Carnival for the Dead

by David Hewson

  Suspended? For bunking off for a few days on personal business?

  Impossible. She’d done them so many favours in the past. She was good at her job. Couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone off sick.

  True, she could be a little . . . unpredictable at times. Unruly.

  There was the occasion she punched some mouthy commissario on a nasty murder case in Testaccio. Repercussions followed. But he’d deserved it.

  These were needless distractions. Reminding herself of this fact, then dismissing Di Capua’s concerns from her head completely, she strode east towards Arsenale, took out her map, found the right canal and cut in towards the narrow street that ought to lead to the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni.

  It was as she imagined from the lost story: a small white classical building next to a fetching low brown brick bridge.

  Alberto Tosi was outside, a tall, reserved figure in an black ankle-length coat and a hat of a similar colour which he raised like a gentleman as she arrived.

  ‘Have you news?’ he asked before they went in.

  ‘Not really.’

  Teresa looked at him and decided to get this out of the way first. She didn’t feel confident enough to talk about the stories in any great detail. Not until she understood them more. That didn’t mean she couldn’t try to use what information they contained. And perhaps that was one of their purposes.

  ‘When we first spoke, you said you had something in mind for me, Alberto. That was why you rang—’

  ‘It’s not important now,’ he broke in.

  ‘Was it to do with the remains of St Mark by any chance?’

  His long face was broken by a ready grin.

  ‘You’re so quick! I should have known you’d have realized. It’s been in the papers, of course. We’re still finalizing the team. I haven’t released any names but they’ll be prestigious. You’ll be in good company.’ He rubbed his gloved hands. ‘And there’ll be expenses too. The Vatican has deep pockets.’

  She smiled at him.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not a believer. You really shouldn’t invite an atheist into your midst. Not if you want me to rubber-stamp some saintly death certificate on behalf of the Pope.’

  She could tell from Tosi’s face that he was offended and she regretted that.

  ‘Nothing could be further from my mind,’ he assured her. ‘For what it’s worth I’m a Catholic so lapsed I doubt I’d get out of Purgatory in a thousand years. They only asked me because I’m local and know everyone. This is about science. About truth. I wouldn’t have undertaken it otherwise. Let alone have had the temerity to ask for help from one of the most admired forensic scientists in Italy.’

  ‘I’m just a pen-pusher in the Rome Questura,’ she told him.

  ‘Nonsense. I’ve watched you work. Many of us are good scientists. That’s our job. But you . . .’ He took her arms and she felt doubly embarrassed. ‘You sometimes have this faculty to combine your intellect with some sense of the imagination that goes beyond anything the rest of us can hope for. We are all rational. But you . . .’

  ‘I’m irrational?’ she asked.

  ‘No. You’re super-rational. That’s the word.’

  ‘A new one on me. And I don’t think it’s true.’

  ‘A good one,’ he said, and looked proud of himself. ‘And yes, it is true, even if you don’t realize it yourself.’

  She felt a brief moment of discovery. The story from the night before was, in respect of Alberto Tosi’s character, largely inaccurate. As if it had simply been copied from a newspaper, without the slightest personal knowledge.

  ‘You said the Vatican was paying?’

  ‘And we all know why,’ Tosi replied. ‘That doesn’t mean we have to deliver what they want, does it? Facts are facts and I would be honoured if you saw fit to help us find them. I won’t be party to some piece of chicanery just to keep the crowds coming to the Basilica San Marco. As if they need our help.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Besides.’ He patted her arm. Any offence, such as it was, appeared swiftly forgotten. ‘This is a small matter next to that of your aunt. Let’s concentrate on her, shall we? So why are we here?’

  She told him as much as she felt able, leaving out the missing story about the dog, replacing it with a vague intuition that Sofia had visited this place and possibly met the dead Englishman Jerome Aitchison.

  Tosi listened attentively and asked a few questions. Then they went in.

