by Donna Leon
She went back to the computer and to the archives holding material on Steffani: in Munich, Hanover, and Rome. She logged in to the Fondo Spiga in Rome, named after Steffani’s benefice, and started scrolling down the papers that were posted. And found the cousins. No, not the cousins, but the men who must have been their ancestors and thus the direct heirs to Steffani’s estate. In 1724, the abbé wrote to Giacomo Antonio Stievani and to the archpriest of Castelfranco, Antonio Scapinelli, inquiring about the deeds to some houses in the San Marcuola section of Venice, which the three of them had jointly inherited but which had been somehow usurped by the Labia family. Steffani suggested that the men meet to arrive at an agreement as to how the estate should be reclaimed and divided among them. The archive had no record of a response from them.
An heir writes to his cousins to ask how they might divide property they have inherited in common, and the others fail to respond to, or even acknowledge, the request, no doubt by so doing preventing any attempt to sell the property or divide and pay out the profits. Caterina remembered how much it used to annoy her, when she was younger, to hear her mother speak of her distrust of anyone who “came of greedy people.” She had attempted to reason with her foolish mother, victim of her antiquated beliefs in hereditary family characteristics. Ah, those who have eyes and see not.
Reading randomly in the archives devoured the rest of Caterina’s afternoon, and by the end of it, though she had learned more about the financial difficulties that afflicted Steffani toward the end of his life, she had no firmer grasp of the man.
At seven, mindful of the cousins’ eagerness and reluctant to have to listen to another admonition about having failed to do what she was being paid—they’d surely mention that if they dared—to do, she typed in Dottor Moretti’s address and wrote, “Dear Dottor Moretti, pursuant to our agreement, I am continuing with my reading of the documents. To make sense of them in the historical or personal context, I find it necessary to conduct further background research, without which many references, lacking context, will have little or no meaning. I would not like the claim of either Signor Stievani or Signor Scapinelli to be in any way weakened by my failure to understand a reference which might favor the case of either one of them, and thus it is necessary . . .”—she backed up and deleted that word, replacing it with “imperative”—“. . . that I pursue my research at the Marciana, where I am currently reading through books and documents in Italian, French, German, English, and Latin”—take that, cousins—“some of which make reference to the family situation and do create a context that suggests the Abbé’s assumption of familial responsibility and mutual interests.”
Here she began a new paragraph and described her archival research and transcribed Steffani’s letters to his cousins, noting dryly that the archives contained no response from them.
“I am optimistic that wider familiarity with this information will be of great service in my pursuit of a clear understanding and interpretation of Abbé Steffani’s testamentary dispositions.” She closed with a polite salutation and signed both her first and last names, omitting her title. She was also pleased that the letter avoided the use of any form of direct address, either polite or familiar.
“Send.”
When she looked at the table and saw that she had, in five hours, read only four documents, she thought of the weeping Francesca’s words to Dante as she explained how she and her lover Paolo, standing at her side there in hell and mingling his tears with hers, had spent their day reading until “That day we read no further.” Their reading had led them to lust, to sin, and finally to death and hell. Caterina’s was going to lead her to pasta with tomatoes, olives, and capers and half a bottle of Refosco. How much she would have preferred lust and sin.
Nineteen
She left the Foundation and, a slave to beauty, took the longest way to the Riva. Once in sight of the water, she turned to the Basilica to watch the light disappear behind its pale domes. As she turned away and started walking toward Castello, she noticed how the remaining light fell on the faces of the people walking toward her and brightened them in every sense. The tourist current was high with the approach of Easter, and sudden riptides had begun to sweep past the unwary natives or slack tides becalm them, permitting large chunks of flotsam to flow around them. Things had changed in the years she had been away, and the local population now had the freedom to move swiftly against the approaching current only a few months a year. But, Caterina observed, that was better odds than the salmon got.
She had slipped her telefonino into the outside pocket of her bag, telling herself why it was necessary to do this. Perhaps she’d decide to call a friend and suggest dinner; perhaps her mother would call; or maybe another old classmate would learn she was back in town and suggest the cinema and a pizza. “Or perhaps the heavens will catch fire, Caterina, and you’ll have to call the firemen,” she told herself out loud. A short woman walking by with the aid of a cane gave Caterina a startled glance and looked around quickly, searching for a place to move away from the crazy woman.
Caterina ignored her, pulled out her phone, dropped it inside her bag, and zipped the bag shut. The phone did not ring, and so she had both the time and the sense to stop in the neighborhood store and buy olives, capers, and tomatoes, go home, make the pasta, and drink the rest of the Refosco.
Only then did she turn on her own computer and look at her mail. Sure enough, there was one from Tina.
“Dear Cati,” Cristina began, “this is the email that my friend in Constance sent. To me. Addressed to me. So I read it. Let me send it along to you so you can read it before I say anything.”
“Dear Sister Cristina, I’m happy to give what information I can to your sister and hope it will be of help to her in her research. Even after that, I will still be in your debt for your generosity in helping me gain access to the Episcopal Library of Trent.
