The Bellini card yte-3

by Jason Goodwin

  She was smiling now. “Come through, signore. As you see, I was practicing my art. I fence-does it surprise you?”

  ‘I think everything about you surprises me, madame.”

  She laughed. “How so?”

  Palewski followed her into the salon. It was a huge, high-ceilinged room with four long windows looking onto the canal and a floor of shimmering colored marble.

  “I expected the contessa to be an old lady with a lorgnette and lots of tiny spoons,” Palewski said.

  Carla shook her head. “Not the Aspi style at all.” She flicked the point of her foil and held it to his chest. “We die young.”

  Palewski took the foil by the button on its tip. “Not fighting, I hope.”

  She shrugged and flipped the foil out of his fingers.

  She pointed to the far wall, where a display of weapons was ranged above a large canopied fireplace: glinting scimitars cocked like eyebrows, two splayed fans constructed of long old-fashioned muskets, and a triumphal tableau of pikes and spears and small bossed shields. A stout gilded pole rose from the almost baroque array of weaponry, topped by a curious arrangement of three brass balls, one above the other in order of size.

  “A Janissary standard!” Palewski exclaimed in surprise.

  She looked at him curiously. “We took those in the Peloponnese. An ancestor of mine, who fought with Morosini.”

  Palewski nodded absently. Long ago, as a boy, he had spent hours playing with just such weapons in the big house in Cracow: martial souvenirs seized from the Turks at Vienna in 1683.

  “Now you have surprised me,” she said. “I didn’t think you would be an expert in Ottoman weaponry, Signor Brett.”

  Palewski gave a gesture of demurral. “I’ve been in Istanbul, that’s all,” he replied.

  “I was born there,” Carla said.

  “Touche, madame,” Palewski said.

  Carla cocked her head to one side, regarding him critically. “Do you fence, signore?”

  Palewski smiled. “A long time ago.”

  “Very good,” she said. She indicated a trolley that held a collection of foils, masks, and plastrons.

  “No, no, madame.” Palewski laughed. “I haven’t fought for thirty years. You’d overpower me.”

  “You don’t really think that, Signor Brett.”

  Palewski blinked: it was another point to the contessa. He didn’t think she would overpower him, but he was less sure now.

  “Best of five points, signore. A friendly bout.”

  “I–I was never much on foil, madame.”

  “Indulge me, Signor Brett. A practice round. Five points. Then we can have coffee.”

  Palewski took off his coat and slung it over the trolley. He put on the half plastron, buckled it at the side, and selected a foil.

  You are a fool, he told himself. An old fool.

  He had the blade in the air before he noticed it had no button on the tip.

  The contessa slipped a mask over her head.

  Palewski chose another blade, checked the button, and felt its weight. He put on his own mask.

  Carla backed from him, left hand up, foil in sixte, her bare right foot pointing forward. She glanced down and tamped her left heel on the marble floor.

  She stood motionless, awaiting her opponent.

  Palewski went to meet her, and as soon as their foils touched he took his stand.

  He acknowledged immediately that he was not in condition. He lacked the suppleness of the younger woman, who was turned at the waist to present him the narrowest target. It had the effect of emphasizing her figure, and Palewski frowned.

  He put up his left hand.

  In the wrist, he thought: all in the wrist.

  “In guardia,” Carla murmured.

  They crossed swords. Palewski made a feint to quarte, Carla parried in sixte, he returned and she counterdisengaged, following the movement with a swift step forward and a simple thrust in quarte.

  She stepped back. “In guardia.”

  Palewski compressed his lips. The attack had been a mistake. This time he allowed her to develop it, trusting to his parries and solidifying his defense while he tried to get used to the feel of the sword.

  It had been a long time, as he had said.

  This time it took her four attempts to touch.

  Better. “In guardia.”

  The action was all in the wrist, but Carla moved lightly, too, gaining and breaking ground with speed and confidence. Twice Palewski was able to parry a feint to sixte.

