The Veils of Venice (29 page)

Urbino, who looked suddenly uncomfortable, showed no inclination to pursue the topic. He patted his pocket, where he had put the contract and the letter. ‘I'll try to find a graphologist. As for the letter, I'll photocopy it – very carefully – and hand it over to the Questura. They need to know about it. But I don't have any faith in Gemelli.' Gemelli was the police commissario. Over the years, Urbino had developed a strained relationship with him. ‘He's not likely to take anything I say about this situation seriously and it won't help that all I have – all
we
have – is theories.'

‘Gemelli
should
listen to you, considering the help you've given him. He's made fun of your theories before, but he's benefited from them in the end.'

‘I'll do the best I can. And we should tell Lanzani about it. I will leave that to you. But don't let anyone else know about the letter. No one.'

It had become a habit so quickly, this wandering around the house at night. The contessa was getting as obsessive on her rounds as Urbino was in his walks through the city. She always began from her boudoir, after she had retired for the night, and found that sleep would not come.

Tonight she had lain in bed, awake for two hours, her hand on the sleeping Zouzou, her head filled with worries and the initials “A” and “E” streaming through it. And she kept going over her visit to Mina. She became upset for finding comfort in one thing Mina had said – that under no circumstances would she keep any of the inheritance she got from Olimpia. Mina might change her mind, of course. It was not as if she was thinking clearly where she was now.

But the rise in the contessa's hopes that she might have Mina back at the house was followed by a drop in her opinion of herself as she realized how selfish her hopes were.

With a sigh, she got out of bed, pulled on her robe, and started her rounds. Zouzou, after staring after her from her position on the bed, joined her reluctantly.

She went up to the staff quarters and looked around Mina's clean, neat little room. She restrained herself from opening drawers and going into her cupboard. The thought that she might find something that could help Mina briefly tempted her, but she knew she was providing an excuse for herself. Yet the temptation was a strong one. In knowing more about Mina – and when it came down to it, she knew relatively little – she would feel closer to her. No, she would not give in to the temptation.

She went down to her study. It was a small, jewel box of a room, draped in Fortuny fabric. It was here that she did all the paperwork for the house and her other concerns, and corresponded with friends and family. She straightened up items scattered across her writing table.

Before she left the room, she went over to a large, glass-sheeted frame on the wall, which held her passport photographs over the years. Urbino had suggested the idea, which she had resisted at first, because of the evidence it would give of the passage of time. But she had come to like the series of black-and-white photographs taken at the five-year intervals she preferred for each new passport.

She traced with her eye how the fresh face she had brought to Venice when she had come to study music had gradually evolved into the much older one of last year. What she concentrated on was not what had been lost and left behind, but on what had endured and what had been gained. Even tonight, with her spirits so low, the photographs under the glass encouraged her with their evidence of the person she had become, the person who was doing all she could to help Mina.

With Zouzou following her, the contessa descended the grand staircase to the
piano nobile
. The long-case clock chimed the first hour of the day. The loud dull note sounded more like the end of something than the beginning.

She stood in the large doorway of the ballroom after turning on the chandeliers. The room, with its gilded moldings, stuccoed ceiling, and sixteenth-century tapestry, brought memories of all the celebrations it had witnessed, as well as expectations of the ones to come.

But festivities, past or future, were not something she wanted to think about, not with Mina on the Giudecca.

Down in the exhibition room, the contessa stood in front of Apollonia's garnet-colored gown, thinking of Apollonia and her aunt Efigenia and her daughter Eufrosina, all connected to the Fortuny. Soon, perhaps, its relationship to the Pindar family would be broken, and Eugene would buy the gown. The contessa had little doubt that Eufrosina would be eager to part with it for the excellent price Eugene was sure to offer.

Back on the
piano nobile
, the contessa made a quick survey of the library, where the volume of the German encyclopedia still lay on the table, and then went into the morning room. Zouzou jumped on the sofa and started to settle herself on it. Sometimes the contessa would spend a restless night here or in the
salotto blu
, lying on the sofa with Zouzou beside her, waiting for the dawn.

