A Man of Genius

by Janet Todd

  ‘Know what, Ann?’ Aksel Jakobsen asked. She heard him, heard him use her Christian name, so familiar, as if they were old friends or kin. But they were neither.

  What was happening? What was he doing in the room?

  ‘Know it was I. She will know. She will think we quarrelled, then I stabbed him and strung him up to make it look different. She will think so.’

  ‘But you did not. Remember it. Whatever Robert James believed, thinking and doing are distinct. You did not do this. You are too weak.’

  Again this naming. What was happening? What was she hearing? Why was this man so familiar with her?

  Neither of them moved to cut the body down, to clear up the mess, to staunch the smell, to move the knife.

  How did Aksel Jakobsen know what had happened? How did she? She looked back into the sitting room and saw Robert’s gold watch still on the table. He’d taken it off to make the cuts on his wrist after he’d tried to stab himself. She could see his actions. She put her hand to her mouth to stop a cry.

  ‘You are right. It looks bad for you. Venetians love a scandal. You are a foreign woman, both of you connected with the Savelli. They are not popular with the Austrians. There’d be no appeal to passion or provocation. The bocche del Leone are abolished but there are other ways.’

  There were no real flowing tears despite wetness on her cheeks. Why, when they were right and proper, were there no tears? How could it be?

  ‘What shall I do?’

  Dazed, she looked at Aksel Jakobsen. He was much taller than she was. She registered mainly that fact. Also older.

  ‘Leave,’ he said, ‘leave now.’

  ‘I was going to . . . I had prepared.’

  ‘I know. Your mother.’ He paused only momentarily. ‘Come, I will accompany you. It is time I left this town. I must return home. It does not suit here.’

  ‘You? Why?’

  ‘A whim,’ he said. ‘Come now.’

  ‘But people will ask after him. He had a friend, Signor Balbi, a traveller, even the Count Savelli . . .’

  ‘Nobody will miss him at once or care for long, except perhaps the Jews in the ghetto who lent him money.’

  Too much to take in.

  Aksel Jakobsen went on, allowing no time for response, ‘The Savelli will not grieve. The Contessa will be relieved. Only the authorities matter. Signor Scrittori will try to take care of them. He helps the Savelli. He is, I think, your supporter. He has influence with the foreigners. Come.’

  She was too dazed for surprise. How did he know Giancarlo Scrittori, any of her life? Debts to Jews? Still, she registered that he mentioned no other woman. How pitiable . . . But no time for further thought.

  The body was still – not swinging, just dripping its horrid waste, its appalling filth.

  She shook her head. It hurt. But the action disturbed her mounting fear. ‘We must take him down, we must . . .’

  She wouldn’t look at the face, it would be red, yellow, white, dreadful. She’d imagined it many times, but never quite this – many times dead, but not ghastly. ‘Dead’ had just been a word.

  ‘There’s no time.’

  ‘I can’t go.’

  ‘You can.’ He spoke urgently or roughly, she couldn’t judge. ‘Leave him. It will be some proof to those who cut him down.’

  He said ‘him’. But there was no ‘him’, just ‘it’, ‘it’.

  She looked below the face in the dim light. Something, a ray from the half-shuttered window, shone on the knots. ‘There are so many knots in the cord he tied. Why so many?’

  Aksel Jakobsen allowed no irritation in his voice. ‘It pushes the head forward to make it snap. But the drop was not enough for any snap. The neck could not break. By then he was dying.’

  While he spoke he was collecting together the clothes he thought useful from the sitting room and the bedchamber, a worn jacket of indeterminate colour, a faded blue scarf, a thin patterned shift, but not the heavy shawl he saw lying on the floor sodden with waste that had seeped from the body.

  ‘Get your bag, your things, papers. Anything. Quick. And wipe your hands.’

  He had become so thin. Why the blood, why so much blood? Did he want the knife to work? Had it almost worked? That old blunt knife. Did he want her to be blamed? Was she so important to him after all? A kindness to implicate her or a final cruelty?

