Deadly to the Sight

by Edward Sklepowich

Beatrix looked as if she wanted to say something in response. Suppressed merriment danced in her eyes.

  “You are better?” Frieda asked.

  “Much better, thank you. Where’s Marie?”

  “She is tired from all the walking, poor little bird,” Beatrix said. “She sends her greetings.”

  Frieda held the packages out to him.

  “The one in blue paper is from me.”

  He unwrapped it. It was an elaborately decorated wax candle.

  “I brought it from Munich. Maybe it will chase away the germs!”

  “If I can bring myself to use it instead of keeping it as it is. It’s lovely.”

  He opened the other package, which was wrapped in Venetian marbleized paper. It was a compact disc of Mozart’s Requiem.

  The Austrian woman laughed.

  “Marie made a joke. I am happy to see you are far from a requiem! Where is Habib?”

  “In his studio. Would you like a drink? Or perhaps some coffee or tea?”

  “Some grappa,” Frieda said.

  “Red wine for me,” Beatrix said.

  When Urbino turned around from the bar with their drinks, a tall, frozen-faced dark figure was standing silently beside Frieda. A large cone-shaped beak concealed its nose and mouth. A muffled moaning sound broke the sudden stillness in the room.

  “Enough! Enough!” Frieda cried out. “He will need the Requiem if you continue!”

  Beatrix untied the mask from her face and put it down on the table.

  “I thought I would bring a little precaution in case you have something contagious.”

  The mask was that of a plague doctor, and could be found in any of the mask shops in Venice. Along with a black tunic, large black-framed glasses, full black gloves, and a thick wooden stick, it was one of the popular costumes for Carnevale. Centuries earlier, it had been the indispensable outfit for doctors taking care of plague victims. A piece of cloth soaked with a fumigating substance was placed in the cone to protect the wearer from the plague.

  “She is always buying a new mask,” Frieda said. “Soon she’ll have more than you. But where have yours gone?”

  Her slightly protruding eyes sought out the place on the wall where his collection of Venetian masks used to hang. A brightly colored carpet in a naive design now occupied the spot.

  “I’ve stored them. They made Habib uncomfortable.”

  “A very impressionable and sensitive boy, yes.”

  She seated herself on the sofa next to Urbino. Beatrix was about to take the wing easy chair across from them when her eye was caught by something on a nearby table. She went over and picked up a carved wood diptych with miniatures of Giovanni Bellini’s aloof Madonnas.

  “Habib is lucky to have all these lovely things around him to inspire him.” She replaced the diptych. Her eye quickly ran over some of the other objects in the room. “I would love to have a talk with him about his work. I didn’t get a chance at the party to ask him what he was painting on Burano. He was there with his painting kit the day before.”

  “He was?” Urbino said. “He hasn’t mentioned it to me, but it is an artist’s paradise with all those colors.”

  “You say that he is working?” Beatrix asked. “Would you mind if I slipped out for a few minutes to see the boy?”

  She was gone before Urbino had a chance to tell her which of the rooms was Habib’s studio.

  “You see how free Beatrix makes herself in your house,” Frieda said after taking a sip of grappa. “I think she likes it even more than I do, if such a thing is possible.”

  “I’m happy you found it to your liking, and Beatrix too. Did you meet here in Venice?”

  “Yes. We have become good friends, the three of us.”

  “Where are they staying?”

  “Not far from here. In an apartment by the boat landing for Burano. But enough about Beatrix. You must tell me all about Habib. We writers like details, you know! How you met and such things. He is a delightful boy.”

  “We met in the medina in Fez. His family has a house there.”

  “And so?”

  “One afternoon, when I was walking in the medina, someone pushed against me and I fell on the ground. Before I knew what had happened, my wallet and passport were gone.”

  “And this was Habib? I would not have imagined it!”

  “Oh, not Habib. Quite the opposite. He came to my rescue.”

