‘What year did you say?’
‘Nineteen seventy-one. The sixth of January.’
The monk took down one of the more recent volumes and carried it back to the desk. He started to open it, then paused.
‘This friend of yours,’ he said, ‘she was not -forgive me - she was not a suicide?’
Patrick shook his head firmly.
‘It was an accident. She drowned. I saw her buried here, I followed her coffin.’ He struggled to keep control.
Father Antonio opened the ledger and began to leaf through the pages, muttering under his breath all the while.
‘Maggio ... aprile ... marzo ... febbraio ... ah, gennaio! Bene. L’undici ... I’otto ... il sette ... ah, ecco! Il sei gennaio!’
His finger crept slowly down the page. Patrick noticed that the nail was black, in places turning yellow.
‘Taglioni ... Trissino ... Rusconi ... Lazzarini...’ The old man intoned the names as though reading a roll-call. ‘Bastiani... Giambono ... Ah, so sad, a baby that one. I remember them, they were very unhappy ... Malifiero ...’
Patrick held his breath. The old man’s finger reached the bottom of the page and rested there, trembling fractionally, like a leaf that senses a storm building in the distance.
‘There is nothing,’ he said. ‘No entry of that name.’
‘There must be some mistake.’
‘No mistake. Unless you have given me the wrong date.’
‘Look again. Try the fifth, or the seventh.’
Brother Antonio shrugged his thin shoulders and resumed his search. Again his gnarled finger travelled down the names of the dead and the details of their interment. And again it came to rest. He shook his head limply.
‘Surely,’ Patrick urged, ‘you must remember. It was a big funeral, an important family, their only daughter. There were reports in the newspapers, I remember.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Brother Antonio, closing the ledger. He seemed ill at ease. ‘I have no recollection of such a funeral. But there are so many every day, the details slip my memory.’
‘You remembered the baby, the one you said was so sad.’
‘For its sadness, yes. But a Contarini - that would not be so great a tragedy.’
Patrick changed direction.
‘What about her mother? Do you remember her funeral?’
‘Perhaps. What was her first name?’
‘Caterina. Her maiden name was Querini. She died on the eighteenth of March 1977. I think she was buried in a section of the tomb that had originally been her daughter’s burial place.’
The monk replaced the first ledger and took down a second.
‘That would be unusual,’ he said, ‘but not unheard of.’
He consulted the ledger.
‘Contarini ... Contarini ... Ecco, ci siamo! “Contessa Caterina Contarini, of the Palazzo Contarini, Campo San Polo 2583. Born 25 February 1920, died 18 March 1977. Buried in the Tomba dei Contarini, plot no.7465, 19 March 1977.” ‘
He looked up.
‘That is all, Signor Canavan. There is no mention of a daughter. All is in order, as you see.’
He walked back to the shelf and replaced the volume. For a few moments, he stood facing the rows of ledgers, as though hesitating before taking yet another from the shelf. Then, abruptly, he turned to face Patrick. His face was hard and set, betraying a determined effort at self-control.
‘Signor Canavan, please forgive me. I am an old man. My sight is feeble, my hearing is growing dim. Soon, very soon, my name will join all the others in these ledgers. The ink will dry and before long another ledger will be added to the rest. Every day, several times, my successor will take the new ledger from its place and add more names. Sometimes the sun will shine. Sometimes, like today, there will be rain, or a heavy mist among the cypresses. The gondolas will come and go as they have done all these years. Nothing will change. San Michele will grow a little fatter with its dead, the bones will lie more heavily in the earth. Perhaps, in time, Venice will sink beneath the sea and no one will come here any more. But at heart things will be as they have always been.’
The old man paused. He took a couple of steps towards Patrick, his back bent, his thin hands clasped painfully in front of him.
‘Let the dead rest in peace, Signor Canavan. Where they come from and where they go are no concern of yours. The mausoleum of the Contarinis is already falling to dust. There is grass on its stone, and moss. It does not matter who sleeps there and who does not. They are beyond your reach, all of them. Go home, signore. Pray for us. And we shall pray for you.’
He paused a brief moment longer, then pulled his cowl about his wizened head and walked stiffly to the door.
‘Do not return, signore. There is nothing here. Nothing but grief.’
Patrick watched as the old man opened the door and walked out into the glistening rain.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Makonnen was waiting for him at Florian’s as arranged. The priest seemed ill-at-ease among the gilded mirrors and red velvet banquettes of the cafe’s luxurious interior. He was in a corner, drinking an espresso ristretto from a tiny white cup. Between sips, he stared haplessly through a window painted with mermaids at the people passing down the long arcade beside the Piazza San Marco.
Patrick sat down beside him and asked for a Fernet-Branca.
‘Have you had lunch?’ he asked Makonnen. The priest shook his head.
Would you like some?’
‘Not really. I’m not very hungry.’
‘Nor am I. But I suppose we’d better have something.’
When the waiter arrived with Patrick’s drink, he ordered one plate each of prosciutto crudo and bresaola, with a bottle of Recoara. The waiter took the order with a flourish, gave an almost imperceptible glance of disapproval at Makonnen, and left. Opposite, in a corner, an elderly grande dame sat at a table alone, watching her rouged and prune-like features ripple in a rococo mirror as she lifted a cup of hot chocolate to pursed lips.
Apart from them and the old lady, the cafe was almost empty. In Venice, no one much minds the acqua alta when a spring tide brings the sea sweeping in to the city and floods the Piazza. But on a cold day towards the end of winter, when rain rushes in from the Adriatic and there is no shelter to be found anywhere in the streets, those who can do so stay at home and warm themselves at their stoves.
‘Did you find your friend?’ asked Patrick.
Makonnen nodded. He seemed a little distrait.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He still lives in his old house. His mother died last year, and he stays on there with his father. The old man’s eighty-five now, and Claudio has his hands full looking after him. He can’t afford a housekeeper or a nurse, so he has to do everything himself. He washes and dresses him, helps him to the toilet, feeds him.’ Assefa paused, staring at his empty cup.
‘It’s strange,’ he continued. ‘But it’s like a vocation for him. He seems to lead a celibate life. Never thinks of himself. Every moment, he’s there to help the old fellow. Like a saint. We were so ashamed for him when he left the seminary, as though the priesthood was the only thing that mattered in life. Some of us thought he was damned, that he had damned himself by turning his back on the Church. And now he wipes an old man’s backside and thinks nothing of it. Not as a penance or anything like that, but as a sort of love.’
‘He sounds like a good man, your friend.’
‘No, that’s just the point. He’s not a good man. He’d hate to hear you say that. Truly he would. He drinks a lot and swears, and I think he has terrible tempers. And he hates the Church. But you’ll see for yourself. He wants to meet you. This afternoon.’
Patrick sipped his Fernet-Branca, grimacing as its bitterness reached his palate. The grande dame lifted a jewelled hand to her scrawny chin and glanced at them coldly. Pale steam rose in lazy spirals from her