She opened the photograph album she had been paging through with Urbino on the day of Olimpia's strange and unexpected visit that seemed so impossibly long ago. She looked through it idly – at the photographs of the beautiful Apollonia in her Fortuny dress, her aunt Efigenia, Ercule in his Turkish regalia, Gaby and Olimpia in Trafalgar Square, and Gaby in the Piazza San Marco.

How sad that Gaby's life was so diminished these days, spent within the walls of the Palazzo Pindar, tending to the collection and keeping the keys of the blue rooms. Was the light-hearted young woman, the one filled with a sense of what wonderful things life had to offer, the young woman the contessa still remembered so well – was there anything left of her? Was Gaby –?

The contessa broke off her thoughts abruptly. A few moments later, she was dialling Urbino's number.

‘Hello?'

She could tell from his voice that she had awakened him. She did not apologize but started right in, ‘We forgot something. Or it's more that
I
forgot, since I've known it a long time and only mentioned it to you once.'

‘It must be important to ring me up at – what time is it? Almost two.'

‘It's about Gaby. I just remembered. Gaby. Gabriella. She used to call herself Ella, and so did everyone else, until she entombed herself in that house. Ella. We have another Pindar “E” to add to the others.'

Fourteen

‘I know Lincoln freed the slaves back home,' Eugene said. ‘But wasn't there some Italian who did it here? Look at the poor fellows!'

Urbino's gondola had just pulled into the Grand Canal from its mooring near the Rialto Bridge. It was being rowed this morning by not only Gildo but also his friend Giovanni, both wearing colorful mackintoshes. The addition of this extra oar made the occasion even more special. Gildo had polished the boat that morning, and it was shining almost like silver. Bright red roses filled the vases on each side of the
felze
.

Urbino was sitting inside the shelter of the
felze
with Frank and Betty Chin, who were cozily sharing the Moroccan blanket. The purchases the Chins and Eugene had made in the Rialto shops took up the remaining available space. Urbino, aware of the gray sky that threatened either rain or more probably snow, had advised that the boxes and bags be kept inside the
felze
. Eugene, without complaint, was obliged to sit on a bench in front of the entrance to the cabin.

Urbino had arranged to meet Eugene and the Chins at the Rialto Bridge an hour and a half ago. Earlier that morning he had gone to the Questura to give the commissario the letter. But Gemelli was on official business on Murano. Urbino turned the letter over to his assistant, along with a report about where it had been found and how it was related to the Longo investigation. He was grateful that the assistant showed more interest than he knew Gemelli would have. He felt he had done what was necessary for the time being.

Shortly afterward, with the help of a friend who worked at the university, Urbino had been able to set up an appointment with a graphologist who occasionally worked with the police. He examined the contract and the letter and confirmed what Urbino had said to the contessa: it was not possible to determine whether the writer of the letter was a man or a woman or whether Eufrosina, based on only her signature, had written the letter.

Disappointed that the graphologist had been unable to shed any light on the letter, he had met Eugene and the Chins at the couple's hotel and taken them to some of his favorite shops in the Rialto area. Eugene had been remarkably restrained on this occasion, buying only two dozen multicolored glass ashtrays of hideous design that his companions could not dissuade him from. The highlight of the Chins' shopping spree had been a shop that sold hand-carved wooden models of Venetian boats. Betty had indulged herself in seven different models and had bought a copy of an illustrated book on Venetian boats that she said the contessa had told Eugene about.

Urbino had looked around the shop to see if there were any of Alessandro's figures for sale, but there weren't any. He described them to the owner of the shop, who told him he remembered Alessandro but that he had declined to buy any of his figures because he only stocked his own designs. Urbino could tell, however, that he did not have a high regard for Alessandro's work.

‘Don't you all feel cooped up inside there?' Eugene shouted as they moved away from the Rialto embankment.

‘We're just fine, Eugene,' Betty said. ‘You're the one losing out. It's very romantic.'