  “Most interesting!”

  “He saw the whole thing from a cafe. He chased after the boy. A few minutes later he brought back my wallet and passport.”

  “And with all the money in it?”

  “Yes.”

  “A very clever creature!”

  Urbino gave her a sharp look.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She looked embarrassed.

  “It was quite clever of him to act quickly. Were the police involved?”

  “Morocco isn’t a country where you want to have much business with them, even when you’re on the right side. That had been my impression. And Habib said it would do no good and could only draw attention to him—and to me.”

  “I see.”

  “The police there have a way of making a young man’s life difficult,” Urbino explained, disliking his defensive tone but unable to banish it. “I had a good example of that about a week later, also in Fez.”

  “Attention was drawn to him—and to you?” she asked, echoing his words.

  “Yes, but he was the one in danger. It was when we were leaving the medina one evening. I stopped outside the gate to examine something I had bought. Habib walked on ahead. When I looked up, two policemen were talking to him. He was showing them his identity card.”

  Urbino poured himself more wine.

  “I hurried over,” he said as he reseated himself beside Frieda. “The policemen were taking him away. A police wagon was parked a few feet off. They cruise all over town, stopping to check identity cards. It’s awful to see them filled with these young guys. I asked if he had showed them his university identity card. He was in his last year. He had, he said, but they didn’t care. I don’t know what came over me, but I actually started babbling in more Arabic than I thought I knew.”

  Frieda was drinking it all in with a writer’s curiosity.

  “Something popped into my head. He was my student, I said, and a good student. My Arabic was rather limited, but it worked. The policeman holding Habib looked at me closely, then at Habib. Without saying anything, he let go of Habib’s arm. They got back into the wagon and drove off. I can’t tell you how relieved I was.”

  “But you weren’t his teacher, or were you?”

  “It was a lie. I was putting my neck out. I suppose it would have been even worse for him, if they had bothered to check. It was a wild gamble.”

  “You saved him, and he saved you.”

  Frieda’s imagination seemed to be giving the story a shape already. It made him feel uncomfortable.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Frieda stood up.

  “I must get back to Burano, but I’d like to say good evening to your brave rescuer.”

  Beatrix re-entered the parlor.

  “I cannot find Habib anywhere.”

  “I am sure you searched every corner, yes!” Frieda said. “Urbino will think you are a strange guest, my dear. But come. We must be on our way. Don’t forget your mask! No, Urbino, you don’t have to show us out. We know our way. You continue to get well so that you can visit me—you and Habib together.”

  7

  Urbino’s own search through the Palazzo Uccello revealed that Habib had gone out.

  He often went for walks at night without telling Urbino. At first Urbino had been uneasy until he returned, but he had gradually become more relaxed about it. In Morocco it had been Habib who had been concerned by Urbino’s unaccompanied walks into remote parts of the Fez medina.

  Urbino returned to Habib’s studio. The poster of Habib’s favorite Arab diva stared out at him wi
th her wide-eyed gaze.

  Habib had tidied up the room. The paints and brushes were all in their places, the rags were arranged on the rack, the divan was made up, and the cassettes of Arabic music were in neat rows on the shelf. The ingenious storage and drying cupboards that Habib had constructed were closed and securely locked. Habib was jealous of his own space and became upset at any intrusion, whether it was by Urbino or Natalia. Urbino attributed it to the severely cramped quarters Habib had endured in his family’s house.

  In the library, he reclined on the sofa with a volume of Veronica Franco’s love sonnets. Franco, a famous sixteenth-century courtesan and poet, who established a home in Dorsoduro for former prostitutes, was one of the women he was including in his new book.

  He fell asleep before he had read through one sonnet, good though it was. He was awakened by Habib’s footsteps on the staircase.

  “Sidi!” Habib exclaimed. “You are still up.” He tossed his burnoose on the back of a chair. “It is late.”

  Urbino squinted at the clock. A few minutes past midnight.

