The Lying Tongue (2 page)

Before I could say anything, I heard the click of high heels on marble behind me. I turned around to face a woman. Everything about her was doll-like, petite and perfect. She was middle-aged, but her alabaster face was curiously free of lines.

“Adam, I am…pleased that…you have come,” she said. Her English was heavily accented, and she pronounced the words as if she were trying to navigate her way across a stretch of slippery stepping stones. “Niccolò is pleased, also, that you have come.”

As we shook hands, she gestured to her husband, the man by the window. He turned and walked toward me. Like his wife, Niccolò Gondolini was immaculately presented, but deeply tanned with oil-black hair swept off his forehead. On his wrist he wore a chunky watch, its face circled by diamonds.

“Please, this way,” he said, gesturing toward a room off the hallway. He frowned, perhaps because he was not comfortable speaking English. I told them that I understood basic Italian and that if they spoke slowly I would be able to follow them. From then on they spoke in their own language.

The three of us entered a white cube of a room. The only furniture was a low-lying, gray sofa and one high-backed chair. The walls were completely free of paintings and bookcases.

“You can sit here,” said Signor Gondolini, pointing toward the sofa. His wife smiled reassuringly at me, but I could tell there was something wrong. Niccolò looked down at the floor.

“I’m afraid we have… something…of a…a…a difficulty,” said Signor Gondolini.

“Yes,” said his wife. “It’s best we get straight to the point: it seems that we cannot offer you a job after all, Mr. Woods.”

“I’m sorry?” I said.

Signora Gondolini turned toward her husband, expecting him to provide an explanation. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“What is the problem?” I asked.

The man remained silent.

“It’s like this,” said his wife. “It’s rather—how shall I put it?—embarrassing. Everything was ready for you and Antonio; well, he was really looking forward to you coming here. But then we discovered something. It’s a little…delicate.”

There was another pause as they looked at one another. Niccolò seemed to nod in her direction as if giving his wife permission to carry on.

“It seems our son has done something rather stupid,” she continued. “Late last night we received a call from the husband of our maid. As soon as I picked up the phone, he started shouting and screaming. I told him to calm down, to slow down. He was calling Antonio all these names—filthy, dirty names that I don’t need to repeat to you. But he said that…that Antonio had been seeing his daughter, Isola. That morning she hadn’t gotten out of bed. Her mother went in to see what was wrong. She was crying, you see. At first she refused to tell her what was wrong. But then she blurted it out—she is pregnant. Pregnant with what she said is Antonio’s child.”

Her voice dropped down to a whisper, so I had to lean a little closer to her. She smelt faintly of honeysuckle.

“Adam, she is only fourteen years old and—”

“So you can imagine what we did,” Niccolò interrupted. “We questioned him, asked him whether it was true. Yes, he had been with Isola, they had had… some kind of relations. Finally he said that he would stand by her—a ridiculous idea. The stupid boy! He is just sixteen. His life is ahead of him. A nonsense!”

“There was a real commotion—you can imagine, Adam, can’t you?” said his wife. “But there was no way we could allow him to throw his life away. So this morning we arranged for him to fly to New York to stay with my sister. It’s all still rather messy with Isola’s parents, of course—God only knows, it’s going to be impossible to carry on employing Maria—but we’ll have to sort something out. But I’m afraid that’s really no good for you, is it?”

My new world had just collapsed and anger coursed through me, but I found myself nodding sympathetically. “Of course it can’t be helped,” I said. “I’ll find something else. Like you say, you had to do what was best for Antonio. And I suppose he can improve his English in New York just as well as if he were stuck here with me.”

“I’m pleased that you understand, Adam,” she said. “It’s so kind of you. Niccolò and I were so worried about what to say to you. We felt so responsible.”

Niccolò’s large hand reached inside his jacket and pulled out his wallet. “We will pay you your first month—that’s the least we can do,” he said. “And if there’s anything else you need, just let us know.”

I took the three hundred euros. I knew that wouldn’t get me very far, but I smiled anyway and thanked him.

“What will you do?” asked Signora Gondolini. “Will you go back to London? We could also pay your flight, don’t you think, Niccolò?”

“Sì, sì,
of course,” he replied. “Have a little holiday and then just tell us when you are ready. We’ll get the ticket for you.”

But what had Britain to offer? A broken relationship and the prospect of a summer at home with my parents in Hertfordshire. And I had to write my novel. When I had told my father of my ambitions to write, he had just sneered at me. No, I had to stay.

“I think I’ll stick around in Venice a little while,” I said. “I suppose I’ll try and find another job. I’m not in the mood to go back home just yet and—”

Signora Gondolini jumped up from the chair, her perfect black bob swinging around her face as she did so. As she spoke, her tiny hands flapped in the air like a pair of butterflies. “Niccolò—Niccolò—,” she said with delight. “I’ve got it!”

“Cosa?”
Her husband looked at her with slight irritation.

“The perfect job—for Adam,” she said, turning toward me. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.” She took a couple of breaths and started again. “You remember the old English gentleman Maria used to do errands for?”

Her husband looked at her blankly.

