He went to the door and pulled it open.
15
Whatever Palewski had supposed, Antonio Ruggerio was telling the truth when he boasted of belonging to one of the oldest families of the Republic. Ruggerios had been present, if not prominent, at the sack of Constantinople in 1204, when the energies of the Fourth Crusade were unexpectedly diverted to the enrichment of La Serenissima. Members of the clan had left their bones all over the Mediterranean-in Cyprus, in the Aegean islands, even North Africa. But for many centuries the Ruggerios had seldom ventured much farther than the Campo San Barnaba near the banks of the Grand Canal, in whose dreary baroque church they were baptized, married, and dispatched to a pauper’s grave.
The Ruggerios belonged to a special class of impoverished nobility, the so-called Barnabotti, who had withdrawn from the Venetian administration at the beginning of the fourteenth century, for reasons of cost. Ever since, these families had survived in and around the campo on the charity of the state, which provided them with tiny apartments, and on profit from the casino, where gambling had been licensed, enabling the Barnabotti to make a living from high-rolling foreign visitors.
Neither the French, nor the Austrians who came after, had felt the Republic’s sense of obligation to the Barnabotti. The stipends were withdrawn; rents were introduced; those Barnabotti who were too proud, too old, or simply too unskilled to take on real work lived on in wretched and degrading poverty.
After an excellent lunch with his new friend, Antonio Ruggerio went quickly on foot to the Rialto market with three lire rescued from the bill. The market was winding down, and there were bargains to be had: spoiled tomatoes, wilted greens, bread that was almost fresh.
As Ruggerio approached, various marketeers reached back for a handful of vegetables and offered them with a shrug and a smile; if Ruggerio made to pay they waved him away. “Later, Barone, another day, maybe.” Others studiously ignored him, indicating without rancor-and with the special tact and grace of the Venetian-that they had already parted with their leftovers to another of the Barnabotti, or had nothing to give away.
Only the butchers, by the expensive nature of their trade, invariably expected payment for their sausages, their salami, their pigs’ feet and calves’ brains. In butchery there was no waste.
Ruggerio came away from the vegetable market with an armful of produce and spent several minutes carefully perusing the butchers’ stalls. They heard the lire jingling in his pocket and stood in respectful attendance, helping him make a selection.
“The lights are very good,” one of them remarked, pulling a thread of meat through his hand. “And with the grass turning, we give a good price.”
Ruggerio rounded off his expedition by buying some cornmeal for polenta.
He carefully packed his purchases into a flimsy wooden crate and carried them home.
“What’s happened?” His wife looked anxious. “Did he pay you off?”
“No, cara, no.” Ruggerio laid the box on the deal table by the open window. “I think he was tired. I will see him again tomorrow.”
“Pfui.”
“I work hard, Rosetta. I cannot be in his pocket night and day.”
“Why not? What does he want with his time that he cannot share it with you-or a woman, perhaps?” She cocked her head. “You know who I mean, Antonio.”
Ruggerio spread his hands out. “It’s difficult.”
“Difficult? What sort of a man is he? Un Americano. Don’t they have women in America?”
Ruggerio stuck out his lower lip. “I’m not sure that he is un Americano.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ruggerio began to unpack the box. “I don’t know exactly. But certain things-yes, some strange things…”
Rosetta moved to help her husband. “Strange things, Antonio?”
Ruggerio stood back and watched his wife put the greens on the table. She counted out five tomatoes. They were split, but fresh.
“A book he has. An old copy of Vasari.” He shrugged. “And then-I don’t know. His hat.”
“His hat?”
Ruggerio sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “I know the rich, Rosetta. How they like to eat, the pictures they like. It is my study, after all,” he added proudly. Had the Venetians not swum on the currents of trade for a thousand years, appraising, analyzing, supplying a want here, removing a glut there, matching men to their desires? “I know how they dress, Rosetta.”
“And so?”
“The rich buy their hats-and their shoes-in London. Maybe Paris if they are French, or young, or have business in the city. It takes time to make a rich man’s hat, cara.”
“Fine. So where does your friend have his hats made? New York?”
“Constantinople.”
“I see.”
Rosetta, after all, was a Venetian, too. Constantinople was a rich word, full of associations: city of gold, city of lost fortune, the heathen image of Venice itself. Once the Venetians had held it in the palm of their hand. But that was long ago, before the Ruggerios and their kind had found their way to San Barnaba. Istanbul had been the enemy after that, cat playing mouse through the Aegean and the Adriatic: the city of sultans and viziers, of careful pacts and sudden wars.
It was not, in Rosetta’s imagination, primarily noted for its hats.
16
Gianfranco Barbieri ran his hands through his hair. He was about to knock when the door opened.
“Count Barbieri?” the American said. “Kind of you to come.”
The count smiled, showing his fine teeth. “I was delighted to receive your card, Signor Brett. You are settling in Venice comfortably, I hope?”
Brett bowed. “I’ve seen a dozen good churches, two dozen soldiers-and a body in a canal.” He stood back to let his guest enter the apartment.
Barbieri responded with an uncertain smile and advanced to the window, where he gazed out onto the Grand Canal as if it were for the first time.
“Champagne?”
A pop, a clink; wine fizzed and subsided in the wide, shallow bowls of two Murano glasses. To Barbieri it seemed as if the sounds of the canal had grown brighter, its colors and movement more vivid. It had been many months since he tasted real champagne.
Brett handed him a glass, and they toasted each other.
“I am sorry,” Barbieri said. “A tragedy-I even knew the man. Not well, you understand, but-” He sighed. “Yes, these things happen, even in Venice. I hope you will not allow such an unpleasantness to spoil your stay.”
“Nothing of the kind,” Brett assured him.
“I admire your choice of season, Signor Brett. I often think Venice is at her loveliest at this time of year. The warmth. The light. Carnevale? Far too cold.” He took a sip of champagne. It was very good. “But you will know that already, perhaps.”
“The Carnival? No. I was never in Venice before, I regret to say.”
“You are from New York?”
“Based in the city, yes.”
“In Venice we are a little crazy about the past. Com’era, dov’era — as it was, where it was. A very Venetian saying-and said rather too often, I think. I would like to visit your country one day. A young country. We tend to forget that Venice was once a series of muddy little islands, inhabited by refugees from the mainland.” He gestured to the window. “Like you today, Signor Brett, we had to build up all this, little by little.”
“I’d be proud if we made New York half as beautiful,” Brett said.
“Who knows, Signor Brett? It will be another kind of beauty, I imagine. The beauty of the machine age.”
“Founded on commerce.”
“Of course.” Barbieri smiled. “Trade is a very pure expression of human energy. Modern Venice is listless and poor, and produces no art. Why? Because there’s no art without a patron. And one is not enough. It takes a wealthy and energetic commercial city to spawn rich men, who then vie with each other to call out what is beautiful.” He touched the scar on his lip with his tongue. “Are there rich men in New York?”