Deadly to the Sight (24 page)

He went to Habib's studio. The Arab diva stared down at him with a vaguely melancholy look. Under a chair were Habib's slippers, at odd angles to each other, where he had kicked them off. They seemed to speak of the abruptness with which he had been snatched away from safety.

Urbino picked them up to add to a suitcase of clothes and other items he would bring to the Questura for Habib. He could hardly remember what he had tossed into the first one he had entrusted to Torino.

On a little table was the family of glass squirrels that Pignatti had made for Habib. Two of them had fallen on their side. Urbino straightened them.

As he was leaving the studio, a large book lying on the floor and partly concealed by the drape of the cover of the divan, caught his attention. It was the German-English dictionary from the library. He bent down to retrieve it and exposed a large manila envelope behind it. The flap of the envelope was unsealed. Inside was a folder with several sheets of paper. Without examining the sheets, he took the envelope and the dictionary to the library.

On the refectory table was a tray with a plate of
tramezzini
. There was also a pitcher of fresh orange juice, which Natalia believed was a cure for everything from a headache to liver ailment. He doctored the pitcher with vodka. He knew he should keep a clear head for his meeting with Gemelli that afternoon, but he also needed to get through the intervening hours as well.

Inside the folder were several sheets of unlined paper covered with German writing in a large, sprawling hand. He took a shrimp-filled sandwich and started to read. It was slow going at first, both because of the handwriting and also because of his less than firm grasp of German.

He had no doubt he was reading something that Frieda Hensel had written. It was in the manner of some of her other tales. He made a rough translation into English in his mind as he read, stopping often to look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary. He realized that his loose and inexact translation didn't do justice to Frieda's haunting style. The story went something like this:

In a kingdom of ice and snow, the young prince ordered all the mirrors destroyed. “From this time forward,” he announced, “let other people be our mirrors.
”

The guards went throughout the kingdom smashing mirrors large and small, and threw the fragments into a deep well in the mountains. No guard, not even the most trusted, was allowed to seek out the mirrors in the palace
.

The prince himself went through all the three hundred and sixty-five rooms, for each had its mirror, large or small, round, oval, square, and rectangular. He broke all of them, except one. This mirror had stood in the nursery since before he was born. He would take it out to sea and send it to the dark depths where every fish is blind
.

He bid a sad farewell to his ailing father and held up the last mirror in the kingdom to show the old man his reflection
.

“
Go, my son. I will be dead before you return.
”

No more, no less than three days' journey in the kingdom's mightiest ship brought the prince to the enchanted spot. While the captain and the crew watched in silence, the prince dropped the mirror off the stern into the steel-blue waters
.

No sooner did it slip beneath the surface than a storm began. The ship was hit by gales from the north. Stones of ice fell on the deck. It was seared by the hot, dry winds of the south. Sand collected in the furled sails
.

Little by little the ship was driven toward the black magnetic rocks feared by all seafarers. The captain, a brave and experienced man, threw his turban into the sea and said that they must all now make their peace with God
.

The magnetic rocks pulled all the nails, one by one, from the ship, and added them to thousands and thousands of others. The sailors were tossed into the sea as the ship fell apart. Everyone was drowned except the prince
.

He was tossed by the wind and carried by the waves for three days and three nights. He lost all sense
.

The prince awoke to find himself on an island of golden sands and green trees. He ate bananas and dates, and drank the milk of a coconut, and then fell asleep
.

He awoke to see a ship sailing toward the island. At first his heart leaped at this timely rescue. Then he climbed to a treetop and concealed himself among its leaves
.

The ship anchored. Seven slaves emerged, each with a silver shovel over his shoulder. They stopped beneath the prince's tree and began to dig until they uncovered a little door. They opened it. Seven more slaves came from the ship, burdened with all manner of foods and spices bursting from sacks and piled high in baskets. Even chickens and sheep were among the bounty they carried to the door and down into the ground. Then came furniture, and carpets, and robes and slippers. All disappeared through the door
.

Out of the ship emerged an old man with a long, white beard. Beside him was a boy of great beauty, with smooth cinnamon skin and the eyes of a gazelle. This boy, who possessed the grace and innocence of a young animal, enchanted the prince. He was seized with an uncontrollable love. The concealing leaves of the tree, brushed by a warm breeze, didn't quiver any more than he did himself
.

The prince watched with all his senses keen as the old man and the boy disappeared through the door and into the earth
.

And then the procession from the ship to the door was reversed. The slaves returned, empty-handed, and the old man slowly made his way on board, but not with the beautiful boy. Slaves covered the door with dirt once more. The ship departed
.

Within moments the prince was clearing the door of earth and lifting it, not even feeling the effort. A spiraling staircase, encrusted with seashells and coral, carried him downward, then downward still
.

There a large, oval chamber blossomed before him. It was as richly decorated as the palace in the kingdom of ice and snow. No space was unadorned. Carpets lay three deep on the floor, and tapestries of sylvan scenes hung from the walls. Books and musical instruments, embroidered ottomans and golden candelabra, were in lovely disarray. Braziers wafted the scent of myrrh and bergamot and ambergris. From the lofty ceiling on a chain of gold hung a censer, also of gold, out of which licked blue, orange, and violet flames
.

Nowhere was there a mirror
.

In the middle of the oval room, seated on a divan of ebony, with a canopy festooned with flowers, and surrounded by candles and a rich variety of fruits and sweets, sat the boy holding a jewel-encrusted fan. His large dark eyes flared up in fear. He fell backward against the cushions

“
Do not fear me, beautiful young man,” said the prince in a whisper. “I have been brought a long distance to rescue you from this death beneath the earth. I give you love more precious than water in the desert, or the sun in my kingdom of ice and snow. You will be my friend forever.
”

“
I see by your gentle voice that you mean me no harm,” said the boy. His voice was like a liquid. “Come sit next to me.
”

The prince did as he was bid. He soon was drinking in at closer sight the boy's gentle beauty
.

