Death in Florence

by George Alec Effinger

  "I feel American today," said Staefler. "That white Lincoln. Take that one. Check the gas and oil."

  A short time later the Lincoln was crossing the causeway that connected Venice with the Italian mainland. Weeks before, Staefler had cleared it of abandoned cars, and he thought of the causeway as his own private driveway. It was a short trip to Mestre, where Staefler planned to pick up some lumber for his projects. Mestre was an ugly little factory town, remarkable only because it was the last town one came to before leaving the mainland.

  "I just had a thought," said Staefler from the back seat of the Lincoln. "I think we'll build a blockhouse at the mainland end of the causeway. We'll get you a nice uniform and a rifle. Maybe a sidearm, too. We'll have a roadblock up, and anyone who wants to get into Venice will have to check with you first. That way I won't be surprised by any of my enemies from this direction. We'll put in a phone for you, too." Staefler nibbled a fingernail, thinking about his idea. They were driving through the narrow streets of Mestre; the many months of wind and rain had done little to cleanse the town. "Of course, we'll have to find out from Utopia 3 how to install a phone. Maybe a portable field phone, one of those that you turn the handle and talk. One of those, maybe." The Arab kid said nothing. "What do you think?" asked Staefler. "Huh? What do you think? Say something." The boy didn't even look over his shoulder. "You'll have to say something, someday," said Staefler. "If I put you in the blockhouse with a phone, you'll have to say something then, won't you?" There was no reply.

  * * *

  On the return trip, Staefler sat in the front seat, next to the Arab kid. Behind their heads were two dozen long two-by-fours, sticking out of the car through both rear windows. They dropped the car in the parking garage and carried the lumber down to the canal. When all the lumber had been piled at the water's edge, Staefler decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to use the motor-boat. "We'll have to gondola it home," he said. "It'll take longer, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Over there. That's the gondola we used last week. You run and get it."

  The boy nodded once, turned, and walked along the canal to the gondola. He lowered himself into the boat, positioned the oar, and started to row with slow, rhythmic strokes. He held the gondola in place by the quay while Staefler loaded the wood. Then Staefler got in and sat in the passenger's seat. "Home," he said, yawning. The sun was warm on his head and back. The silence of the city, the slow, gentle lapping sounds of the water, the peace of loneliness made him drowsy. "Are you going home the short way?" he asked. "The short way, the way we came in the motorboat." The boy did not turn off into the Rio Nuovo; he went in the opposite direction, following the Grand Canal in its slow sweeping curve through the heart of Venice. "This isn't the short way, you moron," said Staefler quietly. The only answer was the clockwork-steady dipping of the oar and the sound of the Arab kid's breathing. Staefler sighed. "Take the long way, then," he thought. "You will row me well, and I'm not in any hurry." He settled back comfortably and tried to enjoy the boat ride.

  They tied the gondola up at the foot of the Piazzetta, and Staefler and the Arab kid unloaded the wood. The boy started to walk up the Piazzetta, toward the palace. Staefler watched him, wondering at how much independence the boy had shown since their arrival in Venice. The city was a strange place. It wasn't like any other city anywhere, and possibly people who lived in Venice could be expected to act stranger than they did elsewhere. Staefler was unhappy about the situation. He felt his control over the Arab kid had diminished. He cupped his hands around his mouth, about to shout an order, but he stopped. His lips had opened, he was about to call out, but his mouth was suddenly too dry to speak. He dropped his hands to his side.

  Although there had been no audible signal, the Arab kid stopped. He looked up at the spectacle of St. Mark's, up at the four ancient bronze horses, at the domes and spires, at the brightness of the sun on the stone, on green and gray stone, on white marble and white marble turned black with centuries of soot. Staefler watched him. The man was startled when the boy turned slowly to gaze over his shoulder, back at Staefler. For only a moment the boy's eyes met the man's, and then the Arab kid turned again and ran out of sight around the corner, into the Doges' Palace where they lived.

