The Veils of Venice (3 page)

Whenever Mina spoke with the contessa about Olimpia Pindar she was always formal even though the relationship between the two women was intimate. The contessa pretended she did not know the particular nature of the relationship even though Olimpia had confided in her and even though it was evident to most people who had even limited contact with the two of them. It had begun about seven months ago. The contessa feigned ignorance for Mina's sake, and not because she disapproved of the relationship although, in her mind and in conversations with Urbino, she called it a ‘romantic friendship'. Mina had never given the slightest indication that it was something she would like to have directly acknowledged.

‘Did you mention it to her?'

Mina did not respond right away. When she did, it was in a rush of words.

‘I told her the same day. She wasn't surprised. She said that I shouldn't worry about it, that her sister was strange, and that she imagined things. Signorina Gaby is strange, contessa. She never leaves the house. I don't think she even looks out the window. And she sometimes just stands at the door of the museum with a sad expression on her face, staring at nothing. She frightens me.'

‘Many unfortunate people have her kind of problem. There's no harm in it to you or to anyone else. But why did you decide to tell me what she said?'

‘Because I'm afraid that Signorina Olimpia is wrong! Sometimes when we are close to someone, even living in the same house day after day, we can't see what other people can see. Do you understand?'

The contessa did, and she knew why Mina said this. From what the contessa had learned about her from the young woman's cousin in Venice, she had suffered from emotional problems when she was an adolescent, and her large family in Palermo had neglected her. The cousin, now dead, had agreed to take Mina in nine years ago.

‘She is very upset,' Mina went on. ‘I felt it even before she said anything to me.'

Mina touched the region of her heart. In the year that she had been working at the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini, she had given the contessa several examples of her sensitivity to the feelings of others. She could easily identify delicate shades in the contessa's moods and would respond accordingly.

‘Has she spoken to you again?'

‘No, but when I see her she looks at me in a pitiful way, as if she wants me to help her. I don't know why she told me! I'm afraid she will give me the evil eye. You are relatives, contessa. Relatives must help each other. You are a kind lady. Maybe you can do something. But please do not tell Signorina Olimpia that I told you. She might be upset with me.'

‘I'm sure she wouldn't be, Mina. She would understand that you've told me because you're worried for her sister. But I won't say anything to her.'

The contessa considered this to be promise enough. It did not include Urbino. Mina showed a reluctance to pursue the topic and asked to leave shortly afterward. She said that she would take Zouzou out for a walk although she had walked the cocker earlier that morning.

When the contessa was alone, she sat on the sofa staring at the painting on the opposite wall, going over what Mina had just told her. In substance, it was exactly what Mina had told her before. The contessa went over to a lacquered cabinet. She took out an old photograph album that was piled with others on the bottom shelf. She returned to the sofa and paged through the album until she reached a section devoted to the Pindar family.

She looked at a photograph of Gaby. It was one of the few photographs of her cousin in the album, and it had been taken more than twenty-five years ago. It showed a pretty, bright-eyed young woman standing in front of the Basilica arm in arm with her older brother Ercule. She seemed so happy, but this had been before her illness descended on her. She had little joy in life these days. But beneath all her fears and confusions must lie the Gaby that used to be. If only she could be released from the prison of her dark thoughts and emotions.

‘You obviously don't want to believe she's in danger,' Urbino said half an hour later as he stood in front of the fireplace warming himself. ‘And I know why.'

‘Why?'

But the contessa did not need to ask. She knew what he was going to say but dreaded hearing it put into words.

She cast her eyes down at one arm of her chair, as if she were intent on examining the spot where Zouzou had ripped the Fortuny fabric.

‘Because if there's any basis to Gaby's fears,' Urbino responded, ‘it means that the danger will come while she's in the house. She hasn't left it in years, and she's unlikely to do it now, not unless she seeks help. If she's afraid, she's afraid of someone in the house. And
that
means,' he emphasized as he seated himself in the armchair across from the contessa, ‘that she's in danger from someone in her own family, someone in
your
family.'

