The Last Gondola

by Edward Sklepowich

  The private stairway that led to the upper stories was too much of a temptation to resist. It seemed to beckon him. He had reached the first step before he had fully considered the further risk he was taking. The staircase was dark, much darker than the one in the entrance hall, and rose at a rather steep angle. It was made of wood, and the steps were partly covered in cloth. Careful though he was, his weight soon produced a creak, which he was sure reverberated through the entire house. He stopped and peered into the darkness above him. Then, whether his own anxious state made him hear imagined sounds or he heard real ones, Urbino thought footsteps were descending toward him, or if not footsteps exactly, then something like a rustling sound.

  As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he made out something light-colored, thin, and elongated lying on one of the upper stairs. It was slightly twisted and curved, and part of one end, even in the dark, glistened. It didn’t move, but he felt that it just had or was about to. It gave every appearance of being a partly coiled snake with a slightly mottled skin and with eyes that were catching whatever dim light penetrated the darkness. Slowly, cautiously, Urbino moved up another step. The shape remained strangely still. As he now stared at it, its various details assumed a different form, and he realized, not without relief, that it was a belt. What had caught the light was the delicate buckle and tongue. It was a slender belt and might even have been of snakeskin.

  He couldn’t linger any longer. He left the belt where it was. He descended the staircase and regained the hallway. Pressing his ear against the door into the sala, he listened for any sound in the room beyond. He opened the door slowly, then went through it, closing it behind him with barely a sound.

  The chairs and paintings ranged against the two sides of the large room were silent witnesses to his hurried passage across the cold, empty space. He reached the open door of the gondola room.

  Footsteps began to ascend the staircase from the hall below. Urbino wasted no time. He slipped into the gondola room, his heart beating quickly. A fearful glance assured him that Possle was asleep among all the orange cushions and black-painted wood.

  But the next moment, as soon as Urbino had settled himself in the armchair and as if a spell had been broken, the reclining figure opened its eyes like a doll and said, “Please excuse me, Mr. Macintyre. I fear I’ve been far away. It’s most inhospitable.”

  The footsteps approached the door. Armando appeared. His hair was more matted than usual. His face was slick with sweat.

  “There you are,” Possle said in Italian. “You know what we usually have, the two of us.”

  Armando gave Urbino a severe look from his dark eyes. He held Urbino’s gaze for longer than he ever had before. Urbino, to his chagrin, was the first to look away.

  It might have been his guilty conscience or his intuition that was so seldom wrong, but he could swear that Armando’s bold, unflinching stare revealed that he had been found out and that he wanted Urbino to know it.

  What Armando might do with the knowledge remained to be seen. Urbino had now relinquished even more power within the walls of the Ca’ Pozza and perhaps even outside of it.

  The mute went off to get the Amontillado, indulging in what seemed to be a cruel, self-satisfied smile on his thin lips as he passed Urbino.

  49

  Urbino figured that the best way to recover from the strong suspicion that Armando was in possession of his secret was to sit back and listen to his host for a while.

  And Possle seemed inclined to be particularly garrulous this afternoon, at least at first. He began by indulging in a series of insinuations and calculated confessions. As usual, they were sprinkled with quotations and paraphrases of someone else’s thoughts, a good proportion of them related to Byron. He seemed gripped by a nervous agitation, tugging more than usual at his turbanlike headscarf, and he soon started to move from one observation to another with an incoherence and inconsistency that he tried to cover up. When he paused, he did so with an uneasy glance at Urbino from his small eyes behind the large glasses. He seemed afraid that Urbino might take the opportunity to interrupt him and ask an unwanted question or make a disturbing comment.

  But Urbino remained silent, except for the sounds that encouraged Possle to go on. Possle’s manner this afternoon suited Urbino and got him through the crucial ten minutes during which Armando served the Amontillado and left. All the while he felt the full weight of the key in his pocket and the advantage that Armando now seemed to have over him.

