The Lost Diary of Venice Read online

Page 17


  Midway up, a scraping sound—nearer than the buzz and howl of the crowd in the square: the sound of the board being pushed aside again. Crouching in the shadows against the wall, Gio watched as a white-masked figure stepped inside the room. Slender and draped in a burgundy cloak, the man peered about the chamber. Spotting Gio, he tossed his cape over one shoulder and bounded toward the stairs.

  Hastily Gio stood, on instinct brandishing the knife he kept strapped to his thigh. The short blade glimmered in the light from the street, halting the stranger on the fourth stair. Looking up at Gio, the man smiled beneath his white demi-mask and slowly withdrew his own sword. It extended fine and silver and sharp.

  Suddenly, Gio’s blade seemed childishly inadequate.

  “Who are you—what are you doing here?” Gio grimaced at the tremor even he could hear in his voice. The man said nothing, but cocked his head. Gio stepped down a stair, repeating his question—louder this time, with the knife raised in front of him. He’d played spectator at enough fights to know the value of aggression. One more step and the man broke into laughter.

  Lovely, girlish laughter.

  “Chiara?”

  She sheathed her sword and slid the mask up over her face. Her hair was slicked back into a tight coil, and as she climbed the remaining stairs between them, Gio saw she’d inked a thin mustache along her upper lip. Her robes were richer than any he owned, no doubt on loan from Venier.

  “I’m sorry I scared you. But who else would know you’re here?” Leaping up the final stair, she placed a kiss on his cheek.

  “I wasn’t scared.” Gio realized he’d forgotten he told her his plans for the festivities while they drank wine in the studio.

  “Of course you weren’t.” She smiled, flashing her dimples, and tucked her arm into his. Together, they continued up the remaining stairs to the platform. Stepping carefully across the loose beams, they made their way to the window. Gio settled down onto the ledge, leaning his back against the curving stone. Nestled in front of him, Chiara swung one leg out over the spectators swarming below. Her cheek rested in the hollow just beneath his shoulder; he wrapped his arms around her as they watched the flow of movement in the square. From far away, it seemed like a dance: wild swirls of costume, moonlight and torchlight reflecting off the painted masks.

  Suddenly, the sky lit up with a thunderous clap and bang.

  Fireworks! Sparking founts of bronze light streaked across the night, dazzling the stars into silence. The crowd roared in approval. Gio looked up at the display, squinting to sharpen what he knew were crisp patterns to anyone else’s eye. Chiara pulled his arms tighter around her, threading her fingers through his.

  “I suppose we’ve received a few gifts from the East,” she whispered into his neck.

  He squeezed her hands. Safe in their roost, he began to relax. Colors and forms arranged and rearranged themselves in the composition below with pleasing regularity. Her body against him felt like an extension of his own; he pressed his mouth to the crown of her head. As the fireworks continued, he glanced down the avenue that fed into the square.

  He must have stiffened—she sat up with alarm. She followed his stare into the street, and they watched together as a figure darker than all the rest strode toward the piazza, his face consumed by the head of a crow. Corvino.

  “I see him,” she whispered.

  “Get back,” Gio urged. “Now!”

  They scrambled off the ledge, crouching like children to peer out; Gio tossed his cloak across her shoulders to hide them both from view. As the sky cracked and strobed, they tracked Corvino’s movements through the square. With so many bright costumes, his dark figure seemed at times little more than a shadow, slithering around revelers like a muddy eel in clear water.

  “Where is he going?” Chiara’s breath drifted over, laced with wine.

  “If I know Corvino, he has some aim.” Gio grasped her shoulder, pulling her closer. “Just watch.”

  Through the slits in his mask, Corvino scanned the crowd. Overhead, fireworks singed the sky, illuminating faces in powdery white flashes. He was searching for someone—a man he’d been told would be dressed as Bacchus, cloaked in blue with a golden sash. At every step, Corvino was pushed and jostled, the shouts and laughter only worsening his headache. He couldn’t hear his own thoughts. He grasped the wineskin slung over one shoulder, reassured himself it was with him still…

  Where was the man? He was supposed to be near the San Geminiano church, but Corvino couldn’t spot him. He felt his heartbeat quicken, pounding his eardrums like fists. He’d thought it through so carefully. Every detail, every nuance accounted for—yet he hadn’t thought through what would happen if he couldn’t find his prey. Where was he?

