Lucifer's Shadow

by David Hewson

  Finally, the most ridiculous of all. That it is some nobleman in the city—perhaps even Delapole himself—who has hitherto hidden his signs of musical greatness and now plays this game to make the grandest entrance of all. Furthermore, he will, when revealed, shower upon the city both financial and musical riches that shall restore the Republic to its former glories, cure the palsy, make the Grand Canal smell sweeter than a Persian whore’s bosom, etc., etc.

  I listen to these fairy tales, nod sagely, and keep my peace. Once, when Gobbo and his chums were making merry with the rumours in his local tavern, I was tempted to interject an even more outré theory: that it was written by a woman. But then they would have thought me mad. Female fingers must work at nothing save the roles we give them; ’twas always thus and always will be.

  So I smile and play the ignoramus. Only Rebecca and I know the truth. She has not told Jacopo, even, for fear of worrying her brother further. While we stay mute, the industry around her artistry grows. Pages for the various parts appear from the Scacchi presses, some even set by my clumsy hand. On the frontispiece, where Leo covetously tried his name, there is nothing but blank space beneath the plain title copied from her own manuscript, Concerto Anonimo, and the year.

  When I stare at this bare white lacuna, I see it filled by Rebecca’s face. In the thickets of elder bushes that cover the flat, unkempt wasteland in the northernmost part of the city, above the ghetto, where none may see a pair of ardent lovers retire of an afternoon. And in her room, where we steal when Jacopo is out, and writhe together naked beneath sheets that come to twist around us in our labours, like swaddling clothes for infants who toss and turn in the grip of deep, enrapturing dreams.

  Here are Rebecca’s true mysteries. The dark glitter of an eye, the turn of her hip, the soft, full weight of her breast. These are secrets that live beyond words or the tones that even she may pluck from Delapole’s gift. It seems a lifetime now since that first night, and still I wonder she should reveal them to such as me.

  35

  Encounters

  THE SOUND OF A STRING QUARTET DRIFTED ACROSS THE water from San Marco. It was evening now and the bands were out in the square, playing for the tourists. The Sophia had meandered back across the lagoon at a sluggish pace, fighting the tide. The moon was a bold silver disc set in velvet, tugging at the water with some mystic, invisible power.

  The journey had been made mostly in silence. Daniel sat next to Amy all the way, at the urging of Laura. The farewells at the taxi jetty were muted. The men were tired, Laura busy at the tiller. Daniel and Amy walked into the piazza and drank two cups of espresso outside a café a little way on from Florian’s packed patio. They listened to a jazz quartet crucify Duke Ellington note by note and watched the tourists taking photos of each other. Then they ambled through the shopping streets, into the quiet residential quarter that sat on the lower northern edge of the canal before it made the turn for the volta.

  Daniel stopped on the front steps of the Gritti Palace. It was not simply that he deemed it wise to go no further. The hotel peered down at him from another world, one of luxury and riches, one where he did not belong. He was aware of his mud-caked jeans and the taste of grimy water in his mouth. He knew, too, that his mind was confused, torn between two possibilities, each of which might be ridiculous.

  Amy watched him, a little nervous. “Are you coming in?” she asked. “Just for a little while?”

  He shook his head. “Looking like this?”

  “Daniel! My old man’s paying close to four thousand dollars a week for a suite here. I can walk through that door naked if I feel like it.”

  He hesitated. “You’re on your own?”

  “This is the first year they let me come by myself. Even two years ago I had to put up with my mom. At the age of sixteen. Can you believe that?”

  He could, and the thought made him feel old. Yet it would be rude to refuse. He wondered, too, what Laura would say if he arrived early at Ca’ Scacchi.

  “Just for a little while,” he agreed, and then they walked into the Gritti Palace, ignoring the raised eyebrows of the staff, trailed their muddy feet across the carpet to the lift, and rose four floors to Amy’s suite. It was ten times the size of Daniel’s bedroom. There was an expensively decorated lounge, with windows overlooking the canal.

