Gerald Palstein sat outside the Caffè Florian, buffeted by the unceasing stream of tourists that repelled him just as much as the flooded Piazza San Marco magically attracted him. For some years now the square had been continuously underwater. For the sake of it, he accepted the invasive spectacle, particularly since something was slowly changing in the behaviour of the visitors. Even in Japanese tour groups, you could now detect a certain reluctance to cross the square on sunny days like this and disturb the peace of the ankle-high standing water that perfectly reflected the Basilica di San Marco, the Campanile in front of it and the surrounding Procuratie, a world based on water and at the same time commemorated in it, a symbolic glimpse of the future. As inexorably as the lagoon rose, the city was sinking into the sea, like lovers seeking to unite even if it means that they merge together.
Apart from that, nothing in the city had changed. As ever, the clock tower diagonally opposite, with its passageway to the Mercerie, showed the phases of the sun and moon and the star signs on a background of lapis lazuli, and sent out bronze guardians to segment the earth and the universe into hours with its booming chimes, while faint breezes drifted across the one-and-a-half-square-kilometre mirror and rippled the architecture without dissolving it, as if the ghosts of Dalí and Hundertwasser were frolicking in the square.
Palstein scraped the sticky and delicious crust of sugar from the bottom of his espresso cup. His wife hadn’t wanted to come and was preparing to leave for an Indian ashram, which she had been visiting at increasingly close intervals ever since an exhibition opening where she had met a guru who had a knack of luring what he wanted from people’s souls and bank balances. In point of fact Palstein preferred it that way. Alone, he didn’t have to talk, or pretend to be interested, or see things that he would rather block out. He could live in the pleasant stillness of Venice reflected in the water, just as Alice had passed through her mirror to visit the world that lay on the other side.
Noise. Shouts. Laughter.
A moment later the illusion passed, as a group of teenagers splashed their way through the surface of the water and everything turned into a wild, splashing daub.
Idiots, destroying a masterpiece!
The illusion of a masterpiece.
Palstein watched after them, too tired to get angry. Wasn’t that always the way? You took such trouble building something, brought it to a state of perfection, and then a few hooligans came along and destroyed it all. He paid the exorbitant cost of the espresso and chamber music, strolled through the arcades of the piazzetta to the Bacino di San Marco, where the Doge’s Palace lay along the deeper water, and followed the footbridges to the Biennale gardens. Near there, by a quiet canal in the tranquil sestiere of Castello, he had an early dinner at the Hostaria da Franz, which experts held to be the best fish restaurant in Venice, had a chat with Gianfranco, the old proprietor, a man whose life was a Humboldt-style exploration of the world along paths both straight and winding, who would stir himself for nothing except perhaps the sight of a few empty glasses, hugged both him and Maurizio, his son, as he left, and boarded a water taxi that brought him to the Grand Canal and the Palazzo Loredan. EMCO had bought the magnificent early Renaissance building in better days, and had forgotten, during the insanity of its systematic decline, to get rid of it. The building still stood open to the company executives, though it had not been used for ages. But because Palstein loved Venice, and thought nothing was more appropriate to his position than the symbol of everything transient, he had come here for a week.
By now the sun was low over the canal. The rattle and chug of the vaporetti and the barges mingled with the hum of elegant motorboats, the sound of accordions and the tenor voices of the gondolieri, to form an aural backdrop unlike anything anywhere else in the world. Now that the ground floor was underwater, he entered the palazzo via a higher entrance, and climbed the wooden staircase to the piano nobile, the first floor. Where the late sunlight came in through the windows, sofas and armchairs were gathered around a low glass table.
In one of the chairs sat Julian Orley.
Palstein gave a start. Then he quickened his pace, hurried the cathedral-like width of the room and spread out his arms.
‘Julian,’ he exclaimed. ‘What a surprise!’
‘Gerald.’ Orley got to his feet. ‘You weren’t expecting me, were you?’
‘No, absolutely not.’ Palstein hugged the Englishman, who returned the embrace, a bit firmly, it seemed to him.
‘How long have you been in Venice?’
‘Got here an hour ago. Your concierge was kind enough to let me in, once I’d persuaded him I wasn’t about to steal the Murano chandeliers.’
‘Why didn’t you call? We could have gone for dinner. As it was I had to make do with the best turbot I’ve ever eaten, all by myself.’ Palstein walked over to a little bar, took out two glasses and a bottle and turned round. ‘Grappa? Prime uve, soft in the mouth, and drinkable in large quantities.’
‘Bring it over.’ Julian sat back down. ‘We must clink glasses, my old friend. We have something to celebrate.’
‘Yes, your return.’ Palstein thoughtfully considered the label, half filled the glasses and sat down opposite Julian. ‘Let’s drink to survival,’ he smiled. ‘To your survival.’
‘Good idea.’ The Englishman raised his glass, took a good swig and set the drink back down. Then he opened a bag, took out a laptop, flipped it open and turned it on. ‘Because drinking to yours would be like drinking to the future of a hanged man. If you catch my meaning.’
Palstein blinked, still smiling.
‘Quite honestly, no.’
The screen lit up. A camera showed the picture of a man who looked familiar to Palstein. A moment later he remembered. Jericho! Of course! That damned detective.
‘Good evening, Gerald,’ Jericho said in a friendly voice.
Palstein hesitated.
‘Hello, Owen. What can I do for you?’
‘The same thing you once did in the Big O. Help us. You helped us a lot back then, you remember?’
‘Of course. I’d have been happy to do even more.’
‘Fine. Now’s your chance. Julian would like to know a lot of things, but first there’s something I’d like to tell you. You’ll be pleased to hear that we’ve solved the mystery of the Calgary shooting.’
Palstein said nothing.
‘Even though I was worried I would have a tough time of it.’ Jericho smiled, as if remembering a hurdle overcome. ‘Because you see, Gerald, if someone had wanted you out of the way – someone who had managed to infiltrate Lars Gudmundsson into your security men – why would he have needed a spectacle like Calgary? Why didn’t Gudmundsson just quietly get on with it and shoot you? Even in the Big O it seemed to me that the whole assassination attempt was a staged event, but who was it for? Eventually it occurred to me that Hydra – an organisation I don’t need to tell you anything more about – had decided to present the world with a Chinese assassin, if Xin was captured on camera in Calgary. And that was certainly one of the reasons, just as Hydra went on leaving trails back to China – on the one hand because the Chinese were the ideal scapegoat, but probably also because open conflict would have further held up the lunar projects of the space powers after the success of Operation Mountains of Eternal Light. But even seen in this perspective, the attack made no sense. Anyone as intimately acquainted with Kenny Xin as we are knows, for example, that he is infatuated with flechettes. In Quyu, in Berlin, on the roof of the Big O, it’s the ammunition he’s always used. But in Calgary he settled for decidedly smaller projectiles. Your injury will have been painful, but entirely harmless, as a conversation with your doctors should confirm.’