Brotherhood of the Tomb Page 16

  In the streets, no one played or laughed or sang. Here and there, visitors paused to read the inscription on a monument or bent to lay flowers against a gravestone. Patrick could not remember exactly where the Contarinis had built their family vault. He walked up and down the rain-soaked paths, growing more confused with every turn he took. The rain fell in a steady stream. Everywhere he turned, another vista of silent tombs opened before him. The blank faces of angels met his gaze, and Virgins of white marble, and Christ crucified in stone. He felt cold. Bitterly cold.

  It took him a miserable hour, trudging from mausoleum to mausoleum, before he found the tomb. He turned a bend and saw it looming out of the rain at the end of a long pathway: a grey stone monument in the Roman style, flanked by obelisks and guarded by gaunt sphinxes with the faces of women.

  As he approached more closely, he noticed that it had grown shabby from neglect. The fence surrounding it had rusted and fallen in places. Weeds grew where there had been grass. The steps leading to the door were cracked and overgrown. Perhaps he had made a mistake after all. But the family name was still there, carved in tall letters above the lintel:

  CONTARINI.

  He felt alone and terribly afraid. Involuntarily, he looked over his shoulder, back along the cypress-bordered path that led to the tomb. No one was there. A shiver ran through him. A regiment of ghosts had gathered round and were pressing against him, inhaling his breath, kissing his lips, licking his flesh for warmth. And on the dank, decaying steps Francesca’s ghost stood waiting with pale eyes.

  He shook his head and was alone again. Nervously, he stepped up to the gate. It would not yield to his efforts: a heavy, rusted padlock held it solidly shut. He gave up and walked along the fence to a spot where several bars had broken away. Squeezing through, he found himself on spongy ground, among grasses that rose to his knees. As he approached the steps, his chest felt tight and his breathing grew thick and hampered.

  Dio ha chiamato a se la nostra sorella Francesca...

  He remembered the priest at Francesca’s funeral, assuring the mourners of everlasting life. They had gathered round the tomb, in no particular order, while the priest stood on the steps, facing her coffin, proclaiming the resurrection of the flesh in a house of bones.

  Ma Cristo, primogenito di coloro che risorgono, trasformera...

  Standing alone and unconsoled, waiting for her brothers to carry her into the tomb, Patrick had felt his faith melt away like mist fading across the lagoon. Afterwards, he had entered the mausoleum to join the line of friends and relatives filing slowly past the niche in which she had been placed. He had wanted to see her again, but the coffin had been firmly closed. The slab bearing her name and the dates of her birth and death was already in position. He had touched it and bent to kiss it when someone jostled him from behind and he stumbled forward, leaving her forever.

  That night, her father had summoned him to his study and offered him money. At the time he had thought it simply a pay-off, a douceur like that paid to an awkward and undesirable suitor to see him out of a favourite daughter’s life. But Alessandro Contarini’s daughter was dead. There had been nothing crass or indelicate about the offer or the manner in which it was made: only arrivistes are clumsy in such matters. The wealth of the Contarinis went back centuries and their nobility even further.

  ‘Patrick, per favore, non fare l’orgoglioso. Please, Patrick, try not to be so proud. Accept my offer. You need a vacation, time to be by yourself, time to recover from your loss.’

  The count’s words had been thoughtful, almost kind, but Patrick had sensed behind them the steeli-ness of an ultimatum. He refused the money, but left the next day. It had only been after his return to Ireland that he realized for the first time that he had seen none of Francesca’s family shed a tear during the whole of his short visit. He had never contacted them again, nor they him.

  He thought the heavy door might be locked like the gate, but with a little effort it swung partly open. The door was made of cypress wood and set with panels of heavy bronze portraying scenes of classical and Christian life. Grave figures processed with palm branches or sacrificed at flower-decked altars. Both men and women were dressed in flowing Roman garments, pulled over their heads and reaching to their feet. High up, Adam and Eve crouched naked and guilty beneath the Tree of Life. Moses led the

  Children of Israel out of Egypt. Abraham laid his only son on a high altar, bound as a sacrifice.

