“More every day,” Brett said.
“So it was in Venice once. Spices, maybe, were your furs.” He laughed. “Forgive me, I have tumbled into my own trap-thinking, like any Venetian, of the past.”
“I think about it, too,” Brett said.
“Of course.” Barbieri nodded his head seriously. “One could draw the comparisons too close, and yet-” He put up his hands, as if he were grasping a balloon. “I do not think Venice would have become what it became without men like us.”
“Like us?”
He nodded. “We mined, in our time, the treasures that others had stored up. A lion from Patras, for the Arsenale. A column from Acre-to the Piazetta! Even the body of St. Mark-we took it from Alexandria. Go to the church of St. Mark’s, and what will you find? A gazetteer. A wild, encrusted guidebook to the cities of the ancient world. Precious marbles, enigmatic statues-and all embedded in a building that echoes the tossing of the waves. We hauled back the treasures of the East, and with them, slowly and cautiously, we forged our style.”
He gestured to the window.
“But we took it, mostly, from Istanbul. Constantinople, as it was. We sacked and scoured a city that had never been won by force of arms for eight hundred years.”
“You, at least, preserved what was carried off,” Brett said. “Lysippos’s bronze horses, for example.”
“And the bones of saints, and the reliquaries, and the gold. We took glass made in Antioch, and icons painted by the companions of Christ. Before we had been magpies, Signor Brett, snatching whatever was available, and beautiful, and bright. In 1204 we took a whole reference library.”
Brett nodded.
Barbieri smiled. “You, Signor Brett, are the Venetian now. And Venice, of course, is Istanbul.” He paused. “Tell me, how can I help you?”
Brett poured some more champagne.
“You’re a cynic at heart, Count Barbieri.”
“Not at all. Perhaps the Barbieri have at last produced an optimist.”
“A realist?”
Barbieri smiled. “It is the same thing.”
17
He ordered the deaths without emotion. He had not known that they would die. Even when the killer arrived, unable to speak, handing him written instructions, he had pretended to himself that it would be something else.
But of course when Boschini was found in the canal, dead, he could no longer pretend.
He could adapt.
That’s how it had to be in this city. You adapt, or you die.
And the man was good at that. It’s what he did, the way he lived.
So he told himself that the people who died deserved to die.
18
Palewski twisted the wire, and the cork popped out into his hand.
“Brillat-Savarin,” Count Barbieri said.
Palewski knew exactly what the count meant.
Brillat-Savarin, the French gastronome, had established a sensational fact, which flew in the face of all recognized wisdom.
After the battle of Waterloo, British regiments stationed around Champagne had plundered the wineries. Bottles were popped, quaffed, and tossed into the hedges; old vintages vanished indiscriminately with the latest crop. When order was restored, the champagne houses were left with shattered cellars.
“The champagne makers thought the British had ruined them,” Palewski began. “Until every club in London-”
“Ordered another twelve dozen cases!” Barbieri beamed. “The champagne houses made their fortune.”
“You truly are an optimist, Count Barbieri.”
“A realist, Signor Brett.”
Palewski clasped his hands under his chin.
“I am looking for a Bellini,” he said.
Gianfranco Barbieri came from a long line of Venetian aristocrats who had been trained, like aristocrats everywhere, not to reveal his feelings easily. He opened his eyes wide and gave a whistle.
“Bellini! No. Bassano, yes. Longhi, Ricci. Guardi-it would not be too much of a problem. But Bellini? That would be a miracle.” He blew on his fingertips and laughed. “You would have to steal it,” he added.
“It is what America wants,” Palewski explained. “Something utterly first class. Better one work by a master like Bellini than a whole gallery of lesser paintings.”
“No, no. You must begin slowly. Like us.”
Palewski knelt on the window seat and contemplated the Grand Canal.
“Count Barbieri,” he began, “I wonder-if, by some stroke of fortune, someone in Venice was in a position to offer a Bellini on the market-it’s a hypothetical suggestion-you would know about it, I suppose?”
The count shrugged. “If it were to be offered through the usual channels, then yes, I would know of it. But for such a painting-well. This is Venice, Signor Brett. Not all traffic passes down the Grand Canal.”
“I understand,” the American said.
Barbieri set down his glass. “I am expected at the opera, Signor Brett. There’s no reason to be disappointed. If a Bellini should suddenly appear… In the meantime, I can show you at least three works that would delight you. They would cause a stir if they were exhibited in London or Paris. A fourth, I think, would interest you also.”
They shook hands at the door. “Your neighbor is an old friend of mine. Carla d’Aspi d’Istria. She’s having a little gathering tomorrow night. Do drop her your card, I’m sure she’d be delighted to meet you.”
Later, Signor Brett did take a few steps along the alley to a large green door, where he delivered his card to his neighbor.
On his way back he looked into the cafe. He was hungry; something smelled good. He ordered wine and a dish of rice. To his astonishment it arrived looking black as if it had been burned.
“Risotto al nero de seppia,” the girl explained. Palewski ate it all; it was delicious. But it was very black, and he could not quite escape the impression that he had been offered death on a plate.
19
Marta served Yashim tea in the ambassador’s drawing room. She had kept the windows closed, she explained, because of the dust. The room was warm, and two flies batted sleepily against the windowpanes.
Yashim dropped into his usual chair by the empty grate and looked around. He was accustomed to seeing a jumble of Palewski’s books and papers spread out in haphazard order over the tables, armchairs, and even across the floor. Now Palewski’s pince-nez reading glasses sat primly on an open book on the desk.
“I wonder how he is getting on, in the Dar al-Hab,” Yashim said, when he had thanked her for the tea.
Marta pursed her lips and nodded. “The lord has sent me a note,” she said.
“A note?” Yashim turned in the chair.
A curious, almost wary, expression passed across Marta’s serious face. She began to dust the window ledges, humming to herself.
“He is in Venice, efendi. It must be very beautiful.”
‘So I understand.” He paused. He noticed Marta’s hand slip surreptitiously to her breast. “Is that what he writes about, Marta, in his note?”
She caught his eye, then looked away. “The writing is very small, efendi.”
Yashim nodded. “Yes, of course. I’m quite used to his small writing. What if I try to read what it says?”
He could almost read the conflict in Marta’s mind. At last she nodded and fished the note out of her jacket.
It was written in Palewski’s best classical Greek script and illustrated with little ink drawings: Palewski sitting in his window seat with a bottle of wine, a cheerfully waving gondolier, Palewski with one foot on the quay and the other improbably far apart on a gondola, and a man swimming with a top hat. It was an affectionate and amusing letter, and ended with an exhortation to Marta to look after Yashim. Yashim read it aloud, laughing at Palewski’s jokes; even Marta allowed herself a smile.