‘The agreed sum?’ repeated the visitor, as he plucked the butt end from his mouth, dropped it on the marble floor and ground it out with his shoe. It was a simple, smooth action, but one laced with warning menace. Marinetti suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to get this man and his two acolytes out of his shop before they polluted his environment any further.
‘We agreed the sum,’ repeated Marinetti, casting a nervous glance out through the shop window. Via Fillungo seemed oddly deserted for the time of day. It was as if everyone knew that there was something less than legal going on in Casa dei Gioielli and had no wish to become involved. ‘Please follow me to the office,’ he continued, indicating the two doorways at the rear of the shop. One was his inner sanctum, the other was his stockroom. Casa dei Gioielli was, after all, of modest proportions and he couldn’t put all of his treasures on display at the same time.
Twenty minutes later, the area of Via Fillungo outside Gregorio’s shop was still almost empty – not that he noticed. He had paid for the screen in cash, which had all but wiped out his remaining cash reserves. Marinetti had let out a deep sigh as his three visitors eventually evaporated into the empty street. He hurriedly threw a large piece of brocade over the screen before anyone out in the street could get a good look at it. Then, as his lip curled up in disgust, he bent down to sweep the crushed butt end into a dust pan. Apart from the brooding presence of the screen, which remained standing in all its faded glory in the middle of the marble floor, the shop looked as it had done when he had opened it that morning. He fussed around, tidying and straightening his treasures. However, the brocade he had flung over the screen did not quite cover the face of the animal on the centre panel. The winged Lion of St Mark – the ancient symbol of the Venetian Republic – seemed to glare at him from underneath the many layers of darkened varnish as it peeped around the hanging swag of fabric. From its position on the central panel of the screen, it seemed to know that its new owner had done something wrong. The noble beast resented being part of the dishonesty of the purchase. For the first time in his life, Gregorio Marinetti had involved himself in a seriously illegal transaction – something which, if it were ever to become common knowledge, would ruin not only his own, but also his family’s long-standing reputation within the Comune di Lucca. His standing as a respectable antiques dealer would be in tatters.
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures,’ he hummed to himself nervously. All he needed now was the telephone call from his customer’s agent to arrange collection of the screen and he could start to breathe easily again. ‘Why doesn’t the telephone ring?’ he muttered. He found that with a little juggling, the words almost fitted the melody of ‘Di Provenza il mar’, Germont’s aria from Verdi’s La Traviata. It was his party piece – one that the Contessa said he sang particularly well. The lion remained oblivious to this fact and the one eye that could see around the end of the brocade swag continued to follow Gregorio with a malevolent glare. ‘And let us be quite honest, they couldn’t really get much more desperate than they are now.’ He stopped suddenly and chuckled. It was no good; there were too many words to continue singing them to Verdi’s famous melody. He felt far more relaxed now and, still chuckling, he straightened an ornate mirror and flicked at the gilded frame with his duster. He caught the reflection of the lion in the glass and turned around in surprise, to be met by the accusing glare. ‘You have to take risks to restore the balance,’ he muttered to the screen, ‘and when you are collected and paid for, the balance will be fully restored.’ He promptly felt foolish for having spoken to an inanimate object. He was on edge and his nerves were still a little raw. They were made even more so by the ringing of the telephone. Although expected, the sudden noise came as a shock and caused him to back into a seventeenth-century escritoire, its delicate legs scraping across the marble tiles.
