Book of Stolen Tales (30 page)

“Aspiett' nu minut', Vera. Te voglio salutà.”
Katharina held her arms open.
“Vien' a ccà.”
The little girl ran to her, the boy following much more tentatively. She gave them each a double kiss and shooed them back. The woman ushered the children away. Katharina waited until they were out of earshot. “My grandchildren are leaving to go home after their visit. Vera, my housekeeper, has her hands full with those two. I forget how much energy little ones take.”

“You look far too young to be a grandmother.”

My compliment brought a smile to her lips. She sat down and with a tantalizing swish of her silk stockings crossed her legs. “Ah, you are very diplomatic, Mr. Madison. It will soon be my fortieth birthday,” she said. “What is that phrase you use in English? Almost over the hill.”

“Far from that,” I said honestly.

She picked up the file and handed it to me. “Here's the copy of my volume.”

I thanked her and put it in my case. “That's wonderful. Would you mind if I took another quick look at the original?”

She gave me a cautious look as if to assess my intent. “If you wish.” She walked back to the desk and I followed her. She opened the book gently and turned the pages slowly with a thin wooden spatula.

“It's fascinating to think these pages were first read hundreds of years ago. I understand it was an instant bestseller. I've been told some of these stories are based on actual events. What do you think of that?”

She put a finger to her lips. “They're fairy tales—myths—nothing more. If there's any truth to them, after so much time it's no longer recognizable as such. That's even the case for much of what passes for history. You probably think Nero played his fiddle when Rome burned, no?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Well, it's false. The precursor to the fiddle wasn't even invented until the ninth century. And Marie Antoinette never said, ‘Let them eat cake.' That came from the mouth of a French queen one hundred years earlier.”

“Really? The reason I ask is because there's supposed to be some tie between Basile's tales and an outbreak of the plague. Would you know anything about that?”

“Not offhand. Unless you mean the author himself. He died of the plague in 1632.”

“He did?”

“Not the Black Death. The disease that took his life claimed many souls in Napoli. Historians still don't know what type of epidemic it was.”

“Wait a second. Did you say Basile died in 1632? But the first volume of the book wasn't published until 1634.”

“Didn't you know? What we're looking at is a final printer's proof—like a galley. It wasn't properly checked and you can see mistakes in some of the story titles and formatting. A terrible volcanic eruption occurred in the winter of 1631 and the following year a plague hit the city. Conditions in Napoli grew very grim, so normal commerce was brought to a halt. Only when Basile's sister got in touch with the publishers after he died did they go ahead and publish the book. Without her, his great writing might have been lost to us.”

The sole surviving galley for such a famous book would be even more precious than the first edition. I digested this as I leafed through the rest of her book.

Katharina checked her watch. “I find myself at loose ends without social obligations tonight. If you have no pressing business, could I interest you in an early dinner? Not many people are familiar with Basile's anthology. I'd love to talk more about it and there's a pleasant bistro not far away.”

She made the offer quite casually, as if it were all the same to her whether I accepted the invitation or not. I was under no illusions, however, and doubted very much she made a habit of inviting strange men to dinner. No red-blooded guy would turn down an invitation like that, and besides, I was intrigued to find out what she really wanted.

The pleasant bistro turned out to be a five-star restaurant. By the end of dinner, after we'd gone through two bottles of Château Poujeaux, I was feeling no pain and didn't care how much it cost. Katharina tried to pry out of me how I found out she'd bought the book. It became clear this was the real reason she'd suggested we go out. I deflected her questions and she didn't insist. When I asked about her husband she said they'd recently separated. Except for her houseman, who didn't strike me as much of a defender, she was pretty much alone.

“I want to tell you,” I said, “to be careful. The man who arranged the sale of the book was murdered in Naples. Can you hire someone to watch over you until this affair is sorted out? Will you be all right?”

My warning didn't seem to alarm her in any way; in fact, her lips turned up in a faint smile. “How very sweet of you, John. But don't worry. I'm quite safe.”

I thought of emphasizing the point but her reaction suggested it would have no effect.

“I hope you're right. At least consider it.”

Rain was pelting down by the time we left the restaurant. Katharina drew me closer under her umbrella. We were both pretty tipsy and in good enough moods not to care about a few drops of rain. By now it was clear she didn't intend for the night to end at her doorstep. When we reached her place she suggested a nightcap. She brushed my fingers with her lips as I helped her off with her coat. I returned the compliment with a deep kiss. The cognac we had intended to drink became a distant memory.

The street lamp outside cast a glow in her bedroom, highlighting the wet, golden-brown waves of her hair. Rain water trailing down from her hair glistened on her tawny skin. She let her dress slide to the floor. Underneath she wore only a full-length translucent slip that veiled her body just enough to make me want to see more. I lifted her slip and felt the heat of her bare skin against mine as I took her in my arms.

As we lay together afterward she ran her fingers down my chest. “You avoided answering me earlier, but I'd still like to know how you found out I bought the book. Did Ewan Fraser figure it out? Did he tell you?”

I uncoupled from the warmth of her body and reached for my clothes on the floor, putting them on as I sat on the edge of the bed. “It's a long story and I'll tell you, I promise, but first”—I paused to brush her cheek with a kiss—”which way is the restroom?”

