Farewell to the Flesh (42 page)

“I mean nothing by it, except that it's the truth. I want nothing from you.” Flavia seemed to reconsider this, for she added, “Nothing but a photograph of my father.” She paused before adding, “Your husband, Alvise.”

Flavia was walking back and forth slowly until she reached a formerly overlooked easel portrait in a corner. It was of Alvise, from around the time of his marriage. Flavia stared at it for a few moments and gave a little sigh before turning back to the Contessa.

“My father was such a handsome man.”

Without missing a beat, the Contessa said, “That is my husband, the Conte Alvise Severino Falier da Capo-Zendrini,” wrapping Alvise's indisputable relationship to her, his names, and his title around her like a protective cloak.

Flavia turned from the portrait and picked up one of the hand-painted ceramic
fischietti
from the marble ormolu-mounted table. The whistle she was holding was in the shape of a sea horse. She seemed about to put it to her lips but returned it to the table with the other bird and animal whistles, and smiled. There was something actressy and calculated in her movements.

“My father—I mean the man who
says
he's my father—the man who
believes
he is,” she finally clarified with a trace of the violence that had been in her stride earlier, “would love your little collection here. Lorenzo collects things, too. He has a whole room filled with photographs and portraits of my mother.” Her face darkened as if at an unpleasant memory. “She was very beautiful, my mother, and Lorenzo always insisted on having her portrait painted and her picture taken. Perhaps one of her portraits ended up here at your villa, Contessa.”

Flavia looked around the room as if in search of a portrait of her mother that she had overlooked.

“My dear Signorina—Flavia,” the Contessa added almost reluctantly, “you are being insufferable. I'm afraid I'm going to have to—”

“Ask me to leave?” the woman completed the Contessa's sentence. “But I said I couldn't stay long in any case. You do have time to look at this photograph of me, though.”

Flavia reached into the pocket of her dress and took out a small, black-and-white photo, ragged around the edges. She handed it to the Contessa, who looked at it and gave it to Urbino. A pretty girl about ten smiled out at him.

“Yes, that's me, a long time ago,” Flavia said. Her voice had an echo of a dead girl's voice. She took the photograph back and returned it to her pocket.

She moved toward the door, pausing to dip her hand in an
acquasantiera
filled with holy water. She didn't so much bless herself, however, as rub her forehead with the water as if she were feverish. In fact, she did look flushed, no longer as infuriatingly aloof as before. Her green eyes now glittered. The dead, lifeless look had been replaced with something close to passion.

“Remember, Contessa, I would like a photograph of my father! I will be in touch with you about it!” She pushed her auburn hair away from her face. “I must have one from you—only from you! Good afternoon.”

Before the Contessa could say anything, Flavia hurried out into the hall. Catullus started to follow her.

“Catullus!” the Contessa called in a peremptory tone.

The dog paused and seemed to consider two desires—to follow the departing woman or to obey his mistress. After what seemed inordinately long seconds of indecisiveness, Catullus turned around and came to the Contessa's side. The Contessa, her face now etched with all the years of the decade she could usually deny having lived, breathed a sigh of relief completely disproportionate to the smallness of this victory over the beautiful young woman who had shattered the Watteau of her garden party.

3

It Was Sunday. Urbino and the Contessa were sitting on the terrace of the Caffè Centrale in the main square of Asolo. Usually they were content to enjoy the idyllic scene in Piazza Garibaldi—the liquid music of the fifteenth-century winged-lion fountain, the profusion of bright flowers hanging from the arcade windows, the arrival and departure of the jitney buses from the bottom of the hill, the people strolling on the pink and yellow marble pavements, and the view of the golden-stoned castle and the green hills beyond.

Today, however, not even the charms of this town so beloved by Browning that he had named his last volume of poems after it could soothe them, especially not the Contessa. To an even less discerning and affectionate eye than Urbino's own, she was very troubled.

“Even its name mocks me today,” she said wearily, staring with sleep-deprived eyes at the arcade opposite. The seafoam of her dress, usually a flattering shade for her, this afternoon drained her of color. Urbino knew what she meant. The town in whose rose gardens Giorgione had lingered with his lute and where the Venetian Queen of Cyprus had held fabled court had bequeathed its name to a verb. Pietro Bembo, the Renaissance humanist who had used Asolo as the setting for his dialogues on love, had coined the verb
asolare
to describe spending one's time in pleasurable inactivity.

One of the Contessa's favorite phrases during her summers here was
Asolo in Asolo
, whose meaning lost its wit when translated into any other language as “I'm doing sweet nothing in Asolo.”

“I won't have a peaceful moment until this is resolved, Urbino,” she said, abandoning her spoon beside her barely touched
Coppa Tartufo
and absently fingering her strand of freshwater pearls. “I'm devastated. She's not playing a prank, I assure you. She meant everything she was saying. I could see it in her eyes.”

Because Urbino had been struck with just how little Flavia's eyes had seemed to reveal—unless it was their very vacuousness that had been so voluble—he found the Contessa's comment puzzling.

