Liquid Desires

by Edward Sklepowich

  “Leave us alone, Francesca,” the woman said in a surprisingly strong voice. “Wait for Padre Ferrucci.”

  With a glance at Urbino, Francesca complied, closing the door quietly behind her. Urbino explained that he was a friend of Oriana Borelli.

  “You have a young voice, signore. You are English? Ah, yes, American. So, you are a friend of Signora Borelli. She called me a few days ago. Please tell her that we are very grateful for all her help.”

  Urbino explained how Oriana Borelli had said that Graziella might be able to tell him some things about Flavia Brollo. Graziella had already told Oriana that Violetta and Regina were sisters.

  “I’m concerned about how Flavia died,” Urbino said. “She visited a friend and me several times before her death. You see, Signora Gnocato, I suspect that Flavia didn’t kill herself but might have been murdered.”

  “Murdered? My poor Flavia murdered?” Fear threaded the old nurse’s voice. She crossed herself and two tears rolled down her withered cheeks. “Flavia was as good as she was beautiful, signore,” she said after several moments of staring sightlessly ahead with tear-filled eyes. “She never forgot me. Never! I could always count on her for a visit. We would play guessing games, and years ago she would bring her sweet friend Tina, and we would all have such a good time. Oh, everyone loved Flavia, even the dogs and the cats in the street.”

  “When was the last time you saw Flavia, Signora Gnocato?”

  “The Thursday before they—they found her poor drowned body. About six o’clock.”

  This was one and a half hours before she had been at the Casa Trieste with Ladislao Mirko and more than an hour after she had stormed out of Florian’s.

  “Why did she visit you?”

  “She came for information. I told her and now I regret it. You say she might have been murdered. Maybe it was because of what I told her.”

  Graziella shifted uneasily under the worn sheet.

  “What did she want to know?”

  “About her mother. I looked after Signora Brollo and Flavia from the time they came back to Venice from the clinic outside Milan where Flavia was born. That was for about three years. Then I worked for them again almost ten years later until Signora Brollo drowned herself at Lago di Garda, God have mercy on her soul.”

  “Do you remember the name of the clinic?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s well-known.”

  She gave Urbino the name.

  “What was it about her mother that Flavia wanted to know?”

  “I heard Signora Brollo tell her daughter many times that a prominent man named Alvise da Capo-Zendrini was her father. She said he was a count. I’ve told myself over and over again that Signora Brollo was just hallucinating—that it was her illness speaking—but she seemed to know exactly what she was saying. She had the schizophrenia. She had it since she was an adolescent, I understand, but it became much worse after she married.”

  Graziella sighed.

  “She was afraid of so much. The pigeons at the windows. The church bells. Even Flavia’s dog. Flavia had to get rid of it. Signora Brollo was afraid that her husband would tell her and Flavia to leave the house and never come back. It was her illness that made her so afraid. Signor Brollo was always very good to her and to Flavia. He never raised his voice once. But that didn’t make any difference to Signora Brollo. She would say, ‘We’ll have to live in a gondola or in one of those little huts in the lagoon where the hunters hide to shoot the birds.’ Such a pity! She even thought at times that I was her mother! But she had her lucid moments. She knew what she was saying some of the time, you can be sure, and maybe that’s the way it was when she talked about this count. She had a large envelope filled with newspaper clippings with this man’s picture. Do you know who he is?”

  “I never met him. He’s dead now. But why did Flavia want this information from you if she already knew it?”

  “She said that she needed someone besides herself—someone people would believe—to say the name, to tell others what her mother had said. You see, signore,” Graziella continued, “Signora Brollo would say this many times to Flavia when she was a little girl. It was like a game between them. Signor Brollo would get upset, but never in a mean or loud way, and would tell his wife that she didn’t know what she was saying, that she was hallucinating. Would you give me some water, please, signore?”

  Urbino held the glass of water to Graziella’s mouth as she took a sip.

