The Lost Diary of Venice Page 31
She’d help him live on.
From his robe, Gio retrieved the small vial—Aurelio’s parting gift. He held it up to the fading sun, watching the liquid swim, viscous and heliotrope. Inside the house, he heard the sounds of Francesca and Lucio readying for dinner, the clatter of plates and bowls being set on the table. Soon, Lucio’s voice called out to him in the gloaming. Time to come inside.
* * *
Chiara set her pen down. The last page of transcription was done: Giovanni’s treatise, rewritten on fresh parchment, was ready to be sent to Venice, to the publisher Domenico had helped arrange. It’d taken far longer than she’d wanted it to, but life had been busier than anyone could have planned. She made a mental note that she’d need to rebind the sheets of the original diary somehow and find a safe place for it among their belongings. The journey back to Padua, to a sister she hadn’t seen in a decade, would be long. Still, the thought of nieces and nephews beckoned, along with the promise of a fresh start. She’d arrive bearing a new story to share: no longer reticent courtesan, but widowed music tutor trained in Milan by Maddalena Casulana herself. For her part, Cecelia would stay on with Maddalena, assisting with tours—and finally getting her wish of travel.
Chiara picked up the pen again; there was something she’d forgotten. On the title page of the new treatise, she inked two additional words: In Memoriam.
“Mama! Mama!” Shouts from down the hall, followed by a pounding of heels on the wood floor. The arrival of a toddler at the door, breathless with excitement.
“Giovanni, come here.” The boy launched his body toward her unsteadily, arms outstretched. She lifted him up and he wriggled onto her lap, a warm weight, familiar as any of her own limbs. “Do you want me to read you the story again?” He nodded, and Chiara sifted through the pages until she found it: the tale of the bird and the tree. After so long, she could recite it by heart.
She touched a finger to Giovanni’s face, sketched next to her own. Her other hand rested on the boy’s head, his nest of downy curls.
“Once upon a time…”
29
IT WAS SPRING AGAIN, AND Rose had missed the delivery driver. She’d been in the middle of pouring hot water into the French press when the bell rang. She’d set the kettle down, then made a dash for the door, arriving just in time to see the uniformed man—dark polo shirt, knee-length shorts—swing back into the FedEx truck. He’d left a brown box on the doorstep; she brought it in and set it on the kitchen counter. The return address was a children’s book publisher she recognized. Was this something she’d ordered for Joan and forgotten? As if on cue, her cellphone started to vibrate on the table, Joan’s number blazoned across the top.
“Hiiiiiiii.” Joan’s voice was ebullient. She was pregnant again, after months of trying, and nothing would shake her satisfied approval of the world at large.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” Rose held the phone up to her ear with one shoulder. Grabbing a pen from the bundle stashed in the kitchen drawer, she stabbed at the blue chevron tape that ran along the edges of the box.
“Oh, I’m wonderful! Still no sickness, this one’s just nothing like Henry.” Joan was convinced she was having a girl but refused to be told for certain; Rose was convinced she just wanted a reason to do the nursery up in pinks and bows. “Sooo, how’s the survey coming?”
Rose glanced at the thick stack of papers sitting next to the French press. She and Lucas had put everything they had into the project—hours of research and interviews with experts. Just that week, they’d come up with a title: From Papyrus to Palimpsest: The Art of Conservation.
“Really well, actually, we only have a few chapters left. And Lucas has already spoken to a publisher who might be interested—”
“Oh, Rose, that’s just fantastic!”
“And, we’ve been thinking, when it comes out, we can set up a gallery exhibit for the students so they can look at archive examples firsthand.” Rose could hear the excitement in her own voice. She tugged hard at the flaps of the box.
“Well, that sounds perfect, sweetie; I’m just so proud of you!”
“Thanks…” The tape from the box had somehow managed to get stuck on the sleeve of her cashmere sweater. Rose plucked at it carefully, trying not to pull too many fibers.
