The Bellini Card (19 page)

Which brought him back to his own position in the city. The boys from the Istanbul embassies were safe on the high seas. It would be a week, at least, before any of them could report to the Austrians in Istanbul, and another week before the information would reach the Austrian authorities in Venice. Maria and her courtesans he would simply have to trust. As for that commissario, Brunelli, it was hard to judge if—and of what quite—he was suspicious.

Two more weeks: he owed Yashim that much, at any rate. After that, it would be dangerous to remain in Venice. And if, by then, he had failed to turn up anything on Bellini, it might be said that the picture was not available or did not exist.

A man Palewski had never seen before dropped suddenly into a chair beside him.

“Signor Brett,” the stranger said. “I understand you are looking for a Bellini.”

Palewski started. “As a matter of fact, I am,” he said.

“In which case, signore, I may be able to help.”

“I
T
is not any painting you seek, signore?”

“No,” Palewski admitted. “Not any painting.”

The man smiled. “But I wondered about that.” He fished into his breast pocket and withdrew a card. He glanced at it.

“Connoisseur:
it means much.”

Palewski watched him. The card, he recognized, was his own.

“But also—nothing.” The man snapped the card down on the table.

Palewski’s expression did not change. He looked at the man: he was quite fat, with smooth jowls and small, wet lips. His eyes were large and black. His head was shaved clean.

“You have the advantage of me, Signor—?”

The heavyset man looked at him for a long time before he answered. “If you like, Alfredo. It’s not important, Signor Brett.”

There had been the slightest pause, as if he had glanced again at the card to check.

“Bellini went to Istanbul in 1479,” Palewski said. “He painted a portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror, which later disappeared.”

Alfredo sighed. “I am a very little man, Signor Brett. Please, I would like you to understand. I cannot sell you a painting. I have children. I have a wife. My parents live with us, and my father has gone blind.” He nodded, as if to acknowledge sympathy.

Palewski said nothing.

“I work for another, a very great man, Signor Brett. Many people in this city will show works by inferior artists. You can buy a Canaletto very cheap here.”

“I’m not interested in a cheap Canaletto,” Palewski said.

Alfredo clasped his hands. “Of course not. Otherwise, Signor Brett, we would not be talking. Let me tell you something about Venice. It looks poor, doesn’t it? Sad, and patched up, and gray, even on a beautiful day like this. A city without an income. But do not misjudge it. Venice is also a city of extraordinary wealth—as our friends from Vienna know all too well.”

He put his finger on the table and held it there.

“We are surrounded, Signor Brett, with considerable treasures. You know the Correr?”

“Yes.”

“What did you like there?”

The question surprised Palewski. “I liked the Carpaccio,” he said, after thinking.
“The Courtesans.”

The man smiled. “I like it too, Signor Brett. I agree with your choice. Correr was a rich man, a man of taste and connections. Would it surprise you to know that he considered that painting a poor specimen of the master’s
art? Relatively speaking, of course. Correr, you see, knew better—he had seen things that he could never put his finger on again.

“We know that for a thousand years, Venice has been plundering the world. With her wealth, she was able to produce her own masters, too. This city was never captured, never plundered. Three hundred families held the reins of power—and access to wealth—in all those years. Oh yes, the Corsican took things that belonged here—the bronze horses from St. Mark’s, the Veroneses and the Titians from the churches. Big, grand thefts—for what? To symbolize his mastery of the Veneto. A pagan triumph, nothing more. There was no stripping of the palazzi. Perhaps, had he been given more time—who knows? The Austrians—they try, here and there, to take artworks from the city. But the world is watching them. In the meantime, the old nobility have become clever.”

“Clever?”

“These sad old buildings”—Alfredo gestured vaguely toward the canal—”appear to be shuttered up, stripped out, half abandoned. A city in decay—of course.” He leaned forward. “But if you could see what really lies inside those walls, not even on display, but in an attic somewhere, under a Persian rug, or locked up in a shabby trunk—well, I need hardly say that you, Signor Brett, would go half mad with joy—and with desire.”

Palewski thought of the contessa’s palazzo. It had seemed bare, but perhaps it was just a façade, a cautious reaction to the dangers presented by foreign occupation. There were villages in Thrace and Macedonia, he recalled, that scarcely looked like villages at all: mere rubbish heaps. They were inhabited, he was reliably informed, by people who did all they could to disguise their wealth, the better to evade the state’s taxes.

“There are treasures in Venice that even their owners do not know exist,” he said, in a low tone of wonder. “But sometimes, Signor Brett, these treasures come to light.”

“Your patron knows about these hidden things?”

Alfredo shrugged, as if the matter were beyond dispute. “I would say more. A palazzo, dear signor, is not a shop. The old nobility of Venice are not shopkeepers, who ticket their goods for sale. And they have discretion. You must understand that these treasures belong in some sense to
the patrimony of Venice, even if she is fallen today. They belong to old families. They constitute a history of a house, and the people who have lived there.” He paused, frowned, looked for the proper explanation. “Aha—it is like these pieces can be compared to a beautiful daughter. Her marriage, when she leaves the house, is not left to chance. It is a matter for full and delicate consideration.”

Palewski nodded. He wondered whether Signor Brett, of New York, for all his wealth, was quite the kind of catch a patrician Venetian would consider for his daughter—even if she were made of canvas and oil.

