The Thief of Venice (19 page)

The office belonging to Dottor Samuele Bell, the curator of rare books, had become a control center. Signora Pino was on the phone, but she waved Homer into Sam's office. He pushed through a crowd of uniformed men from the Vigili Urbani who were awaiting orders. His friend Sam was almost invisible, sitting at his desk, bowed over a plan of the building. He looked up and said,
"Un momenta, Homer,"
and gave a final order.
"Non dimenticate! Le prese elettriche, dovete ispezionarle, se vanno sottacqua."

"Si, si,"
said the sergeant in charge, and at once the crowd of young soldiers turned away and started down the stairs.

"What was that all about?" said Homer. "
Prese elettriche
, what's that?"

"Electric"—Sam flapped his hands—"holes? Connections? You know, Homer, this thing right here." He pointed at the baseboard behind his desk.

"Ah," said Homer, "you mean outlets, electrical outlets. Of course, I can see that water would mess up your entire electrical system."

Sam leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "We thought we were ready," he told Homer, "but we weren't. We have a plan with four teams, each with its own sector to take care of, but in this emergency some people can't get here, so we've had to scrubble up more manpower at the last minute. Is that the right word? Scrubble? Scrobble?"

"Scrabble?" suggested Homer. "Sam, look." He reached under his damp jacket, extracted the photograph of Lucia Costanza from his breast pocket, and handed it to Sam. "The building in the background isn't a church, it's a synagogue."

Sam took the picture and whooped. "A synagogue, of course! That's why we couldn't find it by looking at pictures of churches. My God, look at it! Those are Hebrew words over the door. Which synagogue is it?"

"It's in the Ghetto Vecchio. Is there more than one synagogue?"

"Of course, but it doesn't matter. Homer, the Ghetto Vecchio! That's where she is!"

"Well, maybe she is and maybe she isn't. It doesn't mean she lives there."

"But it means we can look for her there. Homer, it's a place to start."

Homer's heartsickness returned. His friend Sam was on the verge of finding the woman he loved at the very moment Homer was losing his. He turned abruptly away and drifted downstairs to help with the fetching and carrying, while the water rose on the Piazzetta and washed around the bases of the columns of Saint Theodore and the lion of Saint Mark and reached the top step of the long arcaded gallery of the Marciana.

Sam had done all he could. He slammed out of his office and told Signora Pino that he was going out for an hour or two.

"Ma, Dottore,"
objected Signora Pino,
"il suo programma!"
She held up her copy of Sam's schedule. There were appointments with the chief of the polizia and a brigadiere capo from the carabinieri.

"Gli annulli!"
said Sam gaily, tossing his hand in the air. "Cancel them. Tell them the truth. Say I am ill."

"Ill? But, Dottore! You surely won't forget the appointment at three o'clock!"

"Oh, that."

Sam ran out of Signora Pino's office while she called after him, "Dottor Bell!" and flapped her appointment book.

He hadn't felt so nimble for ages. Like a boy skipping school Sam galloped down the stairs.
 

*41*

The Ospedale Civile did not look like a hospital. The famous facade on the square was not at all like the entrance to a place for the practice of modern medicine.

It had once been the headquarters of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, one of the ancient charitable confraternities of the city of Venice. Every pious and ambitious male citizen had belonged to one confraternity or another, helping to make its rules and choose its charities and lavish splendor on its great halls. But in 1797 that Antichrist Napoleon had wiped out all that was venerable and holy in the city, and since then there were no longer any processions of the dignified members of the Scuola Grande di San Marco. There were no public spectacles of Scuola members in monkish robes flagellating themselves, no
guardian grande
in a crimson toga marching across the bridge over the Rio dei Mendicanti in the company of his fellow
cittadini
and
nobili
in their robes of red and black.

Now instead of the music of the choristers of the old
scuola
there was only the murmur of tourists in the square, the soft flapping of pigeon wings, and the sirens of the
ambulanze
whizzing along the canal with flashing blue lights.

Out of sight behind the splendid old facade the hospital complex spread east and north in the direction of the lagoon. The modern offices and operating rooms and patient wards were scattered around five ancient cloisters. On the side facing the rio there were separate entries for the staff and an emergency entrance where patients could be hurried into the hospital. Some walked in on their own feet, some were carried on stretchers, some sat upright in rolling chairs like wheelbarrows.

Scuola di San Marco, Ospedale Civile

The hospital was Doctor Richard Henchard's place of work. This afternoon he had come in great haste, half an hour late for his three o'clock appointment, addled by the confusion of settling Giovanna into the apartment on the Rio della Sensa. He would have neglected the appointment altogether if the man with the pancreatic carcinoma did not happen to be his most distinguished patient.

In spite of the rising water and the rain, Henchard was perspiring as he hurried past examining rooms and nurses' stations and toilets and crowded waiting rooms and the double doors of the chamber where he and his colleagues plied their sharp-edged trade. His nerves were at the breaking point. He had taken frantic action to protect his treasure, but the two women who knew it existed were still out there somewhere.

In his haste he was brought up short by his own office nurse, who looked at him with astonishment. "Oh, Doctor, there you are. We've been looking for you everywhere. Didn't you hear the intercom? Your patient is waiting. We have his X rays, and the CAT scans and ultrasound have just come in."

Henchard whirled into his office and charged into the examining room.