The contessa was caught out. Urbino had quickly seized upon the main reason for her reluctance to believe Gaby was in danger. The probability was that harm would come to her from someone in the family. And it had become clear to the contessa, after many years of Urbino's sleuthing, that people were most often in danger from those closest to them.

‘You're right,' she admitted. ‘My family.'

The contessa felt a sharp, familiar ache as she said the word. She and the conte had not been able to have any children, something they both had greatly hoped for. It made her value what family she did have, even family as remotely related – and uncongenial as they sometimes could be – as the Pindars.

‘But there's a big flaw in your reasoning,
caro.'
She turned to him with an air of triumph. She had been caught and now she was catching him out, and enjoying it. ‘You know how ridiculous they are in that house – or should I say how foolish – the way they leave the front door unlocked during the day. They are so infuriating, so perverse! She could be afraid of someone from outside harming her. It would be all too easy to get inside, at least during the day.'

The contessa had little patience with the Pindar custom. It went back to one of the earliest Pindars who had been a monk and insisted that the building be kept open for anyone who needed food or shelter. However did Gaby put up with the arrangement? But perhaps she was out-voted by her sister and brother.

Urbino nodded. ‘True. But logic may be of little help in trying to figure Gaby out – or any others among your distant relatives. And without logic I'm almost at a loss. Actually, I have never been able to fix the Pindars clearly in my mind – their history, I mean. I suppose I've had no need to before now. I know things in bits and pieces, and I certainly have my impressions, but it would be helpful to have the whole picture, or as much of it as you can give.' He played a few random notes on the
fin de siècle
Viennese piano. ‘Why not tell me what you know and not leave anything out because you assume I know it? Even with that, there will be holes that we'll probably have to fill in later, but we don't know what those holes are now or where they are.'

‘That's the problem with holes much of the time, isn't it? You don't know where they are until you fall into them. Oriana might be able to help us with some of them.' She was referring to her friend Oriana Borelli, who seemed to know more about the private lives of others than anyone else in the contessa's or Urbino's circle. Oriana's knowledge, in which romantic and sexual intrigues played a prominent role, had come to their aid before. ‘But she won't be back from Cortina for about two weeks.'

‘Is she there with Filippo?'

The contessa smiled. Oriana had a well-earned reputation – as did her husband Filippo – for an ongoing series of affairs that did not weaken their marriage but somehow strengthened it. ‘Let's say that the two of them went there together. Whether they went their separate ways once they got there, I have no idea.'

Urbino reseated himself. ‘So what do you know from your own chaste perspective?'

‘There is a lot of territory between the chaste and Oriana,' the contessa observed. ‘I can speak to the family relationships involved. They are always important when you want to understand people. It's a longish story. Well, as you know, the Pindars and I are related through my mother's side of the family. Her mother –
my
grandmother – had a sister named Isabel. She came to visit American friends who had rented a palazzo by the Accademia Bridge. Like you and me, Isabel never left. She met Federico Pindar, the only son of a family that had made a fortune from shipping in the eighteenth century. They had their own shipping company, Pindar Lines. It doesn't exist anymore. Like much of what the Pindar family had back then, it's disappeared. Federico swept her off her feet. He was almost twenty years older than she was, and everyone thought he was never going to marry. When I met Alvise, my mother said that I was following in the footsteps of her aunt, since Alvise was twenty years older than I was. Alvise –' The contessa broke off. Her mood, which had been vivid and gay with the story she was telling, darkened. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Listen to me! This is not about Alvise, but the Pindars.'

‘I understand. Your wedding anniversary is coming up. He's on your mind.'

‘I wish you had known him,
caro
.'

Alvise had died three years before she had met Urbino.

‘I feel as if I know him well. Through you. And everyone who speaks of him has a high regard for him and his memory.'

