by Donna Leon
A heavy-set man in his fifties stood at the centre of a wooden-floored room filled with Plexiglas cases on velvet-covered stands that raised them to about eye level. Spot-lighting hidden in the heavy beams of the ceiling picked out the cases, some of which were empty. Several niches in the white walls were similarly lit, but all of those seemed to contain objects of one sort or another.
The man came forward, smiling. ‘Dottoressa Lynch, this is indeed an honour. I never dreamed I’d have the pleasure of meeting you.’ He stopped in front of her, hand still extended, and continued, ‘I’d like to tell you, first, that I’ve read your books and found them illuminating, especially the one on ceramics.’
She made no effort to take his hand, so he lowered his but didn’t move away from her. ‘I’m so glad you agreed to come and see me.’
‘Did I have a choice?’ Brett asked.
The man smiled. ‘Of course you had a choice, Dottoressa. We always have choices. It’s only when they are difficult ones that we say we don’t have them. But there is always a choice. You could have refused to come, and you could have called the police. But you didn’t, did you?’ He smiled again, eyes actually growing warm, either with humour or something so sinister Brett didn’t want to contemplate it.
‘Where’s Flavia?’
‘Oh, Signora Petrelli is quite all right, I assure you. When I last had word of her, she was heading away from the Riva degli Schiavoni, walking back in the general direction of your apartment.’
‘Then you don’t have her?’
He laughed outright. ‘Of course I don’t have her, Dottoressa. I never did. There’s no need to involve Signora Petrelli in this matter. Besides, I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her voice. Mind you, I don’t like some of the music she sings,’ he said with the tolerance of those who have more elevated tastes, ‘but I have nothing but the healthiest respect for her talent.’
Brett turned abruptly and walked towards the door. She took the handle and pressed it down, but the door didn’t open. She tried again, harder, but it still wouldn’t move. While she was doing this, the man had moved back across the room until he stood in front of one of the lighted cases. When she turned from the door, she saw him standing there, looking at the small pieces that stood inside the case, almost unaware of her presence.
‘Will you let me out of here?’ she asked.
‘Would you like to see my collection, Dottoressa?’ he asked, as if she hadn’t spoken or he hadn’t heard her.
‘I want to get out of here.’
Again, it was as if she hadn’t spoken.
He continued to gaze at the two small figurines in the case. ‘These little jade pieces are from the Shang Dynasty, wouldn’t you say? Probably the An-yang period.’ He turned away from the case and smiled at her. ‘I realize that’s well before your period of expertise, Dottoressa, about a thousand years, but I’m sure you’re familiar with them.’ He moved off to the next case and paused in front of it to study its contents. ‘Just look at this dancer. Most of the paint is still there; rare with anything from the Western Hah. There are a few little chips on the bottom of her sleeve, but if I place her with her face a bit to the side, well, you don’t see them, do you?’ He reached up and lifted the Plexiglas cover from the stand and set it on the floor at his feet. Carefully, he picked up the statue, which was about a third of a metre high, and carried it across the room.
He stopped in front of her and upended the statue so that Brett could see the tiny chips on the bottom of one of the long sleeves. The paint that covered the top part of her gown was still red, after all these centuries, and the black of the skirt still glistened. ‘I suppose she just recently came out of a tomb. I can’t think of anything else that would have preserved her so perfectly.’
He turned the statue upright and gave Brett one last look at it, then moved back across the room and replaced it carefully on the pedestal. ‘What a fine idea that was, to put beautiful things, beautiful women, in with the dead.’ He paused to consider this, then added, as he replaced the cover, ‘I suppose it was wrong to sacrifice servants and slaves to go along with them on the voyage to the other world. But still, it’s such a lovely idea, gives so much honour to the dead.’ He turned towards her again. ‘Don’t you think so, Dottoressa Lynch?’
She wondered if this was some sort of elaborate show meant to frighten her into doing whatever he wanted her to do. Was he pretending to be so interested in these objects, or was she meant to believe he was mad and thus capable of harming her if she refused to do what he wanted? But what was that? Did he merely want her to admire his collection?
She began to look around the room, really seeing the objects in it for the first time. He was standing now by a Neolithic pot decorated with the frog motif, two small handles protruding from the lower part. It was in such perfect condition that she moved closer in order to see it more clearly. ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ he asked conversationally. ‘If you’d step over here, Professoressa, I’ll show you something I’m especially proud of.’ He moved to another case inside which an elaborately carved circle of white jade lay on a panel of black velvet. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ he asked, looking down upon it. ‘I think it comes from the Warring States period, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘It looks it, especially with that animal motif.’
He smiled with real delight. ‘That was exactly what convinced me, Dottoressa.’ He looked down at the pendant again and then up at Brett. ‘You can’t imagine how gratifying it is for an amateur to have his judgement confirmed by an expert.’
She was hardly an expert on artifacts that went back to the Neolithic age, but she thought it best not to protest. ‘You could have had your opinion confirmed. All you’d have to do is take it to a dealer or to the Oriental department in any museum.’
