Farewell to the Flesh

by Edward Sklepowich

  Spaak had downed his martini in the first few minutes and was already half through his second. He seemed paler than he had several nights ago, his blue eyes duller.

  “My mother put you up to this, didn’t she?”

  “I was at the Casa Crispina today to see Mother Mariangela. It was my idea that we meet here at Harry’s.”

  Spaak gave him a knowing smile.

  “Have it your own way. Don’t forget that she’s my mother. I know her.”

  Then why try to protect her so much? thought Urbino. Nicholas Spaak and his mother seemed to understand each other very well, yet neither bothered—or risked—telling the other the extent of their understanding.

  “So why did you want to see me?”

  There was a false bravado in Spaak’s challenge. He pushed a lock of blond hair from his eyes.

  “Very well, then,” Urbino said. “But let’s be honest with each other. I don’t think you would have even shown up here this evening if you didn’t want to talk with me. You realize that you’re putting yourself in a vulnerable position the longer you say nothing.”

  “Say nothing about what?”

  “About being in the Calle Santa Scolastica the night Val Gibbon was murdered.”

  Urbino hadn’t been absolutely sure that Nicholas Spaak had been there, but his reaction now removed any doubts. An incredulous look came over Spaak’s face. Something seemed to collapse in his shoulders. He ran his hand through his blond hair. Urbino could tell that he wasn’t even going to make the feeblest attempt at a denial.

  “How did you know?”

  The best—and perhaps kindest—way to answer this was to tell him that he had been seen in the Calle Santa Scolastica. When he did, Spaak almost shouted, “But that man couldn’t have known it was me! I’ve never seen him before and I haven’t seen him since. I haven’t even been anywhere near that place since the murder.”

  “You might very well be seeing Rigoletti at the Casa Crispina later. He’s going there with the police.”

  Spaak started slightly.

  “If you get back after they’ve been there, it would be wise of you to go to the Questura first thing tomorrow. You were at the scene of a crime and you haven’t told the police yet. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “What is this, a dry run? Maybe you’ll compare notes and see if I tell the same story to you both.”

  “Do you have any reason not to tell the truth?”

  Spaak finished his martini and ordered another.

  “I might have a lot of reasons for not wanting to say I was there on that night—or on any other night—but they don’t have anything to do with having murdered Gibbon. I’ve already told you that I didn’t like him,” he added, as if this previous openness would compensate for whatever he had also held back. “I didn’t like him but I didn’t kill him. I’m not the killing kind, Mr. Macintyre.”

  “You were in the Calle Santa Scolastica that night. Maybe you saw the person who did kill Gibbon.”

  “Let’s get out of here. I’d prefer to talk somewhere else.”

  But once they were outside they had to decide where to go. Certainly not up the Calle Vallaressa toward the Piazza San Marco with its crowds nor along the Molo toward the Piazzetta, the Ducal Palace, and the Calle Santa Scolastica. It was Urbino’s town, and if he had made a mistake in having them meet in Harry’s, then he might be able to rectify it.

  “Let’s take the local boat up the Grand Canal,” he said. “With luck it won’t be too crowded.”

  But it was. Maskers were on their way to parties or dinner, residents were returning home, and weary tourists were taking the slower and cheaper vaporetto back to the train station. Urbino and Spaak made their way through the noisy enclosed area to the stern. Here, fortunately, there was only a young man in a tall Pulchinello hat embracing a girl with a white-painted face and chartreuse wig. They were oblivious to anything or anyone but themselves. Urbino and Spaak sat down across from them.

  The wind that had been blowing earlier had died and the air had turned warmer. Fog was starting to roll in across the water. The boat pulled out of the San Marco landing for the short passage to the Salute.

  Spaak was huddled into his coat, his scarf tightly wound around his neck, his hands thrust into his pockets. He made no effort to pick up where they had left off inside Harry’s. There was a somewhat wary look in his eye now as he glanced out at the Custom House.

