The Last Gondola (37 page)

“We can be more clear about Adriana's responsibility for Marco's death, though,” he continued. “With a madwoman's strength, she pushed him when he was trying to get in or out of the Ca' Pozza. Elvira might even have seen her do it. Everyone else but Armando thought Marco had fallen from Razzi's building. All of Elvira's hatred of the Ca' Pozza was because of Adriana, although she didn't know who she was.”

“She thought Adriana was me,” the Contessa said. “I'll never forget the look in her eye when she saw me in the cemetery.”

“You understand now why she reacted the way she did. There you were, standing right over her son's grave. Up until then she had only caught glimpses of Adriana in the windows. Armando must have had some arrangement, some provision, to try to keep Adriana from drawing attention to herself in that way. She may have been showing herself more boldly than usual during the past few months. Possle said that he was seeing the faces of the dead, but faces looking very old. She could have been wandering around the house at will at times.”

“And when Elvira saw her during the past few months, she was wearing my clothes. Such a brother, such a sister,” the Contessa observed. “And twins, no less. Don't they say there's always a good and an evil twin?”

“I give no credence to that. And you know how I feel about categorizing people as good or evil.”

“Despite the Jesuits who taught you so well?”

“Despite them, yes. Armando and Adriana were both emotionally disturbed, she more so than he, obviously.”

“But it does seem as if the women are the ones to go mad, or
more
mad, not just Adriana but poor Elvira.”

“She's been torn apart by grief. Once she fully grasps that you weren't responsible for Marco's death, but that it was Adriana, who's had a grisly form of justice, she should start to heal with the proper care. We have to do what we can to help her. And speaking of the fate of women, remember that there's a woman who's a survivor in all this—Hilda.”

“The survivor of her beauty,” the Contessa replied.

“But a woman who still creates,” he pointed out. “That counts for a great deal.”

“Of course it does,” the Contessa agreed. “And she was wise to divorce Possle for whatever reason.”

“Most likely all the frenetic activity and intrigues at the Ca' Pozza in those days took their toll on their intimacy and her need for quiet. And then there was Armando and his devotion to Possle. As I said, Cipri seemed to be insinuating a great deal when he observed that marriage doesn't suit all men. Hilda must have decided that it was better to cut herself loose from Possle and the Ca' Pozza. Eventually she retreated into her work and her life with Cipri on the Lido. She probably knew about the boating accident, of course, but not that Adriana had survived it.”

“As for Adriana, evil or not,” the Contessa said after a few moments of reflection, “she was the only one who brought blood to this case. She must have set the fire that killed their parents. Armando knew that she had done it, don't you think?”

“Yes, and their aunt's death seems suspicious as well.”

Urbino looked at his wristwatch and then out into the square beyond the tables set up under the arcades.

“I still don't understand why she wanted my clothes,” the Contessa said. “Why she wore them.”

“You're wearing your Fortuny dress today, aren't you, the dress that seems to have been next on Adriana's list?”

“Yes, but…”

She looked down at the dress that had once belonged to the actress Eleonora Duse.

“Haven't you always said that there's something talismanic in it?” he went on. “That it can lift your spirits? Chase away clouds? And I think it's always ended up doing that in one way or another, hasn't it?”

The Contessa nodded in agreement.

“It's a form of superstition,” he went on. “Adriana seems to have had it, too. The director of the Villa Serena mentioned how Armando brought Adriana a dress to wear when she left the clinic, a replica of one the director favored. Having your clothes could have made Adriana feel as if she had some power or victory over you, or maybe some of the power and influence you had. She wore your clothes, and she absorbed your energy.”

“So now we're talking about vampires?”

“Remember, Barbara, that she must have resented that you studied at the conservatory when she couldn't. And you were on the scene when she first was hoping to marry Possle. Years pass and she sees you come up to the Ca' Pozza and ring the bell. And then you turn up inside the house in the gondola room with Possle. Within her madness, it was all logical.”

“But why did she suddenly decide that she wanted my clothes?”

“There had been all those photographs of you in the local papers. We know Armando bought magazines and newspapers for the Ca' Pozza, obviously for her as much as for himself and Possle. Adriana saw the photographs and resented your visibility. She cut them out and told Armando to get the different pieces of clothing and jewelry.”

Since the fire at the Ca' Pozza, the Contessa had discovered that she was missing a coral necklace, a blouse, and a pair of shoes that she had worn at a garden party late last summer. A group photograph of the occasion had appeared in the local Sunday supplement. The Contessa had also worn a snakeskin belt in the photograph. It wasn't, however, the one that she had discovered was missing. It would appear that Armando had become confused by the other belts and taken the wrong one.

“But why did she cut you out of the Palazzo Labia photograph?” the Contessa asked.

“There's no way of knowing if she did it or Armando. It could have been just a way of emphasizing what he had to steal or—who knows?—his way of taking out his resentment against me, if he was the one to scissor me out.”

“Well, if he was, thank God that's as far as he went.”

“And one more thing about all the publicity you've been getting. The photographs caught even Elvira's attention, and she recognized your tea dress. Adriana was wearing it when Elvira saw her in the attic window.”

“To think that I was upset with you for neglecting my problem when all the while you were taking care of it behind the walls of the Ca' Pozza. Your obsession—well, that's what it was!—turns out to have been my own. What did we say when we were here in February? All for one and one for all? And being so inseparable?”

