“If one more smart-ass tells me I’m cheating, I shall, I swear, punch his miserable lights out,” Canaletto hissed at me by way of warning.
Undeterred, I peered at the mechanism through the gap in the fabric created by his hand. It seems most clever. “How can a little science in the aid of art be described as cheating, sir?” I asked honestly. “On that basis, you would surely be accused of trickery if you failed to use the selfsame paints the Romans favoured for their walls?”
That did the trick. At least I received what I took to be as close to a nod of approval as Mr. Canaletto might own.
“What you need next,” I added, “is simply some alchemical canvas which recognises the image itself and moulds its atoms to the relevant pigment. Then you’d have no need of the brush at all!”
I heard a snigger from Mr. Delapole’s manservant, Gobbo, and beat a sensible retreat back down the woodwork! I trust you have found a friend. I have, of sorts. Luigi Gobbo is an ugly chap with, believe it or not, the makings of the hump which his surname would suggest. He joined the Englishman in France some time back, I believe. In all this company, Gobbo is the most down-to-earth of fellows, always ready with a roguish joke and the occasional impious suggestion. The moment he discovered my fate, he took me under his wing, promising to let no Venetian rogue relieve me of my meagre purse. I like the chap, though we are not much similar. Our parents may have spoiled us with our homegrown education. Thinking that Gobbo might have read a little literature, too, I asked him if he was any relation of the famous Lancelot, and whether he had abandoned a notorious Jew for the service of Mr. Delapole, a man assuredly as amiable as Bassanio himself, if rather more wealthy. Gobbo looked at me as if I were witless or, worse, mocking him. English playwrights did not enter into his education. Still, he has my best interests at heart, and I his. There is amity in the city after all.
Now to more weighty matters (which are short, so do not yawn and put down the page, please). It is a week since Manzini last wrote about the estate (and yes, I agree with you, it is wrong that he must deal with me, not you, but that is the law). I hold out no great hopes. Our parents invested heavily in the farm and that precious library we both adored. Had they lived longer, we would all surely have benefited from their generosity. Since the cholera decided otherwise, we must make the best of what we have. So I shall strike a bargain with you, Lucia. Let us be honest with each other in reporting our failings. Let us write truly of those around us. And let us work diligently to make ourselves worthy of the name Scacchi — until some dashing Spanish blade steals yours away, of course!
I love you, Lucia, my darling sister, and I would trade an eternity of this magnificence for one moment together with our dear parents in that ragged little farmhouse back in the wild meadows of our home. That cannot be, so we must look to the future.
Wait! I see the famed Canaletto scowling down from his perch once more. A little line of fat Dutchmen waddling together like a flock of ducks are attempting to possess his eyrie and steal a peek at his precious painting. More fools them…
“Bloody tourists,” the artist barks, and emits a flurry of arcane curses which none beyond Cannaregio may understand. “Off with your ugly snouts and your herring-stink breath!”
“Be bold and wave a florin in his face, sirs,” shouts Mr. Delapole, egging them on. “Any man smells sweet to Canaletto who has coin in his pocket!”
Muttering darkly, our intruders shuffle o f. I suspect our painter friend is somewhat beyond their means.
While Canaletto was waving his fist at them, he left the door to his mysterious tented palace open. I leapt stealthily onto the woodwork myself and saw, with great amazement, how far this canvas had progressed in little more than an hour. This man is no fraud. It will, I think, be a fine painting. One day, when you have settled enough in Seville to earn the time and money to return to visit your native Veneto, I shall, I fancy, take you to see it. We shall measure the way our pains have diminished and our fortunes increased in the months that have passed since the Bucintoro found its way onto Canaletto’s piece of rough canvas. Here is a wondrous talent, to trap a piece of glorious time in amber, for all the ensuing centuries to witness. All I have to offer are these words, but they come freely given and from an adoring heart.
3
A name from the past
Giulia Morelli sifted the report sheets on her desk. Giulia was duty captain on the evening shift. It was hot inside the modern police block by Piazzale Roma, and the work was beginning to bore her. Sometimes she thought of applying for a transfer. Rome, maybe, or Milan. Anywhere she might find some kind of challenge to keep her mind turning.
Then she stared at the pages in front of her and felt the years roll away in an instant. The dead girl’s name seemed to yell at her. Giulia Morelli stabbed at the phone and managed to catch the reporting officer. He was changing before coming off shift, and none too keen to hang around the overheated police station. The tone of her voice ensured he would not leave without telling his story.
She listened keenly for five minutes, finding herself increasingly perplexed, then put the phone down, walked to the window, threw it open, and lit a cigarette. Outside, the last commuters were heading for their cars in the vast multi-storey close to the bridge to terra firma and Mestre, where most of them lived. She watched the straggle of figures and thought about what the officer had just told her. It made no sense. Perhaps it did not say anything about the case of Susanna Gianni at all.
They had been called to San Michele by an irate undertaker whose party had arrived on time for the ceremony, only to find the superintendent missing. They finally found the man in a building used for disinterments, apparently in some kind of distress. When the undertaker remonstrated with him, the superintendent turned violent and attacked two of the party before being restrained.
The senior officer called to the incident attempted to interview the cemetery employee, but to little avail. According to the report, the unfortunate event was caused by a sudden loss of temper in the heat. The superintendent was cautioned for minor assault, then allowed to go home. The authorities were to be told, but there would be no formal action. Only one unusual detail was noted on the report, and the officer had again confirmed it, though with no further information, when she had spoken to him. In the disinterment room was the coffin of one Susanna Gianni. It had been opened to expose the corpse. And, so it seemed to the officer, something had been removed from the casket. The shape of a long object, perhaps a metre high, was superimposed against the remains of the cadaver.
With the care and foresight she had come to expect of the uniformed branch, the officer had thought this worthy of mention but not of action. Once he had arranged for the superintendent to be taken home by police launch, he had allowed the removal of the casket — and, with it, Susanna Gianni’s bones — to continue. It appeared there was no private arrangement. The disposal of the body was carried out that afternoon by the city cemetery service. The box would be ashes by now. What remained of Susanna Gianni — even the girl’s name still made the policewoman’s blood race — would be strewn among the sea of skeletons which made up the public ossuary on one of the lagoon’s smaller islands.