  Perhaps Urbino could help things along by falling into the role of a guide.

  “That palazzo there,” he said, drawing Spaak’s attention to a small Gothic building with lacy balconies and ogive windows, “is sometimes called the House of Desdemona, although I doubt if it had anything to do with her.”

  When Spaak gave no reaction except a desultory glance at the building, Urbino said, “Desdemona was Othello’s wife.”

  Spaak’s humorless smile made his face seem skeletal.

  “Have you forgotten that I’m an English teacher, Mr. Macintyre? I know the play and some of the criticism on it. Do you remember what Coleridge said about Iago? That he had a ‘motiveless malignity,’ that he was like a devil, a fiend?”

  Urbino nodded as they pulled into the Salute landing.

  “Do you think a person can be evil just for the sake of being evil?” Spaak asked.

  The boat bumped against the landing.

  “It’s possible, but it would be an example of pathology, don’t you think?”

  “Pathology or, if you believe Coleridge, theology. Devils, Satan, and all that.”

  The vaporetto was soon moving again slowly up the Grand Canal to its next stop on the other side. The low line of lights in the far distance that was the Lido was barely visible because of the fog.

  Urbino gave a quick glance at Spaak, who was staring at a row of palazzi. He sensed that Spaak was working up to something and that he should keep quiet. They were approaching the next landing when Spaak said, “One of my professors in graduate school said that Iago might have been homosexual, that he was jealous—envious—of Desdemona and that was why he did what he did.” He turned to Urbino with an earnest look. “What do you think of that?”

  “There are more plausible reasons to explain Iago’s behavior than that.” Spaak looked at him expectantly. He wanted more than this. “Besides,” Urbino added, “Shakespeare was a genius, wasn’t he? Your professor seems to want to make him into a bigot.”

  This light note seemed to be the right one.

  “Aren’t you forgetting Shylock and The Merchant of Venice?” Spaak said with a smile. “Maybe Shakespeare saved his genius for his other plays and put all his bigotry into the ones set in Venice. Venice!” He shook his head slowly as the vaporetto left the landing and continued its zigzag course up the Grand Canal. “I think you know why I was in the Calle Santa Scolastica. And I think you also know why I’m not particularly fond of my old professor’s interpretation of Iago.”

  “How did you find out about the Calle Santa Scolastica?”

  “The way I’ve found out about many other things in my life! It was an accident. Not quite an accident, perhaps. Let’s just say that I was led there.”

  “You followed someone?”

  “I like the way I put it better. Oh, I know you can lead a horse to the river and all that. I was led but I wanted to drink. No one had to force me. I knew what I was doing.”

  “Are you talking about the night Gibbon was murdered?”

  “I was there before that night. I told you last week at the Casa Crispina that I usually go for long walks after I see my mother to bed. I wasn’t telling you the truth, though, when I said that I didn’t know where I ended up the night Gibbon was murdered. I went to San Marco the way I usually do. That night I didn’t find anyone along by the water and I thought I would go to that alley.”

  “You stopped in the little restaurant in the Calle degli Albanesi where the young kids hang out, didn’t you?”

  “I’m impressed. Yes, I did. I wanted a
coffee. After I had it, I went to the alley that leads to the canal, the place where they found Gibbon.”

  “I know you got only as far as the first part of the calle. That’s where you saw Ignazio Rigoletti and became frightened and turned around.”

  “You don’t know as much as you think you do. You’re talking about the second time I was there that night. Yes, I went there twice.”

  This was completely unexpected.

  “The first time was about ten-thirty. I had been walking by the water for about twenty minutes and then I decided to go to the alley. As I was turning into it, I got a quick glimpse of someone standing to my right in the passageway behind the hotel. He was much shorter than me, with one of those cheap yellow masks, the kind I bought for my mother. He was just standing there, waiting in the shadows. It was strange. He seemed to step forward and then stop, and I thought maybe he had seen me before in the area. He seemed a little familiar—I can’t put my finger on exactly why, since I couldn’t see his face. I kept walking into the Calle Santa Scolastica.”

