Liquid Desires (24 page)

PART THREE

Carnivorous Flower

1

“Are you really sure you won't join the fun, Urbino?” Eugene asked for what must have been the fifth time as he and Urbino had drinks on the terrace of the Danieli after returning from Asolo. “We'll just float along for a few hours. It's a lovely evening.”

He indicated the cloudless early-evening sky arching over the lagoon.

“Cooled down a bit,” he went on. “We'll float right up the Grand Canal there. Can you imagine just lyin' back and sailin' past that white church with the domes? And then we'll sneak into the pokey little canals and get a water rat's view of the town. How about it, Urbino?”

Once again Urbino declined, but not without a small twinge of regret. It would be the first—and possibly the last—time he would ever be part of a flotilla of six gondolas, complete with mandolins, accordions, and a serenader, plying the waters of the city. But even if he had been more tempted, he had Flavia's scrapbook to look at tonight, and he wanted to do it as soon as possible.

“Well, you're not goin' to worm out of tomorrow, I hope,” Eugene said. “Remember we're goin' to that lace island. I want you here tomorrow bright and early and rarin' to go. Maybe you've forgotten how to enjoy yourself, my boy. Countess Barbara can't take any of the blame for that, I can see. The old girl had me in stitches half the time though she pretended not to know what I found so funny. So until tomorrow, Urbino—and if you're not there, I'm goin' to come to that pathetic palace of yours and drag you out by your nose! Evie always said you needed a bit of forceful encouragement. Just a pity that her and Poppa used most of it to try to push you along into Hennepin. All
I
want—all I
ever
wanted—is for you to enjoy yourself!”

On the vaporetto back to the Palazzo Uccello, Urbino resisted opening Flavia's scrapbook and instead took in the passing scene from the prow of the boat. Night was falling and he caught glimpses of ceiling frescoes, chandeliers, and golden interiors of palazzi along the Grand Canal. This was one of his favorite times to be on the water, and he envied Eugene his flotilla tonight. If only the Contessa would get a gondola. She was right. He would be in it whenever possible. What had he just read in Peggy Guggenheim's memoirs? Something about floatingness being the essential quality of life in Venice. As she had said in a letter to a friend, she adored floating around in her gondola so much that she couldn't imagine anything as enjoyable since she had given up sex—or, she had then amended, since sex had given her up.

Urbino would have liked to live in Venice in a previous era, preferably the end of the last century when Robert Browning, Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and other Anglo-Americans had been caught up in what James had called “palazzo-madness.” Whistler, who had taken studios in the Ca' Rezzonico, used to be rowed all over the city in a gondola filled with prepared etching plates, boxes of pastels, and sheets of colored paper. Too much had been lost since those days. Lorenzo Brollo's lamentations over the passing of a time of greater gentility rang in Urbino's ears as the vaporetto continued up the Grand Canal.

So much of the scene reminded Urbino of Flavia. It wasn't just the Palazzo Guggenheim with Marino Marini's equestrian statue making its ecstatic statement, but also the Gothic Palazzo Barbaro where Eleonora Duse, whom Flavia had so admired, had lived. And on the opposite side of the Grand Canal was the small Casetta Rossa, once the home of Duse's lover, the writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. As if showing Urbino that the past was always alive, a pomegranate tree, planted during the First World War by the ugly writer, flourished next to the little red house.

And then there was the Ca' Volpi. Urbino looked through its iron water gates into the dark garden illuminated dimly by one lone bulb, the others apparently having burned out. Violetta Volpi's studio was dark.

As the vaporetto continued up the Grand Canal, Urbino realized that if he had the use of a gondola, he could glide silently up to the Volpi water steps right now and see what, if anything, he could learn from Violetta's husband. Only something as secretive and silent as a gondola, so often compared to a floating coffin, seemed appropriate for approaching this man apparently locked away in his own world.

Once back at the Palazzo Uccello, Urbino lost no time in giving his attention to Flavia's scrapbook. With Serena curled in his lap and a wineglass and a bottle of chilled Bianco di Custoza next to him on the table, he opened the scrapbook.

On the first page, centered carefully and in a large, confident hand in black ink, was written “Scrapbook of Flavia Maria Regina Brollo.”

