“Later on, people left,” Margo said. “Torcello was passed by.”
“Nature is reclaiming it.” Roberto kicked a pebble as they walked along. “Whenever I’m in Venice, I come here to enjoy the silence or climb the bell tower and gaze at the magnificent Alps.”
At a pleasant, lemon-colored stucco building with green shutters, Roberto held the door open, and they entered a country inn, with copper pots hanging near the hearth and photographs of luminaries on the walls.
“Locanda Cipriani is a historic place,” he said, “but more recent. Your Hemingway stayed here and wrote a book. Churchill came here and painted. Buongiorno,” he said to the hostess. “Abbiamo una prenotazione per quattro.”
“Benvenuti. Che piacere, Signor Cavallin,” she said and led them to an outside table near a grapevine-covered arbor.
Flowers flourished in one section of the garden and herbs in another, a neat geometry that pleased Anna. Two magpies flitted among verdant rows of fruit trees. Nearby, a tall bell tower with ancient arches cast a watchful eye in every direction. Like a silent sentinel, Anna thought.
Once they had ordered and their fragrant Amarone wine had been poured, Margo said, “Roberto, you know everybody. Any leads about Sergio? You’ve gotta tell us.”
Amidst this peaceful scenery, it was hard to believe that Sergio was dead.
Roberto shrugged his shoulders. “Please. I do not work for the police. But, as they say in the mergers-and-acquisitions business, the field of candidates may be crowded.”
“How’dya mean?” asked Angela.
“Sergio did not have to work, of course. Born with a platinum spoon in his mouth. Despite the lavish lifestyle, he could have spent centuries just clipping bond coupons. Liliana wanted him working if only to get him out of the palazzo. Always between her legs, she complained. But when he worked for Banca Serenissima as a rainmaker, he got too close to the clients. The bank got bad investments, and Sergio’s savings accounts grew fatter.”
“Kickbacks?” Anna asked.
“I cannot say for sure. Nine years ago, they parted ways. Then like lightning,” Roberto waved his fingers, “he was advising Banca Patriota on a takeover of his old employer.”
The name rang a faint bell. Anna would have Brian look it up on the FinCEN list and Banca Serenissima, too, if he hadn’t already.
“Silly that they didn’t have a non-compete clause,” Anna said. “What did the Italian regulators say?”
“His old bank was troubled. They encouraged suitors. Sergio even asked me to write the fairness opinion, but I refused. Banca d’Italia did not approve the purchase anyway. Seems Banca Patriota had questionable people on its board.”
“Like who?” Margo asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Roberto said, lifting his wine glass.
Taking delicate sips of the jammy, ruby-colored wine, Anna marveled at the web of Sergio’s financial activity and how smoothly Roberto conveyed the information, all the while pressing his leg against hers.
When a plate of plump, crabmeat-filled mezzelune smothered in light cream sauce, with sun-dried tomatoes and a touch of shrimp, was set down before Anna, she took her time cutting into the pasta and savoring a luscious morsel. She felt like slathering the sauce on her skin. Margo and Angela ate gnocchi in sage butter. Roberto tasted his angel hair pasta in a fragrant fish stew before continuing.
“The latest was that five years ago, Sergio founded his own boutique investment bank, Banco Saturno, investing funds for the rich and famous. He even charged a fee for introducing people. Everyone knew him. On one side would be the entrepreneur needing funds; on the other, the equity investor or venture capitalist. He had the biggest moneyed partners in Venice and beyond—oh, yes, he was expanding, providing private banking services for ultra-wealthy Italians in new markets around the world.”
Sounds more like the integration stage of money laundering, Anna thought.
“Sergio has an artist living in his palazzo, brought him over from Tanzania years ago, and gave him an entire wing. There were rumors about the artist and Liliana, but I don’t believe them. First the artist painted portraits of Sergio and the family and some seascapes, just masterful. Then, as amusement, Sergio had him paint others on the sly, in scandalous poses. He would have these surprise unveilings at his monthly art society meetings. An adulterer with his mistress. A drunkard with a bottle. A politician being handed bags of lire. Sergio laughed at these paintings and so did everyone else, until it became their turn.”
Angela looked dumbstruck. “Why would he go to all that trouble to have people hate him?”
“Why, indeed? The man was an enigma,” Roberto shrugged.