‘Yes… Yes, I have it here… Oh… Is it not possible for you to collect it today? Forgive me, but I thought that that was the arrangement and…’ There was a note of worried dismay in his voice, as the caller cut across him. ‘But of course, any time to suit the signore… Indeed, cash would be acceptable… Very well, until next Thursday then, when you will call to make final arrangements for the collection,’ continued Marinetti, his mouth now quite dry, ‘if it cannot be before…’ he added somewhat pathetically, trying to disguise the anxiety in his voice. ‘Please use my mobile; you have the number.’ There was a curt mumble of acknowledgement on the line. ‘I think it is better that we…’ but the line had gone dead. As he replaced the handset, he realized that his client was the one who was used to giving orders – people who were that wealthy usually had no problem at all in making the world revolve around their particular needs and arrangements. Whilst still looking absently at the telephone, a new worry suddenly revealed itself to him. The simple fact was that this sudden change of plan had serious ramifications; he would have to find a safe place to hide the screen for a week. His feet were as wet as his mouth was bone dry. For a second, he looked up and stared straight ahead into his shop. The stark reality of the situation was that the signore’s agent had delivered his client’s message and had hung up. There would be no collection of the screen that day, or the next, or the day after. In fact, it would be a full week before he could get rid of the thing – as beautiful as it was – and solve his precarious financial situation. Once the screen had been collected Gregorio would have his money in untraceable cash, but having to find a safe place to hide a stolen artwork for a week had not been part of the equation.
‘Yes, you will have to be hidden in the lock-up whether you like it or not!’ he snapped at the lion, whose accusing glare scythed through the layers of darkened varnish like a surgical laser, until it fixed itself firmly on Marinetti. He crossed quickly to the screen and adjusted the piece of fabric until it hid the greater part of the lion’s face and the accusing eye. Despite this absolving action, he still felt the eye boring into his conscience from under the cloth. The Lion of St Mark was displeased, even if, like Polonius, it had been concealed behind the arras.
Gregorio Marinetti felt a little calmer for not being stared at. Despite that, his feet were now so wet that they squelched in his expensive shoes as he walked across the marble tiles of his shop towards the inner sanctum.
‘Yes, it will have to be the lock-up,’ he repeated.
3
Meanwhile, back at Café Alma Arte, business was as brisk as ever. Gianni picked his way through the tables, his hands full of small round trays bearing the delights on which the establishment’s reputation was built.
He reached the far left-hand corner of the café, the place where the Contessa always sat to take her tea – yes, her tea. Since before he had been born, she had appeared at the counter every Thursday afternoon, to be ushered to her usual table to drink her afternoon cup of tea. In a country awash with all kinds of coffee this English woman, who was considered by some to be more than just a little eccentric, always had tea. He took a cloth from his apron pocket and wiped the top of the little table. There was no one sitting at it, despite the covetous eyes from the crush of customers who regularly cast questioning and envious glances at its free space. Nobody had been allowed to sit at it since earlier that afternoon, when Gianni had removed the chairs to ensure that it remained available for the Contessa. That was the Italian way – valued customers were always well looked after. For a moment the noise and movement that filled the café vanished and Gianni smiled again as he stood back and looked at the ornate round table. Puccini himself, Robert Graves and a whole host of other luminaries had sat in the café over the years (possibly even at this very table) but from the middle of the afternoon onwards, every Thursday it was her table – the English Contessa, to whom the family would be eternally respectful and to whom Gianni would always be grateful.
‘I’m telling you, she’s not coming,’ muttered Anna, as Gianni once again resumed his position behind the ornate mahogany and bevelled glass counter, ‘and you’ve got cream do
wn the front of your apron. Here, use this,’ she said, passing him a damp cloth.
As he looked down the burgundy apron to where the name ‘Alma Arte’ was embroidered in large white letters, he stopped, his hand poised in mid-wipe. Several splatters of cream made a confined, intricate pattern across the upper part of the apron. Some of the letters had been masked so that, as he stared down, what Gianni saw filled him with sudden apprehension. Even looking at the letters upside-down, those which were still clearly legible spelled out most of a word: ‘- - M - - RTE’. The second ‘A’ of Alma had been filled in with cream, so that it resembled the letter ‘O’. Suddenly uneasy, Gianni crossed himself quickly with the damp cloth. ‘MORTE’ – death. He turned and glanced back down the length of the café to where the solitary, empty table stood lost in a sea of animated and contented faces. The sound of cutlery clashing on crockery and the din of international conversation did nothing to banish Gianni’s sudden mood of pending doom. That could also be the Italian way; superstition and reality often walked together as equal partners. He glanced up at the large wall clock. It is getting late, he realized as he wiped the cream from his apron.
