The Bellini card yte-3

by Jason Goodwin

  “Someone bought the portrait and brought it back?”

  “Someone who would have known the quality of the work.”

  “Who?”

  Alfredo smiled and spread his hands. “A little too direct, signore. I cannot tell you the name now-but of course, in due time…”

  “And what is the deal?”

  “Sixteen thousand kreuzers. Just under six thousand sterling, if you prefer.”

  Palewski turned to the rail. Six thousand pounds! Enough, he supposed, to keep a palazzo for a lifetime, with a gondolier in perpetual attendance! Less than the sultan spent in a month on candles, too, no doubt.

  “I do not wish to influence you,” Alfredo remarked. “Believe me, I understand it is a lot of money. But my patron has sold many paintings for very much more. Bellini is not in fashion, to be honest. Tiepolo, Titian, Veronese-very well. We sold a Titian last year to an Englishman for fifteen thousand.”

  Palewski gave an imperceptible nod. He had done some homework: Alfredo was right.

  “Fashions change,” the dealer observed. “Canaletto-once, two thousand, three thousand. Now you can buy him for eight hundred. There is always another, if you miss one.” He shrugged. “But a Bellini-that, Signor Brett, you can buy only once. If you permit me, I shall leave you with your thoughts. You can find me in Costa’s little bar-it’s close to the end, down a few steps. The evening is getting chilly.”

  They shook hands. “Thank you, Alfredo. Give me five minutes.”

  Italians, he smiled to himself: always afraid of the cold. Then he remembered something he had not thought of for many years-a companion he’d loved, a man who joked and was generous and knew how to fight. But when Ranieri had lost his horse on the long retreat, he died before Palewski found him blue and stiff in the Russian snow.

  He blew out his cheeks and leaned against the rail. The sunlight was gradually dragging itself from the Giudecca, dropping the spires and the old faded housefronts slowly into the shade. A grayer tide was moving in from the east as the still waters lost their sparkle: the gray ordinary light of all cities in the early dusk, when they lost their beauty and had not gained the shimmering jeweled presence of the night.

  He hunched his body against the rail, thinking of another age, when the sun over Italy had set on promises and hope: the promises of a tyrant and the hope of simple men. He had never expected to come back, had he? The gesticulations, and the imprecations soon forgotten, the musical staccato of the language, and beneath his hands the heartbreaking dent of a woman’s back as they walked together in the evening light.

  Now he was back, and soon he would be gone.

  He touched the scarf closer to his neck, wondering if the Italians were right and if there was a coldness about the dusk.

  Six thousand sterling. Yashim would be pleased.

  And a man in a wineshop, ready to talk terms.

  Stanislaw Palewski patted the rail and turned back to the Zattere, and made his way along it toward a darkening sky.

  45

  Signor Ruggerio, stepping out of his house in San Barnaba to buy a small cheroot from the corner shop, was surprised to find himself accompanied by two men he vaguely remembered who held his arms and suggested a drink together, somewhere outside the campo.

  Somewhere, in fact, beyond a certain little network of alleyways, a distinct island of mud and pilings and pavements faced about with small canals, which constituted the parish of San Barnaba.

  They took him over a bridge.

  They gave him a glass of wine.

  “He’s money,” Ruggerio said, prudently swallowing his jealousy along with his rosso — for nobody likes to lose a client. “That’s for sure. The question is, where’s it from?”

  The men, it seemed, liked the way he talked.

  “That’s for you, Barone,” one of them said outside the bar, tucking a cheroot wrapped in a note into his breast pocket. “I expect you can find your own way home?”

  “You know how it is, gentlemen,” Ruggerio replied nervously. “At my age, you begin to forget everything.”

  One of the men reached out and tweaked Ruggerio’s cheek. “I’m delighted to hear it, Barone,” he said. “Sleep well.”

  46

  Palewski walked slowly back to his apartment. It had occurred to him, ironically, and with curiosity, what might be done with six thousand pounds.