There could be dozens of people who wanted Sergio dead, Anna thought glumly. “Are you speaking about Azizi Sabodo? Doesn’t he specialize in wood carvings?”
“Where did you hear that?” Roberto asked.
“Read it in a newspaper article.”
Roberto had superb connections. Even so, she wondered how he’d come across all these details, no matter how small he claimed Venice was. She could not help speculating about what he might have omitted on purpose.
By the time they finished eating, the fog had come in. They made a brief visit to the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, with its awe-inspiring golden Byzantine mosaic of the Last Judgment, featuring a division of the saved and the damned—those condemned to death by dismemberment, hunger, or water, serpents wriggling through skulls and eye sockets. Anna lagged behind as she studied Fortune’s opposite along one wall: the winged wheel of Occasion, the chance that can be seized.
While the others chattered onward to the boat, Anna slipped into the tiny Church of Santa Fosca, with its porch and stilted arches. Inside, the dark stone walls were devoid of decoration. She sat on a bench under the dome, eyes closed, immersed in the cool serenity of the thousand-year-old martyrion, her breathing slowed to a whisper. Exiles had built this place, but they had known where they had come from and where they were destined. She, on the other hand, a refugee from the modern world, possessed little certainty except numbers and the stars. What, she asked herself, could she take hold of?
She caught up with everyone near the bridge. “Roberto was just about to run back and find you,” Margo said. “We thought you were lost.”
“I was drawn to that little church,” Anna said.
“It is lovely,” Roberto said as they climbed aboard his boat.
Bound for the Grand Canal, he concentrated on his steering, following the line of bricole, the only solid forms in the shrouds of mist. The crimson orb of the sun wavered behind the haze as speedboats whizzed by like comets, taking shape out of nothingness and disappearing again. In the stern of La Vittoria, the three women huddled together, with Anna sharing her shawl.
When Roberto left them at San Silvestro, Anna was the last to depart. He said, “Meet me at nine-thirty at the campanile. Please come.”
“I’ll think about it.” She dashed ahead.
“How about going with us to the caffè, on Giudecca?” Margo asked. “We’re joining some friends there in a while.”
“I think I’ll roam around, maybe eat at Ai Gondolieri, recommended by my guidebook, and study a few things.” Like Gabriella’s diary, she thought eagerly.
“Come to the count’s tomorrow then,” Margo said as they parted ways.
Intent on not getting lost, Anna made her way to the Rialto Bridge and strolled through the jungle of T-shirts, sunglasses, and masks covering its haunches. As she reached the far side of the bridge, the warbling notes of a wooden flute accompanied by drum and guitar sailed in the air, reminding Anna of music she’d heard near Maiden Lane in San Francisco. A melodic voice soared like a condor flying in circles against the sky. She pictured the sun on its wings, its eyes surveying life far below, before swooping down for a prize and then returning to its nest, set like an altar in the cliffs.
The musicians’ smooth hair glistened like dark, silent waterfalls. Their burnished
faces were expressionless, their black, ancient eyes drawing in the light and hiding their dreams. How odd to see these musicians in Venice, so far from the Andes and their own people. For this was the opposite end of the world. Their vibrating tones were magnified by the city’s hard stone walls. But then, as Pablo had said, his ancestors had been masters of stone.
Whether they sang of loves and lives lost, of planting crops and changing seasons, of the sun and stars, she did not know. These were songs that Pablo may have heard during childhood, inspiring him, perhaps, with tales of vanquished empires and warriors, or of revolutionaries bent on restoring the harmony of the old ways. She wondered if these musical troupes were a private army or a secret society.
St. Mark’s
Wednesday, late afternoon
The sun was weakening behind the spire of San Luca Church as Anna joined the throng of tourists exploring the city. Each narrow bridge offered another view. Fading palazzos, with their sagging walls of rose and lime, were knit together in a rickety row. Some were reinforced with iron braces, rusty pins to keep their old bones from disintegrating. Near the waterline, fissured stucco gave way to naked brick, tired and worn, shrouded with snatches of seaweed like funeral wreaths. The oar of a gondola in the distance hit the water in a frenzy, making Anna think of the flapping wings of a drowning seabird, its feet caught in a net.
