He went on in a musing tone: “Of course in England he could have been an informer again. Don’t you say that someone puts the fingers on his mates?”
This was a mere idiom-fondling parenthesis, and he returned to the subject.
“Now when Toni leaves prison, he needs money and he still knows where the other paintings are hidden. And this time he decides to go straight to Osgood. He must have realized that he could make far more money this way than if he went through Busetto again. I think that we can reject the hypothesis that he might have gone to London as an agent for Busetto, can’t we?” He darted a quick look at me for confirmation and I nodded in thoughtful agreement, not having been aware that such a hypothesis existed. He went on: “After all, he had to ask you where Osgood could be found, which presumably Busetto would have informed him about if he had been acting for him.”
“But,” I said, “Busetto was involved in some way. Why did Osgood come here to see him?”
“Presumably Busetto is his regular contact in Venice. So when he comes to Venice, he naturally goes to see him. And we mustn’t forget the business about the Guardi.”
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “I suppose Toni stole it as something easily portable that he could take to Osgood to establish his credentials. And, as Francesca suggested, as a way of getting back at his mother. But how does Busetto come into it then?”
“It is possible that Toni stole it to take to Busetto in order to find out who Busetto’s London contact was. Or, more simply, Toni took it to Osgood and Osgood knew that there were two Guardis and so, without telling Toni of course, he got in touch with Busetto to find out if there was a practical way of getting hold of the other one. And Busetto suggested the idea of putting pressure on Francesca. I think that was probably Busetto’s idea. He knows—he knew the family vaguely. That’s what Francesca says, no?”
“You’re sure,” I said, “that it couldn’t just be a sneaky idea that Toni himself thought up? He could have told Osgood that his sister would be sure to hand over the picture if she thought that he would get into trouble otherwise.”
Alvise winced. “In theory it is possible. But I think I know the limits of Toni’s—em—badness. And if he had one virtue, it was his fondness for his sister. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.” Then after a pause he added cautiously, “I think.”
We were crossing the Rio della Paglia, and turning left, we could see five bridges over the canal, one of them the Bridge of Sighs. I stopped and looked at the view. With his usual tentative tone when offering a suggestion Alvise said, “Why don’t we go and see Francesca? I think she would like to know the full story too.”
“Okay.” We started down the bridge. I said, “I’m getting a very confused idea of Toni. Let’s face it, he was a terrorist.”
“He was a fiancheggiatore. He was never what they call a regolare.”
“I see,” I said. “He never killed anyone, is that what you mean? Just cleaned the guns.”
“You could put it like that. He was never in full-time clandestinità. Until the very end, of course, when he hid in that palazzo.”
“Yes. That’s something else I’d like to know about. How long was he there? And was he alone?”
“It was in 1979, I think. The column he belonged to had been completely smashed and he was one of the few who managed to get away. The police went to his house to arrest him, in the middle of the night, but he escaped. They only found him about a month later. They guessed that someone must have been helping him, supplying him with food, et cetera, possibly someone in the family, but they never asked any questions about that. As I say, family loyalty is very strong there. But, yes, Toni was alone in the building. Except for the rats, possibly.”
“And he didn’t have the paintings with him.”
“They weren’t found there. But it’s true the police did find evidence that the building had been used to store other things that belonged to the terrorists. They found some arms and leaflets and other things. It was obviously useful for the terrorists to have an aristocrat with a key to an enormous empty palazzo.”
“How does an aristocrat get tied up in left-wing terrorism? Especially a dreamy academic aristocrat, which is the picture everyone gives me of Toni.”
“Just because he was a dreamy academic. It all depends what he dreamed about. When I was a student, at the same time as Toni, we were all dreamers. We were always protesting, marching et cetera. I can’t always remember what about. Sometimes for concrete things, sometimes just as part of the Great March, as Kundera says. And Toni and his compagni dreamed about the revolution. And it was just a dream: you had to be pretty far from reality to believe that the Italian working class were going to take up arms for communism, which was the only belief that made any kind of sense of their actions. And nobody is farther from reality than an academic, particularly a modern academic.”
“Excuse me,” I said, “what’s your job?”
“Ah, yes, I know.” He gave a quick nervous smile. “For my sins, that’s what I am too. But the important thing is not to let the university limit you—which is not easy. You see, one of the effects of university life seems to be to turn one into either an alcoholic or a—a monomaniac. I’m still choosing. The people at the top at Ca’ Foscari are all monomaniacs. On the whole the alcoholics are nicer. And Toni was a monomaniac. He was really very intelligent in a way, but also very very stupid. That is, he only knew what he knew, and didn’t know—”
“What he didn’t know,” I concluded.
“Exactly. He was interested in his subject, which was the popular ballad in Italy and England, and he knew loads on this, and could say intelligent things on it. But he was quite amazingly ignorant about things outside this subject. I told you about the lamp, no? Well, he knew nothing about painting or music or history. Nothing. Zilch. His politics were limited to slogans about the people, and the people’s power, et cetera. If you read about terrorists or ex-terrorists, they say they were always talking about politics together, but they must always have been reiterating the same few fixed ideas, because when you see them on television explaining their vision, they’re obviously incapable of taking in anything new. I think you call it tunnel or funnel vision. Funnel is perhaps better, for not only can they see nothing outside their fixed ideas, these ideas become narrower and narrower—they become blinder, until it comes to seem logical that they must kill for these ideas. For their beautiful dream. Terroristi pentiti often talk about their having been closed in a certain logica—a way of thinking. Closed in it like a box.”
