The Art of Waiting (28 page)

‘Maybe he didn't have it with him that day.'

‘But he took it everywhere, it seems. He was rather attached to it.'

‘Well, maybe someone picked it up and walked off with it?'

‘Without noticing the body?'

‘You said the body was in the water.'

‘Did I? Oh yes, of course. Perhaps it was out of sight. So we may only be looking for a thief, or perhaps just an opportunist, guilty of nothing more than picking up what he found without reporting it to the police.'

‘I still don't see what all this has got to do with me.'

‘But of course you do. As I was saying, we may just be looking for a thief, but the balance of probability is that whoever has the violin is not just a thief but also, how shall I put this . . . well, yes, a murderer. And the thing that is troubling me, Aldo Gardini, is that this colleague of mine, an accomplished musician and a trusted policeman of many years' standing, has told me, categorically, that the violin you were playing the other night is the same violin – the very same violin – that the street musician played. Now, if you had told me that you'd bought the violin a month ago, six weeks ago, in a market here in Venice, then I would have to accept that your explanation was perfectly plausible, that the killer had perhaps sold the violin on to you without you being aware of its dubious provenance. But could you help me with this, my friend? Can you tell me exactly how you managed to acquire that particular violin, that specific violin, several years ago in a market in Rome?'

‘No, I'm afraid I can't.'

‘Then should I not doubt your story? Should I not think that perhaps you did not acquire your violin – the violin – in Rome several years ago, but rather in some dark back alley of San Polo in early December of last year? Would that not be a safe assumption for me to make?'

‘No, it would not.'

‘Could you elaborate?'

‘I bought . . . my father bought . . . the violin . . . my violin . . . in Rome, several years ago, and a rather similar knot in the wood doesn't alter that fact. And if that's all you wanted to question me about, I suggest you find more evidence before you bother me with this again.'

‘Well, of course we will be searching for further evidence. And as I mentioned earlier, we would like you to bring in the violin so we can take a closer look. Because in fact it's not just the knot in the wood that caught my colleague's attention . . . I may as well tell you his name, you know him already in fact, a newcomer to your ensemble – Inspector Galliani. Inspector Galliani also noticed various other characteristics in the wood. I have a full description here, if you're interested.'

He took a sheet of paper from his drawer, laid it on the leather-topped desk, smoothed it flat and leant over it. ‘Let me see . . . a crescent-shaped scratch to the back plate, a slight discolouring of the neck . . . should I read you the whole thing?'

‘That doesn't prove anything. He saw the violin last night. Of course he can describe it in detail. It doesn't mean it belonged to the old man, or anyone else.'

The Chief Inspector suddenly sat bolt upright. ‘The old man? What makes you think he was an
old
man? Did I say he was an
old
man?'

‘Yes, I'm sure you said he was an old man.' The Chief Inspector turned to Inspector Marchiori. ‘Inspector Marchiori, did I say he was an
old
man? I don't recall saying that.'

‘No, I don't believe you did.'

‘So, Signore Gardini, precisely how old was this old man? What exactly did this old man look like?'

‘I have no idea.'

‘You see, you may well think that none of this . . . evidence . . . proves anything. And indeed, between you and me, it may be true that none of this would stand up in a court of law, but the first step to solving a crime is to find the victim, and the second is to find the
criminal, and the last step is to show beyond doubt that you have found him. Well, we have found the victim – I think we are all acquainted with him rather better than we would wish. And I'm fairly sure . . . no, I know . . . that I have also found the criminal. I know that because my colleague, Inspector Galliani, tells me so, and I know it even more after talking to you today. All that remains is the third step. All that remains is to show, to prove to others, that which has already been shown to me as clear as you are sitting in front of me now. And I know one other thing. I know that it is merely a matter of time, that you are no match for me and sooner or later you will be mine. But for now you may go. We will come and find you when we want you again, when we want to see the instrument. My apologies to your boss for keeping you so long. Good day, Signore Gardini.'

Aldo stood up and as he reached the door the Chief Inspector spoke again.

‘You know, people think the dead have no voice, but I can hear them. All you have to do is listen, and they'll tell you all you need to know.'

Aldo turned and walked out. He was accompanied down the corridor by Inspector Marchiori, then down the stairs and out into the street where low cloud smeared the sky just above the rooftops.