  His uneasiness gradually dissipated, however, though surely to come back again. Taking its place now was the resolve that had been growing in him during the past few days to get at some answers.

  When Possle made one of his pauses, Urbino straightened himself in his chair from his slump and said, “I find your reminiscences quite interesting, Mr. Possle. But I’d be misleading you if I continued to sit here and listen to them. We’d be misleading each other in fact. It would be a good idea to bring some things out in the open.” Urbino said this latter with a renewed twinge of guilt over what he himself was concealing and what Armando might soon reveal to Possle. “I appreciate your hospitality. But forgive me if I say that I’m a little suspicious of it. I’d like to keep coming back, and I think that you want me to, but if that’s going to happen I’ll need to have some questions answered. I said last time that there’s a mystery of some kind surrounding the Ca’ Pozza.”

  “And you want to add some feathers to that stalker’s cap of yours, is that it?”

  “Before I rang your bell last time,” Urbino went on, not to be distracted, “a woman warned me not to go in.”

  “Obviously your curiosity was stronger than your confidence in her. I believe I know this woman—or who she is. Her mind has been turned.”

  “Because of the death of her son. He died in a fall.”

  “‘In Adam’s fall, we sinned all,’” he recited. “A sad accident.”

  “His name was Marco Carelli,” Urbino persisted.

  “You’re making progress in this little mystery, whatever it is. His fall was an accident.”

  “His mother seems to have some resentment against your building.”

  Urbino had chosen these words very carefully.

  Possle’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips.

  “Didn’t we agree that she’s disturbed in her thinking?”

  He looked at the fire crackling in the grate on the other side of the room, adding the faint trace of burning wood to the scent of the potpourri in the air.

  “Did you know her son?” Urbino asked him, intentionally risking the man’s anger by pursuing the topic. “Was he ever here in your building?”

  “Now what are you accusing me of? Luring young boys into my den? I told you last time that I draw the line at such things despite my love—our mutual love—for Huysmans. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Mr. Macintyre. But perhaps you don’t believe me. I think it would be a good idea to get Armando’s opinion.”

  Possle pulled on the rope. Armando’s long, lean figure soon appeared in the doorway without a sound, his scarred hands held tensely by his side. His sharp, dark eyes sought out Possle’s in a few quick moments of silent communication.

  “Signor Macintyre has asked me a question,” Possle said in Italian, “a question that I can’t answer myself. He wants to know about a young man named Marco Carelli. That’s the name, isn’t it, Mr. Macintyre? This Marco Carelli seems to have been the young man who fell to his death a few months ago. Tell us, Armando, was this young man ever in our building?”

  It was impossible to envision a look of more suspicion and dislike than the one that Armando shot at Urbino.

  “When you’ve been around Armando as long as I have,” Possle said in English, “you’ll know the difference between one of his silences and another. He said no, most emphatically. Armando, would you take this cup please?”

  The mute climbed the steps. As he reached for the cup, Possle touched his cheek.

  “
Don’t be upset, Armando. Our guest is an inquisitive person. He earns a living and amuses himself by poking around in people’s lives.”

  Urbino felt uncomfortable. He felt even more so when, this time, Armando made a point of not looking at him. Instead he exchanged another glance with Possle. It left Urbino with the peculiar sense that somehow Possle already knew about his search through his rooms.

  Urbino appeared as unconcerned as he could manage, but he was afraid that his smile of nonchalance was too evidently pasted. Armando left the room with his head held higher than usual, as if he had just scored a victory.

  “As you see, we know nothing about this unfortunate young man. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

  Urbino intended to press on. He was motivated not only by the desire for an answer but also by a curiosity to see how far he might be able to go. He asked if Possle was acquainted with someone named Demetrio Emo. “He’s a locksmith in the Cannaregio,” Urbino explained.

  “Such unusual questions this afternoon. Grieving mothers and locksmiths. No, the name’s not familiar to me. Whenever we might need a locksmith, I don’t send Armando so far afield.”