  There.

  As if the Lord Himself were intervening, the throng parted and Corvino glimpsed the face he was after: a white porcelain half mask, upper lip frozen in a frolicsome grin, crowned by a garland of imitation grapes and leaves. Blue robe. Gold sash. Just as he’d been told.

  Corvino shouldered through the crowd, careful not to push anyone so roughly that they’d turn and remember his presence. Instead he ducked and wove, maneuvering closer. Blending into the shadows with his black mask, his dark robes. The night smelled of sweat and gunpowder, sickly sweet fragrance. Shapes took on a burnished tinge as the crowd roiled and swayed, lit up by the blazing sky.

  The face of Bacchus floated closer, closer still.

  Corvino steeled himself. Think of Venier. He tried to imagine the statesman upon hearing the news, how he might repay Corvino for his loyalty, his ingenuity. Corvino could picture it: Venier’s brow furrowing as he contemplated what role to reward his talented companion with when the fleet departed…

  Now. The moment was upon him, and it required grace. Corvino began to rock, moving with the gyrations of the crowd, the roar of their conversation, with the rhythm that blared from the nearest cluster of musicians. He stumbled, feigning drunkenness. As he did, he hoisted the wineskin higher. Bacchus stood directly before him, howling at the sky. A boom and a flare, artificial light sprinkling a metallic fountain over the square. Bacchus arched his back, pounding a fist on his chest in approval.

  Think of setting sail with the fleet. Think of the possibilities.

  “Drink!” Corvino bounced his wineskin at the man, opening the spout. Face frozen in mirth, the cheerful god drained what was left in his goblet, then raised his glass toward Corvino. Carefully, Corvino filled the cup nearly to the brim with claret-colored liquid.

  “Drink! Drink!” he shouted again, grasping the base of the goblet as Bacchus guzzled, pressing the rim into the man’s mouth, protruding below his demi-mask.

  “I’ll have a taste of that!” A nearby reveler jutted forward, his own cup at the ready. Corvino feigned another stumble, wine spilling out over the stones as he whirled away, sealing the spout with a resin stopper in one swift motion. He continued to stagger, playing the drunkard, ignoring the hiss of the jilted bystander, who quickly forgot his upset as the sky once again burst with light. Corvino snaked and bobbed through the crowd, until he’d achieved some distance. Then he straightened his back and hastened his pace.

  Away. He had to get away.

  Gio and Chiara watched the dark figure disappear back down the alley.

  “I don’t understand…he just came to pour that man a drink?” Chiara had brought one hand to her mouth, was nibbling the nails of her first two fingers.

  “Do you know who he is?” Gio squinted, trying to identify the man’s companions, but with so many costumes the task was impossible.

  “Gio—look! He’s choking!” Chiara grasped his shoulder. “He’s choking!” she repeated, and indeed the man was: clutching at his chest and neck, silver goblet upended on the stones. The man tore off his mask; in the next burst of light Gio could see a beard trimmed in a tidy square, gray hair fuzzing d
own over the man’s ears. His face contorted like one of Jacopo’s awful creations, mouth agape, as he dropped to his knees. On all fours now, he began vomiting violently, a churning gush of turbid bile. Those around him sidestepped backward, disgusted by the mess.

  “He’s…Gio, what’s happening to him?” Chiara clutched Gio’s thigh. By the next strobe of light, the man had collapsed into a puddle of his own sick—a mound of blue and crumpled gold, motionless on the cobblestones. Gio thought of Chiara’s dress: how she’d left it in a gilded heap on the floor of the salon that first day.

  “He needs help!” Chiara rose, was nearly to her feet before Gio could grasp her waist and tug her down, clutching her body to his.

  “No, Chiara—look—it’s done.” He whispered in her ear, holding tight to her from behind, her ribs pressing against his forearms as she panted. But it was done: from below, screams filtered up over the noise of the crowd as horrified spectators began to understand that the man was not drunk but dead. Carousers at the opposite end of the square, misinterpreting the sound, erupted at the call with a terrible glad mimic.