  Mechanically, she walked to the bedchamber, knelt down and dragged a bundle from under the bed. The few things she’d planned to take to Paris. Then she fished out her hemp bag from further back. It held the little money she’d hoarded.

  As she tugged at the bag, some of her writings tumbled out. ‘Isabella approached the horror with pale trembling fingers,’ she couldn’t avoid seeing. She tried to look away, but it was painful to swivel her eyes.

  She crumpled the papers with the clothes and stuffed them into the hemp bag along with the money. She handed it to Aksel Jakobsen, who put in what he’d collected. He’d not said a word about her bruised face, though the muslin scarf had slipped.

  She must go back into the study. She must force herself. She had to get one of the old passports which might still be with Robert in his writing desk. As she entered, again she registered the fallen high-backed chair. He had sat in it to write, using her old shawl as cushion. Or rather he had sat, got up, sat, then stood on it.

  ‘The chair fell over. Maybe he did not intend to succeed. It was just a message. Maybe for me.’

  ‘He would have kicked it,’ said Aksel Jakobsen, who’d stepped into the room behind her. ‘He need not have kicked. Hurry and be quiet please. Or it will be too late.’

  ‘The smell. Why so . . .?’

  ‘Of course there is smell, look at his breeches.’

  Tears welled up. ‘He would have hated this. He would not have wanted . . .’

  Or did he know?

  ‘The wrists and breast failed, the hanging worked in the end. So he died in filth, but it would not have been quick,’ said Aksel Jakobsen. He had said this before. She heard no expression in his level voice, only the words so clear, so measured, so cruel. ‘Who does not die so? I said, hurry!’

  ‘My papers, a passport.’ But she could not approach the desk.

  Aksel Jakobsen saw her flinch and hold back. Gently he guided her arm towards the desk. She need not touch the body. ‘You must. Any papers, even old ones, might be useful.’

  Her hands trembled as she fumbled with the drawer. It was not locked but was hard to open. He saw what she was about and pulled it out for her. It stuck halfway but it was enough. She grabbed the old documents. Some unstamped were in her maiden name, some stamped in her ‘married’, all false to the woman she now was.

  She saw one underneath: in the name of Peter O’Neil. It stirred a vague memory. It had been carried here and must have been used somewhere or intended for use. This was no time to look further at what country it was for or where it might have served.

  Aksel Jakobsen glanced at it. But Robert’s past life could have no meaning for him.

  He held open her bag as she stuffed into it all the documents that related to her. Robert’s canvas satchel lay nearby. It would have been more sensible to take it since it was roomier. But that was impossible. She left the drawer as it was, half open. Then she skirted the body again and went back into the sitting room. She wiped her hands on a cloth sagging from the table. She grabbed the gold watch and pushed it down the side of her bag.

  With no further look at the body, the rooms or their trunks, she followed Aksel Jakobsen through the door, out of the apartment and down the uneven, always damp stairs. Signora Scorzeri and little Rosa were still away visiting, the happy Frenchmen were out. Somewhere in this or the next building she heard a girl lulling a whimpering baby.

  Aksel Jakobsen propelled her over the wooden bridges towards Le Zitelle. Her ribs ached when she had to go fast. She’d almost forgotten the look of her ravaged face. Of course it hurt. But her body had been, for these past minutes, quite quiet. Cloud
s were scudding across the sky.

  ‘Wait,’ he said as he went inside a scabbed, once yellow building behind the church. ‘Stay there.’ He handed her the hemp bag. ‘Hold it over your stained clothes.’

  She stood and watched the gulls behind a boat spilling rubbish.

  Aksel Jakobsen returned with his own stout leather bag and a cloak, though there was no need of such a garment in these sweltering days. He also had a heavy tarpaulin, more useful since surely soon the wind would bring the rain so long promised. It would be a torrent. How was he ready so speedily? Did he know what would happen?

  A question flashed through her mind – attached to no purpose or consequence: had he been there when it happened? Had he played a part? Had he . . .? Her mind raced wildly. What had this man to do with it all? If nothing, how did he know she was not guilty? How had she become ‘Ann’? The naming had been inadvertent, she was sure. It was unusual to use a Christian name so easily, especially between a man and a woman. What was he to her?

