Farewell to the Flesh

by Edward Sklepowich

  Hazel appeared to be in the grip of a great emotion but it might just as plausibly be fear as grief. But was it fear for herself or someone else?

  When Urbino got back to the table, Hazel wasn’t there. He thought she had gone to the rest room herself until the padrona told him that the young lady had gone outside, that she had said she was feeling overheated. Urbino paid his check, got his cape, and was opening the door out to the quay when he heard his name called. It was the Contessa. She was in the little room with the fireplace, sitting, as she always liked to, with a view of the door.

  He went over to her table and said good evening to a tired-looking Mrs. Pillow and her stepson, who seemed to be in high spirits. The Contessa gave him one of her radiant smiles.

  “I see you’re on your way out already. We’re barely settled in our seats.” She looked pointedly behind him. “Were you dining alone? You should have joined us.”

  “Not alone, no, but my companion isn’t feeling well. She’s getting some air outside. You’ll have to excuse me.”

  “But of course, caro. Perhaps we can meet her when she’s feeling better.”

  Urbino went out to join Hazel.

  14

  Hazel assured him that she was fine, that she had suddenly felt hot and needed some air, just as she had told the padrona. It was too dark to see how well—or ill—she looked but it was obvious from the slight crack in her voice and the way she kept touching the hair at her forehead that she didn’t feel well. He gave her his arm and they walked toward the Ca’ Rezzonico boat landing, retracing their earlier steps. Within a few moments they had left the isolation of the quay and were among groups of laughing revelers.

  Hazel seemed disinclined to talk. He mentioned the Montin but she only nodded absently. At one point she shivered and he was tempted to put his arm around her but there was something about her manner—something, it seemed, apart from her not feeling well—that put him off. He felt that she was behaving coolly and he assumed it was because of what she had told him. She was probably already regretting it. Maybe she had discovered that it was much easier to tell these things to Commissario Gemelli.

  For his part, Urbino felt a little upset with her. He hadn’t sought her out last night and she had said that she wanted to be of as much help as she could. She should have known that this would entail revealing some things that might be painful and embarrassing to her.

  By the time they reached the Campo San Barnaba, however, Urbino had softened. The poor woman had suffered through a great deal during the past two days. He was little more than a stranger. It was only understandable that she might be regretting having told him what she had. With Gemelli she had had no choice. Urbino might be striking her as a Nosey Parker. And she had seemed to be a little upset with him when he had been reserved about the details of his own personal life.

  The silence between them was becoming more uncomfortable. Most of the people around them were in high spirits. One of them, wearing a black half mask and floppy jester’s hat with a bell, threw confetti over them. Hazel brushed the confetti from the top of her head.

  “That’s where Katharine Hepburn fell into the canal in Summertime.” He pointed to the other side of the busy campo. “And that shuttered shop to the right is where she met Rossano Brazzi.”

  “I never saw the movie.”

  She stopped. As she looked across the campo, he thought she wanted him to explain the movie.

  “It’s about this middle-aged American schoolteacher who comes to Venice one summer and—”

  “I know the story. I just never saw the movie.” Her face caught the light from the lamp overhead, giving it a washed-out appearance. Its impassive cast contributed to the masklike effect. She touched his sleeve. “This is all very nice, Urbino, but I’d like to go back to Porfirio’s by myself. I have a lot of things on my mind. A long walk might help. No, don’t insist and don’t be upset. I wouldn’t be a good companion for what would remain of our evening.”

  She made an attempt at a smile but it only succeeded in giving a grotesque expression to her face. “I’d either retreat completely into silence or snap out at you. Thank you, Urbino. It was enjoyable.”

  She turned around to go back under the sottoportego.

  “It would be better if you went the other way.”

  If she heard him, she didn’t respond. He watched her until she went up the steps of the bridge beyond the sottoportego, the lights striking golden highlights from her bent head. Along with most of the shouting, singing people around her, she was headed away from the Cannaregio toward the chaos of the Piazza San Marco.

