Dear reader: this is an installment of a novella. To best enjoy it, I would like to recommend that you first read
When the Masks Come Off in Venice
,
When the Snow Comes Down in Venice,
and
Where the Chips May Fall in Venice.
You may find the first part of this installment a bit disturbing, as we peer into the mind of our story's villain.
It was midnight in Till Acquati's home office, and 8 AM in Tokyo. Till sat in his silk robe in the near-darkness, the room faintly illuminated by the glow of three computer screens, all of which were festooned with brightly colored graphs and charts with winking boxes that contained electronic bulletins.
Till found the constantly changing screens relaxing. He was engaged in arbitrage trading, the art of extracting money from the financial system by exploiting very small fluctuations in the prices of financial instruments, using astronomical amounts of capital. He hadn't done it in a while. Back in the 90s it had enabled him to become very rich, instead of simply rich. Tonight he was doing it just to keep his hand in. After 45 minutes had passed, he had siphoned $75,000 out of the Tokyo markets, and he closed down the computers and retired to his room.
He poured himself a single malt scotch and sat in a plush armchair, allowing his robe to fall open. Much of the money that he had just made for himself had come at the expense of the Banco della Laguna, which was ironic, considering the pleasurable evening he had recently spent with Luca, the head of that bank, and Luca's wife, and Michela. As he recalled that evening, Till's cock grew hard. He wrapped his fingers around it and stroked it idly, then let it go. Sexual pleasure for its own sake was unimportant to Till. What he liked about sex was the way that it sharply defined the relations among people.
Till knew all too well the dangerous effect that sex can have on a person's emotions. His thoughts went back, as they often did, to his younger brother, Richard. When Richard was 18, he had fallen in love with a lovely girl that was a few years older, the same age as Till. Her name was Simona; Till could not recall her surname. Sometimes Till had gone swimming in the lagoon with Richard and Simona. Simona had full, rich, dark brown hair almost to her waist, and lovely pert breasts that looked very nice in her bikini top. Her hair had trailed behind her as she swam through the green water, reminding Till of a mermaid.
Richard was devoted to her, his first love. He used to describe their lovemaking to Till. Simona had taken Richard's virginity, and it was a very happy occasion for Richard. But the emotions involved had overcome Richard's judgment, made him careless. A man should never allow emotion to take control in that way.
Their father was a strong man, an unbending man, a man accustomed to determining every detail of the lives of the people around him. His name was Mattia, Mattia Acquati. He had become respectably rich as an entrepreneur in the footwear industry in the Riviera del Brenta, and he intended for his sons to use his money as a springboard to much more substantial wealth, the kind of wealth that would one day enable them to enter the upper echelons of Venetian society. That objective was the polar star to Mattia Acquati.
Mattia had no illusions about the sort of hard work and discipline that would be required to attain that goal. He had set about to teach his two sons how to structure their lives accordingly. He had raised them on his own; his Austrian wife, Mathilde, had died a decade earlier, of cancer. It had seemed to Mattia that she lacked the will to fight the disease. Thanks to advances in medicine, many people survived it. Mathilde was a gentle soul, too gentle, and she had simply surrendered to it, or so it seemed to Mattia. This is what he had communicated to Till, along with the admonition that he should not allow that kind of softness to creep into his soul.
Till had done his best to embrace his father's philosophy, but Richard was different. He had fallen too much under the spell of the girl. Despite the strict curfew that their father had decreed, Richard would slip out the window to spend every night in Simona's arms, and would return before dawn, smiling but exhausted. Till was very close to his brother, and he was his brother's reluctant confidante. But he knew that their father was no fool, and that the day would inevitably come when Richard's infractions would be exposed.
It was going to be a warm midsummer's day, the day that Mattia woke up early and decided to take his sons to the Riviera del Brenta. He entered Richard's room about a minute before Richard came in through the window; and had just enough time for his rage to fully kindle. But Mattia did not abandon his self-control. As Richard clambered over the sill and met his eyes, Mattia did not raise his hand against him. He took him to the study, where there was no window, and locked him in, instructing him to contemplate the error of his ways. Burly servants, who had been carefully briefed, brought him food during the day, and escorted him to the bathroom when needed. Then, in the early evening, they brought him to the boat landing where Mattia and Till were waiting.
The three boarded the family powerboat, and Mattia began to navigate slowly through the canals, slowly because he didn't want the motor to drown out his words, the important ideas that he wanted to impart to both of his sons. The world belongs to the strong, he said. Only the strong, only the disciplined had the right to seize the reins of power, and Mattia had spent a lifetime preparing the way for his sons to do just that.
Mattia spoke of his own upbringing, recounting stories which were familiar, but took on an added significance because of the solemnity of the moment. Mattia had been the son of a humble artisan, but had found within himself the resourcefulness to detect and exploit opportunities, where others lacked the necessary audacity. This was what he wished to bequeath to his sons, and it was a greater gift than the money which they would also inherit. It was a gift that must not be squandered in the pursuit of ephemeral pleasures.
Mattia spoke at considerable length, and as he did so, he expertly navigated the powerboat out of the system of Venetian canals, and into the Adriatic, just as the sun was going down over the land behind them. The summer air was warm over the sea, and the gentle waves were dappled with ochre from the dwindling rays.
After some time, he slowed the boat to a stop, and let the engine idle. The boat rose and fell with the soothing pulse of the sea. Mattia turned significantly to Richard, and pointed west toward the small twinkling lights of Venice.
"There is home," he said. "Start swimming."
Richard looked doubtfully at his father and his brother. In his father's eyes, he saw an iron resolve. In his brother's eyes, he saw nothing. He removed his shirt and sandals, slipped over the side of the craft, and began to swim.
Mattia drove the boat in a wide arc around the swimming Richard, and aimed it back to the city. Till was struck by how beautiful his brother looked, swimming with powerful and graceful strokes in the twilight. He'll make it, Till thought to himself. He's a very strong swimmer.
Mattia drove the boat in silence for fifteen minutes, then turned to Till. "I am doing this mainly for your benefit," he said. "You are the eldest. I'm counting on you." Then no more words were exchanged until they arrived at the landing near their home.
Mattia tied up the boat, and went inside. Till remained at the landing, waiting for Richard. He waited until sunrise, then he, too, went inside to his room. With dry eyes he undressed and fell into a fitful slumber.
***
Two days later, Till was walking down a secluded alleyway toward his house when he saw Simona coming towards him. Anxiety clouded her face.
