The Rossetti Letter (v5) (19 page)

“W
HY DIDN’T YOU
tell me last night that you were an architect?” Claire asked Giancarlo as the wine was poured.

“I didn’t want to seem as if I was trying to impress you. And I wanted to know if you’d agree to come to dinner if you thought—”

“That you were a waiter?”

“Yes.” Giancarlo smiled, and Claire felt her heart flutter again.

She took a breath and looked around the magnificent room in which they were to dine: the high, baroque ceiling; the candlelight; the soft lilt of Vivaldi in the background; the uniformed waiters who hovered in the shadows. Besides Maurizio and Renata, the dinner party included Gabriella, four professors from the conference, and Giancarlo’s teenage sister, Stefania, who sat next to Gwen.

Only one thing marred this spectacular setting. Sitting directly across the table from Claire was the person she least wanted to look at: Andrew Kent. His presence at the Baldasarris’ had come as a shock. Giancarlo, after introducing them to Stefania, had taken them on a brief tour of the palazzo. When they returned to the salon, she’d felt mortified to find her nemesis talking to Maurizio, who waved them over.

“We’ve already had the pleasure of meeting,” Andrew said with an ironic but not unfriendly smile, “although not formally.”

Claire tried to smile back, wondering if she would be able to get away before he asked—

“Maurizio tells me you’re studying the seventeenth century,” he continued. “What’s the subject of your dissertation?”

“Well, it’s the, um, rise of piracy in the Adriatic and its, ahhh, myriad effects on Venetian shipping.”

“Myriad? One would think that piracy could have only one possible effect.”

“It was bad, generally.”

“As I suspected.” He took a sip of champagne and stared at the floor for a moment, then looked in her eyes. “Do you think you’ll shed any light on the human condition?”

He was mocking her again. Claire felt the anger rush to her face, and tried to formulate a few choice words that would convey her displeasure and still be considered polite. Fortunately Renata ushered everyone out of the salon and into the dining room before Claire said something she would regret. Then Giancarlo steered her to a seat beside his own, and as she sat down she realized that Andrew Kent was taking the chair directly opposite hers. She couldn’t very well move; instead, she resolved to keep her eyes away from the other side of the table and concentrate on Giancarlo. Not that this was any hardship, she thought, stealing a glance at his profile.

“But why?” Claire asked him. “Why pretend to be someone you’re not?”

“Venice is a small town,” Giancarlo replied. “Here everyone knows me, they know my family, know my…situation. Sometimes people have liked me for reasons that had nothing to do with me at all. But then, Venetians have a reputation for being devious,” he said, smiling.

From his spare details, Claire intuited an endless barrage of marriageable daughters sent by scheming mothers to conquer the Baldessari citadel, represented in the flesh by its male heir. The troubles of the wealthy and beautiful did not usually move her, but Giancarlo’s revelation convinced her that at least sometimes he felt quite alone; and with that she felt an acute sympathy.

He also turned out to be a delightful conversationalist. They discussed his work (he’d been an architect for two years, with a firm that specialized in historic renovations), her work (Claire improvised a few pirate stories), the problems of living in Venice (flooding, tourists), the advantages of living in Venice (no cars), and the eternal question of just how long Venice would remain above sea level without intervention. Would the Italian government ever decide what to do about it? Claire asked.

“Every time we think something’s going to be done, we elect a different government, and they start debating it all over again,” Giancarlo said. “It is called, in a turn of phrase you will appreciate, ‘Passing the bucket.’”

Renata turned to them and asked Giancarlo a question that seemed to be about the palazzo he was currently renovating. Claire’s Italian was fair, but the Venetian accent made comprehension more difficult. She didn’t even try to follow the conversation as Giancarlo spoke to his mother and Gabriella Griseri.

Renata’s proximity certainly put a damper on what amounted to their first date, Claire reflected. She realized that she had refrained from laughing too much, or leaning too close, or from any of the other things she might do—or did, ages and ages ago, in the misty memory of her dating life before Michael—to indicate her interest. Giancarlo had seemed similarly careful, which suddenly struck her as odd. He wasn’t the one who’d gotten the pre-dinner grilling. If he sincerely liked her, she reasoned, he wouldn’t care what his mother thought.

