The Thief of Venice (9 page)

"Solo tu?"

"Solo io."

Ursula snuggled closer. "Please, Papa, may I have some money? "

"How much do you want, little one? "

It was a small sum. He gave her what she asked for, and at once she slipped off his knees, beamed at him, and left the room. A moment later she was on her way to her favorite shop.

When she came home her grandmother was at the door. Dismayed, Ursula shoved her package inside her coat, but it was too late.

"Ursula, what have you got there? Your father gave you money, didn't he? Your father spoils you rotten. Open that bag! Show me."

Ursula tried to squeeze past her, but Mrs. Wellesley put her hands on the bag and tugged. Ursula hung on. For a moment there was a furious wrestling match, and then the package fell to the floor with a smash.

"Oh, no," cried Ursula, falling to her knees. "You've broken it! I hate you!"

Her grandmother stepped back, a little daunted, and said nothing more. But she hadn't given up. Whatever it was, she would find it. She would ransack the child's room until she did.
 

*18*

Mary had abandoned her list. She had completely lost track of what her camera had recorded, its shutter flicking open and shut five hundred times. She was floating in a sea of palaces and canals and little bridges with gondolas approaching and gondolas retreating and endless views of churches—the Salute, the Gesuiti, San Zaccaria, Santa Maria Formosa, San Francesco della Vigna, the Church of the Scalzi, Santa Maria dei Miracoli. Churches, churches, there were so many churches. Every little campo had its own, some with naked Gothic vaults, some with ceilings painted with visions of heaven.

Her picture-recording notebook was forgotten. Surely when the pictures were printed, she would remember what they were.

She had at last run out of film. Mary took her exposed rolls to a
tabacchi
on the corner of Salizada del Pignater and bought another dozen. The day was mizzling with rain. It was a good day to spend indoors. She asked Sam's advice.

"Have you seen the Scuola di San Rocco?" he said. "You haven't? Well, go there. Take my word for it."

"But what is it, a church?"

"You'll see. Make Homer come with you. He hasn't seen anything at all. It's in San Polo. Here, let me see your map."

Reluctantly Homer abandoned his plan for another day in the Marciana. Although the conference was over, he was still rejoicing in the exhibition. His kindly friend Sam had ordered the glass cases to be unlocked whenever
il gentilissimo professore dagli Stati Uniti
wished to examine a codex or an Aldine octavo.

Actually, although Homer didn't know it, this laxity was a highly questionable practice, but Sam Bell was beyond caring.

Today Homer had been planning to examine lovingly the first ten books of Livy and a particularly beautiful codex dedicated to the Venetian pope Paul II.

He had a new card index with tabs, and the little tabs were organized under bigger tabs, and everything was arranged according to his old system of colored cards, pink, blue, green, and yellow, because Homer had a grand object in mind. He was planning to write an article for the
Harvard Library Bulletin
—assuming that the editors would accept one from a rank beginner in Renaissance scholarship—an extended review of the magnificent Venetian exhibition, complete with illustrations.

The project was the darling of Homer's heart. Therefore he only reluctantly agreed to accompany Mary to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.

"I'll come too," said Sam impulsively. And of course it was okay,
tutto bene
, because he would be obeying his new rule. He could do anything now, anything at all, even something as wild and fanciful as taking a day off to see again the most glorious works of art in the city of Venice.

So they set off together, walking from Castello through the
sestiere
of San Marco, avoiding the crowds in the piazza, then crossing the Rialto Bridge and working their way through a labyrinth of streets in San Polo. Suddenly Sam said, "Here we are," and stopped.

Mary and Homer stopped beside him. At once, responding to instinct, Mary lifted her camera and took a picture.

"My God," said Homer, impressed in spite of himself. It was a stage set for an Italian opera. The two white marble buildings in the Campo San Rocco were set at right angles, enclosing a space only big enough for a posturing tenor and a fat soprano. The two facades were a riot of garlanded columns, bristling acanthus leaves, pedimented windows, and marble reliefs.

"Over here," murmured Sam, leading the way into the building on the left. "The other one is the church. Tintoretto spent twenty-four years of his life decorating the Scuola."

They paid their way in, then followed Sam around the ground floor, looking up at the enormous paintings on the walls. Sam said nothing. But as they climbed a splendid staircase to the floor above he said, between gasps, "It always seems so amazing to me,
tanto sorprendente
, that a man with as keen and subtle a mind as Tintoretto's could be so swept away by the Christian myth." He stopped halfway to catch his breath. "And he wasn't just swept away, he was—what's the word?—
esaltato
."

"Exalted," agreed Mary solemnly. "He certainly was."

"Well, of course"—doggedly Sam climbed the rest of the way—"it's an extraordinary story."

"What is?" said Homer, gasping up the last few steps.

"Oh, you know, the whole thing, the life of Jesus in the New Testament." Sam walked them across the enormous room, uttering sarcasms in a low voice. "The fairy story of the virgin birth. You know perfectly well that all those contemporary mystery religions had virgin births and godlike figures who were sacrificed and resurrected. Here, look at this one, the
Adoration of the Shepherds
." They stopped and looked at the picture in the corner, and Sam's mockery continued. "There was no star, there were no kings, there were no shepherds kneeling at a manger. There were no tests for virginity in the first century B.C. Nobody knows anything about the mother of Jesus, and yet in Tintoretto's time this entire city was a temple to the Virgin Mary."

"It's a pretty wonderful painting though," whispered Mary. "How noble she is."

"Of course," said Sam. "That's my whole point. That a man of genius can take any absurdity and turn it into something magnificent. Come on, look at Moses striking water from the rock."

