Deadly to the Sight

by Edward Sklepowich

  He stepped into Habib’s studio. Tubes of paint, most of them almost completely depleted, littered the table. The stretching frame wasn’t in its usual spot beside the door, and a palette knife and a canvas-cutting knife lay on the floor. Rags had fallen from the rack, and the spread covering the divan was rumpled. Cassettes were scattered around. Habib must have left in a hurry.

  When Urbino had returned to the Palazzo Uccello last night, Habib had been out. He had probably gone to walk off his strange mood. The studio, which Urbino had checked, had been in order then.

  Urbino looked through Habib’s paintings. There were Venetian scenes, a landscape of Umbria, and a portrait of Urbino. They were all vivid, even to the point of distortion and exaggeration. Some of them had true coloristic brilliance, especially a series on the flat-bottomed bragozzi boats of Chioggia, with their primary colors and almost cabalistic designs. The portrait of Urbino, reclining on the sofa in the parlor, was treated in a broad manner, with few details of his face, and communicated an almost haunting, contemplative mood.

  Yes, they were good, very good. Polidoro was sure to be pleased.

  Urbino opened a small wooden box on the table. Inside it were envelopes with letters from Habib’s family and friends. He closed the lid.

  He went over to the drying cupboards. They were locked. When he found himself looking among the room’s unaccustomed clutter for the key, which Habib might have forgotten to take with him, he stopped himself. It was too much like snooping.

  Habib didn’t return for lunch. Before going to Morocco, Urbino hadn’t minded eating alone. In many ways, he had enjoyed it. But this afternoon he felt Habib’s absence keenly. He couldn’t interest himself in his book, and soon closed it.

  To Natalia’s chagrin, he left most of his meal untouched. He brought the bottle of wine to the library. There, he gave himself up to thinking about Nina Crivelli, especially about how she had accosted the Contessa in the Church of Santa Maria Formosa.

  Ten minutes later he called the Contessa.

  “Yes,” she said. “You got the right impression. She did seem different once she saw it was Giorgio.”

  “More nervous?”

  “Yes.”

  He could tell from her tone that she was reluctant to admit it.

  “Yet she spoke clearly and confidently enough when she said that the person she had to tell you about was dead.”

  The Contessa said nothing for a few moments.

  “Actually, she even spoke loudly. Giorgio couldn’t have helped but hear. It embarrassed me. But he’s behaved perfectly about it. I have no complaints about him.”

  “But you said not long ago that you weren’t too pleased with all the changes at the Ca’ da Capo.”

  “With the changes as changes, is what I said.”

  A slight edge had come into her voice.

  “And I also said that Giorgio is as good as Milo ever was,” she went on, “even if he doesn’t know the canals as well. And Vitale is perfect for the job.” She paused as if waiting for him to agree, then rushed on: “I believe it was Silvia I was concerned about. And still am. All her little peculiarities and lapses of memory are irritating, but considering this business with Nina Crivelli, none of that seems important anymore.”

  “Nonetheless, it all bears some looking into.”

  “Silvia? She’s Lucia’s cousin. I’ve known her since she was a little girl.”

  “Not so much Silvia, but certainly Giorgio and Vitale. You hired them when I was away. You never mentioned the circumstances.”

  “Not that you would have been interested in them at the time. As for Vitale, he placed an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune. He was working in Switzerland at the time—Geneva—and wanted a position closer to his family. He’s from Bologna. The advertisement gave a phone number and an address. I contacted him and he came for an interview the next week.”

  “References?”

  “Four. Impeccable. My agent in Milan usually takes care of these things, but this time I wanted to do it myself. I’m not quite sure why.”

  Urbino, however, had a good idea that it might have had to do with his absence. She might have needed to prove that she could take care of things without the help he usually gave her.

  “You checked them?”

  “Every single one.”

  “And what about Giorgio?”