Urbino turned the page and started to read. He read for almost an hour and then started over again. Flavia's scrapbook was just what Madge Lennox had said it was: an odd assortment comprising autographs, newspaper clippings, entrance tickets, programs, photographs, postcards, and pages ripped from books and magazines, though among none of these ripped pages did he find the one missing from the Guggenheim catalog. It was just what you would expect of someone who wanted to preserve the too easily forgotten details of life.

In his work as a biographer Urbino had many occasions to pore through things like this, but never had he done so with such a sad and fearful feeling. When he finished going through it the second time, he poured himself another glass of wine and sat sipping it as he thought about the Contessa and Alvise, Alvise and Silvestro Occhipinti, and Flavia and Nicolina Ricci. Then he opened the scrapbook again to a sheet of paper about ten by twelve inches. It was Regina Brollo's death notice, the kind that it was customary to display throughout the deceased's parish with a photograph attached. The notice was similar to the one for Flavia that had been on the Brollo door in San Polo. Very similar.

Despite the portrait he had seen at the Palazzo Brollo, Urbino was startled by the black-and-white photograph of Regina Brollo. He felt he was looking at Flavia. The photograph showed a Regina Brollo closer to Flavia's twenty-six years than to the forty-five she must have been at the time of her own death. She gazed at the camera with a wistful smile. How many times had Flavia looked at this photograph of her mother, as well as at others and the portrait at the Palazzo Brollo, and seen the resemblance to herself? What kind of comfort had it given her? Might it also have filled her with some sense of premonition? Had she ever thought that this kind of beauty might eventually have its price?

Urbino took another look at the two items he had been particularly disturbed to find in the scrapbook and considered the ones he should have found but hadn't. He stroked the purring Serena. The Contessa was going to be upset. Once again Urbino regretted having agreed to help her. It might have been better for her to have engaged a private investigator through her Italian solicitor, someone with whom she had no relationship other than a financial one.

Regrets would get him nowhere, however. He looked at his watch. Almost eleven. Out of consideration for the Contessa he decided to wait until morning to tell her what he had learned. Let her sleep as well as she could tonight. The time had come to tell her all the bad news—or at least most of it.

2

But Urbino hadn't counted on the Contessa's own anxiety. She called him fifteen minutes later, after he had poured the rest of the wine into his glass.

“Either you didn't look at the scrapbook yet, which I refuse to believe, or you're afraid to tell me what you found,” the Contessa said angrily. “You're supposed to be helping me. Didn't I tell you that not knowing was the worst possible punishment?”

“I'm sorry, Barbara. I was going to wait until the morning. I figured you were asleep by now.”

The Contessa drew in her breath.

“That means the absolute worst. No one with a heart delays telling someone good news. What did you find?”

Urbino took a sip of wine.

“There's a section at the beginning of the scrapbook, Barbara. People's signatures and their good wishes, platitudes, witty sayings—things of that kind. Flavia started keeping the scrapbook on her thirteenth birthday. There are entries over the years by her mother, Violetta Volpi, even most recently Nicolina Ricci and Madge Lennox. Flavia seems to have had a sentimental side even into her adulthood. After her mother's entry almost half a page has been scratched out with ink. It could be what Lorenzo might have written, or entries by both Annabella and Lorenzo. I held it up to the light but couldn't make out anything.”

Urbino paused and took another sip of wine.

“I can tell you're fortifying yourself with alcohol! Would you please go on? Unless that's the extent of the damage,” the Contessa said with a note of hope in her voice.

“I'm afraid not, Barbara. There were two other entries. Let me read the first one.” He paged through the scrapbook until he found what he was looking for. “‘I have lived indeed, and so—(yet one more kiss)—can die!'”

“Whatever does
that
mean? It sounds like a quotation of some kind. I've never heard it before, have you? Oh, my God, it's Silvestro, isn't it!”

“Exactly. It's signed ‘Your friend, Signor Silvestro Maurizio Ugolini Occhipinti' and it's dated thirteen years ago this past June.”

“What else is there?”

The Contessa was trying to keep her voice under control. Urbino wished there were some way he could prepare her but perhaps the best thing was to be as direct as possible.