  “I need to clean up,” Amy announced, and headed for the bathroom. The sound of running water came soon after. He found the second bathroom, tore open one of the hotel’s courtesy toothbrushes, and tried to scrub the taste of eels and worse from his mouth. Then he walked back to the window. The hotel stood opposite the Punta della Dogana, the very tip of Dorsoduro. The vast shadow of Salute sat a little to its right. He was just able to see the curious shape of Ca’ Dario, like a giant medieval doll’s house sitting crookedly by the water’s edge. There was a single light in the front first-floor window. Daniel thought about Laura’s daydream and the carnival, with its masks and costumes. To be anonymous in the Venetian night would be to embark upon an adventure, like biting into a writhing, struggling eel. Life required adventure from time to time, and decision too.

  The bathroom door opened. Amy came out, carrying a bundle of dirty clothes, threw them into a linen basket, then walked over to the fridge. She took out a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka and two chilled glasses from the freezer, poured a couple of shots, then brought them over to the window. The spirit was so cold it looked semi-liquid in the tumbler, sitting there beneath a taut meniscus. Daniel tasted it and choked instantly. It was like iced fire.

  She was now wearing nothing but a hotel robe. Her blonde hair was still wet, tied back behind her neck.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked.

  “The canal. You’ve got a great view.”

  “Yeah.”

  He wondered if she had ever stood at the window in all the time she’d been there.

  “Look.” He walked to the far left of the long pane and she followed him, standing in front as he pointed. Not thinking twice, Daniel softly placed a hand on the damp gown covering her shoulder.

  “Down the canal. Past Salute. You see the small house? The crooked one? With the tall windows?”

  “Sure. So what?”

  “Don’t you think it’s unusual? Attractive?”

  “I guess so.”

  Amy leaned back against him, rolled her head up so that her damp hair fell beneath his chin. “Dan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to clean up too? We got pretty dirty out there. A first date to remember. I’ll say that.”

  “It was,” he agreed, and said no more. She pulled herself away from him and turned round. He was pleased to see there was no anger in her eyes, simply the need for an answer.

  “I was going to shower when I got home,” he said. “When I have clean clothes.”

  She winced, with a touch of sourness in the gesture. “I don’t normally do this, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not given to . . .” She didn’t want to say the rest.

  “I never thought you were, Amy.”

  “Then what’s the problem? Is it me?”

  “No!” he lied. She folded her arms, a gesture he was beginning to recognise. “This is too quick,” he added. “Too sudden.”

  “I’m only here for another nine days. What is this? The Middle Ages or something?”

  A vaporetto sounded its horn on the canal. Daniel wished he were on board, safe in the stern, alone. “I just—”

  Her temper broke. “I don’t get you, Dan. It’s like there’s two people inside the same skin. One of them writes this music and it sounds so grown-up, so confident. As if the person who wrote it knows pretty much all there is to know about everything. And then there’s you. I don’t know who you are.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do not apologise!”

  He disposed of his empty glass, moved forward, and touched her hair. “No, Amy. I must. You’re wonderful. When I look at you... when I hear you play the viol
in...”

  Her face turned upwards to his in a motion meant to tantalise. Whatever ardour he was beginning to feel vanished in an instant. She still wore the traces of a teenager’s hurt snarl. Her open mouth pouted towards his, expecting to be kissed. He retreated awkwardly, half a step back.

  Amy glowered at him. “So why don’t you want to touch me?”

  “Because it’s late. We’re both tired. We’ve both had too much to drink. Also, I’ve a lot of things to think about. Things I can’t discuss with you just yet.”

  The scowl grew more fierce. “But you discuss it with them , don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The weirdos, Dan! Those guys on the boat. That woman. Jesus, what kind of freak show was that?”

  “They’re my friends,” he replied icily.

  “Oh, come on! You’re not one of them, Dan. You’re one of us. Me. And Hugo. You realise that, don’t you?”

  “As I said,” he repeated, “they’re my friends.”

  She walked over to the bar and shot a refill into her glass. “Don’t be naïve. If they let you in, it’s only because they want to. Oh, will you just go! Please.”

