Liquid Desires

by Edward Sklepowich

  It was then that Mirko betrayed Flavia the first time that night by getting carried away as he tried to console her in the manner he had always wanted to. All the years of holding back, of pretending to have only a brotherly feeling for her, had become too much for him. What had been smoldering for so long finally burst out into flame. His attack on Flavia was also consistent with his earlier attack on the drugged-out girl from Verona that Corrado Scarpa had mentioned to the Contessa.

  The second time that night that Mirko betrayed Flavia’s love and trust—this time irrevocably—had been near the water steps of the Ca’ Volpi. He had pursued her there after she left the Casa Trieste, revolted by his advances. There he had murdered her.

  “When Flavia ran out of the pensione into the thunderstorm and he went after her,” the Contessa said, continuing her decorous demolition of the Coppa Duse and leaving Urbino far behind in his own efforts, “Silvestro saw them, right? Part of his recuperation seems to be to tell me over and over again about his first visit to the Casa Trieste. He feels terribly guilty about it.”

  “And he should, although I doubt he could have prevented Flavia’s death. Even if he could have kept up with them that night, he wouldn’t have been able to follow them into the Ca’ Volpi. But he should have mentioned it to the police or to me. By comparing the times we would have known that Flavia had been to the pensione twice that night.”

  “But Silvestro says he never thought that Mirko had killed Flavia. He thought that Mirko was going after her to calm her down and that she killed herself later,” the Contessa said. “Otherwise he would have been too frightened to go back to the pensione afterward and take those clippings from the scrapbook. He never would have let Mirko into his apartment. Mirko told him that he was looking for me. Silvestro only wanted to help me—and Alvise. That’s all he ever wanted to do.”

  “And all Mirko wanted to do was to get him out of the way—once he realized that Silvestro was the man he had rushed past outside the Casa Trieste the night he murdered Flavia.”

  The Contessa shivered and put down her spoon, eyeing Urbino’s own rapidly melting Coppa Duse.

  “Did you ever suspect that Silvestro might have killed Flavia?”

  “The finger certainly seemed to be pointing at him on various occasions. He was in Venice at the time of the murder, he knew where Flavia was staying, he had a motive—to protect Alvise and you—and he was not being completely honest. He says he didn’t mention being outside the pensione the first time—the night Mirko murdered Flavia—because he didn’t want us to think that he could have done her any harm. Silvestro wasn’t thinking very clearly, was he? And he was acting very suspiciously because of it. But he became less and less of a suspect as facts about Mirko started to fall in place. There was the scratch on his face that Mirko said he got from his cat. There were the pills that Flavia apparently never took, pills that we now know Mirko planted in her room, knowing their reputation and hoping that they would make suicide seem more probable. Then Mirko, starting to run scared as I got closer to the truth, asked Annabella the name of the man she had sent to the Casa Trieste. And the biggest thing of all was the death of Mirko’s father. I had no way to prove it, but I had a hunch that something wasn’t right there. Vladimir Mirko had physically abused his son, and his son decided not to take it anymore. Gemelli says that Mirko is now whining and telling them the whole sordid story. He killed his father and made it seem like an accident from freebasing cocaine.”

  “Obviously Mirko could see murder as the only solution to his problems. He would probably have eventually gone after you!”

  “Yes, and maybe even Bernardo Volpi for fear of what he might have seen.”

  “Did Bernardo see anything?”

  “I thought he might have, but apparently not.”

  “But why did Flavia go back to the Ca’ Volpi after her second encounter with Mirko?”

  “Maybe she wanted to have it out with Violetta—or be consoled by Bernardo whose affection was untainted with anything suspect. Mirko was right behind her. He says he passed an old man at the end of the calle by the Casa Trieste when he rushed out after Flavia, but he didn’t pay him much mind until later, as I’ve said. Flavia went to the Ca’ Volpi where she used her own key to get in. Violetta wasn’t there. She had gone to see Lorenzo.”

  “Leaving Bernardo all alone?”