‘Yes, certainly,’ he said absently. ‘But I’d prefer not to have to do that.’
He moved away from her, down towards the other end of the room, where he stopped in front of one of the niches in the wall. From it he took a long inlaid piece of metal, intricately worked in gold and silver. ‘I usually don’t have much interest in metals,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t resist this piece when I saw it.’ He held it out for her and smiled when she took it and turned it over to study both sides.
‘Is it a belt hook?’ she asked when she saw the pea-sized catch at one end. The rest was as long as her hand, flat and thin as a blade. A blade.
He smiled in real delight. ‘Oh, very good. Yes, I’m sure that’s what it is. There’s one at the Metropolitan in New York, though I think the work on this one is finer,’ he said, pointing with a thick finger to an etched curve that flowed across the flat surface. Losing interest in it, he turned away from her and went back across the room. She turned to the niche and, keeping her back to him, slipped the belt hook into the pocket of her slacks.
As he leaned towards yet another case and she saw what was inside it, Brett’s knees weakened with terror, and she was swept with bone-shaking cold. For inside the case sat the covered vase that had been taken from the exhibition at the Ducal Palace.
He moved around the case and positioned himself on the other side so that, glancing through the transparent sheets of Plexiglas, he could see her. ‘Ah, I see that you recognize the vase, Dottoressa. Glorious, isn’t it? I’d always wanted one like this, but they’re impossible to find. As you point out so well in your book.’
She wrapped her arms around herself, hoping that way to retain some of the heat that was so quickly fleeing from her body. ‘It’s cold in here,’ she said.
‘Ah, yes, it is, isn’t it? I’ve got some silk scrolls here, filed in drawers, and I don’t want to risk heating the room until I can get them protected in a heat- and humidity-controlled chamber. So I’m afraid you’ll have to be uncomfortable while you’re here, Dottoressa. I’m sure you’re accustomed to that from China, being uncomfortable.’
‘And from what your men did to me,’ she said quietly.
&nb
sp; ‘Ah, yes, you must excuse them for that. I told them to warn you, but I’m afraid my friends tend to be overly enthusiastic in what they think are my best interests.’
She didn’t know how she knew it, but she knew he was lying and that the orders he had given had been direct and explicit. ‘And Dottor Semenzato, were they told to warn him, as well?’
For the first time, he looked at her in unfeigned displeasure, as if her saying this somehow subtracted from his absolute control over the situation.
‘Were they?’ she asked in a casual voice.
‘Good heavens, Dottoressa, what sort of a man do you think I am?’
She chose not to answer that.
‘Well, why not tell you?’ he asked and smiled amiably. ‘Dottor Semenzato was a very frightened man. I suppose that was acceptable, but then he became a very greedy man, and that is not acceptable. He was foolish enough to suggest that the difficulties you were creating be put to his financial advantage. My friends, as I suggested, do not like to see my honour compromised.’ He pursed his lips and shook his head at the memory.
‘Honour?’ Brett asked.
La Capra did not explain. ‘And then the police came here to question me, so I thought it best to speak to you.’
As he spoke, Brett had a searing moment of realization: if he talked openly to her about Semenzato’s death, then he knew he had nothing to fear from her. She saw a pair of straight-backed chairs pulled up against the far wall. She walked to one of them and collapsed into it. She felt so weak that she slumped forward and put her head between her knees, but the sharp pain from her still-bandaged ribs pulled her upright, gasping.
La Capra glanced at her. ‘But let’s not talk about Dottor Semenzato, not when we have all of these beautiful objects here with us.’ He took the vase in his hands and walked over to her. He bent and held it out towards her. ‘Just look at it. And look at the fluidity of line in the painting, the way the limbs flash out ahead of him. It could have been painted yesterday, couldn’t it? Entirely modern in execution. Absolutely marvellous.’
She looked at the vase, only too familiar with it, and then at him.
‘How did you do it?’ she asked tiredly.
‘Ah,’ he said, straightening up and moving away from her, back to the case, where he carefully replaced the vase. ‘Those are professional secrets, Dottoressa. You mustn’t ask me to reveal those,’ he said, though it was clear this was just what he most desired.
‘Was it Matsuko?’ she asked, needing to know at least this much.
‘Your little Japanese friend?’ he asked sarcastically. ‘Dottoressa, at your age you should know better than to mix your personal life with your professional life, especially when dealing with younger people. They don’t have our vision of the world, don’t know how to separate things the way we do.’ He paused for a moment, considering the depth of his own wisdom, and then continued, ‘No, they tend to take everything so personally, see themselves, always, as the centre of the universe. And because of that they can be very, very dangerous.’ He smiled then, but it wasn’t a pleasant thing to see. ‘Or very, very useful.’
