“But last night-how did you come?”
Maria nodded. “It was la Signora Ruggerio. She said I should.”
Palewski laughed weakly. Ruggerio, of course.
“I’m glad you did,” he said.
Maria squeezed his arm. “Can we have an ice cream?” she said brightly.
35
Like many Venetians, Brunelli believed that Venetians ate better than anyone else in the world. And like many Venetians, too, he believed that he ate better than anyone in Venice, thanks to his wife.
That morning, before he knew anything of the unfortunate Count Barbieri, his wife had announced her intention of cooking seppia con nero for lunch. She knew that Brunelli was unhappy about their son. Seppia con nero was a favorite with them both and she hoped that their differences would untangle across a bowl of steaming squid.
“You’re late, Papa,” Paolo said when Brunelli arrived.
Carla glanced at her husband. He smiled.
“If I am late, Paolo, it is because I have been working. Not lounging about in the piazza, talking and smoking cheroots.”
“But Papa, your work is all talk, too. It’s the same as mine.”
“Hmmph.” Brunelli sat down at the table and closed his eyes. “I smell it. I smell seppia con nero.” He sighed.
36
In the days of the Republic, affairs of state were debated by members of the Senate, drawn from the noble families eligible for service. No other Venetians had any influence over the Republic’s policy.
Real authority was vested in a Council of Ten, elected from members of the Great Council. The ten governed in the name of the doge.
And behind the Ten, pulling the levers of absolute power, without appeal, stood a Council of Three.
All this, a system of absolute rule by a secret cabal, was swept away by the Napoleonic intervention. In 1797 a departing honor guard of Croat infantry had fired a farewell salute; the senators, in panic, instantly voted themselves out of existence and fled the chamber.
But a relic of the old government still survived.
While the contessa’s friend lamented the loss of the old stone lions of St. Mark, there was one, at least, whose future seemed assured, even under the Habsburgs. At the back of the Doges’ Palace, in a narrow alley with blank windowless sides, a stone head of a lion was fixed to the wall, its eyes staring, its mouth agape.
And into this mouth, the bocca di leone, ordinary citizens had always been encouraged to post information that would be of use to the Council of Three. The information, anonymously supplied, would be investigated and, if it proved interesting, could be used immediately-or simply filed away in dossiers that the Venetian state kept on all its more prominent citizens. A whiff of treachery, a sharp commercial practice, a breach of contract, a marital infidelity-hidden knowledge was the tool by which the Venetians governed their state. Knowledge of the world at large had made them rich; knowledge of themselves, they hoped, would keep them safe.
It was not, after all, a very progressive republic, which is why it broke apart when Napoleon touched it, like a bubble of Murano glass.
Far from stopping the mouth of the terrible lion in the name of Liberty, the French had actually widened it: the anonymous denunciation became a tool of the revolutionary government in Paris, too.
And the Austrians, who were never the most zealous reformers, and preferred to leave things much as they had found them, soon took to regularly inspecting the bocca di leone themselves.
Naturally they didn’t turn up much. The people of Venice were generally reluctant to provide their foreign rulers with information.
But old habits die hard.
Venice was the first city in Europe to have street lighting, but the alley at the back of the Doges’ Palace was almost dark when a shadow slipped past the bocca di leone toward ten o’clock at night.
The shadow seemed to glide along the alley without a pause, but the lion was fed with a lozenge of paper, very small and tightly rolled.
37
Palewski watched as Maria licked a trace of ice cream from her upper lip.
A slow procession of barges with rust-colored sails was making its way along the Giudecca. Foreign, seagoing ships were rare; Palewski thought of the great three-masted schooners and the frigates that often crowded the Bosphorus at home. Here, the shipping was strictly local: flatboats from the lagoon, island ferries rowed by four men with long sweeps, a huge, covered burchiello, or passenger barge, and a shoal of smaller craft-wherries, skiffs, and the occasional gondola-dotted the smooth blue water, sparkling breezily in the late afternoon light.