  “Yes, but he was asleep. Flavia went to the studio, telling Mirko to stay away from her. When she didn’t find Violetta, she tried to get away from Mirko by going into the garden. They argued. Flavia was shattered. You can imagine how she must have felt about what she learned that night! Mirko still couldn’t seem to understand how his sexual advances back at the pensione had almost pushed her over the edge. He tried to put his arm around her, this time in the kind of closeness they used to share, and she shoved him against the water gate. He almost crashed through it into the Grand Canal. It was either then or earlier that she scratched his face. He doesn’t remember. The thunder was very loud, and there wasn’t much water traffic because of the storm. Some lights had recently burned out by the water steps. I noticed that the gates had been forced out toward the Grand Canal from the garden, not the other way as might have happened if someone had broken in from the water side as Violetta thought.

  “Flavia let Mirko know in a big rush what she thought of him now—how much she despised him—how he had left her with nothing to believe in, not even friendship—how she had stood by him when everyone had said he was bad and made fun of him because he was ugly—how he should understand her feelings more than anyone else because of the way his own father had treated him—how she had always understood why he had killed his father, but that now she saw him for what he really was and maybe she would tell someone else if he didn’t leave her alone. In a rage he picked up one of the stones from the pile near the water steps. He hit her several times and pushed her into the Grand Canal. Then he ran from the Ca’ Volpi.”

  “How horrible!”

  “And off he went back to the pensione to start covering his tracks and to take possession of the money Flavia had put in his safe, the large sum left over from what Massimo Zuin had bribed her with. It was a financial windfall—something Mirko got out of Flavia’s death in addition to not ever having to worry that sometime in the future she might let it out that he had killed his father.”

  “Maybe it was Mirko’s idea all along to kill Flavia for the money,” the Contessa suggested. “How much was there?”

  “Enough. Zuin had given her ten million lire—almost eight thousand dollars. Flavia had given Tina about a third of it, saying, if you remember, that it was hers anyway, although she didn’t mention that it had come from Tina’s father. She gave the Riccis another million. I wondered what became of the rest of it. Was it lost in the water? Was Flavia robbed and then murdered? Or had she left the money somewhere for security? Mirko’s safe, I thought. The money had to be very tempting for someone with a drug habit but I don’t think he would have killed Flavia for the money. In his own way, he did love her”—the Contessa started to protest but Urbino raised his hand and continued—“but in the end his fear that she might reveal that he had murdered his father was stronger than his love. He probably regretted many times that he had confided in Flavia but—”

  “When did he confide in her?” the Contessa asked, this time succeeding in interrupting him. “And why would he?”

  “He did it about ten years ago after Flavia moved out of the Palazzo Brollo and trusted him enough to tell him what Lorenzo had been doing to her. Wanting to show her how much he, for his part, trusted her, Mirko told her that his father’s death hadn’t been an accident as everyone thought. Mirko was in love with her. He would have done anything for her, maybe even have killed Lorenzo. When Tina Zuin told me about the ‘secret sharing’ game that the three of them used to play, I started to ask myself what kinds of secrets might have passed between Flavia and Mirko. Once I knew about Lorenzo’s sexual abuse and had my hunch about
Mirko’s father, the two fit perfectly. I admit that I was misled for a time because Mirko was a help to us, up to a point, in looking into the business of Alvise. He gave me the scrapbook—although only after looking through it again to be sure that Flavia hadn’t said anything about his father, Vladimir.”

  “Whatever ‘help’ Mirko seemed to give was all for his own devious ends!”

  “True, and like any person trying to conceal murder, Mirko had a lot he had to be careful about revealing,” Urbino went on. “And drugs were complicating matters for him, confusing his mind. Should he remain completely silent or dole out some information? And how much would be too much? How much would be too little? Mirko never really knew what he should tell and what he shouldn’t. Yet he did know that if he could incriminate Lorenzo while giving me the impression that he didn’t intend to, it would look better for him. And he was right. He always had to be careful not to show any knowledge of what had happened to Flavia after she left his pensione the first time.”

  “Did he?”