  In another panel, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. And in the centre a group of weeping disciples laid the body of their crucified Lord in the tomb. It did not immediately strike Patrick that there was something very strange about that scene.

  He had bought a small flashlight in a shop on the Merceria before looking for the water-taxi. Switching it on, he squeezed through the half-open doorway.

  He found himself in a vast, unlit chamber hung with cobwebs. The beam of the flashlight swept steadily over the walls. Behind marble slabs, generations of Contarinis slept. In one corner, empty niches waited for their future inhabitants.

  Slowly, he made his way from slab to slab, reading the inscriptions. He found the resting-place of Lucrezia Contarini, the aunt Francesca had been visiting when she died. Next to it Francesca’s mother Caterina had been interred: La Contessa Caterina Contarini. 25 Febbraio 1920 - 18 Marzo 1977. Hic jacet pulvis cinis et nihil: Here lie dust, ashes, and nothing. She had died six years after Francesca. Withered flowers stood in a dry vase beneath her faded photograph.

  But however hard he looked, he could not find Francesca’s tomb anywhere. He started again at the beginning, systematically following the slabs, going from one to the next with the care of an archaeologist. Nothing. He felt his flesh go cold. It could not be possible. He had been here, his fingers had touched her name. With a trembling hand, he removed her photograph from his pocket. The slab was just as he remembered it. And there, just beside it, was the edge of another slab. Only a few letters were visible, but they were enough to tell him that the second tomb was that of Francesca’s grandmother. And that Francesca’s mother now lay buried in the niche where her own coffin had been interred. Hic jacet pulvis cinis et nihil.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Outside, the rain still fell in a steady stream. The cemetery seemed to have emptied of people, and as he traced his way back past weeping angels and the idealized busts and photographs of the dead, he noticed that the funeral cortege had already embarked on its journey back to the city. Venice lay hidden behind a grey curtain, separated from its dead by a wintry channel of rain-lashed water.

  In the cloisters he found a young Franciscan monk who offered to take him to the sacristan. The original monastery of San Cristofero was long closed. Now a small contingent of working monks was attached to the island’s church, a building of severely classical appearance, designed by Coducci in the fifteenth century. The monks’ chief function was to smooth the path from Venice to the grave. They tended the cemetery and supervised the burials, greeting each funeral party as it arrived, stoical or weeping, at the landing stage.

  The sagrestano had a small office off the main cloister. The room was virtually bare, devoid of either luxury or grace, a sort of antechamber to the tomb. Grimy windows looked out directly onto the necropolis. The young monk asked Patrick to be seated, then turned and disappeared on sandalled feet. Ten minutes later, the sagrestano appeared in the doorway and introduced himself as Brother Antonio.

  Pulling back his rain-soaked cowl, he drew a chair up to the green-painted metal desk that provided the room’s only working surface. He was well advanced in years, with a few pathetic wisps of grey hair adhering to a wrinkled bald head in nervous imitation of a tonsure. There was an almost shocking gravity about him that tended almost to severity. Perhaps a long life among the dead had impressed on him too deeply the blatant horrors of earthly existence. Or perhaps he had simply grown old and crabby by degrees, like anyone else. Small, deep-set eyes scrutinized Patrick a full half-minute before he spo
ke.

  ‘Buon giorno. Posso parlare Italiano? he asked. His voice was scratchy and asthmatic.

  ‘Ma certo.’

  ‘This is unusual,’ he said. ‘We receive few foreign visitors here on San Michele, especially at this season. The island is not on the tourist itinerary. Each year a few lovers of the Russian ballet come to pay their respects to a man called Diaghilev, who is buried in the Orthodox plot. And even fewer bring flowers to the tomb of an Englishman called Baron Corvo. I suppose they have read his books. I could not tell you. I have not read any of them myself. I am told they are mischievous books. And that he was a man of great depravity. And not even a Baron.’

  He paused, sensing Patrick’s impatience.

