The Bellini card yte-3

by Jason Goodwin

  It contained, as far as he could judge, nothing new, nothing he was entitled to do anything about.

  Someone was afraid and wanted help.

  He tore the paper into little pieces and tipped them into the waste-paper basket.

  41

  She looked at him curiously. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Trouble? I’m all right, Maria, thanks to you.”

  “That’s what I mean, silly. You’d have let yourself be copped for that murder if I hadn’t spoken up. What did you mean by that? I was here all night. And now,” she added, “it’s a different story.”

  Palewski had blushed, insofar as he was capable of blushing. “Not your affair, Maria. I didn’t want the commissario to get you into trouble.” He paused, and the girl shot him a droll look as if to say: you couldn’t get me into trouble. “What do you mean, a different story?”

  “Well, I’d wondered. I thought, perhaps, you were saving your reputation, Signor Brett. But from what I gathered last night, Signor Brett hasn’t got a reputation to lose.”

  Palewski unfolded himself and rose from his chair. “I see.”

  “I don’t speak English, so I couldn’t understand what the boys were saying exactly. But Tibor-he was my choice, quite good-looking he was-said a few things in French, and I understand that a fair bit.”

  Palewski felt weary. “And what, Maria, did you understand?”

  Maria pressed her lips together, humorously. “I don’t know who Signor Brett is, but you’re a Polish count. You’re the Polish ambassador in Istanbul. Go on, I know it’s true.”

  Palewski stood a long time at the window, looking out.

  “I don’t know how it looks to you,” he said at last. “A long time ago, before you were even born, there was a country wrapped around a river. The Vistula. It had, what? Cities, towns, villages, little farms. Hills and mountains, too, but mostly plains, and marshes, and big, deep forests where you’d be afraid to go at night, Maria. There could be wolves in there. But foresters, too, and men burning charcoal all night long. And when it snowed, there were people all wrapped up in fur, whizzing along in the dark on sleighs, laughing and telling stories. And they spoke the language I learned to speak, the people in the towns, and the foresters, and the people rushing through the dark, too.”

  Maria shivered deliciously.

  “It wasn’t quite like Venice, Maria, when they came and took it all away. Venice is one city, and you can’t change that. You can go from the Arsenale to the Dorsoduro with the same joke, and everyone will laugh except the Austrians. But the Austrians took a part of my country, and the Prussians took another, and the Russians took the most because they are big and fierce like bears in the wood. Venice can disappear only if it sinks into the lagoon. But Poland will vanish if people forget. It needs anyone it can get. Even me, maybe, being its ambassador in Istanbul.”

  He rubbed his chin.

  “The fact is, Maria, I came here only to do a favor for a friend. If you turn me in to the authorities, I’d be sorry. Not for me-that’s all right. For the people I think of in the woods, and in the towns, and in the sleighs at night.”

  He turned, and to his surprise he saw tears on her cheeks.

  “Mio caro,” she said sadly, rising to slide her arms around his chest. “With you, it is like an evening at La Fenice.” She pressed her cheek against his shoulder. “I will never betray you!”

  Thank God for opera, Palewski thought, patting the girl on her pretty bare shoulder.

  42

  The contessa, according to Antonio the footman, was indisposed. Palewski had expected as much. Barbieri’s death-well, his murder-would have upset her.

  Palewski took lunch at an outdoor table in one of the little restaurants off the Rialto, from where he could look across the Grand Canal to the row of palazzi that lined the opposite bank.

  On the whole, he felt, it was a pretty but unsatisfactory view, in which the eye was invited to glide, like a gondola, along a single plane, a view that lacked depth. Even the water served only to reflect the wall of pretty color overhead.

  He was used to the dynamic jumble of the Istanbul streets, where covered balconies jutted out over the street and whole buildings were jettied forward on the upper floors; sometimes, whole rows of masonry were made to fold in and out like a concertina. In Venice, builders gave their attention to the windows, carving them into extraordinary shapes, and to the surfacing of the walls, but indentation was a mere suggestion, a sort of trick of the light.

