The Lost Diary of Venice Page 28

  Then a knock at the back door. It was Cecilia perched in the bow of a gondola. Her mouth made a tight slash in her wide face, and without knowing why, he’d known it was all wrong. No time for questions then—he’d just snatched up his cloak and stepped into the boat. Faster, faster was all he could think as the oarsman steered them on. The canals were choked: the entire city had descended into the water it seemed. The gondolier maneuvered them through as best he could, Gio clutching the sides until his knuckles went white to keep from shouting. Faster, faster.

  Finally, they arrived.

  Inside, the sensation of things not as they should be. The light was dimming but no torches had been lit, and the house was oddly mute. No servants running between floors, no clatter from the kitchen, no music from a distant chamber. Gio trailed close behind Cecilia, watching the heels of her slippers dart out from under her skirts as she sped up the spiral staircase and down the hall.

  Inside Chiara’s chamber, candles cast long shadows. On the far side of the bed, Veronica and Margherita perched on stools. Their camicias were rumpled, their undone hair falling over their shoulders like mantles. The drapes had been wound open to reveal Chiara, lying facedown on the bedding, one cheek pressed into a pillow, the sheets pulled up tight over her shoulders.

  Gio took two paces into the room, blinking. In the corner was a bathing tub. It must have been recently used: rags slopped over the rim and were dripping onto the floor, making a small pool of wet no one had bothered to mop up. Streaks of red stained the white linen. His stomach knotted.

  “She was asking for you.” Veronica frowned at him. Without makeup on, she looked years older, tired. Gio stepped closer, and Chiara opened her one visible eye to give him a sidelong glance. Her still-damp hair snaked out darkly, and over her cheek fell what looked like a shadow. As Gio neared, he saw it was a bruise, blossoming in sick greenish shades. Wordlessly, he reached to draw the bedclothes down; as he did, she twisted her head to bury her face in the pillow. Linens had been bound to her torso—shoulder to hip—with thick strips of cloth. Suggestions of pink dappled the white in places where the blood was seeping through.

  “She’s been lashed. He lashed her.” Margherita scooted forward on her stool. She was holding back tears, her pretty face crumpling in on itself like a pastry taken out of the heat too soon. Gio didn’t need to ask who’d done it.

  “I don’t understand. She’s Venier’s favorite. Why would he—”

  “We don’t know, and she won’t tell us.” Veronica leaned forward to tug the bedclothes back into place, tucking them over Chiara’s shoulders as briskly as a nursemaid.

  “Is she…will she—”

  “She’ll heal. The doctor said there may be some scarring, but he stopped before any more damage was done, thank the Lord.” Veronica absentmindedly made the sign of the cross, then stood.

  “And Virgin Mary,” Margherita chimed in, wavering to her feet like Veronica’s echo. In silence, the three of them gazed down at Chiara’s body, outlined under the bedding. She’d kept her face hidden in the pillow, as if excusing herself from the conversation. Gio observed the slow rise and fall of her back.

  “Something must be done,” Veronica said sharply, raising one eyebrow at Gio. He tried to think of an answer, but his mind felt stunned and slowed, lagging two paces behind. Chiara shifted then, keeping her face down but reaching a hand out from under the sheet toward Gio. Easing to the edge of the bed, he folded her palm into his own. Her skin was feverish, dry. A rope burn looped her wrist, angry and red. The knot in his stomach cinched tighter.

  Taking Chiara’s movement as a sign, the girls turned to leave, Margherita casting back sad doll eyes. The door creaked shut behind them. In the heavy quiet of the room, Gio extended his other hand, grazing the back of Chiara’s head with his fingertips. She stiffened at his touch, then relaxed, letting him stroke her hair. After a long while she turned, face emerging, eyes still closed. Gio took inventory of the damage. Bruised cheekbone. A cut near her nose, another just above her brow. All of her swollen, and the tender beginnings of more bruising in the inner rim of her eye.

  “Why’d he do it, Chiara?”