  “As you see fit,” he replied automatically.

  “No.” She stepped in front of him before he reached the door. “There’s one more thing you’ve got to know. I decided that day when we met in the church. Not because of you, but because my head’s waking up in this place and I start seeing things I should have seen a long time ago. All that crap they fed me at school. All that stuff from my folks. I’m out of that prison. This is my big chance to start growing up, and I thought it might be with you. No matter. Plenty more fish in the sea. Can’t get Hugo off the phone.”

  “Hugo?” He was outraged, on her behalf, not his.

  “Yeah. Old enough to be my dad. Thought I’d say it for you.”

  “Oh, Amy.” He found his hand straying to her damp neck.

  “Don’t touch me, you bastard!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “More apologies, dammit. Will you go?”

  He was unaccustomed to seeing hatred in another’s eyes. The quiet, predictable blandness which consumed his life before Venice now seemed to have deserted him entirely.

  “Why the rush? That’s what I don’t understand.”

  There were tears in her eyes, and he thought he knew why. She had seen the shock in his face, how moved he was by her sudden fury with him.

  “I’m eighteen, Dan,” she said quietly. “I have lived my life in this rich kid’s cocoon, and it is so cold. I want someone to love. I want someone to love me.”

  He touched her cheek, touched the tears. She didn’t pull away. “I don’t know anything about that, Amy. I just know you can’t demand it. You have to wait for it to happen.”

  “Wait?” she spat back at him. “Like some old maid? Like that Laura friend of yours? What’s she waiting for? Because it’s not coming. Not from anyone. She’s just growing old drying dishes, turning into a spinster a little bit more every time she looks at her watch.”

  Daniel took his hand away from Amy Hartston and felt a sudden urge to be out of her presence. He did not know the answer to her last question, which had, he now realised, been nagging him long before Amy put it in words.

  “When we meet again,” he said, “let’s forget this happened.”

  He made for the door, listening to the torrent of angry words behind him. Hugo Massiter’s name seemed to play a very large part in them. He wondered why she thought this would hurt him, what power she believed there might be in those few syllables. It was impossible that she knew of the arrangement about the concerto. No, Amy threw the name at him as a rival, which meant, he believed, that she misunderstood both his feelings and those of Hugo too. Massiter had a slyness of his own, but that did not, Daniel believed, extend to seducing teenage girls whom he must have known, albeit distantly, since their childhood. It was impossible. It had to be.

  36

  The dancing lesson

  THE NIGHT WAS WARM AND HUMID. FEELING THE NEED to walk, Daniel turned away from the vaporetto stop and strode north, finding the narrow passage to the Accademia bridge, the single crossing over the canal before the Rialto, and climbed the steps. He stood in the centre of the gentle wooden arch, watching the traffic on the canal, thinking of Amy’s last remark. Then he set off on the long walk to San Cassian, past the Frari, where, close by in San Rocco, the eyes of Scacchi’s Lucifer would now be shining in the dark, through the backstreets of San Polo, until, by guesswork and accident, he found himself in the small campo of San Cassian. The old church looked less of an ugly hulk in the dark. The square was deserted. If it were not for the electric lights in the windows, he could have been in the Venice of two or three hundred years earlier. This was, he believed, what had made his mother come to love this city, and pass on the feeling to her son: the hint of ghostly footprints in the dust, a sign of successive generations puzzling over their lives. And such power in the dead. When he looked at the paintings in San Rocco or listened to that tantalising music which now, unfairly, bore his name, he found himself in awe of those who had walked these streets before. His own imprint seemed so tiny by comparison.

  He stopped in front of the bar where he had passed the ransom over to the mysterious thief. It was now closed and shuttered. Venice went to bed early. Then, his mind still working, he walked the few paces over the bridge and let himself into Ca’ Scacchi. The loud, uncompromising sound of big-band jazz came from the front room on the first floor. He peeped cautiously around the half-open door, not wanting to be seen. Scacchi was seated on the sofa, looking exhausted, watching Paul dance, slowly and elegantly, with a phantom partner, making certain and accurate steps upon the carpet.

