The Art of Waiting (29 page)

Revenge

Venice, March 1951

Aldo retrieved the gondola from the jetty at Isabella's house and pushed it along the Canale Grande, under the Rialto and towards Accademia and then into the Rio di San Trovaso. Up ahead, next to the small arched bridge, he could see the lights of Antica Locanda Fausto and the tables that Fausto Pozzi kept for al fresco diners on the quay. The tables were empty, perhaps because of the weather – a typical late-spring afternoon had given way to a chill evening mist – or it may just have been the lateness of the hour. Aldo knew that very soon Fausto Pozzi would be locking up and lumbering off into the night, so he eased the gondola over to the side of the canal nearest the restaurant door and he waited. He had already waited far too long for this and he would make sure he went through with it this time, all the way, right up to the logical conclusion. The last of the customers emerged and Aldo watched them go, peering out from behind the carnival mask he had slipped across his face. He saw waiters retrieving the tables from the quayside, ferrying them inside and making snide comments about the customers they had served that evening as they did so. Then the waiters departed, scruffy sweaters and coats now where their white jackets and bow ties had been, and then the lights outside the restaurant were put out and the shutters were pulled closed and the lights inside were extinguished and Fausto Pozzi emerged from his hole.

‘Signore Pozzi?' came Aldo's muffled voice from behind the mask, disguising himself well, no time for mistakes now, just wanting to get it done.

‘Who wants to know?'

‘Gondola, sir?'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘Gondola?'

‘No, thank you. I'll walk.'

‘But I was sent to collect you.'

‘Oh were you, now? By whom?'

‘I don't know her name. She told me the time and the place and your name. That was all.'

‘And where, may I ask, are you supposed to be taking me?'

Aldo noticed Fausto's voice lifting just a touch, perhaps a fatal curiosity taking hold.

‘The Londra Palace Hotel. A fine venue, sir, for an appointment of this nature.'

‘An appointment of this nature, you say? Of what nature might this appointment be, this appointment with this woman, this mystery sender of masked men in gondolas?'

‘Please don't make fun of me, sir. I am only doing what I have been asked. I don't know her name, she's a visitor here, a guest in our town who wishes to repay you for your generous hospitality.'

‘My hospitality? So I've met this mystery lady? Well, I must say I'm now rather intrigued.'

‘I believe she may have dined in your restaurant – she struck me as the discerning type, a person of taste.'

‘Well, yes . . .'

‘She said she had found you most charming, that she would very much like to meet you again. But in a more intimate setting.'

Aldo watched as Fausto flicked back through the faces he had seen over the last couple of evenings. He knew that a man of lesser vanity would decline the offer, would see it for the ruse that it was and take his usual lonely route home across Campo Santo Stefano and along Strada Nuova. But Aldo knew that Fausto Pozzi would be unable to resist the lure, and he twitched it again.

‘I must say, if you will allow me this opinion, that she is rather beautiful, rather tempting. I envy you, sir. In your position, I would be tempted myself, I would not hesitate a moment longer. And of
course if I don't take you to her, she will be very disappointed. And I won't be paid.'

He gestured to the gondola with an outstretched arm and smiled beneath the mask as Fausto hesitated and then finally clambered aboard. Aldo stepped from the quay to the deck and took up the oar before Fausto could change his mind. Fausto sat on the bench and felt the cold of the canal rising into him through the wood and he watched as the man behind the mask turned the boat around and pushed it towards the Canale Grande. Then he leant back on the bench and looked skywards, running a series of improbable scenarios through his mind as to what might happen on his arrival at the Londra Palace. There had been one or two noticeably attractive visitors at the restaurant the previous night. One in particular had caught his eye, all salmon-pink in her evening gown – and that was just her tan – her fingers full of rings but none of them matrimonial. Fausto had sat with her for a few moments between her expensive main course and extravagant dessert and he imagined himself now as the nightcap he had omitted to offer her then. Clearly she had forgiven him his lack of chivalry and he imagined her greeting him in the Londra Palace lobby with the languid vowels of whichever exotic tongue came to her most easily, then leading him into the luxurious privacy of her room for charming conversation and a great deal more. As he dwelt on these possibilities, his fantasies reached new peaks of wild abandon, an abandon he knew had not existed in his reality for more than a quarter of a century and of which any real hope had been extinguished three years after the end of the war when the one person who had always maintained a firm if involuntary hold on his heartstrings had gone forever.

