Frail Barrier (20 page)

‘I'm not sick! She should just take them back!'

‘I didn't mean that you were sick, Giulietta, but this German was. Unfortunately, he died about a week before Albina did. Clementina Foppa's brother was the German's friend. That's how she met your sister.'

‘Was he at the funeral?'

‘I'm afraid not. He's dead, too.'

Urbino explained the circumstances of Benigni's death.

‘I remember some of the neighbors talking about it,' Giulietta said. ‘The young die all the time.'

From the tone of her voice this reality seemed to give her some satisfaction.

‘Did Albina mention it?'

‘No.'

Giulietta stared at him. With some effort, Urbino downed a large portion of his Cynar and stood up.

‘I should be leaving, Giulietta. I've taken up enough of your time.'

‘But you didn't write anything down.'

‘Like you, I have a good memory. By the way, would you mind identifying Albina's keys? I mean each individual one.'

Giulietta's eyes shot to a sideboard near the door where the keys lay in a ceramic plate.

‘I know you told me to put them in her room with her other things,' Giulietta said. ‘I forgot. But I suppose it makes no difference. What do the keys have to do with your book?'

‘They don't have anything to do with it. It's because the apartment was broken into.'

‘Yes. Don't forget that my apartment was broken into.'

It was almost as if she said it to remind him of the break-in.

She got up and brought over the keys. She had no trouble identifying them.

‘This one is for the old lock on the door downstairs.' She pinched the largest key and held it up. ‘And this one is for the old apartment door. And the small one – the one that's bent a little – this one opens her jewelry box.'

‘Was it broken into?'

Giulietta nodded.

‘But everything was still in it. Sentimental things. No real gold and diamonds or things like that.'

‘But yet she kept the box locked.'

‘Sentimental things can have value. Usually greater value than a diamond. A diamond can be replaced.'

‘Of course. But maybe she put something valuable in the box lately.'

‘We weren't the kind of sisters who told each other everything. And I didn't snoop.'

Urbino, a snooper himself – for what else was he doing now? – somehow doubted that Giulietta had made it easy for her sister to keep whatever secrets she had had over the years. But Giulietta had confided no secrets about Albina as far as he could determine. Was this for her sister's sake or for her own? The same question could be asked about her assiduous cleaning of the
sottoportico
.

Albina might have put something in her jewelry box for safekeeping. She could have been going back for her keys to prevent someone from opening the jewelry box if the keys fell into the wrong hands.

But did this make much sense? Someone
had
broken into the box. No key had been needed. But people didn't always think logically. And Albina might have been worried about someone who could open her jewelry box stealthily, with a key, not about someone who would go to the extreme of breaking into it.

If something had been taken – something that Albina had wanted to keep safe and that Giulietta was unaware of, or so she said – it was probably the motivation for not only the break-in but also Albina's death.

Urbino thanked Giulietta and left.

Fifteen minutes later Urbino was going over what he had learned from Giulietta as he entered the Campo San Barnabà on his way to the vaporetto stop. A group of sunburnt backpackers was gathered in front of the church. They had put down their loads and were trying to eat their
gelati
before the brightly colored ice cream melted in the heat.

A tourist stopped Urbino to ask directions to the Ca' Rezzonico. While he was explaining the route the man should take, a young woman walking toward him through the Sottoportico del Casin drew his attention. She looked familiar but the shadows of the passageway obscured a clear view. When she emerged, he identified her as Clementina Foppa. The
cartaio
seated herself at an outdoor table in the café across from the church.

‘Isn't this a pleasant surprise!' she exclaimed when Urbino went up to her table. ‘Why don't you join me? Oh, let me take that away.'

She freed the chair across from her of a small paper bag with the name of her shop on it. Urbino glimpsed the edge of a book-sized object wrapped in marbled paper. Clementina placed the bag on the ground by her feet.

‘Thank you.' Urbino sat down. ‘How are you?'

‘Well enough, in this heat.'