As he continued to talk with Renata, Claire brooded a bit. What if Giancarlo’s interest in her was of a more general kind? So far, he’d done nothing overtly romantic. Hadn’t Maurizio said he had asked Giancarlo to invite her? Maybe Giancarlo’s appearance at her hotel that morning had been prompted by his father, not himself. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier?

Then she remembered the way Giancarlo had looked at her when she was descending the stairs to the lobby, and his expression had seemed unmistakably enamored. Or had she just imagined it? Claire realized that she couldn’t be certain. She’d been out of circulation for so long, she couldn’t tell if a man liked her or not.

Hoddington Humphries-Todd, on Claire’s left, leaned toward her. “Why, for a party of only eleven people, must we sit at a table roughly the size of a cricket field?” he asked with a good-humored grin. “I can hardly hear anything anyone else is saying. Damned annoying. Especially when there’s so much of interest going on.”

Humphries-Todd, or Hoddy as he’d insisted she call him when they’d been introduced earlier, was tall and elegant, with an attractive, chiseled face. As one of Europe’s reigning experts on Pietro Aretino, the sixteenth-century writer, Hoddington Humphries-Todd was a regular feature of the Ca’ Foscari annual conference, and of the Baldessaris’ intimate, first-night dinner party. He nodded discreetly at the two women seated at the far end of the table. “It looks to me like my good friend Ines”—Claire knew he was referring to the dark-haired, gamin-faced woman, a professor of Venetian studies at the Sorbonne—“has taken up with Katarina von Krupp.” He nodded at the woman sitting next to Ines.

Von Krupp, Claire recalled, taught at the University of Berlin. Her short, ice blond hair and man’s white summer suit gave her a dashing if sexually ambiguous air.

“It’s too bad, really, because her previous lover, a Welsh clog dancer named Gryffyd, was much more to my taste.
Fabulous
legs.”

Claire studied the two women, both of whom were engrossed in a conversation with Maurizio. She didn’t notice anything particularly intimate between them. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Hoddy insisted. “I have a knack for detecting romantic liaisons. Especially those that are in the early stages or, better still, illicit, obsessively passionate, tragically doomed, or on the verge of breaking up, preferably in a dramatic way in a posh public place. Although every once in a while I can be caught napping. For instance, take Andy”—he glanced across the table at Andrew Kent—“and Gabriella. I didn’t know about that until this evening, and apparently it’s been going on for some time.”

Claire had been surprised, too, to see Andrew Kent show up with Gabriella Griseri. They’d arrived last, Gabriella with her long hair unbound and falling like a silky black waterfall around her shoulders.

“She looks radiant in a suspiciously postcoital sort of way,” Hoddy remarked. “And what about you and our lovely young Giancarlo?” he said with eyebrows raised.

“Oh…we just met,” Claire replied, trying to think of something that would deflect Hoddy’s interest in her private life. “Aren’t you giving your paper tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow afternoon at four,” Hoddy confirmed. “It’s called ‘The Three Amici: The Friendship of Aretino, Titian, and Sansovino.’ It’s mostly about Aretino, but I tossed in the other two because I thought I might draw a bigger crowd that way.”

“You’re not serious,” Claire said, laughing.

“Completely. Conference organizers like a full house, and I like free trips to Venice. Works out well for all of us. Are you familiar with Aretino, or are you strictly seventeenth century?”

“I’ve read the
Dialogo,
his satire about courtesans.”

“Ahh, the
Dialogo.
Ostensibly it is about courtesans, but Aretino manages to lampoon just about everyone in Venetian society. I think he actually felt a strong affinity with courtesans; he often compared their existence to his own, as a courtier. He lived rather magisterially with a group of women who were probably courtesans, who were called ‘Aretine,’ or ‘Aretino’s women,’ although his relationship with them was somewhat unclear.”