Friday evening came, and Aldo had another appointment with the ensemble in the church near Campo Santo Stefano. As usual he met a couple of the other musicians in a café before the show. The violin sat on a chair next to him and Aldo's contributions to the conversation were abrupt and self-conscious and he wondered if the edge of his mood transmitted itself to the others and if they could possibly suspect the reason for it. But the cellist was not there – he had only recently joined the ensemble and was not yet a regular fixture – and Aldo hoped that the others knew nothing of the man's suspicions, but as the keeper of a dark secret Aldo still feared that far more of the truth might be known by far more people than was really the case, and he hoped that if the others noticed his cautious wary looks they would simply assume he was experiencing some
banal domestic difficulty or a problem with money. He tuned into their conversation intermittently as it flitted from one subject to another. It turned to La Fenice, the great Baroque theatre in the heart of Venice.

‘A pal of mine plays in the orchestra there, the finest in Italy,' said Bruno, the jovial second violinist. ‘Probably the best in Europe, in fact, nothing like it anywhere.'

Another man shook his head and mocked Bruno's assertion.

‘But you haven't even been there,' Bruno insisted, placing his glass of wine firmly on the bar.

‘What about La Scala?' said another. ‘Or one of the big ones in Rome . . . what do you call that one, you know, up by Largo Argentina . . . damn, my memory's going, I was there just last year.'

‘But what could be better than Venice?' asked Bruno. ‘What finer venue could there be? What did you see in Rome, anyway? Some second-rate rubbish, I bet.'

‘No. It was very good. A ballet.'

‘Ballet?' said Aldo, pricking up his ears.

‘Oh, so you're still with us, Aldo?'

‘Which ballet was it?' he said again.

‘I didn't know you were a fan.
Swan Lake
– good stuff. They're in Italy again now, coming here next weekend, in fact. Bruno, you'll be able to see them at your beloved Fenice.'

‘I've got my tickets already,' said Bruno. ‘The Kirov – not very often they come this way.'

‘The Kirov?' said Aldo. ‘From Russia?'

‘The very ones. From Leningrad. You want to go? You'll need to hurry – the tickets are nearly sold out.'

The following day Aldo was at the box office before it opened. He handed over the money and grabbed his ticket and pushed it deep into his pocket and went to work, and all through the day he checked his pocket, fifty or a hundred times, and he thought about Katerina each time he did so. Isabella dropped by at the
bottega
later that afternoon and Aldo filled a bottle of wine from one of the barrels and gave it to her. She held out her coins.

‘Don't worry about that – just take it. Michele likes you, I know he won't mind.'

‘Thanks, Aldo. Come round to my place after work?' she said.

‘Sure. I get off at seven. Try not to drink all the wine before I get there. I've got something to celebrate.'

‘Then bring another bottle. We can have a party.'

That evening Aldo knocked on the door and Madame Leroux let him in. He went up to Isabella's room and they sat on her bed and drank from the bottle.

‘I hear you're in trouble, Aldo.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘With the police.'

‘Oh, that. Who told you?'

‘Michele.'

‘Was he upset? About the police coming to the shop?'

‘A little. Did you do it, Aldo?'

‘Do what?'

‘What they said you did?'

‘Who told you what they said?'

‘Michele.'

‘And who told him?'

‘The police.'

‘What, they've gone and told him all about it? They've no right to do that.'

‘Don't worry, Michele won't kick you out. I told him you hadn't done it.'

‘And he took your word for it?'

‘Of course. Michele and I go back a long way.'

There was a long period of silence.

‘Have some more wine,' she said.

He took a long swig from the bottle.

‘And the knot in the wood?' she asked.

‘God, they don't keep any secrets, do they? The knot in the wood . . . I don't know. There's this knot in the wood and it's supposed to be the same as on the violin this old guy had, but . . . but I don't know.'

‘You know, Aldo, if you ever need to tell me anything, I'm here. You know that?'

‘I know.'

A little later they lay on the bed and Isabella reached her hand across Aldo's chest and stomach and then a little lower, but he did not respond.

‘Too many things buzzing around in your head?' she asked. ‘I suppose.'

‘Then let me take them off your mind . . .'

‘Not tonight, Isabella.'

‘Is it this thing with the police?'

‘Partly.'

‘What else?'

‘Katerina.'

‘Katerina? Your Russian angel?'

‘Yes. My angel in the snow.'

‘What's up? Has she written back at last?'

‘No, but she's coming to Venice next week.'

‘Oh, my God. Are you sure?'

‘Yes, Bruno told me. The Kirov are coming.'

‘But is
she
coming?'