  “Ah, Giorgio! Well, I have Oriana to thank, there. She met him on holiday on Capri last May. Without Filippo, I might add. An elderly gentleman there employed him. Giorgio was looking for something different, preferably in the north. Oriana told him that a good friend of hers needed someone to see to the motorboat on a regular basis, and occasionally the car.”

  The Contessa had a Bentley that she kept at her summer villa in Asolo.

  “And just like that you hired him?”

  “Not at all! Oriana met his employer, a Signor Mazza. He had nothing but good words about Giorgio, and his beauty didn’t blind her. According to Oriana, he’s far beyond her acceptable age limit. But don’t think I only depended on her,” the Contessa went on with a defensive air. “I asked for a proper reference, and even telephoned Signor Mazza myself. He was most helpful. And I interviewed Giorgio and gave him a trial run. You don’t think that I might have been susceptible to his charms?”

  “He is rather Byronic with his limp.”

  “But, really, caro, I’m sure you think Giorgio can be trusted since Habib has been spending time with him now and again.”

  “He has?”

  Urbino’s response was spontaneous. He immediately regretted it.

  “You don’t know? Well, it hasn’t been that often, but Vitale did say he went up to Giorgio’s rooms about an hour ago.”

  The Contessa didn’t pursue the point.

  Urbino said he would stop by for tea that afternoon to take a look at Vitale’s and Giorgio’s recommendations, and the advertisement Vitale had placed.

  13

  By the time Urbino left for the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini a few hours later, Habib still hadn’t returned. He took the main route, since Habib was unfamiliar with the confusing shortcuts. He didn’t encounter him.

  The Contessa looked festive in the embroidered silk gilet he had brought back for her from Morocco. It was gold-sequined, with a geometric design in red and green.

  “Habib left an hour ago,” she informed him without having been asked. “He went over the bridge. He had his painting kit.”

  “Yes,” Urbino said noncommittally.

  She stared at him, then said, “Here you are.” She handed him a cardboard file box. “I think you’ll find everything in order.”

  Urbino declined tea and poured himself a sherry. He seated himself across from the Contessa and opened the box.

  On top was the advertisement from the International Herald Tribune. There was nothing unusual about it. It was an explicit request for employment, preferably in the Venice or Bologna areas, as a “butler-majordomo or personal assistant.” It gave a phone number, an address in Geneva, and Vitale’s full name.

  The three letters of reference all seemed in order.

  “I spoke with them all,” the Contessa said. “They corroborated everything in the letters.”

  Signor Mazza’s letter on Giorgio’s behalf was more detailed than Vitale’s. It was written by hand, and the penmanship was thin and shaky. It had a slightly old-fashioned quality as would seem to befit the elderly man whom the Contessa had said had written it. It wasn’t a general letter of reference, but instead one specifically tailored for the position Giorgio was seeking as the Contessa’s boatman and driver.

  “Very much to the point,” Urbino observed. “You spoke with Mazza?”

  “As soon as I read the letter. I telephoned him.”

  “What was your impression of him?”

  “Very polite. He said that Giorgio was sure to suit me as he did him. A fine young man, he said. He joked about wanting to keep him almost enough to lie about his compe
tence and honesty, but he didn’t want to stand in his way.”

  “I think I’ll give him a call myself.”

  The telephone code was the Naples district, which included Capri. He got a recording that told him the number had been disconnected. He then called information in the Naples area, and asked for the number of Ugo Mazza. There was only an Umberto Mazza. No Mazza was listed simply under the initial U.

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” the Contessa pointed out. “Oriana said he was thinking of leaving Capri and the Naples area completely. Not only was he old, but Oriana said he looked rather ill. His voice seemed weak over the phone. It’s been eight months.”

  “Not a long time.”

  “Long enough to take a turn for the worst and die.”

  Urbino neither agreed nor disagreed. He called Oriana. Without telling her why, he said he would be dropping by the Ca’ Borelli in an hour.

  “I’d like her firsthand impressions,” Urbino explained as he got ready to leave. “And could you arrange to have Giorgio take me to Burano tomorrow morning, if you have nothing planned for him?” Sensing that she was about to ask if she might come along, he added, “It would be better if I went alone. You did an excellent job yourself. Now I need to do a few things on my own.”

