The Last Gondola by Edward Sklepowich Read Free Book Online

lovely and interesting. It has a fine form.”
    The melancholy expression lifted momentarily from Gildo’s face. He seemed about to say something.
    â€œAh, here you are, Signor Macintyre,” Demetrio Emo said in his soft but insistent voice. The large man had somehow crept upon them unheard. He cast a quick glance at the forcola and then at his nephew. “The new lock is installed. Here are the keys. Let’s hope that Natalia uses less force with it.”
    â€œWhat do I owe you?” Urbino asked, as he pocketed the keys.
    â€œDon’t worry about it now. I’ll send you a bill. Gildo and I will have a little visit before I go back to the shop.” He squeezed into the room. “I haven’t seen much of him lately.” He threw his arm around the young man.
    Urbino said good-bye and left. Before he was out of earshot, Emo said to Gildo in a tone of disapproval, “Do you think it’s a good idea to have this here to look at all the time, my boy?”
    The gondolier’s response was lost on Urbino.

11
    Two mornings later on the last day of February, a Thursday, Urbino was sitting at one of the cafés in the Campo Santa Margherita with the person he hoped would give him more information about the Ca’ Pozza. She was his friend Rebecca Mondador, an architect who had helped him with the original renovations of the Palazzo Uccello.
    It was a brisk day. Clouds moved quickly above the broad open space in the direction of the Madonna on the tall, red campanile of the Church of the Carmine across the rooftops. Residents of the area, most of them either elderly men and women or young mothers with children, gossiped and shopped among the stalls of the fish and vegetable markets set up beneath bright awnings. Two children with a broom and a rowboat oar were trying to dislodge a soccer ball from the bare branches of the tree outside the window of the café. From a building at the far end of the square, statues of Santa Margherita and the devil that devoured her looked down on the lively local scene.
    â€œThe Ca’ Pozza and the building next door were owned by the Ruspoli family from Rome until the fifties,” Rebecca was saying, her raised voice doing its best to compete with the music blasting over the café’s radio. She was an attractive woman with a small, pointed face. “The Ruspolis bought them for almost nothing after the war. They completely renovated them on the inside. You know how it is. You can do anything to the interior as long as you maintain the integrity of the facade.”
    Rebecca, who had earned her degrees in the States, spoke excellent idiomatic English.
    â€œI hoped to get plans and photographs, maybe before and after shots,” she explained, “but there’s nothing in the archives. The architect is dead, and the contractors have gone out of business.”
    She looked out into the square with a puzzled frown.
    â€œIn fact, it’s unusual how little information there is on the renovations of either of those two buildings,” she went on. “If I search around more, maybe I’ll find something, but you shouldn’t get your hopes up too high. This is Italy, not America. But to keep to what I know, Samuel Possle bought the Ca’ Pozza back in fifty-six at a real bargain.”
    She named the figure. It was low, even allowing for inflation over the years.
    â€œMaybe he gave them double that in dollars under the table,” she said. “And it gets stranger. Once Possle moved in, he had most of the interior restored to what it had been before—or close to it from what I’ve been told. He used the same architect and contractors.”
    â€œWhat about the records from that renovation?”
    She shook her head.
    â€œNothing. But I’m surprised that you didn’t learn some of these things from Benedetta Razzi.”
    â€œWhat has she got to do with the Ca’ Pozza?” Benedetta Razzi