by David Hewson
There, too, the instrument taunted him. Rizzo had believed, always, that his chosen trade had a goal, an endpoint. The day would come when he had enough money to open some small bar restaurant near the university, in Santa Margherita. There he could steal legally, from the tourists and the students alike. He could be his own boss. He could mess with the women who came through the doors and waited on the tables. This dream lay constantly at the back of his head, warm and comforting and, until he had snatched the dusty fiddle case from Susanna Gianni’s coffin, entirely unrealisable. Ordinary thieving would never pay for it. Scacchi’s $80,000 could open two bars, maybe more. Rizzo’s days as a crook could be over. Yet, now it seemed close, the idea gave him no cheer whatsoever. He was, and would remain, a murderer and a thief, because that was his nature. The loathsome violin seemed to remind him of the fact. The thing was like some poisoned apple. He felt as if he could die from a single bite.
Rizzo thought of the policewoman. He would have killed her, given the opportunity, and not regretted the act, even though that would, he knew, have set every cop in the city on his back. Now she was probing, searching, asking. He had heard she was working the streets, asking questions about something that had gone missing from a casket on San Michele. Maybe she would get close. Maybe he really would have to kill her. But not if the crazy instrument that started it all was gone from his life.
The station was near empty. It would be easy to take the case, catch the bus to the airport, walk out into the marshes, and dump it there. Massiter would never know. The steady round of work—of thieving and odd errands for the Englishman when he was in town—would always put bread on the table. Then Rizzo thought of the way Massiter had tried, so coolly, so stealthily, to intimidate him in the big apartment overlooking the canal. The one with the weird paintings and floorlength mirrors that might, or might not, have held Fellini’s corpse. He thought of Massiter’s cold hand on his mouth and felt the flicker of a rising flame of anger.
“Bastardo,” Rizzo said softly to himself. He looked at his watch. There was just time to meet Scacchi’s man at the appointed place. Not that he planned to walk through Venice carrying a violin case, announcing his perfidy to all. Rizzo marched over to a luggage store and bought a cheap holdall. Then he opened the luggage locker, took out the dusty case, and placed it neatly inside the nylon bag. The smell had gone. It just looked like old junk. But it felt heavy underneath his arm. He imagined the entire world was staring at him, screaming, “Murderer! Thief! Murderer!” as he carried it.
He caught the bus back to Piazzale Roma. The ancient Guarneri sat on his knees, deep inside the bag. He stared at the flat grey surface of the water as the bus sped along the narrow finger of artificial land that joined Venice to terra firma.
Rizzo wanted rid of the thing as soon as possible, this very day if Scacchi’s man was willing. Not once in his life had he expressed an interest in music or attended a concert. Yet now, watching the tankers and liners manoeuvre towards the port like overweight dancers trying to negotiate a ballroom floor, he couldn’t stop wondering what the damned thing sounded like.
26
A fracas in the church
The deception is simple. We become more bold. The guards are so stupid or lazy or both that we have now managed to create an entirely new doctor of the ghetto! Jacopo no longer need lurk inside his room while we flit about the Venetian night. I merely informed the buffoon upon the bridge that I required the services of Dr. Roberto Levi for a nobleman who was sick. The bu foon waved me through without a second thought, Rebecca donned a spare coat, and we bustled out upon our business without a second glance. This is an excellent disguise, for even if the soldiers had their suspicions, who would intervene to stop a physician on his way to tend upon a man of influence? Each Venetian looks to his own first and the state second. We have gulled them completely, and my only concern is that we become so blasé about the deed that one evening Rebecca will throw off her hood, declaring it to be too hot, shake out those lovely tresses, and make open villains of us all.
Last night, after the concert, with Rebecca still every inch the good Gentile, we decided to explore a little before going home. It was a glorious evening, warm but not airless, with a full moon reflected in the sleek black surface of the Basin as our gondola paddled past St. Mark’s on to the Grand Canal.
She insisted we stop near Ca’ Dario, curious about the place which we had been forced to leave so hurriedly on the day of the trip to Torcello. We paid off the gondolier at the Salute jetty and walked the back alleys until we stood in the small campo behind the house. I kept my fingers crossed that Gobbo would not catch us together, forcing some awkward questions, but luck was on our side. Together, beneath the bright light of the moon, we counted the curious chimneys on the place, eight of them, all funnel-shaped, as is popular in some of the older palaces. There is a rectangular walled garden at the rear. To the front, which may only be seen to much advantage from the canal, the house is most extraordinary, a narrow, crooked mansion on four floors. The ground is for storage and transport, naturally. The three above are almost identical, with four arched windows running from floor to ceiling on the left, then a single, circular rose window, and finally another vast glass arch on the northern end of the building. The entire frontage is etched and engraved and tattooed after the fashion of an African sailor, making it shine out among the larger, grander mansions on either side like a curious jewel found in a case of lesser stones. It must cost Delapole a fortune, but the Englishman has, I gather, money to waste. Curiously, no one seems to have a clue who the true owner is. Dario is long dead, and some say the place is cursed, since it has been the scene of two murders at least. As if bricks and mortar might carry within them the seeds of human destiny . . .
