The Last Gondola (29 page)

“Are they love poems?”

“Pazienza!
Don't ruin everything now.”

“Do you have copies of the poems? Photocopies?”

“Only the poems themselves. And they're in very good condition.”

Possle fell silent. His breathing became shallower. He closed his eyes but after ten or fifteen seconds they fluttered open.

“Was I asleep?”

“If you were, it was only for a few moments.”

“Moments can seem like an eternity, and an hour can seem like a moment or two, when I drop off like this.” He had a perplexed look on his face. “Sometimes when I close my eyes I see so many people from the past, as clear as you are to me now. Sometimes I even see them when my eyes are open. They seem to be staring at me. I'm speaking of the dead, of course. And they don't always look as young as they were when they died, but old, very, very old.”

His eyes traveled to the mirror on the other side of the room. He couldn't see himself in it from where he was, but he stared at it as if he could.

“The dying man looks into the mirror someone holds in front of him and he says, ‘Farewell. We won't be seeing each other any more.' That's not from Byron, Mr. Macintyre, if you're trying to figure it out. But I can't remember who said it. Someone I knew a long, long time ago, I think.”

Urbino was trying to think of what to say to bring Possle back to the poems when Possle gave a sigh and resumed, in a less tired and resigned voice, “I have a statement from Mechitar, Mr. Macintyre, a statement that swears the poems are mine beyond any question or dispute. Properly signed by two witnesses. Armando and”—he glanced toward the door and lowered his voice—“Adriana.”

Very convenient
, Urbino thought, trying to keep his expression impassive: a mute, dedicated employee and his dead sister.

“What do you want of me?” he asked Possle.

“I know what you want of
me
, Mr. Macintyre. You want the poems. If I had a more suspicious nature, I'd say that you've wanted them from the time you started besieging the Ca' Pozza with flowers.”

“I had no idea—”

“Perhaps. But you wanted something from me nonetheless, and now I have something to offer.”

“To offer?”

“To sell. I give you the first option. Isn't that what it's called? I give it to you and the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini.”

“The Contessa?”

“I'm aware that you don't have the kind of money that such a treasure would cost. However, the Contessa's wealth is almost legendary, as is her generosity, especially when it comes to you.”

“She'd never agree.”

“Are you sure? Not for your sake? Not to see your career advanced?” Possle raised his hand to his chest and pressed it against the red silk of his shirt. “You could shake off quite a bit of the reputation of the dilettante that you've accumulated over the years. Urbino Macintyre, the man who discovers unpublished poems by one of the world's greatest writers. The man who writes a brilliant scholarly introduction. Don't be overly scrupulous. The rewards are all yours, and you won't have to turn over a cent.”

These remarks seemed to take whatever reserve of energy Possle had left. He dropped back against the cushions of the gondola. He had said what he wanted to say. Everything was out in the open now. The poems were Urbino's for a price, and the price was one that only someone like the Contessa could afford. It was all so simple, so neat.

Suddenly, in the silence that had fallen between them, a woman's shrill laughter, muffled but unmistakable, seemed to emanate from beyond the drapes and closed shutters of the room. The laughter stopped. A few moments later the woman broke out into a song that was at first indistinguishable. Then he recognized it as the Countess Almaviva's aria,
“Pour, O love,”
from
The Marriage of Figaro
, as the countess prays for the restoration of her husband's love. Even more feeling suffused the voice than when Elvira had sung the lullaby in the cemetery, and the choice of an aria indicated a range and interest that Urbino would never have associated with the grieving woman.

The aria came to an abrupt end. Laughter broke out again, then there was silence.

Possle was staring at him. It appeared that he hadn't heard anything.

“You have nothing to say, Mr. Macintyre? Is it because you're already contemplating what's going to come your way?” Possle's tongue darted out and ran over his lips. “It would be a suitable arrangement for all of us. The Contessa would do a good deed for her good friend, you would get the poems, and I would get the money. I've never paid much attention to money. There always seemed to be so much—until recently. I've left affairs like that in Armando's hands. But the coffers must be replenished. The poems mean nothing to me, but the money they'll bring me—bring
us
—means a great deal. Would you mind giving me some water?”

Urbino poured water from the carafe into one of the goblets. He got up and handed it to Possle.

Possle drank down a large portion of the water. Some of it dribbled from his mouth and spattered against his silk shirt-front. He handed the goblet back to Urbino.

“If I've been silent,” Urbino said, after reseating himself, “it's because I'm surprised that you'd think the Contessa would involve herself with something, poems or whatever, that came into your hands in such a way. Something that might not even be yours to legally sell.”

“Are you so sure of that? And do you have such a low opinion of your place in her heart, not to mention of your ability to persuade her of things she might not be completely eager to do? As I said, Mr. Macintyre, this is not the time for scruples. I—I—”

He put a hand to his chest and coughed. His face looked more yellow than before. “Could you give me a little more water please?”

Urbino poured some more water into the goblet, got up, and gave it to Possle, who drank it and handed the goblet back.

Urbino remained standing. He had a better view of Possle amid his cushions, the cushions that might very well conceal the poems.

“That's a little better.” Possle wiped his mouth. “As I was saying, consider my offer. Speak to the Contessa. “I—”

He stopped and gave another cough. “I prefer that the poems end up in your hands, Mr. Macintyre. I have a fondness for you, believe it or not. We're not all that different. And we're neither fish nor fowl, living away from our own countries. But have no illusions. If the Contessa won't buy the poems, I'll find someone who will, and they'll be out of your hands forever. Speak to her. I'll give you until the first of April. That's eleven days from now. I've always been lucky on April Fool's Day. Perhaps we both will. Have the Contessa come here with you at the usual hour. It will be a pleasure to have her inside these walls for the first time.”

Possle seemed to gauge the effect of all this on Urbino, who tried to keep his face from registering any interest.

“So speak with her. Make her understand how important it is to you—to both of us. She's a woman of sense as well as sensibility. I believe you do her an injustice in assuming she wouldn't jump at the chance of helping you.” Possle's words were coming more slowly. “And it will gladden my heart when I see her come through that door with you. But if she doesn't, you will be coming for your last visit.”

“If you could just let me see them.” Urbino struggled to banish the eagerness from his voice and, distressed by his own behavior, nonetheless could not refrain from looking down into the cushions. “It would—”

He broke off. He smelled something burning and felt heat against his lower leg. The next second he was slapping against his pants leg that had started to smolder from being too close to the flame of one of the candles placed on the floor beside the gondola.

“My God, Mr. Macintyre, please be careful!” Possle was visibly alarmed, but he tried to make a joke: “I don't want something happening to you just when we're so close to getting our prizes.”

“I'd advise you to be careful, Mr. Possle,” Urbino said, with a touch of irritation. “These candles might be atmospheric but they're dangerous, as you see.”

“You're right, of course, but I—I find some things difficult to give up. I'm sure you understand.” He put a hand to his chest as he had before. “I—I've become so accustomed to them, you see, and—”

He broke off and threw both his hands up in the air in an almost violent gesture. He was seized with a spasm of coughing. His body thrust itself up from the cushions. Urbino had a vision of his prize slipping away from him.

One of Possle's hands was wildly searching for the purple cord. Urbino grabbed it and gave it a sharp tug. More quickly than seemed possible, Armando entered the room but without any appearance of haste, his arms with their scarred hands close to his sides.

The cadaverous man went over to Possle, who was still coughing. As he bent over him, he threw Urbino a malevolent glance. It also held, on this occasion, a trace of uneasiness.

Urbino mumbled a quick farewell. When he looked back over his shoulder, Armando was lifting Possle out of the gondola like a doll.

65

That evening after returning to the Palazzo Uccello, Urbino felt his usual malaise after these encounters with Possle, but it soon intensified. He had an onslaught of chills and fever and an intense headache. The slight burn to his leg, which he salved with a cream, increased his discomfort. When the doctor came, he diagnosed the flu.

Urbino spent the next few days sleeping as much as possible. He missed Habib and his therapeutic
tisanes
brewed from herbs brought from Morocco. The Contessa wanted to stop by, but he insisted that she stay away. Her final
conversazione
was next Thursday, less than a week away, and he didn't want to risk her getting ill herself.

He couldn't keep himself, however, from thinking about Possle and Byron, about Armando and what he knew or didn't know about his own intrusion into Possle's quarters, and about what he might or might not have told Possle about it.

Urbino realized how things had changed since he had first dreamed of getting into the Ca' Pozza. Back then—had it been only as recently as a few weeks ago?—he had been fired with a desire to hear the man's anecdotes. Now he had more pressing concerns. He wanted to gain possession of the Byron poems. That they existed he no longer had any doubt. Possle was showing Urbino a way for him to get his hands on them, but he feared that the price demanded, and not necessarily one of money, would prove much too high to pay.

Despite the doctor's firm diagnosis, it was only natural that Urbino linked his illness with Possle and the Ca' Pozza, since he always felt strangely drained after his visits.

It also occurred to him that there could be something in the Ca' Pozza itself that made him ill. He retreated from this somewhat superstitious thought into a more disturbing one about the Amontillado. It wouldn't be difficult for Armando to put something into his portion. What he would accomplish by this was perhaps what Urbino was enduring now, a period of confinement to the house and the inability to make another foray into parts of the Ca' Pozza.

When he was almost well again, he made another reservation at Harry's Bar for the next day, Wednesday, March 27. He informed Emo through Gildo.

One merciful aspect of Urbino's convalescence was that he wasn't once visited by his dream of Possle and the fire, a circumstance unusual in itself.

66

Still weak the next evening, Urbino took the
vaporetto
to Harry's Bar for his rendezvous with Demetrio Emo. This time Emo, dressed in a sober black suit that might have been left over from his days as a priest, was waiting for Urbino at one of the tables against the wall on the ground floor. He had a Bellini in front of him. From the flushed look on his large face, Urbino could tell that it wasn't his first.

Emo still showed evidence of his recent attack in San Polo in the form of a fading bruise on his cheek.

“Where did it happen?” Urbino asked.

“Not near the Ca' Pozza, if that's what you're thinking,” Emo snapped back. “Two boys pushed me from behind and grabbed my case. All they got was a lot of keys. I gave a description to the police. Is that enough for you, Sherlock Macintyre? We're not eating down here. That's not part of the deal. Should I take this with me?”

He held up his Bellini, but before Urbino could say anything he downed it in one gulp.

The dining room was full. The maitre d' led them to one of the round tables and removed the
RISERVATO
sign. Urbino and Emo seated themselves. The boats, the churches, the expanse of the inner lagoon, and the mouth of the Grand Canal were like a stage set beyond their window.

But Emo seemed uninterested in contemplating the scene. He immediately gave all his attention to the menu after ordering a whiskey sour. Urbino, sipping his Martini, sat back while Emo commanded an entire banquet for himself. In a surprisingly short time he ploughed through one dish after another, beginning with the Carpaccio, the tuna tartare, and dried salt cod from Vicenza, and then moved on to the minestrone, pasta with wild mushrooms, chicken risotto, and scampi. He finished, without any evidence of flagging appetite, with Zabaglione and flambéed crepes. All of this was washed down with glass after glass of Dom Perignon. Urbino did all he could to stretch out his caviar and ravioli with artichokes.

Emo, who didn't seem to see the sense of mixing eating with talking, rebuffed Urbino's attempts to ask him anything about Armando and Adriana. Urbino was afraid that when the locksmith finished his second dessert, he would stand up and bid Urbino a hearty and somewhat tipsy
buona sera
.

But as it turned out the former priest had a sense of fairness, if he didn't have one of moderation. While he sipped from a generous portion of Benedictine, he started to sing for his already consumed supper.