that existed without them?

  Urbino believed he knew at least part of what Mrs. Spaak wanted to tell him about her son. It might be kind if he indicated he already knew, but he didn’t want to reveal anything that would be better kept from her. He smiled to himself. The trouble with concealment and deception was that they reproduced themselves. The instinct to protect other people with benevolent deception was a strong one, especially when you knew that the person preferred it that way and would most likely reciprocate.

  So sure was he of what Mrs. Spaak had on her mind, however, that he decided to say something.

  “It’s about your son’s walks after you’re in bed, isn’t it?”

  She sat back in her chair, showing the soles of her slippers more fully.

  “How do you know?”

  “Your son told me when I spoke with him last week. He didn’t want you to know that he leaves you alone at night.”

  “Leaves me alone! Now isn’t that just like a son! That’s what I was talking about. I know he goes out late at night, and not because Dora told me either, because she didn’t. I figured it out on my own.” She nodded her head proudly at powers of divination that might rival those of Xenia Campi. “It doesn’t bother me at all, but it bothers him to think I might know about it. Dora is always here to look after me. She’s the nurse and not Nicky!” she added with a little laugh. “I’m so happy he told you about his walks, Mr. Macintyre. It makes it easier for me and it shows that my Nicky understands that it might put him in a bad position not to tell certain things. You’re a sophisticated man, Mr. Macintyre. I saw that right away. You speak Italian so well, you live here in such a famous and beautiful city. Someone told me that you live in a palace. Is that true?”

  “It’s called a palace, Mrs. Spaak, but it’s probably no bigger than your house back in Pittsburgh.”

  She first looked disappointed, then skeptical, but she didn’t pursue the point.

  “A man like you, Mr. Macintyre, wouldn’t judge my Nicky. You have a good heart. You can’t hide a good heart, not from a mother, even if it isn’t your own mother! You should be able to find some way to have Nicky confide his secrets in you. I can tell he trusts you, that he likes you.”

  Urbino doubted this. His impression of Nicholas Spaak was that the American considered him a nosy intruder, someone not to be trusted with a lie, let alone the truth.

  “I’m not formally educated myself but I read a lot. Nicky has always bought me books, and sometimes I’ll even read his, the ones he might not think are proper for a mother. I know what the world is like even if I’ve spent most of my life in Pennsylvania. I love my son and I love him no matter what. Some of us are born one way and others a different way. People should stop blaming the mothers. Not that my Nicky has ever blamed me for anything. Even if I had something to do with—with making him that way, there’s still nothing to be blamed for. After all, there’s Michelangelo, Tennessee Williams, that Russian composer with the long name. I understand my Nicky and I’m proud of him. He’s mine forever. That’s the way mothers feel about their children.”

  She coughed and turned her face aside as she took out a handkerchief and expectorated into it.

  “Maybe if Nicky were to tell you about himself,” she continued, turning back to Urbino, “and it could be handled so that it didn’t seem as if I knew. The problem, Mr. Macintyre, is that I’m worried about the rumors I’ve been hearing here at the Casa Crispina. The Campi woman has been spreading them. She says that everyone knows that Mr. Gibbon was murdered in a place that—that men like to go to and that the police know just the kind of person they’re looking for. I could tell it upset my Nicky. So you see, Mr. Macintyre, if he isn’t honest with someone about certain things it might look very bad for him. The police would think the worst!”

  Mrs. Spaak left little for Urbino to say. He told her that he would see her son as soon as possible.

  “And not here at the Casa Crispina if you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Macintyre. Somewhere else, maybe your palace. That would be nice. Tonight would be fine, I’m sure.”

  “Why don’t you tell your son to meet me at Harry’s Bar tonight at seven, My place is a little difficult to find.”

  Mrs. Spaak seemed disappointed.

  “I suppose that’s all right, But don’t breathe a word of our little talk. The important thing is to get him to tell you the truth. It has to come from him.”

  Urbino was relieved to be able to leave Mrs. Spaak with the feeling that, despite her apparent need for concealment and deception, she still had some belief in the truth.

  7

  As Urbino was leaving the Casa Crispina, the elderly nun who was reading Oggi at the reception desk said that the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini had called and wanted him to call back. He could use the phone at the desk.

  “I would like to see you here at the Ca’ da Capo abo
ut five,” the Contessa said.

