Frail Barrier (9 page)

‘The
gondolino.'
Hollander nodded. ‘I met some men from the San Giorgio Yacht Club a few weeks ago at Harry's Bar. They were talking about the
gondolino
. They had a lot of interesting things to say about it.'

As their
traghetto
came to a brief halt to let a boat with an outboard motor pass, Hollander spoke about the racing craft with a great deal of accuracy.

‘I've been looking forward to the regatta,' he said when he finished. ‘It will be my first in Venice.'

‘It's unfortunate that the circumstances couldn't be better.'

Hollander might have given a sigh but Urbino couldn't be sure because of the sounds of the water and the boats. The two men remained silent as the boat approached the Dorsoduro landing where several people were waiting for the return trip.

‘But as I told you on the telephone,' Hollander said as he prepared to get out of the boat, ‘my stepfather loved life. He was keen on the regatta. He would have been able to see it right from his windows. Of course, I could do as well, but I'll enjoy it more at Barbara's with all of you – and without any sad associations.'

‘But I'm afraid you won't have as great a view of the water parade that opens the competition as you would from here. The parade doesn't go as far as Barbara's place. But the great compensation will be that you'll see the
gondolini
go past both before and after they reach the turning point.'

Urbino and Hollander went down the narrow
calle
to where it joined a wider one, busy with a stream of people. It was the route between the two popular sights of the Salute and the Guggenheim Museum. The men went only a short distance along the
calle
and stopped at a high, wrought-iron gate. Beyond it was a small mossy courtyard filled with plants and a small tree. The broad staircase across the courtyard had pots of bright flowers and a large Murano chandelier.

Hollander took out a key, and they passed through the courtyard and up the staircase to the second floor. Large wooden double doors opened on to the painting-hung foyer of Konrad Zoll's apartment – or rather Hollander's, as it now was.

‘This is it,' Hollander said as they went into the large, high-ceilinged
sala
. Beyond the balcony doors, which had delicate strips of wood embracing the glass, was the Grand Canal. The doors were closed but through them a bright, aqueous light washed the room.

For the next fifteen minutes Hollander showed Urbino around the apartment. In addition to the spacious
sala
, there were three bedrooms, a small study, and a kitchen and dining area. The apartment was appointed with Murano chandeliers, green marble, antique Venetian mirrors, decorative stucco walls and ceilings, silk wallpaper, Persian and Turkish carpets, tapestries, statuary, paintings and many fine pieces of gilded furniture that were either authentic or excellent imitations. Urbino expressed his admiration.

‘The apartment came with most of the furnishings. I'm glad about that. It makes it a little easier to dispose of them. I'll have a harder time with his house in Munich. It's stuffed with things he lived with for almost his whole life, things he loved. He was a collector. His father was a banker. He left him a fortune. My stepfather spent much of his money on beautiful things. Like this.'

Going over to a small table, he picked up a small, worn leather-bound book. He handed it to Urbino, who examined it. It was a breviary illustrated with Flemish miniatures that must have dated back to the eighteenth or even the seventeenth century.

‘Lovely,' Urbino said.

‘My stepfather wasn't religious. He appreciated the beauty of it. And he could see beauty in practical things, too, like this.'

He indicated an eighteenth-century carriage clock in a brass casing with a handle. It had a white enamel dial and black numerals.

‘Isn't that an Abraham-Louis Breguet?' Urbino asked.

‘I think that's the name. It has a leather traveling case in almost perfect condition. You and my stepfather would have got along well. Carriage clocks were one of the things he collected. I'll add it to the others in Munich. And I'll also take the Pietro Longhi on the wall by the door.'

They went over to examine it. It was a typical Longhi, depicting with great delicacy a seated Venetian lady in a
bauta
mask with a white cat at her feet and a cup of chocolate on a small marble-topped table.

‘Exquisite. Barbara loves Longhi. She has a collection of them. By the way, she asked me if you might be free to join her in Asolo for a few days. I'm leaving early this evening on the train. Her car will pick us up in Bassano del Grappa.'