Her pale face, with its bright red lipstick, was beaded with perspiration. She took a lace handkerchief from the pocket of her dark gray dress and patted her face. Urbino noted again her unusually muscular arms.

When the waiter came, they both ordered
limonate
. Their table provided a good view of the small square, with its church, its canal, and the bridge that led to the Fondamenta Rezzonico. The square was busy with shoppers, children, strollers, and tourists. Most of the latter spent no time to enjoy the charms of the spot, however, but surged on toward the Piazza San Marco.

Clementina said that the Campo San Barnabà was her favorite square.

‘Do you live near here?' Urbino asked.

‘No. On the Giudecca near the Fondamenta di San Giacomo.'

It was a working-class quarter near the Church of the Redeemer.

‘I like the Giudecca, but don't get there often enough. What is it about this square that you like so much?'

‘The vegetable and fruit barge, for one thing.' She looked in its direction and then gazed up at the campanile. It had a conical spire, the only one of its kind in the city. ‘The spire, too. But most of all because the square is small and compact. I like small things. Maybe because I'm small myself.'

‘Petite.'

‘A nicer way of putting it,' she said, giving him an appreciative smile. ‘And San Barnabà has an interesting history. Many of the impoverished nobility used to live here. My mother would tell us stories about how poor her noble family had become over the centuries.'

The waiter brought their
limonate
. They sipped them in silence as they looked out into the square. When a dog came up to their table and started to nose at Clementina's bag, she picked it up, drew another chair over to their table, and put the bag on the chair.

‘It's a gift for Albina Gonella's sister,' she said. ‘I don't know her but I thought she might appreciate a visit. I'm stealing a little time away from my shop. She lives near here.'

Urbino found it a little unusual that Clementina was making a visit of charity to someone she didn't know. But why shouldn't she want to reach out to someone else who had just suffered a loss? Surely it was a natural, commendable instinct. And she had gone to Albina's funeral. It could be a way of remembering her own dead.

‘Yes, near the Campo Santa Margherita,' Urbino said. ‘I was just there myself. But I confess I wasn't thoughtful enough to bring a gift.'

Clementina flushed.

‘It's nothing much. Just a book for photographs. After my father died, my mother and I found comfort in organizing photographs of him. It brought back so many good memories. Luca and I did the same thing after she died.' She paused and bit her lip. ‘And now I'm doing the same thing with photographs of Luca. But it's – it's not going so well, I'm afraid.'

Her face went awry in a childish manner, as she struggled to hold back tears. She gave in and started to weep. She took out her lace handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

‘Excuse me,' she said. ‘But it's hard. I pretend it isn't sometimes. I have to go on, the shop and all. But Luca was the only person I had. The only one who meant anything to me. We had different fathers, yes, but he was my brother in all ways.'

‘I'm really very sorry. I know how difficult these things are from my own experience. There's always comfort in sharing grief. What about Luca's father?'

‘He died a few years ago after he moved to California. So Luca and I only had each other – except for a few distant cousins of his in Sicily.'

Tears welled in her eyes again.

Not only did Clementina's tears stir Urbino's sympathies but they also made it difficult to ask her any questions that might disturb her further.

He sat looking at her as she dried her eyes. She returned the handkerchief to her pocket, and took out a pack of cigarettes. They were the same brand as the one on the table beside Giulietta's sofa.

‘I hope you don't mind?' she said.

‘Not at all.'

She lit a cigarette with a small gold lighter and inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke over her shoulder. Her eyes glistened with tears.

‘It's strange, isn't it?' she said. ‘The way a person can break down with almost a complete stranger. It's somehow easier. It surprises me though. There it is, right under the surface ready to come out.'

‘It hasn't been long.'

‘I don't think it'll ever be any different. I've never got over my mother's death. Now with Luca gone, what it's done is to reopen that wound. It never healed. But listen to me! I'm sorry about all this. I really am.'

‘Believe me, I understand. And it's never good to keep these things in. It's good to talk about our dead, no matter how painful.'