  Spaak stopped and looked at the young couple who now seemed to be paying more attention to their surroundings. But a few moments later they got up and left. The vaporetto was approaching the Accademia stop.

  “When I got into the courtyard,” Spaak continued, “I saw another man by the canal. He was very attractive—handsome, I’d say. He had a strong face with full lips. I wanted to go up to him but something made me stop. Maybe it was the look on his face, so self-assured, so impassive. I thought of the short man I had just seen. I felt as if it was a trap so I turned around and went out. The other man was still standing there. I went down by the water.”

  “Did you recognize either of the two men?”

  “No,” he said hesitantly, “but I had a feeling that I had met one—or both of them—before, maybe when I had been in the alley. But neither was Gibbon. That’s why I saw no point in telling the police. If I had, it couldn’t have been any help to them, and I would have had to admit everything.”

  “You went back to the Calle Santa Scolastica again later, though.”

  “About half an hour later. I knew it would be best if I didn’t. The same two might be there and this time they might mug me or do something worse. But somehow I felt compelled to go back.” He looked down at his hands. “I feel that way a lot when I—I’m walking around. I stopped for coffee in that place where all the kids were hanging out and then went down toward the alley again. I didn’t see either of them this time. I turned into the alley and then I saw that man—what did you say his name was? Rigoletti—coming toward me. I got frightened and ran away toward the lagoon. I could tell right away he wasn’t there for the same reason I was. I was frightened but not because of Gibbon, believe me! I never even saw him. My God, I didn’t even know he was there! Dead, I mean. But he wasn’t lying there at the end of the alley the first time I came. When I saw that man coming toward me, all I could think of was that he was the police. It would kill my mother if I were arrested for something like that. It would kill her if she even knew about the way I am.”

  “If she loves you, as she obviously does, I’m sure it wouldn’t make any difference.”

  Spaak gave a hollow laugh as the vaporetto moved away from the landing where a crowd waited for the other boats. The boy in the Pulchinello hat and his girlfriend in the wig were being greeted enthusiastically by their friends, who were partying in the little square in front of the art gallery.

  “Aren’t you the optimist!” Spaak said. “Well, it might be true, but I wouldn’t want to find out. It might be too hard on her.”

  Where did protecting his mother end and protecting himself begin? Were they really distinguishable to him?

  “And Dora? Does she know?”

  “I’ve never told her, if that’s what you mean, but I think she’s known since I was in college. My sister is very loyal. She wouldn’t say anything to Mother.”

  “Would your sister do anything for you?”

  Spaak frowned.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You just said she’s very loyal. Your mother said the same thing the other night.”

  “Well, she is! And I’ve always looked out for her, too. Stop beating around the bush. Are you going to say anything to my mother?”

  “It’s not my business to tell her; I leave that to you. But you must go to the police. What you saw in the Calle Santa Scolastica could be very important. At any rate, you could be arrested for withholding information.” He let this impress itself on Spaak. “Did you see anyone in the area of the Calle Santa Scolastica that night other than Ignazio Rigoletti and these two men?”

  “Not until I got out by the lagoon.”

  “Rigoletti has identified one of the men. You’re the other one. When you go to the police, tell them about the short man in the mask. The man you saw at the end of the calle might be the one Rigoletti has already identified.”

  “Has he been arrested?”

  “I don’t know but I doubt it. Just because someone was in the Calle Santa Scolastica around the time Gibbon was murdered doesn’t make him the murderer, and it’s certainly not enough to have the Questura arrest whoever it is.” Urbino paused before going on. “I’m sure you realize that the police will want to know if you were physically attracted to Gibbon. If you and he might have—”

  “I couldn’t stand the man!” Spaak almost shouted. He shook his head. “I guess I look guilty either way, don’t I? Whether I say I liked him or if I say I didn’t!”