He came back across the room and stood in front of her, looking down at her raised face. ‘Of course it was she. But even then her motives weren’t entirely clear. She didn’t want money, was even offended when Semenzato offered it. And she really didn’t want to hurt you, Dottoressa, not really, if that’s any comfort to you. She just didn’t stop to see it through clearly.’
‘Then why did she do it?’
‘Oh, in the beginning, it was just simple revenge, a classic case of the scorned lover wanting to hit back at the person who had hurt her. I don’t think she even clearly understood just what we had in mind, the extent of it. I’m sure she believed we wanted just the one piece. In fact, I rather suspect she hoped the substitution would be detected. That would put your judgement in question. After all, you had selected the pieces for the exhibition, and, when the pieces got back, if the substitution was noticed, it would look like you’d chosen to send a fake instead of an original. It wasn’t until later that she realized the unlikelihood of a fake piece already being in the museum in Xian. But by then it was too late. The pieces had been copied — I might remark that the work was done at considerable expense - and that, of course, made it even more necessary that they all be used in place of the real ones.’
‘When?’
‘During the packing in the museum. It was all really very easy, far easier than we had anticipated. The little Japanese tried to object, but by then it was far too late.’ He stopped talking and gazed off into the distance, remembering. ‘I think it was then that I realized she would become a problem sooner or later.’ He smiled. ‘And how right I proved to be.’
‘And so she would have to be eliminated?’
‘Of course,’ he said quite simply. ‘I realized I’d have no choice in the matter.’
‘What did she do?’
‘Oh, she gave us some trouble here, and then when she got back to China, when you told her you thought some of the pieces were false, she wrote a letter to her parents asking them what to do. Of course, once she did that, I no longer had any choice: she had to be eliminated.’ He cocked his head to one side, a gesture that suggested he was going to reveal something to her. ‘I was, quite frankly, surprised at how easy it was. I had thought things would be more difficult to arrange in China.’ He shook his head slowly from side to side, lamenting yet another example of cultural pollution.
‘How do you know she wrote to them?’
‘Why, I read the letter,’ he explained simply, then paused, correcting himself for accuracy. ‘Actually, I read a translation of the letter.’
‘How did you get that?’
‘Why, all of your correspondence was opened and read.’ He spoke almost in reproach, as if she should have understood at least this much. ‘How did you get that letter to Semenzato?’ His curiosity was real,
‘I gave it to someone who was going to Hong Kong.’
‘Someone from the dig?’
‘No, a tourist I met in Xian. He was going to Hong Kong, and I asked him to mail it. I knew it would get there much sooner that way.’
‘Very clever, Dottoressa. Yes, very clever, indeed.’
A wave of cold jolted through her body. She pulled her feet, long since grown numb, up from the marble floor and hooked them over the bottom rung of the chair. The rain had soaked through her sweater, and she felt herself trapped inside her frozen clothing. She was overcome by a wave of shivering and closed her eyes again, waiting for it to pass. The dull ache that had lurked in her jaw for days had turned into a fiery, burning flame.
When she opened her eyes, the man was gone from beside her and was standing on the other side of the room, reaching out to take down another vase. ‘What are you going to do to me?’ she asked, fighting to keep her voice level and calm.
He walked back across the room towards her, holding the low bowl carefully in two hands. ‘I think this is the most beautiful piece I have,’ he said, turning it slightly so that she could better follow the simple brushed line of the design around to the other side. ‘It comes from Ch’ing-hai Province, out by the end of the Great Wall. I’d venture it’s about five thousand years old, wouldn’t you say?’
Brett looked dully up at him and saw a portly middle-aged man holding a painted brown bowl in his hands. ‘I asked you what you’re going to do with me,’ she repeated, interested only in that and not the bowl.
‘Hm?’ he asked vaguely, glancing down at her for a moment and then back at the bowl. ‘With you, Dottoressa?’ He took a short step to his left and placed the bowl on top of an empty pedestal. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t had time to think about that yet. I was so interested in having you see my collection.’
‘Why?’
He stayed where he was, directly in front of her, occasionally reaching out delicately with a finger to turn the bowl a millimetre this way, then that way. ‘Because I have so many beautiful things
and because I can’t show them to anyone,’ he said with sorrow so palpable it could not be feigned. He turned to her and offered a friendly smile of explanation. ‘Anyone who counts, that is. You see, if I show them to people who don’t know anything about ceramics, I can’t hope that they’ll appreciate the beauty or the rarity of what they see.’ He stopped there, hoping that she’d understand his dilemma.
She did. ‘And if you show them to people who do know about Chinese art or ceramics, then they’ll know where the pieces came from?’
‘Oh, clever you,’ he said, lifting his hands apart in real delight at her quickness. His expression darkened. ‘It’s difficult, dealing with people who don’t understand. They see all these glorious things,’ and here he swept his right hand in front of him in a gesture that encompassed everything in the room, ‘as pots or bowls, but they have no idea of their beauty.’
‘That doesn’t stop them from getting them for you, does it?’ she asked, making no attempt to disguise her sarcasm.