Urbino was being both sincere and calculating, and where one shaded into the other wasn't clear even to him. But if he didn't think it would be appropriate to ask Clementina questions, this didn't mean that he couldn't encourage her to talk.

The
cartaio
stubbed out her cigarette. She had hardly smoked it. Her bright red lipstick had left its mark on the tip.

‘You're right,' she said. ‘It does help to talk. I don't think people realize that until they have a loss. Everyone thinks they shouldn't mention the dead, that you don't want to talk. When Zoll died, poor Luca came over and cried like a baby. Knowing that it was going to happen didn't make it easier for him. All he wanted to do was talk about Zoll, tell me the things they had done, little things. He'd probably still be doing it now if … if he hadn't died himself.'

She took a deep breath. Urbino thought she was going to cry again. But she took out another cigarette and lit it.

‘My brother was a very devoted boy, Signor Macintyre. Would you believe that he gave up his studies in March at Ca' Foscari to take care of Zoll? He was very bright. He could have done a lot with his life.'

‘What was he studying?'

‘Art history. That's how he met Zoll. They both loved art. They struck up an acquaintance at the Accademia Gallery. That was two and a half years ago.'

She stubbed out her cigarette, this one even less smoked than the previous one. She drank some of her
limonate
, looking at Urbino in what seemed to be a calculating manner.

‘I think you will understand this,' she said after she put down the glass. ‘Understand and not judge him. Luca was gay. It was never a problem for me, or for our mother. His father didn't know. Luca didn't think he would understand. Zoll was the first man that Luca had a serious relationship with. He told me everything – well, almost everything. He loved Zoll. He would have done anything for him. And Zoll felt the same way. Or he certainly seemed to from what I could see. I was happy for Luca.'

There were so many questions that Urbino wanted to ask, but so far Clementina had made questions unnecessary. Perhaps she wasn't finished yet.

She gave Urbino a faint smile.

‘Maybe you think that Luca was after money. He wasn't. He wasn't manipulating Zoll. I'm not saying that Zoll wasn't generous, but it's not as if he made him a beneficiary in his will.'

‘Are you sure of that?'

‘Well, that's what Luca told me a few weeks before he died. Zoll had a son that he left almost everything to.'

‘A stepson.'

‘I thought it was a son.'

‘He's in Venice now. Have you met him?'

Clementina looked at her wristwatch.

‘Met him? What reason would I have to meet him? Excuse me. I should get to Giulietta's apartment. My assistant is looking after the shop. She's trustworthy enough, but you know how it is.'

She seemed eager to leave now. Perhaps she had said more than she wanted, but if she had, it hadn't been because Urbino had been asking her a lot of questions. She had seemed more than willing to confide in him, at least on her own terms.

The vaporetto to San Marco was packed with tourists, some of them already drunk at this hour. Urbino stood next to the railing, not even thinking about trying to make his way to the stern.

An elderly Venetian couple stood beside him, complaining that they couldn't find a seat. Urbino offered to arrange two bags so that they might sit on them, being sure to use the Venetian dialect, but the husband declined.

‘We're getting off at the Accademia,' he said.

Urbino chatted with them about the upcoming regatta until they reached their stop, which was the next one.

For the rest of the ride down the Grand Canal, Urbino tried to block out all the noise and confusion around him by looking at the buildings along the banks, but he projected his gaze at the upper stories and roofs of the buildings. In this way he was able to remove himself further from all the activity surrounding him, getting a view of one
altana
after another, chimneys, tiles, and high-perched balconies. He stared for long moments at the Gothic balcony of Zoll's apartment and the windows of the Gritti Hotel across from it before refreshing his eyes with the white dome of the Salute.

He ran over in his mind what Clementina had told him about Luca. He regretted that he had not felt comfortable asking her more questions. Their conversation had left him with the feeling that he had been, in some sense, manipulated. But in what direction and for what motivation he didn't have the vaguest idea.