by David Hewson
He looked back at the departing San Marco shoreline. There, standing in the small park, was the tiny red-and-blue figure of Laura watching him go, believing, he felt sure, she was invisible in the distance.
19
An evening on the lagoon
AS THEY PASSED THE ARSENALE AND BEGAN TO HEAD out into the open waters of the lagoon, Hugo Massiter refilled their champagne glasses and bellowed over the roar of the engine, “Dimitri?”
The young boatman at the front of the craft, tanned and tall, his eyes hidden behind large black sunglasses, turned to peer at them. “Boss?”
“Fast as you can.”
Dimitri shrugged. The vessel’s nose lurched skywards. Amy Hartston and Daniel Forster found their backs thrust deep into the leather bench seats and immediately broke into foolish grins.
Amy wore a pale evening dress cut low at the neck, and looked enticingly elegant, older than her years. Massiter was dressed in cream slacks and a pure white cotton shirt. The sunglasses had been replaced by a captain’s cap, complete with blue anchor at the front, which sat at a jaunty angle on his head. Daniel had never been so close to a wealthy man before. Hugo, as he insisted on being called, was not what he expected. He seemed too relaxed, playful almost, to be real. Nevertheless, Daniel found his presence, and Amy’s, exciting. His life had grown larger since he’d arrived in Venice. Everything which preceded it now seemed oddly muted and two-dimensional.
The boat lurched northwards, bouncing off the swell, through the channel marked by buoys which ran between the busy, built-up island of Murano to the left and Sant’ Erasmo, a low green oasis of vegetable gardens, and the home of Piero, to the right. Daniel recalled his last trip on the lagoon in the Sophia, meandering across the grey water with three sleeping men, a dog at the tiller, and Laura, mysterious Laura, who had hidden herself on the San Marco waterfront simply to see him go.
“Something’s wrong?” Amy asked over the roar of the boat and the crashing of the waves.
“No,” Daniel replied. “I was just thinking how unexpected all this is. I came here simply to catalogue a library.”
Massiter offered them a plate of bruschette spread with tomato, porcini, and anchovies. “Life would be so tedious if it were composed only of the expected,” he said. “A library?”
Daniel abruptly realized he needed to be on his guard. He suddenly wished Scacchi had advised him in greater detail about how to deal with Massiter. It was curious that the old man had given him so little guidance. It seemed he expected Daniel, for all his naivety, to shape the course of any dealings which might ensue.
As circumspectly as he could, he explained the history behind his trip to Venice and his special interest in the Republic’s printing presses. Scacchi had offered to pay a little in return for sifting through some old documents which would otherwise, he said, be thrown away. Daniel expressed his surprise and gratitude at discovering he’d been enrolled for the summer school.
“And you’ve found something?” Massiter asked immediately.
“Not yet,” Daniel replied, and was surprised to discover that on this occasion he lied quite easily. “The documents were left in the cellar, and most seem to have been affected by water.”
Massiter shook his head. “What a waste! But you see, Scacchi is merely a dealer in antiques. We’ve done a little business with each other before—at arm’s length, as he insists. I never get a dinner invitation, you know, or even a call for drinks. The antique dealer’s weakness is that he sees value only when it is thrust in front of him. To think he may have had a treasure beneath his very nose and let it rot for want of a little attention.”
Daniel was not willing to accept this harsh criticism, even if it was true. “Signor Scacchi has been a good, kind man to me. Without him I would still be in Oxford looking for some menial job to pay the bills for the summer.” And alone, he nearly added, drifting through a monochrome existence.
Massiter waved his hand in apology. “Of course, of course. I meant nothing personal. Your loyalty does you proud. Now, Amy. A little about you, for Daniel and to refresh my own memory.”
She smiled vacantly and told, in a few sentences, of growing up in Maine, of her father who was “very big” in “real estate,” and how summer in Venice was the highlight of her year.
“But your college?” Daniel wondered.
“Strictly for rich dumb girls. Which I am. Make no mistake.”
“Ridiculous,” Massiter said sternly. “Amy has played here since she was a spotty twelve-year-old brat, and every year her rise in stature amazes me.”
