The Bellini Card (23 page)

And when he opened his eyes with a jerk the room was as empty as it had always been, and someone was knocking on the door and calling out, “Signor Brett! Signor Brett! Are you at home?”

P
ALEWSKI
let Ruggerio prattle on. It was battle enough simply to lift his hand and take the morsel of bread from his plate and put it to his lips.

The sun was already warm on his back, but he felt a shudder pass across his shoulder blades. He rested his hand on the cloth and then put it out again, to take a thin fluted glass of the
amaro
.

He tilted the glass and the liquor ran into his mouth and he made an effort with his tongue and it went down.

“I thought I’d lost you.” The cicerone was beaming across the table.

“Lost me?” Palewski leaned forward and examined the Venetian as if for the first time.

Ruggerio looked disconcerted. “I mean only to say, signore, we have not seen each other for a few days. But if you are busy, then Ruggerio is happy!” He winked, grinning again. “Maybe la signorina Maria opens up—a little Venice, also? With her, signore, you see many attractive sights, no?”

Palewski stared at him, expressionless.

“A little Venice, signore, between a woman’s thighs!”

“I haven’t seen the girl for two days,” Palewski said coldly.

The grin faltered and congealed on Ruggerio’s face. “Are you sure?”

“Two nights,” Palewski admitted. “She’s a damn nice girl.”

Ruggerio looked uneasy. “I think so, too. Very clean,” he murmured. He was silent for a while.

Palewski reached for the coffee.

“I’ll be leaving in a day or so, Ruggerio.”

“But Signor Brett!” Ruggerio’s face fell. “I think your matters are not yet arranged—you must give us time.” His eyes widened. “Is it—is it because of Count Barbieri?”

“It’s a business matter.” Palewski dabbed a napkin to his lips. “The rent is paid on the apartment. I owe you for your time, of course—and Maria’s, too.”

Ruggerio drew himself up. “You are too kind, signore. Of course, I will be grateful for any gift you choose to bestow. I can take care of the girl, also—she was not with you last night? I am sorry for that.” He pursed his lips. “But I am afraid it is not quite so simple. My honor, also, is at stake.”

“Your honor, Ruggerio?”

Ruggerio leaned his head to one side. “Signor Brett, I am surprised you do not appreciate my difficulty.” He sounded severe, cross almost. “I deliver your cards to the most prestigious dealers in Venetian art in the city. The card says—what? That you are from New York. That you collect art.” He looked upset and waved his hands. “Forgive me, Signor Brett, but such a card you can buy for a few lire at the printers. If you see
cunt
written on a wall, do you stand to it?”

Palewski smiled in spite of himself. “Of course not.”

“Of course not. That’s very good, signore.” Ruggerio seemed to be working himself up into a passion. “It is the same with this card. You think the dealers become stiff because you have a card with a name written on it? No, of course not. Yet Count Barbieri—he died, but he came to see you. At the Correr, the director made time for you. Signor Eletro—he, too, starts to think about this Signor Brett. They must think—and it is I, Antonio Ruggerio, who brought them something to think about!”

He grabbed out and his hand collided with Palewski’s glass. He snatched it up and drained it.

“In a month, I tell them, you must flush out the greatest of your pictures. I tell them, Signor Brett is a friend to Ruggerio, a good man, with
a keen eye and some money to spend. I admit I said that—or why would they come? For a card? Pah!”

“You have been more than kind, Signor Ruggerio—”

“Barone.”

“Barone Ruggerio. I apologize. I am at fault, and I acknowledge it freely.”

But I am always at fault, he thought. He shook his head, to block out that cry in the dark.

“I have put you in a position of some delicacy, I understand,” he continued. “But what must be, must be. How can I make it acceptable to your honor?”

How, he wondered, how does a man regain his honor?

Ruggerio’s anger seemed to collapse.

“Once,” he began, “I told you that the story of Venice is never written. It can never end, because no one writes the same story twice. You tell me you must go away.” He reached out for his coffee. “You will be back. You must come back.”

Palewski remained still. Was that it, then? No one could write the same story twice?

“And Maria? I’d like to leave her something—it’s a pity she could not come herself.”

“Have no fear, Signor Brett. Upon my honor as a Ruggerio, I will see that she gets whatever you choose to give her.”

Palewski grunted. “Where the devil is she, Ruggerio?”

“Ha ha! But you know how it is, Signor Brett, with women. And where would we be without them!”

“I must take a ship in Trieste,” Palewski said brusquely. “Perhaps you can find out for me the sailings in the next few days?”

“I want only to help,” Ruggerio said.

“Meet me at Florian, then, at twelve,” Palewski said, praying that he could be there, too.

They shook hands and Ruggerio departed, bowing and scraping.

“Shame about the girl, though,” Palewski murmured to himself later, as he stood with his hands in his pockets and watched the barges and gondolas slip past beneath his window.

