Over the coffee that kind of pause descended which is not awkward exactly but results when everything has been said but the one essential thing.
‘I’d better get the bill, I suppose,’ Raikes said. He began casting those wary glances of the Englishman who wants to catch the waiter’s eye.
‘The hotel is called the Perseus,’ she said. ‘It is between the hospital and the Mendicanti church, a small hotel. My room number is twenty-six – on the second floor. If I go back there now, and allow about fifteen minutes …’
‘Yes, all right,’ he said. He was struck, as he had been before on the quayside, at the clear, definite and precise way in which she dealt with all these practical matters. It was as though she had worked everything out in advance. Women are great planners, he thought, rather uneasily. Why had they not gone together, booked a double room in the first place? No one would have been any the wiser. But of course they knew her at this hotel …
‘Go straight through,’ she said. ‘No need to ask at the Reception. Just go directly to my room.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait here for a while. I’ll have another drink.’
She smiled at him as she got up. ‘Don’t drink too much,’ she said.
These fifteen minutes passed slowly for Raikes. It was still fairly early when he left the restaurant, not much after ten. He found the hotel without any trouble; no one took particular notice of him as he crossed to the lift; the second floor corridor was deserted.
Chiara’s room was lit only dimly by the small bedside lamp. She faced him without saying anything. He took her at once into his arms and began to kiss her; the skin of her face was hot, her mouth too was hot and her lips parted under his kisses. He felt the pressure against him of her abdomen and the fronts of her thighs. After these first kisses she pressed close against him for a while, face hidden. Then, as if with some access of urgency, she panted and raised her face again, in haste, seeking his lips. No words were exchanged between them. Raikes had time for some slight feeling of surprise at this wordless burning haste of hers, after the previous cool arrangements. But at these further kisses his own excitement began to mount, her haste was communicated to him; suddenly it was as if all the desire he had ever felt was focused on this one woman in his arms. His clothes constricted him, the blood was beating in his temples, he could not distinguish her clamorous breath from his own.
Three or four staggering dance steps brought them to the bed. Here, moaning and fumbling, they undressed each other as far as impatience would allow, stripping off whatever would get in the way. He abandoned his attempts on the grey dress, removing only the flimsy garment beneath it– his own trousers still clung to his knees. As soon as he put his hand on her she cried out. She cried out again when he entered. Her body, the thighs that strongly held him, were burning with the same fever as the face. Raikes had never experienced such passion in a woman. She reached orgasm almost at once, within a few seconds, in a series of sighing shudders, not painful or violent, like a long release.
He stopped moving, surprised into patience, still rigid inside her, made forbearing somehow by the contractions of her pleasure, the sight of the flushed face that smiled at him. Very gently, in spite of murmured complaint, he withdrew, completed his own undressing and hers. Naked she was very beautiful to him, her breasts softly mounded as she lay there on her back, the nipples large and prominent, the thighs rounded and strong, displayed carelessly now, half-parted in the abandonment of her release. An emotion of great tenderness came to Raikes, contending with the urgency of his desire. He was erect still. He kissed her on the eyes and brow and mouth and slowly entered her again and heard her murmur and felt her body quicken and this time begin to move against him, heard and uttered the intimations of orgasm – his own came first with a sensation so strong that deep groans broke from him. His spasms brought her to it, she called out as if in surprise and her body convulsed violently so that he was almost thrown off, like a spent wrestler.
Afterwards they lay side by side, looking up at the ceiling, in which there was a faint but extensive tracery of cracks. He found himself telling her a good many things in the next hour or so as they lay there, the lamp still on, her body calm beside him. He tried to tell her first of all about his feelings when making love to her, and before they had started – how much he had wanted it, how even then he felt that he adored her. ‘Not just afterwards,’ he said, ‘before, you understand, it isn’t so common to feel adoring before, you know, because basically by that time you usually feel so excited … I was excited too, that is the extraordinary thing.’
He was absorbed by what had just happened, the preternatural wisdom he felt he had shown, waiting long enough for her to be able to come again. Some instinct of grace had saved him from his own importunate haste. Surely only love could produce such instincts. ‘You are the one woman in the world for me,’ he said. ‘It has never been like that before.’
Certainly it had not been like that with Margaret, who worked in the Prints Department of the Museum, who had shared an apartment with him for several months. They had got on well enough in a way, but their love-making had not been successful. ‘There was nothing in it, it was just an act, you know,’ he said. ‘She went along with it. We remained completely separate people.’ This had been symbolized perfectly by the manner of their parting. They had sorted through the books and records together, each calmly and amicably claiming his or her own. What a way to part. Raikes grew voluble at the soullessness of it. ‘It’s amazing’, he said, ‘how closely tied we are to things, to material objects. This division of property was the really important thing, not what we actually said to each other. That is how we convinced ourselves we were really serious about breaking up. You know, it is like “With this ring I thee wed”, only in reverse.’
She herself talked little, saying nothing of her previous life or loves. She replied to him in a slow voice, looking up at the ceiling. Twice she reached for her watch from the bedside table to look at the time. He tried to tell her about the impact on him of their first meeting, how stricken he had been, how remote and unattainable she had seemed. ‘I never thought you would look at me,’ he said.