  There was no time to untangle the threads. A numbness was invading her thoughts even as they dashed along. Her body, once quiet, was now desperate to shout while she kept her mouth tight shut.

  She concentrated on her legs, making them move, further and further away from the apartment with its ghastly tenant.

  That was all Aksel Jakobsen demanded of her. She must do what he wanted. He was in control and should be. She had no need to tell him of her still painful ribs or any other ailment. She put one finger to her face and felt the bulges under her eyes. Perhaps they would never settle. She would always address the world with bruises. And with the bloodstain on her hands.

  ‘We will go to the squero in San Trovaso. There are men there who hire fast boats and ask no questions. We cannot use gondoliers. We must hurry. Hold your bag higher.’

  They were rowed away by boatmen who’d been lolling on the fondamenta in the twilight eager to avoid passengers until they saw what Aksel Jakobsen was offering. On the way, without especially looking at her, he whispered, ‘I pass as Signor Stamer, Aksel Stamer. That is my name. Remember it.’

  They found the place in San Trovaso and the men who asked no questions and were paid handsomely for their silence. For a special price they would even try to ride the storm at night. It had not yet come in its full force.

  They would take their passengers to Mestre or if possible to one of the swampy hamlets further south that served Venice. Aksel Stamer knew he could hire a carriage there. It was best to avoid places where people were well fed and curious.

  ‘Put the scarf round your head, cover your face.’

  Why? she wondered. To help the bruises and the swelling – or because the sight irritated him. Or was it to prevent her being recognised – by herself or with him? But there could be no hue and cry yet. It was impossible. And it was dark or almost so. A single fisherman slouched over a rod on a small wooden jetty. He did not look up as the boat set off.

  She wrapped the scarf round her face and head leaving enough of her eyes free to see, then held it tightly at her neck. She dug her nails into the palms of her hands and bit her lip to divert attention from the scenes passing through her head. But they remained as clear as ever, far clearer than anything her eyes could see outside. Her now bulky hemp bag was slung round her like a peasant’s bundle, masking the stain on her clothes.

  ‘They will expect us to go north at once. So we are going across and down. We will take passage as soon as we can and leave Italy.’

  ‘They? You mean they will come after me, look for me especially?’

  ‘Of course. They love entertainment in Venice.’

  They caught the high water and went towards the mainland on a tide, two men rowing. Salt water splashed her eyes though she sat in the cabin. The cheap ring on her hand had always been loose. She pulled it off now, leaned painfully from the cabin and threw it into the water.

  They arrived in Mestre just as the storm struck, confusing water, land and sky. They could go no further south. It was no matter, for it was now dark. Beating rain sent people scurrying into doorways. Even the water rats abandoned a dead dog for their damp holes.

  It was immense, overpowering. Ann and Aksel Stamer huddled together under his tarpaulin beneath the overhanging roof of an inn, closed like most places against the summer weather of stagnant heat and violent tempests.

  When it was over they shook themselves, scattering droplets of water. Steam rose from them as heat mounted again, even at night, and dried their clothes. The bloodstain was far less obtrusive now. Their bags had escaped the worst.

  ‘We will hire a carriage at once. After that we will travel more cheaply with others. But it is well to get out of the Veneto without delay.’

  Through the rest of the night he made arrangements and before dawn broke they were on their way. The earth was drying: Ann smelled the unaccustomed dust after so long surrounded by water.

  In late evening their carriage put them down in a small inland town with a tower and turreted walls covered with ivy. She never heard the name. There was an open theatre where some strolling players were preparing to perform. In the dark she heard singing across the square from the inn where they’d taken a room.

  In the early hours of the morning, another great storm arrived in lightning and thunder but no rain. She saw the towers against the white flash. She mentioned the players to Aksel Stamer, who she saw had been out in the town. He nodded but said nothing.

