The Bellini card yte-3

by Jason Goodwin

  “They?”

  “The family that’s selling their painting, on the quiet.” It sounded thin. “You can’t go around bawling your prices on the Rialto these days. The friends-the Austrians-would get to hear about it.”

  “How convenient.”

  “Convenient? Nonsense. We’ll meet them tomorrow. The vendor and his brother-they fixed up some sort of pact, thank God. I thought the brother had died. As soon as I’ve got the painting, I’ll ask Alfredo who they were.”

  Yashim gazed at his old friend. Palewski didn’t like it and looked away.

  “Did you go to the theater while you were here?”

  Palewski looked surprised. “The theater? I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Yash. I’ve been ill, I’ve been busy, I’ve been-God, I found Compston here and had to fix up a couple of courtesans to see him off, along with his Habsburg chum.” He leaned back, and now that he had found his theme he discovered it was warm. “I’ve had policemen dunning me over two chaps who got murdered-nothing to do with me. I’ve had a fellow shot under my nose-I thought he’d died. I’ve been threatened with guns, with hanging, with cholera. I’ve swum the Grand Canal. Not along it, like Byron, but Byron didn’t have his shoes hanging around his neck. I was even poisoned. Nasty stuff, prosecco. So no, sorry. I somehow missed the theater.”

  He stood up.

  “Venice is a theater, Yashim. You fit right in, too, with your beard and eyebrows. No wonder the waiter didn’t look twice. At the end of the day they probably lay him down in a box marked ‘Cafe Characters.’ I’ve had enough.”

  Yashim hadn’t moved.

  Palewski stared at him for a while.

  He gripped the chair and sat down.

  He put his head in his hands.

  He said a word in Polish that Yashim didn’t understand.

  “Go on, then, Yash,” he said at last. “What makes you believe the Bellini is a fake?”

  67

  Sergeant Vosper was not only a methodical man, and a slow one; the aspect of police work he liked best was standing in a doorway across the street, waiting for a suspect to appear.

  At the Procuratie he had to weave his way between the stadtmeister’s interminable lectures and men like Brunelli, who bantered with him. When Brunelli laughed he never knew whether to be pleased or offended. Now Brunelli would be out for his scalp.

  Waiting for Brett was not, on the whole, a bad way to spend an afternoon.

  He came at a quarter to six, by Vosper’s watch: an ugly fellow who rolled up to the front door of the palazzo and pushed it and went inside. Vosper followed.

  “Signor Brett?” he called, when he heard the man’s tread on the stone staircase overhead.

  The man stopped.

  “Who’s that?”

  Vosper stuck his head over the banister and looked up.

  “Police.”

  “Who are you looking for?”

  Vosper’s rule was never to answer a direct question directly. “Are you Signor Brett?”

  Overhead he heard a voice muttering to itself. “Brett?” It called down, “Please-is this the Ca’ d’Aspi?”

  “It’s the Casa Manin. D’Aspi is next door.”

  The ugly man came down the stairs, chuckling ruefully. “Casa this, Casa that. You’d think they’d give us better street numbers in the nineteenth century.”

  Vosper nodded: it was a good point. Numbers would help police work.

  “We’re waiting for a Signor Brett,” he said.

  “Never heard of him,” Alfredo said. “I’m due at the Ca’ d’Aspi. Next door, you said?”

  “That’s right.” Man was lost He wasn’t the American, at any rate. “Turn left, first on the left.”

  “Thank you, Commissario.” As he passed, the ugly man turned and lowered his voice. “What’s this Brett done, then?”

  “I’m not at liberty to reveal, I’m afraid, sir.” Which was, when all was said and done, a shame. Vosper took precious little glory from his work, and here was a man who didn’t seem to hold it against him. He inclined a little. “It could be a hanging charge,” he said.

  The ugly man pulled a face. “Murder?”

  Vosper compressed his lips. “That’s about the short and long of it, sir. Between ourselves.”

  Alfredo ducked his head in an admiring gesture. “Good luck to you, Commissario.”

