Thief of Venice

by Jane Langton

  While the water rose and rose, Dorothea Wellesley had been out shopping. Now she lay on her bed, her galoshes draining on the hot-air register. She was talking on the phone, complaining to an old school friend in Boston. “It’s perfectly disgraceful. After a thousand years, wouldn’t you think this city would know how to deal with the water of the Adriatic? And the predictions for November are simply appalling.”

  “But, Dottie, why don’t you come home?” Francie’s voice was perfectly clear, having whizzed up from Mount Vernon Street to a satellite poised over the Adantic, then ricocheted down to the Salizada del Pignater. “Now that dear Giorgio is gone, why should you stay in Italy a moment longer?”

  “Oh, Francie, you don’t understand. I have a sacred trust. Dear Henrietta’s poor child, little Ursula. She’s a disobedient, fractious and willful little girl, thoroughly spoiled by her father. She needs my loving discipline. And what’s more”—Dorothea’s voice sank to a melodramatic whisper, faithfully transmitted by the satellite—“who knows, Francie, what might go on in this house, if I were not here to preserve a wholesome family atmosphere?”

  She could hear Francie’s horrified intake of breath. “Oh, Dottie, you don’t mean that your son-in-law—?”

  “I do indeed,” said Dorothea.

  CHAPTER 16

  Homer enjoyed the company of Samuele Bell. He sensed in Sam a nature severer than his own. Sam was at the same time amused, self-effacing, and contemptuous. The contempt wasn’t out of malice. It was disappointment in a world that should have been better, that knew perfectly well how to be better, but stubbornly refused to improve. The only way to survive in such a world was to laugh at it, and Sam did.

  But it was odd about Sam. In some mysterious way he was different from the man Homer had met in Massachusetts, more reckless and impulsive. Well, it took one to know one. Homer was reckless and impulsive himself.

  It was clear that Sam’s recklessness was increasing. Lately, just for the last few days, there had been a crescendo of wild wit in his talk, as though he were throwing up a dazzling mist over something pent-up and excruciating. A powerful set of pincers was wrenching at Sam’s gizzard, but what it might be, Homer didn’t have a clue.

  They were relaxing in Sam’s beautiful sitting room after an exhausting day of listening to scholarly papers by conference participants. “I’ve got two lists,” said Sam, leaning back in his chair, sipping orange juice. “A list of Bores—that’s Bores with a capital B—and a list of bastards.”

  Homer’s orange juice had gin in it. “Bastards! Also with a capital B? Would you like suggestions for new members?”

  They settled down to a discussion of candidates. Some of the conference participants came immediately to mind. There were various levels of bores, Sam explained, including Bores Third Class, Second Class, and First Class, and then a pinnacle class at the top, the Supreme Bore of the World.

  “What about bastards?” said Homer. “Are they in categories too?”

  “Not yet. Bastardi are—what do you call it?—generic. They’re all ghastly to the same degree.”

  “What about Professor Himmelfahrt?” suggested Homer. “Oh, God, Sam, I could have told you to turn his paper down. I know him of old. Talk about bores.”

  Sam gazed at the ceiling and narrowed his eyes and considered. “I’d rate him Bore First Class, I think, no more.”

  “We ought to hand out certificates on the last day of the conference,” said Homer, pouring himself another drink.

  At that moment the door opened and Mrs. Wellesley walked in. She smiled brilliantly at Homer and extended her hand. There was something grandiose in the gesture, as if she expected him to kiss it. He shook it clumsily. “Oh, Professor Kelly, what do you think of my new work? It’s just been delivered by the frame shop.” She giggled. “I suppose you think it’s quite horrible.”

  “Your new work?” Homer looked at the new picture on the wall. It certainly was horrible. It was an insult to the old maps and the painting by Paolo Veneziano on the opposite wall. Mrs. Wellesley had cut a photograph of a French cathedral into pieces, and then she had pasted the pieces on a square of canvas in an exploding pattern, adding painted streaks of orange fire.

  Sam jumped into the breach and rescued Homer. “Oh, yes, Dorothea, it’s very good. What cathedral is that? It’s not—?”

  “Chartres? Of course it is. I cut it all to pieces. Kaboom!”

