The Thief of Venice(45)

Then, tired as she was, Mary stopped short and gasped with recognition, because it was the church portal in her photograph. It was the one Sam was looking for. When they had pored over pictures of scores of Venetian churches, they had been making a simple mistake. It wasn't a church at all. The imposing building in the background of Mary's accidental photograph of Lucia Costanza was not a Christian church, it was a synagogue.

In the vaporetto on the way home Mary took out the book she had bought in the Museo Ebraico and read the title, Gli Ebrei a Venezia, 1938-1945. As the boat chugged around the bend of the Grand Canal she turned the pages, slowly deciphering the Italian words, aware that the answer to the puzzle was beginning to reveal itself. The sense of horror emanating from the golden treasure in Visconti's closet was not a hallucination. The horror was real.





*38*


The place where Giovanna had been installed by Riccardo 'Enciard—Giovanna couldn't pronounce his English name—wasn't exactly what she would have liked, a pretty apartment in a place where she could go shopping with her friends. This part of Cannaregio was a long way from any rashionable neighborhood.

The only people on the street were small children, middle-iged women, and laborers taking up the pavement and putting it down again. The only sounds were the harsh scraping of the shovels of the muratori and the silly shouts of the children. There were no elegant shops. It was true that Riccardo sometimes gave her expensive presents, but this time he had been estremamente spilorcio, really stingy. She had a TV set, but he kept forgetting to arrange for a telephone. How did he expect her to get along without a phone?

"This place is closer to the hospital," that was his excuse. "So I can drop in on you at lunchtime."

But it had been weeks since he had dropped in at all. And yet she was supposed to be there for him at noon every day, just in case! It wasn't fair. It meant that she couldn't spend an entire day with Minetta or go shopping in Mestre with Serena. She couldn't even chat on the phone or arrange a meeting.

Giovanna spent much of her time in bed, wearing one of the pretty nightgowns Riccardo had given her. At first she took a shower every day and powdered and perfumed herself and painted her face and shaved her legs and did her nails and arranged her hair in front of the mirror, just in case he might drop by. But now that he came so seldom it was a waste of time. So Giovanna often didn't bother to get up. She lay in bed, not always very clean, eating sweets and playing solitaire or mending the lace edging on her underwear, while the television screen jiggled and bounced across the room because it was company.

So it was a shock when he suddenly appeared and told her imperiously that she had to move out. "Right now, Giovanna. Subito! I've found you another place." His arms were full of lumpy plastic bags.

She reared up in bed. "But, Riccardo!"

"Now! Ascolta! I said right now." He set his bags down on the floor, then strode across the room to her wardrobe. "Here, put this on."

"But why?" She got out of bed, reached for the dress, and looked at him slyly. "It's your wife, isn't it? Your wife is coming."

"Yes, yes, my wife. Come on. Andiamo!"

On the television screen the commercial for a carpet-cleaning service came to an end and a newswoman appeared, a gorgeous creature with a cascade of golden hair. Briskly she announced the day's headlines. While Giovanna bustled around, Riccardo ran down the stairs again and came back with a clumsy armful wrapped in a tarpaulin. It tinkled and jingled. This too he put down on the floor.

"What's all this stuff?" said Giovanna, fumbling behind her back with her bra.

"It's none of your fucking business."

Giovanna sniffled, and he ran downstairs again. By the time she finished dressing he had made two more trips up and down. The corner of the room was cluttered with mysterious bulky objects in plastic bags—squarish, roundish, and flattish—and a few long objects clumsily wrapped in the tarp.

Giovanna was intensely inquisitive. When Riccardo ran downstairs for the last time she poked under the tarp and saw a glint of gold. Hastily she covered it up as he thundered up the stairs again. "Okay," he said brusquely. "Avanti!"

Giovanna couldn't believe it. "But what about my things?" She waved her arm dramatically at the bed with its cozy comforter and fluffy pillows, her ruffled curtains, her dressing table, the wardrobe full of her clothes, and the chaise on which they had so often made love.

"Later. I'll have everything sent over later. Giovanna, I have in appointment! Come on!"

"But, Riccardo! My television! I can't do without my television set!"

Then for a moment they both turned to look at it. The blond beauty from Rome had vanished, and it was the turn of a ripe peach from Venice to relay the latest information on a Venetian murder investigation. "There has been no movement in the Costanza murder case," said the ripe peach. "The principal suspect, Dottoressa Lucia Costanza, the murdered man's runaway wife, is rumored to be in Vicenza. This snapshot of Dottoressa Costanza is a television first. It was taken last year by her neighbor, Signora Maria Adelberti. If any viewer has seen this woman, please call this station."