Lucifer's Shadow

15 Dust and parchment

Laura insisted on joining Daniel for the first sortie into the bowels of the derelict warehouse next door. He was initially grateful for her company, if a little disconcerted by her mode of dress. During the day she wore a white nylon housecoat buttoned down the front, the kind favoured by shop assistants. It seemed to him a uniform, a statement that said: however much you make me part of this family, I remain a servant. She served breakfast in it. She wore it to hand out the evening glasses of spritz, which always arrived after the last chime of six from the bell of San Cassian over the rio. It was an object behind which she could hide, just like the sunglasses which were almost permanently fixed to her face the moment she left the house.

Their rooms were both on the third floor. Laura seemed to occupy most of the rear; he was in the small bedroom that sat next to the warehouse, the third window on the right as seen from the front. Each morning they met on the landing and exchanged pleasantries. Each time, too, he was unable to quell some odd discomfort at her presence, not least because of the uniform. It was the middle of summer and at times unbearably hot. Laura’s solution to this problem was to go naked beneath her housecoat except for underwear, then bustle about her business with a constant physical activity. A simple act — passing a glass, picking up a plate — was apt to reveal a small segment of tanned skin and a glimmer of bright white fabric.

In the cellar the pristine housecoat was filthy within minutes, which did little for her temper.

“I appreciate your help,” he told her. “But I really don’t want to put you to the trouble.”

“You mean you don’t want me here?”

“No,” he replied with some firmness. “I meant that I am being paid to sift through all this filthy junk, and you’re not. I’m grateful, but it really isn’t necessary.”

She threw a pile of ruined eighteenth-century news sheets to the floor. Almost everything of any promise appeared to be damaged by floodwater. Daniel’s hopes of sifting gold for Scacchi from the cellar had begun to fade after only fifteen minutes’ investigation. They had found two more electric lanterns; the four lamps now cast a reasonable amount of illumination but revealed little except dust and ruined parchment. Aladdin’s cave seemed bare of anything that had not been rendered useless by the passing of time and the insistent, seeping waters of the lagoon.

Laura walked over, stared him crossly in the eye, and folded her arms. “What is your problem, Daniel Forster?” she demanded, turning to shaky English, as if this would hammer home her point. “Are you uncomfortable being around me?”

“No! It’s just that I am used to working on my own.”

“Pah! What kind of skill is that? Are you to be a solitary man, then, Daniel?”

The arrow struck home. He was aware that there was a shyness in him, with good reason. He was only now emerging from “the sick years,” the time spent flitting between college and the small bedsit they had rented when his mother’s illness and their poverty coincided. There was a hiatus in his life which set him apart, though he was not yet ready to explain as much to Laura.

“It is,” he said a little testily, “a question of method.”

“Method! Method! What retentively anal English bullshit is this?”

“Logic, Laura. And that’s anally retentive, by the way.” She had, now he came to think of it, annoyed him. “Look,” he complained. “You walked in here and threw yourself all over the place. Picking up a sheet in that corner, cursing it, then wandering right across the room to do the selfsame there.”

Her eyes flared. “And why not? Look at this mess!” The cellar was huge and littered with piles of ancient documents, machinery under wraps, and empty wooden boxes. It was hard to walk in a straight line for more than a few feet. “Watch me,” she announced. “I’ll find Scacchi’s treasure.”

Then, her white housecoat getting filthier by the second, she raced around, snatching pages from each pile as she passed, leaping on heaps of documents as if they were stepping-stones, bumping into the misshapen corpses of mysterious machines, screeching nonsense as she went. Daniel watched her, feeling helpless. He had thought only of the hurt inside himself, never suspecting that some mysterious agony lived in Laura too. Finally, she bounced too hard into the large shape of the old press, yelped with pain, and fell to the floor, surrounded by her collection of pages.

He walked over, held out a hand, and persuaded her to sit on the nearest pile of ruined documents. She was covered in dust and crying. The tears made long, straight streaks through the dirt as they travelled down her cheeks. He sat next to her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and, ridiculous as he knew it to be, felt guilty that he had in some way provoked this outburst.

“It’s useless,” she said, forcing back the sobs. They both stared at the papers she had collected, all grey, mouldy pages and smeared ink. “There’s nothing here. We waste our time, Daniel.”

He offered her a clean handkerchief, which she snatched, wiped across her face, then rolled into a tight wad inside her fist.