On the Zattere, the passeggiata had already begun. Couples strolled along arm in arm, their children zigzagging around them through the crowd; old men tapped their canes over the cobblestones, stopping now and then to admire the view or to hail a friend; knots of young men, with toppers tilted at rakish angles, lounged on the bridges; the ubiquitous gray uniforms of Austrian officers; a matron sailing by with two young women in tow, casting furtive glances at the loafers.
Palewski shifted his glance from Maria’s lips and observed a ragged girl with a tray of matches working her way through the tables. He felt in his pocket for a small coin.
Then he froze.
“Maria!” he whispered urgently. “Kiss me!”
Maria turned her head and smiled coquettishly. “Not here, silly.”
Palewski bent his head. It had been the most fleeting glimpse-he could not be sure. Compston in Venice? But why ever not? The young Byronist-it was exactly where one would expect to find him, with the British embassy in Istanbul in summer recess. At least-if it were Compston-he’d not been spotted. He hadn’t even met his eye.
Yet Palewski’s glance, however light, must have somehow left an impress, for seconds later a meaty hand descended on Palewski’s shoulder.
“I say, Excellency! This is too fantastic!”
Looking up with a grim smile, Palewski saw a shock of yellow hair crammed under a top hat, and beneath it the open, ruddy face of the third secretary to Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to the Sublime Porte.
“Compston,” he snapped, in low tones. “I am not here. You didn’t see me.”
The young man blinked.
And then, to Palewski’s horror, there were three of them.
“Found a friend, George?” Another Englishman, also fair, slightly older than Compston: Ben Fizerly. Fizerly registered Maria’s appearance and goggled. “Er, friends, I should say-why, it’s Palewski!”
They shook hands.
The third member of the group was not an Englishman. He was tall and very good-looking, with sallow skin and the faint line of a mustache across his upper lip. His eyes, like his hair, were black.
“This is Count Palewski, Tibor,” Compston said. “Count, Tibor Karolyi. He’s with the Imperial embassy in Istanbul. Um.”
Tibor’s heels clicked together, and he bowed rapidly. Compston looked embarrassed. An inkling of the situation had finally penetrated his mind.
Palewski, for his part, was thinking fast. Curse his damned fond memories, he should never have walked down the Zattere at this hour! And curse his bad luck, too. Compston on his own he could have managed; even Fizerly too. But Karolyi? Karolyi was a Hungarian. He might sympathize-but he might not. The fact that he was at the embassy, working for the Habsburg monarchy, linked him straight to the people Palewski most wanted to avoid.
“Won’t you join us, my dear fellows? Maria will be delighted to meet someone of her own age.” He gestured to the chairs, playing for time. “On his lordship’s trail, Compston?”
Compston blushed. “Venice, you know. La Serenissima and all that,” he murmured, “and, well, ahem.” He glanced over at Maria, who was sitting with her hands folded neatly in her lap. She had finished her ice cream.
Compston’s blush deepened.
“I know a man in Venice who claims he swam with Byron,” Palewski said. “Perhaps you’d like to meet him?”
&
nbsp; Before Compston could reply, Fizerly leaned forward. “To be honest, sir, I’ve had about as much Byron as a man can take. Tibor too, I’m sure. Anyway, we’re leaving tomorrow, nine o’clock.”
“For Istanbul?”
“That’s right.”
“What a pity. Your last evening in Venice.” Palewski cocked his head. “But this is an occasion, gentlemen! Perhaps-if you’re not engaged-you will allow me to entertain you all? I have an apartment on the Grand Canal and some very good champagne.”
“I say, sir! But really, we can’t intrude-”
“No intrusion, Compston. It would be my pleasure. Waiter, hi! Grappa, if you please. Now, gentlemen, I propose a toast.” He paused, holding up one finger like a bandmaster, while the waiter set the bottle and five small glasses on the table. “For you, my dear, and for you fellows… and so: Stambouliots together!”