  “I hope you weren’t worrying about me. I was fine.”

  Urbino started to close the lights and gather together some of his books and notes. Habib, however, was always a few steps or seconds ahead of him, and anticipated what he wanted to do.

  “I walked all over the city, and went over all the bridges—or down the bridges, the way that you say in Italian! And I spent too much time in the Piazza.”

  “A lot of time, you mean. That is, unless you really do mean too much time.”

  “You are a little upset with me, I think. A tisane will help.”

  “No, thank you. By the way, Habib, have you ever been to Burano without me? Believe me, I don’t care if you have. You know I want you to strike out on your own and do whatever you want as long as you’re careful. But it might be just as easy for you to get confused here as it was for me in Morocco. You remember how many mistakes I was always making.”

  Habib nodded with amusement.

  “But never any bad ones. Everyone liked you.”

  “I’m pleased that you think so. But listen, Habib, there are certain things about Burano that are on my mind these days.”

  “Because of the death of the old woman with the evil eye?”

  “She’s part of it. There might be problems for you, because of your association with me. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go there. Just let me know when you do. Beatrix Bauma, the Austrian woman, said that she saw you there the day before Frieda’s party. Did you go there to do some painting?”

  Habib’s dark, thickly lashed eyes met his and looked away.

  “There is plenty to paint everywhere else, sidi.”

  “Does that mean you weren’t there?”

  “You make it sound like I would go there for a bad reason. I would never do that. You will not be disappointed in me. I swear to you.”

  There was an appeal and sincerity in his words.

  But he hadn’t said whether he had been there or not.

  Urbino weighed his own desire to know with the need to trust him, his concern for Habib with his determination not to interfere where it wasn’t appropriate. What had the Contessa said while he was recuperating? That he would strike the proper balance between encouraging Habib’s independence and looking after him? At least she had faith that he would be eventually able to accomplish what didn’t seem at all easy at the moment.

  Habib looked weary.

  “I’m only trying to look out for you. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Habib nodded.

  “Protect me.”

  “Right. Well, it’s late.” Urbino paused at the door. “I’ll give you an easy one this time. The daughter of your brother’s wife.”

  “My niece,” Habib said with a smile. “But if his wife was married before, she is my stair-niece. No, my step-niece! Did you think of that?”

  Urbino admitted he hadn’t.

  8

  “To think this is the first place you want to see as soon as you’re well enough to get out,” the Contessa said as she stepped along the leaf-strewn path on Urbino’s arm.

  “It restores my sense of proportion,” he responded.

  It was three days after the Contessa had visited him at the Palazzo Uccello. They were in the Protestant graveyard on the cemetery island of San Michele. Old markers, eaten away by time and weather, were scattered in the unkempt grass beneath the twisted trees. Some of their surfaces were as smooth as the wall that separated the area from the lagoon.

  They approached an oval of grass and ivy with a squat urn of fresh-cut flowers. It was the grave of Ezra Pound.

  “How sad that Olga Rudge has gone too,” the Contessa observed. “She could have been of help with your new book.”

  “If I could have believed what she told me. Tea with Olga, from what I understand, involved listening to all of the reasons why Pound hadn’t been anti-Semitic, beginning with the fact that his first name was the good old Hebrew one of Ezra.”

  “But isn’t that your job, carol? To sort out the lies from the truth?”

  This wasn’t the first time this morning that she had reminded him indirectly of his promise to try to get to the bottom of the Nina Crivelli affair as soon as he had recuperated. She also kept hinting about one or two things she wanted to tell him, but he had so far succeeded in putting her off.

  They continued in silence as they went out the door and passed beneath rows of burial niches. Another door, this one in a brick wall, brought them into the Orthodox section. It was simpler and more ordered than the Protestant graveyard, and not as overgrown with vegetation.