  ‘I’m sorry, signore, but you must understand that this is San Michele, not Pere Lachaise or Montmartre. We have no Chopins here, no Prousts, no Delacroixs, no Oscar Wildes. You must go to Paris for that. But our church is very fine. It is the earliest example of Venetian Renaissance architecture. There are three altar pieces by Carona and a bust of Bernini’s. The son, I mean, not the father. One of the younger monks would be happy to show you round.’

  Patrick shook his head.

  ‘I haven’t come here to look for celebrities,’ he said. ‘I came to find the tomb of ... an old friend. But I need your help.’

  The old man relaxed a little. Looking for tombs

  was something he understood. His breathing grew a little easier.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘My apologies, Signor...’

  ‘Canavan.’

  ‘Signor Canavan. From time to time, tourists call at the island. They expect to be entertained, to be shown the sights. They weary me a little. But an old friend - that is different. That is very different. I shall be pleased to help you.’ He folded his wrinkled hands in front of him. ‘Now, your friend - what was his name?’

  ‘Her name. She was buried here twenty-one years ago. I’ve gone to the family tomb, but there’s no sign of her ever having been there.’

  Brother Antonio nodded.

  ‘And the family - what is their name?’

  ‘Contarini. Her father was Count Alessandro Contarini.’

  A momentary shadow seemed to pass over the monk’s face, then it was gone. He nodded gravely. ‘Contarini, si. La grande tomba romanica. In the south-west sector. You say you have been there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you found no trace of this friend.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Perhaps you are mistaken. Perhaps she was never buried in the family vault. That sometimes happens.’

  Patrick shook his head.

  ‘She was buried there. I know -I was at the funeral.’

  Brother Antonio shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He looked shrunken inside his ample habit, rather like an apple that long exposure to the air has dried and wrinkled.

  ‘I take it, Signor Canavan, that you understand something of how this cemetery ... works. It is not like most habitations for the dead. We have very little

  space. Of course, we try to do our best to create new land on the east of the island. But space is limited, and in the meantime people most inconveniently insist on dying and being born. We bury them every day, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, and still they keep coming. Praise God, signore, we are not pagans here. We do not burn our dead or leave them out to rot. And we shudder to think of the crabs and lobsters at the bottom of the lagoon.

  ‘Normally, unless their families are prepared to pay a good deal, the common dead are disinterred at the end of twelve years. We throw away their little headstones and dispose of their bones. In the old days, a barge called here every month to transport them to a little island further out in the lagoon, Sant’ Ariano, near Torcello. Sant’ Ariano was the city’s ossuary until several years ago. Now we have enough room to bury everyone in a common grave to the east of the main cemetery.’

  The monk fixed his eyes on Patrick.

  ‘Does that seem bizarre to you, Signor Canavan? Primitive, perhaps? I know it is not what you Americans would do. You try to keep your dead forever, in lead coffins. But our custom is different. The bones are nothing to us. Not many years ago, we used them to refine our sugar. We Venetians have a sweet tooth, you understand. And we are a little in love with death.’

  Patrick broke in.

  ‘Surely what you have just told me applies only to what you just called the “common dead”. The Contarinis are wealthy, their tomb is one of the biggest on the island. If anyone rests in peace here, surely the Contarinis do.’

  Brother Antonio looked uneasily away. Patrick followed his gaze. Through a window of cheap glass, a confusion of tombs barricaded the sea. Above the window, an unpainted crucifix hung on cracked plaster.

  ‘No one rests in peace on San Michele, Signor Canavan. Least of all the Contarinis. There is sea all around us. There is damnation. There is a resurrection to come.’

  The old man’s vehemence surprised and wounded Patrick. More than anything, he was looking for a sign that Francesca was at peace.

  ‘I’m not speaking of their souls, Father. Just their bones. Surely once they have been interred, no one will remove the bones of a Contarini.’ He did not refer to the possibility that one of them, once buried, might walk again.

  The monk paused and returned his gaze to Patrick.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are quite right. The Contarinis rot in undisturbed splendour.’ There was a note of mockery in his voice. He sighed. ‘What was your friend’s full name?’