  “And good luck to you, too, sir. It’s left outside, and left again.”

  68

  In the cafe Yashim was beginning to explain. “Your friend Maria,” he said.

  Palewski raised his head. “How do you know Maria?”

  “Your Alfredo-a fat, ugly man.”

  Palewski squirmed in his chair. “That doesn’t make him a crook.”

  “No. But it means that he was in charge when those two thugs searched your apartment. He sent them in. They took Maria.”

  “Maria? What happened?”

  Yashim told him. “They had her in the Fondaco dei Turchi. The old hammam.”

  “You found her?”

  “Eventually.”

  “And she is-?”

  “Oh, she’s all right. You can see her in a moment.”

  “But what did they want with her?”

  “They wanted to know who you were.” Yashim’s glance searched Palewski’s face. “How good was your cover?”

  Palewski chewed his lip. “I don’t think I let it slip, Yashim. And it was good enough-the American collector. Why not? Apart from that meeting with Compston and his pals, no one could challenge Signor Brett.”

  “Brunelli?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Yashim looked thoughtful. “Someone guessed. It doesn’t matter now. Your Alfredo was just covering all the angles.”

  “I saw the painting, Yashim,” Palewski protested. “The sultan.”

  “And you looked at it for how long? A few seconds?”

  Palewski shifted uncomfortably on his seat. “Not long, I admit. But even so, the brother-”

  “Precisely. It was the brother’s behavior that made you believe in the painting.”

  Palewski put up two fingers; the waiter nodded. He remembered that evening in the boathouse and the odd conversation between Alfredo and Mario.

  And Alfredo had raised his voice-behold the Bellini! It could have been a cue.

  He buried his face in his hands.

  “I don’t know, Yashim. It’s all theater-it’s impossible to tell the real from the false.”

  “What happened that night was theater, for sure-the dark, the gun, the scramble to get away. They even made you swim.”

  I won’t tell him about my visit to the palazzo in the morning, Palewski thought. That’s when I should have known.

  Something jumped into his mind, something else that had happened in the morning. But it was vague; Yashim was speaking.

  Palewski pushed the thought away.

  For which another man would die.

  “So now, Yashim, we’ve got to start again?”

  Yashim looked hard into Palewski’s eyes. “Start again-yes, in a way. But not from scratch. I need to find out everything you know.”

  Palewski started. “Don’t, Yashim. You make me nervous. I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “Good. Not here, though. We need to get you somewhere safe, away from the police-and Alfredo’s people, too. I know just the place. Come on.”

  69

  Niko likes to paint with the brushes and the little tubes of colors in Mr. Popi’s studio there is good light the brushes are quite good. If you squeeze the color out of the little tube onto the board, and you do not use it all up, it will go dry like a dog turd Mr. Popi stepped on it.

  Mr. Popi is cross he will give Niko TWO bottles of brandy. Brandy tastes nice it makes Niko cough. Brandy gives Niko a good, warm feeling. ONE TWO is better it lasts longer and Mr. Popi cannot come and see Niko when Niko has grrrrrrr

  Mr. Popi is writing he is cross and writing

  That is goo
d he is busy he does not hurt Niko now sting burn Niko cannot eat

  The hat is wrong Niko painted it to look like a hat he saw but Canaletto did not see this hat there are none such in all his paintings. Mr. Popi saw it Niko did not think he could BUT he saw it Mr. Popi is clever he knows what Niko is thinking maybe grrrrrr Canaletto is clever. He makes Mr. Popi soft TWO bottles. Niko must be clever like Canaletto. Mr. Popi is soft THREE times and Father was soft THREE SEVEN FIVE NINETEEN NINETEEN times where is he?

  Grrr grrrr grrr

  Sad Niko is sad grrrrrrrrrr Niko can curl up very small to be sad and Mr. Popi cannot tell he is not painting HA HA

  He has gone out!

  Out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out out back!