“Yeah. Right. They love the idea of some girl player being the star of this thing, Daniel. Ever since that kid got murdered—the young ones say her ghost still haunts La Pietà. Used to believe that myself.”
Massiter turned to face the water. Daniel detected some concern in his manner.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said. “I don’t know about this.”
“Really?” Amy asked, suddenly animated. “This was before my time, but it was some story. The poor kid was being chased by the creep who was the school leader. Turns out he attacked her after the final concert and murdered her. Then he killed himself when the cops were closing in. She was quite a player, too, they say.”
Massiter drained his glass and refilled it immediately. “Her name was Susanna Gianni, and she was, my dears, the finest violinist of her age I have ever heard. To think I picked that damned Russian for the job. There’s not a day goes by when I don’t reproach myself for it. If it weren’t for me, Susanna would be alive today.”
His grey eyes seemed damp. Amy placed her hand on his knee. It seemed, to Daniel, an oddly adult gesture. “Hugo. I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was so personal. You can’t blame yourself for what someone else does.”
“But I do, I’m afraid. Even after ten years. Still, this isn’t a subject for now. Look. We arrive.”
The island was quite close. The tower of the campanile was visible several hundred yards inland from the vaporetto jetty. The speedboat slowed to a crawl, made a sharp right, then entered the mouth of a narrow canal thick with algae. Massiter swatted a mosquito, looked at his watch, and ordered Dimitri to moor the boat temporarily a little way from the restaurant, in a solitary location next to a vegetable field.
“Damned if I couldn’t get a table till nine. What cheek! Still, you can play for your supper now, instead of later. Come! Instruments out! Let me hear these pieces you’ve invented for me.”
Amy pulled a face. “Jesus, Hugo. Do I have to? I hate composition. I’m a player.”
“And an excellent one too. The best we have this year, Amy. Fabozzi told me so himself.”
“Maybe,” she replied. “That doesn’t mean I can write.”
He stared at her, seeming offended. “You mean you didn’t bring anything?”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a printed manuscript. “I’ve got some Vivaldi. The Seasons. We never play it in the school. I thought it might make a change.”
Massiter looked horrified. “Good God, girl! If I want to hear that one more time—which I never shall—I’ll go to the nearest pizza parlour. I’ve a good mind to make you starve by way of punishment. Women!” His temper was up.
“Perhaps,” Daniel suggested, “I have a solution.”
“I hope so. Or none of us shall eat tonight.”
Daniel picked up the plastic envelope with the six sheets of handwritten music inside. “Amy, it would be a great compliment if you could sight-read what I’ve written.”
“Why?” Massiter asked. “Can’t you play it yourself?”
“Not terribly well,” he admitted. “I never professed to be a great violinist, Hugo. Just because you can hear something in your head doesn’t mean you can reproduce it with your fingers.”
“Musicians!” Massiter raged. “Most stubborn creatures on earth. Well. You heard, my girl. Play, or it’s back to town and no supper for the pair of you.”
“Gimm
e,” she said sullenly, and snatched the pages from Daniel’s hand, then sat, for a full five minutes, reading through them. Massiter calmed down a little. Daniel listened to the buzz of insects and the gentle movement of fish bobbing for flies, wondering, with no small amount of rising panic, if he had played his hand correctly. Amy’s expression changed as she worked her way through the pages. She became more serious and absorbed. When she was done, she turned to him and asked, “What is this, Daniel? What’s it meant to be?”
“A violin solo,” he replied stupidly.
“I know that. Give me the context. It sounds eighteenth century, almost like Vivaldi, but not quite. And it’s part of something much bigger, I think. What is it?”
Massiter regarded both of them intently. Daniel understood why Scacchi found it difficult to reveal anything but the truth in the face of those staring grey eyes.
“I imagine it to be a solo passage in something like a Vivaldi violin concerto. In between the ritornelli. I was playing with the form. Trying to write something which matched the occasion.”
Amy squinted at him. “I’m to imagine what the rest is, I suppose? Without hearing it in my head, it is damned hard to work out how this fits in.”