  Now and then he heard footsteps approaching; a dark figure would loom out of the narrow passage, his shadow lengthening with every step, and he would pass with a muffled greeting. Sometimes he heard footsteps behind him. He walked slowly, savoring the money, and let them pass.

  Six thousand would buy him a regiment, or a library, or an assassin. He wondered about that. He wondered, too, what it would be like to own a newspaper, perhaps in France, editions in Polish and French, articles about poetry and music, and above all the truth about Poland and the Poles. Mickiewicz was a good poet. Herzen-he’d contribute on the Russian side. Yes, six thousand pounds would go a long way in the diaspora, into garrets and drawing rooms.

  And then again, not far enough. Better, perhaps, to go to New York, like Signor Brett, selling Canalettos to the newly rich? He smiled broadly and turned left. Australia! A new life. A new life certainly, but even in his dreams he was unclear what a life in Australia might entail.

  Six thousand: two dropped on opium from Bengal, two on a cutter. Sold to China. Palewski Taipan, the richest man in Amoy! He gave a short laugh.

  Footsteps again rang out on the cobbles behind him.

  He stopped to look about and failed to recognize the alley. There were no lights beyond. He realized he’d taken a wrong turning; to make sure he went to the end of the alley and found himself looking through an archway at a set of slimy steps and a canal.

  He swiveled around and began to retrace his steps, hearing their uneven echo in the dark ahead.

  47

  Maria was sitting quietly in a chair when she saw the door handle turn.

  The first man had a scar that ran from his eye to his mouth; he was thin and Maria guessed him to be about forty, forty-five. The other man was younger, bigger, and puffy eyed. He looked like a drinker.

  Neither of them looked like friends of Signor Brett.

  “Waiting for someone?” The man with the scar stood in the doorway, stropping his hand with his gloves. He looked annoyed.

  “I’m waiting for Signor Brett,” Maria snapped. “Who else? Hey, you can’t come in here,” she added, as the big man walked past her and glanced out the window.

  The man with the scar ignored her. He closed the door behind him.

  Maria felt afraid.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  The scar-faced man walked up to her and looked into her face. “Tell us about your boyfriend, my dear,” he said.

  Maria stuck out her lip. “There’s nothing to tell. He’s American.”

  “American? Oh-oh. It’s not what I hear, pretty one. Like, where he buys his hats.”

  “His hats?”

  “You heard what I said. Istanbul. Constantinople. You have heard of Constantinople? I do hope so. I do hope you’re not stupid.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Maria said.

  The scar-faced man stood looking into her face. His eyes were expressionless.

  Without warning he drew back his hand and slapped her hard across the cheek.

  Maria gave a cry and staggered sideways.

  “I don’t like lying women,” he said. “I don’t like whores.”

  “I’m not-”

  He slapped her again.

  Maria looked up: the candlelights were huge and blurred. She felt dizzy.

  “This is his room,” she said thickly. She could taste blood in her mouth. “Get out of here.” She sounded drunk; her head was pounding. “Get out.”

  There was a faint whistle; the scar-faced man pointed a finger at Maria, who was kneeling on the floor.

  Maria tried to mov
e but the other, silent man took her arms and dragged them roughly up behind her back.

  “Another sound out of you, and you can kiss your lover goodbye.” Scar-face went to the mantelpiece and pinched out the candle.

  The silent man shoved her ahead of him, through the doorway. At the door scar-face looked at Maria and said, “Where’s your bonnet?”

  She shook her head. He went inside and reappeared with it, crushed up in his hand.

  “Now we’re going to make you look all pretty.” He dropped the bonnet over her head and tied it around her chin. “We’re going to walk downstairs and out the door and if you make one move, one sound, I’m going to stick this blade between your ribs. One shove, and I twist it around, carissima.”