“Your sister is evidently familiar with the ‘Affair,’ so I need waste no time outlining it. The manuscript, which I came upon while researching a book on Post-Reformation ecclesiastical taxation, is in the possession of the Schönborn family and appears to be the memoirs of the Countess von Platen, one of Count Philip Christoph Königsmarck’s former lovers, reported by all to have been passionately jealous of him. She had also been the mistress of the Elector Ernst August, by whom she had two illegitimate children. (I’ve no idea of the proper form for putting a footnote in an email and so am forced to use this parenthesis. She, Clara Elisabeth von Platen, also tried to convince her lover Königsmarck to marry her own illegitimate daughter by Ernst August, which fact you are free to use should a colleague ever attribute dissolute morals to the Italians. And to prevent your going off to discover the destiny of her daughter, be pleased to discover that she was said to be the mistress of Georg Ludwig—her half brother—soon to be King George I of England, to which country she accompanied him, later becoming the Countess Darlington and dividing his favors with the Duchess of Kendal, Melusine von der Schulenburg.)
“How the manuscript could have ended up in the archives of a family that also has an important collection of musical manuscripts, among which are many by your sister’s composer, is not within my competence to determine. Letters from Countess von Platen now held in the Graf von Schönborn’sche Hauptverwaltung in Würzburg confirm the handwriting.
“In this manuscript, which begins with the explanation that it is being written in the shadow of death, she claims a desire to tell the truth in God’s ears before that event. I read manuscripts, not souls, so I have no idea if this is the truth or her invention. Her desire to make her peace before God is quickly forgotten, for she does not miss a chance to speak badly of most of the people she mentions, even those who had died decades before.
“Of Königsmarck’s murder, after saying only that four men were involved and one of them gave the fatal blow, from behind, she says she hopes ‘his spirit found peace,’ thoug
h she also says she is not surprised at the manner of his death, ‘at the hands of those he injured,’ which presumably implicates the family of the Elector, although even the most cursory reading of the Count’s brief history might extend that list.
“After a bit of moralizing about the ‘justice meted out to this sinner and betrayer of womanhood,’ she writes, ‘although it was the hand of God that struck him down, it was the Abbé who gained from the fatal blow that sent him to his Maker.’
“Then, as if someone had asked her for evidence, she writes, ‘Did he not, Judas-like, make possible and profit from the crime? The blood money given to him bought the Jewels of Paradise, but nothing can buy him manhood and honor and beauty.’
“After that, not in the margin, but at the beginning of the next line, as though the writer intended to continue with the text, there is the single word ‘Philip,’ but nothing follows that word. The memoirs continue on the next page, but she has nothing further to say about Königsmarck.”
There followed his hope that her sister could make use of this information, then some information about his own ongoing research, a polite closing, and an offer to facilitate access to the manuscript, should her sister so desire.
“And there you have it, my dear,” Cristina continued. “I’ve no idea what she means by all of this. She doesn’t say she was there, she doesn’t say she saw your Abbé kill him, only that he ‘made possible the crime.’ Like my friend, I don’t read souls, only texts.
“Let me go back to the idea of reading souls for a minute, if I might and if you don’t mind. Mine is very tired and because of that probably illegible. I keep working at the research, but the more I read, the more irrelevant it all seems. The Vatican’s foreign policy during the twentieth century? What can any thinking person believe it was except maneuvering in pursuit of power? On the wall in front of my desk, I’ve put an old photo of the pope giving communion to Pinochet, and that’s enough to make a person go out and join the Zoroastrians, isn’t it? They, however, don’t allow people to convert, and can you think of a more noble tenet for a religion to have?
“Yes, Kitty-Cati, I’m thinking of jumping ship, of telling them they can have their wimple back, not that I’ve ever worn one, or would. I’m deeply tired of it and of having to close an eye and then close the other one and then close a third one if I had it, so much do I read and see about what they’ve done and still do.
“They’re drunk with power, the men at the top. Please don’t tell me you told me so. It’s not the basic faith that’s troubling me. I still believe it all: that He lived and died so that we would be better and it—whatever ‘it’ is—would be better. But not with these clowns in charge, these old fools who stopped thinking a hundred years ago (I’m in a generous mood and so left the other zero off that sum).
“Please don’t say anything at home, and please don’t be angry that I asked you that, as if I couldn’t trust you to keep your mouth shut. I know they don’t really believe it, but I don’t want them to worry about me because they know I do and know how much it will cost me to walk away. Isn’t it funny how it all shifts around at a certain age, and we start worrying about them and try to spare them from being hurt? You think that’s what it means to be a grown-up?
“I’ll probably wake up in the morning with a hangover for having said all this, but you’re the only one I can say it to. Well, there’s someone here, but he doesn’t want to hear this sort of thing from me. Or, more accurately, he does. What he doesn’t want is for me to go back and forth or agonize over it, just to do it. Yes, Kitty-Cati, it’s really a ‘he,’ just to put your mind at rest after all these years. No, that’s to do you an injustice, you wouldn’t care one way or the other, would you? And he’s nice and single and uncomplicated and very smart and leaves me alone when I want to be left alone and doesn’t when I don’t, and where does a girl find that sort of thing these days. Eh? It’s still too soon to tell you more about him, but don’t worry, please. He’s a good man.
