Alibi: A Novel Read online

  I looked at him, then caught myself and turned to the water before he could see my face.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gianni’s funeral service was held at the Salute, so close to Mimi’s that it seemed a grimmer version of the ball, with the same crowding at the landing stage, people being helped up the broad steps, all in black this time, with hats and veils. The waiting gondolas stretched up the Grand Canal, as in a Canaletto, filling up the canvas, all of Mimi’s guests and more, enough for a state occasion. When the funeral boats arrived, a cortege of bobbing hearses, people lingered on the church steps to stare at the coffin, draped with flowers. We had become part of a news story: a violent death, an old family, the foreigners who drank at Harry’s. Across the campo, people watched from windows.

  Claudia hadn’t wanted to go.

  “I can’t. You go.

  I’ll stay here,” she said, gesturing at the rumpled bed.

  We were always together now, a kind of hiding, making love in her room, wanting each other even more because no one else was part of the secret, a new intimacy. Sometimes we went out for walks and talked about it, the only ones who knew, but mostly we stayed in, sex another way of talking, something else we could say only to each other. When she held me afterward, her fingers would move over my shoulder, making sure I was still there, and I would put my arm around her as if I were folding her up in a cape, making the world go away, both of us safe.

  “No. We want them to see us.”

  “How can I sit there? What will people think?”

  “That you’re part of the family. Cavallini already thinks it. He thinks we’re Gianni’s family. Almost, anyway.”

  “Ha.”

  “He asked if his wife could call on my mother. Like something out of—”

  “Yes,” she said impatiently, “very Venetian. The old manners. And you trust that?”

  “You’re going for her sake. He’ll expect it. He’d notice if you didn’t.”

  “My god. His family. Am I going crazy?”

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “Just this, then we’ll go away.”

  “Leave Venice?” She reached up, grabbing my arm. “You think they know something?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because we’re the only ones who can give us away now—if we slip, say something. So the sooner we leave—”

  She looked at me, silent for a minute. “Yes, the only ones,” she said finally. Then she turned away, out of my hands. “But first this. Am I supposed to cry too?”

  “Just as long as Cavallini sees you with the family.”

  But in fact there was some question about where to seat us. The ushers led my mother to the front, the widow’s pew, and then stopped short, placing us a few rows behind, on the right. My mother, dry-eyed behind her veil, seemed not to notice, still enveloped in that eerie calm that had settled in after Cavallini’s first visit. But someone must have told the ushers, decided on the protocol. It occurred to me then that I had no idea who had arranged the funeral, taken care of all the details that only seem to happen by themselves. A full mass at the Salute. A gondola banked in flowers. A reception at the Ca’ Maglione. All organized, down to where to seat the almost-widow.

  I looked at the front pew. Just behind, Cavallini and his wife sat next to the priest from the ball, presumably a row of relatives. But in the front itself there was only an old woman leaning on a girl, who must be the daughter, finally arrived from Bologna. Or had she been here for days, ignoring us, going about her father’s business? I noticed then that the church was divided, the faces I recognized from Bertie’s on our side, Venetians on the other, my mother separated from the family by an aisle.

  I stretched my neck, trying to see the daughter’s face, but she was looking straight ahead, to the high altar, where the priest had appeared with upraised hands. We stood, and the backs of the relatives now hid her from every angle. Music echoed through the vault under the dome as the pallbearers brought the casket forward. When we were sitting again, I felt Claudia rigid against me, staring at the coffin. I put my hand over hers and looked past the altar, hoping to draw her attention away. To the left was the sacristy with the Titian ceilings, but they were lost in the space, distant and dim, while the coffin sat right in front of us, inescapable. Down in the first row, the daughter had bowed her head.