  The Supreme Bore of the World went on and on, pointing to this feature and that, while Homer listened politely and made vague remarks of appreciation—Yes, I see, mmm, yes, how nice, yes, yes, very nice.

  He was careful not to meet Sam’s eye.

  CHAPTER 17

  There was no longer much of a problem with high water. The moon had drifted away from its direct lineup with the sun, and therefore Venice enjoyed a respite. But everyone knew there was no way of stopping it from waxing to a dangerous state of perfect fullness in two weeks’ time, and then of course the tides would rise again.

  “Experts warn that acqua alta will be far worse next time,” said the handsome weather reporter, staring gloomily at the camera in one of the television studios in Palazzo Labia.

  The future rise and fall of acqua alta in the city of Venice did not matter to the speakers and participants in Sam Bell’s great conference. They were all leaving, one by one and in clusters. The last to depart were a couple of art historians from Boston University. Sam conducted them to the water taxi that would carry them to the airport on the mainland.

  “Oh, God, I don’t want to go,” said Art Historian Number One, abandoning the dignity of his status as president of five learned societies.

  “It’s such a gorgeous—well, you know,” said Art Historian Number Two, normally a sober and phlegmatic man. “I mean, it’s like a dream.”

  Sam couldn’t blame them. Their last moments in the city were smack in the middle of the most famous postcard view in Venice, the Piazzetta with the Ducal Palace on one side, the Marciana on the other, and the tall columns of Saint Theodore and the lion of Saint Mark rising in the middle, while a flotilla of gondolas bobbed gently in the water below the Molo. Another flood of excited tourists meandered beside the garden, buying trinkets at the souvenir stands and taking pictures of each other against the noble spread of the lagoon.

  Art Historian Number One bought a shiny pillow stamped with a view of San Marco, Art Historian Number Two a small plastic gondola. Then, regretfully, they stepped into the water taxi. Sam lifted down their baggage and paid the man at the wheel, hoping the enormous sum would look acceptable on the list of conference expenses.

  It was over. The splendid Venetian conference in the Biblioteca Marciana dedicated to the manuscripts of Cardinal Bessarion and the printed books of Aldus Manutius was now part of history. Thank God, the conference proceedings would be edited by someone else. The books would remain on exhibition for another six weeks. Sam’s work was done.

  Slowly and a little painfully, he made his way back to the Marciana. In the entry he had to adjust his dazzled eyes to the darkness. He smiled at Signora Di Stefano, the dragon in her lair, and trudged up the two flights to his office.

  “You look tired,” said his secretary, looking at him with concern. “Well, no wonder.” Signora Pino was an elderly woman, chosen long ago to ward off the jealousy of his late wife, whose ears and eyes had been ever alert for treachery. Now that Sam was a widower he could have hired the prettiest of pretty young girls to ornament his office, but he liked Signora Pino, and her job was secure.

  “Yes,” said Sam. “I think I’ll take the rest of the day off.”

  “Of course. It’s only right. I’ll take care of things. Have a good rest. Sogni d’oro! Dreams of gold!”

  She watched him go. Povero ragazzo! He looked so thin and stooped. The incessant demands of the conference had worn him out.

  But at home there was a surprise. The first package of relics from the Treasury of San Marco was waiting for him.

 
“There was an armed guard,” exclaimed his mother-in-law. “He made me sign for it. He wanted to stay until you came home. I was insulted! Did he think I was going to make off with his precious package? I told him he had another think coming. I asked him what was in it, and, do you know, he wouldn’t tell me? I told him you were my son-in-law and that we had no secrets from each other, no secrets whatsoever, but he wouldn’t say a word. I insisted that he leave my house, and he made a dreadful scene, but at last I literally pushed him out.”

  Sam smiled wearily. He could imagine the cowardice of the guard in the face of his bullying mother-in-law.

  He went to his study and put the box on his desk. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and the knots in the string had been fastened with sealing wax. And yet the package had a disheveled look, as though someone had tried to undo the wrapping without untying the string. Perhaps his mother-in-law in her wounded pride and everlasting inquisitiveness had tried to unwrap it and failed.

