“What did he say about that?”
“Oh, he’s so self-sacrificing! He said there isn’t any need for you—or anyone—to do anything, it will all blow over, but I don’t believe him. What I mean,” she clarified, “is that, yes, I believe him, but he’s wrong. It isn’t over. He’s trying to minimize things for my sake. But with you, he might tell the truth. I mean,” she repeated with a touch of impatience, “that with you he’ll be more inclined to say how he really feels about this beastly situation!”
“Ah, but you’re wrong, Barbara dear,” a deep male voice said in British-inflected English from the doorway. “What I tell you and what I tell others will always be the same. On that you can rest secure. You must be Barbara’s dear friend Urbino. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The Barone Casarotto-Re strode over and looked down at Urbino from his six-plus feet of height. He grasped Urbino’s hand and gave it a firm shake.
3
Everything about the Barone Roberto Casarotto-Re seemed to shout with vigor—his clear dark eyes, his olive skin, his sinewy figure, even his white hair, which had receded but not noticeably thinned. The Barone’s teeth, however, were perhaps too white and too regular to be real.
Before Urbino had time to realize what the Contessa was doing, she spirited away her gin-and-tonic to the drink table and rang for Lucia to bring in the tea tray. The Barone went over and kissed her cheek.
“You and Urbino should get to know each other a little before you settle down to talk about serious things, Bobo. Everything is going to be fine. Don’t you worry.”
The Contessa gave his arm a reassuring, lingering pat.
“But I’m not worrying, Barbara dear, not in the slightest. I apologize for Barbara pulling you back to Venice. She’s very naughty sometimes, but we have to forgive her, because we know how devoted she is.” His long upper lip curled into a smile. “And I know how particularly devoted she is to you, Urbino, if I may call you that. A lovely name—and a lovely city with its associations with Raphael. Please call me Bobo. Barbara has told me all about you. Not all your secrets—ha, ha! Perhaps they will come with time. No, not everything, but enough to whet my appetite. Ah, yes, and she’s told me about your problem,” the Barone continued, seemingly filled with illimitable energy and enthusiasm. “I mean your problem down there, my friend.”
He pointed a long, well-manicured finger at Urbino’s Gucci-shod foot. The Contessa had a fixed smile on her face and didn’t meet Urbino’s eyes.
“A bit young for that, but I’m far from an expert on matters medical. Never been indisposed the same way myself. Hardly been ill a day in my life. One of these days I’m going to have to pay for it.”
“Let it be ever so distant, Bobo.”
“You should take better care of yourself,” the Barone went on. “For example, that drink you have there. The culprit alcohol is lurking in it, just waiting to go down to that toe of yours and do its wicked little damage.”
Fortunately, the Barone abruptly changed the topic when the Contessa joked about Urbino being smothered in Abano mud. He threw himself into a description of his tennis match that morning at the Cipriani Hotel with the Contessa, Oriana, and John Flint, her most recent innamorato. He urged the need for exercise on Urbino, squinting at him with his dark brown eyes as if he could see through Urbino’s Ermenegildo Zegna suit to the supposedly exercise-starved flesh beneath.
His monologue wasn’t interrupted by Lucia bringing in the tea things. Urbino wondered how long the man could go on like this until he remembered that he had a one-man show that lasted for more than an hour. The Contessa prepared the tea but kept shooting nervous glances at the two men. Relief from the Barone’s flow came only with his first sip of tea, but even this relief was momentary.
“You make the most delicious tea. How do you ever manage it?”
“Mother always said that you should recite the Miserere. When you finish, the tea is done to perfection.”
“And so your tea always is, my dear. Your mother was a wise and—from her photograph—a beautiful woman.”
The Barone put down his cup and reached into his jacket pocket to take out a chased-gold cigarette case. The Contessa, who preferred no one to smoke in the salotto—or, in fact, anywhere near her—seemed far from demurring when the Barone lit a Gauloise with a gold lighter. The Contessa’s eyes wavered for a moment in Urbino’s direction.
Before the Barone could launch into another monologue, Urbino said: “Excuse me, Barone, but—”
“Bobo,” the Barone said. He exhaled a curling stream of smoke in the direction of the Contessa’s collection of ceramic animals.
“What I was going to say, Bobo”—the name didn’t come easily to Urbino’s lips—“is that you don’t seem as upset as I would be. That seems strange.”
“Urbino!”
“Not at all, Barbara dear. He’s right—and he’s right to say it. I admire honesty. The poor boy has been dragged back from his needed therapy and I’m not being appreciative of his sacrifice. But you see, Urbino, I don’t want to blow this out of proportion. I hate to see Barbara all wrought up. She’s afraid I’ll—what did you call it, my dear?—‘dry up.’ Perhaps it’s best to let this business alone.”
“Let it alone? I wouldn’t want something like this left alone if I were being threatened. I’d want to find out if anyone meant me any harm. Of course, people who are serious about doing harm seldom give warning. They just strike out. This might only be a version of a poison-pen letter, but nonetheless there is a threat.” Urbino went over to the table and picked up the sheet. “What does it say? ‘The only difference is that D’Annunzio is dead.’”
“It gives me a chill, Bobo! You must take it seriously.”
“Why would anyone want to harm me? No, Barbara, it’s D’Annunzio this crackpot wants to harm. He has enemies even today. This could be literary criticism masquerading as an attack on my reputation! I can endure it! I have nothing to hide and just as little to fear.”
“What do the police say?” Urbino asked.
“Oh, they’ll send someone to the Doges’ Palace and to the Gazzettino, I suppose,” the Barone said in an offhand manner. “The Commissario wasn’t much concerned.”
“If you don’t make it seem as if you care, Bobo, the police aren’t going to try very hard. Urbino is good at these things. He can ask around and maybe get some answers the police wouldn’t get. You know how Italians clam up when the police come along.”
“I’m afraid he’d be wasting his fine talents on this silly affair.” He shook his head dismissively. “And who knows? If you start poking around, Urbino, we could be playing right into the hands of this prankster.”
“I think there’s more danger in doing nothing. Have you ever had any problem like this before?”
“Never!” He gave a laugh that seemed to be more nervousness than humor. “Oh, there once was some trouble during a performance in Milan. Some self-styled anti-fascists and women modeling themselves after your American feminists, Urbino. There were posters—‘BURN D’ANNUNZIO,’ ‘D’ANNUNZIO: MAN AGAINST PEACE, MAN AGAINST WOMEN.’ Got in the newspapers. But it came to nothing in the end. This is just more of the same thing.”
“But if it isn’t, Bobo! Urbino is very discreet. I couldn’t bear it if there was even the slimmest possibility that you were in danger from some crackpot—or even embarrassed or inconvenienced.”
A look of irritation passed over the Barone’s face. Urbino sensed that he usually got his way and wasn’t taking this defeat well. The Barone got up and went over to the Contessa and bent down to plant a kiss on her forehead.
“As you wish, for your own dear sake. Do what you can, Urbino, but be as discreet as Barbara says you are. And now, for the rest of our evening, let’s talk about more pleasant things. Tell me about that little palazzo you inherited from your mother, Urbino, and about your Venetian biographies. By the way, do you think you’ll ever write one on D’Annunzio? Perhaps I could be of help if you do.
For example, did you know that when he was living in the Casetta Rossa on the Grand Canal—”
The Barone then shared some of his hero’s amorous adventures. The Contessa listened with such rapt attention that her tea grew cold. The conversation never got around to Urbino’s Palazzo Uccello or his Venetian Lives.
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