The Last Gondola Read online

  The Contessa, dressed in a gold-sequined, embroidered silk vest he had brought back for her from Morocco, approached the two figures. Before she reached them the tapestries caught fire. Smoke filled the room. The Contessa collapsed to the floor.

  Urbino always awoke at this point, covered in sweat and with his heart pounding. It was no different tonight.

  4

  The next morning Natalia, Urbino’s housekeeper and cook, had a woebegone expression on her round face. She held out a small piece of metal in her palm. “I broke the key in the front door again, Signor Urbino. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

  “Don’t worry about it. That lock’s difficult to turn. It’s almost happened to me. Call Demetrio Emo,” he said, as he was about to walk away.

  “Oh, I don’t like that man!” Natalia cried out. “He makes me uncomfortable.”

  “He’s Gildo’s uncle,” Urbino said, knowing how fond Natalia was of his young gondolier.

  “Like night and day, those two,” she grumbled. “Very well, but please try to be here. I don’t want to be alone with him.”

  “Have him come at noon. I should be back from the Contessa’s before then.”

  She gave him a doubtful look and went back to the kitchen.

  5

  On his way to the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini on the Grand Canal, Urbino felt alternately warmed and chilled, depending on whether he was walking in the sunshine or through the shadows of the damp alleys. Even on the hottest days of summer, they never seemed to relinquish their dankness.

  The streets were busy, especially when he reached the Rio Terrà Maddalena on the main route to the train station. He greeted friends and acquaintances, and stopped in a bar for a quick glass of Cynar. This brown liqueur brewed from artichokes, with its medicinal taste, was particularly effective in restoring the warmth stolen from him by the narrow Venetian streets.

  He paused afterward on a bridge and looked toward the Grand Canal. A gondola, making its way from the large waterway deeper into the Cannaregio district, passed beneath the bridge. It took a few moments to recognize the gondola as his own and the gondolier as Gildo, with an abstracted expression clouding his handsome face. Urbino called out to him, but he couldn’t attract the young man’s attention. Urbino went to the other side of the bridge and called again, but the self-absorbed gondolier kept staring straight ahead from the poop.

  Then Urbino noticed a large, curved piece of wood lying against the cushions of the gondola. It was a forcola or the oarlock of a gondola. Another forcola was properly attached to the gunwale of Urbino’s gondola, and Gildo was maneuvering the oar in the waters of the canal with the help of its surfaces.

  Urbino watched the gondola until it passed out of sight in the direction of the Palazzo Uccello. He left the bridge and turned down an alley that would bring him to the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini more quickly than the broad street of shops and hotels.

  He wondered what Gildo was doing with the forcola. Could it be a replacement for the one already on the gondola? If so, why hadn’t he mentioned it? And why did the young man look so melancholy these days? He had caught the same expression on his face several times recently when the gondolier had been doing work around the Palazzo Uccello or guiding the boat.

  He made a reminder to himself to look into the situation.

  6

  Urbino found the Contessa in the sun-washed morning room staring blankly at a folio-sized maroon leather volume. It was no time to trouble her with his concerns about Possle and the Ca’ Pozza.

  “Have you noticed that anything else has gone missing?” he asked. “Any jewelry?”

  “No, but I’m waiting to discover that something else has. I’ve become nervous every time I go to look for something to wear.”

  She put the book down on a table.

  “Your days of waiting and worrying will soon be over,” Urbino said in as cheery a voice as he could muster. “We’re going to find an answer that will clear away all your ridiculous doubts and fears. I’m going to start right now.”

  The Contessa gave a tentative smile. “You are?”

  “Right here at the Ca’ da Capo. But you have to give me free rein to ask your staff whatever questions I want. Your staff might be reluctant to speak. Why don’t you have a few words with them first.”

  As Urbino waited for her to return, he walked around the cozy room. He was tempted to pour himself a drink, but he had already indulged in the Cynar and had corrected his morning coffee with some anisette, although he had become enough of an Italian over the years to consider it as almost a property of coffee itself.

  He played scattered notes on a fin de siècle Viennese piano, set the antique metronome going for a few seconds, and glanced through the music sheets, all yellowed with age. One of them was his favorite Bach sonata. He assumed the Contessa was putting together her musical program that would end her series of conversazioni at the conservatory.

  He examined the watercolors on one wall. They were mainly landscapes of the English countryside, the Venetian lagoon, and the Dolomites. Two, however, depicted the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini and the Palazzo Uccello, and like the others were captured in morning light to suit the morning room. These paintings of the Contessa’s and Urbino’s residences, as well as many of the others, had been done by the Contessa’s friends who descended on Venice every year with their collapsible easels, paint boxes, and amateurism. But the Contessa displayed them here as proudly as she did the Girtins, Cotmans, and one splendid Turner that adorned the wall.

  He picked up the maroon volume that the Contessa had set down on the table. It was a scrapbook of her days at the conservatory. He dropped into an armchair to look at it.