  Well, no matter. Sam cut the string, removed the wrapping, and opened the box. The relics from San Marco were in numbered packets, each one enclosed in tissue paper. He set them down carefully on a big piece of drawing paper and gently withdrew one of the relics from its packet. It was a piece of sacred wood. All together there were five fragments supposed to have come from the True Cross and ten pieces of unidentified bone.

  Had they ever been looked at critically before? For how many hundreds or even thousands of years had they been objects of veneration? How many tragic appeals had been whispered to them, how many agonized prayers? It struck Sam with sudden force that his irreverent hands, picking up and testing these most sacred of Christian relics, were the hands of an infidel. He had to remind himself that it was high time these pieces of bone and fragments of sacro legno were looked at with a clear and objective eye.

  The questions he would put to them were obvious. Were the bones human? And how old were the pieces of wood? Only if they had existed for nearly two thousand years could they have any claim to authenticity.

  The determination of age would require carbon dating, and that was beyond his power. But at least he could determine whether or not the pieces of the cross were all from the same kind of tree. Were they oak or pine or cedar of Lebanon? His microscope could at least tell him that. And what if they were from trees that never existed in that part of the world at all? They would be exposed at last as frauds.

  He gazed at the sacred fragments, smiling to himself. If he proved that they were not from the original cross, in other words that they had not been discovered by Saint Helena and distributed all over the believing world, what would people say? Well, of course they would be outraged by the sacrilege.

  Putting his head down on his arms, he told himself sleepily that it didn’t matter now. In fact it was liberating, in a way, not to care anymore. Sam closed his eyes and began thinking about the Crucifixion.

  It had really happened. There was no doubt about that. It had been a genuine historical incident. The man called Jesus had been convicted and brought to a place of execution and crucified. None of the Gospel writers had seen it, but all of them had described the horrible succession of events as though repeating the account of an eyewitness.

  Sam fell asleep imagining the cross itself, a few pieces of timber hammered together and stuck in the ground, leaning to one side until shored up by leftover scraps of lumber, and stained over the years with the blood of many a crucified wretch. Perhaps it was true that there had been not one cross but three, in that place called Golgotha. They had lasted for years, the three crosses, looming objects as familiar to passersby as the gallows at a country crossroad—built to endure and exterminate many a filthy beggar to come.

  He was awakened by the loud voice of his mother-in-law, chastising Ursula. A moment later there was a soft knock at the door. When he opened it, his daughter wrapped herself around his waist.

  He picked her up and sat down and settled her on his lap. “Papà,” she said, leaning against him. “Papà?”

  “What is it, little one?”

  “What are those things?”

  He explained. She listened, then reached out to touch one of the small pieces of wood, but he caught her hand. “No, no, Ursula, you mustn’t touch. I promised that no one would handle them but me.”

  “Solo tu?”

  “Solo to.”

  Ursula snuggled closer. “Please, Papà, may I have some money? ”

  “How much do you want, little one?”

  It was a small sum. He gave her what she asked for, and at once she slipped off his knees, beamed at him, and left the room. A moment later she was on her way to her favorite shop.

  When she came home her grandmother was at the door. Dismayed, Ursula shoved her package inside her coat, but it was too late.

  “Ursula, what have you got there? Your father gave you money, didn’t he? Your father spoils you rotten. Open that bag! Show me.”

  Ursula tried to squeeze past her, but Mrs. Wellesley put her hands on the bag and tugged. Ursula hung on. For a moment there was a furious wrestling match, and then the package fell to the floor with a smash.

  “Oh, no,” cried Ursula, falling to her knees. “You’ve broken it! I hate you!”

  Her grandmother stepped back, a little daunted, and said nothing more. But she hadn’t given up. Whatever it was, she would find it. She would ransack the child’s room until she did.

  CHAPTER 18

  Mary had abandoned her list. She had completely lost track of what her camera had recorded, its shutter flicking open and shut five hundred times. She was floating in a sea of palaces and canals and little bridges with gondolas approaching and gondolas retreating and endless views of churches—the Salute, the Gesuiti, San Zaccaria, Santa Maria Formosa, San Francesco della Vigna, the Church of the Scalzi, Santa Maria dei Miracoli. Churches, churches, there were so many churches. Every little campo had its own, some with naked Gothic vaults, some with ceilings painted with visions of heaven.

