He looked down at her, clearly willing her to ask him what he had been constrained to do. And as that verb passed through her mind, Brett suddenly realized that all of this was no script he had prepared to justify his actions; this was not a scene he was constructing in order to fool her into taking his part. He believed this. He had wanted something, it had been refused him, and so he had been constrained to take it. As simple as that. And in the same instant she saw where she was: standing in his way, impeding the freedom with which he might possess the ceramics he had gone to so much trouble and expense to take from the exhibition at the Ducal Palace. And she knew then that he was going to kill her, blot out her life as casually as he had struck out at her when she refused to answer his question. Involuntarily, she moaned, but he took it as a question and went on.
‘I wanted to arrange it to look like a simple robbery, but if the bowl had been taken, he would have known that I was involved. I thought of having it removed and then burning down his villa.’ He paused and sighed at the memory. ‘But then I just couldn’t. He had so many beautiful things there. I couldn’t see them destroyed.’ He lowered the bowl and showed her the inner surface. ‘Just look at that circle, and the way the lines swerve around it, emphasizing the pattern. How did they know howto do that?’ He stood upright and muttered, ‘Simply miraculous. Miraculous.’
During all of this, the young man said nothing, standing at his side and listening to every word, following every gesture with his eyes, expressionless.
The older man sighed again and then continued. ‘I made it clear that it was to be done when he was alone. I didn’t see any reason that his family should suffer. He was driving back from Siena one night, and . . .’ He paused here, seeking how most delicately to phrase this. ‘And he had an accident. Most unfortunate. He lost control of his car on the superstrada. It caught fire and burned at the side of the road. In the confusion of his death, it was some time before anyone noticed that the bowl was gone.’ His voice grew softer as he passed to the philosophic mode. ‘I wonder if that has anything to do with why I love this bowl so much, the fact that I had to go to so much trouble to get it?’ Then, more conversationally, ‘You can’t imagine how glad I am finally to be able to show it to someone who can appreciate it.’ With a glance at the young man, he added, ‘Everyone here tries to understand, to share my enthusiasm, but they haven’t devoted years of study to these things, the way I have. And the way you have, Professoressa.’
His smile grew absolutely benign. ‘Would you like to hold it, Dottoressa? No one else has touched it since I, well, since I acquired it. But I’m certain you would appreciate the feel of it in your hands, the perfection of the curve on the bottom. You’ll be amazed at how light it is. I’m always so sorry that I don’t have the correct scientific resources. I’d like to check its composition with a spectroscope and see what it’s made of; maybe that could explain why it feels so light. Perhaps you’d be willing to tell me what you think?’
He smiled again and held the bowl out towards her. She forced her stiffening body away from the wall and put out her hands to take the bowl he offered. Carefully, she took it in her two upturned palms and looked down into its centre. The black lines, painted by some graceful hand, dead now more than five millennia, swept across the bottom, swirling up apparently at random to encircle white spaces that enclosed small black circles, turning them into bulls’ eyes. The bowl all but vibrated with life, with the comic spirit of the potter. She saw that the lines did not run evenly spaced, that gaps and variations proclaimed the fallible humanity of the artist who had painted it. Through involuntary tears she saw the beauty of a world she was to join. She mourned her own death and the power of this man who still stood in front of her to possess beauty as perfect as this.
‘It’s fabulous, isn’t it?’ he asked.
Brett looked up from the bowl and into his eyes. He’d snuff out her life as carelessly as he’d spit out a cherry stone. He’d do that and he’d live on, possessed of this beauty, happy in the full possession of this, his greatest joy. She took a small step back from him and raised her arms in a hieratic gesture that lifted the bowl to the level of her face. Then, very slowly, with conscious deliberation, she drew her hands apart and let the bowl fall to the marble floor, where it shattered, splashing fragments up against her feet and legs.
The man lunged forward but not in time to save the bowl. When his foot landed on a fragment, shattering it into dust, he staggered backward, bumping into the younger man and grabbing at him for support. His face flushed red and then as quickly paled. He muttered something Brett didn’t understand, then turned quickly to face her. He pulled one hand free and stepped towards her, but the younger man moved up behind him and wrapped one arm around his chest, pulling him back. He spoke softly but fiercely into the older man’s ear, holding his arm tightly and preventing him from reaching Brett. ‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Not with all your beautiful things.’ The older man snarled out an answer she didn’t hear. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ the young one said. ‘Downstairs.’
While they spoke, voices growing louder and louder, Brett plunged her right hand into her pocket and wrapped it around the narrow end of the belt hook: the other end was pointed, and the edges were thin enough to cut. As she watched them and listened to them, their voices began to billow away and float back towards her. At the same time, Brett realized that she no longer felt the cold; quite the contrary, she was hot, burning with it. Yet they talked on and on, voices urgent and fast. She told herself to stand there, to hold the blade, but it was suddenly too much effort, and she lowered herself into the chair again. Her head dropped down and she saw the shattered wreckage on the floor without remembering what it was.
After a long time, she heard the door open and slam shut, and when she looked up, only the younger man remained in the room. There was a gap in time, and then he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. She went along with him, out of the door and down the stairs, pain exploding in her head at every step, and then down more stairs, across the open courtyard that still teemed with rain, and then to a wooden door that was set at the level of the courtyard.
Still holding her arm, though she almost laughed at how unnecessary that was, he turned the key and pulled the door open. She looked in and saw low steps leading down towards glittering darkness. From the first step, the darkness was palpable, and from its surface she saw the reflection of light on water.
The man wheeled towards her and grabbed her arm. He flung her forward, and she tripped through the doorway, feet searching automatically for the steps beneath them. On the first, her foot plunged into water, but the second was slimy with seaweed and moss, and her foot slipped out from under her. She had time to raise her arms in front of her, and then she plunged forward into the still-rising waters.