  The Contessa proceeded down the path to Diaghilev’s grave by the far wall. Beyond the wall was a marshy waste, and beyond that stretched the lagoon.

  A ballet slipper lay on top of the tombstone, like an offering on an altar. It was moldy and misshapen, and resembled a miniature coffin filled with decayed leaves and withered flower petals.

  “There’s always a new one,” the Contessa said. “Just once I’d like to see who leaves them.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. It would destroy the romantic mystery.”

  She contemplated the slipper in silence, then turned to him.

  “I do like romantic mysteries. But what we have is one that’s not at all romantic, not like a slipper on a grave, and I do want to know. I need to know. You haven’t even mentioned her name this morning. I’ve felt like screaming. Nina Crivelli!”

  Her voice drew the attention of a lone woman in a large fur hat, who was a few feet away at the grave of Stravinsky and his wife.

  “I’ve been trying to find out a few more things,” she went on in a lower voice. “I went to Il Piccolo Nettuno for lunch the day after I spoke with Gabriela and Lidia. Salvatore was working. He didn’t say a word that he didn’t need to. I had really gone to see Regina Bella, but the cook said she went to Milan for a few days. Salvatore runs the place in her absence, so I assume she must trust him.”

  She linked her arm through Urbino’s as they followed a path beside a wall. They were surrounded by tombs with Russian and Greek names, of princesses and various assorted aristocrats.

  “I asked some questions of the women at the lace stalls. Oh, I was very careful, or I think I was. I could only get scattered information, since I didn’t want to be obvious, but two women said exactly what Gabriela and Lidia said.” She gave him a quick look to see if she had all his attention. “Nina wanted Salvatore all to herself. Her kind of love made his life a misery. She drove away her daughter-in-law and grandson twenty years ago, to Germany, they insisted. The two of them never came back to Burano.”

  “Or were never seen if they did.”

  She looked at him with a smile and patted his arm.

  “Good boy! You haven’t deserted me. You’re thinking!”

  He had been, indeed, but he wasn’t ready to give her the benefit of what were, so far, unformed thoughts and vague suspicions. Yet he was sure
of one thing. The mystery surrounding Nina Crivelli, which, before her death, he had feared would turn out to be banal, was surely anything but that.

  When they left the Orthodox section, they took one of the paths that would eventually get them to the Da Capo-Zendrini mausoleum. January was a time when the Conte Alvise was on the Contessa’s mind even more than usual, for it was the month they had married.

  On their way to the mausoleum, the Contessa greeted some of the women and men looking after the graves of their loved ones. She stopped to have a conversation with a black-garbed old woman accompanied by a young girl of six or seven.

  Urbino only half-listened. He was thinking about Frieda and Beatrix. He hadn’t yet told the Contessa about their visit. There were one or two things about it that he needed to mull over in his own mind.

  They resumed their slow pace in silence. The Contessa frowned when she caught sight of a field of graves in the grim process of being exhumed now that the dead’s twelve-year tenancy was over. Many families only rented burial space for this relatively brief period of time.

  Soon the impressive Da Capo-Zendrini mausoleum with its statues of weeping angels, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Nicholas of Bari rose before them. The statues and the building itself had recently been cleaned and had a strange glow in the winter light. Urbino preferred them the way they used to be, but said nothing.

  The Contessa seemed more abstracted than before. She must have been thinking of the recent November when she had come face to face with death and taken refuge in the mausoleum.

  But when she broke the silence, it was to show that something else was on her mind.

  “Seeing the signora’s little granddaughter a few minutes ago reminds me of something I forgot to tell you. There was a girl about her age at one of the lace shops the other day. She heard her mother and me talking about Nina Crivelli. Nina had the mal’ occhio, the little girl piped up. Remember what Lidia said. Children always kept their distance from her. She might have been a mother, but not the kind that had children running to her bosom! Quite the opposite!”

  The Contessa took a large key from her purse and approached the iron doors. She paused at the steps and turned to him.