  The service took hours. I had never attended a mass in Venice—for me, the churches were poorly lit galleries—and the spectacle of it took me by surprise. Busy altar boys in white surplices, Latin chants and candlelight, hundreds of people answering in unison—the whole vast church seemed to be in movement, except the women on either side of me, Claudia still rigid, my mother simply quiet, looking vaguely at nothing in particular. At one point Cavallini turned his head slowly, as if he were counting the house, caught my eye and nodded, but otherwise we were left to ourselves. Nobody stared, more interested now in the theater of public grief. The eulogy, in Italian, was long enough to cover Gianni’s entire life. A choir sang. People streamed down the aisle for Communion.

  Who were they all? Patients? Neighbors? There seemed, beyond the formalities, to be a genuine sadness in the room, or at least a somber reserve. What had he been to them? A friend? Or just someone with a doge in the family, respected out of long habit? Or maybe a dinner companion at Villa Raspelli, drinking the last of the good Soave. Don’t forget what he was. I looked down toward the daughter. Did she know? A law student, after all, not a child. But maybe he was still Papa, affectionate at home. People saw what they were supposed to see. Cavallini thought Gianni was rich, what any poor cousin would think, having even less. But the daughter’s grief was real enough. Her shoulders were moving now, shaking with discreet sobs, the only person in the great church actually crying. The old woman—an aunt? the nanny?—put an arm around her. I looked away.

  Outside, there was confusion. People loitered on the steps, waiting for a cue. Were we supposed to follow out to San Michele? I remembered my father’s funeral, the long line of black cars, lights kept on, heading slowly toward Long Island. Here they would be gondolas, another ordinary ritual made fantastical by water. Or was the burial private, by invitation? Everyone looked at the daughter, climbing now into a gondola, away from the boat with the casket. Thin, her face still indistinct behind a veil, but perfectly erect, a girl from a good convent school. Her gondola headed up the canal toward Ca’ Maglione.

  Cavallini came up to us and took my mother’s hand in a silent condolence, then nodded to Claudia, standing at her side—exactly what I’d wanted him to see.

  “Is there a burial?” I asked, looking toward the hearse gondola.

  “Yes, but not here. The country house. They’ll take him there, and then tomorrow the family—” He let the rest explain itself. “Today, it’s for Venice.”

  “The country house?”

  “Yes, on the Brenta. It’s very well known. For the Giorgiones.”

  “Oh,” I said, surprised. “He never mentioned it.”

  “Yes, he did, darling,” my mother said, her voice flat. “You just didn’t listen.” She had turned to Cavallini. “Thank you so much. You’ve been kind again.” About what?

  “They were not, you know, evidence. And of course Giulia agreed.”

  “After you asked.”

  “No, no, she agreed. She has them for you.” He looked at me. “Photographs. Of sentimental value, for your mother.”

  Not evidence. But something he’d looked over, going through Gianni’s things, already on the case.

  “Grace.” A gloved hand appeared out of nowhere, along with Celia de Betancourt’s eager voice. “How awful for you.” She nodded toward the logjam of boats at the bottom of the stairs. “You’re not going back to the house?” she said, somehow making it ordinary, a dusty ranch, not a palazzo on the Grand Canal.

  “Yes. His daughter’s there.”

  “You don’t mind if I take a rain check, do you? All this.” She
waved her hand to the church behind us. “I feel done in.” She paused, catching up. “His daughter. You’ve made up?”

  “There’s nothing to make up. She’s been at school.”

  “That’s not what Bertie says. He says she—”

  I looked up, curious, but my mother was patting her hand, stopping her.

  “Celia, I can’t. Not today.” She looked down. “Not today.”

  “Oh, sugar,” Celia said, distressed. “This mouth. I don’t mean anything by it. You know I wouldn’t—”

  “I know,” my mother said, patting her hand again.

  “Not for the world.”

  “You’re old friends,” Cavallini said, a polite intervention.

  “Since the Bronze Age,” Celia said, herself again, glancing at him. She hugged my mother. “Don’t mind me. I just get funny in church. Everybody being so good. You know.”

  “Signora Miller,” Cavallini said. “He’s waving to you. It’s your boat?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “So you took down the gondola,” Cavallini said to me.

