If Father had lived long enough to know I"d earned it, it would have meant much more.
I DID GRIEVE for Father"s pa.s.sing, although in a sense it felt almost as if he had not departed from us, so fully had Rizardo taken his place by the time I arrived home. Rizardo had married in my absence, had already sp.a.w.ned one son and had another child on the way. His wife, Marta, was cla.s.sically Venetian-attractive, painted, silly, superficially well educated, and p.r.o.ne to insincere laughter. From the moment I arrived, I sensed my mother resented the presence of another woman in the house; they did not once address each other the entire week that we, the family, sorted out the funeral arrangements.
Besides the funeral itself, that week included a tearless reunion with my second brother (the priest) and my mother"s shameless use of public mourning as an opportunity to attract new paramours.
There followed several weeks of airless, respectful mourning and moping. I was relieved when Carnival arrived.
Every civilized culture in the world has some kind of gallimaufry of gambols, a baccha.n.a.lia that it cleverly justifies through history or myth. Venice attributes Carnival to Doge Michieli"s triumph over Ulrich II of Aquileia in 1162. Ulrich"s ransom was an annual tribute of one bull, twelve pigs, and twelve loaves of bread-quite a bargain for Ulrich, by my estimation, but Venice perceived herself as getting an excellent deal. In commemoration of this event, every year from Santo Stefano"s Day until Lent, the entire city of Venice dons masks and costumes, overindulges in food, wine, and other friendly vices, and enjoys all sorts of spectacles. It climaxes with a bull being slaughtered in the Piazza of San Marco on Fat Thursday-and when Lent begins a week later, we are all so overstuffed and exhausted from forty-odd days of debauchery that the deprivations of Lent are something of a relief.
As a youngster, I was fascinated by the mechanics of the spectacles: the War Machines, Neptune"s chariot, the fireworks, the quick-change artists, and the magician"s tricks. And I loved the battagliole-what boy wouldn"t? These were staged fisticuffs between two territorial gangs. I lived in San Polo, which meant I should have rooted for the Nicolotti, who were mostly fishermen. But I preferred the Castellani, sailors and shipbuilders from the a.r.s.enal: the a.r.s.enal, that magically forbidden fortress that as a child I could not have imagined ever entering. The two gangs would fight on designated bridges at designated times; Father would take us in a gondola to watch. Carnival to me meant exuberance, joyful fun, and freedom from convention.
As a child, that is.
As an adult I faced a very different Carnival. My brother announced that it was time for us to don costumes and masks and attend a ball. This was to demonstrate that we, The Family, had recovered from our loss and were still hearty enough for the rigors of Venetian socializing and commerce. (It was often difficult to distinguish between these two.) The evening of the masque, I wore my military jerkin. Father, for all of his indifference to me, would never have thrown his son out of his house; I was not sure I could trust Rizardo to be so tribal, so I gave in to his instructions regarding masks and wore a papier-mache Bauta, which covered my entire face.
The ball was in the San Croce district, at the home of Hieronomo Capello, a wealthy merchant but no patrician; at first glance, there was nothing at all to distinguish it from every average ball in the history of Venice. Having arrived, I was recognized despite my mask, because I did nothing to disguise the rest of me: no black cape, no cloak, no hat. A mask on its own does not hide much. It covers nothing but the face. I can recognize a man by his gait, his girth, his standing; so can anyone. I could sense people whispering and pointing me out as I walked through the grand hall. Ignoring the comedy being performed in the center of the room, I pulled the mask up and nibbled pistachios, sweetmeats, sugared fruit, and marzipan, all laid out on a side table in a pattern the shape of Venice.
The first person to actually approach me was Roderigo, who rushed to me at once and repeated the welcoming embrace of five years earlier. He lowered his mask a moment to rea.s.sure me it was he, and d.a.m.ned if the fellow had not grown even more handsome than he"d been at twenty. I had lost my deftness at discerning fabric, but he seemed to be better dressed than my brother, the great silk merchant. His maroon doublet and breeches were high-and-low velvet, the best kind, I am sure processed from true silk. There was slashing and puffing to show off the taffeta below; even his duckbill shoes were slashed to show the patterned stockings beneath. It was the fussiest outfit I"d ever seen him in.
"Roderigo, I am pleased to see you," I said heartily and held out my hand for our secret handshake. "How have the years been treating you?"