“And when will you bring Lucas over for dinner next?” To no one’s surprise except perhaps Rose’s own, she and Lucas had become what Joan called “an item.” It wasn’t that one had formally asked the other out so much as they’d just begun spending all their free time together. At first it was for the book, but when the work went late—which it invariably did—they’d end up eating dinner. Occasionally Lucas would cook, as it quickly became clear that Rose’s main culinary abilities consisted of opening canned soup and overboiling pasta. More often, they’d go out to restaurants, where Lucas always seemed to know at least one person on staff. When the Elizabethan club on campus opened their famous vault to display rare editions of Milton, Spenser, and Shakespeare, Lucas had made sure Rose got a front-row view. Then, over the holidays, he’d used the motivation of a well-placed sprig of mistletoe to kiss her, and she’d been genuinely shocked by the tingles that’d raced up her spine. She’d been doubly shocked when, three days later, he’d gone on vacation with his family and she’d missed him terribly. He’d fit so easily into her life that she hadn’t grasped how much his presence meant until he’d gone. She’d shown up at the airport clutching a bouquet of paperwhite narcissus. Four months later, and half his clothes hung in the big wardrobe upstairs.
Now Rose peered into the box, saw it contained a slim hardcover book. “Oh, I’ll have to check the calendar; he’s always making plans.”
“Well, you know, Mark is just dying to get his opinion on what he should put in that back planter. If this summer is as hot as last year’s, then…” Joan’s voice receded into the background as Rose slid the book out.
The Egg and the Tree.
It was Giovanni’s story! Rewritten into a children’s tale—and illustrated with William’s artwork. On the cover, he’d painted himself in Giovanni’s place: it was William now, beardless, with soaring white wings and broken eggshell shards at his feet. Staring up at Rose with those dark eyes.
She froze, then quickly flipped the book over, irrationally afraid for a second that Joan might see. The back was illustrated in a spiraling pattern of roots and leaves. “Joan, can I call you back?”
“Oh…okay. Sure?” Something in her tone must have warned Joan not to pry. Rose hung up the phone and set it down on the table. Steeling herself, she turned the book right-side up. She hadn’t seen William’s face since the night of his show. A dull ache whirlpooled in the center of her chest. She opened the cover and began to read, the forgotten coffee turning bitter in its glass beaker.
The art was unexpected. Minutely detailed yet still somehow unstructured and spontaneous, it captured all the best elements of William’s style. Wing and feather, root and bloom. Limb and mouth and sky. The woman’s face was continuously hidden, obscured by leaves; mysterious, the way Giovanni had always kept her in his diary. William had added a new detail to this tree-woman, however: around her neck hung a strand of pearls with a dangling, brilliant sapphire.
“Wisdom and fidelity,” Rose said out loud to no one.
After she read it through once, she turned to the back page, to the author’s bio. Lomazzo lives with his wife and two daughters in New York City. He’d moved back, after all. Without thinking, she leafed to the front and began going through the story again, more slowly this time. On the third page, Rose paused. She blinked hard to clear her vision, then bent closer to the picture. There, on the neck of the woman…a birthmark.
Her birthmark.
One hand unconsciously flew up to touch her own neck. It was unmistakably hers. Rose spun back to the first page again, scrutinizing the images in order. The jawline, the cur
ve of the mouth. The eyes that peered out through the limbs, sometimes gray-blue, sometimes green. Labradorite eyes.
So, he’d done it: he’d answered her question after all this time.
It had been real.
* * *
Hours later and the sun was nestling into the boughs of the neighbor’s sycamore tree, turning the star-shaped leaves translucent. Rose found herself on the couch again, the book on the coffee table in front of her, its spine already cracked from use. She reached for her phone and dialed Joan’s number.
“I was wondering when you were going to call.” In the background, Rose could hear the animated soundtrack to Henry’s favorite cartoon. From her own kitchen came the clatter of pans: Lucas had arrived bearing a brown bag filled with sponge-like morels that smelled of fecund earth; now he was in the midst of making a risotto. Rose cupped one hand over the mouthpiece of the phone to lessen the noise.
“Sorry, I just got a book in the mail that I wasn’t expecting.”
“What kind of book?”
Rose stared at the glossy cover, hunting for the right words. William’s gaze fixed her, framed by white feathers.
“A fairy tale,” she answered. “It’s a fairy tale.”