She gave Urbino a smile of gratitude. ‘Alvise knew the Pindars before we married. He called them the “merchant family with the soul of poets.” Because of their name. The family has always claimed they are related to the Greek poet, but I doubt that. Their name used to be Pindaro but the “o” got lost somewhere back in the eighteenth century.'

She took a deep breath and continued, with her story. ‘Their fortunes started to decline right after the First World War. About ten years after Isabel married Federico. The shipping company expanded to Turkey, and had offices in Istanbul and Izmir. Once Federico's father died, he made bad business decisions. Federico and Isabel had three children – two sons, Socrate and Platone, and Apollonia, the youngest of them. You know how the Pindars are with their old Greek names! The eldest, Socrate, had more business sense than his father did, but he died of some disease he picked up in Turkey. He wasn't even thirty. By the time the Second World War was over, all that the Pindars had left was their palazzo in Santa Croce.'

The contessa sipped her caffelatte. ‘That's the family that Olimpia, Gaby, and Ercule were born into. Their father was Platone. They had another brother, the eldest, Achille. He was more practical than they were, a throwback to his dead uncle Socrate. And he died young like him, too. Only in his thirties, and when he was starting to turn the family's financial situation around. Olimpia, Gaby, and Ercule inherited the house and the collection – and whatever other assets their parents had. Each got an equal portion. From what I understand, if one of them predeceases the others, his or her portion is divided equally between the survivors. That's the way their wills are made out, according to what Gaby once told me.'

Urbino's face was screwed up in concentration.

‘I know there's quite a bit to absorb in all this,' the contessa said. ‘Especially for the only child of only children. Sharing inheritances, siblings, cousins, nephews, and aunts. Poor boy! You've got no family to speak of.'

‘Don't sell me short, Barbara dear.' A smile replaced the concentration on Urbino's face as he said, ‘Let me see if I have this right. Apollonia is the daughter of your great aunt Isabel. Your grandmother was
her
great aunt, which I think makes her your second cousin. And Achille would have been your great aunt Isabel's grandson and Apollonia's nephew, not to mention your third cousin – or would he be between a third cousin and a fourth? Your grandmother was his great aunt.'

Urbino's genealogical skills impressed the contessa, but even though she had thought she was rather clear about the relations in the family, she felt more than a little confused by his nimble negotiation of the branches of the family tree. ‘
Bravo!
And much simpler to say that the Pindars and I are distant cousins.'

‘And this same Achille; distant in his cousinship,' Urbino went on, ‘died in a boating accident with his parents. That's something I know. It was a few years before I settled here.'

‘Yes. He was engaged to be married. He went out in a sailboat with his father Platone and his mother – Regina was her name. They sailed away from the Lido. A storm blew up. Their bodies weren't found for several days. Everyone was devastated. And not just Olimpia, Gaby, and Ercule, but Apollonia, too. She had lost her brother as well as her nephew. And Eufrosina had a hard time. She seemed to think of Achille more as a brother than a cousin. Much closer to him than she was to her own brother, but Alessandro was a hard person to warm to even back then.

‘After the drownings, things got even worse financially for Olimpia, Gaby, and Ercule – and of course Gaby slipped into her terrible condition. Their money has just kept dwindling over the years. Olimpia might make enough to keep her going, and Gaby has hardly any expenses. As for Ercule, I don't know if he has ever had a steady job. He's indulged himself, dreaming of faraway places. They could sell the building. The upkeep alone must be a strain on them. It would bring in a lot of money, but the three of them aren't in agreement about it. I assume that Gaby doesn't want to sell and have to leave. Either Ercule or Olimpia must disagree with her – or possibly both of them.'

‘I assume they're bringing in something from the rent they get from Apollonia.'

‘Not much, I don't think. And not as much by far as Apollonia is saving by living there, from what I have heard. She is getting a great deal of money from renting out her building. She's a clever woman, Apollonia. The family should put her in charge of finances.'