Here I was exposed to a lengthy, happily nervous monologue about Roderigo"s excellent fortunes, a monologue that lasted until the comedy was concluded and was replaced by a group of young men, dressed as women, dancing a ballet. Roderigo was, among our peers, easily the richest nonpatrician merchant, the king not only of pepper but also of nearly any spice used in a Venetian kitchen. His only concern was a Florentine family who was trying to buy the loyalty of his Egyptian connections, but his agents had so far managed to stymie the Florentines. He had not snagged that ginger-haired young la.s.s whom he"d been so enamored of; but since then he had suffered through several other fascinations, none of which had led to marriage. By the time he"d finished the recitation of his thoroughly Venetian life, I was almost through being pleased to see him.
"And now you must tell me the details of what you"ve been doing," he finished, slightly breathless. "Beyond what has been reported back to us all over the years by your proud father, of course."
I blinked to hide my bemus.e.m.e.nt at that declaration. My father, proud of me? "I have been soldiering," I said simply.
My disinclination to say more than that made my life fascinating. To everyone. Over the course of the next hour, with Roderigo following me as ever like a faithful spaniel, I slowly strolled one side of the hall and was dazzled by the number of gentlemen and even ladies ogling me, to the point of ignoring the transvest.i.te ballet taking place in the center of the room. I heard from all of them how proud my father had been of me, how they"d heard I had mastered both German and Bolognese swordplay, how I had protected our fragile borders while asking nothing in return but the honor of serving my state-an almost inconceivable action for any of them to consider themselves; therefore, all the holier was I, for having volunteered such an unusual course for my life.
I could not bear the attention and was glad of the mask, even if it failed to hide my actual ident.i.ty. "This room is so airless," I whispered to Roderigo, "and I cannot bear the stench of all the perfumes. Is there at least some balcony to retch from?"
Immediately Roderigo led me past the curtsying male dancers, who were now clearing the floor as a buffoonish master of ceremonies introduced a juggling act. The other side of the hall opened onto a broad balcony overlooking a ca.n.a.l. It was winter, so the ca.n.a.l did not smell, and there was a breeze that cleared my head. Relieved to be out of the crowd, I removed my mask. Roderigo likewise untied his.
Near us on the balcony was a small flurry of Venetian dandies, also temporarily bald-faced in the moonlight. Beneath their long black robes, their doublets and breeches were as outlandishly slashed up as Roderigo"s, the taffeta and linen as outlandishly puffed out through the slashes. Trying to remember how to behave in polite company, I attempted to take an interest in their conversation. This was a chorus of complaints about a young lady at the party. Roderigo gestured me over to the group, whose members he knew, and was beamingly proud to introduce his soldier-friend.
The first statement that caught my ears was one of furious indignity: "She"ll never get a husband with that tongue of hers."
"I told her that," complained another. "She said that was fine with her-if she never has a husband, she will never be cheated on."
Several laughed; a third man added: "She told me she prefers the company of bachelors, not wooers, because with bachelors she can be as comfortable as she is with all her friends."
I smiled to myself. It was obvious what was happening here: the lady in question was a high-cla.s.s prost.i.tute, trying to find a man to take her as a mistress, and these young dolts had not yet figured it out.
"She told me," said a fourth dejectedly, "that men are made of clay and she was not of a mind to be lorded over by a clod of dirt."
"She told me," said a fifth, "that since we"re both descended from Adam and Eve, we must be relatives, and didn"t I think it sinful to proposition my own cousin?"
I laughed at that. I did not have the money to support a mistress, but this harlot"s banter would be more entertaining than another hour like the one I"d just spent. I wanted to meet her.
"And what is it about this young lady that so inflames you all to want to wed her?" I asked.
They all shrugged a foppish Venetian-style shrug.
"We"re practicing our wooing," one said, as if it should be obvious. "On all the young ladies here. We practice on them, they practice on us. It"s delightful, harmless, and useful-but this one is so contrary. It"s well known she is a pretty piece of flesh. Why does she even show up at a place known to be a site for flirtation, when she will not flirt?"
"What you have just described sounds exactly like flirtation to me," I said knowingly.
They gave me looks of disapproving disbelief. "Well, she"s right over there. Have at her!" the first complainer suggested. He pointed. I looked.
A young woman was wearing a black velvet Moretta mask, with a pile of auburn hair coiled on her head. She glanced briefly toward our little group as she exited from the hall. Then she most pointedly took no further interest in us. She crossed past us to the far side of the balcony for air. The men all snickered and energetically gestured me in her direction.