  “No, it’s hired. The marchesa doesn’t want us to use hers.”

  “Just the other boat.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “When the weather’s better.” Making a point of it, consistent, but Cavallini seemed not to have heard, busy now with Celia.

  “May I offer you a ride somewhere?” he said, courtly, making Celia smile.

  “God, would you? Just across. I’m going to swim to Harry’s if I don’t get a drink soon.”

  “A long morning,” he said, his voice pleasant but his eyes, just for a second, flecked with disapproval. I looked around for his wife, but she seemed to have gone ahead on her own, leaving Cavallini to the foreigners. “You permit?” he said, taking Celia’s elbow, suggestive, but I saw that the point for him was the flirtation itself, nothing more, a game to distract. There hadn’t been a girl in Maestre either. And he’d already gone through Gianni’s papers.

  “What did she mean about Giulia?” I said to my mother.

  “Nothing. Just some idea of Bertie’s. About the engagement.”

  “You mean she didn’t approve?”

  “I didn’t say that. She just didn’t come to the party. A cardinal sin in Bertie’s book, of course. You can imagine.”

  “But didn’t she?”

  “Darling, ask her. Gianni never said so. You were the one he was worried about.” She stopped on the stairs, lifting her veil and staring for a minute across the water. “You know, children never like things to change. But they do.”

  We joined the flotilla of boats heading up the canal to Gianni’s house, Claudia fidgeting beside me, restive, wanting it to be over. The sun had come out, the early Venetian spring that had eluded Mimi, making the buildings shine, scrubbed fresh by the rain. At Ca’ Maglione footmen lifted us onto a floating dock between striped mooring poles, like Mimi’s ball again, without the umbrellas. A long staircase lined with candelabra led up to the piano nobile, the usual Venetian layout. The ballroom was not as pretty as Mimi’s but just as large, done in red damask and heavy gilt chairs, like a version of La Fenice. Everything gleamed, spotless. How large a staff did it take to keep it going?

  “I thought you said he had no money,” Claudia whispered to me, looking around.

  “I didn’t say broke.” But in fact the room made me uneasy. It was not what I’d expected. No frayed upholstery, no chipped pieces. Nothing needed repair. The war might never have happened.

  A long table had been set out with plates of biscotti, coffee cups, and thin glasses for vin santo—spare but appropriate, a reception, not a party. People spoke softly. Near one end Giulia was being kissed by an old man, just a movement to the cheek, hands placed over hers. When he moved back, she turned to the next in line, so that her face was toward us. I stopped. She had the kind of delicate features that went with the convent school posture, but her face, soft and composed, was slightly long, the one trace of her mother’s family. Otherwise, she looked exactly like Gianni, the same wavy hair, broad-set eyes. She was wearing a black dress with a small white bow at the neck, and for one awkward second I saw Gianni in his cutaway, arriving to take my mother to the ball, even the same quizzical look in his eyes. The look, at least, was real. I realized I must be staring and turned away.

  “There’s Giulia,” my mother said. “Come and meet her.”

  “Later,” I said. “I want some coffee. You go.”

  “There’s nothing wrong, is there? You look all white.”

  “No, I just need some coffee.” Eager now for her to leave.

  “You’ll be nice,” she said, looking at me, a question. “You know you were almost brother and sister.”

  “Yes, almost.”

  “What’s wrong?” Claudia said to me when my mother left.

  “She looks just like him.”

  Claudia peered down the table at her. She was greeting my mother now, not with a kiss, but polite. “The eyes, a little.”

  “All his features.”

  “No, I don’t see that. The eyes, yes. His eyes were like that.” She looked away, then reached over and picked up a coffee cup. “What a pair we are. Standing here talking about his eyes, a man we—” She took a sip of coffee, still looking down.

  “I’ll have to say something to her.”

  She was leading my mother out of the room.

  I looked around. “Who are they? Do you know any of these people?”

  “From the newspapers. Il bel mondo.” Claudia said.

  “What did the eulogy say?”