“Have you ever heard of a courtesan named La Celestia?”

“Sounds vaguely familiar, though I’m not sure why. Why do you ask?”

“I read about her in Fazzini’s
Diary
today. Along with another called La Sirena.”

“There was something, I seem to recall, but I can’t quite remember…but then, Fazzini was early seventeenth century, quite a bit later than Aretino, so I never had any reason to study him. Although I have read some of the diaries. I’d say he was more of a scandalmonger than a satirist. Fazzini reports, while Aretino skewers.”

“Yes, I got the feeling Aretino didn’t like anyone much.”

“True, although he could write the most obsequious drivel when it suited him. Generally, though, he spared no one, especially those in power.” Hoddy warmed to his subject. “It’s true he was a bastard, but I can’t help being intrigued by a man who died of excessive laughter after hearing an obscene joke about his own sister. He was known as the ‘Scourge of Princes’ because his satiric verse was so popular, it could sway public opinion. Even kings lived in fear of him, and he became fabulously wealthy because they and other powerful men sent bribes so that he wouldn’t write about them. Which one must admit is exceedingly clever. I don’t believe there’s another writer in history who’s hit upon such an excellent method of writing. Anytime someone saw him pick up a quill, they threw money at him to put it down again.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” said Andrew Kent, raising his wineglass in tribute.

“Do I detect a note of jealousy?” Hoddy asked.

“Oh, not at all,” Gabriella answered for him. “He’s received three offers on his book already.” She smiled at Andrew. “I insist that I have the first interview once it’s published, of course.”

“I’m all yours,” he replied.

“Gabriella hosts a television program,” Giancarlo remarked to Claire.

“I heard it mentioned at the conference.” She spoke across the table to Gabriella. “What sort of topics do you cover?”

“Anything that involves history, culture, or art, so it’s pretty far ranging,” Gabriella replied. “I’ve interviewed most of the great artists of our age: Umberto Eco, Luciano Pavarotti, Roberto Begnini…” She shook her head to indicate that this was only a small sampling of her illustrious guest list. “Do you have similar programs in America?”

“Not that I know of, but I don’t watch television much.”

“Of course, it must be difficult to have such a program in your country, since you have so little history and culture.”

“I’m sure there isn’t a show like yours in America because there isn’t anyone else like you, Gabriella,” Hoddy interjected diplomatically.

“You’re too kind.”

“I think Hoddy has a point there,” Andrew said. “Gabriella has more general knowledge about art and history than anyone else I know. How many degrees do you have? Three?”

“Three, yes, it’s true, I’m terribly overeducated.” Gabriella addressed her remark to Claire, speaking as if it were an embarrassing revelation, yet managing to brag about it at the same time.

Gabriella couldn’t be much older than herself, Claire thought with dismay; at least, she didn’t look it. Three degrees? She must be some kind of superwoman. Was it fair for anyone to be so beautiful and so smart?

“Of course, I’m not counting the one from the University of Vienna,” Gabriella continued, “since it was an honorary degree.”

“The last time I was in America, it seemed as if every chat show ended up with people fighting onstage,” Andrew said. “I’m sure they can’t all be that bad, but it does appear as if anyone can be a television presenter, and it doesn’t really matter whether they know anything at all.”

“Then I could easily be a star there, couldn’t I?” Gabriella turned to Andrew with a dazzling smile.

“Anywhere, I’m sure,” Andrew said gallantly, although Claire had the impression that he was embarrassed by Gabriella’s shameless egotism; she behaved as if she were continually in the center of a spotlight. The poised yet bubbly personality that worked so well in a television studio was a bit much within the confines of a dining room.

“More wine?” Giancarlo didn’t wait for an answer, just picked up the nearest bottle and refilled Claire’s glass. “She’s hard to take sometimes, yes?” he said softly, with a glance at Gabriella.

“I think she has too many names.”

Giancarlo stifled a laugh. “I think it’s pretentious, too. Around here, we just call her La Contessa.”