If you placed me in a room with a Venetian lady my own age and told me to be gallant toward her, I doubt I could do it for a thousand ducats. I"d have no idea what would be considered rude, or why; what would be considered humorous, and why. But from that first week in the a.r.s.enal, I knew that I could banter with a bawd. I decided I would banter with this one, in their hearing, and make her laugh not at me but with me. With much hand-clasping and false merriment and several bets placed, I received useless information from them-her name, her father"s name, her father"s family"s name, her father"s family"s business, all of which I was sure was just a front, to disguise the fact that she was a courtesan.
I retied my mask and brushed imaginary dust from off my soldier"s jerkin, and shared a friendly obscene gesture with the lads, which brought cackles of approval. Then, without the slightest subtlety, walked energetically right toward her.
She stood serene at the far corner of the balcony, in a funnel-sleeved bodice and red woolen skirt. She wore no pearls nor strands of jewels, nor any of the other fineries outlawed by the state"s sumptuary laws and therefore worn only by the wealthy. There was an elegant simplicity in her dress compared to every other woman at this ball. That was unusual for a prost.i.tute. So was the absence of chopines, those absurd cork-soled shoes that raise a woman a foot above her natural height.
She heard my approach, of course, and watched me. We had a chance to appraise each other fully from behind our masks, as I took a dozen strides. I could not see her face, and even in moonlight her silhouette was muted, but she had a most impressive shape. Most women present themselves either for the advantage of their curves, or the advantage of their slimness. She had both, and showed off both, yet her gown revealed very little flesh.
She put her hands on her hips as I stopped beside her; the tilt of her head suggested she was waiting for me to start bantering.
"Good evening, Emilia," I said. "That"s your name, I hear. They spent so much time complaining about your behavior that they only thought to mention your name but the once or twice."
"They?" she replied in an arch voice. "Do they have names of their own?"
"I think they would prefer me not to tell you their names," I chuckled.
"Then they"re cowards," she said, matter-of-factly.
"Well of course," I agreed. "That"s why they don"t want you to know who they are. I myself am not a coward, and therefore, if I were to defame you, I would not mind if you knew my name."
After the slightest appraising pause, she asked, "What is your name?"
"I don"t need to tell you that, since I"m not defaming you."
"Yet," she amended.
"Oh, I think I can refrain indefinitely. The other fellows over there, who do not want me to name them-they"ve already complained about you so thoroughly, I cannot imagine there"d be any new complaints to register."
She removed her hands from her hips and now crossed her arms over her chest. These were not the gestures of a high-born lady, and neither were they the manners of a prost.i.tute on the prowl for a gentleman. She had, even in these simple movements, a natural grace, but she moved without any pretensions of femininity. "You really will not tell me the names of the men who defame me?" she asked.
"Pardon me, but no, my lady."
"Then will you tell me, at least, who you are?"
"Not at the moment, my lady," I said. I finally grasped an oddity about her: she was speaking without holding her mask. The Moretta mask-commonly worn by women, as it allows a peek at the outline of their face-is usually held in place by a small b.u.t.ton clasped between the wearer"s teeth. This allows a lady both hands free for dancing and yet does not muss up her coiffure and cap with a tied ribbon. Which means that when a Moretta-masked lady actually speaks, she must hold her mask up with one hand. Or ideally, she simply must not speak.
This young woman, however, had tied her Moretta with a velvet ribbon that was close in color to her hair, and then arranged her tresses to cascade over it. Like myself, she wore nothing on her head at all.
We had been standing in silence as I noticed all this.
"Are you planning to flirt with me, sir?" she asked, polite but matter-of-fact. "If you intend to, please begin, so we may get it over with."
"I hear you are not interested in wooers."
"I"m not interested in fools," she corrected pleasantly.
"Then what are you doing at this party?" I asked.
"Possibly the same thing you are," she replied. "Wishing I had something more fulfilling to do."
"You might try a brothel," I said in a meaningful tone. "The men who visit there know what fulfillment they desire and have well-lined pockets to fulfill your desires in return."
She laughed at this, but not the way I had wanted her to. "I have no experience in the matter, sir. Tell me, please: would my desire for intelligent conversation somehow be fulfilled by forfeiting my virginity? And if so, how, exactly?"
What an a.s.s I was. "You"re not a prost.i.tute," I said, mortified.