“You know—the one who never goes out. The writer—what is he called?—Gordon, Gordon… Crace. That’s it. The one who wrote that book years ago and then—nothing.”

I could see that Niccolò still didn’t really understand what his excitable wife was twittering about and that as far as he was concerned, he had fulfilled his side of the bargain. He was a rich man who had eased his conscience by paying me and offering me a flight. Now he just wanted to get rid of me. No doubt my shabbiness was beginning to annoy him in his elegant surroundings.

“Have we ever met him?” he asked.

“No—I told you, he hasn’t been out for years,” she replied. “But Maria had said that he’s getting a little…old…and needs a companion. Someone who will get his shopping, do the odd errand for him, tidy the place up. Is that something you might do, Adam?”

To be honest, anything that would let me stay in Venice would have appealed, and I was intrigued.

“Yes, of course. That sounds great,” I said.

But then her expression changed.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“Well, there could be,” she said. “The best way to get hold of him would, of course, be through Maria. But now it’s a little awkward between us. She’s not so friendly to us, as you can imagine, and I doubt she’ll come back.”

“Yes, I see.”

“But I’ll give you his address. Maria wrote it down for me once as a reference, although do you remember if we ever received a reply?”

Niccolò shook his head.

“Maybe you should write to him anyway. I don’t think he has a telephone.”

She walked across the room and into the hallway and came back with a piece of paper and a fountain pen. Ink flowed onto the blank sheet in great big loops. She passed it to me and I read the address. Palazzo Pellico, Calle delle Celle. I must have looked confused because the next thing I knew, Signora Gondolini took out a map.

“Let’s see if we can find it for you,” she said.

Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I was convinced that as her finger moved over the map, it traced the form of a question mark across the city.

I couldn’t bear to check back into that dive of a hotel, so, on the Gondolinis’ recommendation, I walked to a cheap but clean pensione in Castello. They had a room—nothing special, but at least I didn’t feel as though my skin was creeping off me. After unpacking, I asked for a sheet of writing paper and an envelope and, in the small bar, I wrote a letter asking the reclusive Gordon Crace for a job.

Before leaving the Gondolinis’, the Signora had filled me in on his short-lived but nevertheless quite spectacular literary career. His first and only novel,
The Debating Society,
published in the sixties, was a sensation. It had been greeted with enormous critical acclaim and translated into all the major languages. His publishers and readers all around the world had waited for another book—he was nothing less than
una stella,
she said—but he had never produced, or at least never published, another novel. Apparently, with the money from the film rights Crace was rich enough never to need to write again, but for someone of such passion, of such drive, it was strange never to want to see your name in print again. Perhaps he had nothing else to write about, she surmised. Maybe he was burned out. Or could it have something to do with affairs of the heart? Signora Gondolini’s black eyes twinkled as she said this; her husband turned his head and pretended not to hear.

I had already heard enough to be intrigued. In the letter I told him how I had heard about the job and went on to outline my background—my degree in art history at London University (results pending), a basic grounding in Italian, and a need to stay for at least three to six months so I could start writing my novel. I said that although I liked to think I could be good company, noting what Signora Gondolini had told me about Crace, I also added that I appreciated silence and the need for privacy. It wasn’t a masterpiece of a letter by any means, but it was succinct and, I hoped, without pretension. I folded it carefully, eased it into the envelope and sealed it. I wrote the address of the hotel on the back and checked my map. Crace’s palazzo was only a ten or fifteen-minute walk away. I decided that instead of posting it, I’d deliver the letter personally. I gathered my things together and walked out into the night.

Although teeming with tourists during the day, when the sun dipped over the lagoon, Venice transformed itself into another city altogether. As I wandered down unmarked streets, catching fragments of the moon’s reflection in the waters, I felt myself slipping away. I had no thoughts about finding a job, Eliza or the situation back home. No one knew me here and I was free.

I walked through Campo Santa Maria Formosa, where the Virgin, in a shapely guise, was supposed to have appeared to St. Magnus, past the church built in her name, and carried on down one of the calles off the square. I wandered around the tangle of alleyways that all seemed to lead down to the same dark canal, but I still couldn’t find the address. Then, near the Calle degli Orbi, I passed a narrow passageway that didn’t seem to have a name.

At the end of the gloomy alleyway, I came to a slightly wider calle—Calle delle Celle, “the street of the cells”—at the bottom of which stood Crace’s palazzo. The only entrance was a tiny bridge that ran from the street over the water to an imposing doorway that was illuminated by an outside light. Behind the door it looked as though there was a courtyard. Running down the center of the large, three-story, perfectly symmetrical building, like a spine of a long-dead monster, was a series of arched windows, four on each level, the extrados sculpted out of white marble. In one of the rooms on the first floor, candles flickered, illuminating patches of the darkened interior and casting strange shadows onto the ceiling. There was no sound except for the gentle lapping of the water.

I took the envelope out of my bag and walked as quietly as possible across the bridge. The letter box was on the left side of the door, carved into the marble gate in the shape of a dragon’s head. As I pushed the letter into the creature’s mouth, my hand brushing against its worn-down teeth, I stepped into a circle of light. Back over the bridge, I looked up once more to see a shadow crossing the room before melting into the dark.