‘She was kind enough to ring me and ask me herself. I have things that need doing here. Some other time perhaps.'

Urbino nodded in understanding.

‘In addition to the breviary, the clock, the Longhi, and a few other things, I'll be taking this back with me to London,' Hollander said in a lower voice.

Hollander carefully, almost reverently, picked up an urn about a foot high from the mantelpiece. It was rather plain in comparison to everything else in the apartment. Urbino understood what it was before Hollander explained.

‘My stepfather's ashes. He was cremated on the cemetery island. I'm not sure what I'll do with them. He left no instructions about whether they should be scattered, or where.'

He replaced the urn on the mantelpiece.

‘I'm sure you'll do the right thing,' Urbino said, ‘whatever it might be. Thank you for showing me around. It's a marvelous apartment. Your stepfather had excellent taste. I'll let you know about an estate agent next week. And here's my number and address.'

He handed Hollander a visiting card.

As Urbino was making his way back to the
traghetto
landing, he went over his impressions of Hollander. He found them to be positive. He had expected not to like him for the same reason that the contessa was predisposed to him – because he came with Sebastian's recommendation. But Urbino found the man easier to talk to than her cousin. He had a greater fund of sympathy and intelligence.

Birds of a feather did not always flock together.

After taking the
traghetto
back to San Marco, Urbino went to one of his favorite bookshops. Recessed in a corner of a little courtyard off the Calle Lungo Santa Maria Formosa, it was bursting with books, both new and used, on long tables and high shelves in two rooms. People were sitting in the area behind the shop at round tables with plants and flowers on them, paging through books.

The owner, a genial bespectacled man, came over to Urbino when he finished with a customer.

‘We just unpacked the copies of
Regate e Regatanti
this afternoon.'

He was referring to a history of the Venice regattas. It was filled with details about the races, photographs, and brief biographies of the rowing champions since the nineteenth century, both men and women. It had a gold register of the finishing teams and unusual pieces of information about the competitions. Urbino had ordered three copies, one for himself, and one each for Claudio and Gildo.

‘I was going to call you,' the bookseller added. ‘And here are your Goethe books.'

He indicated several volumes – most of them used copies – on a shelf behind him.

‘Great. I'm going to look around awhile.'

‘Don't forget to sign the copies of your books. Some came in last week.'

Urbino browsed the shelves looking for a gift for the contessa. He was beginning to despair of finding something suitably festive to mark the occasion of another visit to La Muta when he came upon a book in French on treasure hunts organized in houses and gardens. The contessa had long talked about arranging a treasure hunt at the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini or the Villa La Muta.

As Urbino was signing copies of his books, Romolo Beato went by the shop in the direction of the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. He was too far away for Urbino to hail since the shop wasn't directly on the
calle
. At any rate, it didn't seem as if he was in a good mood. An angry expression tightened his usually friendly face. Urbino was puzzled. Two nights ago he had said he was going to spend a week with his son and do some business. Obviously he had cut his visit short.

Urbino had a second item in mind for the contessa.

Just as she knew him so well as to be able to give him the perfect gift, even when it was as outlandish as a gondola, he knew what would please her. He turned his steps to a nearby
legatoria
.

The shop, selling various kinds of paper goods and other small items, most of them handmade, was a little farther down the Calle Lunga Santa Maria Formosa in the direction from which Beato had just been coming. It had opened a year ago but Urbino had not yet patronized it, since he was a regular customer at a more established shop in San Marco. But he liked to encourage new businesses, especially ones devoted to the traditional Venetian arts and crafts, and his visit to Legatoria Foppa was overdue.

A young saleswoman smiled at him from inside the large front window where she was rearranging items in the window – address and appointment books, notepads, notebooks, stationery, letter holders, lampshades, wrapping paper, picture frames, and pill boxes, most of them made with marbled paper in various designs. There were also pens and inkwells in Murano glass.