  There was a restrained excitement in her voice. What could possibly have come up in the hour and a half since they had last spoken? He had some more people he wanted to see this afternoon. It would be difficult to see them all and be at the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini at five.

  “I’ll try, Barbara.”

  “Don’t sound so eager, caro! I hope it’s not a duty you’re performing. Don’t think that we Venetian widows are wandering around from room to room in our palazzi rearranging the bibelots and turning the pages of Casa Vogue waiting for our entourages of lean, young—or should I say leanish and youngish—American men to show up. I want to see you not for my own misunderstood self but for your own dear sake. This is a completely altruistic appeal. Come at five. I have a surprise for you.”

  “A surprise?”

  There was no further clarification. The Contessa had already hung up. He handed the receiver back to the sister, who was looking up at him curiously after this almost entirely one-sided conversation.

  8

  Ignazio Rigoletti was still at home after the midday meal. He was a dark muscular man in his late forties with an intense, hawklike face. Urbino and Rigoletti were sitting in the dark, underfurnished living room above the Corte Santa Scolastica. Rigoletti had been napping and his face was still rumpled from sleep. He yawned several times as he sprawled on the sofa under a collection of photographs of his days as a rowing champion. Rather than having a cup of coffee, which might have helped make him more alert, however, he was sharing a bottle of red wine with Urbino—and doing most of the talking and drinking himself.

  “This area has changed during the last three years since I moved in. We didn’t have all this business of finocchi coming in to have their bit of dirty fun. I lost my son almost ten years ago. He was a fine specimen of a man, nothing like the ones who come into the Calle Santa Scolastica. I used to think that they were foreigners, tourists—Xenia, my ex-wife, said they were—but I hate to admit we have more than enough of these so-called men living right here in Venice. Things have changed so much I wouldn’t be surprised if six of them joined together and rowed a caorlina for the Regatta. Why not? They let women row in the mascarete!”

  He shook his head in disapproval and took a sip of his wine. Urbino’s glance went automatically to the photographs above Rigoletti, where he could make out much younger versions of the man, smiling confidently and proudly. A carefree, smiling Xenia Campi had her arm around a boy of about thirteen, both of them standing next to Rigoletti as he held a trophy in his hands. Another showed Xenia Campi on the Lido with her son and a petite dark-haired girl. One photograph seemed to be of the golden Bucintoro, the ceremonial barge that had carried the body of Pope Pius X in his crystal coffin down the Grand Canal. Urbino asked Rigoletti if it was.

  “It certainly is. I helped row it.”

  Rigoletti’s eyes seemed to be looking at something beyond the room. He raised his glass in an ostensible salute to this past honor. Urbino did the same and took a sip of the wine. He realized that it was a mistake, however, to encourage Rigoletti to talk about his rowing days. He might not get the information he wanted until it was too late for him to be at the Contessa’s at five. There was no question in his mind that Rigoletti would have willingly delayed returning to his job as a delivery bargeman for the sake of reminiscence.

  Urbino put the conversation back on the track by mentioning that Commissario Gemelli had told him that Rigoletti had seen two men in the Calle Santa Scolastica the night of the English photographer’s murder.

  “Two finocchi, of that I’m sure,” Rigoletti said scornfully. “I didn’t recognize either of them from the calle or the neighborhood. One of them was coming out when I was turning in. We practically bumped into each other but he was as cool as you could imagine. Just kept right on smiling! Hardly a flicker of surprise or worry on his pretty face. Someone like that could probably have just come from stabbing a man to death and act and look as if he were on his way to Mass! I tell you, Signor Macintyre, appearances are deceiving, though he looked enough like what he was to leave no doubt in my mind. He probably spends hours in front of the mirror to get himself to look so good.” He grinned. “Well, he wasn’t looking so good this morning at the Questura.”

  “You saw him at the Questura?”

  “I went there to look at the drawings the artist made from my descriptions, and there in the flesh was the dark-haired guy I saw coming out of the Calle Santa Scolastica.”

  It must have been after Urbino had finished talking with Gemelli and was on his way to the Casa Crispina.

  “Didn’t look at all as cool and collected as he did the night I saw him. They brought him into another room. An Italian, he was. I guess the police have a list of these people. I hope they do. In a little while I’ll be looking at some more police photographs from Rome and then I’m going to the Casa Crispina with the Commissario.” He sighed. “Maybe I’ll be lucky and Xenia won’t be there. She’ll sure as hell start in on me about something.”