  Her picture-recording notebook was forgotten. Surely when the pictures were printed, she would remember what they were.

  She had at last run out of film. Mary took her exposed rolls to a tabacchi on the corner of Salizada del Pignater and bought another dozen. The day was mizzling with rain. It was a good day to spend indoors. She asked Sam’s advice.

  “Have you seen the Scuola di San Rocco?” he said. “You haven’t? Well, go there. Take my word for it.”

  “But what is it, a church?”

  “You’ll see. Make Homer come with you. He hasn’t seen anything at all. It’s in San Polo. Here, let me see your map.”

  Reluctantly Homer abandoned his plan for another day in the Marciana. Although the conference was over, he was still rejoicing in the exhibition. His kindly friend Sam had ordered the glass cases to be unlocked whenever il gentilissimo professore dagli Stati Uniti wished to examine a codex or an Aldine octavo. Actually, although Homer didn’t know it, this laxity was a highly questionable practice, but Sam Bell was beyond caring.

  Today Homer had been planning to examine lovingly the first ten books of Livy and a particularly beautiful codex dedicated to the Venetian pope Paul II.

  He had a new card index with tabs, and the little tabs were organized under bigger tabs, and everything was arranged according to his old system of colored cards, pink, blue, green, and yellow, because Homer had a grand object in mind. He was planning to write an article for the Harvard Library Bulletin—assuming that the editors would accept one from a rank beginner in Renaissance scholarship—an extended review of the magnificent Venetian exhibition, complete with illustrations.

  The project was the darling of Homer’s heart. Therefore he only reluctantly agreed to accompany Mary to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.

  “I’ll come too,” said Sam impulsively. And of course it was okay, tutto bene, because he would be obeying his new rule. He could do anything now, anything at all, even something as wild and fanciful as taking a d
ay off to see again the most glorious works of art in the city of Venice.

  So they set off together, walking from Castello through the sestiere of San Marco, avoiding the crowds in the piazza, then crossing the Rialto Bridge and working their way through a labyrinth of streets in San Polo. Suddenly Sam said, “Here we are,” and stopped.

  Mary and Homer stopped beside him. At once, responding to instinct, Mary lifted her camera and took a picture.

  “My God,” said Homer, impressed in spite of himself. It was a stage set for an Italian opera. The two white marble buildings in the Campo San Rocco were set at right angles, enclosing a space only big enough for a posturing tenor and a fat soprano. The two facades were a riot of garlanded columns, bristling acanthus leaves, pedimented windows, and marble reliefs.

  “Over here,” murmured Sam, leading the way into the building on the left. “The other one is the church. Tintoretto spent twenty-four years of his life decorating the Scuola.”

  They paid their way in, then followed Sam around the ground floor, looking up at the enormous paintings on the walls. Sam said nothing. But as they climbed a splendid staircase to the floor above he said, between gasps, “It always seems so amazing to me, tanto sorprendente, that a man with as keen and subtle a mind as Tintoretto’s could be so swept away by the Christian myth.” He stopped halfway to catch his breath. “And he wasn’t just swept away, he was—what’s the word?—esaltato.”

  “Exalted,” agreed Mary solemnly. “He certainly was.”

  “Well, of course”—doggedly Sam climbed the rest of the way—“it’s an extraordinary story.”

  “What is?” said Homer, gasping up the last few steps.

  “Oh, you know, the whole thing, the life of Jesus in the New Testament.” Sam walked them across the enormous room, uttering sarcasms in a low voice. “The fairy story of the virgin birth. You know perfectly well that all those contemporary mystery religions had virgin births and godlike figures who were sacrificed and resurrected. Here, look at this one, the Adoration of the Shepherds.” They stopped and looked at the picture in the corner, and Sam’s mockery continued. “There was no star, there were no kings, there were no shepherds kneeling at a manger. There were no tests for virginity in the first century B.C. Nobody knows anything about the mother of Jesus, and yet in Tintoretto’s time this entire city was a temple to the Virgin Mary.”