Black Bridge

Black Bridge

The Mysteries of Venice, Book Four

Edward Sklepowich

MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

F
OR MY FATHER
,

FROM HIS “FAVORITE SON.”

All along the Grand Canal, repeated in the distance by all the boats, flowed the melody of transient pleasure.

Gabriele d'Annunzio
, Fire

PROLOGUE

Belladonna

In the months afterward, whenever Urbino Macintyre looked back over the events that brought the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini so close to death, he told himself that they began one afternoon in late October at Caffè Florian.

Nothing in their immediate environment suggested the impending tragedy, however. For one thing, the Contessa was most attractively clinging to summer. Her dress was sheer, a pattern of marigolds on a wine-dark background. And she was full of life at the time, almost irritatingly so to someone like himself who had been in a bit of a funk for several weeks.

The Chinese salon, where the two friends had ensconced themselves at their accustomed table by the window, was a red-and-gold Whistler palette this afternoon. The filtered sun from Piazza San Marco, the bronze
amorini
spilling their buttery light, the Rosolio glasses with cocoa and cherry, the maroon banquettes, the gilded strips of wood and burnished parquet floor, the pattern of the Contessa's dress—even Urbino's sherry and the first-flush jasmine in the Contessa's teacup—contributed to the painterly effect.

“Go, then,” the Contessa said with a barely audible sigh, “but why you think you must slap mud all over your still obscenely young body is beyond me. Your little flare-up is over, isn't it?”

“But I feel twinges.”

“Twinges!” Scorn edged the Contessa's voice. “I call it hypochondria. Oh, I'm not disputing that you were indisposed with that grotesque toe of yours. I saw it, don't forget. The sight will be with me for a long time to come. But if you're really living in fear of another flare-up you shouldn't be drinking alcohol. You should be looking after yourself better—and by that I don't mean dipping yourself in mud and being maudlin about yourself. Didn't Byron swim the Hellespont and all the way from the Lido to the far end of the Grand Canal? And he had a clubfoot!”

“I don't think you understand, Barbara.”

He didn't like the petulant note in his own voice. It seemed to be there more and more these days.

“Oh, but I do, my dear. You're afraid you're sliding into the most awkward age of all—the so-called middle years. You're afraid it's farewell to your youth. And, yes—admit it—you're afraid it's your first personally designed little
memento mori
. Am I right,
caro
?”

The Contessa definitely was but he didn't feel like giving her any satisfaction by saying so.

“Such a Victorian ailment,” she went on. “Almost a period picture: The men indisposed with gout and the women in a vaporish swoon. I've been reading up on your indisposition. Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Henry the Eighth—no, forget him, I suppose, although he's given me an idea for your Christmas gift: One of those stools he rested his gouty foot on. Don't get all ruffled! I think you're losing your sense of humor and when that goes, my friend—”

She shook her head forebodingly. Urbino pretended an interest in the game of chess a German couple was playing at a nearby table on a small, portable chessboard.

“But please!” the Contessa continued, unable to restrain herself from giving him more advice. “Don't become one of those desperate souls who tries to keep nature at bay. Monkey glands! Calf embryos! And those liver injections Harriet gets at that Dracula Institute up in Hungary!” The Contessa shook her stylishly coifed honey blond head slowly. She was referring to Harriet Kolb, her live-in social secretary who was obsessed with quack cures and psychics. “It may all begin with mud!”

“I seem to remember that you indulged yourself in a whole week's worth of mud at Montecatini two years ago.”

“Oh, that!” The Contessa languidly waved a beringed hand in the air. “That
fango
was for my face,” she said, using the Italian word as if it described something more evolved than the mud of the Montecatini spa near Florence.

She lifted the selfsame face up as if inviting Urbino to inspect the wonders of
fango
applied where it should be. She had never divulged the actual, incriminating number of her age, but, according to Urbino's computations, it had to be close to two decades more than his own rapidly approaching four. It was an attractive face which fine bone structure, good genes, and the judicious application of makeup—and perhaps even
fango
—made look at least ten years younger.

“At any rate, Urbino, Montecatini was more for Oriana's sake. She needed someone to confide in during the few moments she wasn't with her Berliner. Come to think of it,
he
had the gout. In his sixties though,” she added with a smile. “Speaking of Oriana, you've been very remiss about her new friend, especially since he's an American.”

This concern for Oriana's love affairs was a new note for the Contessa to strike.

“Why bother? For one thing, I don't particularly like Flint, whether he's an American or not.”

“But he's so handsome, wouldn't you say?”

“Handsome, yes, and very clever as well. He's taking full advantage of Oriana.”

“No one could ever do that. She's a real tiger!”

