Every Picture Tells a Story

by Gregory Dowling

  Palazzo Sambon was a beautiful but rather hopeless sight. It had arched windows on the piano nobile, while those at either side were rectangular, with colored marble disks above them to complete the harmony; a low balustrade with hourglass marble pillars ran the length of the central room. These details were noted by Lorenzetti. What he didn’t mention was the way the pillars of the arches were chipped and blackened at the top, the marble was cracked, the windows either walled up or shuttered, and the whole place looked as if only indecision kept it from slithering in on itself as a rubble heap, like the campanile of San Marco in 1902.

  The bottom windows at the front were not only shuttered but had bars across them. I walked down the side alley, still holding my Lorenzetti so as to look like a lost tourist. There were a couple of windows along here too, but again with bars. I reached the end of the alley, where the canal lay oilily still on a seaweedy step. There were boats moored to limpet-shaggy poles prow to bow all down the canal, so that it would be possible, if I so chose, to make my way along the waterfront of the palazzo. But I looked at the buildings opposite and decided that that might be rather too public a performance. And anyway the waterfront windows weren’t likely to be any less shuttered or barred than the others.

  I turned back down the alley. As I passed the window nearer the canal I gave one of the bars an experimental tug. It jerked away from the wall at the bottom with a powdery shower of rust: it was eaten through. Very little vigor was needed to accomplish similar results with the two adjoining bars. They came so easily I wondered whether I was the first to try it. They were now just dangling. I pushed at the shutter beyond and it opened with just a little scraping reluctance. Then, feeling a little unnerved by the noise, I pulled the shutter back and pushed the bars back into position. I set off quickly down the alley. Maybe I’d come back later with a torch and look around.

  As I came out of the alley into the square I saw pigeons descending from the rooftops. A little old woman had come out of the pensione next to Palazzo Sambon and was throwing bread onto the ground. The cat by the well watched the busily bobbing birds with disdain: presumably he’d had experience of how hopeless it was to try to catch them unawares. Sea gulls flapped and shrieked above the pigeons, looking three times as beautiful and making three times as much noise, but not actually getting any of the bread. I saw the woman stare at me and I did my puzzled-tourist bit, studying my Lorenzetti and looking curiously at the buildings. Then, with a final shake of my head I picked my way through the squabbling gray hubbub and approached her. “Buongiorno,” I said.

  She nodded. “Buongiorno.”

  “Could you tell me, is this Palazzo Sambon?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m from the BBC. In England, you know.” It had worked once, so why not again? “We’re thinking of making a film about empty buildings in Venice and we’re looking for ones with some kind of story behind them.”

  “Well, I don’t mind, so long as you make it clear it’s nothing to do with our pensione.”

  “Sorry, I don’t—”

  “We’ve always been very respectable. We take only the best people—not just anyone. No rucksacks, I’ve always said. And my husband agrees. And no southerners.”

  “I see. Do you remember—”

  “When we took the place over, there were people who said it sounded like bad luck, a pensione next to a terrorist hideout, but I said, well, even if he was a terrorist remember he was a count’s son. And we’ve always got on very well with the family.” She threw another piece of bread out, with a gesture of aristocratic largess. Another low brawl broke out among the beneficiaries.

  “I see. Do you often see them?”

  “Well, not often. They’ve come once or twice with people thinking of buying the palazzo. The comune, for an infant school. The university.” I got the idea that she didn’t see much difference between the place being used as a university department or a terrorist hideout. “But these people talk talk talk, but they never buy. It’s always the same in Venice. And meanwhile the buildings rot.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. But has the building been empty ever since they arrested this terrorist? Never been used for anything?”

  “Never. Completely empty.”

  “Do you remember the arrest?”

  “Oh, yes. Everyone in Cannaregio must remember it. We were living just nearby then. Policemen everywhere. And all with machine guns. And lights and megaphones.” Not a nice memory, it seemed; well, probably a lot of the policemen had been southerners.