  “Do you think Gibbon could have gone to the Calle Santa Scolastica for the same reason you did?”

  Spaak’s mouth twitched with amusement. “‘Could have’? Who knows? That’s why he might have been so snide with me. Too bad he isn’t here for you to ask him if he was physically attracted to me, instead of the other way around!”

  This marked the end of their conversation. They sat side by side in the stern of the vaporetto, looking at the Grand Canal and the palazzi lining its banks. They could see the decorative Murano chandeliers in the parlors and could hear the sound of laughter and music drifting over the canal from open windows. The Sant’Angelo and San Silvestro stops came and went and they still were silent.

  As the boat was approaching the Rialto landing, Spaak stood up.

  “I know the way to the Casa Crispina from here. Don’t mention anything to my mother. If she has to know, I should tell her. I hope you can see that.”

  Urbino did. He also saw that the circle of benevolent deception between Spaak and his mother was likely to continue.

  “And the police?” he asked as Spaak opened the door into the cabin.

  “I’ll tell them everything tomorrow. Tonight I just want to take a long walk.”

  He closed the door behind him and went down the aisle to the exit.

  13

  For the remaining trip only occasionally did Urbino give his attention to the passing, familiar scene along the Grand Canal. At first he thought about his conversation with Nicholas Spaak. Was his story of his two trips to the Calle Santa Scolastica to be believed? Had what he had seen there—someone in a plastic mask standing outside the calle and someone else unmasked at the end of it by the canal—played a role in the death of Val Gibbon? Did Spaak know something more about Val Gibbon’s sexuality than he was willing to say? And did he really not realize that his mother knew about his own homosexuality? Or did he know, yet not want to acknowledge that she actually did, even to himself? And what about his sister? How much did she know about her brother?

  There seemed to be no limit to people’s capacity, not to say their need, for self-deception. We wear masks as much for ourselves as we do for others, Urbino thought. Masks covered faces, and these days there were any number of examples of them. But the face could be the ultimate mask, one thrust not only at strangers and loved ones, friends and enemies, but also at oneself.

  Much of his work as a biographer was to penetrate masks—in some cases to p
eel successive ones away—and to seek out the concealed selves behind them, yet all too often there was little that could be found. Proust, sounding a warning, had said that no one could truly say he knew another person. Urbino had little doubt of this. He was being particularly sensitive to it as he worked on his book on Proust in Venice, and now he reminded himself of it in reference to the deaths of Gibbon and Porfirio.

  Because of the turn Urbino’s mind had taken as he sat in the stem of the vaporetto after Spaak had left, everything around him seemed to feed his thoughts—the water reflecting darkened impressionistic images of the reality above them, the veil of fog wreathing in, the palazzi stretching and curving like some long, deceptive escarpment or series of embellished masks on either side of the Grand Canal. Sitting there in the stern, Urbino for a few confused moments felt that he himself wasn’t moving but that an elaborate screen was being unwound on either side of him, giving the illusion of motion and of depth.

  Inevitably, this sense of disorientation led back to his thoughts about the murder in the Calle Santa Scolastica, thus completing the circle.

  What was true and unfeigned about the things he had been told so far? Even in the best, most usual of circumstances, when little except social discomfort was at stake, people pretended, exaggerated, indulged in mental reservations or outright lies. It wasn’t immoral except by the strictest of standards, and it certainly wasn’t villainous. But murder was an entirely different matter. Loss of face and loss of reputation were the least things for the murderer to fear.

  As the vaporetto pulled alongside the San Marcuola landing, Urbino felt oppressed as if by a frieze of masks showering down upon him their lies and deceptions. Among these lies and deceptions were the ones biding the truth of a brutal murder. These had to be recognized and exposed, but as for the others, he would leave them where he found them.

  14

  The surprise the Contessa had been teasing him with earlier with her insinuations and enigmatic smile was immediately evident when Urbino walked into her salotto shortly after nine.