A leopard would have been a more appropriate animal, Urbino thought, given some of her outfits, but he said instead: “At any rate, it'll soon be over. It's already gone on much longer than any of her other affairs.”

“That's just it,
caro
. It's been going on for months and months, and I'm quite sure it's not an affair.”

“What do you call it when she's married to Filippo?”

“I call it quite simply love!”

Urbino now knew he could no longer ignore the change in his usually predictable Contessa.

“Love! You must be kidding.”

“I don't believe I could be accused of ever ‘kidding' in my life, certainly never about love, Urbino dear.”

He looked out into Piazza San Marco. What Napoleon had called the finest drawing room of Europe had regained some of its sedateness after the insanity of high season. The hordes of boisterous tourists had departed. In their place were people who gazed instead of gaped and who negotiated the square and arcades with almost an air of indolence.

His favorite months in Venice were upon them, and he had been looking forward to consoling, restorative hours of the Contessa's company. Long strings of mornings at the museums, afternoons like these at Florian's, day trips to Torcello and Florence, dinners at their favorite restaurants, concerts and operas at the Teatro del Ridotto and the Teatro La Fenice, and intimate evenings in the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini.

But he had been deluding himself. Her comments about Oriana's newest lover indicated just how little she was herself these days. He believed he knew why. Her next comment proved him right.

“You realize,
caro
, don't you, that you have to be back from Abano in time for Bobo's opening night?”

Bobo—or the Barone Roberto Casarotto-Re, a longtime friend of the Contessa and her deceased husband—was coming to town to perform in his one-man show on the controversial writer Gabriele d'Annunzio. Although Urbino had never met him, he had heard about him—all too much, in fact, during the past few months.

The Contessa lowered her eyes to her dress and removed a nonexistent speck from its background.

“Oh, you'll just love Bobo! He's practically devoted his entire life to the ugly little man.”

The Barone himself, however, was in no way an “ugly little man.” If the Contessa's descriptions had made Urbino think she might be exaggerating, two photographs had quickly disillusioned him. One showed a handsome, vigorous man in tennis whites, who, to Urbino's amazement, the Contessa said was sixty-five. The other was his publicity photo. Taken ten years ago, it revealed how little the noble, leonine Barone had changed.

“I wouldn't miss the opening of the Barone's impersonation for anything!”

“Bobo gives a performance, Urbino.
Pomegranate
is a play based on his own script, as you well know. We're not going to have any problems, are we? ‘Problems' because you're too preoccupied with your toe to be able to enjoy yourself and—and to let others do the same!”

She sighed and reached out to touch his hand.

“I worry about you,” she went on. “I couldn't worry more if I were your—your—” She searched for the right relationship, then abandoned the attempt. “Oh, I've seen how you look at people enjoying themselves. Like that sweet couple sitting there on the steps.” She cast an indulgent glance at a boy and girl snacking on cheese and bread, a sight which on previous occasions would have provoked her. “You're envious! Envious of how they seem to be able to enjoy so much with so little, to possess the whole of Venice from their humble little perch. No, it doesn't take much, does it? There's a great deal of consolation in that,” she said as if she weren't one of the wealthiest women in Venice.

She was silent for a few moments as she gazed out at the couple from her own far from humble perch, then, with the manner of rousing herself from a dream: “So drive any silly notions about being ill out of your head. You've got so much to look forward to. We
both
have!”

The Contessa's face was glowing, and it wasn't artifice or the warm colors and golden light of Florian's.

“In addition to Bobo,
caro
, there's this lovely weather, the end of the tourist season, and my bridge of boats. Of course, though, that's on a more somber note.”

The bridge of boats was a pontoon bridge across the lagoon to the cemetery island of San Michele on November 2, the Day of All Souls. She referred to it proprietarily as “hers” because she was reviving—and underwriting—the solemn Venetian tradition.

She spread orange marmalade over a piece of toasted scone and added a generous dollop of whipped cream. She held the scone out to Urbino.

“For you,
caro
. To soothe you. It won't do you any harm.”

She prepared another piece for herself, an almost imperceptible frown wrinkling her brow, then said: “You'll be your usual sweet self to Bobo, won't you? He was one of Alvise's best friends. Ever since Rosa died, life seems to have lost a lot of its flavor for him. I'm happy that he's finally having the success he deserves.”

“Bobo! Isn't that a rather juvenile name for a man his age?”

“It's endearing! It captures a
je ne sais quoi
about him. Oh, you'll see,
caro
! She then wove an anecdote about the man astride his horse in the Campania. “Just like Colleoni!” she enthused. She was referring to the imposing equestrian statue of the
condottiere
in front of San Zanipolo, which at this time of the day was bathed in tones as golden as the words she was lavishing on Bobo.