They drank. Palewski refilled the glasses and gave them La Serenissima, then Byron’s swim, and finally a toast to the evening that lay ahead, before the bottle was empty.
“To the gondolas, my friends!”
They walked to the landing stage, the young Englishmen flushed and animated; even Karolyi’s eyes were bright, as he cast them at Palewski’s escort.
“Maria,” Palewski said, when the two of them were settled in the leading boat. Venice, he realized, had one advantage over Istanbul, at least. “Maria, I will drop you at the Rialto.”
She gave a disappointed pout.
“But I want you to come along in an hour or so.”
“I see.”
“With a couple of your friends.”
“My friends?” She looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
“Maria, my dear. I am asking you to arrange a simple, traditional Venetian orgy.”
38
Pop! Pop! Corks flew. The boys were in ecstasies.
“I say, Palewski!” Compston’s eyes shone. “I say!”
“To Venice,” Palewski proposed.
They drank again. Palewski filled their glasses.
“And what is Venice, gentlemen? The city of pleasure. Masques, balls, the Arabian nights reborn-a place of love and squalor, of high art-and low desire.”
The young men tittered.
“I daresay you’ve been to the Doges’ Palace? To the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni? And the Accademia? Of course, of course. To art, gentlemen! To the glory of Bellini, and Tiepolo, and Titian!”
“To art!” they chorused enthusiastically.
“Tell the truth,” said Compston, “I’ve seen about as much art as I could want.”
Fizerly nodded. “Writing it all up for the ladies at home, too. Bit grueling, Palewski.”
“Karolyi?”
But Count Karolyi, too, seemed to have flagged beneath the deluge of Venetian art. “It is all very old,” he said. “Nothing new.”
Palewski nodded. “You are right. It’s all old. Wonderful but frozen. To frozen Venice!”
They drank.
“‘S’all very well for you, Palewski,” Compston declared with a wink.
“I think you are right, Mr. Compston,” Karolyi said. “Count Palewski’s Venice does not appear to be all frozen.” He gave his host a thin-lipped smile.
“To which end, gentlemen, I have arranged for you to meet some charming young friends of mine,” Palewski continued smoothly. “I believe I hear them now on the stairs.”
He went to the door and pulled it open.
“Here they are. Please consider my home as your own.”
He stepped out onto the landing. Maria tapped him with her fan and smiled.
The three young men stood, unsteadily, as Maria and her friends entered the room, laughing.
Avanti, sorelle!”
39
It was shortly before eight o’clock that Palewski returned to his apartment from the hotel where he had spent the night.
He found three puffy-faced young men already struggling into their underwear.
“Got to get back to the consul,” Compston croaked, shading his eyes. “To get our things.” He fished up a pocket watch and stared at it, a look of horror spreading across his flushed features. “Oh my God! Fizerly! We’ve only got half an hour left!”
“All taken care of,” Palewski said crisply. “I had everything sent to the ship.”
Compston’s eyes filled with tears. “Palewski, old man. I–I don’t know what to say. You’re the most capital fellow I ever met.”
40
The stadtmeister shuddered. A head on a plate? A drifting gondola with a severed trunk inside? It was outlandish, warped-like everything in this dreadful town, wreathed in mist, drifting on its horrible flat lagoon. Ach, for the mountains, where the water was clear and you tramped the forests with proper rock under your feet! And where a former stadtmeister in the service of the emperor was a figure of respect and awe.
He frowned and pulled back his shoulders slightly.
“I have not lived among these Latins for so many years, Herr Vosper, without gaining some useful insights into the Venetian mind.”
Vosper drew his heels together and gave a short nod that might have been a bow.
“It is, I think I may say without fear of contradiction, a degenerate mind. Here and there one finds representatives of the old type, but they are unfortunately rare.” He placed his fingertips together and contemplated the ceiling.
“In the aim of understanding the representative characteristics of a people, what are the preliminary indices that must be established, Herr Vosper?”