  15

  “I accept your apologies,” the Contessa said without any preliminary the next morning when he called her. “Not yours exactly, caro—but your dinner companion’s last night. Don’t try to spare me. I’m beyond the age of illusion. How could she want to meet me, especially after what you’ve told her about me—or failed to tell her! I noticed this little thing hurrying out as fast as she could. I thought to myself that a nervous wren like her—whoever she was—seemed to be impatient to fly to her fate in the Piazza.”

  “I’m not exactly sure where she went after dinner.”

  “You’re not? I guess she did fly away then. I hope you had a pleasant evening.”

  “What about you and Mrs. Pillow and her stepson? She looked a bit haggard. Was anything the matter?”

  “A poor night’s sleep, caro. After a certain age it adds a decade to your looks. It’s unfortunate they’re staying at the Splendide-Suisse. It’s in the middle of everything. Berenice heard people shouting all night in the calle. While I was waiting for her in the foyer, I thought I would go mad. Such confusion! I know it’s Carnevale, but the desk should have more control. I’ve been thinking of asking them to stay here but I’m not sure how she’ll take it. She’s always been independent,” she said as if she had stayed in contact over the decades with the Berenice Reilly of her adolescence. “We enjoyed ourselves last night. I’m afraid I did all the talking. Tonio kept asking me questions about Berenice.”

  “I thought you and Berenice had a pact not to say anything about the past.”

  “Not to say anything embarrassing. My memories were all flattering. She wasn’t upset at all, and Tonio enjoyed hearing about those days. I’m meeting her today at Florian’s at four-thirty. Why don’t you join us? It will probably be the last time I’ll go near the Piazza until after Ash Wednesday.”

  “I’ll come a little earlier and tell you what I’ve learned since we discussed the Casa Crispina guests the other night on the phone.”

  16

  Urbino got to the Casa Crispina just as Xenia Campi was about to leave for the Piazza. She was standing by the reception desk in her long dark coat and knit cap. Her face seemed larger and rounder than usual, almost swollen, but her eyes, without their usual heavy makeup this morning, were disconcertingly smaller.

  “It’s about the aura I saw around Signor Gibbon, isn’t it?” she said with a self-satisfied smile. She loosened her heavy woolen scarf, preparing herself to go into more detail. When Urbino didn’t immediately respond, she quickly added, “It’s about my alibi.” She was clearly determined to display her prescience one way or another.

  “I do want to ask you about the evening of Gibbon’s death, Signora Campi.”

  “Aha!” Her sound of triumph rang with all the conviction of her belief in her powers.

  “You said you sat in the lounge that evening.”

  “Yes, reading my Madame Blavatsky in the chair over in the corner—the one with the ottoman.” The chair was to the left of the reception desk and would have given her a good view of the front door and the staircase going up to the second-floor guest rooms. “I was tired and went to bed about a quarter to ten. I was in the Piazza all day. Gibbon was running around there, taking photographs. He even took some of me until I stopped him.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “About eight-fifteen, right after dinner. I stopped
in my room first for my shawl.”

  “Was anyone else here while you were?”

  “Only Sister Agata, but she was asleep most of the time. The Polish man staggered out fifteen minutes after I got here. Maybe, being a Pole, he wanted some cold air but he obviously should have been in his bed under blankets. I wasn’t surprised when the boat came for him later. It was about nine-fifteen when Gibbon left. I’ve worked it out in my mind because I know it’s important. The American staying with his mother and sister left ten minutes later. He practically bumped into the Polish man, who was coming back in. I don’t think either one of them noticed me.”

  “Was there anything about Gibbon that was unusual?”

  “Not that I could see, except that he wasn’t dressed warmly. He had his camera with him. I guess he was going back to the Piazza.”

  “Did you leave the lounge at any point?”

