“What did she hear?” The quickest way to get information would be to treat Nina as the source of it all. The woman beamed.
“An argument between Maria and her daughter. Maria wanted to know where she’d been. Beatrice laughed. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’ she answered as sassy as you please. Then there was a slap.”
“A loud one,” Marietta added. “My cheek smarts to think of it.”
“A sad situation,” Nina continued. “That girl gave Maria sorrow but like most mothers she forgave her. Once Beatrice was gone she spoke only well of her.”
“How did she die?”
Nina didn’t seem as eager to answer this question as the other ones. Eleonora and Dorotea acted as if they hadn’t heard it. Even Marietta, who might have been expected to take advantage of Nina’s silence, said nothing. Then, with obvious reluctance, Nina said, “Three months later Maria found her dead upstairs.” She nodded toward the floor above. “In the toilet.”
“What happened?”
Again a silence until Marietta said, the bottle poised at her lips, “Just like Carlo except that she took poison. They say it runs in families.” Then, after a sip: “But Beatrice did it for love.”
2
AS Urbino was making his way down the dark stairway a few minutes later, there were footsteps behind him on the landing above, then a voice called down:
“Excuse me, Signor Macintyre, could you help me to my apartment?”
It was Marietta.
“Of course, Signora.” He went up to her. “Where is it?”
“Down on the next floor. I know it makes little sense,” she said as she put her thin arm through his, “but it’s more difficult going down. I pull myself up little by little but when I go down I get dizzy.”
He guided her down to her door which was slightly ajar. She pushed it open, revealing a sparsely furnished vestibule and room.
“Thank you very much, you are most kind.” The odor of anisette was strong as she leaned closer to him. “You deserve something for your kindness but unfortunately I have nothing to give you.” She inclined her head toward her apartment and rubbed the pocket of her robe. From the way she had tipped the bottle the last time he knew it must be almost empty. “Virtue they say should be its own reward but I’ve never believed it. Just one of those things they tell you when you’re a child to get you to do what you otherwise wouldn’t.” She smiled up at him, her face breaking into a thousand lines and wrinkles. “Are you shocked?”
“Do you want me to be?”
She laughed.
“I think you know the answer to that or you wouldn’t ask. Old age would be no fun if we couldn’t shock people from time to time.”
“Then Signora, I’m exceedingly shocked. I’ve never heard such cynicism from anyone, old or young.”
“Then let me tell you something else. I’m afraid it’s nothing shocking but it might help repay you for your kindness. I said nothing upstairs because it’s better that Nina thinks she knows everything. Otherwise she’ll know my little smile is often at her expense—and then where would I be? Her rooms are the warmest in the building!”
“What is it that you want to tell me, Signora?”
“Just this: Maria always went to Murano the first week of every November. I don’t think she missed a November in more than twenty-five years. Don’t you find it strange?”
“Not so strange, Signora, if you’ll pardon me,” he said, realizing he might hurt her feelings. “Murano isn’t far and it’s a popular place.”
“Maria had no interest in popular places! She hadn’t been to the Piazza for years, she was proud of it! No, Signor Macintyre, it’s very, very strange, especially since her daughter died in November.”
She turned to go into her apartment but stopped.
“And another thing,” she said, leaning against the door frame. “Maybe you’ll find it of as little interest as what I’ve just told you. It’s about a cocorita, a lovebird, a parakeet, whatever you want to call it. I heard Beatrice tell her mother as they went down these stairs here that her little cocorita had disappeared, couldn’t be found anywhere. About two months after their argument it was, several weeks before she—she died. Maria said real sharp, ‘Maybe she’ll give you another one, your friend.’ I said nothing of this to either that one”—she lifted her chin in a vigorous gesture to the floor above—“or anyone else. I’m not a eavesdropper and that’s what Nina would have called me, she would have said I’m always listening outside doors and windows as if I don’t have better things to do with my time!”