  Slowly, feeling weary after the long day, he went upstairs. The music was so loud it drifted along the stairwell, filling the house, even on the third floor. He walked towards his bedroom. A noise behind made him turn. Laura stood there, looking bright and sober, back in her white uniform, back on duty.

  “Daniel?” she asked, full of concern. “Why are you home so early?”

  He paused on the landing, and for once, Laura seemed surprised by the set of his face. “Enough!” he declared. “I’m back, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “I thought,” she said, not quite smiling, but not entirely neutral either, “that perhaps you and Amy... She is so very nice and pretty. And talented too.”

  “I have never once, Laura, given you the slightest reason to believe that I wish anything between Amy and myself. Yet you insist...”

  Her green eyes, all sudden innocence, laughed silently back at him.

  “You seem upset,” she said. “Would you like something? A drink?”

  “No! I’ve had quite enough to drink for one day. For an entire month, as it happens.”

  “Tea, perhaps. The English like tea, Daniel.”

  “I’m aware of that.” The idea of tea was irresistible. “Yes, please. Tea.”

  “I have a little kitchen. We should not disturb the gentlemen below. As you may hear through the”—she broke off and brought her voice up several decibels to produce a deafening yell down the staircase—“ floor, they appear to be having a party all to themselves!”

  He followed her into a large, tidy apartment which had a faint smell of perfume. The walls were plain white; the furniture was modest. A small hob and a microwave sat at one end of the room, next to the sink. A neat, square table with four chairs filled the centre, with a sofa by the wall. An open door disclosed, in the dim light of a lamp, a double bed covered in a flower-patterned quilt. Scacchi’s music rose through the floor with an insistent thump.

  “Earl Grey or Darjeeling?” she asked.

  “Um. Earl Grey.” He sat on the low cream sofa and watched her busy herself at the hob.

  “What is the Gritti Palace like?” she asked.

  “Large. And grand.”

  “Is that all there is to say about it? Am
y has a suite, I gather. It must be wonderful.”

  “It is... not to my taste.”

  “Ah.” Laura went to the table, stirred the pot briskly, and came back to sit next to him, two mugs in her hand. Downstairs, the music grew in volume: a big-band stomp. They could hear Paul’s wry laughter. Daniel did not, for one moment, wish to think of what might be happening. There had been noises in the house before which suggested the two men, in spite of their condition, remained vigorous when the occasion arose.

  “Do you like jazz?” she asked, clearly unwilling to address the subject of Amy any further.

  “I can’t say I’ve listened to it very much.”

  “Listened?” There was a glimpse of tanned skin behind the buttons of her white coat when she spoke. Daniel began to wonder if this was a mistake. “Jazz is for dancing, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come!”

  She put down her mug and beckoned him to his feet.

  “I can’t dance, Laura.”

  “Excellent! I’ve found something I can teach my clever Englishman!”

  “I cannot...”

  She tugged him upright with both hands and dragged him to the centre of the room. Downstairs, as if on cue, the music changed to a sprightly tune. Laura held out her arms. He walked forward and found himself in her loose embrace.

  “Move,” she commanded.

  “How?”

  Her hair was newly washed and fragrant. She gazed at him, full of life, demanding action.

  “Like this.”

  She took them in a gentle arc, leading. He tried to follow, tripped over her feet, and found himself starting to giggle. They came to a halt by the table. There was a look of amused consternation in her gaze.

  “Daniel,” Laura noted gently, “I know that the English are not known for their sense of rhythm and grace. But you’re a famous composer in the making. You should at least try.”

  “Oh, don’t,” he sighed miserably. She saw the sudden worried expression on his face.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made that joke.” They stood unmoving, each with a hand on the other’s shoulder, the second to the waist. Daniel had never been this close to her before. Laura’s face, half-crooked, staring up at him, was exquisite. There were delightful lines at the corner of her mouth when she smiled. The contrast between her and the girlish Amy could not have been greater.