In the Company of the Courtesan (13 page)

“I don't believe you. I saw your face. You weren't sure. And he”—I poke my hand toward the old man, furious that he still will not look at me—“he can't even see his hand in front of his face. How can he tell anything?”

“My father has been dealing in gems his whole life,” the pawnbroker says gently. “I ask him only when there is a doubt. He has never been wrong. I am sorry.”

I shake my head. “Then I'll take it elsewhere,” I say, squirming my way off the chair and gathering the stones back into the purse. “You're not the—”

Now the old man's voice rises to join mine, his tone as angry as my own. And this time he looks at me. His eyes are filmy and half blind, like those of the mad La Draga, and it turns my stomach to see it. “What does he say?” I yell furiously.

His son hesitates.

“Tell me what he said.”

“He says that this city is full of conspiracies against us.”

“What—Jews, you mean?”

He nods slightly.

“And he thinks what? That I came here for the last six months trading good gems with you to pass you off a fake now? Is that it?”

He makes a gesture with his hand as if to show that this is only an old man's opinion.

“You tell him that when I lived in Rome, our house was so rich we played dice with better stones than he'll ever see in this hovel.”

“Please…please, we can still do business.” And I realize as he says it that I am shaking. “Please, sit down again.”

I sit.

He says something in a firm voice to the old man, who scowls and gets up, shuffling his way toward the door. It slams behind him.

“I am sorry. My father is anxious about many things. You are a foreigner, so I think you don't know, but the Great Council has voted to close the Ghetto and send us out of Venice again, even though we have a contract with them to stay. It is about money, of course, and if we pay again, then no doubt we can change it, but my father is an elder of the community, and it makes him angry. For this reason he is sometimes suspicious of the wrong people.”

“I would say so, yes. I didn't come to cheat you.”

“I do not think you did.”

“But someone
has
cheated me.”

“Yes. And it has been done with some cunning. But then Venice, she is a cunning place.”

“But how? I mean, how does…one make such a fake?” And I can hear the tremble in my voice as I say it. Five minutes before I was planning our rich future, now I am spinning through black space. Oh, my God. Oh, my God…How could we have been so stupid?

“You would be surprised how easy it is. There are men who work in the glass foundries on Murano who can make stones so fine that even the doge's wife would not know she was wearing them. If they have the original, they make a not so good copy fast for a quick substitute, then a better one in a little more time. You hear stories—”

“But I check the purse every day.”

“And did you study each and every stone?”

“I, er…No—just enough to see that they were there.”

He shrugs.

“So, what are you telling me? That it's worth nothing?”

“In terms of money, no. It would have cost maybe ten, twenty ducats to make…which is not so cheap for a fake. But it is a good one. Good enough to wear as a jewel. Your mistress, because—I think you are selling for somebody else, yes?”

I nod.

“Well, she might wear it around her neck, and most people will not know. But if you want to pawn it now, here, to me, then it is worth nothing. I have no need for such things, and for me it is better if they are not on the market.”

“And the others?”

“Oh, the others are real enough. And I will buy them.”

“How much will you give me?”

He stares down at them on the table, moving them around with his finger. “For the little ruby—twenty ducats.” He looks up at me. “This is a good price.”

I nod. “I know. And the pearls?”

“Another twenty.”

Forty ducats. It might rent some tapestries for one room, and maybe buy a set of glasses to drink from. Though the wine in them would be vinegar. No noble worth his salt would come near us, or those who came once would certainly not return. Nevertheless. “I will take it.”

He pulls down the papers to make out the bond. I look around me. I have grown to like this room. With its books and ledgers and pens, it speaks of ordered management and perseverance. But all I can feel now is panic like bat wings smashing around my head. He dusts the ink and pushes the paper over to me. He watches me as I sign my name.

“You are from Rome, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So, what? You came here with the troubles?”

“Yes.”

“It was a bad business, I think. Many Jews died there too. I never saw that city, though I hear it was very rich. But I know Urbino. And Modena. And this is better than both of them. Even with our great argument with the state, Venice is a safe city for us Jews. I think perhaps it is because here there are already so many people who are different from one another, yes?”

“Perhaps,” I say. “I…er…I am sorry for your misfortune.”

He nods. “And I for yours. If you have anything else to sell, please, I will look at it for you.”

We have, it seems, after all, talked about life.