  “And why do you need Giorgio?”

  “It will make things more convenient. Good-bye.”

  As he was leaving, he had a few words with Silvia in the downstairs hall. She said that on the night of Frieda’s party, the German woman had helped her clean up for about a half hour, and had then gone upstairs with a headache. She had come back down in response to Habib’s frantic arrival.

  14

  Despite its slingshot chairs, glass cubes of tables, and the concealment—if not the total banishment of almost every object remotely nonutilitarian—the living room of the Ca’ Borelli would always be dear to Urbino’s heart. How could it be otherwise, with its magnificent view from ceiling-high windows of the Basilica and the Doges’ Palace across the expanse of the lagoon?

  The Borellis—these days, only Oriana—lived on the Giudecca, an island shaped like a fish bone that was separated from the Dorsoduro quarter by a wide, deep canal. In July, during the Feast of the Redeemer, a temporary bridge of boats stretched from the Church of the Redeemer, only a short distance from the Ca’ Borelli, to the Zattere embankment on the other side. Urbino and the Contessa usually watched the fireworks display from just where he was sitting now.

  Urbino asked Oriana to dim the lights for the sake of the view on this clear January night.

  “You seem preoccupied,” Oriana said. “Is it Habib?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Why do I ask it indeed! Because you worry about him too much sometimes. I assure you, he’s doing fine. I bumped into him at the Rialto market the other day. He was with friends from his school. He knows his way around very well, much better than you probably did in Morocco! And he was full of praise for you. I can recognize gratitude and devotion when I see it, as long as I’m not romantically involved with the person. And then, poor Oriana!”

  Urbino smiled.

  “I think you see clearly in all circumstances. No, it’s not about Habib, though it’s good to know that you think he’s doing so well. It’s about Giorgio.”

  “A mission from Barbara! She wants me to keep my distance. But there’s nothing between us. I must be on my best behavior if Filippo and I are to patch things up.”

  “It’s about Giorgio’s former position in Capri. You know how upset Barbara has been about the changes at the Ca’ da Capo. I’m trying to set her mind at ease. I’m looking into her new staff, as I would have if I’d been here at the time she hired them.”

  It was rather feeble, but unless he told Oriana more about Nina Crivelli than he or the Contessa thought was appropriate, it was the best he could come up with.

  Oriana gave him an assessing look and a little smile curved her lips. She lit a cigarette. When she spoke, it became clear that she was going to take him at his word.

  “Ah, yes,” she brought out after blowing a stream of smoke over her left shoulder. “Poor Barbara was quite at a loss without you. She didn’t like it one bit. Perhaps this is one of her ways of making you suffer. But I assure you, I was looking out for her even more than usual. That’s precisely why I found Giorgio for her.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “I was in a café in Anacapri with my friend, Camilla. Giorgio was with two men at a nearby table. It was all very convivial. We started to talk about the sea and boats and Capri and Venice. Camilla mentioned Barbara, or rather the Da Capo-Zendrini name, and how the family was originally from Naples. One of Giorgio’s friends remembered hearing that Alvise had married an inglese who was living up in Venice.”

  “Did Giorgio tell you what he did?”

  “Just that he was a mechanic and a chauffeur. When Camilla and I met him alone a few days later, he said that he took care of the boat of a napolitano who lived on Capri part of the year. That’s when I got the bright idea about seeing if I could help both Barbara and him. She needed someone to replace Milo.”

  “She could have found any number of men here.”

  “Could have, and would have, but it almost seemed like fate. Here was this available young man who was looking for a new position and—”

  “When did you learn that?”

  She gave him an amused look.

  “My, my, aren’t you playing the sleuth! Forgive me if I suspect there’s something else going on here than doing penance for our Barbara! But I can see that you have no intention of telling me more than you have already. To answer your question, Giorgio told me—told me and Camilla,” she emphasized, “that he wanted to move on to a new position. Somewhere other than Naples. He’s from Sicily, so I assumed he wanted to work his way up the entire length of the country!”

