Dead Lagoon - 4 (12 page)

‘I saw Tommaso Saoner today,’ Zen said, pausing to gulp some beer. ‘I didn’t recognize him at all. It might have been a different person, the way he was talking.’

Cristiana nodded vigorously.

‘That’s just what happened to Nando. He’s changed completely, just as I predicted. He used to be easygoing, and such fun! But the moment he got involved in politics he turned into a total fanatic. It’s a drug. It gets into your blood and you become a different person.’

They ate in silence for a while.

‘That’s what caused the split with Bossi,’ Cristiana went on. ‘Nando wanted the
Lega Veneta
to take its distance from the Northern Leagues, which he claimed were too dominated by Lombardy. Although the Dal Maschio family is Venetian, Nando was brought up in Pavia, and he’s never forgotten how the people there made fun of his accent. Anyway, his proposals were turned down, so he promptly resigned along with Saoner and a few others and formed his own breakaway group.’

‘And do they really want to resurrect the Venetian Republic?’

Cristiana nodded.

‘“Our past is our future, our future is our past.” That’s one of Nando’s slogans. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? But he really believes it. He isn’t a charlatan, like so many politicians. He believes everything he says.’

She pushed her half-eaten pizza away.

‘Anyway, that’s enough about him!’

She sized up Zen with her eyes for a moment.

‘You’re married too, aren’t you?’

He shrugged.

‘Legally, yes. But that’s all in the past. And my past is certainly not my future. Not if I’ve got anything to do with it, anyway.’

Cristiana laughed.

‘Children?’ she asked.

Zen shook his head.

‘Although I sometimes feel as though there’s another me that’s still married to Luisella and is probably a father by now.’

He looked at her.

‘Do you ever feel that? That every time you come to a crossroads in your life, there’s a ghostly double which splits off and goes the other way, the route you didn’t take. I know exactly what he’s like, my married version. I might as well be him. I could easily be. It just so happens that I’m not.’

He smiled wryly and got out his cigarettes.

‘Listen to the pizzeria philosopher! Sorry, I’m talking nonsense.’

The bevy of teenage girls passed by their table on the way out.

‘Ciao,
Cristiana.’

 ‘
Ciao
, Gabriella.’

Swathed in smirks and giggles, the group sallied forth into the night. With their departure, the room seemed to contract, becoming a smaller and more intimate space.

‘Do you ever think about coming home?’ asked Cristiana lightly.

‘Home?’

‘To live, I mean.’

When Zen did not reply, she added, ‘But perhaps you have a reason for wanting to stay in Rome. Something, or someone.’

He shook his head slowly.

‘Only my job.’

‘But you could get a transfer here if you wanted.’

‘Probably. But I haven’t had a reason for coming back here. Not so far.’

He looked at her.

‘It’s your home,’ said Cristiana. ‘Isn’t that reason enough?’

Zen shrugged.

‘It’s more often seemed a reason for staying away. Those ghostly doubles I was talking about are thicker on the ground here than anywhere else.’

There was a brief silence between them.

‘Speaking of ghosts, Ada Zulian described one of her intruders to me this evening,’ Zen murmured, as though to himself. ‘She said it had a large hook nose, a fixed grin and gaping eyes and wore a loose-fitting costume in black and white check, like a harlequin. The other had pale flawless features, neither male nor female, and was dressed in a cloak of gold and scarlet.’

Cristiana sniffed dismissively.

‘Sounds like carnival.’

Zen nodded.

‘Exactly what occurred to me. But where could Ada have seen carnival costumes? She hardly ever leaves the house, and then only to go to the local shops. You don’t see people dressed up like that in this area. She doesn’t have a television and never reads the papers.’

‘Perhaps she remembers it from when she was a child.’

Zen drained off the last of his beer and clicked his fingers to summon the waiter.

‘When Ada was a child, the carnival didn’t exist. The children got dressed up as bunnies or cowboys or pirates, and there was a dance for the parents if the weather was good, but that was all. The chichi spectacle they put on these days, with all the jet setters from Milan and Rome dolled up in fantastic costumes which cost the earth, that’s all a recent invention. I’m willing to bet that Ada Zulian has never seen a “traditional” Venetian carnival outfit in her life.’