  * * *

  Holy figures, some haloed and others mere angels, watched over Staefler's shoulder as he lay in bed sketching. He was designing a clever hole for a miniature golf course. On the floor beside his mattresses was a pile of papers, other holes he had already drawn up. He had invented four hundred and fifty holes already. His goal was a grand total of thirty-six hundred and thirty-six. This was what he needed the lumber for; he planned to turn the Piazza di San Marco into the world's largest miniature golf course. The Piazza had once been the most visited and most photographed square in the city. The main tourist attractions were here: the Basilica di San Marco, the Doges' Palace, the long, low buildings which guarded the other three sides of the square, the two famous cafes across from each other on the Piazza, the arcades and expensive shops. The Piazza was the home of one of the most famous flocks of pigeons in Europe. That was a problem Staefler hadn't solved, but he had some interesting ideas, many of them concerning arsenic.

  Staefler had come to the conclusion that Venice had proposed a competition to him. The city seemed to be nothing more than an immense art gallery. The list of churches in the city ran for pages and pages; when the city had been populated there must have been one church for every six people, thought Staefler, and every one of those churches housed at least one priceless art treasure from the Italian Renaissance.

  That was the source of the competition. Venice, seated on her throne in a large number of those paintings, was daring Staefler to make the city into something other than what it had always been. As Monte Carlo is a city for sophisticated gambling, and Paris is for sitting in sidewalk cafes, and Nice is for being worldly in, and Vienna for listening to music in three-quarter time, and Munich is for eating wursts in, and Rome is for nearly being killed by traffic in, Venice was for being impressed by overabundant displays of pigment. Staefler wasn't going to allow himself to be intimidated by genius any longer. His miniature golf course was the perfect answer, much more subtle and satisfying than merely drawing mustaches on paintings. From now on, he declared, Venice will no longer be a storeroom of art. Venice will come to be the miniature golf capital of the entire world.

  He finished drawing his plan for hole number four hundred fifty-one and tossed the page on the pile on the floor. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was getting tired, so he put the pad and pencil down. Whenever he noticed that he was repeating ideas from previous holes he stopped work. There was no hurry to get it all done. "Now," he thought, "if I can just figure how to mount the two-by-fours on the stone of the square, I'll have it all licked." He watched the Arab kid across the hall; the boy was practicing to be Staefler's caddy. He was practicing by standing silent and motionless, a golf bag with only a putter slung over his shoulder. The Arab kid was very good at being motionless and silent.

  * * *

  Although a cool March rain was drizzling on his head and shoulders, Staefler gave no thought to moving indoors. He was sitting in a folding wooden chair, in the Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo. He was staring up at the fiercest, coldest, most belligerent man he had ever seen. The man was a statue, and the horse he was riding was also a statue, but together they presented an effect so strong that Staefler was inclined to excuse them their lack of animation. He wondered who the man had been. He had never been so intrigued by a work of art before. He got up and walked closer to the statue.

  It was set on a tall plinth, so that when Staefler stood close he had to lean back to see the man's face. From that angle the general's glowering expression seemed like a personal indictment of Staefler's character. Staefler was amazed by his own reaction. He marveled that he had been so moved by a stationary mass of bronze, shaped by good fortune and skill to resemble a horse and a human being. "I'm becoming sensitive," though
t Staefler. "I am turning into an art lover. Ha." He decided that if ever Eileen Brant came to Venice, he would ask her to find an English-language guidebook so that he could learn who had made the statue and who it was supposed to look like.

  On the sculptured base of the statue someone had pasted a handbill. Staefler was surprised to see it. It meant that there were other people in Venice besides himself and the Arab kid, and besides the small staff of people in the Utopia 3 office on the island of San Michele, the island cemetery. He knew that the Arab kid hadn't put the poster up, and he knew that the Utopia 3 people wouldn't have, either. He listened very hard, but there were no sounds except the pattering of the raindrops and an occasional distant rumble of thunder. He heard no footsteps along the wet brick lanes. He heard no muffled sounds of oars dipping and splashing in the narrow water alleys of the city.

