The Veils of Venice (23 page)

Eugene's criticism of the painting as a wedding gift from a husband to a wife was far from the first one the contessa had heard.

‘I understand what you mean, but my husband and I shared a deep love for the painter. I like to think that the woman is about to choose between the two men and that it's the right choice. It will change her life for the better, as happened to me. Would you like a drink?'

‘I could go for some of that powerful stuff they sell on the bridge by your villa.'

‘Grappa. We'll have drinks while we're looking at the Fortuny exhibition downstairs. But I won't join you in the grappa. It's too strong for me. I'll have sherry.'

‘Just like Urbino. Never understood why the two of you haven't got hitched by now. You got a whole lot in common.'

The contessa took advantage of pouring out the drinks to screen her embarrassment. ‘Urbino and I are content with the way things are. And, of course, there's a bit of difference in our ages.'

‘As if that's stopped any older man from marryin' a young gal! My May-Foy is fifteen years younger. You aren't very old. Don't be puttin' yourself down like that.'

‘Besides, think of Urbino,' Eugene pursued. ‘What he needs is an older woman, plain as day. Maybe that's why he and Evie never worked out.'

Eugene mercifully dropped the topic. Ten minutes later, they were in the exhibition room, Eugene with his generous portion of Nardini grappa and the contessa with her sherry.

The items that Eufrosina had been photographing outside their cases had not been reinstalled yet. Eugene gave only quick glances at the purses, scarves, and pillows, but he inspected the Fortuny gowns with much more interest, especially Apollonia's.

The contessa had received another dress a few days ago. It was still in its tan box. She took it out and unwrapped it from its tissue. It was a pale green silk tea dress. She untwisted it and held it up. Like the other dresses in the collection it was in excellent condition, showing not even the slightest of tears at the edges of the pleats.

‘You see. No wrinkles even though it has been in the box. It's the secret of Fortuny's pleats.'

She handed the dress to him. For such a large man, he held it gently and ran one hand softly against the fabric. ‘It's so soft. And look at the way the color changes, all different kinds of green.'

The contessa rewrapped the dress in the tissue paper and returned it to the box. Eugene had returned to look at Apollonia's Fortuny gown.

‘A real beauty. It would make a fine birthday gift for May-Foy. The red and the gold would look great on her. She has just the colorin' for it. And she's a little bitty thing, May-Foy is. She wouldn't have any trouble squeezin' into it.'

‘The dresses are designed to fit most women.'

‘Wasn't he a sharp fellow! Do you think this one here might be for sale?'

‘I don't know. Even if it were, it wouldn't be available until after May. And it belonged to the woman who died the day you were visiting the museum.'

‘The mother of that voodoo guy? Do you think you could ask him? Not now with the funeral and all. I'm not in a big rush. May-Foy's birthday's not comin' up until August. And price is no object.'

‘I'll see what I can do. There's also a daughter involved. But if I can't get this one, I can try to locate another.'

‘Thank you, but unless you can find one exactly like this one here, I'd rather have none at all. Only that one will do. I'm a very particular man.'

‘I can see that, Eugene.'

After Eugene left for the Danieli in the motorboat, the contessa took her own solitary tour of the house, with Zouzou either at her heels or in her arms.

It was a large house, large enough to embrace many people, large enough to seem sadly empty at a dead time of the year like this. The contessa periodically filled it with guests, taking advantage of as many anniversaries and holidays and festivals as she could and even generating ones of her own. This Fortuny exhibition was, among other things, one of the latter. She would have family and friends from as far away as Argentina and New Zealand staying with her in May. Before then, there would be several people passing through town who would settle into the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini for days, even weeks. And carnival would soon be coming. Over the years she had made her peace with the raucous holiday and saw it as a good opportunity to get together with people in her own restrained, but festive way.

She went to the
salotto blu
to retrieve da Ponte's memoirs, which she had been reading before she had gone out with Urbino. She looked at the Veronese with more attention than she usually gave it. It had become such a familiar object among all her other possessions that she did not see it any more, not the way she used to. That was one of the dangers of being surrounded by so much. You stopped seeing things – even the most obvious and beautiful of them. That was why someone like Eugene was to be welcomed – welcomed for his uncluttered eye and his direct gaze.

Seeing things as others saw them … Urbino was better at this than she was. The case he was involved in now – the case they were
both
involved in, she corrected herself – required this kind of vision. Maybe the Pindar clan, as Urbino called her relatives, had become too familiar to her eye and mind – and her heart.

Her steps carried her up the tall winding staircase to the Caravaggio Room, which she had not shown Eugene. When she went inside, her eyes went to the painting that gave the room its name. It was a portrait of a round-faced, feminine-looking young man caressing a mandolin. With a mocking smile on his full lips, he wore lipstick and rouge, and his thick, auburn hair was adorned with a large white flower. His green robe, which had slipped provocatively off one shoulder, gave him even more of an epicene look.

Zouzou was sniffing around in a corner. The contessa seldom went into this room, although it was no longer locked as it had been for many decades. Unlocking it several years ago, hard though it had been for her to do, had been the key to solving a murder that had taken place in the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini back in the thirties – but not before another murder had taken place in it.

Urbino had solved the deadly mysteries associated with the Caravaggio Room. Surely it must be on his mind these days because of the locked blue rooms at the Palazzo Pindar. She hoped he would consider her suggestion that he enlist Eugene's help.

‘Come, Zouzou. Let's go upstairs to Mina's room.'

The cocker spaniel gave a few last sniffs. The contessa closed the door on the Caravaggio portrait.

She took the back staircase up to the staff's quarters. Giovanna, who had been with her for almost three decades, greeted her from the entrance to the staff hall. She did not ask if the contessa wanted anything. Giovanna clearly must know that she was upstairs to go into Mina's room. It had become her habit since Mina had been arrested.