  “Sometimes her mother would mention this man’s name,” Graziella went on, “and other times Signora Brollo wouldn’t know who he was when Flavia would talk about him, especially in the last years of her life.”

  “Did Flavia want you to meet someone and tell them about all this?”

  “Oh, no, signore, my Flavia had more regard for me than that. I can’t leave my apartment. Flavia had a little recording machine and I spoke into it. I didn’t think it was a good idea. I thought that Signor Brollo—and Signora Brollo’s sister Signora Volpi—would have it in for me, but I was only telling the truth, and Flavia begged and pleaded.”

  Was this, then, the proof that Flavia had stormed off from Florian’s in search of? The confidence of an old nurse that Flavia had recorded? Someone whom the Contessa was sure to believe?

  “I never thought of what could happen to Flavia,” the nurse said sadly. “I only thought that I was making her happy. She kissed and hugged me and left. That was the last time I saw her. I did her no good, signore. I’m responsible for a grievous sin if someone murdered her!”

  “But who, Signora Gnocato?”

  “Probably someone who doesn’t want anyone to know that this Alvise da Capo-Zendrini was her father! Oh, I can tell who you’re thinking about, but it wasn’t Signor Brollo! That’s impossible! He’s a gentle, quiet man. You don’t have to be afraid of him. He never raised his voice to me or anyone else. He always wanted things as smooth as glass. No matter how bad things would get he always was as calm as anything and could make things better.” She screwed up her face. “Maybe Annabella Brollo, his sister. She’s a strange one with all her flowers! She never had anything good to say about Flavia. She wanted her brother only for herself. She probably danced the day Signora Brollo died.”

  “What happened to Signora Brollo?”

  “Drowned herself. She insisted on taking the boat to Gardone by herself. Flavia wanted to go, too, because the villa of some famous man is there”—it was Gabriele D’Annunzio’s villa II Vittoriale—“but Signora Brollo said that she wanted to be alone. Flavia threw a tantrum and went to her room to pout. Forty-five minutes later Signora Brollo jumped into the lake from the boat—and that was it. Yes,” she sighed, shaking her head, “that was it.”

  “Did the police ask you any questions about Flavia?”

  “The police? I haven’t seen a policeman or a carabiniere in years!”

  “What about your niece?”

  “Francesca minds her own business. Besides, I never told her why Flavia came that last time.”

  “Would you know if Flavia was on any medication?”

  “Medication? I wouldn’t know, signore, but I don’t think so. I remember having to force her to take aspirin and she didn’t like to see all the pills I have to take.” She waved her hand toward the bedside table. “She said I would be better off without them.”

  Graziella didn’t know anything about an argument at Lago di Garda in Regina Brollo’s bedroom and she had never heard of Salvador Dalí or The Birth of Liquid Desires. She did, however, have some choice words to say about Violetta Volpi, who, as Oriana Borelli had told Urbino, had once hired her to look after Bernardo.

  “I never took to her—or to any of those godless paintings she does!”

  “Did you work for her before or after Signora Brollo’s death?”

  “A couple of years before. She used to make me sick the way she would pretend to care about her husband when all she ever seemed to think about were her paintings. If you meet her on the street, you might think she
was a fine woman, but she was always stabbing people in the back.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like her own sister! Telling Signor Volpi that she had a crazy woman for a sister who didn’t know anything about raising a child, who was going to make her own daughter as pazza as she was. The poor man never would say anything. He’s a saint. I would have to listen to Signora Volpi many times as she was painting away like a demon! She kept talking about some Englishwoman who had ruined her life, how I don’t know.”

  Leaving the old nurse, with a promise to visit her again soon, Urbino walked past the gates of the Venice Port Authority to the boat landing.

  The most important thing he had learned from Graziella Gnocato was that Regina Brollo had told Flavia that Alvise da Capo-Zendrini was her father. Ladislao Mirko hadn’t been lying. And according to Graziella, Regina Brollo seemed to be the source of the clippings about Alvise that Flavia had put in her scrapbook. Graziella had also confirmed some of his suspicions about Violetta Volpi.