“All right, go back to your research, and I won’t go back to mine. I just don’t care about it anymore, and I know myself well enough to know I won’t ever care about it again. I find your Abbé and his doings far more interesting, probably because he is so far removed in time, so if you don’t mind, I’ll continue to work as your research assistant. That failing, you think Uncle Rinaldo would hire me as an apprentice plumber if I came back? Love, Tina-Lina.”
For the first time in her life, Caterina was hurled into a crisis of faith. So strong was Caterina’s faith in her sister’s faith that she had stopped arguing with her about it years ago and confined her comments to the odd flash of sarcasm. The zest of confrontation had gone out of it for Caterina in the face of what she believed was Tina’s happiness at having found the place in the world where she belonged and where she could work at what she loved while believing to do so somehow made a difference to the god she worshipped.
And now along comes Tina and pushes down the graven image that Caterina had built. She had no idea of what happens to an ex-nun, or even of how a nun goes about becoming an ex. Did she have to ask permission of someone, or was it enough simply to pack her bag and walk out, a clerical Nora closing the door behind her?
So certain had Caterina’s faith in her sister been that she had never seriously considered the possibility that she’d bolt. A marriage couldn’t just be walked away from because it was, at base, a contract between two people, and the contract had to be dissolved before they could be free of each other. With whom did a nun make the contract, the order she joined or the god she joined it to serve? And who had God’s power of attorney?
Caterina felt the pull of irony and the absurd, two tidal forces she always found hard to resist. Their mother was forever giving the girls the advice to think one year ahead before trying to assess the importance of any situation, but Caterina had always found her life trapped in the instant. Tina’s pain—for it had been pain animating her email—was now, not a year from now. If you discovered the man you had been married to for more than twenty years was not the man you believed him to be, that his virtue was a show, his honor a sham, what did you do?
Caterina closed the window and created a new mail (how strange that Windows would use that verb rather than write). “Tina-Lina, my dearest dear, you’ve got a job, a family that loves you beyond reason (I’m in there, as mindless as the others), your health is good, you have intelligence, grace, and wit. And you still have the Baby Jesus, asleep in His bed. If you do jump ship, you have a safe, warm berth to come to, though I’m sure they would keep you on there: you just switch from the Catholic side to the Protestant, and how clever of you to work for a university that is religiously ambidextrous.
“If you decide to come home, no one will care why, and Mamma will be delirious at the possibility of cooking for you again, and she’ll love it even more if you bring your friend and give her another mouth to feed. You are such a hot shot in your profession that universities will fight over having you.
“I shouldn’t say this, but I will. In the end, does it matter if your god exists or not? And isn’t it pretentious and self-important of us to insist that we know how to describe or define him/Him? We can’t figure out the value of pi, and yet we think we know something about God? As Nonna said, it would make the chickens laugh.
“To put an end to your worse existential uncertainty, I promise to call Uncle Rinaldo tomorrow and ask him if he wants an apprentice. Love, Kitty-Cati.”
Twenty
Instead of sitting and contemplating the collapse of her favorite sister’s life, Caterina chose to work. Spurred by the email from the professor in Constance, she began looking into Countess von Platen and learned of her semiofficial position as the mistress of Ernst August.
Caterina was struck by how little things changed in this world of hers. Kings were once wont to make their mistresses the duchess of this or the countess of that
and now prime ministers gave them cabinet ministries or ambassadorships. And the world chugged on and nothing changed.
Caterina checked the dates and, sure enough, the countess had been in Hanover at the time Königsmarck disappeared. There was a great deal of contemporary testimony stating that Königsmarck had been one of her lovers and that she was violently jealous of the younger man. She also found an 1836 magazine article about Countess von Platen’s purported memoirs, where the reviewer wrote that she claimed to have been a witness to the murder. She was often named as the person who reported the affair between Königsmarck and Sophie Dorothea to the elector Ernst August, though what Caterina had read made her suspect that the few people who might not have known about this affair were the deaf and the blind and perhaps the halt and lame.
“If only she’d played by the rules,” Caterina caught herself thinking. If only silly, besotted Sophie Dorothea had been a bit more discreet about her affair, things could have gone along without fuss. Georg would have his mistresses, she could have her lover, and she would have ended up the queen of England instead of a prisoner in a castle, cut off from her children and the world and all visits save that of her mother, whom she did not particularly like.
Caterina had been reading all day and she was tired, but she told herself she didn’t have to clock in to the office at nine the next morning so could continue reading as late as she chose. Besides, she was intrigued by how much these people and their behavior seemed familiar to her: change their clothing and hairstyles, teach them other languages, and they would feel completely at home in Rome or Milan or, for that fact, London, where a number of the minor players had remained and prospered.
Adulterous behavior among the Hanoverians was no news to Caterina nor to any person in Europe who knew where the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas and the Windsors came from. Not that, she reflected, their Continental relatives had distinguished themselves by the sobriety of their comportment.