“I'm afraid there's an even more surprising signature, Barbara—Alvise's.”

There was a long, stunned silence. Urbino thought he could hear the Contessa gasping for air. When she spoke, however, her voice didn't quaver.

“What does it say? Give it to me exactly! I'll never forgive you if you don't.”

Urbino read, “‘To the beautiful and charming Flavia, II Conte Alvise da Capo-Zendrini.' There's no date but it's right after Occhipinti's entry.”

“If it had been volumes longer it couldn't be worse! Can't you see that it's intended to reveal as little as possible? It doesn't look good, Urbino, does it? Not good at all,” the Contessa said in a small voice. “He knew the girl and he never mentioned her to me—not once.”

“There could be any number of reasons why he didn't,” Urbino said half-heartedly. He didn't want to give the Contessa any false hope. He still hadn't told her what Mirko had said—that Regina Brollo told Flavia that Alvise da Capo-Zendrini was her father. Before Urbino told her this, as well as about the argument at Lago di Garda, he needed to be sure. He didn't want to take Mirko's word for these two crucial pieces of information. Only if and when he had far less reason to doubt Mirko would he tell the Contessa.

“It could have slipped Alvise's mind,” Urbino said. “He might have met her only once or twice under completely innocent circumstances. Just because he signed her scrapbook doesn't mean he was her father. He probably thought it too unimportant to mention.”

“Or he thought it
too
important. If Flavia started keeping her scrapbook about thirteen years ago, that means it wasn't long before Alvise died. That makes it all the more strange. We were together almost all the time then except—”

She broke off.

“Except when, Barbara?”

“Except when he stayed with Silvestro at Lago di Garda for a week the summer before he died,” she said flatly. “I was in Milan. No, I don't think it looks very good at all.”

“I also found newspaper clippings,” Urbino hurried to say. “Most of them were about Novembrini's and Violetta Volpi's exhibits. There were also some theater and concert programs. Flavia played the role of Brighella in Goldoni's
Two Venetian Twins
in a small theater in Mestre a few years ago. I didn't recognize anyone else's name in the cast. Except for one on Nicolina Ricci's murder, none of the clippings seems more recent than a year and a half ago. The missing page from the Guggenheim catalog wasn't there. I thought she might have torn it out to put in the scrapbook with her other memorabilia.”

“Pictures like those? But one can only guess at the terrible taste passed on to her by an aunt like Violetta Volpi! But what about the clippings of Alvise and me, and the one of Alvise and Silvestro?”

It was obvious that her mind had trouble focusing on anything but Alvise.

“They weren't there.”

“Weren't there? Whatever do you mean?”

“Just that. But there were several blank spaces scattered throughout the book. I can't say she kept a neat scrapbook. Some things were glued, others taped, and even retaped with the page thinned and peeling away underneath.”

“Perhaps Madge Lennox made it up about those clippings. Who knows what went on between her and Flavia! She might be very pleased indeed that the poor girl is dead and can't tell any tales. She probably had no idea you would ever see the scrapbook. Didn't I tell you that you should be careful she doesn't pull the wool over your eyes? Didn't I tell you that she's absolutely brittle with artifice? I refuse to believe anything she says, and I refuse to believe that Alvise was ever unfaithful to me. Who knows? That entry in the scrapbook could be a forgery. I want to verify the signature. You'll have to give me more proof than what you've been able to come up with so far!”

Urbino desperately hoped that he wouldn't have to but he was beginning to doubt it. Proof, he feared, existed somewhere.

3

The next morning, a Thursday, Urbino—the bruise under his eye now hardly noticeable—called Eugene at the Danieli to postpone their trip to Burano.

“It's this business with the dead girl and the Countess Barbara, isn't it?” he said. “Maybe you should tell me all about it. You might be able to use some good common sense. I'm ready, willin', and able whenever you are. But don't feel that you're lettin' me down about the lace island. As things turn out, I was goin' to tell you we'd have to cancel. I've got some business with ole Massimo Zuin. But I still insist on seein' you today. Let's say at one o'clock at the restaurant by the modern art show. I promise it won't take long and I promise you'll be pleased—and surprised. See you then.”