Rebecca’s curiosity is intense. I believe she hopes Delapole’s money will help legitimise her musical ambitions in some way. Leo and the Englishman have cooked up a plan. The concerto will be performed in La Pietà shortly. Delapole will pay for the publicity, which will attempt to raise some public interest by promoting a fair deal of bunkum about the piece and its mysterious composer. The story goes that the creator is a citizen of a shy and uncertain nature who does not wish to make his (it must be his!) identity known until he is certain the city approves his style. Therefore the work will be played in its entirety, with Vivaldi (for a sum) condescending to direct proceedings. Then the audience will be asked whether the work has merit or merely deserves an early demise in the fireplace. Should they decide the former, the composer undertakes to reveal himself publicly at a later date. In the event of the latter, he will retire to his present trade, never touching the stave again, grateful that the glorious Republic saw fit to pay attention to his amateurish scribblings for even a moment.
It is all nonsense, of course. No one doubts the work will be a sensation; otherwise, why would Vivaldi deign to grace it with his talents? Money goes so far with artists, but it cannot buy their dignity. Rebecca’s goal remains the same: to be seen one day as a musician and composer of the stature of Vivaldi or any other city great. Yet, though I do not say as much to her face, I fail to understand how this might be achieved. Even if she manages to reveal herself without disclosing our misdeeds, I wonder if the city will readily accept a woman, and a Jew and foreigner to boot, as an heir to the likes of Vivaldi. Be honest, Lorenzo. I find this hard, too, and I wish it were not so. We grow up with some prejudices buried deep within the blood. Rebecca’s vision for herself goes against everything we have been told about the way the lives of men and women are conducted in our society. Still, it will all come out in the wash, as Mother used to say.
We gawped at Delapole’s palace for a good thirty minutes, then wandered past San Cassian, where I showed Rebecca my home, from the outside, naturally. Later, we wound up at Giacomo dell’Orio, a squat lump of church that sits in its own square a little way back from the canal. The pair of us wander the night so freely these days that we walked inside the place without a second thou
ght and found ourselves in the company of an ancient warden who was only too anxious to reveal its wonders. There is a fascinating roof, designed to look like a ship’s keel, and a selection of columns purloined from Byzantium, I imagine: one with a very ancient flowered capital, and another in smooth antique marble. These Venetians will steal anything, I swear.
The paintings include some passable martyrdoms and one piece, brand-new, being put in place by the creator, which was so ludicrously done we stood in front of it lost for words. The “artist” (I feel this is stretching things somewhat) noticed our interest and asked me what I thought. It appeared to depict the dead Virgin being taken to her grave, with some kind of commotion in the forefront.
“The reference escapes me, sir,” I confessed. “Perhaps you could enlighten us.”
He was a coarse fellow, with a hunched posture, a pockmarked face, and a somewhat lunatic expression. I couldn’t begin to imagine whose palm had been crossed in order to get his work a hanging in a public place. “Why, it is the defilement of the Virgin by the Jew, and how his sin is punished by God on the spot. You see!”
True, next to the deathly pale and rigid corpse of the Virgin was the form of a poor fellow whose hands had been lopped off by some miraculous divine intervention. A very private divine intervention, it appears, since the rest of the funeral party scarcely notice him, and get on with their job of carrying the unfortunate cadaver to its resting place.
“I don’t recall this event from the scriptures, sir,” Rebecca said sweetly.
“The Bible alone is not a route to God,” the madman said very gravely. “Some of us read more widely than others.”
“Some imagine more widely than others too,” I ventured. “But I fail to understand. Why is this man defiling her? To what purpose?”
“Because he is a Jew, of course.”
Rebecca asked, “For no other reason?”
“What other reason would a Jew need?”
“Some surely, sir,” I replied. “For wasn’t Mary a Jew? And Christ half-Hebrew himself?”
Even in the half dark of the church, I could see some blood su fuse his pockmarks.
“Why,” I continued in the face of his growing fury, “would one Jew do this to another? Unless . . . unless . . . he does not see this dead white figure as a human corpse at all but believes it to be some child’s model in wax or fat, and seeks to steal a little for his lamp. But then why would God strike him down? I am most puzzled.”
“Blasphemy!” the madman roared, and I could see the ancient warden at the far end of the nave cast a worried look in our direction.
Rebecca tugged on my arm, but I could not let this point go. “Not at all, sir. If you scrawl a child’s doodle on a wall and call it the Virgin, I commit no blasphemy in pointing out it is a child’s doodle. The comment is directed at your skill, or lack of it. Not the Virgin herself.”
“Blasphemy!”
The warden was heading for the side door. Rebecca was hissing at me under her breath. I know when it’s time to leave.
We fled into the night. Just in time too. The soldiers were racing for the church as we turned the corner and disappeared back into the safety of San Cassian, where I might find a gondola and return Rebecca, briefly transformed back into Roberto, into the ghetto.
When we were on that last, familiar walk towards the bridge, she turned to me and said, “You’ll be the death of us, Lorenzo. I swear.”
