by David Hewson
29
A forced sale
RIZZO CURSED HIS LUCK. ENGLISHMEN SEEMED TO haunt him. The fellow Scacchi had sent seemed at first little more than a youth. Rizzo soon changed his opinion. “Daniel” was not cowed by his threats or concerned about losing the damned instrument. It was as if he recognised Rizzo’s urgent need to get rid of the fiddle and was determined to mark the price down accordingly. That scarcely mattered now. Rizzo had listened to him playing the thing and felt like screaming till his eyes popped out. It was then that he decided he would never touch the cursed instrument again. The only question was how much money he might glean from its immediate sale.
“You say you can talk business,” he grunted. “Well, talk.”
Daniel ceased offering him the violin case and chose instead to place it on the floor between them. “It’s of uncertain value. I don’t know.”
He was, Rizzo thought, not bad at lying, nor as good as he believed. “If you don’t know that, then what do we have to talk about?”
Daniel placed a long, pale hand on his chin, a gesture that reminded Rizzo of Massiter. “I’ve no idea how we might dispose of it.”
Rizzo waved his cigarette in the air. “Your problem, my friend. All I want to know is what you have to offer. Here and now. If we agree a price between us and walk away together? How much will you place in my hand for this thing?”
The young Englishman blinked, clearly thinking. Rizzo wanted rid of the violin at any price, but he wanted his money in hard cash.
“We don’t carry large sums out of habit,” Daniel replied, lying again.
Rizzo took him by the arm, leaned into his face, and breathed a thick cloud of cigarette smoke between them. “Hey. Let’s cut the crap. This isn’t my kind of merchandise, right? But it’s got a value. You said so yourself. Maybe it’s a fake. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. Seems to me some clever guy like you could make it look real if you wanted to, anyway. Then what would it be worth?”
“True. But then we take all the risk.”
Rizzo said nothing.
“Say, twenty thousand U.S. dollars,” Daniel suggested. “In cash. This afternoon.”
“No deal. You want to insult me?”
“Not at all. I’d just like us both to win.”
“Yeah.” He even talked like Massiter.
“So what do you want?”
“Gimme fifty grand. Cash. We go pick it up now.”
Daniel grimaced. “We don’t have that kind of money just lying around.”
“So?”
“Let’s say forty thousand. I think we could scrape that together. If you come with me, we could conclude this within the hour.”
Forty thousand dollars. It was still a huge amount. It could set him up in a bar, if he wanted. “That’s a real lot of money for a fake, don’t you think? Daniel?” He wanted the English kid to understand he knew he was being rolled.
“It’s a lot of money,” he agreed. “Do you want it?”
Rizzo scowled at the case on the ground. “We get it now? I come with you?”
“Sure.”
“You carry it,” Rizzo grunted. “I’m sick of the damned thing.”
They walked to the Arsenale stop and caught the first vaporetto to come along. It was, for a change, half-empty. The two men sat on the hard blue seats in the stern, out in the open air. Rizzo let him have the right-hand place, closer to the waterfront of San Marco. Some note of caution sounded in his head saying that he didn’t want to be seen with this odd, devious English kid. But it made no sense. Daniel was the one carrying the violin case, having left the nylon bag in the warehouse. Still, they did not speak. No one could place the two of them together.
Then the boat pulled past La Pietà, and Rizzo’s heart briefly stopped. There was some kind of media gathering outside the church, with photographers and reporters and a crowd of young musicians holding their instruments. This was Massiter’s show; he should have remembered that. His figure was there, in the middle of the crowd. He could so easily have seen the two of them together. And thought what? That his chosen thief and errand boy was sitting in the back of a vaporetto next to some pale-faced kid who happened to have a violin case on his lap. He wasn’t going to worry about it. Massiter had his back to them. If he’d seen something, then those icy grey eyes would surely be bearing down on the stern of the vaporetto that instant. All the same, Rizzo mumbled something about the heat and went to sit inside, between the kid and the exit. It was crazy to multiply the risks.
