13 Fondamenta Venier

13 Fondamenta Venier

The church of Santa Maria degli Angeli stood at the western end of the Fondamenta Venier on the island of Murano. Gabriel

unlocked the outer door and carried his overnight bag inside. Because it was a Sunday, the official day of rest in the Italian

restoration community, he had the church to himself. Il Pordenone's towering altarpiece was adhered to a purpose-built wooden

armature in the center of the nave. Gabriel switched on an electric space heater and a pair of standing halogen lamps and

inspected his trolley. His brushes, pigments, and solvents were as he had left them four days earlier, or so it appeared.

He had it on good authority that Adrianna Zinetti, the finest cleaner of altars and statuary in Venice, regularly tampered

with his things, if only to prove that it could be done without detection.

He slid Christian Tetzlaff's recording of the Brahms violin concerto into his paint-smudged portable CD player, a faithful companion during countless restorations past, and allowed his eyes to wander over the canvas. Thanks to a period of uninterrupted work before leaving for London, he had removed nearly all of the surface grime and old varnish. It was possible he might complete the task today, tomorrow at the latest. Then he would commence the final phase of the restoration, the retouching of those portions of the painting that had flaked away or faded with age. The losses, while consistent with sixteenth-century Venetian paintings, were hardly catastrophic. Gabriel reckoned it would take no more than a month to repair the damage.

Only the upper left corner of the altarpiece was still in need of cleaning. Gabriel hoisted himself atop the platform of his

scaffold and wound a swatch of cotton wool around the end of a wooden dowel. Then he dipped it into his solvent—a carefully

calibrated mixture of acetone, methyl proxitol, and mineral spirits—and twirled it gently over the surface of the canvas.

Each swab could clean a few square centimeters before becoming too soiled to use. Then Gabriel had to fashion another. At

night, when he was not reliving nightmarish moments from his past, he was scrubbing yellowed varnish from a canvas the size

of the Piazza San Marco.

He worked at a steady pace, pausing only once to insert a new CD into the player, and by noon the platform was littered with

several dozen wads of soiled cotton wool. He sealed them in a flask, then, after locking the door of the church behind him,

set off along the Fondamenta Venier to Bar al Ponte. Within seconds of his arrival, a coffee and a small glass of white wine—Venetians

referred to it as un'ombra —were placed before him.

"Something to eat?" asked the barman, whose name was Bartolomeo.

"A tramezzino ."

"Tomato and cheese?"

"Eggs and tuna."

The barman slipped the triangular sandwich into a paper bag and placed it on the countertop. Gabriel handed over a banknote and indicated that no change was required. Then he asked, "Do you know Bar Cupido, Bartolomeo? That pizzeria on the Fondamente Nove?"

"The one by the vaporetto stop? Sure, Signore Allon."

"There's a fellow who works there. I believe his name is Gennaro."

"I know him well."

"Really? What's he like?"

"Nicest guy in the world. Everybody loves Gennaro."

"Are you sure we're talking about the same Gennaro?"

"Is there a problem, Signore Allon?"

"No," said Gabriel as he plucked the paper bag from the bar. "No problem at all."

He ate the tramezzino while walking back to the church and listened to La Bohème while removing the last of the surface grime and yellowed varnish from the altarpiece. The stained-glass windows were black

by the time he finished. He recorded the true condition of the painting with his Nikon, then locked the door of the church

and walked to the Museo vaporetto stop. Ten minutes elapsed before a Number 4.1 finally appeared. It ferried him southward

across the laguna , past San Michele, to the Fondamente Nove.

As he approached Bar Cupido he saw Gennaro at his outpost behind the counter. Ordinarily, Gabriel frequented the establishment only in the morning, but on a frigid night like this, its bright interior was warm and inviting. And so he went inside and in pitch-perfect Italian placed his order, a coffee and a small glass of grappa, thus signaling that he was a Venetian and not some interloper. Five minutes later he went out again and set off toward the Rialto Bridge, wondering why the nicest guy in the world, the one everybody loved, seemed to despise him. The answer came to him as he was climbing the stairs toward his apartment, drawn by the savor of his wife's cooking. "Yes, of course," he muttered to himself. It was the only possible explanation.