They followed him around the room, staring up in awe at the paintings and listening to Sam's whispered blasphemies.

"Hey," said Homer as they completed the circuit, "there's another room over here."

"More of the same." Sam led the way.

It was a chamber called the Albergo. Tintoretto's
Crucifixion
occupied an entire wall. "Oh," said Mary, and then she fell silent. Homer gripped her hand.

"John Ruskin said a clever thing about this one," said Sam softly. "Usually I can't stand Ruskin, he's so bossy and narrow-minded, but this time—"

"What did he say?" murmured Homer.

Sam knew it by heart.
"I must leave this picture to work its will on the spectator, for it is beyond all analysis and above all praise."

Then he stopped talking, and they stood silently gazing at the tumble of muscular figures erecting the crosses of the thieves, the armed men on horseback, the weeping mourners, the threatening sky, and the towering figure of Christ with his arms spread wide on the cross.
 

*19*

Mrs. Wellesley was the perfect stereotype of a mother-in-law—sharp, critical, inquisitive, and demanding. The fact that she was also a supreme bore was another feather in her cap. Sam put up with her patiently, remembering how devotedly she had nursed her dying daughter. And how could he have refused her unselfish offer to stay on after Henrietta's death and take care of Ursula?

Sam had been grateful. He had welcomed his mother-in-law with a newly furnished bedroom, a generous stipend and a comfortable allowance for expenses, and she had taken hold at once.

Therefore how could he cavil at the nature of her care? Ursula was well fed, well bathed, well clothed, supplied with expensive dolls and toys, and taken to suitable films and entertainments. Last summer there had been an expedition to the sandy beaches of the Lido and another to a theme park on the mainland.

"I hope you don't expect me to take the child to church," Dorothea had said at once. "I regard the Christian religion as dangerous for the impressionable mind of a child, especially the papist version here in Italy."

"Oh, no, of course I don't expect it." But Sam had felt a slight misgiving. It was true that he himself made jokes about saints' bones and relics of the True Cross, and here he was putting the matter to the test! And yet his mother-in-law's severe atheism seemed a cold inheritance for a little child.

So for the last three years father and grandmother had been sharing the task of caring for the youngest member of the family.

Mrs. Wellesley provided supervision over the little girl's every move, Sam supplied the affection the child was hungry for, whispering to her in Italian and bouncing her on his knee—

Alpasso, alpasso
Va il cavallo del gradasso.
Al trotto, al trotto
Va il caval del giovanotto.
Al galoppo, al galoppo
Va il cavallo dell' Ursula, e ... PUMFETE!

But why was his mother-in-law so inquisitive? Sam found her habit of poking into every nook and cranny of his private life especially irksome. Her nosiness was the reason for the lock he had attached to his study door two years ago. At least now he could keep his papers and correspondence away from her prying eyes, although sometimes Sam wondered if his letters were opened before he picked them up from the hall table. The envelopes sometimes looked a little odd, as though they had been opened very delicately and pasted shut again.

For Dorothea Wellesley the lock was infuriating. It was an insult. How could there be secrets between her and her son-in-law? Did Sam have a secret woman? Someone he didn't dare bring home? Oh, she wouldn't put it past him!

The truth was, Sam's mother-in-law was as suspicious as her daughter had been of his possible erotic adventures. In fact it was Dorothea's warnings about the perfidy of men that had been responsible for Henrietta's wariness. She had been cautioned about voluptuous secretaries, curvaceous librarians, and sultry professional colleagues. She had been frightened into a state of perpetual jealousy. She had confronted Sam with her suspicions at every turn.

Poor dear Henrietta! She was gone now, carried off by a malignancy that had spread from her breasts to her lymph nodes to her liver. But her mother was still on guard. Three years after the death of Sam's wife, Mrs. Wellesley suspected darkly that he was ready for new amorous adventures. He was still so good-looking! And a widower! And a man with an important position! And therefore highly vulnerable to the seductive attentions of women on the make. He might betray Henrietta's memory at any time by sneaking off with some alluring female. Dorothea knew the pitiful prevarications of men. If there was one thing on this earth that she understood from top to bottom, and inside and out, and back to front in all its lust and deceit, it was the opposite sex.

Why did Sam always lock his study door? What secrets lay inside that room? What evidences of infidelity?

The arrival of the mysterious package at last goaded her into action. Dorothea began a campaign of discovery. On the very first day she won a victory. Foolish Sam! On his way upstairs to take a nap he forgot to bring his keys. There they lay, fully exposed on the table in the hall.

Which was the key to his study? Dorothea recognized the house keys and the key to the car that was parked at Piazzale Roma. The Marciana key bore a tag. There was only one left. It must be the one she was looking for.

She snatched it up and ran out of the house. There was a
negozio di ferramenta
around the corner, right next to the Church of San Giovanni in Bragora. Dorothea nipped out of the house and waited at the counter for the proprietor to finish counting out screws for one customer and helping another to choose an aluminum ladder. At last she presented her key and asked for two copies.

The errand took too long. When she got back, Sam was just emerging from his nap, looking more exhausted than ever.

"Oh, Sam, dear, I hope you're feeling better?" Dorothea backed up to the hall table and artfully dropped the borrowed key.

His face looked wasted from lack of sleep. "I'll just make myself a cup of coffee."

Dorothea watched him trudge away in the direction of the kitchen. Quickly then, she reattached the borrowed key to the key ring. Then she hurried into her bedroom and laid the new keys on her dresser next to the photograph of Henrietta as a bride.