Marangoni had colonised the best part for himself, the abbot’s lodgings were now his office, with remarkable painted ceilings, and large windows that opened onto the lagoon. It was a room that could make you see the virtues of a contemplative life, though not those of a custodian of the insane. Marangoni was a thief in someone else’s property and looked it. He would never exude the necessary style to seem as though he belonged there. He was a bureaucrat in a dark suit: the room hated him, and he hated it back.
“Pleasant enough now, but you should be here in January,” he said when I admired the frescoes. “The cold gets into your bones. Damp; no amount of fires make any difference at all. I have learned to write with gloves on. When November comes I start dreaming of applying for jobs in Sicily.”
“But then you would fry in summer.”
“True enough. And there is work that needs to be done here.”
“Tell me about this man.”
He smiled. “He was arrested by the police a few days ago, and was passed on to me yesterday.”
“What had he done?”
“Nothing, really, but he was stopped for questioning and asked for his name. He was then arrested for insulting a policeman by making frivolous remarks.”
“What sort?”
“He insisted, and keeps on insisting, that his name is Gian Giacamo Casanova.”
I snorted. Marangoni looked serious as he read from his police report.
“He was born, so he says, in Venice in 1725, which makes him now—what?—one hundred and forty-two years old. A good age. I must say he is in a very good state, considering. Personally, I would have guessed him to be no more than seventy. Possibly nearer sixty.”
“I see. And you told him that you did not believe this?”
“Certainly not. That is not a very sensible procedure. If you do that, then the patient insists, and you get into a childish game. Am. Aren’t. Am. Aren’t. Ten times am. A hundred times aren’t. You know the sort of thing. Besides, the trick is to win their confidence, and that can’t be done if they feel you do not believe them. What you have to do is institute a healthy regime—proper food, cold showers, exercise—and make them feel regulated and safe. And while that is going on, you listen to them, and pick out holes and contradictions in their stories. Eventually, you present those to them and ask them to explain. With luck, that breaks down their belief.”
“With luck? How often does it work?”
“Sometimes. But it can only be effective with those who are rationally insane. Raving lunatics, or those subject to catatonia, require other methods.”
“And Signor—Casanova?”
“Perfectly coherent. In fact, it will be a pleasure to treat him. I am looking forward to it. He is an excellent storyteller, highly entertaining and, so far, I have not spotted a single flaw in what he has said. He has given us no clues at all about who he really is.”
“Apart from telling you his age and name.”
“Apart from that. But if you grant that, then everything else so far follows perfectly logically.”
“Have you asked him about Cort?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. You may do so, if you wish. If you want to meet him.”
“Have you asked Cort about him?”
“No. He is too delicate at the moment; but clearly he will benefit from knowing that his hallucinations are nothing of the sort.”
“This man is not dangerous?”
“Not in the slightest. A charming old fellow. And he couldn’t hurt you even if he wanted to. He is quite frail.”
“Does he speak anything but Venetian?”
“Oh, yes. Casanova was quite a linguist, and still is, if I may put it like that. He speaks perfect Italian, good French and English.”
“Then I will meet him. I don’t know why I want to. But it will be a curious experience.”
“I will take you to him myself. But, please, do not say anything to suggest you do not believe him. That is most important.”
He led me out into the courtyard, and past a group of buildings that contained the inmates. “This is for the nonviolent ones,” he said as we strolled in the warmth. “The more difficult characters we keep in the block you can see over there. Alas, they get much less generous treatment; we don’t have the money to do much for hopeless cases. There’s no point, either. We can merely stop them harming themselves and others. In here.”
It was quite a pleasant surprise; I had imagined something like a Piranesi print, or Hogarth at his most despondent, but the room was light and airy, simply furnished and comfortable. Only the shadow of a large cross on the wall, where a crucifix had once hung, hinted at the building’s previous purpose. There was one solitary person in it.
Signor Casanova—there was no other name to give him and in fact Marangoni never did find out who he was—was sitting in a corner, by a large window that looked out towards the Lido. He was reading a book, his head bowed, but was undoubtedly the man I had seen singing on the canal on my first night in Venice. Only the clothes were different; the hospital had taken away his old-fashioned costume, and clothed him in its drab, colourless uniform. It diminished him, that garb, made him seem less of a person. Certainly less disconcerting.
“Signor Casanova,” Marangoni called. “A visitor for you.”
“Please be seated, sir,” he said, as though about to offer me a drink in his salon. “As you see, I am well able to pass some time with you.”
“I’m glad of that,” I replied, as courteously as he. Already I had entered a sort of dream world; only later did it seem strange that I talked with such respect to a man who was insane, penniless, without even a name of his own. He set the tone of the conversation; I followed him.
He waited for me to begin, smiling benignly at me as I sat down opposite him. “And how are you?” I asked.
