The Bellini Card

43

“It is not any painting you seek, signore?”

“No,” Palewski admitted. “Not any painting.”

The man smiled. “But I wondered about that.” He fished into his breast pocket and withdrew a card. He glanced at it.

“Connoisseur: it means much.”

Palewski watched him. The card, he recognized, was his own.

“But also-nothing.” The man snapped the card down on the table.

Palewski’s expression did not change. He looked at the man: he was quite fat, with smooth jowls and small, wet lips. His eyes were large and black. His head was shaved clean.

“You have the advantage of me, Signor-?”

The heavyset man looked at him for a long time before he answered. “If you like, Alfredo. It’s not important, Signor Brett.”

There had been the slightest pause, as if he had glanced again at the card to check.

“Bellini went to Istanbul in 1479,” Palewski said. “He painted a portrait of Mehmet the Conqueror, which later disappeared.”

Alfredo sighed. “I am a very little man, Signor Brett. Please, I would like you to understand. I cannot sell you a painting. I have children. I have a wife. My parents live with us, and my father has gone blind.” He nodded, as if to acknowledge sympathy.

Palewski said nothing.

“I work for another, a very great man, Signor Brett. Many people in this city will show works by inferior artists. You can buy a Canaletto very cheap here.”

“I’m not interested in a cheap Canaletto,” Palewski said.

Alfredo clasped his hands. “Of course not. Otherwise, Signor Brett, we would not be talking. Let me tell you something about Venice. It looks poor, doesn’t it? Sad, and patched up, and gray, even on a beautiful day like this. A city without an income. But do not misjudge it. Venice is also a city of extraordinary wealth-as our friends from Vienna know all too well.”

He put his finger on the table and held it there.

“We are surrounded, Signor Brett, with considerable treasures. You know the Correr?”

“Yes.”

“What did you like there?”

The question surprised Palewski. “I liked the Carpaccio,” he said, after thinking. “The Courtesans.”

The man smiled. “I like it too, Signor Brett. I agree with your choice. Correr was a rich man, a man of taste and connections. Would it surprise you to know that he considered that painting a poor specimen of the master’s art? Relatively speaking, of course. Correr, you see, knew better-he had seen things that he could never put his finger on again.

“We know that for a thousand years, Venice has been plundering the world. With her wealth, she was able to produce her own masters, too. This city was never captured, never plundered. Three hundred families held the reins of power-and access to wealth-in all those years. Oh yes, the Corsican took things that belonged here-the bronze horses from St. Mark’s, the Veroneses and the Titians from the churches. Big, grand thefts-for what? To symbolize his mastery of the Veneto. A pagan triumph, nothing more. There was no stripping of the palazzi. Perhaps, had he been given more time-who knows? The Austrians-they try, here and there, to take artworks from the city. But the world is watching them. In the meantime, the old nobility have become clever.”

“Clever?”

“These sad old buildings”-Alfredo gestured vaguely toward the canal-”appear to be shuttered up, stripped out, half abandoned. A city in decay-of course.” He leaned forward. “But if you could see what really lies inside those walls, not even on display, but in an attic somewhere, under a Persian rug, or locked up in a shabby trunk-well, I need hardly say that you, Signor Brett, would go half mad with joy-and with desire.”

Palewski thought of the contessa’s palazzo. It had seemed bare, but perhaps it was just a facade, a cautious reaction to the dangers presented by foreign occupation. There were villages in Thrace and Macedonia, he recalled, that scarcely looked like villages at all: mere rubbish heaps. They were inhabited, he was reliably informed, by people who did all they could to disguise their wealth, the better to evade the state’s taxes.

“There are treasures in Venice that even their owners do not know exist,” he said, in a low tone of wonder. “But sometimes, Signor Brett, these treasures come to light.”

“Your patron knows about these hidden things?”

Alfredo shrugged, as if the matter were beyond dispute. “I would say more. A palazzo, dear signor, is not a shop. The old nobility of Venice are not shopkeepers, who ticket their goods for sale. And they have discretion. You must understand that these treasures belong in some sense to the patrimony of Venice, even if she is fallen today. They belong to old families. They constitute a history of a house, and the people who have lived there.” He paused, frowned, looked for the proper explanation. “Aha-it is like these pieces can be compared to a beautiful daughter. Her marriage, when she leaves the house, is not left to chance. It is a matter for full and delicate consideration.”

Palewski nodded. He wondered whether Signor Brett, of New York, for all his wealth, was quite the kind of catch a patrician Venetian would consider for his daughter-even if she were made of canvas and oil.

Alfredo seemed to have read his thoughts. “My patron understands these delicate matters,” he said. “I think, before I was sent to you, that your case was hopeless. In Venice you can buy-what? Anything-a friend, a woman, a nice house.” He glanced at Palewski as he spoke, and Palewski flushed slightly. “But a work of art? This is different.”

He cocked his head. “Let me be frank. My patron, he is not unhappy to see you in Venice. You are something new, signore. For many years, we arrange matters between our clients-his clients, I mean-and his Venetian friends. These are very important works, and the prices are, well-who can pay? The French? Hmm. Some. Some Russians. Some others, Swedes, princes, yes. But the English-these are the best. The famous Byron, pah! But Byron’s friends, lords, like him, with palazzi of their own. For many years we have dealt with these men. Only these, I would say.”

“And now you’d appreciate a little competition.”

Alfredo smiled. “You understand me very well, signore.”

Palewski signaled to the waiter. “Two brandies,” he said. To Alfredo he said, “You know nothing about me.”

Alfredo laughed, to Palewski’s surprise. He waited while the waiter set the brandies down in two huge balloons.

“You exaggerate, Signor Brett. I think you might be surprised how much we know about you.”

He slipped his hand beneath the bowl of his glass and swirled it violently so that the caramel liquid left an oily sheen on the inside, then he raised it to his nose and inhaled deeply.

“But in fact it doesn’t altogether matter. Yours is a big country, Signor Brett, as I think you have already remarked.”

Palewski looked up, and their eyes met.

“I’m glad we’ve had a chance to talk,” Alfredo said. He inclined his glass toward Palewski. “To Bellini,” he said quietly. Then, without waiting for a response, he drank the liquor and got up.

“We haven’t really discussed Bellini, Signor Alfredo,” Palewski said.

“I was always talking about Bellini, Signor Brett.”

He turned to go, then stopped and looked around. “We’ll meet again. The bill is taken care of,” he added, with a flicker of a smile.

With that he was gone, through an arch of the arcade in two quick strides.

“Exit right,” Palewski murmured to himself. “Signor Brett onstage, drinking brandy.”

He looked down and recognized the list he’d been writing, balancing the options.

He tore the list into little pieces. That done, he got up and went to the edge of the canal, where he let the pieces drop from his fingers into the water.

“Curtain.”

It was not what he had expected. It made him uneasy.

Afraid.

He would miss the rendezvous, he thought.