When he neared the Ponte Guglie, he went into a grocer’s shop which was still open. The shop was dim and vaulted, so densely crowded with goods that it was almost impossible to move. As Zen’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he made out the owner lurking at the counter like a spider in its web. He bought some coffee, mineral water and a packet of biscuits for breakfast. The grocer rang up his purchases on one of the huge state-of-the-art electronic registers required by the tax authorities, which looked as out of place in these troglodytic surroundings as a computer in a cave.
Hefting his green plastic bag of purchases, Zen continued along the Cannaregio canal, his feet aching at the unaccustomed exercise, and turned off into the alley which gradually widened into the triangular campo with the circular stone well-head, its carvings obliterated by time and touch. He noted the strip of whitened paving, caused by droppings from the birds which perched on the power and phone cables crossing the street at this point. How often had he come this way? How many times had he followed this route home? The thought inspired a sort of vertigo. He recoiled from contact with all those other selves, each of which had seemed so absolute at the time, but were now revealed as just another in a restless, flickering series of imposters. I’m getting as bad as Ada Zulian and that fisherman from Burano, he thought. I should never have come. I should have stayed in Rome, where you can drive everywhere and no one believes in ghosts.
The house felt cold and empty. As Zen opened the door to the living room, the telephone started to ring. He stood, staring at it but making no attempt to answer. It rang eleven times before cutting off with a brief peep. Eyeing the instrument warily, Zen set down his shopping and circled round the room to the window, and threw open the casements. The cool evening air flowed in over the sill, setting up currents and eddies in the whole room. He had the sensation that the floor was rocking gently back and forth, like a boat at its mooring. It was some time before he became aware that he was not the only one enjoying the dusk. From one of the bedrooms on the top floor of the house opposite, a young woman stood looking down at him.
Zen waved to her.
‘Good evening.’
Cristiana Morosini smiled vaguely and nodded. She seemed to be about to say something when the phone in the room behind him began to ring again. With an impatient shrug, Zen turned away to answer it.
‘Hello? Who? Tania! Oh, I was just going to call you! Did you ring a moment ago? No? I just got home and it was ringing as I came in, but I couldn’t reach it in time. I thought it might have been you.’
He dug out his cigarettes.
‘Oh, all right. It doesn’t look as though there’s much to be done, but I’ll stretch it out as long as I can…’
He paused to light up.
‘Of course I’m missing you, sweetheart, but it’s a question of the money, isn’t it? I mean that’s why I’m here. The family are paying by the day, so the longer I take over it the better, no?’
He clasped the receiver to his ear for some time.
‘Of course I appreciate your situation, Tania. I just hope you appreciate mine. It would be nice to get a little appreciation, once in a while. It’s not that much fun camping out in this house like a squatter.’
Whorls of smoke from his cigarette drifted like weed about the room, delineating its tidal currents and stagnant pools.
‘Because this is not my real work. That’s what’s different about it. I don’t have to run errands for Americans. I’d be much happier to stay in Rome, go through the motions at the office and then come round and see you in the evening. But we’ve got to think about the future. We can’t go on in the way we have been, and my apartment isn’t large enough for all of us to share, so unless we get some money from somewhere…’
He broke off and listened, sighing.
‘I’m not angry! But quite frankly I’ve got enough problems as it is without having you phoning me up to nag me because I don’t sound sufficiently sorry about not being there. Understand? Under the circumstances, I think you could show a little more consideration.’
He held the receiver away from his ear. It continued to emit angry squawks. He set it down on the table and walked back to the window. Cristiana Morosini had disappeared. He walked back to the table and picked up the phone, but the vocal ostinato had been replaced by a steady electronic humming.
Replacing the receiver, he walked through to the kitchen and opened the window there. The increased flow of air immediately cancelled all the existing currents, scouring out a new deep channel from one window to the other. Zen leant on the windowsill and gazed morosely down at the darkly mobile surface of the water in the canal below. He had completely failed to strike the right note with Tania. She had wanted to be reassured, to be soothed and wooed, and he hadn’t been able to do it. It was like a language he had once learned, but had forgotten.
Similar episodes had occurred before, but never when they were apart. Until now, separation had always brought out the best in them, and when they were together such failures were quickly forgotten. But now they were apart, a conversation such as the one they had just had became emblematic of more general shortcomings, problems and inadequacies in the relationship as a whole. Judging by Tania’s manner, she felt that there was no shortage of these.
He let his spent cigarette drop into the canal. The tide was high again, just as it had been when he had looked out from the bedroom on the morning of his arrival. He closed the window and walked back to the living room, where he picked up the plastic shopping bag. He eyed the phone briefly. It wasn’t too late to call Tania back and apologize, to talk the whole thing through and…
He turned away and carried the shopping through to the kitchen, where he arranged the items artistically on the bare shelves. It was too late. He felt divided from Tania by infinitely more than the actual distance between them. It was as if she were on the other side of the world, or even some other world.
He stood back, admiring his work. It might not be the home beautiful, but at least he could have a cup of coffee in the morning. As for the evening looming up before him, big, blank and empty, that was a much less alluring prospect. He would have to find somewhere to have dinner, for a start. The prospect of eating alone in some dreary, over-priced trattoria did not appeal. When he spoke to Tania, he had deliberately exploited the draw- backs of his situation for dramatic effect, but the fact remained that in many ways it was not enviable. Despite this, he hadn’t the slightest desire to be anywhere else, least of all back in Rome.
As though in response to this thought, the phone began to ring again. For a moment he toyed with the idea of not answering. The last thing he wanted was to have to resume the laborious task of trying to communicate meaningfully with Tania. He had nothing whatever to say to her. But it would only make matters worse in the long run to hide there, pretending not to be home. Heaving a deep sigh, he walked through to the living room and picked up the receiver.
‘Aurelio Battista, is that you?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘Oh thank God you’re there! I’ve rung twice already but there was no reply. I think I’d have gone mad if you hadn’t answered this time!’
‘ Contessa?’
‘They’re here! It’s worse than ever! They’ve got knives! For God’s sake come quickly!’
By the time he turns up, of course, her shield and strength, her bold avenger, the intruders have cleared off. He searches every room in the palazzo, but there is no one there. As she told him earlier, they’re not stupid. Neither is he, Giustiniana’s son. He was always quick on the uptake, even as a child, she’ll give him that. Ada recalls being astonished, sometimes, by the things he’d come out with, finding a connection between two things she’d quite forgotten about, or hadn’t even noticed in the first place.
That’s no comfort here, though. She herself has still got all her wits about her, whatever folk may say, and much good it’s done her. Mere human intelligence is powerless against the adversaries she faces. The Church might have helped, but Ada turned her back on God after what He allowed to happen to Rosetta. She does not go so far as to deny His existence, but she’ll be damned if she’ll acknowledge it.
This time, though, she almost blurted out a prayer. It had never been so bad before. She had grown used to the continual harassment, the sudden scurries and scampering in the dark, the flashing and stabbing lights, the shouts and screams and mocking laughter. It was all horrible, but at least the ritual seemed to have rules which until tonight had never been broken. The most important, from her point of view, was that whatever the creatures might get up to in the way of noise and nuisance, they never actually laid hands on her.
She’d known for a long time that they had hands, because in her panic she had sometimes run up against them. They were substantial all right, whatever people might say. But until now all physical contact between them