“So,” I said, “beware the dreamers.”
“Beware those who have only their dream. Because if you don’t fit into their dream, then it’s, well, it’s hard cheese on you.”
“It’s what? Oh, yes, I see. And on your tongue too.”
“Ah, that…” He was suddenly and unexpectedly at a loss for words. He let his face and hands state his disgust.
We came out into St. Mark’s Square, and I found my nervousness about open spaces and people evaporate in its frosty marble splendor. How could the drawing room of Europe intimidate? We crossed it in silence.
When we got to the shop, Marina was showing a customer a selection of blouses. She hadn’t changed her trousers, I was interested to note, and they hadn’t split yet either. She turned her toothy smile on us and then recognized me. “If you want Francesca,” she said, “she went out a few minutes ago with a girl.” She managed to suggest the words “yet again” by her tone.
I said, “She’ll be coming back?”
“I suppose so. But if you want her now you could try the Bar al Teatro. That’s where she usually goes.”
“Okay.”
We went on to the bar, and through the glass door I saw Francesca holding a drink next to the counter and listening seriously to Lucy. Lucy was talking with quick animation. She too was holding a drink, but her other hand was gesturing freely. Alvise and I entered and Lucy caught sight of me and fl
ushed in that sudden way of hers. I said, “Ciao. I didn’t know you two knew each other.”
“I don’t,” Lucy said. “That is, I didn’t. She rang the school just a minute or so after you left, asking for you.”
Francesca nodded. “This is true. I wanted to speak to you.”
“And so?” I said to Lucy. “What made you drop everything and come running out here?”
“Francesca sounded a bit upset on the phone when she asked for you, and I simply asked what the matter was. She asked me who I was and I said—I said—”
“She said she was a friend,” Francesca put in.
“Oh, really?” I said. I looked at Lucy with my eyebrows raised.
She said, “All right, let’s just say I want to bloody know what’s going on.” There was always something awkward about Lucy’s swear words: they were too deliberate and often unnaturally placed. “Francesca said she had to get in touch with you, and it sounded urgent, so I said, quite openly and honestly, that I was worried about what you were mixed up in, and could she tell me anything about it. And so she told me where to come and see her. That’s all. I was just telling her about what happened at the school and I told her about you getting pushed in the canal—”
“I didn’t know that,” Francesca said to me. “By Busetto, no?”
“Yes,” I said. “What have you told her?”
“Nothing yet,” Francesca said. “Lucy had just started to tell me these things.”
“Right. Well, thanks, Lucy, that’ll save me a little time. Have you paid for that drink?”
“What do you mean?” Lucy said.
“Well, I still owe you one, don’t I? I’ll pay for it and then we’ll be quits and you can go.”
“Are you ordering me out of the place?”
“Well, I’m just hoping you’ll take a gentle hint.”
Francesca opened her mouth as if to say something, but then thought better. Alvise had simply stepped back a few paces and was examining the magazines on sale in the corner of the bar. Lucy said, “Martin, why do you have to—” She stopped and shrugged. “Well, all right, I suppose it’s your life. Okay, ciao, Francesca.” She finished her drink and walked out.
After this there was naturally a rather awkward pause, which I bridged by saying sorry, it was all a private matter, and then getting Alvise to explain our theory about Busetto’s murder.
“Why did Toni come back?” Francesca said at the end, shaking her head.
“Well,” I said, “now he might decide that things are too hot and clear out. It all depends how much he wants that money.”
“And,” Alvise put in, “Mr. Osgood might decide this too, in which case Toni will have to give up whether he wants to or not.”
I said, “The only thing I can suggest is we try and convince Osgood to clear out.”
“Yes,” Alvise said, “by now you surely know enough about his—his business to frighten him, if Busetto’s death hasn’t already done that.”
Francesca gave an involuntary shiver. “That man—he frightens me.”
“Oh, dio,” said Alvise. We both turned and looked at him and he gestured toward the door. Two carabinieri were coming into the bar. Machine guns hung on their shoulders and their hands were caressing the triggers.
15
“DOCUMENTI,” the first one said. It was an announcement to the whole bar, almost as if he were selling them. Apart from ourselves and the barman, there were only a couple of businessmen and three youths. The latter raised a protesting grumble as they fumbled in their pockets. I was pleased to note their tattered jeans, the earring of one of them, the long hair of another. They looked just the sort to attract all the attention of the carabinieri. I reached inside my anorak and discovered with relief that I had my passport with me; I could feel a sullen tom-tom starting up in my temples and only hoped it wasn’t visible.