  “Only for five minutes right after the American man left. I went to my room for a glass of anisette to take the chill off. I saw the American girl coming out of her mother’s room and asked her if she wanted some anisette, too. She wasn’t very friendly and seemed to be in a hurry. I might as well have just stayed in my room after I had the anisette. It made me sleepy and I didn’t last much longer out here after I got back. When I went to bed, Sister Agata was snoring away as she always does. I don’t know why they put the poor woman on the night shift. We could all be robbed blind—or worse.”

  “After you went to your room, did you hear anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Not a thing.” She rearranged her scarf more tightly around her throat and started to pull on her gloves. “My room is away from most of the noise. Thank God those young people are at the far end of the hall.”

  Once again Urbino asked her if she knew any young women other than Dora Spaak whom Gibbon had been attentive to, but she shook her head vigorously, then gave a knowing smile.

  “Did you remember to look deep into the American girl’s eyes for the ghost of death, Signor Macintyre?” Xenia Campi looked deep into Urbino’s own eyes with her small ones. When he didn’t answer, she laughed. “I can tell that you did! I hope she didn’t think you were interested in her. She’s starving for attention. Visits to her mother’s room aren’t enough for her when she wants to be in the Piazza like the other fools.”

  This seemed to awaken an unpleasant train of thoughts. A sad expression crossed her large face.

  “A child is always enough for a good mother though,” she said, her voice seeming to come from far away. “More than enough.”

  Xenia Campi then said a hurried good-bye and went out into the campo with her flyers.

  A few minutes later Mother Mariangela discouraged Urbino from speaking with any of the sisters, assuring him that they had been in their rooms since seven on the night of the murder and had heard nothing strange, but she agreed to summon Sister Agata to her study.

  With embarrassment the old nun admitted that she had dozed on the evening of Signor Gibbon’s murder and hadn’t noticed anyone coming and going. All she remembered was that Signora Campi came to the lounge after the guests’ dinner. Mother Mariangela said a few soothing words to Sister Agata and dismissed her.

  Urbino left the Casa Crispina and walked briskly toward the other side of the Grand Canal to clear his mind.

  Other than the sisters, the only ones in the Casa Crispina after nine-fifteen when Gibbon had left were Xenia Campi, Lubonski, Stella Maris Spaak, and her daughter, Dora. But someone might have slipped out during the time Xenia Campi had gone to her room for some anisette, and even though Xenia Campi said that she had gone to bed, she herself could have left the Casa Crispina. Sister Agata wouldn’t have noticed a thing.

  17

  After Urbino left the Casa Crispina, he went on a long, meandering walk that eventually took him to the other side of the Grand Canal to the broad embankment of the Zattere. He watched the busy water traffic in the Giudecca Canal, dominated by a sleek French liner and a Yugoslavian tanker, as he had some tramezzini and wine in a café and went over what Xenia Campi had just told him. The times she gave for Nicholas Spaak’s and Gibbon’s departures from the Casa Crispina the evening of the murder coincided with what Spaak and his sister had told him. Spaak hadn’t returned, he said, until midnight, and Gibbon, of course, had never returned. As for Josef, he had been away for an hour from eight-thirty to nine-thirty. Where had he gone? Could it possibly have had anything to do with Gibbon’s death later in the Calle Santa Scolastica? And could Josef have left the Casa Crispina for a second time that night? Urbino had assumed, perhaps wrongly, that Josef had phoned him from the pensione.

  After leaving the Zattere, Urbino walked for a while longer but could formulate nothing but more questions, many of which were in direct conflict with each other.

  More confused than anything else, he approached the traghetto stop at the end of the Calle Corner. Because only three bridges crossed the Grand Canal, traghetti, or ferries, had been established at various strategic points. They provided not only a convenient way to make the crossing but a cheap, if short, gondola ride, although it was mainly Venetians who used them, almost always standing up in no-nonsense fashion for the trip.

  The gondola would take him from the San Polo quarter across to the Cannaregio. From there it would be a quick walk to Porfirio’s. He wanted to see Hazel. Perhaps they could have a drink at a bar somewhere.

