As he started on the north side, he had a shock. The first door he opened revealed a lighted room, but there was no sound. Leo peered around the door: it was a small living room with tatty furniture, a television, and a strong smell of curry. There was no sign of Soma, and Leo was just shutting the door again quietly, not wanting to confront her at this stage of his search, when he heard the distant but distinct sound of Indian music.
****
Emanuele, fuming with rage, checked the door leading to the secret stair, which was locked, then left the shrine, slamming the door behind him. “Turn left!” he said to the trembling Bhaskar. They passed through the vault of the tree roots. “Now into that doorway; on you go!” Soon they were at the canal entrance.
“Signor Barone, you see that I told the truth. The door has fallen in.”
“I can see that, you fool, and a lot more besides. No, don’t try to prop it up. Now, back to the palace, the same way we came, and be quick!”
Bhaskar scampered along the passage and into the barrel-entrance. “Signor Barone!” he called back, “The trapdoor is shut!”
“Then open it, you brainless monkey!”
Bhaskar pushed, to no avail. The Baron tried, too, but the false door was strong, and the iron bar stronger still. In a futile gesture, Bhaskar stuck his kitchen knife into the slit, and the blade broke off. Emanuele was speechless with rage. After several futile attempts, he said: “Follow me.” But when they reached the shrine, the Baron realized that, while he had taken the trouble to select the ideal sword for a duel, he had not brought his keys. He had slammed the shrine door shut, and, unlike young Rupert, was unaware of how easily some Yale locks can be persuaded to open.
Panting from their exertion, the two returned to the broken canal door. “Signor Barone, how are we to get to the palace from here?”
“Can you swim?”
“No, no, Signor Barone, I’ve never learned to swim, oh please, have pity!”
“You useless mongrel. You’ll have to lift me up onto the wall. Stand here, and make a stirrup of your hands.”
“Excuse me, Signor Barone: what is a stirrup?”
“Oh God, you idiot, hold them like this, and I put my foot in them.” Bhaskar obeyed. The Baron grabbed the door jamb with one hand, Bhaskar’s shoulder with the other, and levered himself up. “Now, lift me up higher.”
Bhaskar’s hands hurt from the crisp leather soles of Emanuele’s shoes. He could not lift him any higher, but Emanuele was already scrabbling for a handhold on the wall above. Bhaskar shifted his weight, and his foot turned on the uneven stones. As his ankle twisted, he let out a cry and swayed sideways. The two men parted company, the Baron hanging on to the wall, his legs kicking in thin air, and Bhaskar falling into the inky waters of the canal.
****
Leo crept silently from one spare bedroom to another, pausing to catch the faint strains of the music. He checked his sketches again, but found that he had lost count of the windows. Now he heard footsteps, too, and a distinct clink of dishes. The sounds were coming from overhead, in the direction of the ballroom. He needed to go up higher.
As he dangled from the garden wall, the Baron thought how this was the most idiotic situation he had ever found himself in. He painfully worked his way along to the canalside, dropped down, and rested for a while, his fingers bleeding. Not since his time in the army had he been in physical straits of any kind, and the strain told on him. He was vaguely aware of splashings in the canal, and regretted that his sword had fallen in. He got up and limped to the principal door of the palace. It was locked, and so was the adjacent service entrance. The Grand Canal entrance, even if it were open, was accessible only from the water. He rang the bell again and again, hoping to arouse Soma. But Soma would not come to the door. He was locked out of his own palace, with his servant God knows where, perhaps drowned.
****
Bhaskar would indeed have drowned then and there, in a canal six feet deep and narrow enough to jump over, had a waiter from the café not heard the splash and hurried over to see what had happened. He saw a brown face appear once above the water, utter a gurgling scream, and then vanish again. Without noticing the other man suspended above the doorway, he kicked off his shoes and jumped in. He had worked all summer on the Lido and was a good swimmer. He rescued Bhaskar, subduing his violent flounderings with a blow to the chin.