They got off at San Stae and walked back towards the Rialto. Rizzo had no idea where the old man lived, though it would be easy to find out. The one time they dealt with each other, it happened through an intermediary too. The English kid had indicated Rizzo was to stay out of Scacchi’s house. That was fair enough. But he still wanted to know.
The two of them shared a beer in the tiny bar that sat on the San Cassian campo, opposite the church. He ordered a second. Daniel refused. The place was empty.
“I’ll go and get the money,” the English kid said. “I’ll leave the fiddle here with you. Then come back with the cash. You can go check it in the toilet if you like.”
Rizzo laughed. There was something faintly amusing about Daniel, as if this were all a piece of amateur dramatics.
“Take the thing. Then come back with what you owe me.”
Daniel smiled. “Thanks. It’s nice to be trusted.”
Rizzo took off his sunglasses for the first time since leaving home that morning. He stared at Daniel. “What’s this got to do with trust? If you rip me off, I come and kill you. Don’t you get that?”
The kid went a touch pale, then nodded. Rizzo was glad he understood. “Just bring me the money. Then we never see each other again.”
“OK.” He was out of the door. Rizzo watched him turn left onto the bridge over the narrow rio, then he walked slowly to the front of the bar to see what happened next. It was so easy. Daniel crossed the water, then took out a key and opened the front door of a house set next to a small gift shop. Rizzo stared at the tangle of buildings on the corner. The entrance was humble. But it must lead, he guessed, to a large and ancient palace by the side of the rio. He did not doubt for one moment that Daniel would return with what he was owed.
He went back into the bar and slowly finished the beer. After fifteen minutes, Daniel returned carrying a Standa supermarket bag with a bundle inside, like a set of bricks enclosed tightly in a black plastic bin liner fastened with sticky tape.
The barman watched them from behind the counter. Rizzo ordered a third beer. Daniel declined.
“As I said,” he repeated, “if you want to check it...”
Rizzo shook his head. “We’re done, Daniel. You can go now.”
He left, clearly grateful to be out of the bar. Rizzo took his third beer and sat at one of the outside tables, the bag of money on his lap. The drink was beginning to run around his head a little. He had, he knew, been cheated, but the resentment he felt was purely personal, not financial. It would fade. The money would help.
He admired a young girl who walked past, a picture of Venetian loveliness with long legs and a head of flowing dark hair. Rizzo whistled and laughed as she picked up her pace over the bridge. He felt good. It was too late to find a bank and place the cash in there today, but tomorrow he would do that, and feel very proper and upright as he listened to the manager crawling for his business.
The house intrigued him. He stared at the half-shuttered windows, wishing he could see inside. Perhaps they were playing the newly acquired violin. Perhaps they were working out their potential profit. It didn’t bother him. Something told Rizzo the fiddle was a black thing and that no good was going to come of the transaction just negotiated by Daniel.
Rizzo sat outside the tiny bar, slowly getting drunk, idly watching the house. A tradesman arrived with some food. A man from the gas company called to read the meter. A figure left carrying a shopping bag and set out to cross the square. Rizzo wished he
hadn’t drunk so much. Then he laughed, a mirthless, convulsive laugh that led to a brief choking fit.
The barman eyed him. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” Rizzo answered. He felt happier than at any time since his visit to the cemetery of San Michele. The violin was gone. In its place was hard money and the scent of change in the hot lagoon air.
30
Alone on the Arsenale
HOW MANY SECRETS CAN ONE HEAD HOLD BEFORE IT bursts? Too many for me. The human mind is made for deceit, of others and of itself. I make these observations to myself now, since I no longer dare set them down on paper. Looking back, I wonder I told Lucia as much as I did. The Republic has ways of getting its hands on letters. I can only hope that the unspoken reasoning which lay behind my folly—that the ramblings of a nineteen-year-old to his sister in Spain would hold no interest for their spies—proves well-founded.
