The Bellini Card (35 page)

“You couldn’t hear anything at first—just the people on the stairs, and I had the duke on my arm and he—he gave it a squeeze. Then some of us heard a very faint, eerie sound—it was the scrape of a violin but very quiet—but as we listened it got gradually louder, and then other instruments fell in, and all of a sudden Eletro whisked back the curtain and there we were! The piano nobile—it’s a huge room—lit by a great candelabra in the middle, and all the walls hung with muslin, and the orchestra playing in the gloom somewhere—I think from overhead.”

“How many of you?”

“About a dozen, if I remember. We sat at table, and there was champagne and supper. And afterward we played cards.”

“At other tables?”

“Little card tables. All set up. That’s when—that’s when the four men got together.”

“You didn’t play?”

“Not that night. The stakes were too high, Yashim Pasha. I helped the duke, a little. He was very young.”

“Yes,” Yashim said, thoughtfully. “Yes. I suppose he was.” He paused. “And the cicerone?”

“Oh, he moved about, seeing that everything was all right.”

“Who was the cicerone, Contessa?”

“One of the Barnabotti. A professional. His name is Ruggerio.”

V
OSPER
caught up with the pasha’s servant at the entrance to Palewski’s apartment.

“Begging your pardon, signore, but the stadtmeister wants to know when it would be convenient to hold an audience with your master.”

“An audience?” Yashim cocked his head. “I don’t think an audience is really appropriate, Sergeant. The pasha is making a private visit.”

Vosper’s face lengthened. “A private visit, signore? It’s—it’s irregular, I should tell you. I think the stadtmeister is expecting some sort of, some kind of, ah, visit.”

“I will mention it to the pasha, signore.”

“You wouldn’t care to come to the Procuratie yourself and explain what you’ve told me to the stadtmeister?”

“I’m afraid not, Sergeant. I am not at liberty to make calls. But as I told you, I will inform my master—as you may yours. Good day.”

With Vosper gone, Yashim packed a small bag with Palewski’s clothes and made his way back to the Dorsoduro.

“Our friend sat up and ate a bowl of soup,” Paleswki said. “Like a wolf.”

“Has he said anything?”

Palewski and Maria exchanged glances. “He makes—noises. I don’t think it’s talking,” Maria said.

They found the man sitting up with a blanket wrapped around his knees. He made no effort to turn his head when they came in, but sat still and silent, staring at the fire.

Yashim came and squatted down beside him.

“It’s good you’ve eaten,” he said. “My name’s Yashim.”

The man did not react. Yashim took his hand and guided it to his chest. “I am Yashim,” he repeated. He patted the man’s hand against his chest. “Yashim. Do you understand?”

He glanced up at Palewski, who pulled a face and shrugged.

Very slowly the man’s head moved around, although his eyes remained fixed for longer on the fire. Finally he looked at Yashim.

But when he opened his mouth to speak, only a sound came out—a sort of moan, from his throat. His lips hardly moved.

Yashim blinked. He smiled. He leaned toward the fire and pulled out a burning twig. With the charred end he wrote his name on the hearth. YASHIM.

He pointed to the name, and to himself.

The man hardly looked at the name. He stared for a while at the twig in Yashim’s hand, then looked into his face.

Slowly, almost fearfully, he put out his hand and took the twig, glancing between it and Yashim.

His head turned toward the hearth. He leaned forward, his tongue protruding between his compressed lips.

Palewski gave a low whistle. “It’s you, Yash. He’s drawing a portrait of you.”

Yashim knelt up and cocked his head. The man sank back on his hams and almost shyly handed him the twig again.

On the hearthstone, in a few rough strokes of charcoal, was Yashim himself, turban and mustache and—most extraordinarily—the very look of him, right down to his expression of concern.

“You’re the painter!” Yashim exclaimed involuntarily. “The Canaletto painter.”

The man’s eyes clouded over.

Yashim smiled and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said and patted the man on his scrawny arm.

He stood up slowly and led Palewski to the door.

“What do you make of it?”

“Pff. I’ve never seen anything like it. He must have forged the Canalettos.”

“Yes. Did you see how he concentrated, too? Like a child.”

“That’s not a child’s drawing,” Palewski pointed out.

“No. I think we should give him some better materials. Paper. Charcoal. Maria?”

Maria was gone for more than an hour, but when she returned the man took the paper and charcoal with whimpers of pleasure. He laid the paper on the floor and began immediately to draw, filling each sheet with sketches of the room, the window, the people, with the same lively concentration he had shown when he sketched Yashim on the hearthstone.

He drew for over an hour, but more and more slowly. And then he rolled back into his bed and went to sleep.

Yashim studied his drawings, awestruck.

“At home,” he said at last, feeling the hairs prickling on the back of his neck, “we would say this man is touched by God.”

“You think he can’t speak—or won’t?”

“I suspect that speaking is not his way. Perhaps he sees and understands things differently from us.”

“What are we going to do with him?”

“Feed him. Give him strength. And we will wait and see.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the Palazzo d’Aspi. It’s not every day the contessa receives a pasha, and she’s expecting me to stay. I think I will.”

“I see.” Palewski sounded cool. “Much as I enjoy a hearty lentil soup, Yashim, I’m beginning to chafe under the social arrangements. Can’t I go back to my own apartment yet?”

He looked so cross that Yashim laughed. “I thought you got to sleep with the daughter of the house?”

“Yashim!” Palewski looked shocked. “Anyway, Maria sleeps with half her family as it is.”

“I’m sorry, it won’t be for long.” Yashim looked serious. “Tell me, if someone loses at cards, and owes money, what does he do?”

