22

Urbino declined the Contessa’s invitation to go back to the Ca’ da Capo-Zendrini directly with her, have a light dinner, and wait there for Berenice Pillow and Tonio Vico. After she left, he called the hospital from the upstairs phone and learned that Lubonski was still unable to have visitors but that his condition had improved slightly.

He struck out for the Fondamenta Nuove, each step taking him farther from the turmoil of the Piazza. It was cold but clear. So far there had been relatively good weather for Carnevale except for several rainstorms, but an icy bora could blow down from the north with little warning.

When he reached the Fondamenta Nuove, he looked out into the lagoon, searching the sky over Murano for some sign of a change for the worse, but it was cloudless, the waters calm. On an impulse he hurried to catch the boat about to leave for San Michele, the island of the dead and the site of the mortuary where Gibbon’s body would have been brought and where it probably still was. He frequently went to San Michele to think, far away from any distractions except the grim silent ones of the island.

Ten minutes later as he walked through one of the campi of the cemetery, crowded with its tombstones and mausoleums but empty of everyone except himself, an attendant or two, and a few women in black coats visiting the graves, he wondered why Berenice Pillow wanted to see him along with the Contessa. Was she including him because of his rescue of her pocketbook on the traghetto?

He left the main part of the cemetery for the walled Orthodox section where Diaghilev, Stravinsky, and many other Russians and Greeks were buried. Diaghilev’s grave had one of its mysterious, lone ballet slippers as it always did. Were these slippers left by the same person or by different pilgrims to the famous ballet producer’s grave? He had never seen anyone leaving a slipper. It was one of Venice’s little mysteries—and one that he really preferred not to solve. It was more romantic without a solution.

After leaving Diaghilev’s grave he went to another of his favorites, this one of a Russian woman named Sonia—there was no last name—who had died at twenty-seven. Her grave was dominated by a life-size, lifelike reclining white marble statue of the young woman. Fresh red roses had been placed in the curve of her arm.

Urbino knew he was sentimental when it came to death. The Contessa, who avoided the topic and the cemetery island whenever and however she could, thought she had a better name for it. She called it morbid. But Urbino was comforted by the sight of well-tended graves, of the bereaved making their visits, leaving their flowers and tokens, and avoided thinking of how few of these people there were compared to the thousands of forgotten dead. He had often tried to decide whether he would prefer being one of those who were remembered or one of those who did the remembering, as if the choice were up to him. It was like trying to decide between being the beloved or the lover, except in this instance death hadn’t yet made its great separation.

On the boat back to the Fondamenta Nuove, Urbino wondered if Gibbon had returned Hazel Reeve’s love. He had no reason to doubt it—no good, substantial reason—but only his own impressions of the man and the negative things he had heard about him. Nor could Urbino accept Hazel’s apparent belief that Gibbon had had no interest in her money, even though she had said that he always had plenty of money and even though three thousand pounds had been found on his body.

Precisely because such a large sum of money had been found on Gibbon, Urbino couldn’t shake the conviction that the money had been ill-gained in some way. As he had said earlier to the Contessa, photographers were in a perfect position to blackmail someone. Whom might Gibbon have blackmailed? Xenia Campi had said that on the day of his death he had taken pictures of her until she had asked him to stop. But the list of possibilities certainly didn’t end with Xenia Campi, who, in any case, would have been hard-pressed to come up with three thousand pounds or its equivalent in lire.

It was quite possible that Gibbon had been in the Calle Santa Scolastica to take incriminating photographs. He might very well have been blackmailing some of the men who frequented the area. Urbino wished he had access to Gibbon’s photographs. They were in the hands of the police now. What chance did he have of convincing Gemelli to let him look through them?

As Urbino stepped off the boat, he remembered what the Contessa had asked him at Florian’s—whether it was possible that Hazel had not loved Gibbon but hated him. Hadn’t Urbino thought that there were interpretations of her emotional state other than grief? The Contessa, as she often was, might be right. He might not be seeing things clearly at all. Impartiality was something he strove for in his biographies. It was absolutely necessary. This didn’t mean he didn’t have his biases—as Gide had said, they were the very props of civilization—but he tried to be aware of them.

Urbino made an effort to empty his mind of all his confused—and confusing—thoughts as he walked slowly back to the Palazzo Uccello. When he turned down the Salizzada degli Specchieri, he thought about the vendors of mirrors who had given this alley, as well as another one near San Marco, its name. Mirrors were invented in Venice by the glassmakers of Murano, and ones of every shape and size, of every quality and design, could be found throughout the city. Many elderly men and women even had small mirrors, similar to the rear-view mirrors on cars, attached outside their windows so that they could see what was going on in the calle or campo below. Each of these little mirrors provided its owner with secret views of a city whose back canals, dead ends, covered passageways, concealed gardens, and tortuous, narrow alleys made Venice almost synonymous with secrecy itself.

A few moments later, as Urbino was walking past the baroque, theatrical facade of the Church of the Gesuiti with all its triumphant angels and gesticulating saints, something seemed to be suggesting itself to him. He didn’t know what it was yet but he did know that he owed it to having set aside conscious thoughts about Gibbon’s murder and musing, instead, about the city he had made his home.

Urbino started to walk faster, anxious now to return to the Palazzo Uccello.