The Thief of Venice (2 page)

"Read what it says. No, I'll read it." Homer snatched the pamphlet and read aloud, "The name of Bessarion evokes for everyone the gift of his great manuscript library to the city of Venice, and his attempt to unite the Greek and Roman churches at the Council of Florence in 1439." He looked up in triumph. " There, you see? "

Mary was still bewildered. Homer looked at her doubtfully. "Well, surely you've heard of the Venetian press of Aldus Manutius?"

" I may have, I'm not sure. But, Homer, what do those people have to do with us? We're students of American literature, not Renaissance scholars."

Homer couldn't believe this display of bovine indifference. He clapped his hand to his forehead and cried, "How could anyone interested in the history of civilization not be moved? How could a woman who professes to tend the dim and flickering light of learning ignore a chance like this? Besides"—Homer calmed down and showed her the letter—"it's from Samuele Bell. He's in charge of the conference and the exhibition. He's the curator of rare books in the Library of Saint Mark in Venice. Cardinal Bessarion's own books were what it began with, way back in the sixteenth century. He's invited us to stay."

"Who, Cardinal Bessarion?"

"No, no, my darling! Samuele Bell! You remember Sam Bell?"

"Oh, yes, of course. He came to Harvard to give the Norton lectures. He speaks English with a delightful accent. Why does he have an English last name?"

"His father was an American but his mother was Italian, so Sam was brought up in Venice. He married a girl from Connecticut, one of those junior-year-abroad kids, but she died a long time ago. He's got a daughter."

"Yes, I remember him now. I liked his jokes." Mary's voice turned dreamy. "He was very attractive."

"Attractive!"

Mary ran into the kitchen, threw open the refrigerator door, and spoke to a bottle of milk, "And of course his lecture was excellent, Homer. I mean, the one I heard. Truly excellent."

"I'll write to say we're coming," said Homer, feverish with anticipation. "We'll have to start organizing. Sam says to bring boots because they sometimes have high water in the fall."

"High water! You mean the city has sunk that far? The Adriatic is beginning to take over?"

"No, no, nothing like that." Homer didn't know what he was talking about, but he flapped his hands carelessly, dismissing the Venetian phenomenon of
acqua alta
. "It's just a few puddles here and there."

"But, Homer, we can't bring our boots, they're so heavy. Are you sure about the puddles?"

Homer was off on another track. "I'll write to Sam at once. And that woman who's just become an important person in the Procuratie Something-or-other. It was in the
New York Times
, big news, I guess, because she's a woman. Lucia somebody. I'll write to her too. I mean, it's a good idea to have—ah—"

"Contacts, Homer?" suggested Mary dryly. "You're making contacts?"

"No, no," said Homer primly, "not
contacts
. Nothing like that at all."

"Oh, well," said Mary resignedly, "we can visit our friends in Florence. And let's hope it's a real sabbatical this time, I mean a real vacation. Let's just pray that for once we don't stumble over any dead bodies. Let's pray you don't have to spend all your time on some idiotic criminal case."

But as it turned out there would be dead bodies aplenty. And yet it was strange—Homer would hardly notice them at all. Tripping over another set of mortal remains he would simply say, "Excuse me," and go blithely on, rejoicing in the study of ancient manuscripts and the blissful deciphering of medieval Latin and Greek.

It was his wife, Mary, who would be left to handle the affair of the dead bodies, who would find herself looking for a collection of missing relics and a lost woman, who would uncover a tragedy half a century old, and bring to light a supremely important vanished work of art.

Homer would be having a lovely, lovely rest.
 

And so they came to Venice in October. Their water taxi carried them from the airport on the mainland straight across the lagoon and around the east end of the city to the Riva degli Schiavoni on the south. There in the dazzling light they gaped across the water at a temple rising out of the sea, and disembarked.

Their bags had little wheels. The wheels bumped and zigzagged as Mary and Homer dragged them away from the bright spectacle of the lagoon into a dark passage called Calle del Dose. At once they had to dodge around a black-and-white cat. It was crouched over a plate eating a little silver fish. Then, in exhausted single file, with the rest of their baggage hanging from their shoulders, they made their way across a square. Turning right into the Salizada del Pignater, they passed a little fat girl with a heavy backpack.

She caught up with them as they stood bewildered outside Sam Bell's door. The house bore the correct number in the
sestiere
of Castello, but no one answered Homer's loud knock.

The little girl had a key. Dumbly she inserted it in the lock, opened the door, and looked up at them.

"Possiamo entrare anche noi, per favore?"
said Mary, who had been working on her Italian.

Without speaking, the child held open the door and they all went in.
 

In the Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Mark bronze figures support a rock thrown at Christ during the Flagellation.

*4*

On this day in early October, Doctor Richard Henchard knew nothing of the arrival in Venice of Mary and Homer Kelly. His entanglement with the Kellys, especially with Mary Kelly, still lay in the future.

Doctor Henchard spoke faultless Italian, although his parents were English. He had been brought up in Plymouth and educated at the University of London, and then he had studied medicine at the ancient University of Bologna and completed his residency in Venice at the Ospedale Civile.