  There was a brisk, efficient-looking middle-aged man seated behind a small table at the door. He looked up as they entered then glanced at a donation box. Tosi quickly put in some coins and got two very old-fashioned tickets by way of thanks. The warden wore a pinstriped grey suit and the thick horn-rimmed spectacles of a minor civil servant. From what she recalled of the lost story this could be the very man it described.

  There was, however, no opportunity to talk at that moment. The hall was very like a small chapel but with the main three walls covered in paintings. It was occupied by a party, all teenage girls, with the insignia of a Catholic school from London on their uniform. A guide or teacher was talking them through the art around them in the entertaining and slightly condescending way that adults sometimes adopted when addressing the young.

  He was a tall man in an unseasonal pale summer suit, much crumpled as if it had just come out of a suitcase. A costume perhaps to keep their attention through some theatrical posturing as he inserted a little factual academic and religious knowledge into his lecture. So he pointed out the strange beasts in the various Carpaccio canvases – dragons, monsters and the lion which St Jerome adopted, a charming animal that could be seen howling with grief in the painting of the saint’s death. Alongside the amusement he talked a little about Catholic theology, the role of St George, England’s patron saint but that of many other nations too, and Jerome’s work on the first Latin Bible, the Vulgate.

  Teresa sat next to Tosi on a hard bench, listening to the teacher’s florid language, some of it a little beyond her own usually good grasp of English. She found herself entranced by the man’s charming theatrical manner and musical voice. He was fair-haired, perhaps older than the forty years he first appeared and possessed a fund of information and spurious, engaging facts designed to ensnare the casual listener into paying attention.

  Till that moment she’d never heard of The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine, a medieval bestseller composed of mythical lives of the saints, source of many of the fanciful tales about George and the Dragon which had inspired not just the Carpaccio paintings on the walls of the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni but the entire canon of literature about the saint and his monster-slaying habits. All from the mind of an ancient monk who had fabricated the stories out of nothing more than pure imagination.

  The speaker’s frankness was praiseworthy. Perhaps some of the Catholic scientists roped in for Tosi’s commission would be equally assiduous about the truth. Legend and myth sprang from fiction and fancy, the man insisted, so much that at times the imagination only served to hide or disguise genuine facts that lay hidden like precious gems lost in a forest of fabulous whimsy.

  From these same two competing sources came beauty too. The paintings around them, while bizarre in the extreme at times, were extraordinarily compelling. Fantastic mythical landscapes in which heroic figures conspired to challenge dreadful monsters alongside more subtle and real terrors, war, age and death. Mostly the players were portrayed with fetching features, real human beings, not religious icons but inward saints. Teresa could imagine why Sofia would be drawn to such an intimate, emotional and intellectually fertile place as this, could believe implicitly that part of the lost story on those mustard pages was indeed true.

  The guide wrapped up his presentation with a talk about the painting that interested her most of all: the one she knew already, St Augustine in his gorgeous academic study, working at a desk surrounded by the detritus of an intellectual life, staring out of the window b
eyond the books and instruments, hearing something that clearly both puzzled and intrigued him.

  Close by his feet, unnoticed, eager and alert, was a small white dog, a breed unknown to her.

  Volpino. Little fox.

  That was what she’d read.

  The teacher spoke about the painting for a good five minutes though, in truth, he had very little to disclose by way of hard fact. Its meaning was obscure. Even the identification with St Augustine was questioned by some art experts. And the cartellino . . .

  She shivered, though it was not cold in the hall of the scuola at all.

  ‘As you’ll know – I hope from your Latin lessons – the tense of the verb is strange. Quite wrong. Nowhere else does Carpaccio use the imperfect in such a way. Why should he? The painting’s complete. Finished. What is he trying to say?’

  Teresa found herself putting up her hand like a school pupil.

  The Englishman laughed and said, in a sound Italian accent, ‘Signora?’

  ‘If Augustine is hearing about the death of Jerome, through some mystical intervention, perhaps Carpaccio is reminding us, through the saint, that life goes on,’ Teresa said, half-wondering where this idea came from. ‘The dog’s doing that too. It’s looking at him as if it wants to go out and play. Not watch its master sit at a desk writing all day.’