Zouzou jumped on Mina's bed, her white fur standing out against the turquoise blue of the chenille spread. The faint scent of Mina's perfume hung in the air.

Mina's room looked over the garden and was similar to the other bedrooms on the floor. In addition to the bed, it had a large chest of drawers, a small sink, an armoire, a table and a chair, a small sofa, several area rugs, and velvet drapes. The walls were painted terracotta red.

When she had married the conte, all the staff bedrooms – as well as their dining hall and parlor and the housekeeper's parlor – had been repainted and refurnished, making them much more comfortable and far less severe than they had been. The contessa had given the rooms many of the good pieces of furniture from the storeroom. Over the years she had made additional improvements and had had them repainted several times.

After Mina had arrived, the contessa had been tempted to add a few special touches to her chamber, but she had limited herself only to hanging one of her Pietro Longhi paintings on the wall beside the window. It was a delicate little scene of a mother and a child playing with a terrier. The mother, with her small, round face and dark expressive eyes, resembled Mina. The fact that Mina's last name was Longo made the choice of the Longhi even more appropriate in the contessa's mind.

The contessa looked around the room to be sure that everything was the way it had been when Mina had left it. She would keep the room waiting for her, and it would be hers to use even if she left the contessa's employ. She filled a ceramic pitcher with water at the sink and poured it on the lush fern in the corner of the room.

The contessa knew that she should not be doing it, but she was already planning the future for Mina. She would encourage her to continue her education. The girl had many interests, many abilities.

The contessa was about to leave when she noticed a photograph lying on the bedside table next to the lamp. She had seen it before. It showed a smiling Olimpia and Mina with the Bridge of Sighs behind them. It was the classic memento for lovers. She was tempted to ask Giorgio Lanzani to take it to Mina, but the photograph might create problems for her at the prison. She would have to give it more consideration.

With Zouzou in her arms, the contessa descended the staircase to the exhibition room. She spent several minutes looking at Apollonia's silk gown.

Efigenia's gown. Apollonia's gown. Both women gone, and the dress had survived them. Now, it was most likely Eufrosina's. But the contessa cautioned herself. It was possible that Apollonia, for whatever reason, might have arranged for it to go to someone other than her daughter, just as Olimpia had bypassed her sister and willed the contessa the ocelot coat.

Perhaps the gown would soon grace the figure of May-Foy Hennepin, thousands of miles away in a different world, a woman who belonged to a different family. Although the contessa was a fervent believer in tradition and continuity, she hoped the gown would make the journey and that it would get a new life in America.

It was not healthy to cling too much to things of the past. The Pindar family needed to make some changes. They had to break free. For them the past was not only unhealthy, it even might be deadly.

Eufrosina and Alessandro had been freed by their mother's death from her demands and vigilance.

Ercule wanted to break free, and the contessa hoped that he would have the chance. Maybe he had been the one to break off the secret engagement with Nedda – in order to keep himself available for what he really wanted to do. The contessa could not imagine him having any place in Nedda's life of social service, although if they had married, Nedda would have been leading a different life than the one she was leading now. As Nedda had said to Urbino, if you change the past, you change the future. Achille's death and the end of her engagement to Ercule, as well as her husband's death, had freed her to have the life she now did. Ercule, during the twenty-five years since Achille's death and his ruptured engagement, had been waiting, preparing to be free.

Gaby's situation was a much darker one. The contessa had less hope for her unless she got the professional attention she needed.

But a cloud was over them all – Eufrosina, Alessandro, Ercule, and Gaby – and even over Nedda because of her links to the extended Pindar family. Until Olimpia's murderer was exposed – a murderer who was hiding among them, of this Urbino had sadly convinced her – the cloud over the others would remain and they could not be truly free. In fact, some of them might be in danger.

A great deal was at stake. A great deal depended on Urbino – and on her, for whatever help she could continue to give him. It was a grim business, and poor Mina was right in the middle of it all, bravely enduring her long days on the Giudecca.

Following this disturbing train of thought, the contessa said aloud a few minutes later, ‘Nick and Nora did it for the fun of it. I wish we were.'

One of the advantages of having a dog or a cat near you at moments like these was that people could think you were speaking to it when you were talking to yourself.

To reinforce her deception of the darkening shadows in the room and any unseen, unknown ears, the contessa added, ‘Do you know what I mean, Zouzou?'

The cocker spaniel waved her white plume of a tail as if she had understood and were giving her mistress a comforting agreement, and not just responding to her name, spoken so lovingly.

Half an hour later, as the contessa was unsuccessfully trying to calm her thoughts with da Ponte's memoirs so that she could have a nap before teatime, the telephone rang.

It was Corrado Scarpa. She could not have been less prepared for what he had to say, although she had been hoping to hear the words during every waking hour since Mina's arrest.

‘It's all arranged, contessa. You can see Mina Longo tomorrow morning.'

Eleven

As Urbino walked along the embankment of the Giudecca after parting from the contessa that afternoon, the
bora
buffeted him. It made him feel good to think of the wind blowing all the way from the steppes of Russia and St Petersburg, or so he imagined it. And there would be another snowstorm soon. He could feel it coming.

He was tempted to take a short detour and walk past the Women's Penitentiary. But it was a dismal building on even the sunniest of days, and there was no chance he could visit Mina. He did not need to see the building to feel it lowering over him and the contessa, with its reminder of how he had to set Mina free within – what was it? – little more than a week.

Urbino was hoping that Oriana Borelli could play her role. In every social set, there is usually one person who is the repository, if not also the conscientious collector, of personal information about other members of the group. Oriana not only fit into this category but also embraced it. Over the years she had provided pieces of information that had been invaluable to Urbino in solving his cases. For this reason, he was now appealing to her.