  Chiara made a low moan and began to crawl toward the wall; Gio unlatched his grip on her waist and shifted to sit beside her. All color had drained from her cheeks. With their backs pressed against the stones, they listened to the tumult outside.

  “Haven’t you seen a man die before?” He investigated her face. Her breath was coming in shallow gasps. She shook her head, and he noticed her pupils had dilated into wide black rings, violet-rimmed. “It happened so fast.”

  “Some poisons work quickly. Corvino may have crafted it himself to do just that.”

  Before he could halt her, she’d taken his hand and brought it in under her robe, pressing his palm flat to her chest. Her heart was thundering—rapid pulse of muscle behind bone.

  “Can you feel that?”

  Gio nodded.

  “We’re still alive.” She wet her lips with a quick dart of tongue. He nodded again. She leaned closer then, sliding his fingers in under the neckline of her tunic, pressing her mouth to the soft of his neck. As Mary Magdalene gazed over them with her calm eyes and demi-smile, Chiara used the weight of her body to pull him to the unfinished floor. The white-hot crackle of fireworks lit her up from above, searing her image into memory: the curve of her mouth, the dip in her throat. Hips and knees, knocking and sliding as they fumbled to fit themselves together. Hard muscle below her ribs. Slick tongue, skin gone taut. Salt taste and the bite of adrenaline, the smell of crushed flowers tilting in on waves.

  It was true: the man in the square was dead, but they were alive—and they reminded themselves of it with breath and grasp and thrust; with that pleasure which lives along the slender edge of pain. When Gio finally lifted his eyes, they rested on Mary’s halo, glinting at him in the night.

  * * *

  At last, Captain Bragadin did see sails on the horizon—but they came from the wrong direction, and the banners they flew carried no crosses. Legions of more Ottoman fighters swarming onshore to join Mustafa’s army.

  Meanwhile, his men were nearly out of powder.

  When a neatly turbaned messenger arrived, bearing the promise of safe passage to those who wished to leave the city, the captain could not refuse. He was not a cruel man. All useless mouths were allowed to flee: the old, the very young. As thousands flooded through the city gates, the enemy offered them warm meals, fragrant with spices.

  “It’s a trick to break your spirit,” Bragadin told his men, but still he watched them sniff the air like dogs, tracing the scent of meat.

  15

  HIS THUMB HAD HEALED. WILLIAM stood at the bathroom sink, inspecting the still-pink seam that ran nearly to his palm. He’d cut himself weeks ago, assembling a telescope for Jane and Lucy so that they could see the stars. To help them keep track, he’d attached a poster of the night sky on the fridge, using a magnet of the moon from Georges Méliès’s movie Le Voyage dans la lune.

  The nice thing about stars was that you could rely on them. They wouldn’t just wander off from their constellations if you happened to look away.

  He ran the water, then rubbed the soap bar under the stream, watching lather build. He shouldn’t have touched Rose like that. It was far too intimate a gesture—not like putting a hand to someone’s shoulder. Yet in the moment, it’d come too naturally to second-guess. But how would she interpret it? How did he want her to interpret it?

  DON’T OVERTHINK IT was a sign he’d taped up in his studio in the city.

  He dried his hands.

  Out in the living room, Sarah was kneeling on the carpet, queuing up the girls’ thirty minutes of after-dinner TV time. William retreated to the kitchen and finished cleaning up. He opened a cupboard and found the box of umbrellas where he’d stashed it, behind a sack of flour. He pulled it out, then arranged the rest of the ingredients he’d purchased on the counter. Coconut cream. Frozen pineapple. Limes. Dark and white rum, both. He began combining them, eyeballing measurements, going heavy with the rum.

  Feeling guilty, William? Lois’s predictable voice in his ear, red lips pursed in a tight button, the face she always made when asking rhetorical questions. Beginning to understand how Sarah felt, why sh—

  He flicked the switch on the blender, then turned it to high, drowning out the chatter in his mind with the sound of chipping ice. He remembered they had a pair of hurricane glasses somewhere, an old wedding gift. Rummaging through cabinets, he finally found them. The piña colada poured out custard yellow and frothy. Then, the final touch: two bright cerulean umbrellas with origami-thin paper, flimsy wooden stakes. He carried the drinks out, proud as a golden retriever with a tennis ball, and offered one to Sarah. He watched her smile and frown at the same time, bemused.