  It was only after Staefler had pondered this mystery for a few moments that he thought to read the handbill. It said:

  My name is Sandor Courane. You've probably never heard of me, but I have been doing a great deal of research into your backgrounds. I feel that I know each of you personally, and I hope you will listen to me and evaluate my words of caution as you would those of a close friend.

  I have come to realize that Utopia 3, as it works in accordance with the teachings of Dr. Bertram Waters, is at the same time both much more and much less than the world at large believes. I don't wish to make outright accusations, for fear of becoming cast in the role of serpent in this new Garden of Eden. I certainly don't want to antagonize the very people whom I am trying to persuade. But my studies have led me inexorably to the conclusion that Dr. Waters has made a great deal of money and has won for himself an almost unbelievable amount of personal power in the world through his position as founder of Utopias One, Two, and Three.

  Many might argue that it would have been difficult for anyone to avoid amassing something, when an idea becomes so popular that vast segments of the world's population are eager to embrace it. I ask only why Dr. Waters has not returned his huge profits to the programs he pretends he has devoted his life to. Since utopiates have everything they need and can easily get anything they want, they have no need of personal wealth or property. Most utopiates have donated their estates to the Utopia 3 operating fund. No one, not the print or broadcast media, not governmental agencies, not even the higher directors of Utopia 3 themselves have any idea of the size of that "operating fund." In fact, no one knows where that fund is, where it is banked and invested.

  I, Sandor Courane, have found that fund after many months of grueling, often frustrating detective work. I have discovered the extent of that operating fund, and I have traced other secret sources of revenue. The wealth of Utopia 3 cannot be measured only in dollars. It is also a treasure of power, of political influence on a grand scale, of an empire so great that an accurate appraisal of its size mentioned here would have you dismissing me as a lunatic. But that appraisal would be accurate, and the empire is still growing.

  I hope I have intrigued you with this message. I'm running out of room on this poster, so I guess I'll just sign off for now. I'll be back with another word on the dealings of Dr. Bertram Waters and his hidden kingdom shortly. See you then? For now, good luck and may God bless.

  With best wishes,

  Sandor Courane

  "He's right," thought Staefler. "I think he's a nut already. The Utopia 3 people are nuts, and the people trying to horn in on them are nuts, too. They're all nuts. And that's just great. Every time a nut does something, there's a few seconds in there when somebody sharp can get a little of the gravy for himself. You just have to keep a scorecard to tell them all apart." Staefler prided himself on being able to scoop the gravy. It was a talent that had kept him alive, kept him fed, and kept him almost happy. It was the talent that had gotten him into Utopia 3, after all, and if it hadn't been for that, how else would he have been able to get a gigantic Tintoretto original to sleep under?

  * * *

  It was the third week in March, a special time of year in the Northern Hemisphere. The sun had moved into the sign of Aries, and the zodiacal year had begun. Spring was moving along so that even the most dubious observer had to take notice. The April showers would soon be hard at work piercing the March drought to the roots. The March showers were gently, softly making Staefler furious. He wanted to work, too, and the rain only made the job more difficult. He wanted to be out under the sun doing physical labor, laying out the first one-sixth of his ultimate miniature golf course. He had painstakingly divided all of the Piazza into quadrants. The Piazza was shaped like a trapezoid, with the base nearest the Basilica broader than the opposite end. Staefler's mathematical skills were not very sophisticated, so he just drew a chalk line down the middle of the Piazza and drew another line perpendicular where he felt it divided the area into four roughly equal sections. In each section he planned to construct nine hundred and nine miniature golf holes, although he had only devised six hundred and six altogether. He chose one of the four sections and began subdividing it. He spent three days on this labor. That morning, before the rain started, he had nearly completed the work and had stopped for a couple of bottles of warm beer. He liked to sit on the quay at the foot of the Piazzetta di San Marco, drinking beer, looking out over the water, thinking about the speed with which Venice was sinking to her doom. He had drunk the beer and was walking back to the Piazza when he felt an odd premonition. Even before he entered the Piazza he knew something was wrong. When he turned the corner he saw the Arab kid on hands and knees, scrubbing Staefler's chalk lines away.