‘A lot more romantic if it was just you and Frank. Urbino's a fifth wheel – or whatever you'd call it in a gondola. Those contraptions are made for lovers, aren't they?'

‘That's been one of their uses,' Urbino said. ‘And to conceal conspirators, too. There were a lot of them in Venice in the old days.'

‘None of those huts on any of the other gondolas though.'

‘They went out of fashion a long time ago.'

‘Out of fashion, is it?' Eugene said. ‘Are you trying to bring it back
in
fashion or are you enjoyin' bein' different?'

‘Now you leave Urbino alone,' Betty said. ‘He's a man of imagination and taste of a European kind. He doesn't seem American at all. Here he is giving us a wonderful experience, isn't he, Frank?'

‘He certainly is. It's very kind of you, Urbino.'

The gondola, guided by the two young men, moved down the Grand Canal toward the Bacino. The murmurs of appreciation at the beauty of the scene from the Chins were gratifying to Urbino.

He kept his comments and descriptions to a minimum, and his opinion of the pleasant Chins went up several more notches when they showed no need to break the silence except to ask an occasional question and to comment on how much more impressive everything was when they were floating in a gondola. Their surrender to the scene was close to complete, and transferred itself to Eugene.

In this shared mood of appreciation, the rows of palaces slowly unrolled themselves on either side. When they reached the Salute, Betty asked Urbino if he could have the gondola stop for a little while. She wanted to savor the wide church whose dome, white and luminous, rose above them.

‘It's my favorite building in Venice, and I never knew it existed before I came!' Betty enthused, further endearing herself to Urbino, whose own opinion of it, enhanced by its location, knew few limits. He could imagine the Grand Canal absent of any other building but not the Salute.

As they slid into motion again, Eugene cried out, ‘Here it comes!' Being outside, he was the first to notice the snow. It was falling from the dark gray sky in huge, soft flakes. It surrounded the gondola in white swirling scrims that made the scene even more entrancing.

The resemblance that the Doges' Palace bore to a fairy palace could hardly have been more pronounced, and the moored gondolas along the Molo seemed nothing less than enchanted barks.

Looking around her in wonder from beneath the low, arching roof, Betty made the obvious but apt comparison to a souvenir globe of the city that had been shaken.

As the gondola rounded the Dogana da Mare, with its statue of Fortune perched on a golden ball on the Customs House tower, and entered the choppy waters of the Giudecca Canal, the snow fell more and more heavily.

‘It's enchanting, Urbino!' Betty touched Urbino's arm. ‘Thank you so much!' It was as if he were some wizard who had conjured up the snow especially for the occasion.

The four passengers in the gondola and its two gondoliers had a panoramic view of the snow, as it blew at an oblique angle above the Zattere toward the Giudecca Island and the lagoon beyond, driven by gusts of wind from the Dolomites. Behind them, at moments the Doges' Palace, the Campanile, the domes of the Basilica, and the long low line of the Riva degli Schiavoni had less the appearance of vanishing from sight than of being created by the snow's sorcery. On the Zattere embankment children were shouting, laughing, and trying to catch the flakes. Everywhere – by the water's edge, in doorways and windows, from the shelter of cafés – people were taking in the sudden spectacle of the snow.

The gondola slid into a canal in the Dorsoduro quarter, entering the network of narrow waterways that would slowly bring the party back to the Grand Canal.

Gildo and Giovanni moved the craft along with slow strokes of the oars through intricate, winding ways. Occasionally the young men cried out a warning “Oy!” or produced shrill whistles. The languid movement of the gondola through the gray-green waters increased the enjoyment of Eugene and the Chins, who could more easily survey the scene as it was being transformed by the snow. Here, the snow was accumulating quickly, already caking the windows. It seemed to possess a light of its own. The prow of the gondola soon acquired a white mantle, as did the shoulders of Eugene and the two young men.

‘First a flood, now a blizzard! Well, a snowstorm, anyway,' Eugene said, brushing the snow from the shoulders of his trench coat. ‘If you throw in the boilin' heat of the summer, I guess I've seen Venice in all kinds of weather.'