  There was no question about it. Urbino had learned a lot from the old nurse, and none of it made him feel easy. He decided to go back to the Palazzo Uccello and get Flavia’s scrapbook, and then go to Asolo. Two weeks ago, the Contessa had literally had to drag him off to her country retreat, and here he was going back and forth so often—both yesterday and today. But he needed to speak with Madge Lennox and Silvestro Occhipinti face-to-face, and he wanted to show the Contessa Alvise’s signature. Also, on the way to Asolo he could get off the train at Mestre on the other side of the lagoon to talk with Carlo Ricci at the Volpi Import-Export Company.

  8

  All trains to and from Venice stopped in Mestre, a sprawling city of concrete that continued to woo Venetians with its promise of high, dry, and modern apartments. Urbino considered it a blight and avoided it, unless, like now, he had business there.

  He took a taxi to the Volpi Import-Export Company. A blond receptionist smiled brightly at him when he came in the front office, but the smile disappeared when he told her he would like to speak with Carlo Ricci. She seemed more suspicious than relieved when he said he had nothing to do with the police. After eyeing his Caraceni suit, she picked up the telephone and had Ricci paged.

  Carlo Ricci was a brawny, good-looking man in his forties with gray-flecked black hair and dark eyes that turned down at the corners. He was dressed in a blue jumpsuit with “Volpi” embroidered over the breast pocket.

  “My wife told me about your visit yesterday, signore,” Ricci said when they had sat down on a sofa against the wall. “She said you were a friend of Flavia.”

  “Yes, Signor Ricci. First of all, let me extend my condolences over the death of your daughter.”

  “Murder, signore! A slaughter! I have forbidden even my wife to call it only a ‘death.’”

  Ricci’s raised voice drew the attention of the receptionist.

  “I understand, Signor Ricci. I’m not here to upset you any more than you have already been, believe me. I’m here about Flavia. A close friend and I who came to know Flavia near the end of her life are concerned about exactly how she died. We’re trying to settle things in our own minds. You know how important that is—to know what happened to someone you care about and to find out who might be responsible.”

  “You’re right, but what help can I be? I hardly knew Flavia. She was my daughter’s friend. At first I thought Nicolina shouldn’t hang around with someone ten years older, but I soon saw I was wrong. Flavia was good for her.”

  “In what way?”

  “She encouraged her in her studies—told her how important it was to do something with herself. Nicolina wanted to design clothes. She used to sew gifts for us for our birthdays and Christmas.”

  “She was obviously a good girl, Signor Ricci.”

  “The best. She missed having a sister. She has an older brother, and he always looked out for her, but it wasn’t the same. My wife is very understanding, but sometimes mothers and daughters find it difficult to talk with each other, especially at the age that Nicolina was. Not that we ever had any trouble with Nicolina—never! But there are problems young girls have in growing up. Flavia was there to help her. My wife told you about the funeral garland Flavia sent my daughter, didn’t she?”

  “She did. She also told me that the funeral was the last time she saw Flavia. What about you?”

  “That’s the last I saw her, too.”

  “Your son Guido says that he saw her about a week later.”

  “On the vaporetto, yes. She told him she felt guilty about Nicolina’s murder—that if she had been there, it wouldn’t have happened. Flavia never seemed to take to that bastard, Pasquale Zennaro. He ate at our table like one of the family! I noticed he would look Flavia up and down whenever he saw her.”

  Ricci stood up abruptly.

  “But you’ll have to excuse me, signore. I have to get back to work. Volpi’s the best boss a worker can have and I wouldn’t want to take advantage of him just because he’s too sick to keep his eye on the business.”

  “You know that Flavia was Volpi’s niece, don’t you?”

  “By marriage.”

  “Did Flavia ever say anything about him?”