  He took her lunge to quarte on the hilt and pushed hard: her arm flew up and she sprang away. Palewski heard her laugh.

  “So, a hussar!”

  Palewski ground his teeth and said nothing.

  She opened in octave, made a feint to sixte-her favorite-and then followed it up with a low attack in septime, which Palewski managed-only just-to parry, returning to octave before she parried in octave and took the point of his foil wide.

  She made a fleche and won the point.

  The bout was hers.

  Palewski, with nothing to lose, found himself relaxed. He’d lost, what of it?

  “In guardia.”

  She opened her attack with the feint to sixte, but this time Palewski was ready for her. He parried with an indirect riposte that went home and struck her chest.

  “Touche, madame,” he muttered.

  Carla arched her body and eased her hands along her outstretched leg, to the floor.

  Palewski put up his foil.

  “In guardia.”

  Carla’s foil flipped into guard: she stamped and stepped forward with a feint to octave.

  Palewski had anticipated the feint-and she had guessed he would. Now she took him by surprise by executing a beat to his blade. With a delicate disengage she placed the point of her foil neatly into the center of Palewski’s chest.

  She held the blade there, curved, for a fraction longer.

  Then she pulled off her mask, undid the ribbon, and tossed her hair over her shoulders. “Fencing-it’s like conversation, don’t you agree?”

  Her blue eyes were full of mischief.

  “What did you learn about me, Signor Brett?”

  Palewski took a deep breath and nodded. “You didn’t give much away, madame-neither points nor traits.”

  “There must be something. Or am I too cold?”

  “Cold? I think you’re controlled. Very sure of yourself. A little dangerous maybe-to yourself and others.”

  He was looking at the pattern of pink, green, and gray marble laid out on the floor.

  “To myself? I’m not sure I understand.”

  Palewski looked thoughtful. Most people, he reflected, shy from pain, but he could hardly tell the contessa what he had sensed about her, even if it were true.

  “Perhaps if I knew why the d’Aspis die young, madame?”

  “Ha!” She considered him in silence for a moment. “As for you, Signor Brett, New York is not where you learned to fence. Or would it be better to say, where you learned to wield a sword?” She paused, long enough to gauge his reaction. “I practice for an hour every day-and you won a point off me. But just now you wanted to fight saber, I’m sure of it.”

  Palewski gave a shrug. “I’ve picked up some bad habits. It was a long time ago.”

  She ran a fingertip along the line of her cheek. “An American sabreur,” she said thoughtfully. “The War of 1812, perhaps? Cavalry action along the Canadian border.” The irony was inescapable.

  Palewski looked down at the floor. “This pattern-you use it, don’t you? To fence.”

  He felt her watching him. After a moment she said, “You’re very perceptive, Signor Brett. Yes, I use it: it helps me to concentrate. To keep control, as you put it.”

  He nodded. The pattern made an endless knot, woven from four triangles in a square.

  “Is it Venetian?”

  “You don’t recognize it?”

  Palewski shook his head. “It’s very beautiful.” />
  “Yes.” She rang a bell, for coffee. “And also a grappa, Antonio, for Signor Brett.”

  She smiled. “I always imagine that hussars drink grappa-but there, Signor Brett, I’m making you cross.” She half lowered her eyelids. “Forgive me.”

  “The hussars-are boors,” he explained. “I hope you don’t find me too boorish.”

  She gave a peal of laughter and covered her mouth with her hand. “I was being-complimentary. Don’t the hussars say that they always make the people run-the men away, and the women into their arms?”

  Palewski gave a weak smile. “Whatever they say, madame, it was true only of the lancers.”

  She gave him an almost tender look. “The lancers.”

  “You were telling me about the pattern on the floor,” he said uncomfortably.

  “The Sand-Reckoner’s diagram,” Carla said. “It has other names-this one, from Archimedes’ effort to calculate the size of the universe.” She smiled. “Now you know-and here’s your coffee.”