There was a prim Victorian saying,
An Englishman Italianate is a devil incarnate.
It made Henchard laugh. At home in Plymouth he had been humble Rickie Henchard, the son of a butcher. In Venice he was Dottore Primario Richard Henchard, a rich and respected oncological surgeon, and his Italian wife was related to a principessa. Henchard's medical colleagues had trouble with the initial H of his name, and they often called him Riccardo 'Enciard. Even so it was a name to be reckoned with. He was
qualcuno
, a somebody, a person of significance, with or without the H.

As the Kellys walked in the door of Sam Bell's house in the
sestiere
of Castello, Doctor Henchard sat in a realtor's office in Cannaregio. He was looking for an apartment.

"It's for a friend," he told the
agente
. "Cheap. It must be cheap. My friend isn't rich."

Signorina Pastora looked at him shrewdly. He had said
amico
, meaning a male friend, but she strongly suspected his friend was a woman,
un'amica
. She took out her list, thinking with amusement that she wouldn't mind moving into the doctor's little place herself, he was so good-looking.

Her suspicions were correct. Doctor Henchard's friend was a woman, all right, but Giovanna was a tiresome old girl, a pain in the ass, always threatening to call his wife.

"There's a place just around the corner," said Signorina Pastora, getting up. "We'll start with that."

They walked to the Fondamenta dei Mori, across a bridge over the Rio della Sensa. At the moment the canal was a muddy gulf in which a couple of men in rubber boots were shoveling out a channel. "This ugly view is of course only temporary," explained the signorina hastily. "This sort of dredging goes on all the time, as you know, all over the city." Stopping in front of a doorway, she produced a key and added learnedly, "To keep the water moving as a preventive measure against high water."

"Of course," said Henchard, who didn't give a damn what sort of view Giovanna would have.

"Tintoretto lived a few doors down," said Signorina Pastora. "You know, the great painter. Did you see the plaque on the wall?"

Doctor Henchard didn't care about Tintoretto either. He followed her upstairs and watched her unlock another door. "How much? " he said, looking around at the small room.

She named the price. It was extremely low. She explained. "The Nettezza Urbana rents out the space below the apartment for the storage of carts. So the place is cheap. Your friend is lucky. The
spazzini
will not interfere with—him at all. They merely pick up their carts here and push them around the neighborhood to collect everybody's trash."

Henchard made a cursory examination of the bathroom, which was minimal, and glanced at the excuse for a kitchen. "What's that door?"

Signorina Pastora frowned at it. "A closet, I think."

"A closet?" Henchard opened the door and looked at the narrow space within. "Strange."

"True. These old places don't usually have closets."

Henchard ran his hand over the back of the closet, which was lined with wood rather than plaster. One board was loose. As though in disgust, he pulled it off and dropped it to the floor. Turning to Signorina Pastora he said coldly, "My God, this place is in terrible shape. I'll take it for a week on trial."

"Only a week!" Signorina Pastora tried to seem shocked, but she only succeeded in looking tired. The apartment had been without a tenant for a year. If this Casanova wanted a grubby love nest for a week, why should she give a damn? She shrugged. "Well, all right. A week it is."

"The key, please."

She handed it over and said, "Ciao," and thumped down the stairs.

Henchard went to the window and watched her cross the bridge over the empty gulch of the Rio della Sensa. Then he went back into the closet. Bending down, he peered with intense curiosity through the gap in the wooden wall at what lay on the other side.

He had to see more. He tried to rip off another board, but the nails refused to give. He would have to go home for a crowbar.

It took him an hour to go home and come back. Part of the time was spent in explaining to his wife what the crowbar was for. "Rats," he said impulsively. "Doctor Bruno in the office next to mine has rats in the wainscoting. If Bruno has rats today, I'll have them tomorrow."

"Oh, Riccardo, wait," said Vittoria. She ran into the kitchen and came back with a small bottle of dark fluid. "Rat poison. Remember? This is how we took care of it before."

Henchard looked at the bottle with distaste, but he put it in his bag.

As it turned out, it came in handy. When he got back to the house on the Rio della Sensa, he was shocked to discover a real live rat on the premises.

The door to the cart-storage space was wide open. Henchard paused and looked in. He was astonished to see a young man, obviously one of the
spazzini
, standing up in a big steel cart, using it as a stepladder. His head was out of sight through a hole in the ceiling.

With horror, Henchard understood the geometry at once. The storage space for
carretti
was directly below the little hidden chamber in which he was so feverishly interested.

He walked into the storage room and said softly, "What the
hell
do you think you're doing?"

The legs of the
spazzino
jerked with surprise, and his head came down into view. His hair was white with plaster dust. He coughed and grinned hugely at Henchard. "Ceiling's cracked. A piece fell down." He gestured with a hammer, and said slyly, "I just helped it along a little." His eyes were bright with excitement. "My God, you should see the stuff up there. Gold! All kinds of gold. Hey, wait a minute, look at this!" He reached one arm through the hole, scrabbled around, coughed, and drew his hand out again, holding a large gold plate. He coughed again, and croaked,
"Ecco!"

Henchard looked at the plate. Slowly he said, "The room upstairs is private property. It belongs to me."

"It does?" The young man's face fell, and he said,
"Mi displace."
Coughing, he pushed the plate back up through the hole and stepped down from the cart.