  Her lashes lifted, and he saw that the white of her visible eye was now an unnatural yellow. “I can’t tell you.” Her voice was scorched from smoke or from screaming.

  “Chiara, I won’t be upset if—”

  “Not that. He didn’t want that.”

  Gio exhaled deeply, feeling a pang of guilt for how relieved he was. “Then why?”

  She shut her eye again. He watched a tear form in the corner of her lashes and drop, tracing gravity over the bridge of her nose. A strand of wet hair clung to her temple in a whorl; he caressed it back.

  “You won’t love me anymore.” Her bottom lip had cracked and bled at some point, and now a dark scab was forming, like a seam down the middle.

  “Impossible.” With the back of one knuckle he gently wiped at the wet under her eye. “Chiara, I need to understand. Please.”

  “He saw me.”

  “He saw you…Saw you where?”

  “In the Ghetto.”

  “Just now, during the fire? Why were you in the Ghetto?”

  “I went to visit my aunt.”

  “What was your aunt doing in the Ghetto?”

  “She lives there, Gio.” Chiara said the words slowly, as if he were a child.

  “I thought your aunt was a courtesan…” His mind struggled to fit the odd-shaped pieces together. “Your aunt is a Jewess?” His eyes darted to the roots of her hair, charcoal beneath the artificial tint. “You’re a Jewess? You’re a Jewess.” He repeated the words, repetition turning them into fact.

  He wanted her to shake her head to tell him he was wrong. Instead came the crying. She tried to hold it in, shuddering. Her face crumpled into a version of her he didn’t recognize: lines pinching her forehead, broken blood vessels like filigree under her pale skin. An image of their first meeting darted into his mind, gilded and glimmering. Her floating on the divan in the great rose-colored room, offering him a glass of wine. Shining up at him with that lavender light. Asking an impossible promise.

  He hadn’t kept her safe.

  Not knowing what else to do, he stroked her hair in silence. As she struggled to slow her breathing, he worked to put the story in logical order—as if knowing the narrative could somehow change its ending.

  “Is your aunt…did she—”

  “She wasn’t harmed. She sent word to Cecilia.”

  “Why hide this, Chiara? I’ve heard of Jewish courtesans—”

  “Who are treated like curiosities, Gio. Do you imagine I ever could’ve had this?” She tugged her hand from his to gesture feebly at the room. “My aunt was a Jewish courtesan—I saw her life. If she hadn’t married when she could…” Wet had gathered along the edge of her nose; she rubbed at it with a fingertip. “They make us wear badges, Gio. You don’t understand.”

  “I—I certainly don’t understand why he’d hurt you so badly just for dissembling.”

  “Because…if Venier had knowingly lain with a Jew…” She let the sentence trail off.

  “He could be accused of heresy.” He finished the thought for her.

  “They’d make an example of him.” As she wiped her eyes again, he noticed dirt still rimming her cuticles, clinging to the skin under her nails. “I think Corvino wanted me to confess.” She tried to turn onto her side, winced, and abandoned the effort. “He tied my hands up, Gio. The things he was saying: Bible verses, over and over. It made no sense, he was someone else. I thought he was going to kill me—I thought I might die there, all alone.” Her voice rose in pitch, tears slicking the hollows of her eyes.

  “How did it end?” He gathered her hand up again, absently stroking the back of it.

  “I don’t know.” She was staring at the wall behind him with a fl
at expression. “I couldn’t take any more—the pain, Gio. I was screaming and no one came to help me. No one even came. Then, it all just…went black. I don’t remember anything. They had to tell me afterward that a pair of old women brought me back; they said they found me crawling out of the house. I must have told them where to take me, but I don’t remember—I can’t remember.”

  The sobs came quickly then, too fast to stop. He leaned to stroke her hair, to press his mouth to her cheek, to her temple. Whispering gentle quiet words until the ragged edges of her breathing softened and she slept.