The game is now set for the concert. Gobbo took me to a tavern off the rio behind Ca’ Dario and told me what he knew of the details. Leo and Delapole remain the prime movers, my uncle fixing the musical side of matters, while Delapole orchestrates the ceremony and handles the money.
“Why are they doing this, Gobbo?” I wondered, not much minded to drink the sour red wine he had thrust into my hand.
“For my master, it is a rich man’s game,” he answered. “These are the amusements that keep the wealthy alive, Scacchi. Without them they would die of boredom. As for your uncle, ask yourself. What motivates him in anything? Money, naturally. I imagine he hopes to catch the coattails of whoever emerges as the composer. I don’t think Delapole would mind wetting his beak there, either. Being rich is one thing, but the rate he spends it, he needs to make sure he stays rich too.”
He was wrong about Leo, though I did not point this out. Gold drives my uncle, but there are deeper matters there too.
“And after the concert is a success?”
“Why,” he said, grinning, “they wage this campaign to the very end. The plan, I gather, is to wait until the public is salivating for the composer’s identity like a sailor begging to bed a Dorsoduro whore. Then they wait a little longer, just for fun. Finally, they announce another concert—tickets in advance, please—at which the composer will reveal himself as a finale. A bit of good theatre, that’s what Venice likes, and my master fancies he can do that to a tee. Much as he feels he could toss off a play or concerto himself if he wanted, but that’s the rage today. Old Leo’s much of the same mind, and our sadly departed French friend seemed to think there was not a job in the world he couldn’t do.”
My mind overran with images of what might happen at this planned event. But who could I talk to, other than Rebecca and Jacopo, both of them too close to these issues to see them clearly?
Lucia’s death and this web of pretence we have built around us both served to sour my mood. I collected Rebecca as arranged but scarcely spoke after we played our customary subterfuge upon the guard and stole off to La Pietà. For once I could not listen to her play. Instead I walked along the waterfront, to the gates of the Arsenale, and watched the workmen slaving there over ships for the fleet. As they worked their hellish braziers, the air rang to the sound of curses in tongues I had never heard before. It was both fascinating and a little terrifying too. I understood how Rebecca must have felt when she freed herself, albeit temporarily, of the ghetto. Venice has, to some extent, become my own prison. I wonder if I shall ever have the chance to escape it.
I sat upon the quayside, the very picture of misery. Then, after an hour or more of useless cogitation, I walked back to the church and caught Rebecca as she left, shiny new fiddle case in hand, inside it the instrument Delapole had so generously provided. Her lot in the world has improved so much in these past few weeks. She must have looked at me and wondered what was up, for she took my hand briefly, then led me away from San Marco, back towards the Arsenale, stopping short of the great entrance to lead me into a deserted public garden. Here we sat beneath a patch of fragrant oleander and watched the boats cross the lagoon. There were a few lights on the Lido, the distant island that is the barrier keeping out the full force of the Adriatic. The night air was thick with the scent of the tree’s musky blossom. Chattering swifts cut dark silhouettes against the moon. I seemed to be incapable of speaking a sentence which consisted of more than three words.
Finally, Rebecca turned to me, her face earnest and taut in the moonlight, and said, “Lorenzo. You are my dearest friend. What is wrong? I have never known you like this.”
I am a man. I must not weep. Yet such passions live inside us all, and we block them out in order to become the very picture of the modern Christian being, all sensations kept tight under lock and key, all feelings, all emotions fastened tight within the heart. When I walk these city streets and see these pale, chaste faces trapped in the daily round of habit and duty, I feel myself surrounded by the dead. And in their eyes, a plea that I should join them.
I told Rebecca about my sister’s fate, as clearly and with as much detail as I possessed. I spoke of our family and of my love for my sister. And I cried. In grief and choler. I raged upon that waterfront like a madman, cursing myself, cursing humanity. Cursing God. Hers. Mine. Any I might name. The tears ran down my face. I knew madness that night. It was the taste of salt and saliva in the mouth, the sound of blood boiling in the ears, and the empty black hollow that sits inside the chest.