"Buonasera,"
he said gruffly, snatching the envelope of X rays rrom the nurse.

His patient nodded politely, showing no sign of irritation after his long wait.

The man was a sad case. With his tumor it was surprising how long he had managed to stay ambulatory, but it couldn't last much longer. He had been given the option of enduring the hopeless eviscerating surgery of the Whipple procedure, but he had wisely declined.

Henchard withdrew an X ray from its envelope and smacked it up on the light screen. Under the quiet gaze of his patient, he looked at it for a while, then slapped up the ultrasound films and the CAT scan.

Swiftly he ran his eye over the eleven CAT cross sections and the ultrasound streaks and blobs, and then said curtly, "Take off your shirt and lie down."

Sam obliged. It didn't matter what the doctor was about to say. The news would be worse than last time, he knew that, but he smiled at Doctor Henchard as he laid aside his shirt, which slipped off the examining table and fell to the floor.

The doctor put his hands on the place where the mass had once been so evident, and grunted with satisfaction. He put his stethoscope on Sam's chest and listened. Then he stood back and said, "Put on your shirt."

Sam reached down to pick it up, and prepared himself for a final sentence of death. But Doctor Henchard seemed reluctant to speak. Sam buttoned his shirt and looked up at him serenely, to show that it was all right, that he was ready for the truth.

"I can't believe it," said Doctor Henchard. "It's a case in a thousand. Your liver and spleen and pancreas are all normal, the rales have cleared from your lungs, your X ray shows no sign of pneumonia. Your tumor is gone."

Sam stared at him, and murmured, "This is no time for a joke."

"It's not a joke, it's true. Last time the mass seemed smaller, but I thought I was imagining things. I wasn't. The malignancy has disappeared. I would call it a miracle if it didn't happen once in a great while, a complete remission." Henchard reached down automatically and picked up something that had dropped out of the patient's shirt pocket, and glanced at it as he handed it over.

It was a photograph of a woman. He recognized her. He snatched it back, and exclaimed, "Who's this? What's this?"

Sam was poised between the doomed serenity of a moment ago and tumultuous relief. Dreamily he reached for the picture of Lucia and said, "It's a friend. It's all right. I'm going to her. I'm going there right now."

The nurse spread the amazing news. Soon throughout the corridors of the hospital there was an excited buzz of talk. Some praised the doctor, some praised God, some attributed the miracle to the intervention of a newly discovered holy relic.

"What holy relic?" said one of the receptionists, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"Haven't you heard?" said Henchard's nurse, taking all the credit. "Don't you know about the Veil of the Virgin? It's in Santo Spirito, my own parish. I pray to the Virgin's Veil for all Dottor 'Enciard's worst cases."

Before long everyone in the hospital knew about the recovery of Dottor Samuele Bell from pancreatic cancer, and about the precious veil of the Mother of God.
 

*42*

There was a noise in the street, children's voices singing, loud rhythmical banging. Ursula ran to the window and looked down.

The children were clumping along in boots, walking in procession from one corner of the square to the other. They were banging on pots and pans and singing,
"San Martina! San Martina!"

"Oh," cried Ursula. "It's Saint Martin's Day!" She ran to the kitchen.

"Ursula," said Mrs. Wellesley, "what are you doing?"

Crash, crash!
Ursula came out of the kitchen with a great smile on her face, clashing two pot lids together. She told her grandmother, "I'm going too!"

"Never! Ursula, I forbid you. You are not to do anything so foolish." Mrs. Wellesley snatched the pot lids out of Ursula's hands. "The cult of saints, it's so ridiculous. Encouraging children to believe in such things, it's criminal."

"Oh, please." Ursula's small face crumpled as she began to cry.

"Certainly not. And besides, it's high water everywhere, the worst in years. Of course you can't go." Mrs. Wellesley herded her granddaughter into her bedroom and thrust a doll into her hands. It wasn't the one Ursula loved, the Barbie doll in the pale blue dress, the dress she had made herself with the help of Mrs. Kelly. It was the exquisite doll Mrs. Wellesley had bought at great price in a shop in San Polo. "Where's your sewing box, Ursula dear? Why don't you make her a new dress?"

Dorothea Wellesley was trying hard, but as usual she failed. Ursula handed back the doll and said primly, "No, thank you."

"Well, I give up." Mrs. Wellesley rolled her eyes and lifted her hands in bewilderment. Then she walked firmly across the room to Ursula's wardrobe and threw open the doors. The child had a secret stored away somewhere, but of course it was not here among her coats and play clothes and school uniforms. The birthday dress hung among the others as a rebuke and a disgrace, but everything else was just as usual.

She walked out, only casting an inquisitive glance at the dresser and the cupboard. Ursula's childish secret was surely behind those locked cupboard doors. Sooner or later her grandmother would find the key.

Her granddaughter had worn her out. Mrs. Wellesley yawned. She usually took a nap at about this time, but Ursula's school had been canceled because of high water. The child couldn't be trusted to behave herself alone without a pair of sharp eyes keeping track of her every move.

But Dorothea's eyes kept closing. She was a little tipsy with the wine she had indulged in at lunch. "Listen to me, Ursula," she said sleepily, "I'm just going to close my eyes for a minute. You may watch TV if you want, but I'm going to lock the outer door. I don't want you running around outside while I'm asleep."