“Oh, I don't mean that I believe she was telling the truth—I have absolutely no reason to believe that—absolutely none,” she emphasized, not meeting his eye. “But she was convinced of what she said.”

“The best way to convince someone else of your lies is to believe them yourself,” he said, feeling foolish even before the words were out of his mouth.

The Contessa managed a wry smile.

“I don't have the energy or the desire to try to figure out if that's a platitude or a profundity,
caro
, but I accept the intended consolation. Perhaps our Flavia is herself not aware of her own intentions.”

“She said she only wants a picture of Alvise.”

“Don't play the role of the
naïf
, Urbino. It doesn't really suit you—or maybe it suits you all too well! But you're wrong. She wants more than a picture. She must be thinking of lire—unless she just wants to smash Alvise's—and my—reputations out of pure maliciousness. I've already put my solicitor here on alert. He says to do nothing, of course, and I've advised him to do the same. In any case, to give her a picture would be to give her everything, don't you think? It would be the great acknowledgment, the painful admission. It would be admitting that she was right. I can't even say that I ever suspected such a thing, that I even considered it a possibility. Perhaps
I'm
the one who's naïve—who's been naïve for the past twenty or more years. I'm sure this Flavia isn't much over twenty-five. That would make it about nine years after we were married.”

The Contessa narrowed her eyes as she apparently tried to remember the period in question, then shook her head and picked up her spoon, only to put it down again.

“It would have been around the time of the maze. Alvise never really wanted one. I should have respected his wishes.”

As if this might be the original sin for which she was now suffering, she sighed deeply.

“Of course, if there's anything in all this,” she said in a low voice, as if speaking only to herself, “it could have begun before then, long before then.”

Urbino didn't interrupt the Contessa's thoughts, but plucked and ate the grapes in his iced bowl and absently watched the people descending from the jitney bus. Among them was a smiling, broad-faced man who for a few startling moments Urbino thought he recognized. But the man's loud German spoken to a stout woman behind him dispelled the unexpected possibility that his ex-brother-in-law Eugene had somehow found his way at not the best of moments to Urbino's retreat in Asolo.

“I can't go on like this,” the Contessa said. “I
refuse
to! I must know.”

Silvestro Occhipinti's thin, reedy voice sounded in Urbino's ears from yesterday—the birdlike man's quotation from his beloved Browning about the danger of losing our Edens by prying where the apple reddens. The Contessa was obviously not going to be satisfied until she had pried in the orchard of her own past with Alvise. But after the satisfaction of that would come—what? Urbino shared the fear on his friend's face.

“You can help me,
caro
. You can find out if this young woman could conceivably be telling the truth. If she is, I owe her something more than only the picture she says she wants. And if she isn't—oh, if she isn't, Urbino, I'll never stop thanking you!”

But what might he get instead of gratitude if he had to tell her that Flavia
was
Alvise's daughter?

“I
must
know,
caro
,” the Contessa said again, this time reaching out to press his hand gently as if he were the one in need of consolation. “Don't be afraid just because I am. It will be your chance to live out one of your fantasies,” she said, her face lightening as she gave him a little smile. “‘The knight in shining armor' rescuing a lady in distress. And whatever you end up finding out, there's going to be a lady grateful for a rescue, isn't there? You can't lose. Don't you see that? It's a mission made in heaven!”

“I can see that I'm in a difficult position.”

“Because you think you have no choice? You can always say no.”

“And forever be made to regret it.”

“So you're going to help me! You can't hide anything from me, you see, no matter how hard you might try. And I know what
I
have to do. I'm going to have to tell you all about Alvise and me again, not just what I already have, but other things. It's not that I've intentionally held anything back from you—not the way
you
have, you sly thing!—but that I've kept much of it to myself. It's not quite the same,
caro
, so don't give me that look!”

As far as Urbino knew, he was giving her no look except one of sincere interest. He had always wondered about the Contessa's marriage, had always felt that there was something that he didn't understand even though he knew so much about it. Perhaps he was going to learn what it was now. Yet he felt uneasy. This wasn't quite the way he wanted to find out, not when so much was at stake for the Contessa and so much was expected of him. As a biographer, he was wary of any strong personal involvement that made him reluctant to discover unpleasant truths or eager to find their opposite.

“I assure you that I won't hold you responsible for anything I might end up regretting I've told you—or anything that you dig up in your inimitable way. But before I begin I'm going to need a fresh
coppa
,” she said, looking down at her almost completely melted gelato.

After ordering another
Coppa Tartufo
and a Campari soda for himself, Urbino waited for the Contessa to begin, but first she ate her gelato slowly and silently, as if fortifying herself for a difficult ordeal.

Buy
Liquid Desires
Now!

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1991 by Edward Sklepowich

Cover design by Elizabeth Connor

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0130-4

This 2015 edition published by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

THE MYSTERIES OF VENICE

FROM
MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA