The Last Gondola (43 page)

The waters immediately off of Malamocco were notoriously dangerous because of mudflats and currents. Wooden poles in the water marked the safe boat routes. Supposedly when Pepin asked an old local woman the way to Rivo Alto, the high bank of the Venetian islands that became known as the Rialto, she pointed across the exact point of the lagoon where she knew there were treacherous waters.
‘Sempre dritto,'
she said, ‘Straight ahead,' directing him and his men to their destruction by the Venetian forces when his fleet became mired. Today you could hear Venetians offering the same directions without any malevolence as they pointed out the way to some building or square or bridge. The irony, of course, was that in the confusing maze of Venice nothing could ever be ‘straight ahead.'

When Pasquale brought him to the busy Piazzale Santa Maria Elisabetta where the boats came in from Venice, Urbino walked down the Gran Viale toward the Adriatic. Although he loved Venice, he sometimes enjoyed escaping from it for a few hours on the Lido and taking in what seemed to him to be, after months in Venice, the distinct anomalies of bicycles, Vespas, cars, and buses. But August was not the time to do it, for it was crammed with tourists, bicycles, and cars. He was jostled by the crowd, most of them in shorts and bathing suits although some of them – these he suspected being early arrivals for the film festival – were dressed in the height of fashion and sometimes quite outlandishly. A child ran into him with a cone of chocolate
gelato
that made a stain on his trouser leg. He was almost run down by two teenagers pedaling furiously on a tandem.

After stopping for a mineral water in a café, for the day had become increasingly hot, he eventually reached the Old Jewish Cemetery, where he knew he would be able to find some peace and quiet. Other than himself, there was only an elderly couple, who returned his greeting politely and continued their slow circuit of the cemetery.

The cemetery was a small area that had recently been restored, although not to the best effect. Many of the old tombstones had been moved and regrouped together, and the place had lost some of that melancholy charm that appealed to Urbino, especially in cemeteries.

After walking around and examining the inscription on the obelisk that proclaimed the cemetery to be the ‘House of the Living,' he sat on the ground near a cypress tree. It seemed an appropriate place to take out his Goethe, which he had slipped in his pocket before leaving the Palazzo Uccello.

For the next half-hour, surrounded by the tombstones with their images of upraised hands, urns pouring water, lions, and coats of arms, Urbino lost himself in Goethe's impressions.

The next afternoon Urbino, on his way to meet Nick Hollander at the Gritti Palace, sat in the stern of a vaporetto as it passed down the Grand Canal. This was his preferred place in the boats, with his back to the prow. He enjoyed looking out at the scene after the vaporetto had already passed it.

What has been called the finest street in the world was also one of the busiest. To an eye less practiced than Urbino's it would also have seemed to be one of the most chaotic, but not because of any ravages of the recent storm.

Wasn't his vaporetto about to capsize the rocking gondola only a short distance away? From the look of alarm on the faces of the tourists in the black craft, they certainly seemed to think so. And how could the fireboat, speeding from the station near Ca' Foscari, possibly make its way among all the water traffic without a collision? Surely stretches of the Grand Canal would soon be filled with sinking crates of wine and mineral water, plastic bags of refuse, and splinters of sleek, polished wood?

But despite all the activity and all the craft going about then-business, there was order. Everyone kept to his proper place on – or rather
in
– the liquid pavement, even the three bright yellow kayaks that hugged the Cannaregio shore.

Urbino saw only this harmony in the scene. It was a harmony of green water and bright blue sky; of old stone buildings and their mirror images; of white seabirds and creamy boat wakes; of motion and stillness; of sound and silence.

The harmony was all the more remarkable, considering the chaos of the other night. But Venice was licking its wounds, pushing the water out of the front doors, repairing the windows, drying out the carpets, clothes, and furniture. It had done it before. And it would have to do it again.

Urbino was filled with admiration for the city. The traffic on the Grand Canal was like a procession of thanksgiving for having escaped the latest assaults. It was a procession that took the form of normal coming and going, of everyday business and entertainment.

Urbino's vaporetto, loaded with passengers it had picked up at the Piazzale Roma and the train station, rode low in the water. From his position beside the doors that led into the cabin Urbino felt as if he were level with the waters of the Canalazzo. Middle-aged American women occupied the other six seats in the stern. They were in a convivial mood, and kept snapping photographs as the boat proceeded in the direction of the Piazza San Marco.

Urbino gave himself up to the play of light and color and the marble walls of buildings that were austerely classical one moment and fancifully Gothic the next. He wondered how much more he might have enjoyed the palaces if they had been cleaned of the patina of age and weather and if their original frescoes and bright golds, blues, and reds had been restored. One thing would have been gained, something else lost.

Urbino would have remained in a ruminative frame of mind if some chance words in the conversation of his fellow passengers hadn't drawn his attention.

‘That palace there,' a woman's voice said, ‘that's where the Queen of Cyprus was born.' She held a guidebook in her hand. ‘You remember Cyprus, Laura. All those orange trees?'

‘The Queen of Cyprus! Where, Darlene? Oh, it's beautiful.'

Laura stood up and took a photograph of the building that Darlene, her friend with the guidebook, pointed out. But the building receiving her attentions was the Ca' d' Oro and not the palace on the opposite side of the Grand Canal where Caterina Cornaro, whose memory would be honored in the upcoming regatta, had seen the light of day in the late fifteenth century.

‘Excuse me,' Urbino said, ‘but that's the Ca' d' Oro. The one we just passed, the one over there' – he indicated the considerably more plain building on the San Polo side – ‘is the one where the Queen of Cyprus died. It's the Palazzo Corner della Regina and it's—'

‘Oh, I understand!' Darlene interrupted. ‘Regina means Queen in Italian, doesn't it? I had a girlfriend named Regina in Schenectady. This book here has got me all confused. I'm looking at things backwards and upside down!' She gave him a broad smile. ‘You're an American!'

Urbino admitted to it.

‘I could have sworn you were an Italian,' Darlene said with a laugh. She took in his Italian linen suit and Italian shoes. ‘What about you, girls?'

They all vigorously assented.

Urbino soon realized what he had got himself into. They started to assail him with questions. He explained that he had been living in the city for twenty years and was a writer. He wasn't even tempted to reveal that he was also an amateur sleuth.

‘I can't believe I'm really here!' Darlene said.

‘But only for one night,' Laura lamented. ‘I'm glad it's not raining. Someone told us in Rome that it always rains in Venice.'

‘Not every day, obviously,' Urbino said, ‘but we get more than our share. You're lucky you weren't here the other night.'

‘It was bad enough in Florence,' Laura said.

‘It's so romantic,' Darlene enthused. ‘We should be here with someone special. Not with a bunch of other girls, right ladies?'

Her companions turned their eager smiles on Urbino and away from the glories of the Grand Canal.

Urbino knew that the best way to avoid any further personal questions was to assume the role of a cicerone.

For the next fifteen minutes, he provided a running commentary on the buildings, squares, and bridges they were passing. He informed them that the
altane
were not fire escapes, assured them that the big stone bridge was not the Bridge of Sighs but the Rialto Bridge, and explained that the canal that ran beside the Ca' Rezzonico was the one that Katharine Hepburn fell into in the movie
Summertime
. He told them about the upcoming regatta, commiserating with them that they would miss it.

They soon passed under the Accademia Bridge. Urbino provided some statistics about the wooden bridge, surprising even himself with the way the information about the city was flowing effortlessly. He then told them about the newest bridge being built over the Grand Canal by the Piazzale Roma, the first one in over a hundred years, one to be made out of Murano glass.

‘At least two years behind schedule. They put up an arch from each side of the Grand Canal, but they collapsed.'

The women gave murmurs of surprise and regret.

By this time Urbino was thoroughly enjoying his new role.

He was about to launch into a description of the Palazzo Guggenheim which they were approaching, complete with anecdotes about the flamboyant Peggy Guggenheim, when Laura, who had been pushing her camera button almost constantly, said, ‘How I wish I could do what that woman over there can do instead of just taking these pictures!'

She pointed toward the Campo San Vio that fronted the Grand Canal. It wasn't difficult for Urbino to determine whom Laura was talking about.

A tall, thin woman in a gondolier's hat stood in front of an easel. It was the red-haired woman he had seen twice on the day of the second big storm.

‘Keep on at it, girl!' Laura shouted.

She waved her arms wildly. She caught the attention of the woman, who waved back at her.

Urbino continued to impart odds and ends of information to the women, pacing himself so that he came to the end of his description of the plague and the Salute just as the vaporetto approached the Maria del Giglio landing. There were so many thank-yous and kisses and handshakes that he almost missed the stop.

Coming out on to the terrace of the Gritti Palace Hotel from the bar, where he had spent several minutes talking with an acquaintance, Urbino's eyes were initially dazzled by the sunshine glancing off the Grand Canal. As he searched for Nick Hollander among the other patrons under the blue-and-white-striped awning, his eye fell on two women. Perla Beato and Oriana Borelli were sitting at a table against the wooden railing above the hotel's private boat landing. With their blonde heads bent together, they seemed oblivious of not only Urbino but also the splendid scene beyond the terrace.

‘Isn't this a surprise,' Oriana said in a voice that had been made hoarse from cigarettes. She was an attractive woman who, rumor had it, had just celebrated – or rather concealed – her fiftieth birthday. ‘I didn't know the Gritti was one of your haunts. I keep learning more about you.'

‘I'm glad to know I'm not completely predictable.'

‘Nothing like that at all!' In a characteristic gesture she pushed her large-framed sunglasses up on her nose. ‘Wouldn't you say “ditto” to that, Perla?'

Perla had applied more make-up than usual today but not enough to conceal a slightly weary look and a purple bruise on her left cheek. ‘Ditto, Oriana. Dependable but not predictable,' she responded. ‘As good as his word, but not as … as …' She stared at Urbino with her brown eyes as if appealing to him to help her come up with the right expression. Oriana smiled, but then Perla finished: ‘But not as regular as clockwork! Yes, that's it!'

She glanced triumphantly at Oriana.

Whenever Perla and Oriana spoke English in each other's presence, their competitive spirit asserted itself, sometimes with amusing results.

‘Take a load off your feet, Urbino dear,' Oriana now said.

‘Yes, we'd love to shoot the breeze with you,' Perla put in.

‘It would tickle us pink,' Oriana said without missing a beat.

Urbino decided, for his own sake, to put an end to their idiomatic skirmish.

‘It would be lovely to join you but I have a rendezvous.'

He looked around the terrace and saw a tanned, bald man in his early thirties sitting alone at the end of the terrace by the screen of green plants. He seemed to be regarding Urbino with curiosity, although when he saw that Urbino was looking at him, he turned his gaze to the row of palaces on the opposite side of the Grand Canal. He met the description the contessa had given Urbino – or rather the description that her cousin Sebastian had passed on to her – at least in the sense that he was completely bald.

‘If it's with that stunning woman with the auburn hair drinking Dom Pérignon,' Oriana said, ‘I'm going to let the cat out of the bag and tell Barbara.'

‘You'll have to keep the feline in the sack,' Urbino said with a smile. ‘It's with that man by the railing.'

‘Him!' Oriana said. ‘We were wondering who he was waiting for. We assumed it was a woman.'

Oriana, although married, always had her eye out for available – and even unavailable – men. Urbino often wondered whether the competition between her and Perla extended beyond the linguistic into affairs of the heart.

‘You'll have to excuse me,' he said. ‘I shouldn't keep him waiting.'

‘What's his name?' Oriana asked.

‘Nick Hollander, and don't worry, you'll get your chance to meet him yourself. He's coming to Barbara's party.'

Urbino went over to the man

‘Excuse me,' he said tentatively. ‘I believe you're Nick Hollander.'

The man gave a slightly strained smile and stood up. He was dressed in a well-cut, stylish suit in a shade of pale yellow with subtle gray stripes. He wore no tie.

‘Please sit down, Mr. Macintyre,' he said after they had shaken hands.