‘I must say that's a very nice restaurant,' Aldo remarked as he rowed, interrupting Fausto's reverie.

‘Which restaurant?' Fausto snapped, annoyed that the sense of mystery and anticipation that he had been laboriously constructing now lay ruined by the banality of the gondolier's unsolicited observation. The steady rain that fell now irritated him further.

‘Which restaurant, sir? Why, your restaurant, of course, sir.'

‘Yes, it is rather nice, isn't it?'

‘It is indeed. My sincerest congratulations – I'm sure you deserve them.'

‘I don't recall asking your opinion, though.'

‘Well, I say
your
restaurant, but of course . . .'

Fausto recognised something in the voice now, an inflection. ‘But of course what?' he said.

The gondola nosed past the jetty that served the Londra Palace and Fausto watched as the gondolier continued to push the oar through the water in his slow metronomic rhythm and the hotel slipped further away, a chaos of raindrops swirling through the bright lights on the quay.

Now Aldo removed his mask.

‘You!' Fausto said. ‘Aldo, what on earth do you think you're doing?'

‘Well, I say
your
restaurant, Fausto. But of course I remember it in the old days, before it was yours. I suppose you remember those days too? How could you forget them?'

‘That was all such a long time ago. A very long time ago!'

‘Yes, it does seem that way, doesn't it? So many things seem such a long time ago now. And yet they still seem like they happened just yesterday. Take, for example . . .'

‘Look, you've gone past the jetty! The Londra Palace is over there.'

‘The Londra Palace? But why on earth would you be going there?'

‘Let me out, I said!'

‘Let you out? Here?' said Aldo, gesturing towards the dark water that surrounded them. ‘Well, if you're sure that's what you want . . .'

‘That jetty over there,' Fausto shouted. ‘Let me out over there!'

Aldo turned the nose of the gondola away from the shore, out towards the black lagoon. ‘Which jetty, Fausto? I don't see a jetty.'

‘That one, over there. Behind you!'

‘Behind me?'

‘Look, stop messing about. Turn this bloody thing around!' His voice was quivering now. ‘Turn the boat around, I said! Pull in just over there. Look, just turn it around.'

‘It's funny, isn't it?' said Aldo. ‘Sometimes you can be so close to something, but for some reason you just can't see it. You're looking in the wrong direction, or it's too dark and your aim is wrong, or you just go temporarily blind. Or maybe someone misleads you, and the thing you're looking for, what other people see, just isn't there for you any more, no matter how hard you try. Or you mix it up for something else. Has that ever happened to you?'

‘Turn this boat around immediately. I'm getting all wet.'

‘You'll be a lot wetter when I've finished with you!'

‘Come on, now, please, Aldo, let's be reasonable. Let me out at that jetty over there and there'll be no further consequences for you.'

‘No further consequences? For me? Yes, you're certainly right about that, there'll be no further consequences for me. You see, Fausto, I have no vested interests now, nothing to gain from seeking favours, because I've lost it all. And as you know so well, your hold over people depends on their hope. They hope your power and influence – your relative power and influence – will smooth their path if only they can keep on the right side of you. But when all hope is gone, well, what's to be gained from creeping around after favours?'

‘How could I have been so stupid?' Fausto muttered.

‘I know,' Aldo laughed. ‘What a mistake.'

‘A woman at the Londra Palace indeed . . .'

‘Yes, it's almost funny, isn't it? How could you ever have believed such a thing? Just a stupid dream, Fausto, that's all. Snared by your dreams. And I had dreams too, you know, a long, long time ago. But I was forced awake before they were fully formed, and now I have none, except the one I'm about to fulfil. Can you guess what it might be, Fausto? We're both alone out here in the dark, you and me, just the two of us, adrift out here in the dark . . . oh look, the lights are fading now . . . and both our dreams are lost. And when hope has gone, all that remains is the truth. Quite reassuring when you think about it, don't you think?'