  “Almost. When I awakened him suddenly from his stupor late Sunday morning and told him he hadn’t been honest with me, he was frightened. He thought I knew about Violetta being Flavia’s mother and had found out somehow that he knew about it because Flavia visited the pensione a second time that night. He was frightened, but he recovered quickly enough when he recalled the other big secret of Flavia’s life—Lorenzo’s sexual abuse. Later I remembered his reaction and started to speculate and—”

  “And eventually pulled out a plum that’s left us all gaping! You realized he was close to the breaking point and that Silvestro, Bernardo, and you might be in danger! I think I understand, but why didn’t Mirko mention the sexual abuse earlier?”

  “He was crafty, always looking out for himself when his mind was clear. My guess is that he didn’t want to seem too eager to make Lorenzo look bad. After all, almost everyone said Flavia’s death was suicide, and he was better off leaving it that way. Maybe he realized that Lorenzo’s sexual abuse was too close to what he had done to Flavia himself. And who knows? He might have been afraid of giving himself away, of pointing me in one of the worst directions if he was to continue to avoid detection.”

  “But he did show you that horrible Dalí that Flavia ripped from the catalog. The painting almost shouted about Lorenzo’s sexual abuse to anyone with even a suspicion of what might have gone on between Lorenzo and Flavia.”

  “I’m not so sure Mirko understood its significance. He might have believed that she had ripped it out to give him because of the Yves Tanguy on the other side.”

  “I’ll never—absolutely never!—be able to look at that Dalí painting again. The Birth of Liquid Desires indeed!”

  Urbino smiled to himself. The threat and self-denial in the Contessa’s statement were minimal considering how she had always felt about Dalí and how infrequently she even went to the Guggenheim Collection.

  “I’ve never cared particularly for anything by Dalí,” Urbino said. “Flavia was at an impressionable age when Violetta introduced her to him, and she was fascinated with The Birth of Liquid Desires. But it’s obvious why she started to feel differently about it later when Lorenzo’s sexual attentions became so aggressive. She might even have associated Regina, Violetta, or Annabella with the other woman in the painting whose face is averted, thinking they might have known or should have known. After all, Annabella had known what was going on. As for Violetta, she now realizes that Flavia was trying to tell her about Lorenzo’s sexual abuse in indirect ways. I’m surprised Flavia didn’t try to slash the Dalí as well as Novembrini’s portrait.”

  “Such a sad young woman—and definitely emotionally unbalanced. But how could she help it? Look at the way she had to live! And she had the Grespi blood running in her veins. Genes have a strange way of asserting themselves. She ended up looking more like Regina—her aunt—than her real mother, Violetta. Just think of it. One Grespi sister emotionally disturbed for most of her life—and then the other one! Violetta!” The Contessa said the woman’s name with quiet contempt. “She and Lorenzo are almost as responsible for their daughter’s death as Mirko. They put everything in motion over twenty-five years ago for their own selfish—yes, even fiendish reasons! I’m not throwing the word out lightly, caro. I don’t care if Regina agreed to the whole thing either. She was in no position to be allowed to. Her sister and her husband should have protected her. The whole thing was diabolical, I tell you! Violetta ended up protecting herself and having her revenge against both Regina and me at one blow. As for Lorenzo himself, he’s beneath contempt. To think that nothing can be done to him! He murdered Flavia in his own way. He murdered her soul!”

  The Contessa seemed to contemplate this final statement for a few silent moments, as Urbino recalled what Flavia had said to him in the salotto verde at La Muta: that a person’s soul shrivels up when someone he loves and trusts betrays him. Then, rousing herself, the Contessa asked why Lorenzo hadn’t let the truth about Violetta and him come out after Regina died.

  “Maybe he was afraid of what Flavia might do to herself or to him if she knew the truth. He was caught up in the lies for so long that he was probably comfortable with them. Maybe it assuaged his conscience to have his daughter believe that he wasn’t her father. Lorenzo seems to have been convinced that she committed suicide because of what he had done to her and how he and Violetta had deceived her. He must have been afraid my treating her death as murder would bring everything to light—as it eventually did. He gave Mirko money, ostensibly to cover Flavia’s bills at the pensione, but he must have been hoping he could buy Mirko’s silence if he knew about the sexual abuse.”