‘She must have done,’ retorted Cristiana, standing to put on her coat. ‘Otherwise how could she describe it?’

Outside, a fine drizzle had started to fall. They walked home through the deserted streets and over the darkened waterways as though they owned them, as though the whole city were their private domain. The knowledge that they were a subject of gossip lent a nimbus of glamour to what in different circumstances might have seemed a fairly homely outing.

They also laughed a lot. Cristiana Morosini had a mordant, malicious sense of humour which Zen found refreshingly direct after months of feminist earnestness. In principle he agreed with Tania’s views – or at least did not disagree with them enough to argue – but they were relentlessly correct and offered no scope for heartless humour. As Cristiana recounted a succession of decidely unsisterly anecdotes about a mutual acquaintance, Zen found himself responding with a warmth and freedom he had not felt for a very long time.

When they reached their houses, they stopped, suddenly awkward.

‘Well, good night,’ said Zen. ‘Thank you for coming along. I really enjoyed myself.’

‘So did I.’

She took a card from her purse and handed it to him.

 ‘This is where I work. The fax and phone numbers are on it. Give me a ring and I’ll tell you whether anything has arrived.’

Zen watched her walk to her door and unlock it. She looked round and waved, and only then did he turn away. 

By morning, a dense fog had settled on the city. When a combination of high tides and strong onshore winds flooded the streets with the dreaded
aqua alta
, the council posted maps showing the zones affected and the routes on higher ground which remained open, but the fog respected no limits. It ebbed and flowed according to its own laws, blossoming here, thinning there, blurring outlines, abolishing distinctions and making the familiar strange and unlikely.

‘What the …!’

‘For the love of …!’

‘Watch where you’re going!’

‘You think you own the street?’

Catching sight of a dishevelled elderly man with a dog at his heels, Zen hastily slipped back into the enshrouding obscurity of the fog before he got entangled in another episode of Daniele Trevisan’s vaporous reminiscences. But he had not gone much further before another collision occurred.

‘Excuse me!’

‘Oh!’

‘Rosalba?’

‘Ah, if it isn’t Casanova himself!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘“I’m just going over to see Wanda,” she tells me last night. That’s Wanda Dal Maschio, Nando’s sister, somehow they’ve remained on good terms despite what’s happened. The next thing I know, Lisa Rosteghin’s phoning me to ask who’s the tall dark stranger Cristiana’s been seen having a pizza with!’

Zen gave a feeble smile.

‘I just wanted to catch up on the local gossip.’

‘Of course!’ returned Rosalba heartily. ‘Once Cristiana got back and I found out it was you, I knew there was no question of any hanky-panky. Why, you’re old enough to be her father!’

Zen’s smile slowly faded. Rosalba picked up her shopping and slipped back into the fog, disappearing within moments.

‘Thick as snot,’ her voice called back. ‘Mind how you go, Aurelio.’

On the Cannaregio, a slight breeze was at work, stirring the fog into currents of differing density. The palaces and churches fronting the canal came and went, the forms firming up and vagueing away like a print from an old photographic plate damaged by the ravages of time. A barge nosed through out from a side canal into the main channel, hooting mournfully. Similar sirens and signals, muffled by the moist air, resounded in the distance.  

Zen was making slow progress towards the ferry stop when he was hurled headlong to the cobbles, banging his knee and shoulder painfully. Getting up again and looking round, he saw the line of tubing over which he had tripped, straight lengths of metal bolted together with blue concertina inserts in plastic to accommodate corners. Down at the quayside one of the ubiquitous red barges marked POZZI NERI would be moored ready to receive the contents of whichever septic tank was being drained that morning.  

He picked up his briefcase, lit a cigarette and continued on his way across the bridge to the floating platform where a dozen people were already waiting. Spectral in the fog, the massive wooden pilings chained together to form a tripod securing the platform, their tops phallically rounded, looked like an idol dedicated to some god of the lagoon. From time to time invisible craft passed by, the wash making the landing stage shift restlessly at its moorings.