  Venice was theater in so many ways: even its buildings looked like painted flats.

  He sipped his prosecco and tried, for the twentieth time, to make sense of his position. He had made no progress whatever on the Bellini hunt. If the sultan’s information was correct, and the painting really had reappeared in Venice, it was a very slow sale. Barbieri had seemed to hint at the possibility of theft, but he never mentioned the portrait of Mehmet II.

  If Barbieri knew of anyone trying to sell the portrait, he would presumably have offered to negotiate-on commission-for Palewski to buy it. But he hadn’t offered; therefore, he knew nothing about it. And now, bizarrely, he was dead-just like the art dealer whose corpse Palewski had seen floating in the canal on the morning of his arrival.

  It was a coincidence that two art dealers should die, in curious circumstances, within a week of each other.

  At the back of his mind lay one uncomfortable thought: Was it possible that the coincidence extended to his own arrival in Venice?

  The waiter delivered a plate of frutti di mare: oysters, clams, prawns, and a half lobster. Palewski downed the oysters hurriedly, relishing the tang of the sea and hoping they would help clear his mind.

  He would have liked to speak to someone, thrash it out. He thought of Yashim, drumming his heels in Istanbul: how he wished Yashim were here now with him! It had all seemed pretty simple when they said goodbye. The Brett plan-the printed cards, the expeditions to tailors and hatters and bootmakers on La Grande Rue de Pera. Outwitting the Habsburg bureaucracy had seemed like the easiest, most satisfactory thing in the world. A few weeks in Venice; a few introductions; a deal, or not, as it might turn out-and basta! as the Italians say: home again.

  Instead of which he’d had murders, the police, Compston and his friends, a bout of fever…

  And, he thought, something else, too: a sense of being not quite in command of his own destiny. Like an actor in a play, speaking lines that were not, really, his own.

  He grabbed the lobster and stabbed it with a fork to pull away the succulent white tail.

  He had known nothing about the fellow in the canal: the man was already dead when he arrived.

  He squeezed a wedge of lemon over the cold lobster.

  As for Barbieri, they had met once, twice, allowing for the brief encounter at the contessa’s palazzo. If someone, for whatever reason, had tried to prevent Palewski from learning about the Bellini-well, that made no sense. Barbieri truly knew nothing, and who would want to keep him from making an offer on the painting? A painting that, he was increasingly certain, did not exist.

  Which brought him back to his own position in the city. The boys from the Istanbul embassies were safe on the high seas. It would be a week, at least, before any of them could report to the Austrians in Istanbul, and another week before the information would reach the Austrian authorities in Venice. Maria and her courtesans he would simply have to trust. As for that commissario, Brunelli, it was hard to judge if-and of what quite-he was suspicious.

  Two more weeks: he owed Yashim that much, at any rate. After that, it would be dangerous to remain in Venice. And if, by then, he had failed to turn up anything on Bellini, it might be said that the picture was not available or did not exist.

  A man Palewski had never seen before dropped suddenly into a chair beside him.

  “Signor Brett,” the stranger said. “I understand you are looking for a Bellini.”

  Palewski started. “As a matte
r of fact, I am,” he said.

  “In which case, signore, I may be able to help.”

  43

  “It is not any painting you seek, signore?”

  “No,” Palewski admitted. “Not any painting.”

  The man smiled. “But I wondered about that.” He fished into his breast pocket and withdrew a card. He glanced at it.

  “Connoisseur: it means much.”

  Palewski watched him. The card, he recognized, was his own.

  “But also-nothing.” The man snapped the card down on the table.

  Palewski’s expression did not change. He looked at the man: he was quite fat, with smooth jowls and small, wet lips. His eyes were large and black. His head was shaved clean.

  “You have the advantage of me, Signor-?”

  The heavyset man looked at him for a long time before he answered. “If you like, Alfredo. It’s not important, Signor Brett.”

  There had been the slightest pause, as if he had glanced again at the card to check.