  ‘Or painting!’ Tosi chipped in. ‘Perhaps Carpaccio was saying enough of this work. It’s time to knock off for some supper and a glass of wine. A man, a saint even, can read and write and think all day long. But life’s to be lived. And isn’t it an affront to God not to enjoy it?’

  The Englishman took it well, laughed and said, ‘Nice try but it’s not an idea that would have appealed to Jerome, I suspect. He loathed jollity in all its forms.’ He bowed. ‘But thanks anyway. Class? Do you have questions?’

  There were three. Two about the lion. One about the dog.

  Then the talk was over and, very quickly, without another word, the schoolgirls followed their guide out of the building.

  Tosi leaned over and whispered in her ear, ‘That was very good. I didn’t know you understood art. And religion.’

  ‘I haven’t the foggiest about either,’ Teresa said, still amazed by her own intervention.

  The lost story must have been nagging at her unconsciously ever since she read it. The odd suggestion was quite out of character.

  ‘Good explanation though,’ the old man added. ‘I must admit these are lovely paintings but they’ve always baffled me. And they seemed a little . . .’ He shuddered. ‘Spooky to be honest.’

  ‘You’re a pathologist, Alberto,’ she scolded him. ‘How can anything be spooky after a career like that?’

  He stared at the floor and she wondered if she’d gone too far for some reason.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ he said in a soft, low voice.

  She got up and walked over to the man on the door, taking out the old photo of her aunt.

  ‘I’m trying to find someone,’ Teresa said. ‘Her name’s—’

  ‘Signora Bianchi,’ the warden interrupted. ‘Sofia. That’s a very out-dated picture. Do you really have nothing more recent?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘It must have been taken before.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Before she came back.’

  She pulled up a spare chair and sat down next to him. Then she explained how Sofia had gone missing and that there was concern for her whereabouts. The man had a very immobile face, officious, a little dour even. He listened patiently, unmoved, betraying little interest.

  ‘You knew my aunt when she was here the first time?’

  ‘No,’ he said immediately. ‘She told me herself she lived here before. She’s a very talkative and charming woman.’

  ‘Did Sofia say why she came back?’

  He closed the donations box, as if expecting no more customers.

  ‘I think she said something about having no choice. It was in her blood. Outsiders have strange ideas about this city sometimes.’

  Tosi had come over to stand by them. He cast the man a sour glance, unhappy with the curt answer.

  ‘You want the truth, don’t you?’ the warden responded. ‘She seemed proud that she’d come back for some reason.’ He took off his glasses and polished them with his tie. The man looked older and, with his bulbous eyes, rather owl-like without them. ‘As if it was some kind of victory. Over what?’ He scowled. ‘I don’t understand. Is it such a penance to live in Venice? I was born here. I like it.’

  ‘I think she liked it too,’ Teresa said. ‘Didn’t she?’

  The warden thought about this. He was not a man to make swift or rash statements.

  ‘Lately yes. To begin with . . . I’m not so sure. She seemed lost. She would come here looking for tourists to talk to, asking if they needed a guide. I had occasion to speak with her about this. It was not something I relished. She looked very sad and miserable back then.’ He sighed. ‘And poor to be honest. I didn’t like asking her not to approach people, and she didn’t stop, not entirely. But . . .’

  ‘But what?’ Tosi asked. ‘Come on, man. The poor lady’s missing. This is her niece. At least try and help.’

  The sound of a gruff Venetian voice seemed to have some effect. These people never liked talking to foreigners, Teresa thought, and being a Roman that was precisely what she represented.

  ‘Sofia – she insisted I call her that – was a very captivating woman,’ the warden told them. ‘Pleasant to talk to. Intelligent. Very well informed. One of the best tour guides for this place. She knew everything about Carpaccio. Not just his paintings here. Elsewhere. In the Accademia too. I recommended her to many people. None ever complained. She wasn’t like that . . .’