“Not just you and me, but Possle and Armando, and Armando and Adriana, up until the very end.”

“And don't forget yourself and Possle! You can't fool me,
caro
. Part of your fascination was because he was similar to you. Or should I say it was part of, not only your fascination, but your fear as well?”

Urbino looked away. The Contessa didn't press the point. Instead she told him that she had decided to put in a full security system at the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini.

“Long overdue, I'm aware, and like locking the barn after the horses have got out. I can't shake the thought that Armando got in somehow, maybe more than once, and went creeping around my rooms and taking things for his sister! I should have faced it all before, but it didn't seem real, not the way it has since last week.” She sighed.

“Ca' Pozza, Ca' Pazza,” she recited. “It was the house of the madwoman all along.”

Urbino consulted his watch again.

“Are you expecting someone?” the Contessa asked.

“Habib might drop by.”

Habib had returned yesterday. The Contessa hadn't seen him yet.

She joined him in looking out into the square in search of the young Moroccan. The orchestra was playing the overture from Offenbach's
Orpheus in the Underworld
. Three blonde women, cheered on by friends and onlookers, were dancing the can-can to the familiar strains of the tune. The quiet days in Venice were over until the autumn.

“I'm starting to think of Asolo already,” the Contessa said, showing how in tune she was with his own thoughts. “Far away from it all up in the hills.”

“Soon enough,” Urbino said.

The Contessa indulged in another petit four.

“So tell me,
caro
, are you going to write a book about Samuel Possle? You might not have learned much about the good old days of his expatriate life, but think of what you
did
learn! And you have a great ending. You could put together something different than usual.”

“I'll let this one go, Barbara.”

Yet his sigh betrayed that it wouldn't be easy.

“So you've come out with hardly any spoils at all. Not the poems and not a full picture of what happened. And now you say you're throwing away the idea of even writing about it?”

“But I've come away with a lot. Much more than you might think.”

The Contessa stared. “Like knowing that some things are not worth going after? Like having seen the face in the mirror? Like having confronted the ghost of the person you might have become?” she summed up, drawing together many of the threads of their conversation.

“All those things, and more.”

“I'm not going to ask you to name them. I have a good idea of what they are. But what I am going to ask you is this,” she added, with an amused look in her gray eyes. “If you ever have any more dreams with me in them, will you let me know? All I'll need to hear is the first sentence, whether it's ‘Last night I dreamt of Manderley again' or whatever it might be,” she said referring to the Du Maurier novel and the Hitch-cock film that Urbino had recently been reminded of in Rebecca's office. “When I hear it, I'll promptly run as far away from you as possible. Who knows what we could avoid!”

“Nothing,” he responded dryly.

He had barely got this out when the Contessa cried, “Habib!”

At first Urbino thought that her cry was in response to his fatalistic philosophy, reinforced by his relationship with the superstitious Habib. But the Contessa's excited exclamation had been provoked by the young man's entrance into the Chinese salon. The North African sun had darkened Habib's face in the weeks he had been away. He gave them his radiant smile.

In his hands was a small box wrapped in paper with an arabesque design and tied with a green ribbon and bow.

He seated himself beside Urbino.

“This is for you,” he said to the Contessa.

“Aren't you a sweet boy! It seems I
am
getting my neatly wrapped package after all.” She threw an amused glance at Urbino. “May I open it now?”

“You must!”

“Well, since it's a question of must…”

As she carefully removed the ribbon and paper, Habib said, “I collected it from customs an hour ago. They unwrapped it and I had to do it all over again. That's why I'm late.”

“All good things are worth waiting for,” the Contessa said, “and I mean you and not the—oh my, look at this!”

She held up a necklace of cascading silver ovals. Murmurs of admiration came from a nearby table.

“It's my necklace! Its twin! Its double! Aren't you a clever boy, Habib! Thank you so much. Let me give you a kiss.”

She leaned over and kissed Habib on each cheek.

“May God protect you when you wear it,” Habib said.

The Contessa was already putting it on. It suited her Fortuny dress.

“Only when I wear it?” she teased.

Habib looked in confusion at Urbino for clarification as he so often did.

“She loves it,” Urbino said.

Habib smiled.

“And I love you, both of you!” the Contessa said. “May God protect us all.”

She caught the attention of the waiter.

“Cosa desidera?”
he asked when he came over.

“What I would like is a Coppa Fornarina for our young friend here.” As the waiter was moving away, she said, “Excuse me, on second thought, bring us three.”

As they waited for the concoctions of maroon-and-cherry-garnished
gelato
named after Byron's lover, the Contessa said, “It's a much safer way to indulge one's interest in Lord Byron.”

Once again Habib looked at Urbino for help.

“She's joking again,” Urbino said, “but as usual her joke is full of truth.”

He began to explain, all the while exchanging a warm, conspiratorial smile with the Contessa.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Mysteries of Venice series

One

Despite its splendid palaces and lively squares, its sun-washed Zattere and corridors of art, its oleander gardens and jewel-like courtyards, Dorsoduro is a quarter of death on this afternoon in early August.

Beneath the high dome of the Church of the Salute an old woman stares at the Black Madonna over the main altar. She petitions her for deliverance from the plague of age eating away her body.
Maria, salute degli infirmi, prega per noi
. Light spills on the woman's head from the windows piercing the dome, but she shivers.