Pausing in front of a sign indicating Piazza San Marco, Anna chose to walk along Calle XXII Marzo. Sergio’s gallery stood close to San Moisè, Agatha had said, Anna guessing that to be the white Baroque church in the distance. She walked slowly, scrutinizing the windows of the storefronts she passed. In one, swirls of colored glass resembled conch shells. Another held a parade of handmade goblets, their shining crystal sister to the sea, born of the same sands. A starry carafe, like the one Alessandro had smashed, stood alone in a spotlight. Anna doubted she could ever afford one.
The neighborhood’s walls were plastered with a collage of colorful announcements: a performance of Il Bugiardo, a Goldoni play; an evening of Vivaldi’s concertos for viola d’amore; a request from the Cultural Council for funds to restore church doors; President Scalfaro’s upcoming visit; Mayor Ugo Bergamo hosting a visiting artist, Fernando Botero.
A cerise sign hung from a striped wooden spear affixed to a nearby lintel announced Galleria Corrin—Arte e Antichità. Anna entered and was immediately greeted by a dark-haired salesman in a black suit. Two gold chains hung from his neck.
“Buonasera. Voglio soltanto dare un’occhiata,” she said, telling him she was just looking.
“Certo,” he replied.
She sauntered through a cluster of high-ceilinged rooms packed with African tribal art, unsure what she was seeking or what she would find. Stylized masks, pottery with a fusion of animal and human features, a bronze head with bulging eyes, decorated staffs, tapestries in bold colors, woven baskets, mosaics made of butterfly wings. . . . It was all incongruous in Venice, she couldn’t help thinking.
Selected totems and sculptures represented religious beliefs, prestige, graduation into male society, or a celebration of female fertility, through depictions of large-breasted women. Anna was taken with a carved staff showing a young girl carried on the back of a woman, initiating her into adulthood. Menacing war masks decorated with animal teeth, a few adorned with cowrie shells, covered an entire wall. Neck bands of dazzling glass beads were displayed in glass cases, along with ornate combs. A sculpture of a woman’s head with gold around the orbital bones, her hair a rope headdress, sat on a table. Draped over an arched doorway was a colorful textile of parrots, crabs, lions, elephants, and crocodiles, reflecting the riches of the continent—a veritable Garden of Eden, from which all life had sprung.
Several pieces were centuries old. A petite card accompanied each work, the fine print providing the date, the country or area, and the tribe. Work by the Maasai, the Yao, the Makonde, the Kwere, and the Luguru peoples of Tanzania predominated.
One of the back rooms highlighted an array of spears, gold knives with sheaths, and bold paintings and wooden shields by none other than Azizi Sabodo. In a corner was a small black-and-white photo of Sergio in a pith helmet and carrying an elephant gun, accompanied by a dark-skinned tribesman and a large blond man with a beard. So this is how he’d spent his time after buying tribal art, she thought.
In the farthest chamber reposed a hulking diorama, reminding Anna of those she’d seen on elementary school trips to the American Museum of Natural History. Animals in the foreground, painted landscape and sky behind, the display imitated the three dimensions and fooled the eye. Against the milky blue sky and golden savanna of Africa, a quartet of stuffed, preserved animals was gathered behind the glass: a bushbuck, an impala, a hyena, and a baby elephant. Their fur or skin, their stances, even their marble eyes looked alive. The little elephant’s trunk extended out, as if he were trumpeting a warning. What were his last thoughts, his last visions? Anna asked herself. Had his mother been gunned down in front of him before it became the orphan’s turn?
Rushing for the door, Anna fled into the fresh air.
Try as she might, she couldn’t process it. Was Sergio’s fascination with art authentic or was it connected to his money laundering? Given his activities in Venice through the years, it could be the former. She pondered the possibilities as she shuffled along the street, which narrowed before flowing into a large piazza, disorienting her. At the far end, the basilica of St. Mark’s sprawled in all of its opulence, as it had for ten centuries. She counted five lead domes piercing the indigo sky.
Weaving past clumps of pigeons and people in the famed square, she entered an enclave of birds. Tourists from every country would feed the feathered creatures, laugh uproariously, and take pictures of others, even toddlers, covered with birds. With a whoosh, the flock of pigeons took flight around Anna, and the sky became a blur of gray feathers. She closed her eyes and caught her breath, waiting to feel a beak scraping her skin or scratching her eyes. This only heightened the sound of their vibrating wings. The air rushed against her face as the birds strained upwards, like souls rising to heaven.