In the joy of the contrast between this state of affairs and his present felicity he turned to her again. He touched the skin of her shoulders, tracing the form of the bones beneath; he kissed her cheek, and the side of her neck, and her breasts, feeling the nipples harden between his lips. She pressed close against him and he felt himself stiffen against her stomach. He would have moved on to her but she stayed him, sitting up herself, pulling the sheet clear so that she could look down at him. He closed his eyes under this scrutiny and after a moment felt her hands caressing him. Then she had knelt astride him, lowered herself carefully on to him. She sighed as he entered, and uttered his name.
This time they took longer, their movements were more deliberate. He saw her face above him as he moved to her rhythm, rose and fell with her, thrusting to penetrate as deeply as he could; saw her face still straining upwards as she rode him, vague, uncertain, strangely yearning, saw the green eyes closing and the face preparing for its pain. ‘I love you,’ he groaned, ‘I love you.’
Still he could not sleep. When the lamp was switched off he talked on for some time in the darkness – glad of the darkness in fact, as he had plunged into telling her about his visions, what Vittorini called the hallucinatory content, though he did not mention his visits to the doctor, describing only the things he had seen or thought he had seen, the feeling, the vertigo, the resonance of laughter, wet bodies, straight shadows, the statue amid the foliage, the two faces of the same girl.
‘That is strange,’ she said, in a tone he did not quite understand. But he was sleepy now, as if lulled by these confessions, and sleep came to him before he could ask her what she meant, what she really thought.
Somewhere towards morning she woke him, reaching for her watch to see the time. ‘I can’t sleep,’ she said, in a tone of complaint, lik
e a child. A moment later he felt her kisses on his face and body. She was burning hot again and her skin felt dry, feverish. He was still half asleep, not properly ready, but she manoeuvred him inside her and panted and turned her head restlessly while he stiffened slowly, growing till he filled her and they both made noises of delirium. Raikes felt ecstasy approach very slowly, even reluctantly, from some infinite distance, like a wary god. When it came, however, it was cataclysmic, threatening his whole being with extinction. He fell back from it exhausted, passing instantly from this foretaste of death to the oblivion which is its simulacrum.
Almost at once – or so it seemed to him – she was shaking him awake. He thought at first that she wanted to make love again. But her tone was sharp, business-like. ‘It’s nearly half-past six,’ she said. ‘If you go now, no one will see you.’
‘Won’t there be someone on duty there?’ he said.
‘This is a small place. There is no one on duty at night. The day clerk will be here now but he is not at the desk till after seven – not till they start serving breakfast. He goes to have his coffee with the waiters.’
‘You seem to know the place.’ Raikes was prey to sudden, disagreeable suspicions. ‘Have you smuggled people out before?’ he said. She was sitting up in bed and he was aware of the beauty of her breasts.
‘I told you I have stayed here,’ she said. ‘I have tried to pay the bill at this time and there was no one there. You must hurry.’
She seemed to grow agitated now, passing a hand rapidly through her hair. ‘Please hurry,’ she said. ‘Even if someone sees you, they will only think you are going out to get a paper.’
Raikes thought this doubtful, but saw no point in saying so. ‘When can I see you?’ he said, struggling into his clothes.
‘I want you to go back with me,’ she said. ‘You know, to help me to explain what happened, why I couldn’t go back last night. He would have been waiting for the boat, you see, but of course it was too dangerous.’
He looked at her in surprise. Her face was pale and bore the defenceless, unprepared look of early morning. While he watched she passed her right hand slowly down her left arm from shoulder to wrist in the curiously narcissistic gesture he remembered, self-protecting and self-loving. It came to him that she was frightened of Litsov.
‘But you phoned,’ he said. ‘You phoned from Burano. He knew you weren’t coming back.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is so, of course, but it will help if you come with me. Please, Simon.’
‘I don’t mind,’ he said, ‘if that is what you want.’
‘I can meet you in an hour – less.’
‘It won’t take that long to pay the bill, will it?’
‘I paid the bill last night. Since I had no luggage, it seemed better. No, I am going to have breakfast here.’
For some reason Raikes was completely taken aback by this. He stared at her without speaking.
‘That is the normal thing to do,’ she said, almost primly. ‘In this situation one must do what is normal.’
Was this the burning creature of the night?
‘I’ll wait for you outside, then,’ he said.
‘Well, not quite, perhaps. Wait at the entrance to the Ospedale. It’s just round the corner. No, just a moment. You’d better go back to your apartment first. Have your coffee there, as usual. I’ll telephone you later. You must go now, please.’
To his enormous relief reception desk and lobby were deserted. He heard a clatter of dishes from the dining room but as far as he could tell no one saw him leave. Dishevelled, strangely demoralized, he stepped out into the opal light of morning.
It was not until he was back in his apartment, sitting with his coffee, that he remembered the letter. It was still there in his inside pocket. The single sheet of notepaper had been folded twice. Slowly, almost absent-mindedly, he smoothed it out and began to read Chiara’s large, angular writing. She had not bothered to translate the formal opening:
All’Illustrissimo Signor Conte Maffeo di Rovereto.