  “Emo seems to have some interest in the Ca’ Pozza.”

  “And so do many other people, yourself included.”

  “So you’re saying that Emo has never done any work for you?”

  “And I’m also saying that I never heard the name before. Why are you being so persistent? Are you yourself today? I fail to see what all this is about. When you said you had some questions about the Ca’ Pozza, I thought that they’d be much different ones. I don’t know whether I should be relieved or annoyed.”

  “You see,” Urbino went on, “Demetrio Emo is the uncle of my gondolier, Gildo, and Gildo and Marco were good friends.”

  “Very interesting to you perhaps, but I don’t see what it signifies.”

  Neither did Urbino, but nonetheless he had learned something if it was only that Possle was slightly distressed to find that Urbino had been thinking about him and the Ca’ Pozza in ways that he hadn’t expected and perhaps didn’t want.

  “And before you ask,” Possle went on, as Urbino considered what to say next, “I only know your Gildo by reputation, thanks to Armando. He’s my eyes and legs, and I—well, I’m his tongue. No, Gildo has never been here. But perhaps we can ask Armando about Gildo. Would you like me to call him back? No? That’s wise. He doesn’t like to be disturbed too often.”

  Urbino stared back at Possle with a face that he hoped showed none of the uneasiness he was feeling.

  “Let’s lay our cards on the table, Mr. Possle. You wouldn’t keep asking me here unless you wanted something from me, and I wouldn’t continue to come unless I wanted something from you.”

  “How cynical! Here we are, two expatriate Americans with so much in common. We’re just getting to know each other.”

  “If what you’d like me to do is to write your biography,” Urbino said as if Possle hadn’t interposed, “that’s something that we can discuss, but if I agree to do it, you’ll have no success in manipulating me and you would in no way have final approval of what I might write. You would have to give me free rein or as close to it as possible and try to answer whatever questions I’d need to ask. You could answer them or not, as you wish, of course. I’d also expect you to provide access to your correspondence and to inform your friends and family that they should share whatever letters they have from you—all within reason, of course,” he finished, in what had turned out to be a greater rush of words than he had intended.

  “Ah yes, Mr. Macintyre, all within good reason. That’s always been your dominant trait, hasn’t it? But you speak of my friends and family. I’m afraid that very few of them are left alive.”

  “There’s Armando.”

  “Armando, of course. He’d be a treasure house of information.”

  “But not forthcoming, even taking into consideration his muteness. And there’s another thing. If you want my services as a biographer, I’d need to have a look at the memoirs that it’s rumored you’ve been writing.”

  “Ah yes, my memoirs. There used to be a lot of talk about them.”

  “Do they exist?”

  “The last time I looked in my desk”—he paused here and regarded Urbino with his small dark eyes—“I believe they were there, however many—or few—pages there might be.”

  Once again Urbino had the odd feeling that Possle already knew about his foray into his rooms, but it only made him all the more determined to finish saying what he wanted to.

  “But despite what I’ve been saying, Mr. Possle, I don’t think that you have any interest in my skills as a biographer. Or let me say, no interest in my skills as a biographer of your life, even though it was my main interest before I met you. You might have heard, through Armando, I would assume, that I’ve been making inquiries about you and trying to find a way to meet you. You…”

  Urbino trailed off. Possle’s eyes were closed. To Urbino’s irritation, he had apparently dropped off to sleep again, and at such a crucial moment. But his breathing seemed less deep and regular than usual, and his eyelids were not quite closed.

  Urbino decided to behave as if he were in fact asleep. He had already risked a great deal because of his curiosity today, but surely he would be expected now to take a closer look at some of the objects in the room. To do otherwise would be to reveal too much of his own suspicions about the man.

  Urbino picked up one of the small candles ranged on the floor and brought it over to the copy of Moreau’s The Apparition, with its severed head of John the Baptist. Having seen the original painting at the Louvre, Urbino was impressed by the copyist’s success. There was no signature. He wondered whether the same painter had made the copies of the other Moreau in the gondola room and of the St. Sebastian detail in the bedroom.