A gentle bell tinkled as he opened the door. The shop had a clean smell. An area at the rear was set up as an artisan's workshop. A woman stood at a long table. She was in her early thirties, with large brown eyes, black hair feathered around a small oval face, and a well-shaped mouth emphasized by bright red lipstick. She was demonstrating the marbling process to five customers.

The woman, who wore a dark purple dress with restrained red embroidery around the neck, explained that the technique was more than a thousand years old and had originated in Japan.

‘Arab culture brought it to Europe in the fifteenth century,' she said in accented English. ‘After years of neglect Venice gave it a new birth when I was a child. We have many craftsmen who marble paper now – and craftswomen,' she added with a smile.

She nodded at the marbling tray on the table. Urbino drew a little closer. The entire liquid surface was spotted with yellow, red, and blue colors.

‘Earlier I dropped the colors in with a brush, each color separately. Now I pull the colors into different lines with this.' She indicated a pointed instrument that had the desired effect when she used it on the surface of the liquid. The spots became transformed into wavy lines from the top of the tray to the bottom. ‘Very carefully I bring this comb across the surface and – as you see – the marble appears.'

The tourists gave appreciative murmurs as the lines became marbled.

‘And I place a sheet of white paper on top of the liquid – like this – but I must be attentive not to let any air stay beneath.'

The small woman had muscular arms, as if she were a sportswoman or worked out regularly. And yet she placed the sheet of paper on top of the liquid with delicacy and care. After doing this, she lifted the sheet slowly. One side was completely marbled. She hung the sheet from a cord near the back wall.

After the demonstration the customers went around the well-stocked shop selecting various items. The young saleswoman was helping them. The
cartaio
, the owner of the paper shop – for this is whom Urbino assumed the woman in the purple dress was – started to clean and neaten her implements.

Urbino examined a display of notebooks. Between each empty page of heavy gauge paper was an onion leaf. The covers were in various patterns of marbled paper with strong cotton corners and bindings. He selected a small notebook in the old Venetian red flame pattern. The
fiammato
had touches of gold. During the past few years the contessa had taken up the habit of jotting down thoughts and impressions from time to time. She had filled three books of a similar size. Urbino had noticed that she had only a few pages left in her newest notebook. Urbino, who was seldom without a notebook, selected one in peacock green for himself.

The
cartaio
was at the cash register.

‘It's a very nice shop,' he said in English.

‘Thank you. It's mine. I'm Clementina Foppa.'

Urbino introduced himself and mentioned that he lived in Venice.

‘I'll tell my friends about your place,' he added.

‘Thank you. It isn't on one of the main routes. I'd be grateful for any help of that kind. Word of mouth is the best advertisement.'

The woman had a soft, melodious voice. It seemed touched with sadness.

As Foppa's assistant was wrapping the gift, Urbino's attention was drawn to an oblong sheet of paper, encased in clear plastic, tacked on the cluttered board behind the counter. It was the size of a sheet of typing paper and not marbled. It was one of the death notices that were customarily displayed in the city by members of the deceased's family. They sometimes had a photograph of the deceased, as did this one. The notices usually appeared on the front door of the dead person's residence, at points throughout the neighborhood, and at his or her place of work. He had noticed one in Cannaregio the other night during what he had called his corpse tour.

The person in the photograph looked familiar. Confusion coursed through Urbino. Surely it was a photograph of Claudio! This was impossible of course. He had just seen Claudio yesterday, alive and well in the final qualifying competition.

The photograph was a black-and-white one of a handsome young man with thick dark hair and deep-set eyes. He did indeed resemble Claudio. With some effort Urbino made out his name. Luca Benigni. He couldn't read the rest of the notice but he knew it would contain appropriate sentiments about the deceased, a list of survivors, the date of death, and the place and time of the funeral.

Sometimes photographs of the dead were taken years, even decades before, but this photograph was not one of this kind. For it looked as if it had been taken as recently as three and a half weeks ago when Urbino and the contessa had been at Florian's.