  * * *

  He left before dawn. Overhead, there was a marked absence of stars: the haze from the fire still obscured the sky. After the chaos of the day, the avenues and canals seemed strangely emptied out, the town retreating into itself, mute with shock. When he got to Aurelio’s house, a burnished glow leaking through the shutters said the alchemist was still awake. Oddly, the bolt was thrown; Gio pounded a fist on the door. With a minor degree of clatter, the hinges opened an inch. Gio found himself staring into a pair of vacant, milk-blind eyes. It was the old man he’d sat next to at Venier’s feast—the one who’d convinced the magistrate to free Anzola.

  “Giovanni!” Aurelio appeared then, reaching to open the door wider. His own eyes were bloodshot; he didn’t look at Gio but instead leaned out to peer up at the sky before clasping the old man on the shoulder. “Our friend here was just leaving.”

  The old man nodded absently, with a backward gesture into the room. At the summons, his shrew-faced page materialized. Grasping the old man’s elbow, the page escorted him out. Gio stepped aside to let them pass.

  “I trust we will speak again soon.” Gio caught the smell of arsenic on the old man’s breath, mossy and metallic.

  Aurelio nodded and waved them off. From the stoop, Gio watched as the two figures waded into the murky predawn streets, until a quick tap on the shoulder from Aurelio beckoned him inside. As the alchemist bolted the door behind them, Gio thought he spied a half wing of dark feathers splayed on the table—then Aurelio passed in front of him, taking up his usual spot near the fire, and when Gio looked again, the feathers were gone.

  He rubbed his eyes and leaned a shoulder on the doorframe.

  “Here before sunup, hoping Corvino didn’t follow you?” Aurelio began fumbling with his beakers, the low embers in the hearth glowing feebly. At his elbow, a cup of liquid sat steaming.

  “Do you know what he did to Chiara?” Gio crossed his arms.

  “I know what he did to the Ghetto.”

  “The Ghetto?”

  “Yes, it’s unfortunate. Our friend was particularly displeased: he had priceless items stored there…” Aurelio trailed off, his eyes losing focus as he scanned the jars that sat along the back wall.

  “Chiara.” Gio struggled for words.

  Aurelio’s attention veered back sharply. “I know all about Chiara—that never should have happened. Ah, well, such is the nature of free will I suppose.” The alchemist took a sip from the cup on the table as calmly as if they were discussing the weather. “Don’t fret, Gio, arrangements have been made.” He set the cup back down.

  “What arrangements?” The heavy, spiced air and flickering lights were beginning to throw Gio off-balance.

  “Yes, well. We could return her to family in Padua, of course, but I believe it better to send her to live with Maddalena in Milan.” Aurelio turned to face the fire, warming his hands. At his movement, the flames seemed to liven, crackling and flaring. “She can continue her music studies there, and Maddalena has agreed to provide her with lodging and a position as a tutor.”

  “How has Maddalena possibly already agreed? I don’t understand.” Gio heard the plea in his own voice, a nearly childish whine.

  The alchemist spun around. “Do you imagine I simply totter about this room all day making liquors and useless magics, Gio?” His tired face went slack with frustration. “No! I know things beyond your comprehension, and I have the foresight to prepare for what is to come!” Behind him, the fire hissed and sputtered like a refrain. “A single glance, one small gesture, a change in the wind…you may not notice such trivialities, but I understand them in all their complexity. I know what actions men will take, and I know what is written for us all in the stars!” For a moment, Aurelio seemed to grow larger, his shoulders extending toward the ceiling, robes billowing out like two black wings to send shadows skittering across the wall. Sparks from the fire sprayed red ocher and gold.

  Gio blinked hard. Was he this exhausted? When he looked again, Aurelio had contracted to normal proportions and was calmly moving between beakers and bowls. “Everything in life, Gio, including us, can be broken down into its basic elements. Those who understand what lies within them can remake themselves according to their own design.” With patience now, Aurelio mixed the fluids. “Yet a man who does not acknowledge all aspects of himself will never gain mastery over his fate.” A purple smoke began to spiral slowly upward out of the beaker, noiseless as a snake in the grass. “Are you familiar with the myth of Aristeas, Giovanni?”