  As they travelled onwards in carriages and carts, all arranged by Aksel Stamer, he was almost silent, as if he’d said all he needed to say just once at the start of their strange journey. So silent that she began to fear. She asked questions to try to make him respond, but she got almost nothing back.

  ‘We go south towards Naples and across the water. No one will think of that route.’

  She expected him to suggest a resting place, for she was tired, but he did not. ‘If we can travel at night we should do so. You can sleep in snatches? You can do that?’

  He didn’t ask how she fared, how she managed to rush and scurry while being so pained in body and mind.

  After one long stretch he looked at her. ‘Make some changes. It is best,’ he said.

  He handed her a bundle of things he must have acquired somewhere, as she slept perhaps, but she didn’t remember a time when this could have happened. Perhaps in the little town where they’d had the first comfortable night? He was all surprises.

  ‘These should help.’

  The bundle contained loose trousers, a long linen smock, a hat with wide floppy brim.

  Two days on and he was holding a sheet of news. He glanced over it at her. ‘Yes, they may be looking,’ he said. ‘But we will soon be out of Austrian jurisdiction. I doubt there will be such efficiency then.’

  ‘What does it say, let me see.’ He didn’t reply but simply folded the sheet and put it in his pocket, then closed his eyes. ‘There are always fires in Venice,’ he said.

  Why should she not see it? She wanted to know only what they’d done with the body, what they’d done with Him. But she hesitated to address those shut eyes or interrupt a mood meant to close her out. She must be obedient. Could they really be looking for her? Or . . .? She stopped herself.

  ‘We take a boat to the island of Sardinia when we reach the western coast. From there to France.’

  He had spoken to her. She was grateful. Too grateful. Silences pressed on her.

  ‘My money will be nearly gone,’ she protested. ‘I have nothing for the passage.’

  ‘Of course. It is gone. No matter.’

  ‘I had enough to get to see my mother. I had saved it from teaching Signorina Savelli. I will get more when I reach Paris. I can pay you back. I have nearly finished some work and can send it to a bookseller.’

  She kept talking, giving needless information in the hope that she’d interest him, get him to respond, see her as what she had been, a writer of tuppenny trash yes, but a writer and a woman, a person, a personal
ity. After all, he’d engaged her in conversation once in Padua when she’d not asked for it. He’d seemed to want to know of her and her life. Why not now?

  ‘I had been going to my mother who is dying,’ she said. He knew that already. She knew he knew. That is where they’d begun.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied, ‘your mother, yes, you called her Caroline.’

  Why did he remember her name? She’d used it in error when they spoke in Padua. Then she’d corrected herself. Why retain such a detail?

  It had been a shock that he’d addressed her as Ann – although now he hardly ever used a name at all – perhaps a precaution? – but to mention her mother like this was strange. Or did he simply know no other name for a woman he could have no real interest in?

  Was he concerned with names? Although he’d urged her to bring her papers, he’d not wanted them on the journey when she offered them; none the less, she saw him looking at them when she took them from her bag to pull out her scarf. He seemed neither interested nor quite indifferent. What was he doing with her? Why was he taking this tortuous way back to London to help her when he himself was not in danger?

  He’d said Denmark once. Was that really where he was from? Why did he not speak and tell her everything?

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said when she repeated her offer. ‘There will be no need to pay me back.’

  As she thought or rather whizzed fragmented thoughts round her head in those moments before snatched sleep, she became more and more convinced that, however bizarre the idea, Aksel Stamer must know her mother. He’d not talked at all about Robert James, about the gruesome death that sat constantly in her mind. He’d asked nothing about him, nothing at all. This vibrant wonderful man had just become for him a body.

  She was suddenly furious. How dare he be so careless, so unaware of what had gone out of the world?

  What had? She hardly knew herself.

  But her mother? Who could be interested in Caroline? Except for the marvellous Gilbert. That was years ago when Aksel Stamer must have been just a youth. Could he have known Gilbert – though no one had spoken of him, unless she’d said something? She couldn’t now recollect. Might his weird silence be bitterness, disappointment, for something, someone lost? But no. He, they, should be thinking of Robert. Robert.