When, finally, my rants subsided, I sat down next to her once more and wiped my streaming face with my sleeve. She did not touch me. I couldn’t blame her. I was the one transformed, not her. What woman would like to see a man behave in such a fashion? Once again I misjudged her.
“Lorenzo,” she said in a very calm voice. “Your rage is not against fate. Or God. Or Venice. It is against yourself. You ask why you could not save Lucia from this fate. Even though you know there is no answer, the question continues to consume your soul. You feel responsible, and this presumed guilt turns your anger inwards. It is, I think, one of the stations of grief. Jacopo and I are orphans too. Do you think I don’t recognise it?”
It was a sane and rational response, and had I been at that time sane and rational, I would have recognised it as such. Instead I said, with a degree of bitterness inside my voice which shocked me as I heard it, “How could you blame yourself for your father’s death? Did you taunt God, as I have done these last few weeks? Did you walk into his house and shake your fist in his face?”
“You know that is ridiculous, Lorenzo,” she said with a distinct note of disappointment. “Lucia is dead of misfortune, not some divine revenge.”
“I know,” I answered. And it was true. Yet in each of us there lurks the demon of unreason, and it never sleeps.
She looked at me oddly. Then she took my arm. “Come,” she said. “I shall show you the true face of God and let you decide for yourself.”
31
An uneasy state of grace
The fiddle was bought. Some $30,000 of Massiter’s money remained in the house, with the prospect of a further $50,000 before the end of the summer. The additional reserve, Daniel believed, ought to make Scacchi’s negotiations with his creditors more flexible. If this was the case, the old man did not mention it. Once the instrument was in his hands, he thanked Daniel in the most sincere of fashions and declared there was no further need for his involvement in any subterfuge. It was essential the instrument’s existence be kept from Laura, Scacchi insisted, but its sale had already been pre-arranged. The sums would be sufficient to save their skins. It was now time for Daniel to concentrate on enjoying himself. With a wave of his hand, Scacchi seemed to dismiss the Guarneri and its acquisition entirely.
For Scacchi and Paul, it appeared, the entire episode now lay in the past, unworthy of recall. The two men’s health was a little improved. Their temperaments were happy and nonchalant. Laura, too, seemed relaxed and contented. Ca’ Scacchi had moved from the brink of catastrophe to a happy equilibrium in a matter of days, largely through Daniel’s efforts, as the old man had gratefully admitted once the violin was his.
Yet Daniel found his own mood failed to follow theirs, for reasons he could not explain to them. Giulia Morelli seemed to be developing a fascination with him. She had now approached him twice since her deliberate appearance at the vaporetto stop, once when he was daydreaming around the Guggenheim and a second time, more boldly, at La Pietà. On each occasion she had asked no direct questions and, in the gallery, had gone so far as to pretend her presence was accidental. Yet from her tone and the gentle, insistent probing of her comments, it was clear that she suspected Scacchi had engaged in some transaction of late and that Daniel was a part of it.
The last interview had taken place on a pew at the rear of the church while Fabozzi talked quietly to his players only a few yards away. Finally, Daniel had snapped and asked her to continue the discussion outside. There, on the steps of La Pietà, under a bright summer sun, he had demanded an explanation.
“An explanation?” she had answered, amused. “But you know what I seek, Daniel. Some object that has come on the market. And the discovery of those who seek to acquire it.”
“But I have told you a thousand times. I know nothing of this. Nor, as far as I am aware, does Scacchi. If you suspect he does, interrogate him, not me.”
She laughed. “And what would be the point of that? Scacchi is intrinsically dishonest, much as I like his company. He would never tell the truth. Not if it did not suit him.”
“So you come to me in the belief I will. And when you hear it, you dismiss it as fiction.”
“Oh, Daniel. Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
“No. Nor do I care.”
“I see an honest young man. An innocent young man. One who has become trapped in some world he finds exciting — up to a point, perhaps. But frightening too. And I ask myself why. What frightens you, Daniel?”
“Nothing you would understand. I have this concert in my head. It is a responsibility.”
“Ah! The concert. You see, there you puzzle me too. Where does this music come from, Daniel? Please tell me. I’m interested, as a listener, not merely a police officer.”
He clapped his hands, drawing the interview to a close. “That, Captain, is enough. If you have anything else to say to me, kindly ask me to the police station. The same goes for Scacchi.”
“You can tell him if you like. Of our little talks.”
Daniel swore mildly, then turned on his heels and went back into the church. He was grateful, and a little surprised, that she did not follow him.
The concert, at least, seemed on track. The transcription work was done. Fabozzi cooed over the final product. There was every sign that the première would be a considerable success. Daniel had given interviews to several journalists from the international press, flown in at Massiter’s expense and kept in luxury at the Cipriani. He made it plain in these brief, vague conversations that there would be no more work from his pen in the foreseeable future. This did not prevent word of the surprising nature and quality of the work leaking beyond La Pietà into the world at large, with Massiter’s encouragement, ensuring the night would be a sellout, and followed soon by performances in greater concert halls elsewhere. The risk of discovery was surely small and predictable. Giulia Morelli suspected much but knew nothing. Yet Daniel was troubled by a distant, intangible feeling that all was not as it should be. Nor was this concern self-centred. It was the Scacchi household which worried him. Each one of them seemed to be living in a pleasant daydream set firmly on the border of hubris. Irrational as he knew this to be, it was impossible to shake from his head the idea that another catastrophe, of a different nature, might lie around the corner.
The following morning, Sunday, found them on the jetty at San Stae, waiting for the Sophia to crawl down the Grand Canal and pick them up. It had the makings of a hot, dry, sunny day. Scacchi wore a dark jacket, pale trousers, and an old-fashioned trilby hat. Paul was in jeans, a denim shirt, and a baseball cap. Laura chose plain, cheap slacks — the kind, Daniel thought, they sold on market stalls — and a simple cheesecloth top. He and Paul had helped her carry the supplies: baskets of panini, sausage, ham and cheese, a selection of fruit, and a brown paper bag of tiny leaves of rocket, chicory, dandelion, and lettuce which, covered in Parmesan, seemed to grace every meal. There was drink too: bottles of white wine safe inside a vast cooler with bags of ice, three litres of Campari, and two of sparkling mineral water. More than sufficient, Daniel judged, to keep six adults in a comfortable state for an entire day.
Scacchi and Paul sat together on a bench. He stood with Laura, watching the traffic on the canal. Vaporetti vied with delivery barges and refuse-collection vessels, each dodging the low black shapes of the gondolas ferrying locals across to the traghetto stop by the city casino. Laura had been to the hairdresser’s and now sported a short, practical cut which curled in at the neck. Daniel had come to believe she dyed her hair yet never once wore a speck of make-up. Perhaps because it suited her, he thought, cursing himself. Sometimes he sought roundabout explanations when simpler answers stared him in the face.