***

"Perhaps I should have a word with him," said Chiara.

"I'm sure he would love nothing more."

"What are you suggesting?"

"That Gennaro the barman has designs on my wife."

"You were obviously listening to opera while you were working today." Chiara poured a generous measure of Barbaresco into

a wineglass and placed it on the kitchen island. "Drink this, darling. You'll feel better."

Gabriel settled atop a stool and gave the wine a swirl. "I'll feel better when you tell me that I'm wrong about you and your

friend from Bar Cupido."

"It's only a harmless little crush, Gabriel."

"I knew it," he murmured.

"I'm old enough to be his mother, for heaven's sake."

"And I'm old enough..." He left the thought unfinished. It was too depressing to contemplate. "How long has this been going

on?"

"Has what been going on?"

"Your affair with Gennaro the barman."

"You know, Gabriel, you really should wear a mask when you're using solvents. It's clear the fumes have taken a terrible toll

on your brain cells."

Chiara removed the lid from the stainless-steel Dutch oven resting on the stovetop. The mouthwatering aroma of its contents,

a rich duck ragu seasoned with bay leaves and sage, filled the kitchen. She sampled the dish, then added a pinch of salt.

"Perhaps I should taste it as well," suggested Gabriel.

"Only if you promise never to raise the subject of Gennaro the barman ever again."

"Is it over between the two of you?"

Chiara spooned some of the ragu onto a crostino and ate it slowly, the expression on her face one of sexual satisfaction.

"All right," said Gabriel. "I surrender."

"Say it," insisted Chiara.

"I will never mention Gennaro's name again."

"Who's Gennaro?" asked Irene as she wandered into the kitchen.

"He works at Bar Cupido on the Fondamente Nove," replied Gabriel. "Your mother is having a torrid affair with him."

"What does torrid mean?"

"Ardent and passionate. Scorched with heat."

"It sounds painful."

"It can be."

Chiara prepared another ragu-smothered crostino and pointedly handed it to Irene. The child was wearing a World Wildlife Fund

pullover that Gabriel had never seen before.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, tugging at the sleeve.

"We adopted a tiger."

"Will he be sharing your room or Raphael's?"

"It's a symbolic adoption," said Irene, rolling her eyes. "The tiger remains in the wild."

"I'm relieved. But since when did you became an animal rights activist as well as an environmental extremist?"

"Do you know how many species are threatened because of climate change?"

"I haven't a clue. But I'm sure you're about to tell me."

"More than forty thousand. And with each degree of warming the problem will only get worse." Irene climbed onto Gabriel's lap. "How was your trip to Paris?"

"Who told you that I went to Paris?"

"Mama, silly."

"But I never mentioned it to her."

"I saw the charges for your train tickets and hotel on your credit card," explained Chiara. "I also noticed a rather large

withdrawal from an ATM machine in the Eighteenth Arrondissement, which seemed odd. After all, you had plenty of cash in your

wallet when I left London. Nearly a thousand euros, in fact."

Gabriel plucked the ragu-covered crostino from his daughter's hand and devoured it before she could object. "Paris was interesting,"

he said. "I went there to see someone named Naomi Wallach. She works at the Louvre."

Chiara reached for her phone and typed, then handed it to Irene. "She's very beautiful," said the child.

"All of your father's female friends are beautiful. And they all adore him to no end." Chiara reclaimed the phone. "Tell your

brother that dinner will be ready in ten minutes."

"I want to stay here."

"I need to have a word with your father in private."

"About Gennaro the barman?"

Chiara squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "Irene, please."

"I'm very torrid," she said, and left the kitchen in a sulk.

Chiara dropped a handful of bigoli pasta into a stockpot of boiling water and gave it a stir. "You're incorrigible, you realize."

"You're one to talk."

She took up her phone again. "It's funny, but she looks like a Naomi."

"How does someone named Naomi look?"

"Like a beautiful historian who's trying to purge the Louvre of looted paintings." Chiara set the phone aside. "But why did

you go to Paris to see her? And, better yet, why did you withdraw one thousand euros from an ATM machine in the Eighteenth?"

"Because you were right about Professor Blake's murder."

"Of course I was, darling." Chiara smiled. "When have I ever been wrong about anything?"