The Indian had been brought inside the café, shivering and not very coherent. The waiter and the proprietor could get little sense out of him. He kept saying “Palazzo Riviera,” and pointing to it, evidently anxious to return. After a while the waiter decided that he had done his duty, and went to the back of the café to change into his leisure clothes. Bhaskar, dripping from head to toe, crossed the bridge to the canalside, where the Baron was ringing the bell again. “Signor Barone, Signor Barone: I’m all right now. Can’t you enter?”
“No, I can not. Every door is locked, and I suppose you don’t have your outdoor keys either, do you?” Without waiting to hear what words came out of Bhaskar’s open mouth, he continued, “No, don’t bother with excuses. Let’s go find a phone.”
****
Leo climbed the stair, past the place where he had been trapped on his previous visit, and this time found the door open to the Baron’s apartments on the fourth floor. The lights were on, but no voices were to be heard. It seemed likely that the Baron and his servant were still downstairs. The southern enfilade revealed a sitting room, more intimate than the one below on account of its low ceiling but equally unwelcoming with its museum-quality furniture. Next there came a bedroom, a study, and what looked like an alchemist’s laboratory, with gas tubes, glass vessels, and large majolica jars of mysterious substances.
The doors on the north side were all closed, and the rooms behind them in stark contrast to the Baron’s exquisite apartments. They were dusty and almost empty, lit with bare bulbs which Leo now had no hesitation in switching on, and leaving on. But they must once have been cherished, as they were all painted from floor to ceiling. The room fronting the Grand Canal was set up as a puppet theater, and its walls showed Arlecchino and Colombina flirting and embracing in a woodland setting. The next room contained the puppets, a sad crew of broken bodies and torn garments strung up on pegs. Here was the quack Dottore, shown attending Colombina’s bedside. On one wall he was squinting at a urinary flask, on the other threatening her with a clyster.
The third room was devoted to Pantalone, the grotesque old man who is always trying to woo a young maiden. Here he was leading Columbina by the hand before an equally grotesque notary, while Arlecchino lurked in the background, winking at her. Lastly came a room painted entirely with figures of humpbacked Pulcinella in his ill-fitting white suit, cone-shaped hat, and long-nosed mask. He was shown courting, riding a donkey, getting drunk, and playing with children who looked just like himself.
All this Leo took in beneath the threshold of consciousness, straining his ears to catch the music. He thought he could hear the phone ring somewhere in the distance. Now that he was in the topsy-turvy world of the Commedia dell’arte, the enigmas of the book seemed to hover on the brink of solution. He recalled the Latin tags of the masked figures, ending with Pulcinella’s Pulsate cineres, elige lacunam: Sweep the ashes, find the hole. Where does one find ashes? In the hearth; but not in this one, for the stone flags of the fireplace were remarkably clean, and partially covered by a Turkish prayer rug. Leo pushed it aside, to reveal a pair of iron rings sunk into the stone.
He expected a struggle, but the hearthstone was made to pivot, and opened easily. Underneath it he recognized the brickwork of the spiral staircase. This was evidently one of its terminals, as the shrine, four floors below, was the other. He started down it, and soon came to a cramped landing, like the one leading from the Cave of Mercury. Leo could hear the whining music clearly now, together with indistinct muttering; a woman’s voice; the chink of a glass. In darkness, he paused and allowed his pupils to dilate. A yellow beam of li
ght showed beneath the door, dimly. He took a firm grip of the wrench, and threw open the door.
He stood on the threshold of a small, low-ceilinged room. There was a cot, clothes in disarray, towels flung over a chair. On a serving table was a stack of used dishes, diapers, a chamber pot. As though in mockery of the squalor, the whole room was painted with fauns and satyrs. But Leo’s attention was on the open doorway to the next room: from it he heard “Bhaskar?” and something in a foreign language. “Bhaskar?”
In semidarkness, Soma was kneeling beside a mattress on the floor. When she saw Leo, she screamed, but he was on her in a moment, his hand over her mouth.
“Shut up!” he hissed, and brandished the wrench in her face. “On the floor, face downwards. Do as I say, now!” She did. “Put your hands behind your back.” She obeyed. Leo had anticipated some such encounter, and took out of his backpack a hank of rope and a roll of duct tape, his eyes never leaving the terrified woman. He tied her hands to one another, and then to the radiator; next, he wound the tape tightly around her mouth.