“Nonsense,” I replied. “The man was a charlatan. Bad art is bad art, and sticking the Virgin in there to stop someone pointing it out is just plain dishonest.”
“So when I write a bad concerto, you will boo along with the rest of them?”
“Louder than the rest, in fact, since I, more than most, know how much better you can do.”
That snort again. We approached the bridge, she pulled up her hood, and I started to concoct a story once more, not that the guard, who was half-drunk, seemed much bothered.
I saw her to the door. Jacopo opened it and caught the mirth on both our faces.
“Villains, both of you,” he said. “They’ll be displaying your heads on the waterfront before the year is out.”
Rebecca kissed him once on the cheek. “Falling at my feet in gratitude, more like, dear brother, when they realise the Serenissima has another master in its midst.”
“Of course.” I caught Jacopo’s eye. There was something he wanted to say to his sister, but he didn’t have the heart. We both knew what it was.
27
An acquisition
THE SELLER HAD SUGGESTED AN EMPTY WAREHOUSE IN the vast derelict shipyard of the Arsenale. Daniel listened patiently to Scacchi’s careful instructions, knowing all along that he would extemporise if the occasion demanded. It was, after all, just such a talent for improvisation that had won them the prize of Massiter’s money in the first place. Scacchi’s caution, Daniel thought, was understandable in one so old. He did not, however, feel bound by it.
“Make sure the fiddle is the true one,” Scacchi insisted. “I’ve told you of the identifying marks. Look at the label too.”
“I know,” Daniel replied a little impatiently, which won him a reproving look from the old man.
“This fellow’s a crook, Daniel. Don’t play games with him.”
“And he wants the money. We have nothing to fear.”
“You never read the newspapers, do you?”
Daniel was baffled. “Why?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Scacchi said, scowling. “All I ask is this: take care. Now the moment’s here, I wish I could do this myself.”
Massiter’s sum had arrived as promised. It was in cash, large-denomination dollar bills, now hidden safely somewhere in the secondfloor bedroom Scacchi shared with Paul. Scacchi was still $10,000 short of the money he owed but believed that with some begging, a short-term loan, and the sale of a few objects, he could raise the balance within a matter of days. The seller was, he advised Daniel, to phone on Friday and, if all sides were agreeable, conclude the arrangement the following day. If everything went to plan, the excursion to Sant’ Erasmo would now be a celebration for them all. Provided the violin was the Guarneri Scacchi expected, it was difficult to see what might go wrong.
“I promised to do this for you, Scacchi,” Daniel insisted.
“And you’re a man of your word, I know. But this fellow isn’t. He’s a crook out of choice. Not, like us, out of necessity. You should always fear that kind of man, Daniel. I’m not the only Lucifer at loose in this town.”
Daniel laughed. The old man seemed to find it a strain to raise a smile.
When Daniel went outside, the afternoon was hot, the vaporetto packed with tourists and tetchy locals. Venice could be a crotchety place during the humid, scorching days of summer. There seemed no escape from the power of the sun and the seeping dampness that rose from the lagoon.
As he waited for the vaporetto, he was dismayed to discover, seated in the shelter, the policewoman, Giulia Morelli, reading a book. He said nothing and stared at the water. Inevitably, her head lifted and a smile of recognition came his way.
“Daniel,” she said, rising to greet him. “How nice to see you again.”
“I didn’t realise you came here so often.”
She shrugged and placed the book in her bag. “The police get everywhere. It’s one of our unfortunate habits. Congratulations, by the way.”
Daniel blinked, not comprehending, and unable to shake the image of the stolen violin from his head.
“For the concert Mr. Massiter is planning,” she said by way of explanation.
“Of course. It’s a great honour.”
“And so unexpected. I had no idea you were a composer. Scacchi said nothing of the fact when we met.”
“It’s a small thing, or so I thought.”
“Not for Signor Massiter. He sees value in you. How flattered you must be.”
Daniel squirmed on the jetty and was relieved to see a boat heave slowly into view. “Ye
s,” he muttered.
Giulia Morelli glanced at her watch. “Has Scacchi bought anything recently? To your knowledge. I should like to know.”
“I’m sorry?”
“An item. An antique. It is what he does, isn’t it?”
He was aware of the sweat on his brow. “I believe he is retired.”
Giulia Morelli laughed. “A man like Scacchi never retires, Daniel. Surely you must know that?”
The vaporetto rolled in towards the jetty. He watched a slim girl in the blue ACTV uniform grip the handrail, ready to release it for passengers.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Some weeks ago an item was stolen from a coffin,” Giulia Morelli said. “The man who saw it stolen was murdered. When I chanced upon the act, I was nearly killed too. So I have something personal here. An axe to grind, as you English say.”
“What has this to do with Scacchi? Or me?”
“Perhaps nothing. I don’t know.”
He watched the stream of bodies leave the boat and dreaded the thought that the policewoman would follow him on board and continue this interrogation all the way to San Marco, where he would, he knew, have to abandon every plan that had been made in order to humour her.