M
ARIA
awoke to the dark. It was almost her element, as if she had lived for so long without light that darkness could no longer shock her. It could no longer make her weep.

She moved her arms, flexed her fingers. Her wrists began to burn: perhaps that was a sign that they were healing, too.

For a while she sensed nothing more than the strange scatterings of color that formed and reformed in the darkness, like evanescent patterns in oily water. But then, very distinctly, she heard the scrape of bolts being drawn back and then the creaking of the door.

Her heart went to her mouth, and then—nothing happened.

She was aware of a new smell. She sat up in the dark and felt someone or something feel her feet.

It was a hand, a human hand—and then another hand came around to meet hers and in it was something that smelled sweeter than she could have possibly imagined.

She took the bread and crammed it into her mouth.

They might take it back, at any time. It might be a trick, like the water they had poured across her breasts.

But why, she wondered, was there no light?

And then, slowly and wonderingly, she became aware of the smell of roses.

“Grazie,”
she whispered.
“Per il pane—grazie, caro.”

“It’s nothing. Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get you home.”

P
ALEWSKI
took a gondola at the landing stage and instructed the gondolier to row him down the Grand Canal.

The palazzo with the water gate was one of the largest on the canal. Most of its shutters were closed.

Palewski paid off the gondola at a nearby stage. In his mind’s eye he had imagined a blind alley, with windows overlooking it on the ground floor, but the entrance turned out to be a gate that opened to his touch. Inside was a courtyard with a wellhead in the middle and to his left a stone staircase rising to the first floor.

Some small children were playing, watched by an old lady engulfed in black silk who sat on a bench in the sun.

“Good morning,” Palewski said politely, raising his hat.

“Good morning to you, signore. Are you lost?”

“Perhaps I am.”

“Ah,” she smiled. “This is the Palazzo d’Istria, signore.”

“I’ve heard the name.”

“Heard it? Excuse me—Bepi, is that kind? It doesn’t matter—a boy should never strike a girl. Come here,
cara
. Come to Nonna. That’s right. That’s better.”

The little girl settled into the old lady’s lap. “A century ago, the Istria family were very gay, signore. You would have known the name then, for sure.”

“I have met a contessa, Contessa d’Aspi d’Istria. A very charming lady.”

“Ah yes. It is a sad story.”

“I can stand a sad story,” he said. “If I may?”

“Please.” She patted the bench and he sat down beside her. The little girl peeped up at him through a tangle of black hair and her grandmother started to pull her fingers through it. “Lucia d’Istria was a great beauty, signore. She married Count d’Aspi. A very good match—two old families.” She leaned sideways to confide: “The Aspis had the money, but the Istrias had the beauty, like Carla.”

“Yes, I see.”

“This was in the days of the Republic, of course. Three hundred guests, and the women—so beautiful, in those days. I was there, and beautiful, too, why not? I was quite young. Married, of course … You should have seen it, signore, the color—even the men! Men did not always wear black, as they do today.

“They lived here in the early days. There was a son—Luciano—and also the daughter you have met.” She shook her head. “We could believe that they would be happy forever.” She batted her fingertips against the ground, as though she were shooing mice. “Now, off you go, little one. Bepi will be nice now—won’t you, Bepi? And you, signore—do you have children?”

“No,” Palewski said.

She patted his hand. “That’s not unusual in Venice now. As I was saying—the Republic fell, and in the war the Aspis lost a lot of good land, on the mainland. Luciano was killed fighting the Austrians, poor boy. Lucia—I think she only lived for her son. A shame for the girl, that was, too.” She heaved a sigh. “Count d’Aspi used to sit on this bench, with his chin on the top of his cane. He said he had lived too long. It had all turned to nothing, you see.”

“And the daughter? The contessa?”

“She is the last. Last of the Aspis, last of the Istrias. But she’ll never marry.”

“Why not?”

“That’s right, Bepi. Good boy.” She seemed not to have heard him.

Palewski stood up, watching the children.

“Are there many families living here now?”

“In the palazzo? Few enough. My son, the doctor, took the piano nobile
when he married. I’m afraid it’s an extravagance. I have an apartment above and of course it’s very convenient for them. The Gramantes upstairs. They’re trade but quite respectable.”

“And your family,
signora mia
. They are all well?”

No gunshot wounds?

He saw her reach out surreptitiously to touch the bench. “Since you ask, yes. Thank God for children, signore.”

Palewski bowed. “Thank you for talking to me. I shall resume my walk.”

How peculiar, he thought, as he wound his way toward the piazza. It evidently wasn’t the doctor who got shot, nor his brother, for that matter. But nobody else lived in the palazzo.

I wonder how this will end, he asked himself.

He caught sight of Ruggerio, sitting at a table, and was about to join him when he noticed a man standing back in the shadows of the arcade, signaling to him.

“Are you crazy, Signor Brett? The piazza, today?”