  “Bellini went to Istanbul in 1479,” Palewski said. “He painted a portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror, which later disappeared.”

  Alfredo sighed. “I am a very little man, Signor Brett. Please, I would like you to understand. I cannot sell you a painting. I have children. I have a wife. My parents live with us, and my father has gone blind.” He nodded, as if to acknowledge sympathy.

  Palewski said nothing.

  “I work for another, a very great man, Signor Brett. Many people in this city will show works by inferior artists. You can buy a Canaletto very cheap here.”

  “I’m not interested in a cheap Canaletto,” Palewski said.

  Alfredo clasped his hands. “Of course not. Otherwise, Signor Brett, we would not be talking. Let me tell you something about Venice. It looks poor, doesn’t it? Sad, and patched up, and gray, even on a beautiful day like this. A city without an income. But do not misjudge it. Venice is also a city of extraordinary wealth-as our friends from Vienna know all too well.”

  He put his finger on the table and held it there.

  “We are surrounded, Signor Brett, with considerable treasures. You know the Correr?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you like there?”

  The question surprised Palewski. “I liked the Carpaccio,” he said, after thinking. “The Courtesans.”

  The man smiled. “I like it too, Signor Brett. I agree with your choice. Correr was a rich man, a man of taste and connections. Would it surprise you to know that he considered that painting a poor specimen of the master’s art? Relatively speaking, of course. Correr, you see, knew better-he had seen things that he could never put his finger on again.

  “We know that for a thousand years, Venice has been plundering the world. With her wealth, she was able to produce her own masters, too. This city was never captured, never plundered. Three hundred families held the reins of power-and access to wealth-in all those years. Oh yes, the Corsican took things that belonged here-the bronze horses from St. Mark’s, the Veroneses and the Titians from the churches. Big, grand thefts-for what? To symbolize his mastery of the Veneto. A pagan triumph, nothing more. There was no stripping of the palazzi. Perhaps, had he been given more time-who knows? The Austrians-they try, here and there, to take artworks from the city. But the world is watching them. In the meantime, the old nobility have become clever.”

  “Clever?”

  “These sad old buildings”-Alfredo gestured vaguely toward the canal-”appear to be shuttered up, stripped out, half abandoned. A city in decay-of course.” He leaned forward. “But if you could see what really lies inside those walls, not even on display, but in an attic somewhere, under a Persian rug, or locked up in a shabby trunk-well, I need hardly say that you, Signor Brett, would go half mad with joy-and with desire.”

  Palewski thought of the contessa’s palazzo. It had seemed bare, but perhaps it was just a facade, a cautious reaction to the dangers presented by foreign occupation. There were villages in Thrace and Macedonia, he recalled, that scarcely looked like villages at all: mere rubbish heaps. They were inhabited, he was reliably informed, by people who did all they could to disguise their wealth, the better to evade the state’s taxes.

  “There are treasures in Venice that even their owners do not know exist,” he said, in a low tone of wonder. “But sometimes, Signor Brett, these treasures come to light.”

  “Your patron knows about these hidden things?”

  Alfredo shrugged, as if the matter were beyond dispute. “I would say more. A palazzo, dear signor, is not a shop. The old nobility of Venice are not shopkeepers, who ticket their goods for sale. And they have discretion. You must understand that these treasures belong in some sense to the patrimony of Venice, even if she is fallen today. They belong to old families. They constitute a history of a house, and the people who have lived there.” He paused, frowned, looked for the proper explanation. “Aha-it is like these pieces can be compared to a beautiful daughter. Her marriage, when she leaves the house, is not left to chance. It is a matter for full and delicate consideration.”

  Palewski nodded. He wondered whether Signor Brett, of New York, for all his wealth, was quite the kind of catch a patrician Venetian would consider for his daughter-even if she were made of canvas and oil.

  Alfredo seemed to have read his thoughts. “My patron understands these delicate matters,” he said. “I think, before I was sent to you, that your case was hopeless. In Venice you can buy-what? Anything-a friend, a woman, a nice house.” He glanced at Palewski as he spoke, and Palewski flushed slightly. “But a work of art? This is different.”