  “And the terrorist surrendered?”

  “Well, there was no shooting.”

  “I see. Are there any other stories attached to the palazzo?” I wasn’t worried about the possibility of my inquisitiveness making her suspicious; she clearly welcomed any chance to talk.

  “Nothing I can think of. Though sometimes we have heard noises in the palazzo.”

  “What? When?”

  “At night. A few weeks back actually.”

  “What sort of noises?”

  “Just like people walking around. Didn’t think much of it. Could have been tramps or drug addicts.” She added quickly, “Not that we get much of that sort of thing around here, you know. Mind you make that clear.”

  “Me? Oh, yes, of course.” I’d momentarily forgotten my role. She hadn’t. Despite her concern for her hotel’s reputation she was obviously as intoxicated with the idea of herself appearing on the magic screen as the old man the previous night had been. “Did you tell the police?”

  “No. No point. Nothing there to steal. Completely empty in there, as I said. Just rats. Rats the size of cats, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  * * *

  My next call, after a lunch of oily snacks at an osteria, was the university. I made my way to Ca’ Foscari, the university’s main building, a magnificent Gothic palazzo on the Grand Canal. The land entrance took me through a courtyard decorated with political murals; they could only have been about ten years old, but they already looked as dated as Victorian Punch cartoons. A not very convincing attempt had been made to grow rosebushes over them. Young men and women in stylish clothes stood in front of these faded mementos, smoking and chatting in the bright cold air; another race, apparently, from the angry perpetrators of the murals.

  I asked at the porter’s lodge for the department of Scottish literature and was directed up to the first floor. I made my way up the marble staircase, reflecting on the fact that no matter what architectural marvels universities may occupy, they all look the same on the inside: doors with numbers, peeling walls, overcrammed notice boards, people hanging around with lost-hope looks. Italian ones perhaps have more forlorn queues than most. I’ve never found out what it is they’re always queuing for.

  At the end of a dark corridor I reached a gray door with a notice: “Dipartimento di Letteratura Scozzese.” I knocked.

  “Ah, finalmente,” a voice called out. “Avanti.”

  Rather puzzled at the warmth of this welcome, I opened the door. At first glance there seemed to be no one in the room—just big glass-fronted bookcases reaching to the ceiling and tables covered with books and papers and magazines. Then in the far corner I saw a small bearded man, about my age, at the top of a ladder: he was reaching out at an impossible angle to a shelf by the side of the ladder. “Just in time,” he said. “I’m stuck.”

  “Ah.” I crossed the room.

  “I thought of letting go of the ladder and hanging on the shelf, but then I thought it might break and I wouldn’t know what to tell the librarians. Could you just move the ladder a little?”

  I did so and with a sigh of relief he climbed down. I looked around the room as he descended: there weren’t any stags’ heads on the wall, or tartan rugs, just one photograph of the Walter Scott monument in Princes Street hanging askew on the end of a bookcase.

  “I thought I might have to stay up there all day,” he said. “Thank you.” He looked back up. “And I still haven’t got the book.”


  “Shall I get it?”

  “Well, do you mind? I feel just a little bit strained.”

  “How long had you been up there?”

  “Well, only ten minutes or so, but it was the angle.…” He went to a chair and sat down. He was quick and nervous in his movements, like some small animal of the bush: this similarity was heightened by his big dark eyes, which looked out of his face with an apparently permanent expression of alarm. But he was a creature of the bush who didn’t much like climbing, it seemed.

  “What was the book?” I asked.

  “Oh, don’t bother,” he said suddenly. “I don’t want it. I just wanted to check a quotation for an article I’m writing, but since no one’ll read the article anyway.… I mean: ‘Surrey’s Indebtedness to Gavin Douglas.’” He gave this title in well-accented English. “Would you read it?”