“Did Beatrice keep a lovebird?”
Birds were popular pets in Venice where space was so scarce. Perhaps the Venetians got pleasure out of seeing creatures more confined than they were themselves but ones which they could pamper. In a few months, with the coming of the good weather, cages would festoon the sides and sills of buildings throughout the city.
“Oh, no, I would have known, we all would have.”
“Are you sure Maria mentioned a woman?”
“A woman, a girl, that I don’t know, but a female, yes. Domenica was what Maria called her. But excuse me, it’s almost time for my nap.”
Before she closed her door, Urbino reached into his pocket. He took out a ten-thousand lira note and tucked it into the pocket of her robe.
“For some anisette, Signora.”
She didn’t thank him but lifted her head a little higher as she closed the door. There was a faint smile on her lips, however, probably the same kind of smile Nina saw so often and wondered about.
3
TEN minutes later Urbino was at the rectory of San Gabriele. Sister Giuseppina showed him into the small parlor and went to summon Don Marcantonio and get some tea.
The room reflected Don Marcantonio’s well-known austerity. There was a worn sofa, two chairs with high backs, a threadbare carpet, several lithographs of martyrdoms, and a small dark-wood table and matching sideboard with an old candelabra and two stuffed, mounted ducks.
A few minutes after Sister Giuseppina brought in the tea, Don Marcantonio, looking frailer than usual, came shambling down the hall from his private quarters. Urbino stood up.
“Please sit down, Signor Macintyre. Forgive me if I see you for only a short time but I’m not feeling well. All this sadness and confusion.” He sighed. “It takes me twice as long and three times the energy to do everything. My new assistant was supposed to be here before Christmas but he has to look after his father in Rimini until some other arrangement can be made.” He went to the sideboard and came back with a bottle of brandy and two glasses. “Well have some of this, it’ll do us both good on a cold afternoon, better than that stuff there.” He sat down in the other chair and poured out two generous portions of the brandy. After taking a sip, he said, “Now what can I do for you?”
“I have some questions about Maria Galuppi.”
“What kind of questions? I’ve already told the police what they wanted to know.”
“It’s just that I’d like to have certain things settled in my own mind. Perhaps some questions the police didn’t ask you.”
“They were very thorough, believe me. They had a long list of questions and people they wanted me to tell them about. Carlo, of course, Luigi Cavatorta, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini herself, even some of the sisters at the convent.” He took another sip of his brandy and held the glass up to the faint light coming through the window. “And they even asked me about you but fortunately—or unfortunately—there wasn’t much I could tell them.”
“Did they ask about Beatrice Galuppi?”
“Beatrice Galuppi? Why should they have asked me about her?”
“Anything that concerned Maria might be of importance, and surely her daughter—”
“She loved that girl,” the old priest interrupted. “If anyone told you any different, they were lying.” A softer cast came over his face. “Beatrice was blessed with beauty and although she was only a Galuppi she had the manner of a daughte
r of the Doges. I had great expectations for her. We all did here in the Cannaregio, most of all her poor mother.”
“What happened?”
“I’m sure you already know, Signor Macintyre. If you’ve talked with anyone about Beatrice Galuppi, the first thing they surely told you was how beautiful she was and the second was about what happened to her. She died under a dark cloud—but don’t think we didn’t give her all the honors of a good servant of God when we laid her to rest. What man can say that there’s not a shining heart in the darkest of clouds?”
Urbino wanted hard answers, not euphemisms. Best to take a more direct approach.
“What do you know about the person she was involved with?”
The priest’s hand shook slightly as he raised his glass.
“What person?”
“Her gentleman friend.”
The priest relaxed and took his sip, looking in the direction of the stuffed ducks as he swallowed.
“I’m sure you know as much as I do, Signor Macintyre. You impress me as being just as thorough in your own way as the police.”
“Do you know who he was?” Urbino persisted. “Did Maria know?”