 

Outside, the sky is as gray as the buildings, and the cobbles are streaming under the rain so that the whole city is like a great mirror, its surface speckled and cracked in a million places. I run like a dog, head down, close to the walls, my legs splashed to my knees and my new velvet doublet sodden within minutes. The sudden exertion hurts my legs, but I go on regardless. At least it stops the thoughts for a moment. There is nowhere to go but home, but perhaps because I dread it so, somewhere on the way I take a wrong bridge or alley and find myself at the edge of the Rialto, where the streets are thick with market crowds and there are dozens of taverns and wineshops in which you could crush memory and drink yourself toward oblivion. I might even have gone in if I had found the right one, but the next turn I take brings me to an alley I don't recognize, and from there I emerge at the water's edge at right angles to the Rialto Bridge. The Grand Canal here is so crammed with barges and boats serving the great fish market that even the rain smells of the fish flesh and the sea.

On the other side, the morning crowd is pouring out from the covered walkway of the bridge when a woman starts screaming “Thief! Thief!” at the top of her lungs. At the same instant a figure breaks free and smashes and skids his way along the canal edge. He tries to push inland, where the alleyways will swallow him, but the throng is too thick, and instead he jumps onto one of the barges and starts clambering across the great canal by way of the fishing boats lashed together for unloading. The crowd is going mad now, flapping and squealing as he slips and slides across wet planks. He is more than halfway across, close enough for me to be able to see the fear in his face, when he hits a mess of fish guts and comes crashing down between the hulls of two boats, so hard I can almost hear his ribs crack as he hits the wood.

A roar of triumph goes up from the other side, and within minutes two great fishermen are hauling him up, he howling with pain, and dragging him back over the boats toward the bank. Tomorrow, if he isn't dead by then, he'll be strung up in front of the magistrate's office next to the bridge with the skin off his back and his thieving hand hanging from his neck. And for what? A purse with a couple of ducats or a grabbed ring or bracelet, of which, for all he knew, the stones would only be worth the glass they were made of.

I stand in the deluge listening to his screams with the water cascading down my face and my nose running with a mixture of snot and rain and the terror of poverty like great stones grinding together in my gut. And when I can no longer see or hear him, I turn and make my way back to the main streets and home.

CHAPTER TEN

The worst of the downpour has slackened by the time I get to the house, and my wits, if not my spirit, are somewhat restored. Only my lady and I had known where I had gone that morning. So the thief, whoever she is, would not necessarily be aware that her deception had been found out.

The kitchen is empty and Meragosa's cloak is gone, but this is the time when she is always at the market, and while she is lazy in many ways, she enjoys the power and the gossip that come with a purse enough to brave the rain.

I move silently up the stairs until I am on the landing and can see into the room ahead. Fiammetta is sitting next to the window, her eyes covered by what looks like a mask of wet leaves and her head a storm of golden hair, the new tresses falling from under a silk band woven halfway up her head. Were it any other moment, I would be transfixed by the change. But there is someone else in the room who takes my attention first. The young woman is gone, but in the middle of the bed sits La Draga, all twisted up, her sightless, egg-white eyes staring into the distance as her hands move swiftly over pots and packages and a small dish into which she is mixing some kind of ointment.

But though she is blind as a newborn ewe, she knows I am there long before I appear in the doorway. As I walk in, I see, clear as daylight, a shadow cross her features, and she shifts her hands back quickly from the bed into her lap. And I have it then and there, in that look. What was it Meragosa said about her? That she would sell her grandmother for the right amount of gold. Amid all that laughter and gossip, I daresay there had also been the story of our escape from Rome. La Draga would have no need of sight to find a purse under a mattress or to feel the size of a jewel, for as she is only too eager to tell me she sees the world through other senses, and she is smart enough to know what sells to whom and at what price. I know who has stolen from us. And she knows that I know it, because I see the fear mounting in her body even before I have accused her. God's wounds, no wonder I have been so suspicious of her.

“Are you comfortable there?” I say as I walk toward her. “You don't feel the need to slide your fingers down the slats to help you balance at all?”

“Bucino?” My lady slips the leaves from her eyes and turns, careful of both the glory and the weight of her new hair. “What is it? My God, what has happened to you? You look awful.”

On the bed La Draga has brought both her arms up to protect herself. But she needn't have bothered. Nothing in the world would persuade me to touch her. The very thought makes me sick.

“Nothing's happened,” I yelp. “Except this witch here has made fools of both of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about theft and forgery, that's what. Our great ruby is a fake, lifted by clever fingers and replaced by a piece of glass. It's worthless. As are we. So maybe,” I say, jabbing my finger at her, “maybe when
she
comes to give us her next bill, she might offer you a small discount for making her so rich. Eh?” And I take a step closer to the creature on the bed so that she will feel the wind from my breath on her face because, yes, for all her clever words, I want to see her scared.

