Farewell to the Flesh (7 page)

“I couldn't agree with you more,
caro
. Abominable, wasn't it!” Then, with a tug at his arm as they went down the steps into the square after saying good night to Oriana, she added, “Alvise always said he wasn't absolutely convinced that the da Capo-Zendrinis were related to the di Salsas.”

In the darkened cabin of the Contessa's motorboat, the Contessa asked him about Porfirio's party. Urbino didn't go into much detail, not mentioning the photographer's houseguest, but the little he said seemed to satisfy her. For most of the trip up the Grand Canal, she mused about the unexpected visit from her schoolgirl friend and said she was looking forward to getting Urbino's opinion of her.

“I hope,” she said, “that you'll be over whatever is troubling you. I also hope that you've noticed, with a keen appreciation for the reticence of true friendship, that I haven't asked you one single, solitary question about the cause of that scrunched-up look on your face. At least I haven't asked you yet. Go home and go to sleep. Good night and God keep you from any nightmares.”

11

When Urbino got back to the Palazzo Uccello, the phone was ringing. It was Lubonski.

“Remember that you promised not to go near the fresco until I am well,” he said in a barely coherent voice. “I want to be the only one responsible for any damage done.”

Not waiting for a response, the Pole hung up. Feeling somewhat put out by Lubonski's reference to “damage”—even if he had included himself in it—Urbino went to the study and sat down to read Proust.

He seldom had premonitions, if that was the name he might give to the uneasy feeling he now had as he opened the book. He had felt this way on the day of his parents' accidental death and on a Mardi Gras evening almost fifteen years ago as he had paused in front of a closed door his wife had gone through half an hour before with her cousin, Reid.

As he sat stroking Serena absently, he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen—unless it had already.

12

Ignazio Rigoletti, returning to the Corte Santa Scolastica after buying cigarettes, was glad he didn't encounter anyone in costume. He wasn't in a good mood and he didn't know what he might say or do.

The only
festa
he enjoyed was the Regatta. As a teenager he had rowed in the two-oar
puparino
and had eventually been among the
gondolini
champions and a district representative for the six-oar
caorlina
. Hadn't he even helped row the Bucintoro thirty years ago when the golden barge had carried Pope Pius X's body in a crystal coffin down the Grand Canal? Now he only occasionally rowed for the Querini club, at the age of forty-nine leaving most of the rowing to his nephews.

Rigoletti had hoped that his son, Marco, killed in a car crash on the autostrada, would become a rowing champion. He had been a fine specimen of a young man and the Regatta was a
festa
for real men. Even though they now allowed women to row in the two-oar
mascareta
, it was nothing more than just something to appease the crazy women liberationists. All eyes—at least the ones that counted—were always on the men.

But
Carnevale!
Men and women indistinguishable from each other, behaving like inmates of an asylum, every one mocking the values he—and other upright Venetians—believed in. It was for the tourists, the merchants, and a small group of poor, confused Venetians for whom it was the pinnacle of the year. Even Marco's old girlfriend made a living off it now.

Unfortunately, Rigoletti could hardly avoid the most boisterous aspects of
Carnevale
, for his apartment was off the Calle Santa Scolastica only a few minutes from the Piazza and practically within touching distance of the Bridge of Sighs. In addition to being so close to the crowds, the Calle Santa Scolastica, although it dead-ended on a canal, got quite a few tourists who had lost their way or wanted to take a photograph of the Bridge of Sighs from an unusual angle.

It wasn't these people who bothered him, however. Although he hated
Carnevale
, he certainly didn't want to see the city empty of tourists. Where would he be—a man who delivered supplies to the big hotels—without them? One of the many things he didn't agree with his ex-wife, Xenia, about was keeping as many people as possible away from Venice.

No, he wasn't bothered by the tourists but by the men who used the end of the
calle
by the water steps for furtive meetings, the kind of men who probably never rowed in the Regatta. He often came home late in the evening like this to find two or even three and four men merging in the dark under the portico, silhouetted against the Ducal Palace.