“Very well, considering my circumstances,” he replied. “I do not like being locked up, but it is hardly the first time. I was locked in the Doge’s
dungeons once and I escaped from there. I have no doubt I will leave here soon enough as well.”
“Really? And this was?”
“In 1756,” he said. “I was accused of occult knowledge and of spying. A strange combination, I thought. But then authorities have never liked things to be hidden from them. The only good knowledge is that which they, not other people, possess.” He smiled sweetly at me.
“And were you guilty?”
“Oh, good heavens, yes! Of course. I had many contacts with foreigners, some of them in the highest positions. And my explorations into the world of the occult were well advanced, even then. It is why I am here now.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I am over one hundred and forty years old. And, as you see, still in remarkably good health. I only wish that I had finished my studies earlier; then I might have presented myself as a younger man. But still, all creatures prefer some sort of life to none at all. Nobody wishes to die. Do you?”
A strange remark, half statement, half query. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because you will. But you are still too young to realise it. One day, you will wake up and you will know. Then the rest of your life will be merely preparing for that moment. And you will spend your time trying to rectify your mistakes. The mistakes you are making now.”
“What mistakes are those?”
He smiled elliptically. “The mistakes that will kill you, of course. I do not need to tell you what those are. You know them well enough yourself.”
“I’m quite sure I do not.”
He shrugged, uninterested.
“Why do you follow Mr. Cort?”
“Who is Mr. Cort?” he asked, puzzled.
“You know very well, I think. The young English architect. The palazzo.”
“Oh, him. I do not follow him. He summons me. And is a very great nuisance, I must say. I do have better things to do than dance attendance on him.”
“That is ridiculous,” I said, a little ang
rily. “Of course he doesn’t summon you.”
“But he does,” Casanova replied calmly. “He really does. He is a man with many conflicts. He wishes to know about this city, and impose himself on it. He wishes to be here and away. He loves a woman who is cruel and heartless, and who dreams of his ruin. All these things call me to him, as they called his mother to me when she lay on her deathbed. I know about love and cruelty, you see, in all their forms. And I am Venice. He wants to know me. And his desire summons me to him.”
I could scarcely restrain myself from reacting to this nonsense, which he spoke so calmly. Casanova—you see, I call him that—sighed a little.
“I know about women, you know,” he said. “Their natures. I can peer into their souls, see what lies beneath the professions of love, the lies, the demure sweetness. No other man in history has studied them as I have. I can see her thoughts. She thinks of hunting or being hunted. There is no kindness in her, and she sees only herself, never others.”
“Be quiet,” I ordered. “I order you to keep silent. You are mad.”
“It is of no moment to me whether you believe me or not, you know,” he said. “You will find out for yourself soon enough. I did not ask you to come here. My explorations into the occult caused me to drink in the soul of Venice, to become the city. Her spirit has extended my life. As long as Venice exists, so shall I, wandering her streets, remembering her glory. We will die together, she and I. And I see everything that happens here, even in small rooms rented for a month, or in a copse on the Lido.”
“You are not wandering the streets now,” I said with some savage satisfaction, deeply disturbed and shocked by what he was saying.
“No. For the time being I rest. And why should I wish to escape?” He smiled, and looked around him with amusement flickering on his face. “The good doctor, it seems, is fully wedded to the best notions of gentleness for his poor inmates. I am fed well, and have to do little in return for my board and lodging, save allow myself to be measured and photographed, and to answer questions about my life. Which I have not yet decided how to do.”
“What does that mean?”
“They are most interesting questions,” he continued by way of explanation. “They are trying to discover contradictions, impossibilities in what I say. It is excellent fun, for they go off to read my memoirs, then come back to quiz me about them. But I wrote them! Of course I know the answers better than they do. Every truth and every little fib I put in. The question is, do I tell the truth, or do I give them what they want? They so greatly desire to prove I am insane, and not who I am, that I am dreadfully sorry to disappoint them. Perhaps I should drop a few hints and contradictions into my conversation so they can conclude I am someone else entirely? It would make them so happy and grateful, and I have always desired to please. What do you think?”
“I think you should tell the truth at all times.”
“Pish, sir, you are a bore. I suppose you say your prayers every night, and ask God to make you virtuous. And you are a hypocrite. You lie all the time, except you do not even realise you are doing it. Goodness! This is a dull time to be living.”
He leaned forward, so that his face was close to mine.
“What are you in your dreams, when no one is there? What do you do in this city, which you have persuaded yourself is just a dream? How many people are you lying to now?”
I glared at him, and he chuckled. “You forget, my friend, that I am in your dreams as well.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said stiffly. I found that I could not answer him properly.
“Standing by a window? You don’t understand it. Why didn’t you turn and ask me? I could have answered, you know. I was there, you know I was. I could have told you everything.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I told you, I see everything.”
