Free Black Bridge by Edward Sklepowich Page A

the slippery stones. The fog and the darkness were even thicker here. She stopped after a few moments and listened. Just as she feared, the footsteps made the same turn.
    She ran. Out of breath, the blood pounding in her ears, she found herself in an enclosed area, with what looked like cages around her. For a few moments she thought she had wandered into a zoo, but the city didn’t have a zoo, did it? And she didn’t hear any animals, thank God. The pursuing footsteps were now silent. What she did hear was the lapping of water and a boat chugging by, then a woman’s distant laughter. Reassured, she gave a little laugh herself at her own foolishness.
    She would walk toward the woman’s laughter. There she would find light and life. She turned too quickly and lost her footing on something slippery. She fell to her knees and her purse flew from her. On her hands and knees she groped along the paving stones for it. She touched leather but it wasn’t her purse, but something smaller, with harder edges. She withdrew her hand quickly. What was it? Fearfully, tentatively, she reached out again. This time she didn’t touch leather but the fingers of a hand. She screamed and leaped up.
    She could now see a dark figure lying on the stones. It didn’t move. She ran only a short distance before she tripped and fell again.
    A few inches from her face was another face—or what was left of it. It was now a mass of blood and tissue. Her hands slipped on something wet. She brought one hand up to her face. A small object was sticking to her palm. A pebble, she thought. She picked it from her palm and was about to throw it back on the pavement when she looked at it more closely.
    Horrified, she realized what it was. A tooth.

PART TWO
    The Pomegranate Tree

1
    Next morning Urbino and the Contessa, not yet aware of the deaths on the Rialto that would affect their lives so deeply, were sitting in the Contessa’s salotto blu . The Contessa was idling paging through D’Annunzio’s Fire .
    â€œBobo’s upstairs. We checked him out of the Gritti,” she added, with a slight tilt to her chin. “The threat at the signing hit him hard, but he’s being stoic.”
    â€œDid he say where he was last night?”
    â€œHe and Livia had a drink at Harry’s, then he went for a walk. It’s all that unused energy after a performance.”
    â€œAnd the nosebleed?”
    â€œPart of his exuberance, I’m sure.” Having delivered this questionable medical opinion, she took a sip of tea and picked up the D’Annunzio novel again. When she finished a passage and looked up to find Urbino’s eyes on her, she said: “What a peculiar look! I’m not exactly reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover ! And I don’t approve of everything D’Annunzio did—or wrote. But it’s his passion that captures me. He was passionate about so many things—and passion is one of the most important qualities, don’t you think? Passion and honesty—is there anything else?”
    â€œNo, Barbarina,” came the Barone Bobo’s voice from the door, less hearty than usual, “there isn’t—unless it’s love!”
    â€œBobo! I hope you found nooks and crannies for all your things.”
    â€œOh, somehow I managed,” he said with a forced laugh. His eyes were pocketed with fatigue. He walked over to the bar and poured himself an anisette. When he raised the glass to his lips, a few drops of the clear liquid spattered his white shirtfront.
    â€œOrlando is coming along fine,” the Contessa said. “I was talking with him earlier. I told him that we would all be remembering Rosa on the Day of All Souls. She died around then, didn’t she? What day was it exactly?”
    â€œThe twenty-eighth or the twenty-ninth. I—I forget.” Then with more conviction: “She died late at night, you see. Right before or after