“Oh, sweet Jesus!” My lady has her hand clutched to her mouth.

On the bed, La Draga still doesn't move. I am near enough now to see how pale and milky her skin is, to catch the dark circles under the eyes and watch her lips tremble. I bring my mouth close to her ear. And she is frightened enough now for she senses my closeness: I can feel it, like an animal, her body febrile and startled, frozen in the moment of tension before the jump or the run.

“Eh? Eh?” I say, and this time I shout.

Now at last she moves, snapping her head around and giving out a violent hiss through her teeth, like the sound some snakes make before the kill. And though I could crack her head in my hands, I jump back, for there is such wildness in her defense.

“Oh, my God. No. Leave her alone.” And my lady is pulling me away now. “Leave her, do you hear? It isn't her. She didn't do it. It's Meragosa.”

“What?”

“It's Meragosa. It has to be. Oh, God, I knew it. I knew there was something wrong this morning when I saw her. Maybe even last night. Didn't you feel it? She wasn't interested in the dress. Couldn't have cared less. But then when we ate she was—I don't know—almost too happy about it all.”

I think back, but I can remember nothing except her sour little smile and the taste of her rabbit gravy. God save me from my own complacency.

“After you'd left this morning, she asked where you'd gone. I didn't think to—I mean…I said you went to the Jew. She left straight after. I thought she was at the market—”

But I don't hear the rest of the sentence because I am already halfway down the stairs.

Since our arrival, Meragosa had moved her carcass into a room off the kitchen. It had little enough in it to start with, but now it has even less. The old wooden chest that held her clothes is open and empty. The crucifix from the hook above the bed is gone, and even the coverings have been stripped off the mattress.

How? When? Anytime, that is the answer. Anytime when I was out and my lady was sleeping or careless. It had been too dangerous to keep the purse with me always on the streets. Dwarves make fair game for those intent on mischief, and one with precious stones in his crotch would have ended up with no gems and no balls either. But the real fault had been in my judgment. I thought that between my fangs and the promise of wealth I had subdued her: that she would see a richer future in loyalty than in theft. And so it had seemed all these months. But she had just been biding her time. Waiting for the right moment to fleece us even as she slid the blame onto someone else. God damn it—I, whose job it is to be clever, have let myself be shafted by a vicious old slut.

It takes me longer to climb back up to the room. When I get there, my face tells the story that my voice can't manage.

My lady drops her head. “Ah—the poxy hag. I swear I never left her in here on her own…. I had her in my sights the whole time…. Oh, Jesu, how stupid could we be? How much have we lost?”

I glance quickly at the woman on the bed.

“Oh, you can say it. We have nothing left to hide now.”

“Three hundred ducats.”

Her eyes close, and the moan is low and long. “Oh, Bucino.”

I watch her face as the meaning of the loss seeps like a black stain into the colors of our future. I want to go up to her, to touch her skirt or take her hand, something, anything, to reduce the pain of the moment, but now, with all my fury spent, my legs feel like slabs of marble, and a deep, familiar ache is starting to pump itself up from my thighs along the cord of my spine. God damn my stupid, stunted body. Had I been tall and fat with a set of butcher's hands, Meragosa would never have dared to cheat us. How she must have been laughing at us. Even the thought of it makes me murderous.

The silence is heavy around us. On the bed, La Draga sits completely motionless again, her head tilted into the air, her face like wax, as if she is absorbing the drama and pain around her through the pores of her skin. God damn her, too. But I have spent enough time being stupid, and among the many ways in which the world is turned upside down is that she is now a confidante in our disgrace, and without the ruby's ducats we will be among her creditors soon enough.

I take a step toward her. “Look,” I say quietly, and from the way she shifts her head, it is clear that she knows the word is meant for her. “I—I am sorry…I—I thought—”

She starts to move her lips in silence. Praying or talking to herself? I glance at my lady, but she is too locked in the misery of our misfortune to pay me any heed.

“I was wrong. I got it wrong,” I repeat hopelessly.

Her lips continue to move, as if she is almost reciting or incanting something. I have never given credence to the power of curses: I have been cursed enough by my birth not to be afraid of being further hammered by words, but even so it chills me to watch her.

“Are—are you all right?” I say eventually.

She shakes her head slightly, as if my words are disturbing her. “You have been running, yes? Are your legs aching?”

Her voice is harsher than before, concentrated, almost as if she is talking to someone else, someone inside herself.

“Yes,” I say quietly. “My legs are aching.”

She nods. “Your back will be starting to throb too. That is because your leg bones are not strong enough to carry your trunk. So it presses down like a great stone at the bottom of your spine.”