“That was just a dream.”
He shook his head. “There are no such things as dreams. Do you want to know more? Ask, if you wish. I can save you, but you must ask. Otherwise you will cause terrible hurt to others.”
“No,” I said, abruptly enough for my fear to shine through all too obviously.
He nodded his head and smiled gently. “You may change your mind,” he replied softly. “And thanks to the good doctor, you will know where to find me, for the time being. But you must hurry; I will not be here for long.”
I rose and left without another word. He, meanwhile, sat on his little chair and picked up a book. When I closed the door I leaned with my back against it and closed my eyes.
“Not in a talking mood? Or did you think better of it?” It was Marangoni, standing exactly where I had left him.
“What? No; we talked for a long time.”
“But you have only been in there a minute or two.”
I stared at him.
He pointed at the clock. It was two minutes past three. I had been in that room for slightly more than a minute.
CHAPTER 15
That evening I had my first proper conversation with Arnsley Drennan. I had talked to him before, of course, but never alone, and he never said very much. He was a strange man; he seemed to need no one, but would frequently dine with us. Perhaps even his self-sufficiency needed a rest, on occasion. He was the obvious choice for me at that moment; I needed quite badly to talk to someone normal, rational and calm, who could point out that my afternoon with Signor Casanova had been all complete nonsense. Drennan, who gave off an air of solid good sense, could be relied on not to gossip about it afterwards.
I hadn’t planned a conversation with him; it came about by chance, as he and I were the only two people to show up for dinner that night. Longman had one of his rare reports to write as Consul; Cort, fortunately, hardly ever came nowadays; Macintyre and Marangoni were also absent. We ate our fish—Macintyre was correct there, it always was fish and I was starting to get a little tired of it—more or less in silence, then he suggested a coffee down the road in more salubrious surroundings.
“Have you seen Cort recently?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him for some time…”
“I ran into him yesterday, poor man. He’s in a bad way; he really should go back to England. It would be quite easy for him to do so. But I am afraid he is quite obsessed now. He sees it as a matter of honour to finish this job of his.”
Then bit by bit, as we drank more brandy, I told him about Signor Casanova. He was interested; or at least, I think he was. Drennan was one of those men whose expression never changed very much. But he listened quietly and attentively.
“I can’t say I know much about madness,” he said. “I have come across men driven mad by fear, or by horror, but that is a different sort of insanity.”
“How so?”
“Modern warfare,” he said. “As you may have guessed already, I was a soldier. I saw many things I did not wish to see, and which will be hard to forget.”
“You fought for the Confederates?”
“Yes. And we lost.” He shrugged to dismiss the subject from his mind.
“So you are an exile? A strange place to choose, if I may say so.”
He glanced at me, then smiled slightly. “So it would be, if that was why I was here. Well,” he continued, “maybe I should tell you. Why not? It is all history now. Have you heard of the Alabama?”
I looked at him. “The warship? Of course I’ve heard of it.… Does this have anything to do with Macintyre?”
It was his turn to look surprised. “How do you know that?”
“I made enquiries.”
“I’m impressed. Truly I am. What else do you know about Mr. Macintyre?”
“That he is not wanted back in England at the moment.”
He stared at me in astonishment, the first time I had ever seen any sort of strong emotion pass on his face. I felt quite pleased with myself.
“And who else knows of this?”
“In Venice, you mean? No one. Signor Ambrosian of the Banca di Santo Spirito seems to think he
is here because he stole a lot of money. Why do you ask?”
“Because it is my job to protect him.”
“From whom?”
“Yankee lawyers, mainly. He is the living proof of Laird’s culpability. Great Britain maintains that the conversion of the Alabama was entirely out of its control. Everyone knows this is a fiction, but it will hold as long as there is no proof. Macintyre is that proof, and there are many people who would dearly like a conversation with him. And, I suspect, would pay high for the opportunity. He was paid off and told to lie low until the matter was settled. And I was hired to make sure that he does. Which is why I am here.”
“Who hired you?”
“Well, that I cannot say. Your Government, Laird’s, Lloyd’s of London. Should this lawsuit go badly it would cost a great deal in money and reputation. So as I was out of a job at the time…”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I have no country, and do not wish to live amongst my conquerors. And I am—or was—a soldier. What should I do? Herd cows in Texas for the rest of my life? No; when all was lost, I came to England to seek work. This is what I found. It is not the best of jobs, but it will do for the moment.”
“I see. You are a most interesting man, Mr. Drennan.”
“No. But I have had an interesting life. If you can call it that.”
“And Macintyre cannot go back to England?”
“Not until this is settled. I wanted him to go to Greece, change his name, but this is as far as he would travel.”
“You can be assured that I—and my friend in London—will be absolutely discreet on the subject.”