“Three doors down the hall. I look forward to hearing your answer when you return.”

Visiting the bathroom was an excuse to buy some time to think up a good answer without revealing too much. I walked down the corridor, counted three doorways, and realized I didn't know whether she'd been referring to the left or the right side of the hall. I pushed open the door on my left.

The odd nature of the room I entered struck me immediately. Not square but octagonal, all eight sides different widths. Even the verticals looked skewed, as if the walls sloped inward. It had bare wooden floors and possessed no furniture save for a mirror in a beautifully enameled frame hanging on one of the angled walls. Its wavy surface and the markings on the glass suggested the mirror was quite old.

At first I couldn't understand what I saw—or didn't see—in it. Although the mirror reproduced the room's background faithfully, my own reflection did not appear. Touching the glass without seeing my hand had a strangely disorienting effect. I guessed the phenomenon had something to do with the mirror's placement in the context of the irregular walls.

The only other object in the room was a framed picture with its face turned toward the wall. Unaccountably, this
was
reflected in the mirror. The backing appeared brittle and browned. It had an inscription in Spanish and a date in Roman numerals. I turned it around.

It was a portrait of Dina. I could hardly believe my eyes. Not just her mass of dark hair, rosy lips, and porcelain skin, but every feature faithfully copied. Even the painted expression resembled that of the woman I'd so recently left in France: a patrician aloofness softened with a touch of warmth. The oil painting had tiny eggshell cracks—the patina—of a centuries-old original. But how could that be? Faked oil paintings are legion in the art industry and some have fooled even the best scholars. This one looked convincingly aged. It had to be a clever reproduction.

I heard a sound behind me.

“May I ask what you're doing?” Katharina stood wrapped in her bathrobe, disapproval stamped on her features.

“I didn't mean to pry,” I said. “I got the wrong room. Then I saw this mirror. It's entrancing. How does it work? Is it related to the angle of the walls?”

“Something like that,” she replied sharply.

“Can you see your reflection in it? Mine doesn't show.”

“Only that ghastly portrait is caught by the mirror. I saw your reaction to the picture. You know her, don't you?”

Her tone, her entire demeanor, had changed. She held herself stiffly. The room's bright light emphasized the prominent angles of her face and a tiny web of lines around her eyes that I'd not noticed before.

“Yes, I do.”

Katharina moved back to let me exit the room; then she pulled the door shut and locked it with a key from her pocket. “Dina sent you here, didn't she? I took every precaution to hide my name when I bought the book from her agent. How did she find out?”

“Dina gave me your address but otherwise left me completely in the dark. I had no idea you knew her, let alone had a portrait of her hanging in your home.”

Her lips trembled in the effort to get her next words out. “She stole my husband from me.”

The veil fell from my eyes. “You're Lorenzo Mancini's wife.”

Thirty

November 27, 2003

Ghent, Belgium

“
L
egally, anyway,” she said bitterly. “I use my maiden name now.” Again I was struck by the transformation in her character. While at first she'd seemed so genteel, her eyes now burned with spite. The mere mention of Dina's name set off a torrent of hatred. “My husband prefers young flesh—that is true. I was seventeen when we married, an alliance forced on me by my parents. Dina came to us in 1998. I suppose she told you the sad story about her life? How she was an aristocrat from an obscure family and that her mother died, her father lost his business and essentially abandoned her?”

“Something along those lines.” I tried to keep my tone neutral.

“I'm sure you think she's the picture of innocence,” Katharina said coldly. “Lorenzo brought her home one day and announced she'd be living with us. He gave me no choice at all. She had no identity papers. She was unable to speak proper Italian, had an unusual dialect I could barely understand. Her manners were hopeless. My husband took her on as a project, a kind of Pygmalion. He wanted to see if he could turn an urchin into a lady.”

“She certainly is that now.”

Katharina gave me a black look. “She's anything but. From the start I could see her begin to work on his … emotions. I pleaded with Lorenzo, but in the end, had to stand by and watch it happen. Every flirtatious glance she threw his way was like a razor slicing through my veins. There was nothing I could do. Tell me, where does a fifteen-year-old learn such powers of seduction? She was no virgin, even at that young age. He got her from some brothel.” Spittle flew out of her mouth as she spoke.

“Why keep her picture then, Katharina, if you hate her so deeply?”

“My husband checks on me. He insists I keep the painting in that exact location and always makes sure it's there. ‘A little torture,' he says—to pay me back for leaving him. The mirror was his idea too. A little beauty he picked up in Lohr. Ours was not a great love match but it fell apart when he met Dina. He has a legendary temper. I go along with his wishes to keep the peace.

“Anyway, that's not
your
Dina,” Katharina snapped. “It's a 1638 Renaissance portrait attributed to José de Ribera, the illustrator of our little book. One of the painter's earlier works. An almost identical painting by him now hangs in the Prado that dates to 1641. My husband was mistakenly told it was a portrait of Margarete von Waldeck. That proved untrue, since von Waldeck died thirty-seven years before de Ribera was born.”