‘Of course she is.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I just know, Isabella, I just know. And at last we'll meet again.'

Teatro La Fenice

Venice, March 1951

Aldo flitted across Campo San Fantin, up the steps, and in through the doors of La Fenice. He showed his ticket to an attendant who ushered him from the foyer to the auditorium, past velvet curtains trailing from ceiling to floor. The place was decorated in red and gold, the gilt-edged tiers festooned with roses that filled the air with their fragrance as the hum of the gathering audience swirled around the huge brass chandelier high above, a golden bird trapped inside its gilded cage. Aldo found his seat, just left of centre, just yards from the stage, and eased himself into the unfamiliar softness of the chair. He turned to look at the people around him, engaged in animated conversation or looking through their programmes as the orchestra tuned up their instruments and as the lights dimmed, almost imperceptibly at first, and the orchestra fell into silence, Aldo noticed Fausto Pozzi just a few seats away. The Chief Inspector was sitting right next to him.

The lights went out, the curtain rose, and the stage lights threw the scene into the blue hues of night. White forms drifted through the blue, floating in the pale light against a backdrop of imagined trees and reeds and expanses of water that stretched from the back of the stage into the painted infinity of the set, and Aldo was taken back in time, back to a lake in Russia, back at last to the spring of '43. He peered at the features of the dancers, searching for the face he had held for so long in his memory, the face that had looked out from the photograph he held in frozen fingers on endless days on the steppe, the face that must have followed so intently the passage of her own pen across the page as she composed lost letters to him
from Leningrad, the face that had crossed so many stages since they had parted. And then one of the dancers sailed higher, as if hung from invisible strings held by a hidden hand. Aldo watched her leap, her flight drawn out into an almost impossibly elongated ecstasy, all in white and suspended in the air, her head towards the audience, her eyes towards the sky. His mind went back to the first time he had seen her dance, that night on the beach by the lake in Russia, how beautiful she had been, and how she had talked about her dancing with such longing and such clarity, with no ambiguity about what she had ever wanted to do with her life. And here she was! She had fulfilled her dreams and he felt suddenly and deeply proud of what she had achieved and that he had once been her friend. As he watched her, his face wreathed in smiles, he imagined that she too might be looking for one solitary face, a face alone on a beach by a lake instead of a hundred pairs of eyes, and that the sea of faces might be condensed to just one – just one face looking back at her, just left of centre, just yards from the stage – and that when she saw him the weight of the intervening years would fall from her eyes and it would be as if they had never been apart.

Then his heart leapt as he saw her eyes fix on his – or at least he thought he did, willing it to be, reality and hope at last enjoined – and as the show ended Aldo dashed up the aisle as the audience burst into cheers and applause. He rushed to the side of the stage and in through a door to a corridor where people were going about their backstage duties, performers and stagehands and men gathering up tools and wires. He found a door that lay ajar and through the door he saw the ballerinas and there in the corner was a woman who looked just like Katerina, a shawl wrapped around her slender frame as she talked with the others, and then the sound of her laughter, just as he remembered it, but then someone was closing the door from the inside, and Aldo was reaching his hand out to the door, about to push it open, to put all his weight behind it and rush headlong inside, calling out her name, but he felt a firm hand on his arm and someone strong was tugging his arm away, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing, didn't he know this was a
restricted area. Restricted area, like hell, he thought, I'm going through and nothing's going to stop me, not after everything I've been through, not after waiting so long. But the strong hand pulled him around and up he looked, into the eyes of his questioner, the glint of gold teeth, then the voice. The Chief Inspector.

‘Signore Gardini, fancy seeing you here. Are you sure they're expecting you in there?'

‘Get your fucking hands off me!' And Aldo raised a hand as if to strike at him.

‘I wouldn't do that, my friend. You're in enough trouble as it is.'

‘Then get off me, I'm going in!'

‘I don't think our Russian friends would wish their stars to be disturbed when they're so tired, after they've shone so brightly on the stage.'

‘But she's a friend of mine. Let me in. I must see her.'

‘Yes, of course she is. A very dear friend, I'm sure.'

‘Let go of me, I said. I met her in the war. Let me in! Katerina! Katerina!'