On the mattress lay a woman, blindfolded, motionless. Was she dead? Was Orsina dead? Had they killed her?
As Leo screamed Orsina’s name, and she did not reply, did not stir at all, rage seized him. His first impulse was to turn around and kill her jailer; then, a stronger urge overwhelmed him: to run downstairs and find the Baron—oh, to squeeze his neck, to sink his fingers inside it, to watch him writhe and turn cyanotic. Leo could see himself throw him on the ground half dead; he could see himself raise his arm and bring the wrench crushing down on the Baron’s head—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven blows, till he must stop to catch his breath, and to stare at the wreckage of Emanuele’s skull mixed with his brains and blood.
Leo was dashing out of the room to do just that when he heard a moan: Orsina? Had she moaned? Was he hearing things? He turned on his heels and the next instant he was by her.
She was wearing a nightdress and an adult diaper. What had they reduced her to? He called her name, repeatedly; she did not stir. He knelt by her, put his ear on her chest, grabbing her hand. The hand was not cold; there was a heartbeat. As a spate of emotions threatened to paralyze him, Leo forced himself to think, to be rational and efficient. “Heaven bless you, Orsina, Heaven bless you,” he kept repeating in his mind as his intellect gave orders: look for her clothes, for example. He found them, folded on a chair. With trembling hands, he dressed her. There were two bottles of pills on a tray by the mattress, hypodermic syringes and needles, some ampoules. He pocketed them all, picked Orsina up, and carried her out of the room, kicking the door shut behind him.
****
The phone in the palazzo had rung and rung, but Soma had not answered. In frustration, the Baron handed the cell phone back to the bar owner, then joined Bhaskar outside, where he had left him. “There’s no way to get in until the maids arrive in the morning,” he said with disgust. “You’ll have to spend the night in a hotel. Come with me: they’d never take you in looking like a drowned rat.”
Emanuele led the way to a pensione across the Campo. The owner knew who he was and greeted him effusively, then halted as he saw the Baron’s shivering and sneezing companion. “My servant has locked us out of my palace, and on top of it, he has fallen into the canal. Give him a room for the night, and wake him up at seven o’clock.”
“And yourself, Signor Barone?”
“I shall be at the Gritti.”
****
With Orsina in his arms, Leo maneuvered her carefully up the stairs and through the fireplace entrance, then readjusted his lift as he carried her to the main staircase and right down to the androne. The significance of the wheelchair behind the pillar was now clear: she must have arrived in it. He eased her into the seat. She moaned and half opened her eyes. Even under extreme duress, emaciated and unconscious, she was beautiful, and he kissed her on the forehead as he tucked a blanket around her. He wheeled her out of the service door and along the canalside, crossing the little bridge into the Campo San Barnaba. He stopped and looked around in the darkness, taking in the cold air. There was no trace of the Baron or of Bhaskar. Once more, he hid the Usag 36 under his shirt, as the carabinieri had already searched his backpack on the vaporetto on his way from the railway station.
The few passengers at the vaporetto stop helped him to lift Orsina in her wheelchair onto the ferry, and, a few stops later, to carry her back onto dry land.
Pushing the wheelchair gingerly with his left hand through the crowd and the patrolling carabinieri at the railway station, and using his right hand to keep Orsina from falling forward, Leo headed for the ticket office. He bought two tickets for Trieste, the city on the border with Slovenia, and paid for the first time with a credit card. Then he studied the Departures board and headed for another platform, where a train was about to leave. He carefully picked up Orsina and climbed aboard. A passenger kindly carried up the wheelchair. Leo unfolded it, and eased Orsina back into it. She was still only half awake.
The ticket collector came around shortly after leaving Venice. Leo bought two tickets for Padua, paying cash. Perhaps the false lead to Trieste was a bit too obvious; perhaps he was being paranoid. The collector, thinking the young woman asleep, and noticing the folded wheelchair, leaned forward and said: “Such a beautiful woman, on a wheelchair—what a pity!”