  The book was filled with her acceptance letter from the conservatory, evaluations from tutors and coaches, photographs with friends and conservatory members, tickets and program notes from theaters in Venice, Milan, and Florence, a review of her première student performance from the local newspaper, congratulatory letters, pages of musical notation, and, on the last page, a faded, gilt-edged calling card engraved with the name of the Conte Alvise Severino Falier da Capo-Zendrini.

  The young Barbara Spencer’s talents at the conservatory had drawn the attention of the count, and their marriage had ended her days there.

  Urbino turned back to a photograph of the young Contessa. It showed a patrician-featured girl, who had not so much changed since those days as gradually aged into the mature look already present in the otherwise fresh face.

  “Contemplating what I used to be?” came the Contessa’s voice from the door.

  “Don’t fish for compliments. You know how little you’ve changed, considering.”

  “Ah yes, caro, we mustn’t forget the qualification. A great many things must be taken into account.” She took the album from his hands and clasped it against her chest. “I’ve been going through all my memorabilia from those days. It’s my attempt to be as sure as I can be that I’ll remember enough to talk about.”

  “As if that was ever a problem,” Urbino replied.

  “Ah, the old days. ‘The hand moves over the face every ten years,’ Garbo said. But other changes are far less dignified. No, don’t say anything,” she protested, although Urbino had given no indication that he was about to agree or disagree. “I’m determined to be as strong as possible in the face of the inevitable.”

  “As if you really believe such nonsense! Mens sana in corpore sano. That’s you, my dear Barbara. I know it and so do you.”

  A pleased smile curved her mouth.

  “It leaves us with a bit of a mystery though, doesn’t it? So begin to put your talents to work. You can hold your interviews in the salotto blu. I’ve made it clear to everyone that they’re to tell you whatever you want to know. And don’t worry about me listening outside the door. Even if I wanted to, I have a dress fitting in the Dorsoduro in half an hour. I’ll take a water taxi so that you won’t have to wait for Pasquale to speak with him.”

  7r />
  If the Contessa’s personal maid gave Urbino one more evasive answer, he was afraid he was going to say, like some superintendent in a nineteenth-century novel, “Now, young woman, listen to me—and mind you speak the truth!”

  Instead he asked in an even tone, “Exactly what do you mean when you say that things haven’t been the same around the house lately?”

  “Did I say that, Signor Urbino?”

  Urbino gave an inward sigh. “Excuse me, Silvia. Sometimes my Italian isn’t as good as it needs to be. You see,” he went on, realizing at last the tack that he should take with her, “I’ve noticed that the Contessa hasn’t been herself. I wonder what your impression has been. You seem to be a perceptive girl.”

  The girl perked up at this and gave him a bright smile. “Thank you, signore. Since you speak about the Contessa in that way, I confess I can agree with you. I’m worried about her these days.”

  “We both want to help her however we can. Why are you worried?”

  “I did say that I was worried, yes,” she reaffirmed to Urbino’s relief. “She’s very nervous. I’m with her early in the morning and late at night, and many hours in between. The Contessa is like an actress. Oh, I mean it in the best sense. She always tries to be good and brave when she’s in company, not that you are company, signore, but you understand what I mean.”

  Urbino nodded at what sounded like a maid’s version of the saying that a mistress was never a heroine to her maid.

  “As I was saying, the Contessa is a nervous type, and I mean it only in the best sense. She’s sensitive, too sensitive. And it’s been doing her harm. She wakes up with a sad expression on her face and goes to sleep the same way. And she becomes upset when she can’t find something. I haven’t known her long, not like you and my cousin Lucia, but I can see the difference, yes.”

  Silvia was relatively new in the Contessa’s employ, having replaced Lucia when Urbino was in Morocco. Vitale, the majordomo, and Pasquale, the boatman, had also joined the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini household recently.

  “The Contessa tells me that she’s been missing items of her clothing and a piece of jewelry, the necklace with the silver ovals. You know the one I mean, don’t you? It’s not valuable at all, but it’s quite lovely.”

  Silvia stiffened and stared back at him.

  “Of course no one believes that you’re in any way responsible for what’s missing,” Urbino added.

  This was less than the truth, however, and Urbino hoped that such a simple explanation could be found. It was conceivable that an envious and malicious maid would take her employer’s personal items, but his instincts told him that this wasn’t what had happened at the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini.

  “I hope not, signore,” Silvia said curtly.

  “What do you think has happened to these things?”

  “We’ve been looking everywhere. The Contessa is the kind of person who would turn the house upside down to search for a pin. I mean it only in the best sense, of course. These days she’s always asking where did I put this, where did I put that. I put everything in its correct place, I tell her, just as she wants. But I don’t think she believes me.”

  “But some things have gone missing. Do you think someone could be playing a trick on the Contessa?”

  “A trick, signore?” Silvia seemed genuinely perplexed.

  “Taking her things and hiding them, making her think they’re gone, and then putting them all back again sometime later?”

  Silvia looked at him with surprise. “Why would someone do that to our Contessa?”

  “As a little game. So that everyone would laugh afterward, including the Contessa.”