He cursed himself. He had chosen the first obvious violin flourish he could find and never, for a moment, considered the need for context. “That would be fine,” he murmured.
“Fine?” She was bemused. “How can you write the middle of something without at least dreaming up the beginning, if not the end? I don’t understand.”
Massiter had relaxed into the corner of the boat. “Music or starvation, my dear,” he said. “What’ll it be?”
“Brits!”
She passed the sheets to Daniel, asking him to turn the pages for her, took the Guarneri out of its case, stood up, and, after a moment’s consideration, began to play. The rich, full tone of the slim fiddle rang out over the drone of mosquitoes. Massiter closed his eyes and listened, utterly still. Daniel found the notes chilled his blood, gaining several new dimensions over the passage he had scanned in his head as he wrote them down. It began with the long, slow, stately grace of a dirge, then, through a series of turning, quickening changes, moved up the scale gradually, relentlessly, until the solo closed in a rapid, majestic, ringing display of double-stopped fury. If he had to apply a single word to the passage it would, he believed, be resurrection. The music started in the realm of the dead and ascended, with a certain steady pace, to a world full of life and colour and movement.
Amy sat down and gave him a frank look. “How did I do? Be honest. It’s your music.”
“You were wonderful,” he stuttered. “Marvellous.”
She shook her head. “Wow. That stuff’s amazing, Daniel. Can I keep these sheets? Can I work on them?”
“Of course.”
“Here. Sign it for me. I can sell it if I’m ever broke.”
He held his hands awkwardly on his lap, palms down. “I don’t have a pen.”
Massiter was watching him like a hawk. He picked a tortoiseshell fountain pen out of his shirt pocket and held it out. “Here, Daniel,” he said with a wan smile. “Use mine.”
With a shaky hand, and hating himself all the while, Daniel scrawled his name on the first page.
“That was stunning,” Massiter said. “On both your parts. Now, let’s eat.”
It was a feast, as Massiter had promised. They devoured a succession of small plates, sharing each: sea urchins and soft-shelled crabs, shrimp and lobster, pasta stained with squid ink, John Dory served whole, with the mark of Saint Peter’s thumbprint still on the side, and monkfish as fat and sweet as scampi. Massiter uttered a few deprecatory words about the Veneto whites, then picked a firm, flinty Alto Adige from the South Tyrol to go with the fish. They drank two bottles, with a grappa each at the end, and talked of Venice and colleges and food, anything but the music they had just heard.
When the meal was done, they walked round to the little basilica. Massiter bribed the caretaker to let them in and turn on the lights, then revealed, with a proud wave, the famous Doomsday mosaic. Daniel was impressed to see, just as Piero had promised, a small dog in one corner which might have been ancestor to the legendary Xerxes, duckhound and helmsdog extraordinaire. Afterwards, with the night well fallen, they went outside and stared at the stars: a perfect lagoon evening, with the sky a soft, dark blue above them.
The caretaker hung around, waiting for more tips. Massiter eyed the campanile and suggested they make the long climb to the top. From there, he said, the lights of Venice would wink back at them from the horizon.
Amy sat on an old stone throne outside the basilica, sighed, and said, “No way am I climbing up that thing. You guys go ahead. I’ll wait here.”
And so they did, climbing the winding interior of the tower together, each with a flashlight. From the campanile they surveyed the small, enclosed world of the lagoon like gods, feeling as if they could reach out and touch any point: the near island of Burano, the lights on Murano and San Michele in the mid distance. And, beyond, the church towers of the city itself.
Daniel had drunk too much wine to be worried. He smiled at Massiter and thanked him. The older man leaned out of the open arch and stared at the black waters. Then he spoke, with a new seriousness in his voice.
“You’re Scacchi’s tool,” he said. “You know that, Daniel. Surely.”
Sobriety fell down from the sky in an instant, and with it the certain knowledge that he would not be able to leave this high tower without telling Massiter at least some of the truth.
“I don’t understand....”