4
At about the same time as Gianni was looking at the clock and contemplating the possible hidden significance of the word ‘MORTE’ on his apron, the 3.50 p.m. train from Pisa was pulling out of Lucca’s station and was already disappearing up the track on its way towards the interior. It had deposited an assortment of passengers on the platform, most of whom were locals returning from a day in Pisa; any tourists, who were not part of an organized coach party, would have arrived at the latest by mid-morning. There were several youths – students from the university in Pisa – who had completed their lectures for the week and were returning home with their laundry and to benefit from a couple of days of their mothers’ good home cooking. In the middle of the platform, next to the entrance to the station building, a little knot of people were clustered around a young couple, both of whom carried large backpacks.
‘We bought the tickets in Pisa … at the airport … not an hour ago,’ said the young man in a heavy Australian accent.
A flood of Italian washed over him in return, delivered quite loudly by a uniformed official of Ferrovie dello Stato, the Italian State Railways. He held the two tickets in his hand and was waving them about, as if conducting an orchestra.
‘You have not cancelled them! You must cancel them before you get on the train,’ said the official, pointing to the tickets. He was becoming more and more animated.
The young man stared at him for a second and then looked at his companion, a young woman of his own age, which couldn’t have been more than twenty-four. She shrugged, not having understood a word the official had said, and attempted to point to the tickets as they scythed through the warm afternoon air. This was a near impossible task, as their movement was unpredictably erratic.
‘We don’t know what y’re saying,’ she said calmly, ‘but we’ve done nothing wrong. As Jez told ya, we bought the tickets in Pisa this afternoon before getting on the train.’ She smiled rather sweetly at the official, who, for a moment at least, seemed to be taken aback by a pretty face wearing a rather skimpy T-shirt. Then he recovered his officiousness and started waving the tickets about again.
‘This is a return ticket from Pisa. You have used the outward part, but have not cancelled it. That is an offence and there is a fine.’
‘What do ya think he’s on about, Vic?’ asked the young man quickly. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. He also kept his eyes firmly engaged with those of the railway official, who continued to talk and wave his hands about with a look of near exasperation on his face.
‘Buggered if I know, Jez,’ replied the young woman. ‘Did we get into the wrong class carriage or something, d’ya think he means?’
‘Excuse me. Can I help at all?’ asked a voice from behind them in English. ‘Don’t mind Alessandro. He quite likes getting on his high horse, but he doesn’t usually mean any harm by it.’ An elderly lady, short and smartly dressed in a style from an earlier age and wearing a pair of pointed-frame glasses, suddenly appeared at Jez’s elbow. ‘Alessandro! How are you today? What seems to be the trouble? Have they done something wrong?’ she asked in fluent Italian, a disarming smile on her lips.
An instant change came over the railway official, as he bowed slightly towards the newcomer. ‘The Contessa is too kind to enquire. I am well, thank you,’ he replied politely, ‘but they have not cancelled the outward part of their tickets…’
‘Well, are the tickets valid?’ asked the elderly woman. Her voice was also polite but possibly even firmer than Alessandro’s – and without the aerobics of the waving arms.
‘Yes, Contessa … issued in Pisa … today, but they have not cancelled them and…’
‘…and I’m sure that you can do that for them, can’t you, Alessandro?’ she said, smiling in that affectionate way everyone admires in their favourite grandmother. ‘We want them to take away many good memories of their visit to our beautiful Lucca, now don’t we?’
A few minutes later the four of them – the two tourists, the elderly lady and her small white Maltese poodle – emerged from the railway station into the bright sunshine and walked slowly across the Piazzale Ricasoli, the combination of garden and car park in front of the station. The small dog was trotting behind his mistress at the end of his leash. He was happily playing a game of nipping at the flapping hem of her skirt, which had come undone at the back. He growled softly as he did so.