To Caleb, my love
Acknowledgments
My deepest thanks….
To the memory of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Sebastiano Venier, and all the others whose lives I took such creative license with. To my family—Ken, Sybil, and Vanessa—for the unceasing encouragement and kindness. Your love and support is my foundation. To agent extraordinaire, Alexandra Machinist, for seeing a spark of possibility in the earliest draft of this book, and for making dreams come true. Your presence in my life is nothing short of miraculous. To my editor, Shauna Summers, who transformed this story into what it always wanted to be: you are a midwife and a magician, and working with you is an honor. To Liz Dodd, for being on the frontlines—your honesty and your eye made all the difference. To Tamim Ansary, for believing in me before I had the courage to believe in myself, and to the SF writers workshop, for the much-needed community and feedback. To the women in my life who read and responded: Andrea Perdue, Meghan Arthur, Greta Perel, and Becca Anzalone, you each spurred me on when I needed it most. To my full moon companions, for the warmth of your friendship. To Geraldo Sousa, for your generosity of spirit and infinite patience: without you I never would have met Giovanni (or earned my degree)! To Seth Thompson, thank you for your charming hospitality—and for the tea. To Maridette de Guzman, who always makes me feel I can do the impossible: I wish everyone had a cheerleader like you. To the entire Ballantine team, a million thank-yous.
Most of all to Caleb, best husband and father: thank you for being the calm center my whole world orbits around.
A Note to the Reader
In the summer of 2008, the world experienced an economic recession, and I—a struggling waitress at the time—was offered a generous scholarship to attend graduate school at the University of Kansas. So it was that I found myself as a young adult packing a book bag and hurrying off to class.
I decided to pursue a degree in rhetoric and composition. One of my favorite courses focused on literature from the 1500s, and for the semester’s final paper I settled on studying examples of early color theory. The topic fit the assignment, and allowed me to pore over books filled with gorgeous reproductions of Renaissance paintings. I was happy for any excuse to linger in the library: it was winter by then, and bitter cold, and the stacks were much warmer than my apartment.
It was during one of those rambling afternoons that I first met Giovanni. His treatise, Trattato dell’ arte della pittura, scultura et architettura, popped up in search results as an influential piece of art criticism—and when I got my hands on the book, I was instantly enthralled. Filled with intricate sketches and chapters titled after colors or emotions, it was a fascinating mix of the scientific and the mystic. A quick bit of research revealed that Giovanni, a Milanese painter, had turned to art criticism after losing his sight. This tragedy struck a deep chord in me: as an artist myself, I understood what such a loss might mean.
I felt driven to investigate further. What had his world been like? I discovered that just as Giovanni was losing his sight, Italy—as part of a league of European Catholic states—had gone to war against the Ottoman Empire in what became known as the Battle of Lepanto. My parents had recently moved to Istanbul and the city captivated me from the second I saw my first minaret. It wasn’t hard to imagine an Ottoman fleet charging across the seas toward Venice. Though other classes soon stole my attention away, I still thought from time to time of that artist going blind while his country fought in one of the largest naval battles in history. It was too compelling an image to forget.
After graduating, however, life took on a frenetic pace, and Giovanni was relegated to the recesses of my mind. I moved to New York, then China, then San Francisco. It wasn’t until I became a consultant to tech companies, however, that Gio’s world resurfaced. By that time, I was boarding corporate buses that ferried their employees to work—deadly silent buses, where every head was bent over a laptop, every ear was plugged. I was learning about artificial intelligence. I was wearing all black. One day, while brainstorming how to make a machine sound more human, it struck me: somehow, I’d ended up in a life that seemed cold and calculating, devoid of passion.
I couldn’t help but recall how alive I’d felt back in that warm library on those winter afternoons, paging through books on the Renaissance. In an effort to feel that way again, I picked up a blank journal and began to write. From the very first lines, characters and scenes came rushing forward as if they’d been there all along, just waiting. I knew I wanted to share my experience of getting lost in the stacks, discovering Giovanni—and in an instant Rose materialized, bestowed with my own introversion and enthusiasm for research. A hopeless romantic, of course I had to provide her with a love interest. I made William an artist out of my own desire to explore the nature of creativity; he also served as a logical way for Rose to encounter Giovanni’s treatise.