Massiter clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “The music, lad. It’s not yours. It can’t be. The old man’s fishing. Does he know what it’s worth?”
Daniel said nothing.
“Look,” Massiter continued. “It’s clear you didn’t write it. It’s clear, too, from what I have heard, that it may be outstanding. Now, tell me what Scacchi wants and we’ll talk.”
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “Beyond money.”
“He must want plenty of that to play these games. Why doesn’t he just pick up the phone and call me?”
“He’s ill. I can offer no better explanation.”
Massiter scowled. “So I’d heard. Poor chap. Well. What is it, then?”
Daniel took a deep breath. “It’s the composer’s original score for an entire violin concerto. Like Vivaldi, but not like him too.”
“Who did write it?”
“I have no idea. It’s described simply as ‘Concerto Anonimo’ and dated 1733, which puts it contemporary with the close of Vivaldi’s career. But it can’t be him. Why would he write anonymously?”
Massiter gazed at the stars and the blackness. “Is it all that good?” he asked eventually.
“I believe so.”
“And it’s yours? Not stolen? I know Scacchi’s games.”
“The work was found in Scacchi’s own house. It’s his. I think, too, that it is truly wonderful. I hadn’t realised quite how good until Amy played it. But then you felt that, too, didn’t you, Hugo?”
Massiter laughed. “Oh, yes. What a tale! This city never stops surprising me.”
“You’ll buy it?” Daniel asked hopefully. “I think Scacchi will be amenable to a quick arrangement.”
Massiter shook his head. “It’s a jolly story, but what, in all honesty, is the thing worth? We could pay some tame scholar to say it’s Vivaldi’s, I imagine, but you seem to think that ruse won’t last. Scacchi could get some small sum from a university, I expect. The musicologists will adore it. But it’s well below my horizon as it stands, I’m afraid.”
Daniel could hardly believe what he was hearing. “But it’s marvellous music, Hugo. You said so yourself.”
“Absolutely! Scacchi could come to some arrangement with a publisher to have first pick for its transcription and earn a few royalties down the line. But you see the problem? The composer, whoever he was, is long dead.
There’s no real copyright. Once it’s in some college, anyone can pick it up and turn out editions by the score, not paying a penny to a soul. They will, believe me. There’s no such thing as an honest academic. No. There is perhaps ten thousand dollars for it on the nail as it stands, and the selfsame over the next five years in residuals. Nothing more.”
The logic of Massiter’s argument seemed unshakable. “There’s no other possibility?” Daniel asked.
Massiter held up the torch and shone it in his face. “Of course there is. Look, this is not the toy I had in mind to buy this summer, as you and Scacchi well know. I’d a fancy to own one of those big fat Guarneris again. But I’m as open to a little game as the next man. What we do, Daniel, is dissemble. How do you think the world goes round?”
The night was growing chilly. Part of Daniel wished to be on the ground, yet another side of his character needed to hear what Massiter had to say. Scacchi was desperate for money. Here, too, was life, full of experience and excitement. There was a selfish reason to play this game, not just the practical needs of the old man. “I don’t follow,” he declared.
Massiter sighed, as if dealing with a child. “Think of the problem. No one knows who wrote this. No one, in truth, owns the thing. If it’s made public as it stands, the worth of it lies merely in the intrinsic value of some old paper. Agreed?”
Daniel nodded uncertainly.
“So what we need,” Massiter continued, “is to make it something a man might possess. Might own, and sell if he cares to. You provided the answer yourself. Ask Amy. She knows who wrote this concerto. You.”
An owl screeched in the black air beyond the tower. Massiter took him by the arm. “Listen. It’s simplicity itself. Tomorrow, I have a word with Fabozzi and tell him we have a change of plan. I’ll ask him to abandon the current programme and focus on a single work. A new one. Written by a brilliant prodigy who has emerged out of nowhere. One Daniel Forster. Each day you copy something from your original and bring it to him. The school rehearses your masterpiece. At the final concert we debut the work for the world. Think of the publicity! Think of the acclaim! You start the summer a penniless student and end it a celebrity. Not rich, true, but who gets rich out of music?”