Leo nodded with a hopeful expression and was relieved to see him move on. Lack of privacy, he realized, was going to be a concern. The long carriage was crowded, and people were already staring. Certainly, the two of them made for an odd couple. She was very beautiful, but alarmingly gaunt, not to mention fast asleep. He—fully bearded, unkempt and wild-eyed—looked more like a captor than a rescuer. Moreover, Orsina’s photos had recently been in the news, from TV to newspapers and magazines. Might someone recognize her as the kidnapped aristocrat? And him, as her alleged kidnapper? His own photo had been in some publications, and in relation to her. Did the carriage have to be so brightly lit?
Leo helped Orsina out of the wheelchair and onto the seat next to his; she leaned on his shoulder, curled up beside him like a fern in spring. Feeling her breathe was enough for Leo to forget the circumstances, and the possibility that the Baron, Inspector Ghedina, or God knows who else might pounce on them. Fugitives have no time for emotions, yet Orsina’s calm breathing beside him reminded him of the breath of life, and of the stunning reality of having given it back to her.
Padua came and went; Orsina was still half-insensible. Leo had not formulated a plan yet, but he realized that she must be awake before they could get off the train. When would the sedatives wear off, he wondered as he bought another two tickets, this time to Vicenza. Luckily, it was a different ticket collector. But the passengers, most of them, were the same ones who had boarded the train in Venice. They noticed this second purchase, and stared at the couple—wondering?
The train approached Vicenza, slowed down, screeched to a halt. Leo was growing very worried. Orsina had no ID card on her, so no hotel would take her in. He did have his passports with him, but using either one would cause the police to show up in short order. With the Baron at large, he couldn’t leave Orsina in some police station. Besides, they would take him in, at least for questioning, and then who would protect Orsina? No, there must be a better solution.
A little man was pushing a cart down the isle crammed with soft drinks and snacks, advertising his goods in a strong southern accent. Leo bought a bottle of mineral water and some cookies. Orsina might be thirsty, and perhaps even hungry, when she awoke. He would not even begin to consider the other possibility: that, by the time the train terminated in Milan, she would still be only half-awake.
Once more Leo bought another two tickets, this time all the way to Milan, so as not to repeat the suspicious process in Verona, and then Brescia, and Bergamo. His cash was dwindling.
Verona came and went; Orsina was still dozing. His right arm was resting on her shoulder. How more obvious could it be, he wond
ered, finally staring back at one woman who did not seem able to take her eyes off them? Orsina was everything to him.
Between Verona and Brescia, Orsina stirred. She opened her eyes and whispered: “Leo … You’ve saved me.” She smiled as tears streaked down her cheeks, still leaning on his shoulder.
Feeling anything but calm, Leo whispered in Orsina’s ear: “Everything’s fine. It’s all right. You’re safe now. I’m here with you. Don’t cry. We mustn’t look conspicuous. Be happy, Orsina, it’s all right.” He kissed her lightly, on her hair, then on her cheek: something to keep the pain away. It worked. He offered her some water. Was she hungry too? She was.
“Will you see me through this, Leo?” she asked at length.
“I will, Orsina, I will. It’s all I live for.”
By the time the train reached Brescia, Leo had accompanied Orsina to the bathroom, and helped her in, as she was still unsteady on her legs. As he wheeled her back to her seat, he noticed the woman who had been staring at them. He smiled at her; she smiled back.
Leo updated Orsina. “Your husband has been released from prison, acquitted of a crime he never committed.” How he was so sure of his innocence, Leo did not mention. But a solution was presenting itself, however tentatively. Nigel might well still be in Italy, “deeply ashamed of his own conduct,” as he had read in Il Sole 24 Ore, and eager to rescue his wife.
“Orsina,” Leo said.
“Yes?”
“There’s something you must know.”
“Tell me, Leo.”
He would whisper it in her ear. “I love you, Orsina. I love you, and I always have. I always will, it’s nothing that could ever stop.”
“I know,” she said, closing her eyes. “I love you too,” she added. She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it.
The Forbidden Book: A Novel Page 25