Now she laughed the charmed laugh that I"d hoped to hear. "That is by far the most original line anyone has used to woo me," she said, with delight in her voice. "That almost makes me want to dance with you."
I had not seen the woman"s face, and truly I did not know who she was beyond her name, but I was smitten with Emilia.
Chapter 9.
I COULD NOT STOP thinking about Emilia all the next day. Our encounter had ended abruptly when Roderigo, to my fathomless annoyance, came over to introduce himself. In his presence, she almost physically retreated. Shortly after his intrusion, Emilia had excused herself indoors. After that, I could not find her.
Given the mix of people at that fete, my guess was that Emilia was from a comfortable family but not a wealthy one, that she was likely destined to be the wife of a middling merchant; who owned a house but not one that fronted on a ca.n.a.l; who owned a business but was not known for being especially clever at it; who had a social presence but not one that made him any kind of wit. She, of course, wanted more than that for her future, and so she was fiercely scaring off all potential suitors of that ilk. This was the biography that I invented for her over the course of the following day. I conveniently forgot how entirely mistaken I"d been with the previous biography I"d invented for her, in which she was a wh.o.r.e.
LATE IN THE DAY I was informed by my brother that we were going to another masked ball that evening. This one was really prime, he explained; there would be senators and patricians, and only a few of the richest merchants in the city were invited. It was hugely significant, an enormous honor, that our family was welcome. (My mother had arranged the invitation, possibly by seduction.) I did not want to go, because I doubted Emilia would be there. But with gritted teeth, I agreed to attend, and again put on my military jerkin.
With the usual finery and elegance and personalized gondola and obsequious servants waiting for us, the usual broad marble staircases and ornately painted murals and alabaster handrails, with the usual smell of candles and the sounds of sackbuts and cornets and lutes, the usual delighted greeting from Roderigo, I found myself in yet another ballroom, this one at least as large and fine as the one to which Father had taken me the day he informed me I was to join the infantry.
In fact, for all I know, it was the same ballroom and the same senator. After five years of living in army barracks I could not make myself care about any of this frippery. Shortly before our arrival there had been fireworks in the adjoining campo, followed by a human pyramid; the guests had only just been ushered back into the hall, and now everyone was eagerly awaiting a Ruzante comedy about peasants performing improper acts with livestock. Actual livestock-although nothing larger than a goat-was being herded into one corner of the marble-floored room, and to cover the moment, the sackbut player was doing a solo rendition of a Willaert piece, the effect being that of an amorous weasel.
I looked around, hoping to see her, but Roderigo was the only figure I could recognize. He and my brother were among the few nonpatrician merchants who "deserved" to be at this masque, which meant excellent business opportunities for them.
THE NEXT HOUR was excruciating. Emilia wasn"t there; I could feel her absence in my lungs. Despite my mask, my ident.i.ty was no secret; I was identified by scores of people I had never met. I was treated as if I were an exotic feathered bird, and Roderigo was being subtly congratulated for having tethered me. On top of which, I had to watch some very bad actors pretend to do questionable things to goats while speaking trippingly in verse. The goats smelled almost as bad as the actors did but were more authentic in their performance. This was followed (to cover the cleaning up of goat scat) by a Luzzaschi tune, which did nothing to improve my mood.
At about the time I felt I needed a vat of wine to regain my humor, Roderigo eagerly steered me toward a dining table that had just been set up near one wall. More notably, he was steering me toward a large gentleman in an extravagant half-mask and expensive velvet costume. The fellow was already tucking into the gilded oysters making up the first course of the feast. "You will never believe who this is," Roderigo whispered delightedly in my ear, "or how he treats me now." And then raising his voice, he held out an arm and declared, "Ta.s.so! Such a joy to find you here tonight!"
It was the nasty fellow from the neighborhood militia who had mocked him, five years earlier, and then falsely claimed that he could get him gunpowder. Ta.s.so looked up from the oyster he"d been contemplating, recognized the speaker"s voice, and smiled. With a small salute, he returned, "My darling Roderigo, the evening would not be complete without you."
"Look whom I have brought." Roderigo preened and presented me before himself as if I were a shy child. This gesture caught the notice of those just taking their seats around the table and-again-I found myself the center of attention among strangers.