“
You are mistaken, good sir,” continued the boy. “I have been brought here not to die, but so that I might live. I am the only son of a rich jeweler. When I was born, a soothsayer told him that a prince would kill me after he threw a mirror into the sea and survived the wreck of his ship. For sixteen years he kept me hidden from the world. But then, three days ago, he heard that such a man had approached the edges of our kingdom. He brought me to this place, which has been awaiting me since the year of my birth. The prince will not be able to find me here. In forty days my father will return. All will then be well.
”

Upon hearing this story, the prince, who had always believed in soothsayers, cursed them silently for their lies and foolishness
.

“
My dear boy,” he said. “No one could ever be so cruel to one so beautiful. I will keep you company for all the forty days, and when they are passed, you will come to my kingdom to be my friend and my heir.
”

And so the prince and the boy stayed together until the fortieth day. The prince served the boy the most delicious foods. Lamb and pine nuts. Duck in pomegranate sauce. Salads of oranges and dates. Olives and preserved lemons. Rose-flavored apples and cakes of honey. He bathed him in perfumed waters. And every night he slept with him in the canopied bed to show his love and protection
.

The day arrived on which they eagerly awaited the coming of the boy's father and the beginning of their life together above the earth. The prince bathed the boy as had become his treasured habit, and carried him to the divan. He presented him with his favorite lime-pistachio sherbet
.

After a honeyed nap, the boy wished for some watermelon to eat. The prince climbed on the bed to get the knife hung on the wall. At that moment the boy, in his playfulness, tickled the leg of the prince
.

All control was lost because of this sweet mischief, and the prince fell on top of the boy and drove the knife straight through his heart. The boy died in the arms of the prince
.

The prince became mad with grief. He tore his garments and cursed the workings of fate. When the old jeweler arrived with his retinue, he found the prince as motionless as the boy he was clasping in his arms
.

Frieda had written two lines after this, but they had been crossed out and were undecipherable.

Urbino felt chilled. He poured himself another drink.

With an unshakable certainty, he knew that this story was what Frieda was searching all around Burano and Venice for.

His mind went back, as it was doing so often now, to the night of Frieda's party. When he had asked her if she were planning to write something about Burano, she had said, rather mysteriously, that she was working on something that was sure to interest him even more. And then she had glanced at Habib.

It didn't take too much effort to figure out that she must have been referring to what he had just read, with its distorted, camouflaged similarities to his relationship with Habib. It had only been after her party, however, that he had told her the circumstances of his first meeting with Habib in the Fez medina. The story's conception, if not its composition, seemed to have come before either of the two murders as well as before his own confidences.

The story spoke of responsibility and all too clearly and painfully of Habib's vulnerability. The boy in it had trusted not wisely, but too well, and had ended up dead because of it.

How had the story ended up in Habib's possession? Frieda hadn't given it to him. If she had, she wouldn't think she had lost it.

Did the story have anything to do with how Habib had rushed out of the Palazzo Uccello, apparently in search of something to show him? Something that, once shown, would spoil everything, as he had said? And could all of this be related to the altercation at Giorgio's apartment that the neighbors heard before Habib was arrested?

The German dictionary indicated that Habib had been reading the story. How far had he gotten, and how much had he understood?

And why hadn't he told him about it? It appeared as if he had been trying to conceal it beneath the divan.

Could he have taken it from the Casa Verde? Habib might not be a murderer, but was he a thief?

Urbino cried out a silent protest.

There were holes everywhere, holes that could never contribute to any design, it seemed to him, no matter how skillfully and patiently one plied the needle. They were holes big enough to fall into.

He was overwhelmed with an even greater urgency than before to help Habib.

If to help was to harm, as the tale said in its sinister way, then they were already doomed.

3

Urbino had never gone to the Questura with more trepidation and anger than he did at four that afternoon. He didn't know if all the alcohol he had drunk was going to prove to be a handicap or not, but at the moment he was grateful for its comfort. He felt forlorn as he sat in Gemelli's outer office, the valise for Habib on the floor beside him.

Fortunately, Commissario Gemelli didn't keep him waiting long.

As soon as Urbino seated himself on the other side of the metal desk, Gemelli switched on the tape recorder. He was a dark, good-looking man in his early fifties, with a military bearing.

“We meet again, Macintyre. Too bad our paths don't cross socially as well.”

He picked up a crushed pack of cigarettes and gestured with it in Urbino's direction.

“Still not smoking? Even now?”

He took a cigarette out, smoothed it, and lit it. Gulls screeched outside the windows.

“You're not looking well. Much worse than your Moroccan friend, as a matter of fact. But perhaps that's not so strange considering the difference in your ages. How well do you know Laroussi?”

Habib had always been happy that his name sounded Italian. It made him feel less a stranger in the country. But he wouldn't be pleased with Gemelli's tone. No sooner did Urbino think this, than he reminded himself that by now Habib had probably become all too familiar with the commissario's tone.

“Quite well.”

“And for how long?”

“Sixteen months.”

Gemelli took a drag on his cigarette.

“What exactly is the nature of your relationship?”

“As you just said, Habib Laroussi's my friend.”

“Friends across the ages and across the seas, but, obviously in this case, not across the sexes.”

Urbino remained silent for a few moments, then said, “Call it a very particular friendship.”

“I assume you want to help your particular friend, Macintyre. Going all evasive isn't the way.”

“He could be further endangered if I'm not careful about what I say and how I say it. I wouldn't withhold any information that I believed would be of help to him, no matter what it might be, but I have no intention of telling you anything that might be used against him.”