  “Lots of times. Only good things. He was very generous with her, she said, always giving her money. It’s hard for a man not to have any children of his own. He treated her like his own daughter from the time he got back from a business trip and married Signora Volpi. Oh, he’s a good man! Always asking after my Nicolina and Luigi. He would have made a good father if he had been blessed. If there’s any other way I can help you, signore, please stop by our apartment on Sant’Elena. Guido and I are usually home by seven.”

  On the train to Bassano del Grappa, Urbino studied the reproduction of The Birth of Liquid Desires. As Violetta Volpi had said, Dalí was just the kind of artist to appeal to an adolescent mind.

  But why had Flavia ripped the page from the catalog? Had she ripped it out and then put it in her scrapbook? If so, then she had taken it out at a later date—or someone else had removed it.

  Urbino took one last look at the Dalí, at the naked man with one sock bending over a pool of water, at the woman in the background with her face averted pouring some kind of liquid from a jug, at the ambiguous embrace between the woman with flowers for hair and the older man with a woman’s breasts, an erection, and one foot in a bowl of water.

  Urbino shook his head in exasperation and shoved the postcard back in his pocket. “Avida Dollars,” he said under his breath, repeating André Breton’s anagram. Urbino had never had much patience with Dalí under the best of circumstances, and that minimal patience was being strained to the limit now.

  The train was pulling into Bassano del Grappa. Urbino hurried off the train, hoping he would have time for a drink before the bus left for Asolo. He needed one.

  9

  As soon as Urbino got to Asolo, he went to Villa Pippa to ask Madge Lennox about the scrapbook. She might be able to help him piece things together. As he listened to her and watched her practiced features, however, he couldn’t help but hear the Contessa’s warning that the actress was “brittle with artifice.”

  “I remember perfectly well, Urbino,” Madge Lennox said with a nervous little laugh in the front parlor of La Pippa. She was wearing a vermilion turban and harem pants in a lighter shade of red. “I have an excellent memory. I can still remember lines from characters I played a long time ago. Would you like some more ice?”

  Urbino declined. She went to the liquor cabinet, poured more gin into her glass, and added another ice cube.

  “There’s no reason to change my story from what I told you on Sunday,” she went on in her low, controlled voice. “If I hadn’t wanted you to know about the clippings, I wouldn’t have said anything then.”

  She turned a bright smile on Urbino, looking at him unfalteringly with her bold, dark eyes. Once again Urbino found himself wondering how many artless gestures she had. Was this ingenuous smile one of them,
or was it something that had proved its usefulness under the lights and for audiences larger than just one?

  “Why is it that you remember those particular clippings?”

  “It’s not that I remember only them. I remember some other things in the scrapbook—even if I had only a quick glimpse. The clippings with the photographs caught my attention because I recognized Signor Occhipinti and the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini.”

  “And the Conte?”

  “I didn’t recognize him, no. How could I?” she asked with a little smile. “I never met him, but he was one of the men in the pictures. It said so.”

  Madge Lennox seemed to have had more than just a brief glimpse of the scrapbook.

  “And you recognized no one else?”

  “No one.”

  “Did you tell anyone else about the scrapbook?”

  “Yes. Signor Occhipinti. I told him he hadn’t changed in what must be more than ten years. The clippings had to be at least that old since the Conte da Capo-Zendrini has been dead for longer than that.”

  “When did you tell Occhipinti about the clippings?”

  “A few weeks ago, not long after I saw the scrapbook. I said it belonged to a young woman I knew. I didn’t mention her name,” Madge Lennox said, anticipating his next question. “Did I do something wrong? I have nothing to do with the missing clippings, believe me. What business were they of mine?”

  Urbino handed her the Tanguy postcard.

  “Do you recognize this?”

  She looked at it a few moments, then turned it over to read the back. She returned it with a shake of her head.

  “What about this?” Urbino asked, giving her the Dalí card.

  “It looks like a Dalí painting. I don’t like Dalí.”

  She handed the card back to Urbino with distaste.

  “They’re part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice,” Urbino explained. “A page with reproductions of both paintings was torn from Flavia’s copy of the Guggenheim catalog. Did you notice if it was in the scrapbook?”