“Signor Macintyre, there are questions even a priest isn’t required to answer—or should I say especially a priest.”
“Let me ask you this, then: Was Beatrice Galuppi a devout girl?”
“It’s not for me to judge and never was. I wasn’t her confessor. In fact she seldom came to San Gabriele. She preferred the Madonna dell’Orto.”
Even after all these years he seemed offended.
“But the Madonna dell’Orto isn’t much closer to where the Galuppis lived.”
“Actually it’s a bit farther but distance had nothing to do with it. Beatrice had an interest in Tintoretto like our own Sister Veronica. As you know the Madonna dell’Orto was Tintoretto’s parish church. Beatrice painted. She might even have had a talent but such judgments are beyond me. I never saw anything she did anyway. Sister Veronica has, Cavatorta too. He thought it good enough if you can trust his opinion.”
“Could Beatrice’s preference for the Madonna dell’Orto have had anything to do with her mother’s devotion to Santa Teodora? When a girl reaches a certain age, it’s not unusual for her to want to do whatever she can to distinguish herself from her mother.”
“Beatrice had other ways of doing that.”
“The gentleman friend?” The priest avoided his eyes. “Or was there something else,” Urbino went on, “someone else, a woman friend perhaps, a bad influence, someone her own age, someone named Domenica?”
Don Marcantonio glared at Urbino.
“Who have you been talking to? I thought you were interested in a man. I don’t know anyone named Domenica—except for an obscure saint from the Campania. It’s not a common name here in the north.”
He put down his glass and stood up. Urbino did too.
“I can’t clutter up my mind with speculation, least of all gossip. Many here in the Cannaregio will accommodate you, I’m sure. As for me, I knew very little about Beatrice Galuppi’s personal life, who she knew and who she didn’t.”
“Do you know if she had a lovebird?”
“What are you talking about? I really must say good day, Signor Macintyre. I need to rest before the six o’clock Mass.”
Something Don Marcantonio had said was on Urbino’s mind on his walk back from San Gabriele. When he got back to the Palazzo Uccello, he went into the kitchen where Natalia was chopping garlic. He had a question for her. Originally from Messina, she had ended up in the Venice area after hotel work in Zurich, where she had met her husband, an itinerant laborer from Mestre.
“Natalia, do you know anyone named Domenica?”
She looked at him with wide eyes as if it were the strangest question he had ever asked her.
“Not here in Venice, Signor Macintyre, but down in Messina, yes, I knew two or three girls with that name. There was Domenica delle Palme—Palm Sunday—although she preferred Palma, a lovely name, don’t you think? And can you believe she had a sister named Pasqualina!—Easter!” Then, her eyes filmed over with nostalgia, she added, “And there was Mimma Giuliana and her cousin Miccuccia.”
“But I thought you said they were all called Domenica?”
“So they were, but those are pet names for Domenica and since both girls were named after their grandmother, one was Mimma and the other—she was fatter and older—was Miccuccia.”
Having imparted this information, she waited for Urbino to tell her why he had asked. When he didn’t, she gave an almost imperceptible shrug and returned to her chopping with a disappointed look.
4
THE Contessa’s salotto was cluttered, not because it was small—which it wasn’t—but because she had insisted on furnishing it with many of her favorite things. There was a story behind just about every painting, print, bibelot, and piece of furniture—from the Veronese over the fireplace to the collection of eighteenth-century ceramic animals on one of the smaller tables—and Urbino had heard all of them. Strangely enough—perhaps more a testament to the Contessa’s talents as a raconteuse than to his as a patient and attentive listener—he had never been bored.
Tonight, as he was telling her what he had learned from the women at Maria’s apartment building, Don Marcantonio, and Natalia, her eyes kept moving from object to object as if she were assessing them or trying to get comfort from their familiarity. She didn’t say anything until he finished.
“I’m offended, Urbino.”
She seemed so serious that he made a little joke: “At my success?”