  Palewski took the grappa, downed it, and replaced the glass on the tray. He drank the coffee standing, as she did. There was barely a stick of furniture in the salon.

  “Barbieri told me you were hunting in Venice for something rare.”

  I found you, Palewski thought. Aloud he said, “Yes. I mentioned Bellini, and he laughed at me, just about. Said we’d have to steal it.”

  “Steal it? A respectable man like Count Barbieri?”

  “It sounded like a joke.”

  She gave a wan smile. “I didn’t know the count was capable of a joke where money was involved. But Bellini? I admire your ambition, signore-but I doubt you will succeed.”

  “Perhaps not. It was just a rumor. I was acting on impulse.”

  “Yes, Signor Brett. That I can believe.”

  “You divined as much from my fencing, madame.”

  “Perhaps before. It was the way you accepted my challenge. After all, you came here expecting to have coffee with an old lady,” she added with a laugh. “I’m glad you gave me a bout. It was-gallant of you. I hope you will come back. I practice every morning, at this time.”

  Palewski bowed.

  “But come tonight, as well,” she said, holding out her hand. Palewski brought it to his lips. “Seven o’clock. And Count Barbieri will be here. You never know, signore, he may have stolen you a Bellini already.”

  25

  The Croat was getting worse: his moods, his withdrawals, were becoming more frequent. Even his products were less reliable. In a year or two, Popi considered, he might be useless to him.

  He saw it finally: the shadowy figure of a man in a top hat standing at a window overlooking the Grand Canal.

  Drawn obviously from life-what of it the Croat ever saw. Nobody had worn top hats in Canaletto’s day.

  Popi brought his index finger up slowly so the Croat could see and pointed at the offending image.

  “Change the hat,” he said. He did not think that after all this time he would need to say, or do, any more.

  The Croat did not even glance at the picture. He simply stared at Popi with an expression of sullen disappointment.

  “Change the hat,” Popi said slowly. “Then we varnish the pictures. And then, my friend, two bottles.” He held up two fingers.

  The Croat looked at the fingers, then for the first time at the picture. It was agreed.

  Popi’s jaw worked. Two bottles-if he kept his side of the bargain the Croat would be incapacitated for a week. But at least Popi would have something to sell the American. He couldn’t afford to wait.

  “Take this one through to the studio,” Popi said.

  The Croat lifted the painting down and carried it into the back room, where Popi kept his paints and varnishes.

  Popi sat down at his desk and began to compose a letter to S. Brett, connoisseur. A meeting really ought to be arranged, perhaps-if Signor Brett thought it convenient-sometime next week.

  Next week, when the varnish would have hardened on his Canalettos.

  26

  Palewski went home to change his shirt and spent a few minutes in front of the mirror with his elbows out and his hands by his chest, flexing his torso from side to side.

  “Psha!” he exclaimed aloud. “You’re an idiot, Mr. Brett!”

  There was a note on the table below the mirror. It was from Ruggerio, regretting that he was unable to accompany Signor Brett that day. He suggested various places he might like to visit on his own-none of them, Palewski noted with amusement, likely to involve much outlay of cash-and the possibility that they might visit the Murano glassworks together the following day.

  “The Murano glassworks! Twenty percent commission and a decent lunch!”

  But why should he be led everywhere by Ruggerio? Why shouldn’t he go on his own? A leisurely ride across the lagoon was no less than he deserved after his energetic bout with the Contessa d’Aspi d’Istria.

  But as the gondola moved out onto the calm blue waters of the lagoon and Palewski turned his head for a better view of the city, he remembered something about an Armenian monastery and changed his mind. The gondolier looked doubtful. Murano had been decided on, and he was looking forward to visiting a cafe on the island while his padrone toured the manufactories. When Palewski, mistaking the source of his indecision, promised to pay him ten lire more, he agreed to forgo the pleasures of Murano society and take his fare to San Lazzaro.