  He cocked his head. “Let me be frank. My patron, he is not unhappy to see you in Venice. You are something new, signore. For many years, we arrange matters between our clients-his clients, I mean-and his Venetian friends. These are very important works, and the prices are, well-who can pay? The French? Hmm. Some. Some Russians. Some others, Swedes, princes, yes. But the English-these are the best. The famous Byron, pah! But Byron’s friends, lords, like him, with palazzi of their own. For many years we have dealt with these men. Only these, I would say.”

  “And now you’d appreciate a little competition.”

  Alfredo smiled. “You understand me very well, signore.”

  Palewski signaled to the waiter. “Two brandies,” he said. To Alfredo he said, “You know nothing about me.”

  Alfredo laughed, to Palewski’s surprise. He waited while the waiter set the brandies down in two huge balloons.

  “You exaggerate, Signor Brett. I think you might be surprised how much we know about you.”

  He slipped his hand beneath the bowl of his glass and swirled it violently so that the caramel liquid left an oily sheen on the inside, then he raised it to his nose and inhaled deeply.

  “But in fact it doesn’t altogether matter. Yours is a big country, Signor Brett, as I think you have already remarked.”

  Palewski looked up, and their eyes met.

  “I’m glad we’ve had a chance to talk,” Alfredo said. He inclined his glass toward Palewski. “To Bellini,” he said quietly. Then, without waiting for a response, he drank the liquor and got up.

  “We haven’t really discussed Bellini, Signor Alfredo,” Palewski said.

  “I was always talking about Bellini, Signor Brett.”

  He turned to go, then stopped and looked around. “We’ll meet again. The bill is taken care of,” he added, with a flicker of a smile.

  With that he was gone, through an arch of the arcade in two quick strides.

  “Exit right,” Palewski murmured to himself. “Signor Brett onstage, drinking brandy.”

  He looked down and recognized the list he’d been writing, balancing the options.

  He tore the list into little pieces. That done, he got up and went to the edge of the canal, where he let the pieces drop from his fingers into the water.

  “Curtain.”

  It was not what he had expected. It made him uneasy.
r />   Afraid.

  He would miss the rendezvous, he thought.

  44

  “Signor Brett.”

  Palewski glanced around and recognized Alfredo. They walked in step, neither man saying anything, until Alfredo gestured to a pontoon.

  He walked to the rail and leaned on it, looking out toward Giudecca, and then half turned toward Palewski and smiled.

  “What do you know about the Bellinis, Signor Brett? As a family, I mean?”

  “The Bellinis? Father, Jacopo. Good painter, highly regarded in his day. Two sons-Gentile and Giovanni. Vasari says they were very loving. Giovanni was working on the frescoes in the Doges’ Palace when Mehmet’s invitation to the best Venetian painter arrived, and Vasari suggests that the Senate didn’t feel they could spare him. So Gentile was sent.”

  “Oh, I think Gentile was good enough for the job, Signor Brett. We should allow him that. When Bellini left, Mehmet gave him a title.”

  “He didn’t use the title.”

  “Of course not. Mehmet also gave him a gold belt, weighted with coins. It was kept by the Bellini family for many years.”

  Palewski leaned on the rail. “Well?”

  “Signor Brett.” Alfredo seemed amused. “My patron has spoken at some length to the very owner of the painting you seek.”

  “The portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror? By Gentile Bellini?”

  “My patron saw it several months ago. And again this morning. Before that-well, it has to do with those gold coins, Signor Brett, and also Tiziano, your Titian. He was a pupil of Bellini.”

  “Of Giovanni, surely?” Palewski had not spent those hours reading and rereading Vasari for nothing.

  “Of Giovanni, yes, but they were a close family, Signor Brett. And I think, more importantly, we should remember how close the Venetians and the Ottomans were. When Venice sent a bailo to Istanbul, it sent the best, and there were many other merchants, too.”