  Three women were waiting. One of them was Berenice Pillow, burdened, as the Contessa had said she had been at Florian’s a few days ago, with her purse, a shopping bag, and a delicate wooden lap desk in an Oriental design. She was looking more rested this morning than she had last night.

  “Mr. Macintyre, what a pleasant surprise. You’ve come at exactly the right time, as Barbara says you do! I was just at the Ca’ Pesaro and want to get to the other side. The young woman selling postcards said this would be the quickest way but now I’m not so sure. I was just thinking I should take the vaporetto instead.”

  “Not at all, Mrs. Pillow. This is the way the veneziani do it.”

  He indicated the two women with their mesh shopping bags waiting along with them.

  “I was just wishing that Tony was with me but he went to Vicenza for the Palladian architecture.”

  She became distracted as the gondola came up to the landing and the four passengers got off. She seemed nervous and held her objects close to her. Urbino offered to take something but she shook her head. He stepped into the gondola and helped her after him, paying both their fares.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Pillow. Just stand as still as possible. Maybe it would be better to look straight ahead.”

  As the gondola moved into the Grand Canal, allowing a vaporetto to pass on its way to the San Stae landing, Berenice Pillow gave him a nervous smile. The two other women were busy chatting about food prices. Suddenly the gondolier burst into “La biondina in gondoleta,” a favorite song among the men of his profession.

  “I thought all they sang was ‘Santa Lucia’ and ‘O Sole Mio,’” Mrs. Pillow said with a little laugh. She looked up at Urbino for his reaction, and this proved her undoing. A startled look came into her eyes as she started to move, then flail her arms. Urbino reached out to grab her arm. The two women stopped their conversation and looked with a measure of scorn at the forestiera who was threatening to capsize them all. The gondolier compensated with his oar for the unexpected movements but this didn’t help Berenice Pillow. Her purse and lap desk fell into the water. The shopping bag landed at her feet.

  “Sit down,” Urbino told her as he took her elbow and helped her onto one of the flat wooden seats.

  “My purse!” Mrs. Pillow shouted. “It has everything.”

  The gondolier stopped the movement of the boat. The purse and the lap desk were floating about five feet away, but they wouldn’t be for long. Urbino asked the gondolier to try to move closer to them. The two Venetian women were clicking their tongues and shaking their heads. With the gondolier’s ski
llful maneuvering, Urbino was able to reach the strap of the purse but at first it slipped through his fingers. He could finally grab it and pull it back into the gondola. The gondolier used his oar to bring the lap desk closer. Urbino tried the best he could to reach it but it was moving beyond rescue, pushed farther by the wake of a motorboat.

  A vaporetto was coming down the Grand Canal and approaching the Ca’ d’Oro landing. The little lap desk disappeared in the froth of its prow.

  Mrs. Pillow hugged the purse against her.

  “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Macintyre. Thank God you got the purse. I don’t want you falling in yourself. Everything must be ruined anyway,” she said philosophically. “I’ve got what I want. Thank you.”

  She looked pale. When they were approaching the landing, she had recovered somewhat and was talking with the two women in perfect Italian, telling them that she was an American but had been married to an Italian, a Neapolitan.

  “Un napolitano,” one of the women said, rolling her eyes.

  Hearing this, the gondolier started in with “Santa Lucia.” They arrived at the landing without further incident. Urbino walked with Berenice Pillow as far as the Strada Nova where she turned toward the Ca’ d’Oro. She thanked him again. He told her he would be joining her later at Florian’s.

  18

  “I must admit I feel in a peculiar position,” Porfirio said half an hour later in his clipped British English. He was wearing a Missoni cardigan in beige, rust, and silver. “You come to my house calling for a young lady. Yes, a most peculiar position. I don’t think I have the temperament for either a benign father figure handing over his fresh young daughter to an importunate suitor or—God forbid!—a Pandarus. Unfortunately, the charming Miss Reeve is not in. She’s been out since early morning, it seems. Why don’t you join me for a drink. She might come in at any minute. I’m sure she would be distressed if she just missed seeing you.”