  The truth was that Palewski, without quite realizing it, was suffering from homesickness. Many an evening he had spent with his friend Yashim, drinking bison-grass vodka and lamenting his lost homeland, ripped apart by the greed and brutality of its enemies. Yet Palewski’s desire for Poland, while genuine and deep, had an air of daydream about it. It was not visceral, as his feeling for Istanbul was turning out to be.

  In another city-Paris, say, or even New York-the feeling might have been allayed by the excitement of novelty, but in Venice he was constantly running up against reminders of the city he called home. Venice, in the European mind, was a city half Oriental already, and certainly it made Palewski feel giddy, as though he were looking at a familiar scene down the wrong end of a telescope. Pacing the narrow alleys in Ruggerio’s wake, he would be struck by some grace note of Istanbul-in the effort of a cat, for instance, to catch a bat at dusk, or by a porphyry column no doubt looted from the same classical ruin that Constantine had looted for his city centuries before. Sometimes it occurred to him in the shape and dimness of a doorway, or it might be the sound of the Orthodox monks chanting in San Giorgio dei Greci. It was even a puzzle to decide whether Venice or Istanbul had more shoeshine boys, all ragged, all alike, squatting on the pavement behind their little wooden boxes.

  In the Campo dei Mori he had seen a relief of a camel led by a man in a turban and almost burst into tears, without knowing why, and he had stared forlornly at the busted shell of the Fondaco dei Turchi, on the Grand Canal, for almost an hour, savoring its decline and its crumbling Byzantine fenestration. With its blocked-up arcades and bricked-in windows, the old palazzo of the Ottoman merchants looked like the survivor of some drawn-out siege.

  To make matters worse, he inhabited the identity of a stranger, and an American to boot. He missed his embassy. Half overgrown with creepers, and in want of a new roof, it was still a comfortable sort of place for a man who enjoyed his own company and that of his books. He had now read Vasari three times and was beginning to feel a kind of mental restriction from prolonged acquaintance with the author, as if he had eaten nothing but potatoes for a week. He missed his friends. Here in Venice he was hounded in the most polite and remorseless way by waiters and gondoliers and landladies demanding-well, money, certainly, but he had enough of that. What exhausted him were their demands for a decision. At home he had only to think of tea, or a brandy after dinner, and it was there, in his hand.

  Marta would fetch it for him, before he had even asked for it sometimes.

  He took off his top hat and let the breeze ruffle h
is hair.

  Venice from the lagoon was too flat to look like Istanbul, though the shoulder of Santa Maria della Salute, its great white dome, recalled the domes of Istanbul, and the rooftops looked crowded and orange like the roofs of the houses that crowded the shores of the Golden Horn.

  He shaded his eyes and gazed ahead to a spire and a low red wall topped with greenery rising almost miraculously from the lagoon. The gondola advanced with a thudding swiftness while Palewski gazed almost blindly on the rosy apparition, lost in thought.

  An hour later he wondered why he had come at all. The brightness of the lagoon had given him a headache. Now he strained his eyes to see the treasures that the gentle Armenian priest was lovingly laying out for his inspection in the dim scriptorium. At first, the thousands of ancient volumes in their shelves had heartened him, but, after all, they were all written in Armenian, except for a rather beautiful Koran. It was a gift to the monastery from the Aspi family, he noticed, its pages decorated with tendrils and lilies, and on the frontispiece a rendition of the pattern on the contessa’s floor. Palewski saw his hands were trembling.

  He asked for a glass of water, which momentarily broke the flow of the priest’s gentle speech. He went out into the monastery garden to drink it and sat for a few moments beneath a tree in the shade.

  “Come, signore,” the priest said softly. “I will take you to Father Aristo, who is doing a wonderful work. Our first Armenian-English dictionary. The great poet Lord Byron asked that this should be done. Peace to his memory. He studied here, for almost a year.”