  The Contessa watched as Urbino desultorily attacked his coppa.

  “What about Nicolina Ricci?” she asked.

  “Her death could have triggered much of Flavia’s subsequent actions. What had happened to Nicolina—being raped by a trusted family friend, someone like an uncle, someone around whom Flavia had never felt comfortable, seeing in him what she had seen in Lorenzo—was too close to what had happened to her years ago. That must have been the significance in Flavia’s inscription on Nicolina’s funeral wreath: ‘From your older sister’—not sisters by blood, of course, but because of similar experiences. Nicolina’s murder reopened all the wounds. And don’t forget that Lorenzo was showing an interest in Novembrini’s nude portrait of her. We don’t have Flavia here to tell us what was going on in her mind. She was very careful in whom she confided—apparently only Madge Lennox and Mirko, possibly Nicolina. There must have been something about Bruno Novembrini that she didn’t quite trust despite their intimacy.”

  “You don’t think that Madge Lennox and Flavia—”

  “I don’t know,” Urbino cut her off. “It’s not important, is it? You wouldn’t want to begrudge the poor girl whatever consolation she found as long as she wasn’t deceived or taken advantage of.” The Contessa looked rebuffed. “What is important is that Flavia trusted Lennox—that she felt safe and secure in Asolo with her. There’s no suggestion that Lennox let her down. You can imagine how important trust was for a woman who had been betrayed the way Flavia was.”

  “Yes—and how vile silence and secrets are!” The Contessa’s face was shadowed with sadness. “What do you think that poor girl really wanted from me, Urbino?”

  “To accept her as Alvise’s daughter. If you had done that, it would have been more real for her, and she would have been even more distanced from Lorenzo. I have a feeling that Mirko wanted her to try to extort money from you, but money isn’t what she wanted.”

  “So it was my peace for her own. Oh, Urbino, I would have done what I could for her! I keep seeing that old photograph of her she showed us at La Muta. If there had continued to be the slightest bit of doubt, I would have accepted her. I would have mothered the poor thing.”

  “I know you would have, Barbara. You would have made a big difference, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “‘Wasn’t me
ant to be’—I suppose that’s less disturbing than saying something could have been different, that there was a choice we failed to make. I’m not thinking of you and me—of what we did or didn’t do for Flavia—but of Alvise and me. It wasn’t meant for us to have children. If Flavia had been given to me in the painful way I was almost beginning to accept, I would have considered her as something from Alvise after all these years. It’s madness to say it—especially since I wasn’t put to the test, was I?—but I would have. I would! I’ve always tried to convert the bad things that come my way into something good. I’m far from believing that every cloud has a silver lining—I leave that philosophy to you Americans!—but sometimes we have to refashion our pain.”

  Urbino thought the Contessa was going to end on this somewhat philosophical and perhaps even puzzling note, when, after taking a quick sip of mineral water, she went on.

  “And you know, Urbino, even though all we’ve gone through has made me only too aware of the sadness that can befall the Flavias and the Nicolinas of this sorry world—and the Mirkos, too, I suppose—I wish that Alvise and I had had our chance for that kind of happiness. I regret that Flavia was snatched from me. I could have made a difference in her life.” She paused. “She could have made one in mine.”

  Urbino could add nothing to her heartfelt admission. He finished his gelato. When the waiter came over to take the empty goblets, the Contessa ordered another coppa.

  “I don’t care what anyone thinks today. I need to be soothed. It has absolutely nothing to do with appetite!”

  Together they looked out at the placid scene. The jitney bus had just pulled in from the bottom of the hill and three young women descended. A boy on a bicycle waved to the women as he flew across the square and down the Via Browning. An old woman was watering geraniums at a window above the opposite arcade. When she finished, she stood at the window smiling and listening to the music of La Traviata still filling the afternoon air.