  Oriana went on to explain how the idea that Giorgio might apply for the position had come to her after this second meeting and how she had discussed it with Camilla, and then with the Contessa. It had only been then, she insisted, that she had broached the possibility to Giorgio. From that point on things had moved along quickly.

  “I met Ugo Mazza at the Gran Caffè. A pleasant, quietspoken man. Illness was obliging him to give up his villa and his boat. He was moving from the Naples area.”

  “To where?”

  “He didn’t say, but he mentioned he wanted to be near his daughter. Or was it his son? He had only good things to say about Giorgio. Completely reliable, an excellent mechanic, polite and well brought up. He understood that Giorgio needed to move on, and he wanted to do everything he could to help him. He gave me the letter of recommendation that day.”

  “Did he tell you how he originally came to employ Giorgio?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever go to his villa?”

  “No. Giorgio said that he was a very private man.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette with more force than was needed and stood up.

  “I admit I was struck by Giorgio’s drop-dead good looks. My God, he’s a fine specimen! But I would never have had him put in such a responsible position right in the heart of Barbara’s home if there had been the slightest doubt about him.”

  15

  Habib was tidying up his studio when Urbino returned from seeing Oriana.

  “I’m sorry I missed you at Barbara’s this afternoon,” Urbino said.

  “You were there, sidi? I didn’t know you were going. There we were in the same place at the same time. You went to see her and I went to see Giorgio.”

  “I know. It’s too bad that you didn’t have a chance to say hello to her. She would have liked to see you.”

  “Sometimes I think she does not like me. Am I foolish?”

  “No, you’re not foolish, Habib, but you’re wrong. It may be one of those cultural confusions we sometimes have even between the two of us. Barbara likes you, but perhaps she will think you don’t like her if yo
u don’t say hello when you go to her house.”

  “I like her, too, sidi. She is a very gracious lady, and she always wants to help. And she is your best friend. Friends like her are as precious as rain in the desert. But I was making a visit to Giorgio in his part of the big house. You like Giorgio, don’t you? Remember how he helped both of us on the night you got so sick?”

  “I have no reason not to like him.”

  Habib turned on his engaging smile.

  “Listen to yourself, sidi. Sometimes you say things in a funny way.”

  Urbino smiled in return.

  “I suppose I do.”

  “Giorgio helps me.” Habib gathered the cloths from the floor and started to arrange them on the rack. “With my Italian. He is patient. And he has sympathy for Arabs and North Africans.” He paused, then added, “Just like you. He is from Sicily. It has many Arab traditions. It is too close to North Africa.”

  “Very close,” Urbino corrected.

  “And Jerome thinks he is nice, too. Jerome is interested in boats and the lagoon. You remember how Giorgio explained so much about the lagoon when we went to Burano.”

  “Yes.”

  To help Habib, Urbino picked up an edition of Il Gazzettino, the local newspaper, that was lying on the floor. It was folded in half. He would have placed it on the table immediately, but his attention was drawn to one of the articles. Words were circled in red pencil, and there was writing in the margins in the same red pencil that he identified as Arabic script. It was an article about the accidental deaths of illegal immigrants who had suffocated while being smuggled into England in a truck.

  “I see that you’re studying your Italian vocabulary, but don’t you think it would be better to translate the words into English instead of Arabic?”

  Habib took the newspaper from his hands and put it on the table.

  “You always try to make things more difficult, sidi. But I know it is for my own good. I am doing my best.”

  “I know you are. Did you find this article interesting?”

  “Very interesting, and it has many strange words. But it is very sad.” A melancholy expression crossed his dark face. “It reminded me of that poor woman by the Church of Health. I hope that she is safe. Maybe it is better to read stories with easier words, and with happy things in them. But I am hungry, sidi. I think that Natalia will lose her patience if we keep her waiting any longer.”