  “Er, well, since I’ve never heard of—”

  “Never mind. The important thing is to publish it, with lots of footnotes and a few words like ‘extra-diegetic’ and ‘analeptical anachronies,’ and sorry this is most rude, can I help you?” It took me a few seconds to realize that these last words were a question addressed to me, as there had been no pause to mark a new sentence, nor any change in the nervous babble of his delivery. He wrapped a strand of beard around his finger as he looked up at me.

  “Oh, er, well, I was wanting to ask about an ex-member of the department.”

  “Really. Who?”

  “Antonio Sambon.”

  “Oh, yes?” He unwound his forefinger and started on his middle finger. “Er, why—if you don’t mind my asking?” His big eyes stayed on me for half a second, then jumped away to cover when mine met his.

  “Well, it’s kind of complicated.”

  “Ah. Oh. Well, I suppose it’s not my business.” He started gathering papers together on his desk—in quick scrabbling motions, like a bush animal digging a hidey-hole in the sand.

  “I’d just like to get in touch with him,” I said.

  “I see, I see. It could be difficult, you know. Er, you know Toni’s history, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poor Toni,” he said.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Well, poor—” He paused, then said with a quick smile, “Poor Italy.”

  “Er, yes,” I said again. “You wouldn’t have any idea where he might be now?”

  “Well, I—look, I don’t want to be rude, but—um—why are you looking for him?” As if to distance himself from the question he asked it in English: nervous, jumpy English, with, I was interested to note, no trace of Scottish in the accent.

  I replied in English. “I met him in London and—well, I lent him some money.” I’d thought this tale out before I came: my first idea had been to say that I owed him money, but then I thought that a selfish story would be more convincing than an altruistic one; the story did perhaps cast an extra slur on Toni’s character—that of the debt shirker—but his character was probably about as slurred as my speech had been at the private view the other night, so that one more could hardly make any difference.

  “A lot of money?” he said.

  “Well, no, not so very much. I mean I’m not wanting to make a fuss, but I thought that as I was in Venice, I’d try and look him up and remind him about it. I’m sure he just forgot.”

  “Yes, yes. So he was in need of money.”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “Poor Toni. When did you lend him this money?”

  “He was in London—last week.”

  “So you needed the money back pretty fast.” We were both speaking English now, and I noted that despite his jerky delivery he spoke idiomatically.

  “Well, I only thought I was lending it for the evening.”

  “And you came to Italy for it?”

  “No, no. I was coming anyway. I suppose Toni knew that.”

  “Ah, I see, I see.” He flashed another smile. “So he’s in Venice, is he?”

  “Yes, I think so. But I don’t know where he’s staying. He doesn’t seem to be with his family.”

  “Really? I thought all had been forgiven, if not forgotten, there.”

  “Well, not from what I saw of his mother. So anyway, you have no idea of where he could be.”

  He threw his hands apart in a gesture of ignorance. “I haven’t seen him for at least five years, you know.”

  “And you don’t know of any friends he might be with?”

  “Toni’s friends … they’re mostly in jail now. And not so friendly now, I think, either. A terrible period, you know.”

  “Yes. Do you think it’s over then?”

  “Ah—these things.” He threw his hands forward—a gesture of disgust this time. “Sick people, you know.” Then he looked hard and sharp at me again. “You aren’t looking for Toni for this reason?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I—nothing. Look, I’m sorry, I know nothing about Toni at all now.”

  Something in the way he said this made me ask, “But at the time you did know him, didn’t you?”

  “At the time? The years of lead and all that?” He shook his head, but not in denial. “I knew him—and—and some of his companions. And now to tell the truth I have no desire to remember these things. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” It was the snub direct. Well, fair enough perhaps. There was just something suddenly extra-nervous and evasive in his attitude that made me reluctant to leave at once. I pressed another question. “You’ve never heard of a painter called Zennaro, have you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, Toni apparently knows him.”

  “Oh, yes? Well, I’m sure he didn’t get to know him for his work.”