The
calle
's attraction resulted from a topographical peculiarity that could be found throughout the city. All you could see from its entrance and for ten or fifteen feet of its length was the wall of the courtyard building beyond. Not until you reached the courtyard itself could you see that it extended farther to the canal. Men seeking privacy together took advantage of this typically Venetian formation. There was absolutely no chance that they might be observed by anyone passing along the main alley—the Calle degli Albanesi down which he was walking now—or by anyone who had ventured into the first part of the Calle Santa Scolastica.

Whenever he came upon these men, they would pretend an interest in the view or retrace their steps back to the Calle degli Albanesi. Fifteen minutes ago when he had stepped down from his apartment he had seen a man lounging against the wall. Sometimes Rigoletti lost his temper with these men, and he certainly had lost it tonight, hadn't he? He still remembered the frightened, almost desperate look in the good-looking young man's face. He laughed at the memory.

Tonight a wind was blowing up the Calle degli Albanesi from the lagoon. The narrow opening by the water channeled the wind into the alley with unusual force, creating an eerie noise that sounded like souls in infernal pain. Tonight, however, the wind wasn't as strong as it could be on these February nights but carried a warmth and dampness that weren't completely comfortable. A fog was already rolling in.

As he was turning into the Calle Santa Scolastica, he almost collided with a dark, attractive young man who was rushing from the
calle
with an impassive look on his face. He seemed in a desperate hurry but showed no emotion. Rigoletti watched him walking briskly toward the Riva degli Schiavoni.

The
calle
itself was empty. When Rigoletti reached the courtyard, he looked down the remaining length of the
calle
to where it ended at the water.

There under the portico he saw the dark form looking like a pile of trash.

He went over to the prone man sprawled on the wet stones, whose hands were reaching out toward the water steps. He nudged his foot with his shoe tip but the man just lay there motionless in his rubber boots and flannel shirt jacket.

Rigoletti kneeled down. Thick dark hair curled over the man's jacket collar. He turned the face toward him. The bulb encaged in metal in the portico gave Rigoletti just enough light to peer into the open eye of the man.

The eye, frozen in focus elsewhere and on a former time, didn't peer back. Rigoletti's hand touched the man's flannel shirt and came away damp and sticky.

He stood up. He had to call the Questura.

Rigoletti left the dead body and went into the courtyard, only to stop suddenly, undecided if he should go back. Could he have left fingerprints on the body? But surely the police would accept his explanation, wouldn't they? He had had to turn the man around to see if he was all right. It would be more suspicious if his fingerprints weren't found.

Not exactly sure if he had made a mistake or not, Rigoletti crossed the courtyard. He would call the Questura from the restaurant where he had just bought his cigarettes. He went into the other part of the Calle Santa Scolastica that led to the Calle degli Albanesi.

A young blond man was coming down the Calle Santa Scolastica tentatively, looking warily ahead of him. When he saw Rigoletti, he started, and a frightened look came over his face. He turned quickly back into the Calle degli Albanesi. Rigoletti was right behind him. The young man was hurrying toward the Riva degli Schiavoni and the lagoon.

Rigoletti went to the restaurant to call the Questura.

Part Two

V
EILS

1

The first thing that occurred to Urbino when he went into the Contessa's
salotto blu
at five the next afternoon was that the woman looking up at the Veronese over the fireplace, crackling in homey fashion with wood brought down from near the Contessa's villa in Asolo, could not possibly be named Pillow even if by marriage.

She was at least five ten and all sharp angles, from her gaunt face with prominent cheekbones and aquiline nose to her narrow feet shod in stylish black flats. Her dress in thin violet and black vertical stripes accentuated her long spare lines as did the gold chains and pendant that fell from her neck. With her reddish hair, fading into yellow-gray and pulled back in a bun, she did look about ten years older than the Contessa. Urbino wondered if the look of weariness in her face was something that several nights' good sleep would banish or if it was the look she usually wore.