“I’m sorry. Is it so important to him? To find something to sell?”

“So it seems.”

“But why?”

Daniel peered into her face. The anger was, he realised, directed at herself, not his sudden uncalled-for coldness. Laura was just as desperate as he to find Scacchi’s treasure.

“I don’t know. I am sorry. I should not take out my disappointment on you.” She looked at him with frank, intelligent eyes.

“Don’t apologise. It’s frustrating for both of us.”

She shook her head. “Of course I must apologise. You must not let people treat you so.”

“You may treat me how you like. I am grateful to be here, Laura. It is…the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.”

Her expression changed, from contrition to puzzlement. “Oh, Daniel. Is there so little for you at home that you find our small lives so interesting?”

“No.” He hesitated. “I mean, yes.”

“Your mother?” she asked. “You loved her very much.”

“Of course. And when she was ill, she would talk about Venice, of how happy she was when she was at college here. I believed…”

He felt surprised that this sudden, candid conversation was revealing something to him too. “I think that was why I chose Italian history as my field of study. Why I wanted so much to be here.”

Laura placed a finger on her lips, thinking. “And you studied so hard to please her, I imagine. To make her feel she would leave something worthwhile in the world.”

The accuracy of her insight took him aback. There were times, many times, when he wished to escape the dismal flat and the reek of illness. Yet he was incapable of abandoning her; that had occurred once in her life already, with the father he had never known, and the cruelty of the act never left them.

“I love my work. It is like…”

“Like another world, into which you may retreat.” She smiled. He was speechless. Laura placed her fingers softly on his cheek, the sort of gesture an elder sister might make to an errant sibling. “Poor Daniel. Trapped in daydreams, like all of us around here.”

He stared at the mess of rubbish on the cellar floor. “Is Scacchi in a daydream?”

“He is desperate,” she replied mournfully.

“But why?” Daniel wondered.

“Don’t ask me. I am just the servant around here.”

The irked, slightly peevish tone of her voice suddenly made her seem much younger. “I think you’re a lot more than that, Laura, and you know it.”

She swore, one of the odd, coarse Venetian curses he was coming to recognise. Then she wiped her face with the handkerchief again, gave it back to him, becoming the adult Laura once more. “The truth of it is, he’s old. They’re both very sick. Perhaps there is nothing more to it than that.”

“But surely he can get some help with the medicine if he has no money?”

“It’s not medicine. I don’t know what it is. He seems determined to make some final bargain, as if something were unfinished. I don’t know! ”

Daniel surveyed the cellar. The dusty room seemed to be laughing at them.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Laura announced. “There’s dinner to cook. Don’t waste your time. Give me those clothes. I’ll wash them.”

“No. I won’t give up. I owe it to him. Besides, I believe he’s right. There is something here. I can feel it.”

His sudden persistence amused her. “Daniel! Where’s your English logic now?”

For once he was the one with the scolding look. “I thought you disapproved of that?”

“Touché. But that does not alter the fact that this place is full of junk.”

“Of course it is.” Now that he considered the matter, it was obvious. “Scacchi told us so himself. He said all this was taken down here when the upper floors were used for warehousing. It was dumped on the floor because it was largely worthless even before it was damaged. They would surely know the tide would flood in here.”

Laura threw up her arms in exasperation. “There! You have it. Now may we go?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “If there is something of value, it would pre-date that time and, furthermore, be in a place where it was obvious the water could not reach.”

“Pah! Mysteries! Mysteries!”

He came to her, clasped her hands in his. “Think, Laura! You are the Venetian. If you wanted to keep something safe in this place, above the water level, where would you choose?”

Laura stared into his eyes, not trying to release herself from his grip. She was, he believed, thinking rapidly and logically about the point he was struggling to make.

“Well?” he demanded impatiently.

“These are bare brick walls!” she replied with a sudden smile. “How could one hide something of value in a room like this?”

There was an idea running around her head. He knew as much from the bright, amused glint in her eyes.

“Perhaps…”

“Perhaps nothing! Supper time approaches. I have food to cook. You must remove those filthy clothes for me to wash. Come!” An insistent hand pushed him towards the stairs. “Come!”

“Laura…” Her sudden haste disturbed him. “What about the treasure?”

“Fairy stories,” she barked. “Smoke and mirrors. Leave it to the servants, Daniel, and another day.”