When, finally, my rants subsided, I sat down next to her once more and wiped my streaming face with my sleeve. She did not touch me. I couldn’t blame her. I was the one transformed, not her. What woman would like to see a man behave in such a fashion? Once again I misjudged her.
“Lorenzo,” she said in a very calm voice. “Your rage is not against fate. Or God. Or Venice. It is against yourself. You ask why you could not save Lucia from this fate. Even though you know there is no answer, the question continues to consume your soul. You feel responsible, and this presumed guilt turns your anger inwards. It is, I think, one of the stations of grief. Jacopo and I are orphans too. Do you think I don’t recognise it?”
It was a sane and rational response, and had I been at that time sane and rational, I would have recognised it as such. Instead I said, with a degree of bitterness inside my voice which shocked me as I heard it, “How could you blame yourself for your father’s death? Did you taunt God, as I have done these last few weeks? Did you walk into his house and shake your fist in his face?”
“You know that is ridiculous, Lorenzo,” she said with a distinct note of disappointment. “Lucia is dead of misfortune, not some divine revenge.”
“I know,” I answered. And it was true. Yet in each of us there lurks the demon of unreason, and it never sleeps.
She looked at me oddly. Then she took my arm. “Come,” she said. “I shall show you the true face of God and let you decide for yourself.”
31
An uneasy state of grace
THE FIDDLE WAS BOUGHT. SOME $30,000 OF MASSITER’S money remained in the house, with the prospect of a further $50,000 before the end of the summer. The additional reserve, Daniel believed, ought to make Scacchi’s negotiations with his creditors more flexible. If this was the case, the old man did not mention it. Once the instrument was in his hands, he thanked Daniel in the most sincere of fashions and declared there was no further need for his involvement in any subterfuge. It was essential the instrument’s existence be kept from Laura, Scacchi insisted, but its sale had already been pre-arranged. The sums would be sufficient to save their skins. It was now time for Daniel to concentrate on enjoying himself. With a wave of his hand, Scacchi seemed to dismiss the Guarneri and its acquisition entirely.
For Scacchi and Paul, it appeared, the entire episode now lay in the past, unworthy of recall. The two men’s health was a little improved. Their temperaments were happy and nonchalant. Laura, too, seemed relaxed and contented. Ca’ Scacchi had moved from the brink of catastrophe to a happy equilibrium in a matter of days, largely
through Daniel’s efforts, as the old man had gratefully admitted once the violin was his.
Yet Daniel found his own mood failed to follow theirs, for reasons he could not explain to them. Giulia Morelli seemed to be developing a fascination with him. She had now approached him twice since her deliberate appearance at the vaporetto stop, once when he was daydreaming around the Guggenheim and a second time, more boldly, at La Pietà. On each occasion she had asked no direct questions and, in the gallery, had gone so far as to pretend her presence was accidental. Yet from her tone and the gentle, insistent probing of her comments, it was clear that she suspected Scacchi had engaged in some transaction of late and that Daniel was a part of it.
The last interview had taken place on a pew at the rear of the church while Fabozzi talked quietly to his players only a few yards away. Finally, Daniel had snapped and asked her to continue the discussion outside. There, on the steps of La Pietà, under a bright summer sun, he had demanded an explanation.
“An explanation?” she had answered, amused. “But you know what I seek, Daniel. Some object that has come on the market. And the discovery of those who seek to acquire it.”
“But I have told you a thousand times. I know nothing of this. Nor, as far as I am aware, does Scacchi. If you suspect he does, interrogate him, not me.”
She laughed. “And what would be the point of that? Scacchi is intrinsically dishonest, much as I like his company. He would never tell the truth. Not if it did not suit him.”
“So you come to me in the belief I will. And when you hear it, you dismiss it as fiction.”