  “What’s this?” She shifted position on the couch to take the glass.

  “Just a little surprise, thought you might like it.” A generous warmth spread in his chest.

  “Aw, Will. You haven’t made me a fancy drink in…” Her eyes met his, and he caught her try to swallow back the sentence. In forever.

  He was saved from response by the girls, closing in like hyenas, demanding to know what they were drinking and why they couldn’t have any, until finally William was forced back into the kitchen to blend a kid-friendly batch, to much squealing adulation. Afterward, Sarah watched the news while Jane and Lucy played on the floor. Coloring books and plastic princesses, sparkly unicorns prancing across the carpet. A dozen new troops on the ground. He ran a bath, then Sarah marched them upstairs; an hour later and the tub was drained—bubbles still clinging to the sides, both girls tucked into bed, with their night-lights and stuffed animals for company.

  “I’m going to read for a while, okay?” Sarah poked her head into the living room from the hallway. Her hair looked untouched from the morning, still twisted back in a smooth spiral.

  “Sure. I’ll be out back.”

  “Thanks again for the drink, that was really sweet of you.”

  William nodded. “Well, I saw the umbrellas, thought why not.” He watched her stare, half-smiling, as if waiting for him to keep talking. When he didn’t, she gave a quick nod, then ducked away, disappearing down the hall.

  So, it’d come to this: he was socially awkward with his own wife.

  He grabbed a bottle of whiskey, then slid the back door open one-handed. The air was warmer than it’d been the last time. Summer would be here in the blink of an eye. High overhead, the leaves of the old oak rustled in the wind, whispering quiet secrets he used to know by heart.

  In the studio, the images of Rose that he’d sketched lay stacked in a pile. He hadn’t been able to keep working on a portrait, not after what she’d said in the museum about muses—when he looked at the pages now, an uneasy mixture of shame and embarrassment churned his gut. Instead, he unfolded the large printouts he’d made earlier that day of the sca
ns she’d sent, the story of the egg and the tree. Before printing, he’d cropped and enlarged the pictures, so that now he had a nearly full-page version of each of Giovanni’s sketches. He pinned them to the wall in sequence. In a corner sat an old six-disc CD player, a sentimental relic from his past; he pushed Shuffle, watched the machine diligently skip through the tracks. The synth opener to “Once in a Lifetime” came burbling through the speakers. Perfect. Turning up the volume, he clutched the neck of the bottle and went back to stand in the middle of the room. Took a long sip.

  Swirling liquor around in his mouth, he stared at the sketches. Why did they make him sad? It was a beautiful sadness, but sad nonetheless—a strange and lovely longing. He examined the yearning in Giovanni’s expression, how he put his hand to the woman’s cheek in the final scene. Had he just put his own hand to Rose’s face that same way? Had he looked so piteous?

  He had to make sense of it. He had to understand the sadness, get inside it and live there awhile. Maybe if he did that, he could find his own way through.

  William began to mix paint.

  * * *

  Rose woke up to find that the morning sun had already sent the clouds into retreat, leaving only a pastel gauze straggling at the edges of the sky. On her way to the door, she picked a gauzy blue scarf to wrap around her neck, then stepped out into the brisk and brightening day.

  At the archives, the comforting soft-sand carpet and dry book smell welcomed her home. She’d replied to Lucas’s email and within minutes he’d written back, assuring her the books would be ready. It was good timing; she needed a distraction. All she’d been able to think of for days was the weight of William’s fingertips on her ear, the warm graze of his skin, the memory turning tender as a bruise when he didn’t write or stop by the shop again. And just like a bruise, she couldn’t stop touching it, revisiting the moment. She wanted to tell Joan, tell anyone, get confirmation: That wasn’t a normal gesture, was it? What could it mean? Instead, she’d tried to pass the hours working on the undertext, but even Beethoven at high volume couldn’t halt the scene from replaying in a maddening loop. A change in routine, a visit to the library, was just what she needed.