Fear not any displeasure on my part or from the Council in response to your intercessions. In my eyes and theirs it stands to your credit and to the credit of your noble name that you should express thus your sense of the obligations all of us owe to those who in any way depend on us. In this you show your right feeling and the dues imposed on all who are inscribed in the Rolls, and these moreover are dues which keep together the fabric of our State and preserve the Signoria. Moreover I well understand the feelings of your lady wife and her sympathy with any from her native place. Know that the Bernardoni family stands high with us and we would do much to mark this respect.
However in this matter I am powerless to help. The Council view the case with severity. What you say concerning the character of the girl is true and should act in some mitigation but the Council take the view that this is becoming too prevalent now, this disregard for life among the people, and so there is need for exemplary punishments. Therefore I can do nothing in this matter though wishful to please you in all ways in my power.
Believe me to be, Illustrissimo Signor Conte, now and always at your service.
Federico Fornarini
Raikes sat for some time puzzling over this, obscurely disappointed – in spite of Chiara’s words he had been expecting something more obviously significant. The letter was dated 19th October 1432 and had clearly been written in reply to some request for favour, probably a plea for the girl, who seemed to be mixed up in some crime or other, perhaps murder.
He looked again at the names: di Rovereto, Bernardoni. They meant nothing at all to him. Suddenly he remembered Wiseman, that cherubic knowledge about the patrician families of Venice the day they had lunched together in the sunshine on the Riva degli Schiavoni – it seemed half a lifetime ago now, his meeting with Chiara had distanced all else before. It was not nine o’clock yet: possibly Wiseman would not have left for his office.
He went quickly downstairs to the telephone, feeling a certain frailty along the insides of his thighs as he did so, reminder of the night past. He found the number in his diary, dialled hastily and was relieved to hear Wiseman’s gentle, equable voice at the other end.
‘Di Rovereto, Bernardoni … No, I can’t tell you off-hand, dear boy. Not very important families, I fancy. The first sounds Venetian. I can find out of course. No trouble at all. Leave it to uncle Alex.’
Chiara’s call came at half-past nine. They met on the Fondamenta Nuova at the Burano boat stage. During the trip back they stood close together, not speaking much. Her face was very pale. He put his arm round her shouders and felt the tension in her body. She would not be looking forward to facing Litsov; he was not looking forward to it himself.
The boat lay as they had left it, hull wet with the deposits of the mist. This was thinning now, yielding place to sunlight, as they nosed out of the little harbour and turned eastwards, the great tower of Torcello on their left, rising clear into a softly livid sky.
It was a journey that was becoming familiar to Raikes. As they drew near to the island, he noted again, in spite of his nervousness, the silvering of light on the meshes of fish traps staked in the distant shallows, the gleams of broken water beyond, where sandbanks lay just below the surface. Over all the scene, to Raikes’s view at least, there lay a sort of moving, shimmering presence, as if some being of immortal lightness and inscrutable purpose were moving over the water, displacing the mist here and there, admitting the sun in arbitrary patches, sudden transforming glitters of light.
Crouched on the little wooden jetty, helping to tie up the boat, he noticed fronds of dark-green seaweed groping in the shallow water. Small crabs moved languidly against the black moss at the foot of the wall.
Silence lay over the house as they approached. The door was unlocked. As they walked down the passage Chiara called her husband’s name, twice, but there was no reply. ‘He’ll be working, I expect,’ she said. ‘I’ll go over to the studio. You wait here.’
; When she had gone, Raikes stood for a moment or two in the passage. Then he opened the door on to the main living room and passed inside. The curtains were still drawn in here. There was an oil lamp on the table, still burning, though the flame was flickering, almost spent. In this light, and the daylight filtering through the curtains, the bronze sculptures emitted shifting gleams, as if uncertainly signalling. A faint smell of paraffin hung on the air.
He had blown the flame out and was moving to draw the curtains when he heard her quick steps in the passage. He turned and saw her framed in the doorway. ‘He forgot to put the lamp out,’ he said.
‘He’s not there,’ Chiara said. ‘He’s nowhere in the house at all.’
She made no move to come further into the room. Raikes hesitated for some moments. ‘He must be somewhere,’ he said. He had the feeling that she was waiting for him, that she did not want to be alone any longer. ‘Of course he might have got a boat somehow,’ he said. ‘Last night, I mean, later on. Must have been quite a bit later, well after dark, anyway. He could have phoned someone he knows.’
‘Litsov doesn’t like telephones,’ she said. ‘Still, if he was really determined to go …’
‘Funny he should have left the lamp on. We’d better have a look round the island, I think – he may still be here somewhere.’
But there was so sign of Litsov anywhere. He was not among the pine trees, nor the tangle of shrubs and bushes, nor the old foundations and ruined walls of former houses that led down to the shore on the north side of the island.
They covered the ground together, Chiara several times calling Litsov’s name. ‘Something is wrong,’ she said, and he noticed that she had begun trembling. ‘If he had gone to Mestre, he would have left a note.’
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