“It’s not such a grand success. Don’t get more conceited than you already are. No, it’s not that.” She took a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her nose in a thoughtful way. She had sneezed several times since he had arrived and she looked drawn. “It’s about Maria’s daughter. Of course I knew she had a daughter who had died a year or two before Alvise and I were married. I even saw her photo—a lovely girl standing in front of the Madonna dell’Orto—but I certainly never knew about a suicide or some mysterious friend named Domenica or about much else in fact.” A strange expression came over her face and the next moment she sneezed. She took out another handkerchief from her other pocket and tended to her nose. “And perhaps it’s silly of me when there’s so much else of greater importance, but to think that Maria never even breathed a word about her daughter’s painting or her interest in Tintoretto.”
“Doesn’t that indicate a mother who cherishes her daughter’s memory and wants to keep it to herself?”
“No! It indicates a mother secretive about her daughter. Besides, you said that Don Marcantonio, Sister Veronica, and Cavatorta all knew about it.” She ended the sentence on a whine and wiped her nose vigorously, making it even redder than it had been.
“Could it be, my dear, that you’re a bit peeved? It’s as if you were upset about not being included in a game everyone else has been playing. After all, you did know her daughter was dead and had died under strange circumstances. And you knew a man was involved.”
“Oh, everyone knew that!” she said with disdain for what was common knowledge. Surely she was entitled to something more! “But I’m not completely out of the game, to use your expression, as you’ll soon see,” she added with an air of mystery. She got up from her chair and went to the table with the ceramic animals. Opening the drawer in the side she took out a piece of paper and brought it over to Urbino.
“What’s this?” he asked as he took it.
“Something to show you I have my own little games to play. Well, don’t just look at it! Read it!”
On the sheet was a long paragraph in the Contessa’s elaborate handwriting. It was a detailed description of Maria Galuppi’s last day, from the time she was seen leaving her building on the Rio della Sensa until Sister Veronica and her tour group saw her in the Church of San Gabriele about five.
Taking a sip of his cognac, Urbino read the sheet over again.
>
“Don’t act as if you’re wondering what it’s for. Isn’t that what’s usually done? A reconstruction of the victim’s last day?”
“But Maria’s schedule has relevance only if we assume she knew her murderer or was murdered because she was Maria Galuppi. I suppose someone might have seen her talking to a stranger or noticed someone suspicious around San Gabriele, but no one has come forward, has he? Maria might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, in which case your reconstruction here—”
“I don’t accept any of that, Urbino, and I don’t think you do either or else you wouldn’t be showing such interest in Beatrice Galuppi, who’s been dead for more than thirty years. That Maria might have been murdered during a theft just because she happened to be in the church at the time shakes my faith to its very foundations. It gives too much credence to accident, to chance. No, I can’t accept it!”
“But accidents do happen, Barbara. I could be walking down a calle and have a brick fall on my head. The Palazzo Uccello could catch fire because of faulty wiring. You could—”
“Don’t say anything more about what could happen. I’m talking about the murder of Maria, a woman who had a devotion to Santa Teodora, yes, I’m not denying that she had. And she died right there in front of the coffin, but that doesn’t mean she died because of Santa Teodora, does it? There’s a big difference. No, she wasn’t killed by Carlo—this, I hope, we agree on—but she wasn’t killed by chance or accident either, by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t care what you think of my work there”—she nodded at the sheet still in his hands—“but let me ask you one question: If Maria was murdered in the course of a theft, then why hasn’t anyone made his identity known if it was, let’s say, a political act? Or why hasn’t ransom been asked for, something other than that Gramsci hoax? No, Urbino, if the relic were at the center of this, we would have heard something long before now.”
“What about the jewels?”
“I doubt if anyone has believed that story for years. People just like to talk about it, the way they do about St. Mark’s body being buried somewhere beneath the Basilica.”
Death in a Serene City Page 12