  He is talking to a man

  It is a strange way to talk with that strange noise in the other room Mr. Popi is not writing he is he is he is

  Dancing

  Niko curls up small he can see only the feet and the legs ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT all moving feet and legs THUD THUD

  One color that is Venetian red one is Flesh now the color is Madder it jets out like water in Canaletto’s fountains which Niko can do.

  Mr. Popi is putting the color everywhere with ONE foot. Niko does not like the noise it is like the pig at Christmas it made Niko small too.

  Father it is all right Niko pig is dead it is all right all quiet

  Mr. Popi is all right

  It was his PRECIOUS BLOOD

  Niko saw this man in the church he was THE DEVIL Father you are safe THE DEVIL is on the wall

  He cannot hurt you

  Mr. Popi cannot hurt Niko he has no skin THE DEVIL is taking it away

  THE DEVIL had a hat but hat is wrong Niko can paint like Canaletto he does not have a hat

  No hat Niko

  Mr. Popi said no hat and Niko likes to paint with the brushes and the little tubes of colors in Mr. Popi’s studio.

  There is good light there.

  The brushes are quite good.

  70

  South of the familiar brown bulk of the Frari, Palewski found himself in a region he didn’t know, following Yashim as he worked his way confidently through the narrow streets. This part of Dorsoduro seemed, if anything, poorer than the rest; the large Campo Santa Margherita, which they crossed at a slant, was full of idle men, lean cats, and laundry, as if the women took in other people’s washing. The women, indeed, were down by the small canal, scrubbing and rinsing their linen in the murky green water. One of them sang out as Yashim and Palewski crossed the bridge, and there was a burst of laughter.

  Farther west, they reached the court where the Contarinis lived on the ground floor. Maria was there: she ran forward and hugged Palewski, lifting her bare feet from the cobbles.

  “Mio caro! I did not think I would see you again!”

  The kitchen was very dark and smelled of smoke. Signora Contarini rose ponderously from the fire, which she had been feeding with little twigs, and bobbed a curtsy.

  Yashim explained Palewski’s need for a billet.

  “You are welcome,” the signora said, with an elegant sweeping gesture of her hand.

  Later, Yashim found himself watching Signora Contarini as she worked with a short knife, enthroned on a stool by the fire, slicing carrots and onions and garlic against her thumb. She had a knack of slicing the onion so that it remained whole until the last minute, when it cascaded into rings.

  One by one she dropped the vegetables into a cauldron set on irons above the fire. The polished stone hearth jutted out into the room; over it, about three feet up, hung a canopy. The smoke drifted lazily upward, some of it escaping into the room to darken the beams and ceiling. The fire itself was small, and the old lady tended it carefully with a poker, now and then tucking back stray twigs and sticks.

  When the water came to a boil, the signora carefully unwrapped the beef and lowered it into the cauldron with both hands. Having watched it for a few moments, she went to the table and began to sift through her stores. She shook out a bunch of parsley, folded it, and chopped it finely into a wooden bowl. She cracked a clove from a bulb of garlic, peeled it swiftly, and with little movements of her forefinger sliced it first one way and then the next, before slipping it over and paring it into fragments.

  She lifted the lid of a clay jar and fished out a few capers, which she added to the sauce. From another jar she speared a pickled cucumber on the point of her knife and sliced that, too, as she had chopped the garlic.

  She put her thumb over the neck of a small green bottle and shook a few drops of vinegar into the bowl. A pinch of salt, a round of pepper, and then she began to stir the mixture, adding a thin thread of oil from an earthenware flask until the sauce felt right.

  “There must be something I can do to help,” Yashim said. “Perhaps I could stir the polenta?”

  With her eye on the sauce the signora gave an amused grunt: the Moor, stir her polenta?

  “I make it come la seta,” she said. Like silk.

  She poured a jug of water into the copper standing beside the fire.

  “Talk to your friend, signore.”

  Yashim moved away politely: he had no wish to put the eye on his hostess’s polenta. Maria was sitting by the window, stitching her torn dress. She was wearing the blue bodice and patched gray skirt she had put on before she knew they would be having company.