  ‘Francesca. Francesca Contarini. She died in 1971. On January the fifth. She was brought here for burial on the sixth.’

  ‘Have you evidence of that?’

  ‘No, of course not. But I thought that you, perhaps, might have a record.’

  For just a fraction of a second, Patrick saw the monk hesitate.

  ‘These are family records, signore. Requests to examine them are normally made through the families concerned. If the Contarinis ...’

  ‘Please, Father, I don’t have time. Francesca was ... a very dear friend. It’s over twenty years since I visited her grave. I’m only in Venice for a few days.’

  The sagrestano seemed about to refuse. Instead he sighed and eased himself slowly to his feet.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But perhaps we will find nothing. Or learn that her bones have joined a million others in the heap out there. God knows, there will be a terrible muddle when the resurrection comes. No doubt I shall be in there with the rest of them, trying to sort myself out. I pray God my bones are not mixed with those of an amputee. I might lose an arm or a leg in the confusion.’

  As he spoke, going over what was no doubt an old and favourite joke, he creaked across to a row of shelves running the length of one wall. They bore over one hundred leather-bound volumes, arranged in groups of years.

  ‘What year did you say?’

  ‘Nineteen seventy-one. The sixth of January.’

  The monk took down one of the more recent volumes and carried it back to the desk. He started to open it, then paused.

  ‘This friend of yours,’ he said, ‘she was not -forgive me - she was not a suicide?’

  Patrick shook his head firmly.

  ‘It was an accident. She drowned. I saw her buried here, I followed her coffin.’ He struggled to keep control.

  Father Antonio opened the ledger and began to leaf through the pages, muttering under his breath all the while.

  ‘Maggio ... aprile ... marzo ... febbraio ... ah, gennaio! Bene. L’undici ... I’otto ... il sette ... ah, ecco! Il sei gennaio!’

  His finger crept slowly down the page. Patrick noticed that the nail was black, in places turning yellow.

  ‘Taglioni ... Trissino ... Rusconi ... Lazzarini...’ The old man intoned the names as though reading a roll-call. ‘Bastiani... Giambono ... Ah, so sad, a baby that one. I remember them, they were very unhappy ... Malifiero ...’

  Patrick held his breath. The old man’s finger reache
d the bottom of the page and rested there, trembling fractionally, like a leaf that senses a storm building in the distance.

  ‘There is nothing,’ he said. ‘No entry of that name.’

  ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘No mistake. Unless you have given me the wrong date.’

  ‘Look again. Try the fifth, or the seventh.’

  Brother Antonio shrugged his thin shoulders and resumed his search. Again his gnarled finger travelled down the names of the dead and the details of their interment. And again it came to rest. He shook his head limply.

  ‘Surely,’ Patrick urged, ‘you must remember. It was a big funeral, an important family, their only daughter. There were reports in the newspapers, I remember.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Brother Antonio, closing the ledger. He seemed ill at ease. ‘I have no recollection of such a funeral. But there are so many every day, the details slip my memory.’

  ‘You remembered the baby, the one you said was so sad.’

  ‘For its sadness, yes. But a Contarini - that would not be so great a tragedy.’

  Patrick changed direction.

  ‘What about her mother? Do you remember her funeral?’

  ‘Perhaps. What was her first name?’

  ‘Caterina. Her maiden name was Querini. She died on the eighteenth of March 1977. I think she was buried in a section of the tomb that had originally been her daughter’s burial place.’

  The monk replaced the first ledger and took down a second.

  ‘That would be unusual,’ he said, ‘but not unheard of.’

  He consulted the ledger.

  ‘Contarini ... Contarini ... Ecco, ci siamo! “Contessa Caterina Contarini, of the Palazzo Contarini, Campo San Polo 2583. Born 25 February 1920, died 18 March 1977. Buried in the Tomba dei Contarini, plot no.7465, 19 March 1977.” ‘

  He looked up.

  ‘That is all, Signor Canavan. There is no mention of a daughter. All is in order, as you see.’