  A sour expression wrinkled his grizzled features.

  ‘That English popinjay you just saw. All wind and piss, if you’ll excuse my language. The Golden Legend. Fanciful rubbish. That man annoys the life out of me. These are paintings about real people, real life. Not stupid fairy stories for teenagers.’

  ‘My aunt . . .’ Teresa prompted him.

  ‘We reached an accommodation,’ he said. ‘Sofia was always welcome here, and would often arrive with her customers already on the hook, as it were. But if not, she was to approach them slyly. In casual conversation. Nothing that disturbed the atmosphere.’

  Which was, Teresa thought, that of a crypt.

  ‘When did you last see her?’ she asked.

  He opened a drawer in the table, removed a diary, flicked through the pages and said, ‘Eleven days ago precisely. In the morning.’

  This was not what she expected.

  ‘You’re sure of that? Not more like a week?’

  He showed her the page.

  ‘I’m sure of it. I’m the principal guardian and I keep a record of our commercial visitors. They’re expected to make their donations too.’ He opened the donation box and pushed it forward. ‘As is anyone who receives special service.’

  Teresa pulled out a twenty-euro note and popped it in with the coins. For some reason she recalled the café, the cheery Venetian woman behind the counter, and the young foreigner in the baker’s uniform, covered in flour, a sticking plaster on his arm. St George come to slay the dragon.

  ‘There was another Englishman here,’ she said.

  ‘There are many English visitors to the scuola.’

  ‘A particular one. His name was Jerome Aitchison. He died yesterday, in the Piazza San Marco. Dressed as the Plague Doctor. He tried to kill that young woman who was the angel.’

  He frowned, shook his head and pulled a copy of Il Gazzettino out of the drawer. Aitchison’s passport photo was blown up to fill a large part of the front page.

  ‘So many people,’ the man muttered. ‘Am I supposed to remember every one?’

  ‘This one spoke to Sofia, I think,’ she said, probing, hoping, wondering if that disappeared piece of fiction could really, in any sense, be ‘true’. ‘They talked about
the painting of St Augustine. What the cartellino meant. And the dog.’

  ‘Ah!’ He thought for a moment, looked at the picture again. Then his face fell and he shook his head and said, ‘No.’

  ‘The dog,’ she persisted.

  ‘The dog is a volpino. A very rare breed.’ He shrugged. ‘Some people think it is a little special, I believe. Local people. Superstitious people.’

  He looked at Tosi and said, ‘You’re a Venetian. Help me out.’

  ‘I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life,’ Tosi declared. ‘A dog’s a dog. What on earth are you talking about?’

  The warden wriggled on his seat.

  ‘If one met a volpino . . .’ Teresa asked.

  ‘Then one would treat it with kindness and respect, I trust,’ he responded. ‘As with any dog.’

  She was unable to speak for a moment. The words were so similar to those she remembered from the story. Were they his in the lost piece of fiction? Or Sofia’s? She couldn’t recall. But they were aimed at Jerome Aitchison, with no small degree of concern on the part of the person who uttered them.

  ‘Lunchtime,’ the man declared, getting up off his seat. ‘If there are no more questions . . .’

  Teresa scribbled out her mobile number and gave it to him.

  ‘If you think of anything. If you see my aunt . . .’

  ‘Then I shall call,’ he said, shooing them to the door.

  In an instant they were gone, pushed abruptly into the harsh midday February sun.

  Inside the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni the man turned off the lights one by one. Then he went to the picture of Augustine at his desk and found his attention drifting, as always, to the small, off-white shape of the little animal, taut and alert on the floor, staring up at its master with a bright and quizzical expression.

  He hadn’t been entirely truthful on that particular point. There was a dog much like this in the neighbourhood. He’d seen it from time to time and for some reason felt minded to give it a wide berth.

  With a shrug he returned to the door, looked at the phone number the woman had given him, thought for a moment, then screwed the scrap of paper into a ball and tossed it in the bin.