‘They do sometimes tend to get a little power-crazy with responsibility, you know,’ said the elderly woman. ‘It’s probably something to do with wearing a uniform. Alessandro is a good sort and doesn’t mean anything by it. His bark’s usually worse than his bite.’
Victoria, once again a beast of burden to her backpack, eyed the elderly woman’s dog, which had been growling almost constantly since the business with the tickets. She wondered if the same could be said of this angry little beast.
‘You see, the ticket is valid for several months, but you have to insert it into one of the yellow machines on the station before you board the train; that cancels it, but it’s really validating it within its time period. All very confusing, really … to us foreigners,’ she said, smiling. Her two companions nodded, as if reluctant to admit their confusion.
‘So we just have to remember to shove the ticket into the yellow machine and that’s all there is to it? Not like being back home,’ Victoria added.
‘And where might home be, my dear?’
‘Perth … Western Australia.’
‘Do you know, I went to Australia,’ said the elderly woman. ‘Yes, just once … to Sydney. But that was many years ago.’ The elderly lady seemed to lose herself in some fond memory. They walked on in silence, apart from the contented growls from the dog, who continued to chase his mistress’s flapping hem, which was now beginning to disintegrate. On reaching the busy Viale Regina Margherita they turned left and walked slowly towards the San Pietro entrance gate in the massive city walls. Out of thoughtfulness for the elderly woman’s age, both Victoria and Jez had kept in their bottom gear, ambling along at a pace that was within her capability, which they thought was probably arthritic.
‘Did you enjoy y’re day at the museum?’ asked Victoria, above the noise of the passing traffic. She pointed to a large bag the elderly woman was carrying, which had ‘Pisa Museums’ written on it in very large letters and in several languages.
‘The museum, my dear?’ repeated the elderly woman, smiling back at her. ‘Well, you’ll find the Puccini one quite interesting, but it needs a bit of a facelift I’m afraid. He was born here, you know. Yes, indeed. It was a very musical family, going back many generations,’ she continued, ‘right here in Lucca … on the Via Calderia.’
Victoria raised her eyebrows at her companion. ‘Who’s Puccini?’ she mouthed at him silently. Jez shrugged.
‘And you can walk around the city w
alls, which are quite massive, as you can see,’ continued the elderly lady. ‘You’ll enjoy strolling around Lucca because most vehicles, apart from those of the residents, are prohibited. So it’s not like London or Pisa.’
The action of turning her head to reply to Victoria’s misunderstood question caused an earpiece to fall from the elderly woman’s ear. As she made a fumbling grab for it she inadvertently tugged the dog’s leash, which was draped over her left wrist. The animal stopped harassing the flapping hem and responded with several loud yaps, which made Victoria jump. Then the animal started to run around his mistress’s legs, entwining her in the leash. From the look on the animal’s face, Jez got the impression that this was a regular occurrence. With another couple of yaps – a kind of a victory howl – the dog sat down on the pavement. The woman’s retro glasses slid off her nose and dangled limply from their chain against her chest as the little procession ground to a halt. With considerable sympathy, Jez looked at what he had mistaken to be one of a pair of hearing-aid earpieces, given this woman’s obviously advanced age. Then, as he watched her fumble to catch it, he saw that it had ‘Sony’ stamped on it in tiny letters. As far as he knew, Sony did not make hearing aids.
‘You bad, bad boy!’ said the elderly woman, pointing an accusing finger at the animal, which now sat on its hind quarters, despite the insolent smile on his face, every inch the cute model for an animal charity fundraising poster. The growling continued softly. She slid the leash off her wrist, unwound herself with practiced ease and replaced it.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said, as they moved off again to cover the short remaining distance to the gate. ‘He can be quite cantankerous at times.’
Victoria and Jez glanced at each other, but said nothing. They just nodded, but more in sympathy than agreement, Jez tapping the side of his head under the cover of shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun.
‘I was actually asking about the Pisa Museum,’ continued Victoria, pointing to the bag for a second time, as they reached the welcome shade of the gate. ‘I assumed y’d been there for the day.’
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