At length a muffled cone of light appeared in the fog, gradually brightening and widening until the boat itself became visible, one of the
motoscafi
with a rakishly high bow like a torpedo boat. The waiting crowd filed on board and the ferry continued cautiously on its way, creeping through the water, the engine barely turning over, the searchlight at the bow scanning back and forth. Once they cleared the mouth of the Cannaregio the water started to heave dully, making the boat yaw and wallow.

At Fondamente Nove, where he had to change, Zen stopped off in a bar for a
caffè corretto
. The barman had the radio on, and Zen caught the end of some local news item about a fisherman who had been found drowned somewhere in the northern lagoon. The police were said to be investigating. Zen tossed off the scalding coffee, heady with grappa, and wandered over to the window to look for his ferry. The steamer to Burano and Treporti was just casting off, but there was no activity at the pier where the number 5 stopped.

On the wall beside the window was another of the calendars which he had seen the previous day at the
osteria
where he had met Marco Paulon, with the fall and rise of the tides in the lagoon superimposed on the days of the month. Zen lifted it down from its hook and copied the information for the earlier part of the month into his notebook, glancing out of the window from time to time. There was still no sign of the
circolare destra
. After waiting five minutes, he decided to walk.

Away from the slight breezes of the open lagoon, the fog blocked the winding cuts and alleys, as thick as silt. Zen waded through it, narrowly avoiding a number of close encounters with walls, canals and other pedestrians, until he emerged at length in Campo San Lorenzo. A blue-and-white launch was just setting off from the Questura with the ear-splitting roar to which police drivers always aspired, whatever their vehicle. Zen climbed the stairs to the office he had been assigned on the second floor. Aldo Valentini was standing by the window, looking out at the swirling grey pall.

‘Filthy stuff,’ he said vehemently, catching sight of Zen’s reflection in the glass. ‘Coats your throat and lungs. Can’t you taste it? All the pollution from Mestre and Marghera packaged for your convenience in easy-to-breathe aerosol form.’

Zen slumped behind his desk and phoned the Ospedale Civile. Putting on his most brutal tone, he cowed an unwilling functionary of that institution into briefing him on the condition of Ada Zulian. Eventually he was connected to a woman doctor who reported that the patient had made a complete recovery and was anxious to go home but was being kept at the hospital in accordance with the instructions which Zen had given the ambulance crew the night before. She had been visited by her nephews, who had strongly supported their aunt’s right to be discharged if she so wished.

‘And of course they’re absolutely right,’ the doctor concluded. ‘Quite apart from the considerable pressure on our facilities here, it’s no part of our business to keep patients confined when they’re able and willing to leave.’

‘I quite understand,’ Zen murmured soothingly. ‘Thank you so much for your forbearance. Unfortunately there’s a bit of a demand for transport at present, but I’ll come and pick up the
contessa
just as soon as a boat becomes available.’

He hung up before the doctor could reply. Opening his briefcase, he extracted a bundle wrapped in newspaper and folded back the wrapping to reveal a large carving knife.

‘Where can I get this printed?’ he asked Valentini.

‘The lab’s at the university. If you leave it with Renaldi in the basement he’ll have it sent over. I’ll take it down for you, if you like. I’ve got bugger all else to do after getting bumped off the Sfriso case.’

Being from Ferrara, Valentini pronounced it ‘Sfrizo’. Zen looked up.

‘Isn’t that the break-in you were talking about yesterday?’

‘It was. Now it’s a drowning. Out by Burano.’

Zen suddenly recalled what Marco Paulon had told him on the way to the
ottagono
the day before.

‘Sfriso? Is he the same man who claimed to have seen the dead on Sant’Ariano walking around?’

Aldo Valentini nodded.

‘And now he’s joined them. One of the monks rowing back to San Francesco del Deserto fished him out of the water yesterday afternoon. I spent most of last night at Burano, trying to piece together what happened, only to get in this morning and find that Gavagnin has taken over the case. He’s giving the brother a hard time downstairs even now.’

‘Why did they take you off the case?’

Valentini scowled.

‘Damned if I know. First of all Gavagnin tried to take the break-in away from me. Claimed it was linked to some drugs case he’s working on. I couldn’t see it. The Sfriso brothers were just a couple of typical Burano fishermen.’