  Yashim glanced back to see the signora threading an endless stream of yellow maize from one hand. The other worked a wooden spoon in slow, firm circles. He smiled and turned his back: in Trabzon, where he was born, the women made kuymak in the same way.

  Perhaps they worshipped the same gods, these women, as they performed the daily miracle of transforming the baser elements into silk, the rarest luxury the world could afford.

  Maria raised her head from her sewing. “Some days,” she said in a near whisper, “we hang an anchovy on a string, above the table. Then we each rub the anchovy on the polenta-and it tastes so good!”

  Her mother leaned over the copper and examined her work. She had finished pouring the maize but she continued to stir, slowly, with her free hand on the rim of the pot as the polenta gradually stiffened.

  “Maria! Fetch the board.”

  Maria set aside her sewing and jumped up. She took what looked like a little bench down from two pegs in the wall and set it before the fire.

  Yashim watched, in spite of himself: the signora’s face was rapt as she tilted the pan and the polenta glided out across the board, as smooth as yellow silk.

  Maria was putting plates and forks around the table.

  “Maria!” Her mother hissed and nodded to the wooden chest. There followed angry words in a thick dialect that neither Yashim nor Palewski could properly understand.

  Maria blushed and cleared the table again. Then she fetched a fresh cloth from the chest and shook it out over the table.

  Yashim smiled at the signora and she eyed him back, one eyebrow faintly raised. Yes, he thought, we understand each other, Moor and Venetian, in the simple duties of ceremony and propriety. The table had needed to be dressed.

  The cloth sparkled, and it seemed as though the room were not the mean, low-ceilinged hovel it had been but brighter, orderly, hospitable. Even the food smelled richer.

  Maria set the table. Her mother skimmed the stock.

  Maria’s father, a whippet-thin man who worked on the boats and had been enjoying a puff of cigar smoke with his friends in the yard, joined them with handshakes and curt welcomes.

  They ate the beef sliced, on a mattress of polenta swimming with good stock, with s
poonfuls of the salsa verde, in silence and appreciation. Maria’s little brothers and sisters sat with uncanny stillness, having been bawled in from the neighboring alleys. Except for the oldest boy, a good-looking lad with Maria’s tangle of black hair and rolled shirtsleeves, they had shaved heads and huge round eyes, which they turned on Palewski and Yashim, but particularly Yashim, as they silently spooned up their polenta.

  Finally a little girl, more wriggly than the rest-she could scarcely have been more than seven, Yashim supposed-broke the silence to ask him if it was true that in Moor-land nobody had to go to church.

  “I think that God would be sad,” Yashim said thoughtfully, “if nobody went to thank him, now and then. For food like this, and children like yourselves, and a sunny day like today.”

  “Is he sad in your country, when nobody goes?”

  “Not at all, signorina. Because some people do go to church, and others go to mosque, and some people go to the synagogue. So he hears people thanking him in lots of different voices, like yours, and mine, and your mother’s, and our friend Palewski’s here, and that makes him four times as happy.”

  She looked at him again, a little dubiously, and didn’t reply.

  And much later, when everyone else was asleep, and the two friends sat together by the embers of the fire, Yashim spoke about the calligrapher, Metin Yamaluk, and the missing book of Bellini drawings, and how his instinct had warned him that there was something wrong.

  “He was a pious old man. He died with a look of terror on his face.”

  He told him, too, about Resid’s cryptic remarks. “He knew something was going on in Venice. Something dangerous.”

  Palewski for his part explained about the contessa’s party, and the death of Barbieri, and how Alfredo had been his last hope.

  Yashim bit his cheek. “Yes-and I wonder how this Alfredo knew what you were looking for.”

  “Rumors, Yashim. Speculation was born on the Rialto.” His chair creaked. “Everyone knows something and is sure of nothing. Except that I miss my bed,” Palewski murmured, pulling the blanket up beneath his chin. In a minute he was asleep, legs outstretched, his feet on the hearth like a soldier on campaign.