‘Get on with it.'

‘And so, Fausto, we must face up to the truth, you and I.'

‘The truth?'

‘Yes, the truth – heard of it, have you? We both know you did it, Fausto. Out there in the forest.
Oh look, Aldo, a wild boar! Shoot it, Aldo! Shoot it when I whistle!
You must have taken me for a fucking idiot.'

‘Your words, not mine.'

‘You're the one to blame, Fausto, you're the guilty one, the one who fired the shot. The shot that killed him. You, Fausto, not me.'

‘But, Aldo, it was your bullet. The police proved it. It came from your gun.'

‘Like hell it did. You set me up, and you'll admit it if it's the last thing you do in the short time you have left on this earth.'

‘You wouldn't have the guts. You wouldn't do it. You wouldn't dare.'

But Fausto's voice was soft and unsure now, barely audible amid the drumming of the rain. Even his face seemed to be dissolving away in the downpour, breaking up into pieces in the dark.

‘Believe me, Fausto, believe me. We're going out to sea and once we're past the breakwaters there'll be no coming back. See the storm over there? The sea will be rough tonight. So you don't have long. Tell me the truth, confess to me, just this once, just to me. Wouldn't it be so much better to be forgiven by someone before you die?'

‘You couldn't do it. I know you. You're not strong enough.'

‘No, you don't know me, Fausto, not any more, if you ever really did. And it has nothing to do with strength. I killed an innocent man for far less than this, for no reason at all really. Does that make me strong? Of course it doesn't. And does the fact that I'll tip you out of this boat and push my foot down on your head make me strong, even if you deserve all that and worse? Or does it make me weak? So I'm asking you to help me, Fausto, help me to be strong, help me to forgive you, because it might just save you and I can't do it on my own.'

‘Fuck you! Why on earth should I help you, after all this?'

‘You see, Fausto! You see? You still don't believe me. But I'm begging you, please help me here, because otherwise you're coming with me, I swear you are, and I know you don't want to go where I'm headed.'

Fausto shook his head and opened his mouth again as if to protest but Aldo swung the oar and struck him across the head, knocking his hat into the water and bringing blood streaming from his brow. The rain swept the blood away but it rushed out again as Fausto tried to wipe it away with his hand.

‘Admit it, you bastard! Confess, for God's sake! Tell me you did it, that you fired the fatal shot, not me. Take this guilt upon yourself, or I swear you're coming with me!'

Fausto cowered on the bench, an arm raised across his bloodied face. Aldo swung the oar again but the arm caught the weight of the blow and Aldo heard Fausto whimpering in the dark. Aldo drew the oar back again, high above his head this time, and Fausto raised his arm and screamed back at him, ‘All right! All right! Stop! I'll tell you, I'll tell you everything!'

‘Go on, tell me!'

‘I'll tell you, I'll tell you, the whole damned story, just put down the oar . . .'

‘Go on, then, I haven't got all fucking night.'

The oar twitched above Aldo's head and Fausto's words came at Aldo through the rain.

‘I loved you, Aldo.'

‘What?'

‘I always loved you.'

Aldo let the oar fall by his side. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?'

‘You're mine, Aldo.'

‘Have you gone fucking mad?'

‘No, no, I love you, Aldo. I love you because you're mine. And that's all I ever wanted, something that was really mine.'

‘Oh, shut up! I haven't got time to listen to this!'

‘Luca didn't know. He never knew. God knows how I kept it from him all those years, how I kept it from you.'

‘Luca?'

‘God, yes, I wanted to hurt him so much, but I just couldn't do it, I couldn't do it to you, and I couldn't do it to your mother. I knew
if Luca left her she would never be happy without him, that bloody Luca, and she would never be happy with me, and that's what I wanted after all, her happiness. So I let it be, I left you all in peace. I just couldn't do it to you, you and your mother.'