  “You know the Contessa very well, Signor Urbino. She wouldn’t find it amusing. She’s almost sick with worry. It would be very cruel. No, perhaps the Contessa gave her things to some charity or a friend, and she doesn’t remember. I mean it only in the best sense, for her kind acts are too many for her to remember every one. And her memory isn’t the sharpest these days. She forgot her dressmaker’s appointment last month, and she’s never done that. Today I reminded her that she had another one, but she didn’t seem pleased. She remembered quite well for herself, she said.”

  8

  Urbino next spoke with Vitale, the majordomo. His name could not have been more appropriate with all his evident vigor and good health.

  “You can be sure I wish to help, signore,” he began before Urbino asked him anything, “but I know nothing about these lost objects. I learned about them only a few minutes ago from Silvia.”

  “The Contessa never mentioned them to you?”

  Vitale shook his imposing head with its graying hair. “It isn’t something that directly concerns me. Such things are the responsibility of Silvia.”

  “In some ways you’re responsible for the security of the house.”

  “That’s true, signore, but this isn’t a matter of security in the way that you mean. The Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini hasn’t been entered by any, how shall I say, unknown undesirable person,” he emphasized.

  His implication was clear. In his opinion the loss of the Contessa’s objects was to be explained from within the house itself.

  “But the Contessa has no electronic system to protect the house.”

  This was one of the Contessa’s many peculiarities when it came to the eighteenth-century building. She tried to keep it as close as possible to what it had been when the Conte had died more than twenty years ago.

  “Nor is one needed, signore, even here with what is a much larger building than your own.”

  Urbino allowed himself an amused smile at Vitale’s condescension to the Palazzo Uccello.

  “Nonetheless isn’t it possible for someone unknown—undesirable or otherwise—to enter the house?” Urbino persisted.

  Urbino could think of some ways to get into the building, the two most obvious being through the garden or the water entrance.

  “Vigilance, signor. We are most vigilant.”

  Urbino wondered whether the imperious Vitale was indulging in the ‘royal we,’ or whether he was referring to all the staff members and the Contessa as well.

  “I have no doubt about that.”

  Urbino then asked Vitale the same question he had asked Silvia, whether someone in the house might be playing a trick on the Contessa. The majordomo’s response was similar to Silvia’s.

  “It would be a strange thing to do, signore. We all care about the Contessa too much to play cruel games with her. And we are not children. If you will excuse me, I have something I must attend to.”

  “One more question. The Contessa mentioned something about a door knocker.”

  “A misunderstanding. The Contessa wished the old one to be replaced but forgot to tell me. It’s been attended to, as you must have noticed. Good day.”

  9

  Urbino learned nothing more of interest from any of the other staff members until he spoke with Pasquale, the boatman and chauffeur.

  The young man had been hired shortly after Urbino’s return from Morocco when the position had become vacant with the death of his predecessor.

  Pasquale stood at attention, his white cap in his hand. He was a small, muscular man with dark eyes and crisp, black hair.

  “I don’t know what happens in the house,” he said.

  On the face of it, this comment was borne out by Pasquale’s position and its circumstances. Like Gildo at the Palazzo Uccello, Pasquale had rooms on the ground floor with immediate access to the motorboat and the water; and almost all his duties, by their very nature, took him away from the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini. Yet during all the in-between hours he was free as long as he remained in the house or within close call. From time to time he took his meals with the others, if he wished.

  “I understand that,” Urbino said, “but you have opportunities to observe things that people like Silvia and Vitale, for example, don’t.”

  “The view from the water, yes, it’s a different view.” A smile lit up Pasq
uale’s rugged face. “As signore sees from his gondola.”

  Urbino nodded. He wasn’t to be distracted, however. “So has this different view allowed you to observe anything that might be of help to the Contessa? Anything out of the ordinary perhaps? You know how troubled she is about her missing items.”

  The humor faded from the boatman’s face. “Some of the others have told me. But the Contessa lost nothing from the boat,” he added. “She lost nothing when she was with me.”

  “That appears to be the case, yes. Have you seen anyone suspicious around the water steps? That door is often unlocked. It wouldn’t be impossible for someone to enter that way.”

  “But the doors up to the first floor are locked, signore. At least, most of the time. I have a set of keys to use, as I require. So does Vitale. But I haven’t seen anything that could be of help.” He paused. “Unless—but no, that was nothing.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “I suppose it was out of the ordinary, as you said before. Three or four months ago I brought the Contessa back from the Palazzo Uccello. It was almost midnight. A rowboat had become unmoored from the water steps of our calle. It had drifted near the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini. I made sure it was properly tied up for the night and went to bed.”

  “Was that the first time it happened?”

  “To my knowledge. It’s always tied up in the same place, from what I’ve seen. It’s just an old rowboat, signore. I suppose whoever owns it doesn’t think anyone would want to take it.”

  Before Urbino left the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini, he sought out the androne of the building. This was the entrance hall from the water, which in the old days used to be the main entrance of the building. It was flanked by rooms, which, in previous centuries had been warehouses, but today were storage rooms and Pasquale’s apartment. A formal staircase led up to the piano nobile. The androne was decorated in a sea motif with portraits of sea captains and a frieze of a Venetian ship with the Da Capo-Zendrini coat of arms.