“I beg your pardon, Stadtmeister,” Vosper replied, shuffling his feet. “I am afraid I don’t understand the question.”
The stadtmeister sighed. “What is the most important influence?”
“Climate, sir.”
“Because people from the north are tall and fair, like birch trees, yes. They work hard, in teams. Ice demands unremitting teamwork. People from the south are dark and short. They are more indolent, also.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We can observe this phenomenon operating both on the large and the small scale, Herr Vosper. The Nordic type and the Mediterranean type. On a smaller scale, it is true to a lesser degree that the southern Italian peninsula is chiefly associated with indolence and dishonesty, while the northerly regions-of which Venice is a member-are more hardworking and upright. Do you follow?”
Vosper nodded. He could have given the speech himself.
“But we must allow for the interplay between large and small scale, as between the movement of men and history. We must-and do-allow for this!”
He leaned forward. His face was growing red.
“This is what the anticlimatic idiots will not try to understand! Science is a subtle system, Herr Vosper. Subtle but irrefutable, when the evidence is allowed.” He balled his fists and pressed them together over his leather-topped desk. “Interplay is a crucial element in the system. How else can men change?”
He paused to consider his own rhetorical question.
“For as long as Venetians represented the northern type within their own, smaller world, they were unmatched for acumen and fair dealing. But for several centuries they have been drawn farther into the orbit of the great northern landmass that is Europe. They have become, in this sense, southerners. Am I correct?”
“Quite correct, Stadtmeister.”
“So one observes the corruption of the Venetian mind as a matter of course. We cannot entirely blame them for this, although I believe that the Venetians must also have married too many southerners for their own good. Observe, Vosper, how the traits degenerate. What was once commercial acumen has become mere slyness. The bold trading initiative of the medieval Republic-has it disappeared? Not exactly. It has merely degenerated, on the one hand into a capacity for petty jealousy, on the other into an addiction to bright and pretty things. We see the Venetians of today like children, Herr Vosper. They appreciate pageantry and glitter and pretty women. Hrrmph. Once the Venetians were famous f
or their forethought, but now? Let us not delude ourselves, Herr Vosper. They think of the next hour, at most the next day!”
“Quite so, Stadtmeister. And you once mentioned that someone was the representative of the old type, I forget his name, Farinelli?”
“Falier. A doge.”
“But the new Venetian was Casanova.”
“I may have said so, Herr Vosper, yes,” the stadtmeister said testily. Could it be possible that Vosper was laughing at him? Casanova was the only Venetian literature he had read, many years before, in a translation eagerly passed around the officers’ mess.
But Vosper’s empty blue eyes revealed nothing. He was a good man, Finkel thought, good Alpine stock. German-speaking, too. A degree of altitude of course tempered the general climatic theory.
“You mark my words, Herr Vosper,” he said, jabbing a finger across the desk. “This will be a crime of passion. Cherchez la femme,” he added and then, seeing a look of incomprehension on his subordinate’s face: “Look for the woman. After that, we can uncover the dead man’s rival, and all will be plain.” He sat upright and sucked in his stomach. “As I say, it is necessary to understand the Venetian mind. As it now is.”
Vosper looked uncertain. “Isn’t this Signor Brunelli’s department, Stadtmeister?”
“Herr Vosper, let us understand each other. You work for me. Through me, for the Kaiser.” He paused, to relish the happy juxtaposition. “We do not question our orders.”
“Of course not, Stadtmeister.”
“Very good.”
When Vosper had gone, Stadtmeister Finkel let himself relax in his chair. He had nothing against Brunelli. A good officer, no doubt, and less prone than others of his class and nation to let the soft haze of the lagoon penetrate his mind; but there it was. Vosper was, like him, an outsider-and Brunelli? Na und, a man was the product of his climate.
He took up a scrap of paper from his desk and squinted at it, puzzled. The writing was very small and it was written in a language that Gustav Finkel, Stadtmeister von Venedig, rather imperfectly understood.
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