  “Really? Do you mean Toni wasn’t interested in painting?” I was remembering Francesca’s words.

  “Yes. He once asked me if the Impressionists came before or after the Cubists. And he only asked because of a reference in a book he was reading, not because he wanted to know—I mean in the sense of add to his knowledge.” As he recalled these things about Toni’s character his attitude of wariness seemed to evaporate a little.

  I felt I had to encourage this. “So he had no real interest in art? But he was a university teacher—in an arts subject.”

  “Toni kept to strict limits. He studied his subject, the popular ballad, and nothing else. The same applied to his politics, I suppose.”

  “I see.”

  “But maybe he’s completely different now. You could tell me.” And again he suddenly confronted me with a sharp look.

  “Well, I hardly got to know him. But I did meet him in an art gallery.”

  “Did you? My God.” He jumped up and went over to a rather grotesque object at the end of a desk in a corner of the room: a ceramic shepherd boy clinging to a crooked staff that supported a lamp and frilly lampshade. “Toni was always complaining there wasn’t enough light in here, and nothing ever got done, so one day he walked in with that. We thought it might have been a joke at first, but then we realized that for him, well, it was art.” He switched the light on, and the shepherd boy’s expression could be seen in all its painted pouting petulance. “I suppose we could have thrown it out, but we’ve got used to it by now.”

  I picked it up with some curiosity; I’d always wondered who bought these things, which are on sale all over Venice; they’re kind of heavy as souvenirs. Underneath it was a tiny adhesive that read: “Busetto. Antiquariato, Oggetti d’arte.” I put it down and switched it off. “I see. But he did help steal a Cima da Conegliano and a Vivarini.”

  “I believe so. But I’m sure not for himself. Look, I really must be getting on with this article. All those people dying to know about Gavin Douglas’s influence on Surrey, you know…”

  “Yes, of course. Sorry if I’ve held you up and thanks for your help.”

  He moved over to the ladder. “You know you may not be the only one looking for him, don’t you?”

  “Well, I—er, really?”
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  “But I hope you are. Toni was a bit of a fool and obstinate too, but he deserves some peace now, I think.”

  “Sure. I’ve no intention of disturbing it. You’re sure you wouldn’t like me to get that book?”

  “No, no. This is a challenge I have to face myself. Goodbye.”

  “Good-bye.” I left him gripping the ladder and staring up at the heights with an expression of grim determination. As I left the university I wondered whether I oughtn’t to mention his possible predicament to the porters, but then thought they’d be bound to discover him when they locked up for the night.

  * * *

  I went out in search of Zennaro. It was the only path I could think of following. I started going around the galleries in and near St. Mark’s Square, asking if anybody had ever heard of him. The name rang no bells—or at least none that chimed in accordance with what I knew of my Zennaro. I was offered a Zennaro who did sculptures in stainless steel, a Zennaro who lived near Belluno and drew mountain scenery, and a Zennaro who’d died in the 1950s and had painted religious works of sickly piety. But no Venice-as-colored-geometry-problems Zennaro. I traipsed on, trying galleries farther from St. Mark’s, crossing the Accademia Bridge and going toward the Salute, and then back again to the area around Campo Santo Stefano.

  After the fifteenth or sixteenth head-shaking answer (in a gallery near San Samuele exhibiting sexual organs sculpted in polystyrene) I decided I needed a break from contemporary Venetian art, and went to a bar.

  I sipped a glass of prosecco and looked out of the window, letting the bubbles get to my brain and pop there brightly. I found myself staring at the name above a shop some way down the street, and I wondered why I was staring at it. It read: BUSETTO. ANTIQUARIATO, OGGETTI D’ARTE. What was so interesting about it? I was hardly going to find Zennaro’s paintings there.

  Then I remembered: Toni’s pastoral lamp stand had come from there. I finished my drink and strolled down to Busetto’s Antique Shop to see what other horrors he sold.