  Gio shook his head.

  “Ah, well. No matter.” Aurelio squinted curiously at his friend, then bent back to the vials. “Chiara will go to Milan. This is where her path now leads. We’ll send her off when the messenger comes to say we’ve won the war. The distraction will suit our purposes.”

  “We’ve won?” Gio glanced down, noticing a stool he hadn’t seen before placed at his knee. He sat and put his head in his hands. In the hearth, the embers now crackled cozily.

  “We will. News will arrive within the week: during the celebrations, we’ll spirit Chiara away.” Aurelio pulled on his beard, observing Gio. “You may go along with her if you’d like…”

  Still staring down at the floor, Gio could only nod.

  * * *

  It was the moment soldiers would recount years after, late at night in taverns: the instant the reserve boats came bearing down. Venier’s men reached the Real at the same time the Spanish division arrived—gunners releasing volleys of lead, galleasses shaking from cannon thrust. The Ottomans were dismembered. Turkish soldiers began to swim toward shore by the hundreds, like spawning carp, while the Christians impaled them. Then the head of Ali Pasha—brave, honorable Ali Pasha—was raised up on a pike for all to see, his face gone bloodless. Under a shorn straggle of beard, the ragged flesh of his neck was still vivid red.

  Through the smoke and blaze, the name of Allah was torn from Ali’s flagship and replaced by an image of Christ nailed to the cross.

  25

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’RE done with the app? Didn’t you just get on it?” Joan spun around on the sidewalk and held out a hand. “Henry, keep up with us, sweetie.”

  The three of them were strolling downtown, on a mission to buy a birthday present for one of the moms at Henry’s school, but taking their time window-shopping in the languishing afternoon heat. The students had begun trickling back, and the town felt alive again, humming with new blood. All the shopkeepers had stocked their shelves with fresh fall inventory and arranged new displays in their windows. Overhead, the rustling leaves had reached a pinnacle of green. Soon their color would begin to change—Rose couldn’t wait for those explosions of crisp red and yellow, brilliant pink even, scattering through the air and blanketing the sidewalks: the cacophony of nature as she bedded down to rest.

  “Joan, on that app, I was asked for—” Rose hesitated, glancing back at Henry, who’d reluctantly torn his gaze from a toy store window and was now catching up to them with a dramatically morose look on his face. She leaned and whispered in Joan’s direction “For inappropriate photos not once, not twice, but three times.” She held up her fingers for effect.

  Joan rolled her eyes and hitched her purse strap up higher on her shoulder. “There are always a few of those types in the mix, you can’t expect—”


  “Joan, I was asked if I’m DTF! Do you even know what that means? I had to look it up online!” Rose’s voice was quickly edging away from a whisper. She caught Joan trying to stifle a laugh, spinning her face toward the shops. “Oh my God, you do know what it means! How on earth?”

  “Sweetie, I watch so much more TV than you. And anyway, I think you’re using the wrong app, that one is for millennials.” Joan ruffled her hair with one hand, surreptitiously glancing at her own reflection.

  “Was using,” Rose corrected her. “It’s deleted, trust me.”

  “Well, regardless, there are much better ones to be on, more adult ones. I can help you set them up, I bet I’d be great at the profiles!” Joan’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Ohhhh, and a friend of mine just told me about an amazing matchmaker, I guess her specialty is…” Her voice thinned out: Rose had halted in front of the furniture store.

  Through the window she’d caught a fleeting glimpse of a couch more beautiful than she thought couches could be. Now she stood transfixed. The fabric was a creamy taupe, the best of both brown and gray. Two rows of buttons ran across its back, forming cozy-looking dimples in the woven jacquard. It was a couch that begged to be curled up in, that seemed to call out: Here I am, come sit and read. Rose inched closer to the glass.

  “You know you can go in, right?” Joan was watching her with a bemused expression. As if in a daze, Rose went to the doors and pushed her way inside. Henry ran in front of them, clambering up onto the couch as soon as Rose took a seat. He bounced on the cushion beside her, legs sticking out in the air.