A young man about twenty-five in a dark-gray, generously cut suit and a crisp black T-shirt sat in the rococo chair next to the Contessa. He had one of those handsome narrow faces with Florentine lips that stares out from so many Italian portraits. His hair was matte black and medium long. Parted in the center, it swept down to either side of his forehead in two bold waves that drew attention to his large dark eyes.

“Urbino, you have the most marvelous capacity of turning up just when I need you. My friend Berenice was just asking me about the Veronese and I give you the question to answer.”

Before explaining further, she made the introductions. The young man, Antonio Vico, gave Urbino a firm handshake.

“He's Berenice's son—her stepson, excuse me.”

“We make no distinctions either way, Barbara dear,” Berenice Pillow said with a fond look at Vico. “Tony is my first husband's son, yes, but he's my own son as well.”

“You can see, Urbino, that she's made his name into her own as well! I prefer Tonio!”

“So does he, but if mothers aren't entitled to their own pet names for their children, then who is?”

“But, Berenice dear, it puts me in a difficult situation to choose between an old friend and a handsome young man.”

“Remembering what you were like at St. Brigid's, Barbara, I think I know what the decision will be.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Berenice!” But the Contessa seemed pleased. “As a matter of fact, I was rather backward in those areas but I remember how—how impassioned you got over that rude stable boy. I always thought it was your red hair that drove you to it.”

“The Contessa makes you sound like Lady Chatterley, Mother,” Tonio Vico said in perfectly modulated English without the faintest trace of an accent.

Berenice Pillow blushed.

“Such a thing for a son to say to a mother, Tony! I was only a child at the time!”

“The heart never changes, my dear Berenice—and yours was always ardent.”

Mrs. Pillow turned back to the Veronese.

“Ah yes, my Veronese,” the Contessa said with less an air of possession than of the Pre-Raphaelite languidness she frequently liked to affect. “I'm thinking of importing a niece from London to do some of the social for me—at least to convey information about
mes choses
. It gets a bit tiresome, I must say, and when it isn't it seems rather self-absorbed to run on and on about one's own things.”

“But, Barbara, you don't
show
your place like that old woman at the house we visited with the other girls!”

She had a shocked look on her long thin face. The Contessa's face mirrored her friend's.

“‘Show my place,' Berenice dear! God forbid! I have never shown—except occasionally for magazines like
Casa Vogue
. What I meant was showing someone like yourself—a
friend
”—she emphasized the word. “Of course, that's not the same thing, but even in such circumstances—and don't hold it against me, Berenice dear—it can be tedious. That's why I'm pleased to have Urbino here now.”

Urbino felt uncomfortable. When the Contessa asked Mrs. Pillow to tell him what she had been saying before he came in, he felt no better. It was as if the Contessa were forcing Mrs. Pillow to confide something in him.

She looked away from the painting at Urbino, at the Contessa, and then back at the Veronese. She seemed reluctant to repeat what she had said.

Before Urbino had any time to wonder what embarrassing question might have been posed, the Contessa said, with a quaver in her voice, “She was wondering why it was so small.”

“Small?” Urbino involuntarily echoed.

The Veronese, an allegory of love with a stout golden-haired barebacked Venus dividing her attention between two handsome bearded swains beneath a lush tree, was at least six feet square. It dominated the Contessa's intimate
salotto
where she kept most of her favorite bibelots and books and where she entertained only her closest friends.

“Small for a Veronese, she meant,” Vico said. His tone was ameliorative as he moved closer to his stepmother. “She was comparing him with himself, not with anything American.”

He smiled at Urbino.

“Of course,” Urbino agreed, “compared to the ceiling paintings at the Ducal Palace or
The Last Supper.”

“Whether they're large or small, I don't very much like his paintings. No offense to you, Barbara. It's a perfectly lovely painting and looks very nice here in your little parlor. It's just that I prefer Tintoretto.”