something very like it, is happiness.’ That exaltation now looked like nothing more special than a side effect of the verdicchio they had drunk at lunch. Now the hangover had arrived.
‘So who do they know about?’ he demanded truculently.
Tania looked at him, a new hardness in his eyes.
‘They know I’m no longer with Mauro, if that’s what you mean.’
He didn’t say whether it was or not.
‘So they think you’re living alone.’
‘Well, aren’t I?’
They faced each other for a moment over that. Then Tania broke into a smile and took his arm.
‘Look, Bettina’s my cousin, the second daughter of my father’s younger brother. It’s not an intimate relationship, but since my parents died and Nino emigrated to Australia it’s the best I’ve got. Bettina doesn’t burden me with her problems and I don’t burden her with mine.’
‘I didn’t realize I was a problem,’ he replied, snapping up the cheap shot on offer.
‘I didn’t mean that, Aurelio. I mean that we don’t share our innermost preoccupations, good or bad. We keep our distance. That’s the best way sometimes, particularly with relatives. Otherwise the whole thing can get out of control.’
‘And control is important to you, is it?’
He hated the snide way he said it. So did Tania, it soon became clear.
‘And why not?’ she snapped. ‘Damn it, I spent the first thirty years of my life asleep at the wheel. You saw the result. Now I’ve decided to try taking charge for a while and see how that goes. I mean is that all right?’
Aware of the weakness of his position, Zen backed down.
‘Of course. Go where you like. It looks like I might have to work, anyway.’
The fishing boats which had landed their catches early that morning were now tied up two abreast on either side of the channel, stem to stern. Two crewmen were mending nets spread out over the quay, and Tania and Zen chose to go opposite ways around them. As they joined up again, she said, ‘What is this work you’re doing, anyway?’
Partly out of fatigue with the truth, partly to get his own back for her own evasions, Zen decided to lie.
‘The Vatican have got a problem with documents disappearing from the Secret Archives,’ he said, recalling the case which Grimaldi had been working on at the time of his death. ‘They can’t use their own security people because they think some of them may be involved.’
‘And you hang around like a store detective waiting for someone to lift a pair of tights?’
‘More or less. It’s a hell of a way to make a living, but if I crack the case I get a full plenary indulgence.’
Tania laughed.
‘Not that I really need one,’ he went on, eager to please. ‘I’m already owed over a hundred thousand years’ remission from purgatory. In fact I’m a bit worried that I might soon reach the stage where my spiritual credit exceeds any practical possibilities I have of sinning. Just think what a ruinous effect that would have on my moral fibre.’
‘How did you get to be so holy?’
‘Oh, I used to be quite devout in my way. I loved the idea of collecting indulgences, like saving up coupons for a free gift. If I said three Pater noster s after confession, I got three hundred years’ remission from purgatory. That seemed an incredible bargain! I couldn’t believe my luck. It takes maybe a minute or so, if you gabble, and for that you got off three hundred years of unspeakable torture! I couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t taking advantage. I and Tommaso, my best friend, used to vie with each other. I had well over a hundred thousand years’ worth stored up before I finally fell in love with Tommaso’s sister. After that, the next world no longer seemed quite so important.’
His words were drowned by the roar of a plane taking off from the international airport just a few kilometres to the north.
‘Anyway,’ he concluded, ‘having attended Mass on the first Friday of each month for the nine months after my First Communion, I’m assured of dying in a state of grace whatever happens.’
To his surprise, Tania immediately reached out and touched the nearest metal — a mooring bollard — for good luck.
‘Don’t mention such things, Aurelio.’
He took her in his arms, and she kissed him in that way she had, making him wish they were in bed.
‘Sweetheart,’ she said.
He laughed, moved despite himself, despite his knowledge that she was cheating him.
‘I didn’t know you were superstitious,’ he said as they walked on. ‘You’ve spent too long living with southerners.’
‘Now, now! Don’t start coming on like some region-alist red-neck who thinks that the Third World starts at the Apennines.’
‘Of course it doesn’t! It starts at Mestre.’
‘Mauro may have been a creep, but…’
‘ May? Tania, you once described Mauro Bevilacqua as someone for whom strangling at birth would have been too good.’
Perhaps that was who she was seeing on the side, he thought. Perhaps Mauro would have the last laugh after all, and Zen suffer the ignominy of being cuckolded by his lover’s husband.
‘… but not all southerners are like that,’ Tania continued. ‘Mauro’s elder brother, for example, is a charming man, scholarly and cultured, with a nice dry wit.’
‘Oh yes?’ demanded Zen, his jealousy immediately locking on to this new target.
‘In fact you might see him while you’re snooping around the Vatican Archives. He works for the region’s cultural affairs department, and he spends a lot of time there researching material for exhibitions and so on.’
‘Maybe he’s the one who’s been stealing the stuff,’ Zen muttered moodily.
‘From what Tullio says, I’m surprised the thefts were ever noticed. According to him the Vatican collections are so vast and so badly organized that you can spend days tracking down a single item. It’s more like a place for hiding documents than for finding them, he says.’
She broke off, frightened by the intensity with which he was staring at her.
‘What’s the matter, Aurelio? Did I say something wrong? You seem so strange today, so moody and unpredictable. Is there something you haven’t told me?’
There was a deafening siren blast as a large orange ocean-going tug slipped her moorings on the other side of the river. Zen transferred his obsessively fixated gaze to the vessel as it proceeded slowly downstream towards the open sea.
‘Do you ever see this… what’s his name?’
Now it was Tania’s turn to stare.
‘Just exactly what is that supposed to mean?’
He looked at her and shrugged, ignoring her indignant tone.
‘What it says.’
They faced each other like enemies.
‘Do I ever see Tullio Bevilacqua?’ Tania recited with sarcastic emphasis. ‘No, I haven’t seen him since Mauro and I broke up. Does that satisfy you?’
‘But are you on good terms? Would he do you a favour?’
‘What sort of favour?’ Tania shouted, scaring away the seagulls. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Aurelio?’
So he told her.
They returned by train. Tania got off at Trastevere and got a bus back to her flat, while Zen continued to the suburban Tiburtina station. The determined effort they both made to part on good terms was itself the clearest indication yet of the growing crisis in their relationship, and of their mutual sense that things were no longer quite what they seemed.
From the station, Zen caught a taxi to the Hotel Torlonia Palace. On the way he looked through the Ministry’s file on the Knights of Malta. As he had expected, the document was entirely non-controversial, amounting to little