But the Chief Inspector held onto him and others were arriving now, Russian men whose duty it was to guard their compatriots from the temptations of the West. Aldo struck out at them, their voices setting him off, and once again he felt Russian fists laying into him, one more memory from 1943. He called out Katerina's name, pleading for her to come and tell them that it was true, that he
had
met her in the war and they had been dear friends and he must see her again, must be allowed to sit with her, one human being with another, both so dear to each other that they were never meant to be apart. But the door stayed firmly shut and he knew she could not hear his voice and he was dragged outside and the Chief Inspector called over a couple of off-duty officers to help him and together they carted Aldo away across the square. They took him to the police station and put him behind the iron bars of a cell. He sat on a wooden bench and waited. The hours passed and he listened to the footsteps of people coming and going through a door that lay out of sight down the grey corridor as evening turned to night and
night turned to day, dawn appearing behind the small barred window high up on the facing wall. Finally he heard voices. Footsteps approached down the corridor and the Chief Inspector let himself into the cell. Aldo stood up.

‘You can go now,' the Chief Inspector said. ‘It seems there has been a misunderstanding.'

‘A misunderstanding?'

‘Yes, I'd trust Inspector Galliani's judgement with my life, but . . .'

‘Galliani?'

‘The cellist. But a small complication has arisen.'

‘I told you so. I told you you were wrong.'

‘I am never wrong. But his description of the violin seems to have been a little, how shall I put this? Well, a little flawed. Yes, a little lacking in accuracy. We went to your house, we searched it, as you might expect, we found your violin, a violin . . . in the kitchen cupboard, as you said . . . and there was no knot in the wood, no scratch, none of that. So for now you're free to go . . .'

He paused and Aldo felt him studying him as he did so, peering right into him, judging him again.

‘. . . but of course we may discover at some point that you acquired this new instrument from elsewhere. Or perhaps you had an accomplice.'

‘But that's impossible. Who could have helped me with such a thing?'

‘Of course you would say that. Even you must have friends. But one day we will knock on your door again, and we will go through all this once more. But for now, without any evidence, I'm afraid I am temporarily unable to demonstrate the veracity of my convictions . . .'

‘You mean you were wrong.'

‘. . . and so you may leave.'

‘Wait, I want to ask you a question first, if you'll allow me that?'

‘Yes?'

‘Why did you follow me backstage? Why on earth did you stop me seeing Katerina? What the hell did it matter to you?'

‘Katerina?'

‘The Russian.'

‘Oh, Christ! You really believe there was someone there you knew? You must be even crazier than I thought.'

‘But she was there! I saw her. Just yards away, after all this time. It was meant to be, and you stopped me, sticking your fucking nose in again where it's got no right to be.'

‘I find your tone inappropriate. I could keep you here forever if I wished.'

‘Could you? Do it then!'

‘You're tempting me.'

‘All right, all right. But tell me, what business did you have following me?'

‘I was watching you, of course. You were of interest to me, after our conversation the other day. The story with the violin, all of that.'

The Chief Inspector pulled his lips back in thought. ‘But, I'll let you in on a little secret, my friend. I'd become a little distracted, to be honest, thinking about this and that, as one does, and it was Fausto Pozzi who pointed you out, when you headed off backstage, otherwise I may not have noticed. He said you'd be up to no good, that I should go and see what on earth you were doing.'

Aldo sat down on the bench again and put his head in his hands, the pig on his arm stirring, opening its eyes, lifting its head. Aldo looked up at the Chief Inspector.

‘Fausto Pozzi is a bastard. He'll pay for this. And he'll pay for the other thing too.'

‘The other thing?'

‘In the forest, years ago. Before the war.'

‘In the forest?'

‘My father, Luca Gardini. He was killed out there.'

‘Oh yes, I remember it. A hunting accident, wasn't it?'

‘It wasn't a fucking accident!'

The Chief Inspector rested a hand on Aldo's shoulder and squeezed it gently. ‘Control yourself, now. You wouldn't want me to have to question you again.'

Aldo brushed his hand away. ‘Where have they taken Katerina anyway? I have to see her.'

‘There was no Katerina, Aldo, there can't have been. They all look alike, anyway, those communist girls – I wouldn't touch one with a barge-pole, myself. You just imagined it was her, someone you thought you knew. Wishful thinking, I suppose. That would be understandable after everything you've been through.'

‘But it
was
her. I promise you, it was her.'

‘Well, even if it was, she's gone again now, you can be certain of that. They left straight after the show, the last date of the tour. She'll be half-way home by now and I don't expect she'll ever be coming back.'

The Chief Inspector led him out of the cell and the door clicked shut behind them, the sound of someone closing the chamber of a gun. Aldo stepped outside into the street. He knew where he was going now. He knew what he was going to do.