A Death in Vienna

platform with his large hand and gave it one violent shake. The restorer peered over the side like a gargoyle.
    “You almost ruined an entire morning’s work, Francesco.”
    “That’s why we use isolating varnish.” Tiepolo held up a white paper sack.“Cornetto?”
    “Come on up.”
    Tiepolo put a foot on the first rung of the scaffolding and pulled himself up. The restorer could hear the aluminum tubing straining under Tiepolo’s enormous weight. Tiepolo opened the sack, handed the restorer an almondcornetto, and took one for himself. Half of it disappeared in one bite. The restorer sat on the edge of the platform with his feet dangling over the side. Tiepolo stood before the altarpiece and examined his work.
    “If I didn’t know better, I would have thought old Giovanni slipped in here last night and did the inpainting himself.”
    “That’s the idea, Francesco.”
    “Yes, but few people have the gifts to actually pull it off.” The rest of thecornetto disappeared into his mouth. He brushed powdered sugar from his beard. “When will it be finished?”
    “Three months, maybe four.”
    “From my vantage point, three months would be better than four. But heaven forbid I should rush the great Mario Delvecchio. Any travel plans?”
    The restorer glared at Tiepolo over thecornetto and slowly shook his head. A year earlier, he had been forced to confess his true name and occupation to Tiepolo. The Italian had preserved that trust by never revealing the information to another soul, though from time to time, when they were alone, he still asked the restorer to speak a few words of Hebrew, just to remind himself that the legendary Mario Delvecchio truly was an Israeli from the Valley of Jezreel named Gabriel Allon.
    A sudden downpour hammered on the roof of the church. From atop the platform, high in the apse of the chapel, it sounded like a drum roll. Tiepolo raised his hands toward the heavens in supplication.
    “Another storm. God help us. They say theacqua alta could reach five feet. I still haven’t dried out from the last one. I love this place, but even I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
    It had been a particularly difficult season for high water. Venice had flooded more than fifty times, and three months of winter still remained. Gabriel’s house had been inundated so many times that he’d moved everything off the ground floor and was installing a waterproof barrier around his doors and windows.
    “You’ll die in Venice, just like Bellini,” Gabriel said. “And I’ll bury you beneath a cypress tree on San Michele, in an enormous crypt befitting a man of your achievements.”
    Tiepolo seemed pleased with this image, even though he knew that, like most modern Venetians, he would have to suffer the indignity of a mainland burial.
    “And what about you, Mario? Where will you die?”
    “With a bit of luck, it will be at the time and place of my own choosing. That’s about the best a man like me can hope for.”
    “Just do me one favor.”
    “What’s that?”
    Tiepolo gazed at the scarred painting. “Finish the altarpiece before you die. You owe it to Giovanni.”
    THE FLOOD SIRENSatop the Basilica San Marco cried out a few minutes after four o’clock. Gabriel hurriedly cleaned his brushes and his palette, but by the time he’d descended his scaffolding and crossed the nave to the front portal, the street was already running with several inches of floodwater.
    He went back inside. Like most Venetians, he owned several pairs of rubber Wellington boots, which he stored at strategic points in his life, ready to be deployed at a moment’s notice. The pair he kept in the church were his first. They’d been lent to him by Umberto Conti, the master Venetian restorer with whom Gabriel had served his apprenticeship. Gabriel had tried countless times to return them, but Umberto would never take them back.Keep them, Mario, along with the skills I’ve given you. They will serve you well, I promise.
    He pulled on Umberto’s faded old boots and cloaked himself in a green waterproof poncho. A moment later he was wading through the shin-deep waters of the Salizzada San Giovanni Crisostomo like an olive-drab ghost. In the Strada Nova, the wooden gangplanks known aspasserelle had yet to be laid down by the city’s sanitation workers—a bad sign, Gabriel knew, for it meant the flooding was forecast to be so severe thepasserelle would float away.
    By the time he reached the Rio Terrà San