St. Mark’s seemed to shift in a searing light. Anna sensed she was floating in the sea, surrounded by votive candles, then flying through a dark galaxy with one pulsating red supernova. The next thing she felt was a soft breeze. When she opened her eyes, she saw a red bridge with blue umbrellas moving across it—a silken fan wielded by a frowning Japanese woman shouting to her family, all circled around Anna, their faces pressing close.
“You okay?” the woman asked, peering down at Anna struggling to a sitting position.
“I . . . I think so.” She had managed not to hit her head as she fell. Her pant leg was smudged, but her knee seemed all right.
“Drink water,” the woman said, offering a new bottle as the husband helped Anna rise.
“Thank you, I’m fine now.”
“Then we go,” the woman said, and the family scurried across the piazza, probably to catch up with their tour group.
Anna leaned against a pillar and felt for bruises, then took tentative steps to the cool edge of St. Mark’s Basin, sipping the water. Beyond the Doge’s Palace, toward Ponte della Paglia, a figure resembling Biondi shook his finger at a man wearing a long jacket. She spun around and strode away as fast as she could, past the gardens, fearing that at any moment she would hear his voice calling after her, “Signora Lottol. Please wait.”
She gazed across the peaceful lagoon, drawn, as if by a magnet, in the direction of the Belvedere Hotel. Jutting above the shoreline, its bleached silhouette looked innocent and peaceful. How deceptive, Anna thought. On the far side of the Grand Canal, a statue of Fortune towered over a massive golden globe above the Punta della Dogana. As the wind shifted, Fortune turned her back.
A Disjointed Message
Wednesday, night
When she exited Pensione Stella, a figure huddled in the shadows of a clothing store raised a cigarette to an invisible mouth before
flicking a fiery ash and starting over. Feeling unseen eyes boring into her, she was relieved to turn the corner. The evening had turned cool, and her light cotton sweater was no match for the chilly temperature. Although she hadn’t been able to examine Gabriella’s diary with the rigor she would have liked, she was afraid that Alessandro would miss it; in fact, Margo had left a note asking for her to come to the palazzo tonight. At the last minute, she stuck the ledger book in her pocket and brought it with her, just in case.
Hugging the diary, she decided to follow a shorter route to Palazzo Favier, crossing two low-slung bridges before entering a piazzetta. Animated voices and announcements on TV game shows from residences overlooking the little square peppered the air. She passed a vacant restaurant with pink tablecloths, closed for the evening.
Anna had been lucky to catch Brian at his desk an hour earlier. She was able to ask him to check the FinCEN and OFAC lists on Sergio’s old employers, to run her algorithms on a wider set of accounts, and to perform a few other tests she specified, including one on Azizi Sabodo—all before Leslie found out. After giving him a sense of her desperate situation, Anna insisted that if anyone asked, Brian should say that she told him to perform the work as part of a special project approved by higher-ups. She should take the fall for her own mistakes, not him.
A sign for a sotoportego loomed above an arch in the distance. Anna recalled that it led to a walk hugging a narrow canal. When she slipped into the short tunnel, where a few handcarts and boxes were stored, the sound of waves reverberated against the cement walls. The wind was picking up.
Descending the narrow path on the tunnel’s far side, she paused at the water’s edge and meditated on a slice of the Grand Canal, framed between dazzling palazzos, where boats passed, running lights streaming, motors humming, zooming along mysterious trails in the dark. Advancing to a bulb of pavement jutting into the canal, she looked up and saw Deneb twinkling next to a distant campanile, its light journeying more than a thousand years to reach her. As a little girl, she had gazed at the stars from a hillock by her home, often to a chorus of frogs. She had traced her last name in the big night sky, followed the tail of the Little Bear, the handle of the Little Dipper. Back then, she had thought that one day she might reach out far enough to touch Orion’s bejeweled belt and all the stars and nebulae in that constellation. One star was a ruby. Another a diamond. The third a sapphire. Now she saw those distant suns as constants. Constants of normalcy. Of reassuring cool rationality. Symbols of man’s triumph in unlocking nature’s secrets. Those heavenly bodies obeyed scientific principles that she had studied. Their faithful movements were measured by formulas she had derived, never veering off course. No matter how upset Anna ever became, she could close her eyes and see those stars, etched against the darkness. They were a reminder. And an escape. Parents that had never returned. Grandparents gone. A broken marriage. But the stars, they were always the same.
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