  “A humanitarian. A savior of men.”

  “Christ.”

  My mother was back in the room, carrying a brown envelope. Of sentimental value.

  “So, another meeting.” Father Luca was leaning over the table to pick up a biscotti. “A very different occasion,” he said sadly, looking at it as if he were referring to the food.

  “Yes, very different. A beautiful service, though.”

  He nodded. “Father Prato,” he said, “always excellent.” A professional appraisal. He bowed to Claudia, who acknowledged it, then glanced away, uncomfortable.

  “He will be buried tomorrow?” I said, making conversation. “In the country, not at San Michele?”

  “Yes, of course, the country. All the Magliones are buried there.”

  “I didn’t realize he had a house there.”

  He looked at me, stupefied, as if this were too absurd to answer. “Yes,” he said finally, “they always preferred it there. Not Gianni, he loved Venice, but the others.” He waved his hand. “Always this love of land. Well, you can see how lucky it was for them. Poor Venice. The trade declines, what do the families do? Buy more ships. But the Magliones? Land. And now the other families are gone. How many of these are left?” he said, indicating the palazzo. “In the family? Not a hotel. Not a museum. Still Ca’ Maglione. It’s because they bought land. It’s an irony, yes? A house in the water, still here, all because of land.”

  “How much do they own?”

  He looked at me again. “You mean exactly? I don’t know. These are private matters, family matters—”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Just in general. It’s a farm?”

  “A farm? But Signor Miller, the Magliones are the largest landowners in the Veneto. Surely you knew that.”

  “No,” I said, disconcerted.

  “Yes, from the Brenta—” He started spreading his arms, then stopped. “Well, considerable property. Of course, Giulia, the first wife, also had property. Near Ferrara.” He paused. “His first—his wife, I should say. Now she will be the only one.” He placed his hand on my arm. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

  I looked at him, then nodded, a silent thank-you. “I wish I’d known him better.” Something to say.

  Surprisingly, this seemed to move him. He gripped my arm tighter. “Your mother. She’s—?”

  “It’s hard for her.”

  Father Luca shook
his head in sympathy. “To lose a man like that. And think of the family. Always taking care of everybody. Paolo, everybody. Even as a child you could see it—the head of the family.”

  “But I thought Paolo was older.”

  “Yes, but Gianni was the head. Even then. Boys. Well, we were all boys. And now? A tragedy, a tragedy. So much evil in the world now.”

  “More than before?” Bertie said, coming up behind him. “I wonder. Luca, I have to drag you away. Hello, Claudia,” he said, his voice cooler. “What a surprise.” He met her eye for a second, then backed away, turning to me instead. “I promised Luca a proper lunch. You must be famished,” he said to him, glancing at the table. “She’s the mother’s daughter, isn’t she?” He sighed. “Be lovely to pay a little attention to the living.”

  “But this is traditional.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s perfect. Just right. The mother was like that too. And you never had a decent meal in her house.”

  “Signor Howard,” the priest said.

  “Oh, I know. Very bad of me. Anyway, come to lunch. Adam, you ought to get Grace home. It’s a strain, a thing like this.”

  “She seems all right.”

  “Mm. It’s all this holding herself together I don’t like. Much better to collapse with a good weep and get it over with. Much better in the end.”

  Father Luca took my hand. “If you ever want to talk, I knew him very well.”

  Bertie threw me a “What are you up to” look, then turned to the room. “Aren’t people extraordinary?” I followed his gaze to the crowd in suits and black dresses, idly talking, sipping coffee. “You’d think he’d had a heart attack.”

  It was Giulia finally who found us, smoking out on the balcony, pretending there was more sun than there was. “You’re Adam,” she said simply, extending a hand. I introduced Claudia, who moved back against the railing, suddenly skittish, but Giulia nodded graciously. There was no sign of recognition, the engagement party scene apparently not known to her. Another relief, something already fading, no longer gossiped about.

  “I saw you looking at me before,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just, you look so like your father.”