  “What about the light-haired man you saw coming into the Calle Santa Scolastica after you found the body?”

  Rigoletti shook his head.

  “I haven’t seen anyone who looks like him. They had me go through the photographs in their books, also loose ones like snapshots.”

  “Did you see anyone else suspicious the night of the murder?”

  “Anybody wearing a costume or a mask looks damn suspicious to me. I saw plenty of them. There was a whole bunch coming up from the Riva degli Schiavoni, laughing and passing a big bottle of wine back and forth. I went to the restaurant in the Calle degli Albanesi to call the police, the place where the young kids hang out. You should see the kids in there! Some of them have their heads shaved. Now why would a guy want to go and do that? And the girls! They might not have been wearing costumes but they weren’t wearing normal clothes either. My son never hung around places like that. Neither did his girlfriend, although I hear she’s changed since those days.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police from here?”

  Rigoletti’s face betrayed a certain tension as he looked quickly at the telephone on a stand next to Urbino’s chair.

  “It was quicker to go to the restaurant.”

  Urbino got up to look more closely at the photographs of Rigoletti’s rowing days. Only when he was about to leave did he mention Porfirio.

  “Good riddance! He came to the end he deserved, too, just like that scum down in the Calle Santa Scolastica! Broke his neck, didn’t he? Well, he broke what was left of Xenia’s heart when he forced us out of our home. Made me look like less of a man, too, when we had to live in one ground-floor room in the Castello. Maybe there’s some justice in life if we wait long enough. I just hope Buffone suffered before he died, the way my Marco did.”

  9

  Next Urbino went to the restaurant in the Calle degli Albanesi that Rigoletti had made his call from. It was little more than a small snack bar with booths and a counter in the back. A television beamed down from a corner above the counter. It was crowded with youths, most of them not in costume. Loud music competed with the video music program on the television. Smoke was thick in the air.

  A young woman was painting a boy’s face as his friends watched and laughed. She looked vaguely familiar and for a moment he thought she might be the girl in the Piazza who had pointed him out to Leo and the other boys, the girl Xenia Campi was trying to interest Giuseppe in. But she gave him only a quick glance and turned quickly back to her work. He must be mistaken.

  Urbino went up to the counter and asked the waitress, her black hair cut at oblique angles, if she had been working the night the English photographer was murdered.

  She shook her head.

  “Do you know anyone who was here that night?”

  “Lupo,” she shrilled out above the noise. “This man wants to talk with you.”

  A tall, thin young man with closely cropped hair dyed blond came from the back. It look
ed as if he had black eyeliner on. “What do you want? Are you with the police?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not Italian, are you?” he said, picking up on Urbino’s slight accent.

  “No, but I live here in Venice,”

  “So what do you want with me?”

  “The girl tells me you were working here the night they found the man in the Calle Santa Scolastica.”

  Instead of answering, Lupo stared back at him.

  “I was wondering if you noticed anything unusual that night.”

  “What’s it to you if I did? I’ve already talked to the police. It was very busy here that night. It’s Carnevale. I didn’t know anything was wrong until that man who lives in the Corte Santa Scolastica came in to call the police. He has a problem, that one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Always complaining about the music, about the kids who hang out here, about how we’re weird and not normal. He should talk! He’s an old relic. We like to have our fun with him.”

  He returned to his friends. On the way out Urbino looked for the young woman painting faces. She had left. As he was going down the Calle degli Albanesi toward the Riva degli Schiavoni, he heard footsteps behind him.

  “Excuse me, signore, you were asking Lupo about the night they found the man in the Calle Santa Scolastica?”

  Urbino turned to see an emaciated boy about eighteen.

  “Do you know something?”

  “I might,” he said, looking nervously behind him and running his tongue over his lower lip.

  Urbino knew what he was dealing with and held out a ten-thousand-lira note. The boy frowned and Urbino took out another. He grabbed them and stuffed them into his filthy jeans.

  “So?” Urbino prompted.

  “I was in the place that night. A man with short light hair came in about ten o’clock. He was by himself. He had a drink but he stayed by the door, looking out, as if he was looking for someone or expecting someone to come along. He didn’t pay much attention to anybody in here. He was young, younger than you, but not young like the kids who hang around the restaurant. He stayed for about ten minutes. I went out a little while after he did. I saw him going down toward the Calle Santa Scolastica. And there was another thing.”