While Rose and William are entirely fictional, the world they inhabit is anchored in reality. Knowing Rose would require top-tier academic facilities, I placed her imaginary bookshop near Yale’s charming campus in New Haven, Connecticut. Eventually, I was able to pay a visit to the university myself. It was fall at the time, and the avenues were blanketed in brilliant leaves that gave a satisfying crunch underfoot. I spent hours exploring the Sterling Memorial Library as well as the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, with its gleaming marble exterior. I could easily imagine Rose there, roaming the aisles, meeting Lucas in the hush of the reading room. I can only hope I was able to adequately capture the spirit of each institution.
Just as the modern day narrative contains both real and fictional elements, so too does Giovanni’s tale combine the actual with the imagined. When I discovered that Gio’s blindness coincided with the Battle of Lepanto, I knew I wanted to weave both stories together. I began by imagining Giovanni’s famous treatise had been lost to history. I then transplanted Giovanni from Milan to Venice. Only in that port town could he encounter Sebastiano Venier, the real-life admiral of the Venetian fleet, who later became Doge. And what more dramatic way for the two men to meet than through an enchanting courtesan? During my research I’d come across a wonderful book, Lives of the Courtesans: Portraits of the Renaissance, by Lynne Lawner, which offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of Renaissance courtesans—including that of well-known Venetian Veronica Franco. (The Honest Courtesan by Margaret F. Rosenthal was another fabulous resource). A gifted poet, Veronica struggled mightily against the limitations set upon her gender. Using her as my inspiration, I developed the character of Chiara. Like Veronica, Chiara is beautiful, talented, and the star of Venetian salons. Unlike Veronica, Chiara is Jewish.
Initially, I had no thought of including a specifica
lly Jewish character in my book. Then one Sunday, I chanced upon a New York Times article, written by David Laskin in honor of the 500th anniversary of one of the world’s first ghettos—in Venice. Eagerly, I tore through the short piece. I learned that the very word ghetto is Venetian: the area used to house Jews in Venice was the site of a former foundry, or “geto” in Venetian dialect. Before I knew it, I was launched on a whole new round of research, exploring how Jews were expelled from much of Europe and how a vibrant—and very confined—ghetto was established in Venice.
My favorite books always include a twist, and I quickly realized that making Chiara Jewish would be a way to not only integrate the rich history of the Venetian ghetto, but to add an element to the story that might not be expected. During my reading, I’d also come across the real-life figure of Joseph Nassi, a Jew who fled religious persecution in Venice to become an influential figure in the Ottoman Empire and a key player during the Battle of Lepanto. The connection between Venice and Istanbul grew stronger.
To properly illustrate the precarious position Venetian Jews found themselves in, however, I needed a character to embody the religious fervor and intense anti-Semitism so present in Renaissance Europe. The outline of Corvino began to take shape. In my experience, bigotry is often born from personal pain and fear, so I made an effort to show how Corvino’s character might have been influenced by trauma. I also took notes from the hunger for influence I’d encountered in Silicon Valley, and gave Corvino a position just outside the reach of power.
To provide all these narrative threads with an organizing structure, I relied upon the buildup to the battle. As soon as I began my investigations, I realized that entire books could be written about the battle—and they have been. The most helpful for me was Niccolò Capponi’s excellent Victory of the West: The Great Christian Muslim Clash at the Battle of Lepanto, which provides a nuanced look into the political machinations that led to the conflict, and the complex maneuvers of the battle itself. One of the moments that struck me as truly remarkable was the way in which the new Venetian galleasses altered the battle formation, prompting the Holy League to arrange itself in a shape that many choose to see as a cross, while the Ottomans stuck to their traditional half-moon approach—a literal cross battling a crescent (a crescent being the image that is now on the Turkish flag). While I was forced to summarize or omit many details of the battle, of course I had to integrate this moment of real-life symbolism into the book. It may also interest readers to know that the characters of Ali Pasha and Mustafa Pasha are based on real people: Mustafa Pasha did indeed insist that Commander Bragadin be flayed alive, and Ali Pasha was killed in action.