The two carabinieri did no more than glance at the identity cards proffered by the businessmen and then moved on to the group of youths. The youths were disappointingly meek at this point, one of them merely asking, “What’s all this about?” He wasn’t answered and he didn’t insist. What a wimp. One of the carabinieri stayed with his gun covering the group while the other examined the documents. He looked from card to face, from face to card, and then passed on to the next. He had a thin southern face, with what looked like a very first attempt at a mustache. He couldn’t have been any older, I thought, than the students I’d taught that afternoon: but he did have a machine gun.
He moved on to us. His colleague stayed a few steps back, with his gun leveled. The one with the mustache looked at Alvise’s tattered card in silence, and then at Francesca’s. I handed my passport over, hoping to see a look of suitable awe as he took in the lion and the unicorn and the crown. He just flipped it until he came to the photo. “Peeps.”
“Phipps,” I said. My voice was a raucous whisper. I repeated it.
“Do you speak Italian?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you staying?”
I told him the name of the hotel. “I’m on holiday,” I said unnecessarily.
He tapped the passport in his hand for a second or two, then went over to his colleague. I could feel sweat forming on my forehead and the tom-tom pulsing faster. I glanced at Alvise, who merely gave a tiny shrug and a tic of a smile. Francesca was looking at the two carabinieri as if she were about to throw herself at their feet. The two carabinieri spoke rapidly in an incomprehensible southern dialect, then the first one beckoned me over. I went forward slowly, holding my arms out from my body so the carabinieri wouldn’t have any excuse for making any foolish mistakes. The one with my passport said, “English, yes?”
“Yes.”
“My colleague wants to know what it means ‘groovy keend of love.’”
“Kind,” his colleague corrected him.
“Ah, oh,” I said. I translated it as best as I could: “Un tipo di amore, um, in the groove, cioè, quello giusto, un po’ speciale.”
They nodded with a kind of official acceptance of this version, then he gave me back the passport and they left.
As soon as my voice was under control again I said, “I should have called them fascist brutes and refused to comply, I suppose.”
“Oh, no,” said Francesca, with big serious eyes, “you mustn’t do anything that can provoke.”
I looked at Alvise, expecting some quip. I suddenly noticed his left cheek was twitching. He caught my eye on him and forced a smile to his face. “Too many memories of my merry student days in the seventies. When there were riot policemen outside the university every other day.” His voice was level but sounded forced, as if he were fighting to keep a tremor out of it.
I tried to defuse things a little. “I could do with another drink.”
“Not for me, thank you,” Francesca said. “I should get back to the shop.” She picked up her scarf from the counter and wrapped it around herself. “So you will go to see this Mr. Osgood then?”
I said, “I suppose so, though I can’t guarantee anything. There’s a chance that he might simply laugh and say what proof have you got?” And he might say a word or two as well about the credibility of evidence gathered together by me. “He’s apparently away at Asolo today, but tomorrow morning, first thing, I’ll be at the Danieli. After all, we’ll surely be able to get witnesses together that he was with Busetto at Harry’s Bar.”
“And with me,” Francesca put in gently.
“Ah,” I said. “I suppose you’d prefer to be kept out of it.”
She gave a half smile. “Otherwise we might as well go straight to the police and tell them about Toni.”
“Yes,” I said. “I see what you mean. Well, I won’t insist on that point.”
Alvise said, “Isn’t it possible that someone will remember seeing Busetto there anyway?” His voice sounded more natural and the twitch had died down.
She shook her head, frowning. “I don’t think so. Mr. Osgood, yes, of course. Nobody could
forget him. But Busetto: well, he’d obviously never been there before and nobody knew him, and, em, he wasn’t the kind of person you notice.”
“All the same,” I said, “I’m sure I can persuade him that the risk just isn’t worth it, whether we’ve got anything definite on him or not.”
“I wish you luck,” Francesca said. “I don’t want ever to have to see him again. Bye-bye.”
“’Bye,” I said. “Give our best wishes to Marina.”
“Oh, that girl,” she said, rolling her eyes to heaven. She gave us a final, rather wan smile and left.
“Do you want another drink?” I said to Alvise.
“I won’t, thank you. I think I should go home. I have a mountain of theses to read.”
“Okay. Which way are you going?”
“Toward the Accademia. I live by San Nicolò dei Mendicoli.”
“Oh, yes?” I said. “I like that area. That’s where the house with the monkeys is, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. I live just round the corner, on the fondamenta going—” He stopped suddenly, as if he saw no point in explaining. “Round there anyway. Goodbye.”
“Well, I’ll come as far as Campo Santo Stefano,” I said.
“Oh, yes, of course.”
We left the bar and started walking along the route that Francesca had shown me that morning. We were both silent, and after a while I felt the silence was an awkward one. Maybe Alvise hadn’t wanted me to come with him. Maybe he still had a bit of quiet twitching to do. I said, “So—er…”
“So?”
“So thanks.”
“What for?”
“Well, for not going to the police.” I looked sideways at him, with a rather stupid curiosity to see whether the word would start him shaking again. He remained impassive and I went on, “And for talking through the whole thing with me. I think you saved me from going mad.”
“Good. I’m glad my academic love for a puzzle has served some good purpose.”
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