  She was aware of going downstairs. One arm was behind her back and the pain as they jolted down the steps made her want to cry out. She wanted to sob, but her lungs felt paralyzed. She pressed her lips together and they passed out into the night.

  Another man joined them at the corner.

  “A little information,” scar-face said. “But right now she doesn’t speak our language too well. I think I can change that.”

  The newcomer grunted. “Place clean? The man says it’s got to be clean.”

  “Just this one piece of dirt,” scar-face said. “But we’ve taken it out.”

  The man undid his bandanna. Scar-face used it to blindfold Maria, removing and replacing her bonnet.

  “Let’s go. And you, cara — remember what I said. Keep your head down.”

  They walked, or stumbled on, for a few minutes: Maria lost all sense of direction. Once the man holding her pulled her back so roughly she almost fell, her leg crumpling under her; she felt the heel snap off her shoe. The man pulled her upright by the hair at the back of her neck. She supposed that they were avoiding passersby, but she couldn’t call out. Eventually they crossed some rough ground, and she could hear something scraping; then the stench of mold, as if they were in a cellar, and the air was damp and fetid.

  Her hands were tied behind her back and she was shoved violently forward. A sharp edge caught her on the shin and she tripped, turning her head to avoid smashing her face onto the stone floor.

  A door slammed.

  Maria was alone.

  Slowly she began to scrape her way across the floor. She found a wall and huddled up against it, her knees drawn up to her chin. The cold seeped through her thin muslin dress in a moment, and she began to shiver uncontrollably.

  48

  Palewski skirted carefully around the dark bundle of rags crammed up against the step and wall of the last bridge, and looked ahead to see if the restaurant was still open.

  By the faint street light he saw a couple, with another man beside them, walking up the narrow calle. The man looked drunk.

  Inside the restaurant he took off his coat and ordered a bottle of wine. The place was almost empty, and he asked the waiter for something easy, something quick. He didn’t want to keep them up.

  The waiter smiled. “We await your pleasure, Signor Brett. What you want to eat, you may eat. Please.”

  He ordered a dish of calves’ liver.

  “A few minutes, signore. Your wine.”

  Palewski ate hurriedly, his thoughts returning to the letters of credit that Yashim had provided. As soon as he finished, he placed some coins on the table and returned to his apartment, where he lit a candle and rummaged in his portmanteau for five thick and heavily folded sheets of paper, of the finest legal grade.

  The money, he noticed, to be drawn in Trieste rather than Venice, on two separate banks.

  He raised an ironical eyebrow at that. Venice, where the very business of credit had been invented, could no longer furnish a traveler with funds. Alfredo was right: it was a city with capital, of a sort, and no income.

  Selling off its heritage, bit by bit.

  He undressed, climbed into bed, and reached for the Vasari he’d left on the table with his afternoon nap. His fingers closed on thin air, and he looked around, surprised. It was as if the book had jumped from his grasp to lie a few inches farther off.

  The mattress creaked as he leaned across.

  Vasari! Again!

  He changed his mind, blew out the candle, and in a few minutes he was asleep.

  49

  Swarms of beggars were retreating from their pitches as night fell.

  Some were carried away by charitable friends, but the famous legless beggar of San Marco, using nothing more than his fingertips, wheeled himself up a side alley where he was released from the wheeled board by a faithful servant and slowly and painfully stood up, cracking his joints.

  A furious German soldier, reddened by false piety and wine, stumped off on a wooden leg to one of the more forlorn wineshops of the city. A wraithlike woman, preternaturally skinny, and clutching to her breast a tiny, malnourished baby in a shift, stuffed the baby headfirst into a bag. It was only made of wax and wood, and she scuttled away to prepare dinner for her husband and five children.

  All over Venice, under cover of darkness, tiny miracles were being performed. All over the city people found tongues, limbs, parents, and appetites. The halt walked; the weak took up their beds; the idiots and the insane, with looks of innocent cunning, counted their takings and found their way to a mug of wine or a dish of polenta.