  He looked for a signature on the less impressive copy of Moreau’s Dance of Salome next to The Apparition. There was none.

  Possle was still asleep, or giving a fairly good semblance of it. Urbino went over to the portrait of the light-haired young woman. He brought the candle nearer. The woman looked out at him with her refined features, her blue eyes mirroring the celestial blue of the ceiling’s oval. She was beautiful and elegant in her low-cut black dress and totally unfamiliar to Urbino.

  In the lower right-hand corner of the painting, written in black, was the painter’s name: Lino Cipri.

  “‘That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall’” came Possle’s voice.

  ‘“Looking as if she were alive’?” Urbino completed the quotation from Robert Browning.

  “The last I heard, she was very much so. Do you like Browning?”

  Urbino replaced the candle on the floor. “I do,” he replied, dropping back into the armchair.

  “And the painting? You think it’s good?”

  “Very good. And the copies as well.”

  Urbino was tempted to bring up Lino Cipri, but he would wait. There was something more important he wanted to talk about now.

  “But it’s Byron I’m interested in.”

  Possle nodded. “So now we’ve come to it,” he said. “I salute you.”

  “You’ve enticed me here—”

  “A peculiar choice of words,” Possle broke in. “You’ve been practically besieging the battlements of this rather dilapidated castle, as you said yourself.”

  “Fair enough,” Urbino conceded. “Let me say then that you’ve been kind enough to invite me here because of something to do with Byron. I’ve become as certain of it as I could possibly be without confirmation from you.”

  “Intuition, a professional hunch?”

  “So what is it that you have?” Urbino went on. “Letters? The memoir of some Venetian woman who saw him swim from the Lido to the Canalazzo?”

  Possle smiled.

  “Nothing as pedestrian as that. Something much better. Something that might even interest the Contessa.”

  Possle ga
ve a longish pause. It could only have been for the sake of suspense. “I have poems. Unpublished poems. Seven of them, in Byron’s own handwriting, and in excellent condition.”

  Urbino tried to conceal his excitement. “Are you sure they’re Byron’s?”

  “I always speak from a position of strength, despite this,” and Possle glanced down at his body against the orange cushions.

  “How do you come to have them?”

  Provenance was the crucial issue after authenticity. And about this latter point, Urbino wasn’t prepared to accept Possle’s flat assurance.

  “All in good time. You’ve been racing ahead like your Contessa’s motorboat. I prefer the more sedate pace of a gondola. All things considered, we’ve accomplished a great deal this afternoon. I think it would be better if we put off any further discussion until the next time.”

  Urbino, surprised at this abrupt dismissal, especially on this occasion, wondered what might be behind it. Did Possle want to gain time? If so, for what? Or did he want to keep Urbino off balance? Perhaps even punish him, in some way, for having been the one to broach the topic of Byron?

  Whatever it was, Urbino would have to comply. This was Possle’s domain, and he had to play by his rules, but yet he’d do his best to subvert them. Despite Possle’s air of unconcern, Urbino had disturbed him, and this gave Urbino some satisfaction.

  “To show you my good will, Mr. Macintyre,” Possle was now saying, “I’m not going to keep you wondering this time when we’ll have the pleasure of seeing each other again. Shall we make it for Thursday at our accustomed hour?” That was six days away, longer than Urbino expected. “And now if we can get Armando to show you out.”

  But as he reached for the bell rope, a shadow fell into the room.

  “Always anticipating my needs, aren’t you, Armando?” Possle said in his precise Italian. “It’s time for our guest to bid us good-bye. Shall we shake hands on our parting this time, Mr. Macintyre?”

  Urbino, feeling Armando’s eyes boring into his back, went over to the gondola. He reached out to take Possle’s hand. He was surprised at the strength with which it grasped his, and with its coldness. It was more like the hand of a dead than a living man. It felt even colder than it had been when it had groped his skull.