  Staefler chased the boy through the back ways and across the blackened bridges of Venice. The Arab kid was much faster afoot and soon left his pursuer confused and lost. Staefler wandered for thirty minutes before he accidentally found the Grand Canal, which he followed in its leisurely arc back toward St. Mark's. Along the way he stopped to read a poster, pasted up on one of Venice's horde of winged lions. It said:

  Hi. Remember me? This is Sandor Courane again. You remember. T was talking about the strange circumstances cloaking the operations of Dr. Bertram Waters and the Utopia 3 program. Well, I've got a few more ideas I'd like to share with you, and if you have a spare moment I'd appreciate having your attention.

  First of all, what are the professed ideals of Dr. Waters, insofar as the three Utopia experiments are concerned? Love is important, of course, but just as meaningful to the success of the project are such qualities as unselfishness, pride, comradely affection, honesty, and a return to a form of responsible self-determination. Apparently Dr. Waters is not in favor of a strong federal system. But what does the good doctor plan to substitute for the system he so vigorously attacks? My researches indicate that the chief occupation of Dr. Waters is the accumulation of his own personal wealth.

  Dr. Waters has assembled a giant network of propaganda experts, all feeding his version of truth to the news media. Consequently the world at large has little notion of the true evil of the man. You, the utopiates who are the benefactors of his schemes, are relatively few and are totally uninformed of the actions of the governing board which controls your lives.

  Yes, you heard me right. The governing board—really just Dr. Waters and a few chosen colleagues—does control your lives, just as much as though you lived under the worst totalitarian regime imaginable.

  But enough of this negative thinking. What are the positive aspects? Your freedom to move. Your freedom to enjoy the staggering wealth of artistic, cultural, historical, and monetary treasures within the boundaries of Utopia 3. We cannot fail to mention the change in character which Dr. Waters promised, and which forms the basis for the whole Utopia 3 framework. These things are not completely without value.

  Still, are you free to move? What if you wanted to travel to Rome, to Paris, to Copenhagen? You cannot. You are bound by your decision to forsake the rest of the world for the opportunity to be kings and queens of a certain part of it. Can you truly enjoy the many kind
s of wealth you have discovered? No. What good is money in a land without commerce? What good is historical interest in a land without heritage? What about the change in your character? Have you noticed any? Dare I suggest that you are the same person who applied for admission, trusting that the Utopia Plan would make you a better human being?

  I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you, but that is always the job of the critic. Think about what I have said, and then realize that this broadside could only have been written outside Utopia 3, never within it.

  I genuinely appreciate your reading this, and I truly hope that I've given you something to ponder. I'll be back in just a short while with the details behind this and other stories. In the meantime, keep reading and keep thinking. The future of mankind is at stake.

  Yours for fairness in paradise,

  Sandor Courane

  P.S.: Did you know that only a few days ago an old woman from Kluczbork tried to get back to her old house? She had mistakenly left behind something she desperately wanted, I don't know, a locket or a dog or something. Anyway, an armed gang, a squad of Utopia 3 staff members, part of the local office personnel stationed in Poznan, attacked her. The woman, sixty-eight years old, was badly beaten and required hospitalization. In an act of generosity which only underlines the horror of the big picture, Dr. Waters permitted her to be hospitalized in Vienna. Unfortunately for the old woman there is no hospital staff in Vienna, or anywhere else in Utopia 3 for that matter. The old woman, lying alone in an abandoned hospital, is described as being in critical condition. Blood for the woman is urgently needed, but prospective donors will be disappointed as there are no staff workers to take the blood and no personnel to deliver it. It is difficult to predict what will be the exact cause of her death: Will the old woman starve, die of thirst, die of her injuries? Who knows? She might be eaten by rats or carried away by invaders from the north. Who knows? Who knows?