  On Palewski’s bridge, the bundle of rags stirred, too. What emerged from its nest was, at least, a man; he had sores on his shaved skull and a dirty yellow beard. He pissed into the canal, then made his way painfully up the alley, clutching a few kreuzers in a grimy hand.

  Nobody passed him. Across the next bridge, he spotted something pretty on the ground and stooped to pick it up.

  It was a little pointed object made of hard red leather and for a few moments he held it to his eye as if assessing its value. But even in Venice, among the poorest of the poor, a heel is worth nothing without its shoe; the beggar spat and passed on.

  Later, having eaten half a slab of polenta, with the other half tucked away, he returned to his bridge.

  He snuggled deep into his bed of rags and pondered, dreamily, the comings and goings on the street.

  50

  It was not until the evening that Alfredo called on Signor Brett.

  “The viewing is arranged,” he said.

  “Very well,” Palewski replied. “Tomorrow then. Eleven o’clock?”

  Alfredo nodded slowly. “Signor Brett, one thing I must explain,” he said, with a wince. “It is very Venetian, I’m sorry about it. The owner would like us to look at the portrait tonight, if possible. If you want some time to dress, it is no problem. I can wait. Afterward, we can take a gondola.”

  Palewski sucked his teeth. “To be frank, Alfredo, I’d like to see the painting by daylight. At eight it will be almost dark.”

  “Of course, signore, I understand.” Alfredo had his hat in his hand, and he began to turn it by the brim. “I think it will still be a very good opportunity to see the painting tonight. I would say, you can spend more time with it-alone, also, if you would like. It would be no problem. If you prefer for now, signore, I can wait for you downstairs.”

  He got to his feet and gave a little bow.

  Palewski blinked a couple of times and said, “Is something wrong?”

  “No, signore,” Alfredo said emphatically. He spread out his hands. “I shall wait for you outside?”

  “Give me five minutes,” Palewski said thoughtfully. When Alfredo had gone he adjusted his stock carefully in the mirror.

  Damn, but he was so close!

  He’d all but scripted the sultan’s speech. Now he murmured his own modest reply to the reflection in the glass. No credit for discovery… blah blah… painting of venerable ancestor… not from me… proud nation… day of deliverance… blah blah… your house among the greatest, and oldest, of friends… et cetera, et cetera…

  Yashim had been right, as usual-tracking down the Bellini was the coup of the year. Abdulmecid would eat from his
hand.

  He sighed and pulled on his overcoat.

  51

  Sometimes Maria would wake up wondering where she was and, as the truth returned, try to fend it off for a few more moments, but her swollen lip and the cord around her wrists that chafed and bit into her skin made it impossible to resist the dread reality.

  More than anything, perhaps, she hated to be alone.

  She got gingerly to her feet. Her leg ached where she had cracked it on something. With her back to the wall she worked her way around her cell, groping with fingers stiff with cold across the smooth walls, searching for anything she could use. She found the door, and kicked on it and shouted until her feet were bruised. It was a thick, heavy wooden door but it had a handle, too, and after many attempts she succeeded in using the handle to inch the blindfold off her face.

  The darkness remained absolute.

  Something that felt like a low stone table stood in the middle of the room. For a while she worked at trying to rasp the cord against the edge of the table, but it was her wrists that suffered. Eventually she gave it up and shuffled back to her original position against the wall, knees drawn up to her face, whimpering with cold, and pain, and the terrible fear of knowing nothing and expecting anything.

  She would not tell them anything about Signor Brett, come what may.

  But by the time they came, she could scarcely remember her own name.

  She had lost track of time; she felt no pain. She moved her thick tongue in her mouth and very quietly sounded out the only word she knew: acqua!

  52

  Alfredo was waiting at the foot of the stairs.

  “I’m here, as you see,” Palewski said drily. “But explain to me, clearly and simply, why tonight?”

  Alfredo took his arm. “Come,” he said. “I will tell you as we go.”