“Shoots himself, if he’s a gentleman,” Palewski said. “Unless he can pay, of course.”

“He can pay—but he wouldn’t have the money on him. What then?”

“Then, if he’s trusted enough, he’ll give his creditor a note of hand.”

“A note of hand? A promise to pay later, you mean?”

“Depending how often they cash up, the whole game can be notes of hand. I lose, I write you one. You stake it next time. Lots of paper, back and forth. I gave it up, years ago. Too many fellows gamble and drink at the same time. Awfully dangerous, gambling.”

“Signed paper?”

“Signed, of course. Next day, when he’s feeling like Marat in his bath, the unlucky gambler gets presented with all his notes for immediate payment.”

“I suppose, in some cases, the signature might be worth more than the note.”

“Threaten to show it to the wife, sort of thing? Happens. Depends on the company you chose.”

“Or on who you are,” Yashim murmured.

“You’re being mysterious, Yashim.”

Yashim nodded slowly. “It
is
still a mystery, my friend.”

T
HE
contessa received Yashim in the salon where, only that morning, she had tried to kill him. Yashim wasn’t sure when she had looked more beautiful: now, in the shadowy salon, or before, with murder in her eyes. Her dress was beaded with seed pearls that shimmered mysteriously as she moved, and her hair was pinned up, revealing her slender neck.

Candles were lit on a table laid for two.

“I have thought about you all day,” she said simply. “Wondering what you know.”

Yashim bowed his head. “I know too little, Contessa.”

“So.” Her eyes sparkled. “What do you know of the pattern—our pattern?”

Yashim frowned. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. Today, I would have said that it is a system—the key, if you like—to a discipline of combat. Both of us used it.”

“And is that all?”

“It might be—except that I have seen it elsewhere, without really seeing it at all. Yamaluk the calligrapher used it, on the binding of the Koran your people gave to the Armenian monastery. His daughter told me that it was a symbol of the infinite richness of God’s creation.”

“Very good. That’s one meaning—the essential one, I suppose.” Carla traced the line of the diagram with her foot. “Did you speak to Yamaluk efendi, in Istanbul?”

“I spoke to his daughter. Yamaluk efendi has—passed away.”

“I am sorry to hear it. My father always loved his work.”

“His daughter continues the tradition,” Yashim said.

She looked at him again: he felt raked by those eyes.

Then she laughed quietly. “Istanbul has changed, Yashim Pasha.”

He acknowledged it with a gesture. “But you, Contessa, cannot know Istanbul.”

“I was born there,” she retorted. “I lived there until I was three years old. Istanbul is in my blood. But Venice has changed, too.” She took a breath. “This morning you mentioned Bellini.”

Yashim started. “Yes.”

Carla sighed. “Gentile Bellini went to Istanbul in 1479, at the sultan’s invitation.”

“To paint the sultan’s portrait.”

“The portrait was an afterthought,” the contessa said, shaking her head. “The sultan commissioned it only after he’d seen what Bellini could do.”

“But if Bellini wasn’t sent to paint the sultan’s portrait, why did he go?”

The contessa gestured to the table and took a seat.

“One of my Aspi ancestors took Bellini to Istanbul, as an unofficial ambassador. Mehmet considered himself to be a universal ruler. As the conqueror of Istanbul, he became the most powerful ruler in the Byzantine
world, a world that informally included Venice.” She touched her glass. “The diagram was a symbol of sovereignty that Mehmet wanted to understand. The Byzantines had woven it into their church ritual. To them it represented the union of the finite and the infinite. The worlds of God and men. For us, it also symbolized the endless round of commerce—a reminder, if you like, that everyone could share in the infinite bounty of the world. Mehmet, I suspect, saw it as a symbol of dominion: one world, one ruler, under God.”

“But why Bellini? Why couldn’t your ancestor have explained the diagram?”

“It’s a good question. I think Gentile knew the city. He and his family had almost certainly been there under the Byzantines. The father, Jacopo, did portraits of the imperial family before the fall of Constantinople.”

She raised her chin. “He wasn’t political, Yashim. Not a warrior. Not a diplomat. Not a merchant, either. He simply had a gift. A near-magical ability to freeze the moving finger—time.”

“Freeze it? How?”

“In paint. In pencil. He understood pattern—but he also helped to pioneer the art of portraiture. He was an adept in both worlds—the world of pattern and geometry, which is eternal, and in seeing the eternal in the things that change and are subject to time.”

“I see.”

“After Gentile painted Mehmet’s portrait, the idea caught on—in Venice, rather than Istanbul.” She lifted the glass to her lips. “But the pattern kept its meaning. A mutual inheritance from the Byzantines. An esoteric bond between our two cities.”

Yashim frowned. “The sultan entered a secret compact? Through Gentile Bellini?”

Carla smiled. “Nothing so sinister, Yashim. It was simply a pattern, an interpretation, we could share. A point of contact between our two worlds.”

Yashim leaned back. “And perhaps an effort to describe them, too? The links are made at various points around the square.”

Carla looked very radiant in the candlelight. Her hair, pinned back,
glowed against the gloom of the great dark room. Her eyes sparkled, lit by her slow smile.

“The pupil has excelled the teacher.”

“But if it was essentially a symbol of peace—” Yashim hesitated.

She nodded slowly. “The pattern reconciles, Yashim. It’s true. In an immutable square, those fixed and opposing points are linked and reconciled in an endless weave.
Com’era, dov’era
. East with West, Venice with Istanbul, death and life, man and woman.” She gazed at him, her eyes bright. “But then came Cyprus.”