“In what way?”
Signora Salvi shifted around in her seat, and Caterina wondered if she had been made nervous by her own impulsive confidence or perhaps she didn’t want to speak badly of the people who, in a sense, helped keep the Foundation running. Caterina smiled and nodded to encourage her.
“They look like the people who go and sit in the Marciana all day. I think some of them come here only to keep warm. In the winter, that is, because we’re closer to wherever they live than the Marciana is.”
“Do they ask about the music?”
“Almost never. Most of them don’t know what the Foundation’s for. I don’t know how they hear about it, or what they hear. I suppose they tell one another that it’s warm and no one will bother them for three hours. But they come and they sit there. Sometimes they bring a newspaper or they find one that’s been left. Or they sleep.” She gave Caterina a long look, as if assessing her trustworthiness, and then she said, “Sometimes, when it’s very cold, I keep it open longer.”
“What are you supposed to be doing?” Caterina asked, curious to learn anything about this place where she was to be doing her research.
“I think, at the beginning—I’ve worked here only three years—the Fondazione really did what Dottor Dardago wanted and made contributions to support performances of operas, and it gave money to people who worked on scores and research.” Here she gave a smile Caterina found quite engaging. “It’s all in the files: how much they gave and who they gave it to.” She stopped. “Then things changed.”
“What happened?”
“The first director made some bad investments, and the endowment shrank. So the people who are interested in grants stopped asking us for help because we had none to give. Dottor Asnaldi came twelve years ago, and things just kept getting worse. Then, two years ago, they had another big loss and Dottor Asnaldi left.”
“Leaving what behind?” Caterina asked, though she had no right to do so. Roseanna raised a hand and scratched beneath one of her curls, then said, “There’s an accountant who looks at the books every six months, and he says the endowment’s almost gone. He thinks there might be enough to keep the office open for another year, at best.”
“And then?”
“And then we close it, I suppose,” Roseanna said and gave a small, disappointed shrug. “If there’s no more money . . .” she began, but she did not finish the sentence.
“Who decided this? Dottor Moretti?”
“Oh, no. Another lawyer, Fanno, the one who’s in charge of the endowment.” Caterina did not recognize the name and did not think it important enough to ask who he was. From the little she had learned and seen, it was evident that the Foundation was not long for this world, not with no computer and no telephone and with that castrato novel on the shelf. Though she didn’t work for the Foundation, curiosity urged her to ask, “Are there records of the correspondence going back to the beginning?”
“Oh, yes,” Signora Salvi said. “They’re upstairs.” To make this clear, she pointed to the ceiling, as if to remove any possible uncertainty Caterina might have had about where upstairs might be.
“Upstairs?”
“In the director’s office.”
Caterina waved her hand around the office. “I thought this was the director’s office,” she said.
“Oh, no. I mean Dottor Asnaldi’s office, well, his ex-office.” Then in a smaller voice, she added, “That’s where the chests are. In the storeroom. They’re safe there.”
Three
LIKE LOT’S WIFE, CATERINA TURNED TO SALT; UNLIKE THE other woman, though, she turned immediately back into flesh and said, “But that’s im—” before she stopped herself, realizing she had no idea at all where the chests were or could be, just as, in all of this, she had no idea of what was possible or not. The cousins had spoken of the chests as though they belonged in a bank vault, yet here they were, being kept in an apartment that had rooms on the ground floor with windows without bars. Further, it was an apartment thieves had already entered with no difficulty.
Caterina could not understand the Foundation’s involvement with the chests. What Roseanna called the endowment was almost finished, the offices could have been in Albania, the heat and access to a place to sit drew a number of not quite vagrants to the library, and yet the Foundation was somehow, however peripherally, involved.
Hoping that none of this was visible in her expression, she continued, as though she’d paused to consider the exact word. “Impressive, really impressive. To have them safe in a storeroom.” It was the best she could do, and Roseanna smiled in response so Caterina went on. “How did that happen?”
“The previous owners had the storeroom built into the wall. I don’t know why. It was here when the Foundation first rented the apartment. Dottor Asnaldi used to joke about it. Sometimes he’d put his umbrella inside and close all the locks.” Then, voice lower, Roseanna asked, “They told you some of this, didn’t they?”
“Perhaps not all of it,” Caterina answered. “There was a certain lack of background in what I was told, if I might call it that.” Short of a direct request for information, Caterina could have given no clearer message.
“Since you’re going to be working on the papers, I suppose you should know where they came from.”
Caterina nodded her thanks.
“One of the cousins called Dottor Asnaldi at home about four months ago. I don’t know how he got his number and I don’t remember which one of them it was. He wanted to know if the Dottore would be interested in reading some documents and writing a report on them. All I know is that he met with the two men, the cousins, but he turned down their offer. I never knew why.” Here Roseanna gave a smile/shrug combination that Caterina was beginning to recognize.
Caterina nodded and Roseanna continued. “But he called me because he’d left me in charge and said it might be a good idea to keep the papers here, in the storeroom. That’s why they’re upstairs.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t ask the Marciana or the Conservatory, even a bank. That is, if they think the papers might be valuable,” Caterina said.
In an absentminded gesture, Roseanna ran her hand over the surface of her desk, as if feeling to see if it needed to be waxed. “It’s cheap,” she finally said. “That is, cheaper.”
“Than?”
“Than the Marciana or the Conservatory or a bank. They offered to pay three hundred euros a month, and that was in winter, when we had the heating bill to think about.” She opened her hands in a gesture replete with resignation. “Dottor Asnaldi called me with the suggestion, and I agreed. The others would have cost much more.”
Given that the place had been broken into recently, a bank might also have been safer, though Caterina saw no reason to pass this idea on to Roseanna.
“I was in charge, you see. As acting director, I had to sign the contract.”
She seemed so proud of the title that Caterina said, “Complimenti,” in a low voice, which caused Roseanna to blush.
Feeling that Roseanna’s pause was a suggestion that she inquire, Caterina asked, “What happened then?”
“Dottor Moretti convinced them to find someone competent to read the papers.”
“Did he think this would settle all their problems and end their dispute?”
“Oh,” Roseanna said with a laugh, “I don’t think the person exists who could do that.”