"Ta.s.so," I said quietly, with a bow of my head. Grudgingly, sensing it was what Roderigo wanted, I sat beside the fellow, and Roderigo sat to my other side. That Ta.s.so now seemed friendly toward Roderigo did not impress me. In fact, given my mood, and my conditioned impulse to protect hapless Roderigo, I found Ta.s.so"s behavior highly suspect.
The expression revealed in the lower half of Ta.s.so"s face suggested I was exactly the man he"d been waiting five years to greet. "Iago!" he cried and held out his thick arms wide in greeting. "Welcome back to society!"
"Good evening, Ta.s.so," I said coldly, without leaning toward his intended embrace. "Are you still lying to my friend Roderigo here? I am a master swordsman now, you know. I"ll run you through if you ever try again to cheat this man."
The crowd of masked, cloaked figures had taken their seats. They t.i.ttered, and several even politely applauded. That was odd.
Ta.s.so immediately laughed the hollow Venetian laugh I dislike. "What a loyal friend you are, Iago, to bear a grudge over a little jest five years dead! Keep this fellow close to your heart, Roderigo, do you hear?"
"It has nothing to do with Roderigo"s heart; I am making a comment on your character," I retorted in a somber voice.
Ta.s.so paused unsurely, aware that a score of masked faces were staring at the unmasked half of his face. How, I wondered, were they going to eat their oysters while wearing masks and gloves?
Finally, Ta.s.so shrugged and declared, "My business is in ships, dear Iago. There is no way I could possibly cheat my good friend Roderigo even if I wished to, which I do not." He brought the gilded oyster to his mouth and triumphantly devoured it.
"Are you in shipping?" I asked. "Could you not easily overcharge him?"
"I build the ships, sir," Ta.s.so said, with an affected gallant air, as if he had just bested me in a battle of wits but was too polite to rub my nose in it.
"Really?" I said, thinking of the sweating, burly men who had awed me, building ships, my first day within the a.r.s.enal walls. "What tools do you use to build a ship?"
He chuckled indulgently. "By that I mean, of course, I hire men to build ships for my company. I do not build the ships myself."
"Then why did you say you did?" I demanded. "Why do you Venetian gentlemen never say a d.a.m.ned thing that you mean? Has it been bred out of you? Your workers-who are men, as much as you are-they build ships. You do not build ships. You enable ships to be built, which is not the same thing."
The audience of Bauta masks t.i.ttered, and gloved hands applauded me-which again I found odd, and somewhat unnerving.
I pulled my mask off. Sun-baked as I was, I must have looked very ugly, but I did not care. The audience of diners applauded again, this time heartily, their gilded oysters still sitting on their plates like golden jelly. I stared at them with frustrated bewilderment. A hoa.r.s.e male voice called out, from the head of the table, "That"s quite a compliment, Ta.s.so, to be treated to the attentions of a known truth-teller."
I turned in the direction of the voice. "I"m not complimenting him," I said.
"It is a compliment to him to receive your noncompliment," the speaker explained indulgently. He stood up and I saw him now, a monstrously fat old man, wearing colors too bright for his size. "He is worthy to receive your attention, and your attention, Iago, is exotic here," he said.
"What does that mean, worthy to receive my attention?" I was almost spitting now. "I do not want to talk to him, isn"t that clear from how I"m talking to him?"
"You are talking to him more than to the rest of us," the elder pointed out, sounding pleased that now he was the one in the bear pit.
"I do not especially want to talk to the rest of you either," I said, with an emphatic gesture that tumbled my mask out of my hand to the floor. Roderigo immediately stooped in his chair to pick it up. "There. Does that make you feel special, sir?"
"I am already special, Iago," the older man said with unnerving complacency. "I am the man who made you famous."
I suddenly recognized the voice. This was Pietro Galinarion, the owner of the famous hen. Seeing my startled expression, he continued, gravely and smug: "I have bragging rights to being the earliest victim of your precociousness. The more popular you and your precociousness are, the better that serves me."
The table denizens t.i.ttered yet again and applauded. Ta.s.so was beaming beneath his mask. It seemed that Bait the Curmudgeon was the new pastime for bored patricians. I did not want to play.
THE NEXT QUARTER HOUR I spent in a fog of irritation. I insulted Galinarion; I was applauded. I threw my mask into the punch bowl; I was applauded. I reprimanded the entire table for how mindlessly they were applauding everything; I was applauded. I stormed out of the hall, to applause, and left the grand house through the back steps and the servants" entrance, imagining Emilia was there to see my righteous indignation, and desperate to find her in the carousing city.