Alfredo seemed to have read his thoughts. “My patron understands these delicate matters,” he said. “I think, before I was sent to you, that your case was hopeless. In Venice you can buy—what? Anything—a friend, a woman, a nice house.” He glanced at Palewski as he spoke, and Palewski flushed slightly. “But a work of art? This is different.”

He cocked his head. “Let me be frank. My patron, he is not unhappy to see you in Venice. You are something new, signore. For many years, we arrange matters between our clients—his clients, I mean—and his Venetian friends. These are very important works, and the prices are, well—who can pay? The French? Hmm. Some. Some Russians. Some others, Swedes, princes, yes. But the English—these are the best. The famous Byron, pah! But Byron’s friends, lords, like him, with palazzi of their own. For many years we have dealt with these men. Only these, I would say.”

“And now you’d appreciate a little competition.”

Alfredo smiled. “You understand me very well, signore.”

Palewski signaled to the waiter. “Two brandies,” he said. To Alfredo he said, “You know nothing about me.”

Alfredo laughed, to Palewski’s surprise. He waited while the waiter set the brandies down in two huge balloons.

“You exaggerate, Signor Brett. I think you might be surprised how much we know about you.”

He slipped his hand beneath the bowl of his glass and swirled it violently so that the caramel liquid left an oily sheen on the inside, then he raised it to his nose and inhaled deeply.

“But in fact it doesn’t altogether matter. Yours is a big country, Signor Brett, as I think you have already remarked.”

Palewski looked up, and their eyes met.

“I’m glad we’ve had a chance to talk,” Alfredo said. He inclined his glass toward Palewski. “To Bellini,” he said quietly. Then, without waiting for a response, he drank the liquor and got up.

“We haven’t really discussed Bellini, Signor Alfredo,” Palewski said.

“I was always talking about Bellini, Signor Brett.”

He turned to go, then stopped and looked around. “We’ll meet again. The bill is taken care of,” he added, with a flicker of a smile.

With that he was gone, through an arch of the arcade in two quick strides.

“Exit right,” Palewski murmured to himself.
“Signor Brett onstage, drinking brandy.”

He looked down and recognized the list he’d been writing, balancing the options.

He tore the list into little pieces. That done, he got up and went to the edge of the canal, where he let the pieces drop from his fingers into the water.

“Curtain.”

It was not what he had expected. It made him uneasy.

Afraid.

He would miss the rendezvous, he thought.

“S
IGNOR
Brett.”

Palewski glanced around and recognized Alfredo. They walked in step, neither man saying anything, until Alfredo gestured to a pontoon.

He walked to the rail and leaned on it, looking out toward Giudecca, and then half turned toward Palewski and smiled.

“What do you know about the Bellinis, Signor Brett? As a family, I mean?”

“The Bellinis? Father, Jacopo. Good painter, highly regarded in his day. Two sons—Gentile and Giovanni. Vasari says they were very loving. Giovanni was working on the frescoes in the Doges’ Palace when Mehmet’s invitation to the best Venetian painter arrived, and Vasari suggests that the Senate didn’t feel they could spare him. So Gentile was sent.”

“Oh, I think Gentile was good enough for the job, Signor Brett. We should allow him that. When Bellini left, Mehmet gave him a title.”

“He didn’t use the title.”

“Of course not. Mehmet also gave him a gold belt, weighted with coins. It was kept by the Bellini family for many years.”

Palewski leaned on the rail. “Well?”

“Signor Brett.” Alfredo seemed amused. “My patron has spoken at some length to the very owner of the painting you seek.”

“The portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror? By Gentile Bellini?”

“My patron saw it several months ago. And again this morning. Before that—well, it has to do with those gold coins, Signor Brett, and also Tiziano, your Titian. He was a pupil of Bellini.”

“Of Giovanni, surely?” Palewski had not spent those hours reading and rereading Vasari for nothing.

“Of Giovanni, yes, but they were a close family, Signor Brett. And I think, more importantly, we should remember how close the Venetians and the Ottomans were. When Venice sent a bailo to Istanbul, it sent the best, and there were many other merchants, too.”

“Someone bought the portrait and brought it back?”

“Someone who would have known the quality of the work.”

“Who?”

Alfredo smiled and spread his hands. “A little too direct, signore. I cannot tell you the name now—but of course, in due time …”

“And what is the deal?”

“Sixteen thousand kreuzers. Just under six thousand sterling, if you prefer.”

Palewski turned to the rail. Six thousand pounds! Enough, he supposed,
to keep a palazzo for a lifetime, with a gondolier in perpetual attendance! Less than the sultan spent in a month on candles, too, no doubt.

“I do not wish to influence you,” Alfredo remarked. “Believe me, I understand it is a lot of money. But my patron has sold many paintings for very much more. Bellini is not in fashion, to be honest. Tiepolo, Titian, Veronese—very well. We sold a Titian last year to an Englishman for fifteen thousand.”

Palewski gave an imperceptible nod. He had done some homework: Alfredo was right.

“Fashions change,” the dealer observed. “Canaletto—once, two thousand, three thousand. Now you can buy him for eight hundred. There is always another, if you miss one.” He shrugged. “But a Bellini—that, Signor Brett, you can buy only once. If you permit me, I shall leave you with your thoughts. You can find me in Costa’s little bar—it’s close to the end, down a few steps. The evening is getting chilly.”