And as she says it I feel it, pain like a fat pulse near my fat ass.

“What about your ears? Has the cold got in yet?”

“A little.” I glance at my lady, who is recovered enough at least to be listening now. “But not like before.”

“No? Well, you must be careful with that, for when pain flares inside the head, it is the worst of all.”

Yes, there it is already, in my memory: the taste of my own tears as the red-hot skewers twist into my skull.

She frowns slightly. Her face is tilted upright now, the eyes half closed, so I see only the smooth paleness of her skin.

“It seems there is a great deal wrong with you, Bucino. So what, I wonder, is right about you?”

It is the first time that she has ever used my name, and coming so close on my humiliation, it takes me aback, so that I flounder for a moment. “What is ‘right' about me? I…er…” I look to my lady, and I feel sympathy there now, but she says nothing. “Well, I—I am not stupid. Ha—not usually. I am determined. And I am loyal and…while I shout, I do not bite. Or not to any effect, it would seem.”

She is quiet for a moment. Then she sighs. “It was not your fault. Meragosa hated everyone,” she says, and her voice is soft again. “It came off her like a bad smell. I am sure you are not the first or the last that she has destroyed with her greed.”

She starts to gather her pots together, feeling for their lids, slipping them on, pulling her bag toward her. “I will come back to finish the hairline another day.”

I make a move toward the bed, I suppose to offer help if she needs it. But she stops me in my tracks. “Keep away from me.”

She is still packing when the noise rises from below. What do I think? That Meragosa has had a change of heart and come back to apologize?

By the time I reach him, he is already on the turn of the stairs. He is dressed for visiting, in a fine cloak with a fresh velvet cap on his head, dry enough to have come by cover of boat, although for him to know the way to our house someone else would have had to nose it out before him. God damn it. Is there any end to my carelessness?

There is no point in trying to stop him now. I move back into the room quickly, mouthing his name to Fiammetta. She pulls herself upright, and as she turns to greet him, she lets the new fire of her hair slide around her face so that it masks the panic I see there just before the smile comes.

Secondhand dress, secondhand hair, still first-class beauty. No doubt about that. I read it in the shine of his eyes.

“Well, well…Fiammetta Bianchini,” he says, moving the words around his mouth as if he can taste her in them. “What a totally expected pleasure it is to see you again.”

“Yes, I imagine it is,” she replies softly, and you would think from the ease of her tone that she has been waiting this whole morning for him to walk through the door. It is a marvel to me still: how even when the world is crumbling around her, the kind of challenge that would have most people pissing in fear seems only to make her more relaxed, more vibrant. “It is a big place, Venice. How did you manage to find us here, Pietro?”

“Ah…I am sorry,” he says with a grin, and throws a fast glance at me. “I did not mean to break my word, Bucino. But you are such a visible addition to any city. As soon as one knows you are here, it is not difficult at all to find out where you have been and where you return to.”

Secondhand clothes merchants and pawnbrokers. He is right. It can't have taken much. Whoever followed me home, I hope they are coughing their guts out from a fever caught in the rain.

He turns back to her, and the look between them holds. “It has been a long time.”

“A long time, yes.”

“I must say, you are as…radiant—yes, radiant—as I remember.”

“Thank you. You, on the other hand, seem to have spread a little. Though I daresay you are rich enough to go with it.”

“Ah, ah.” His laugh is too spontaneous to be anything but pleasure. “There is nothing in the world so sharp and sweet as the tongue of a Roman courtesan. Bucino told me you escaped, but I am glad your wit is as unscathed as your body, for I have heard the most terrible stories. You know I predicted it would happen, of course. My
prognostico
written in Mantua last year said as much.”

“I am sure it did. And therefore you must have been delighted to hear how the army flooded in reciting your very words on the degradation and corruption of the Holy See.”

“I…No, no. I didn't know that…. Is that true? Did they? My God, you did not tell me that, Bucino.”

He glances at me, and I try to keep my face neutral. But he is too sharp not to read it.

“Ah. My lady Fiammetta. How cruel to play upon a poet's sensitivities. But I forgive you, for the barb was…excellent.” He shakes his head. “I must say, I do believe I have missed you.”

She opens her mouth to throw back a witticism, but there is something in his tone that makes her stop. I watch her falter. “And I you, sir…in my fashion. You survived Giberti well enough?”

He shrugs and lifts up his hands, one of which he holds folded in on itself. “God is generous. He gave me two hands. With a little practice, the left can tell as much truth as the right.”

“More, I would hope,” she says a little tartly.