In the Company of the Courtesan (17 page)

“Your timing is excellent, Bucino. There is a great demand on the mainland for a proper work on the Catastrophe of Rome. With a big enough audience, it could shame the emperor into better behavior and the pope into more piety, for they are each as stubborn as the other. To which end I am gathering stories that I will weave into a tapestry of grief: my aim is to bring to life the huge party of death, in which, along with the ordinary Romans, the Curia, the priests, and the nuns suffered the worst.” He grins as he recalls my words. “See? Next time people say that Pietro Aretino doesn't tell the truth, you remind them that he does not change a single word. So—let me pull out more threads of memory from that great fat head of yours. What, for example, was Fiammetta's place in this? For I could tell from her face that her story must have been extraordinary.”

A courtesan who welcomed the invaders and then lost her hair and part of her spirit to a group of harpy heretics—such a tale he might indeed have made up, though in his words it would no doubt become even more foul.

“The story isn't mine to tell. Ifyou want it, you must ask her.”

“Oh! She will not talk to me. She is angry with me still. Ah! A woman's rage: molten rock from a volcano, never to be stopped and taking forever to be cooled. You should counsel her, Bucino. She would listen to you. She would do better to settle this feud. We are all in exile together now, and while Venice has its fair share of beautiful women, few have her flair or her wit. And, believe me, this is a place ripe for rich living, liberty, honor, prosperity—”

“So you are saying all over town, I hear. I hope you are making a fine salary out of all this civic toadying.”

“Ha! Not yet, though I have great hopes that the doge will smile on me. He is very eager to hear his city praised in print.”

The lovely Anfrosina appears with the fruit and the wine, making a meal of setting it on the table and being rewarded with a careless pat on her rump as she leaves. It strikes me that one would probably tire of her after a while. Though it would be fine enough to be given the chance. I put her out of my mind, for it is as well not to mix business with pleasure.

He offers me first pick. “See how well my friends treat me? Baskets of fresh produce from the country. The best wines. I am more loved than I deserve.”

“Maybe you are more feared.”

“No. From now on Aretino is a man of peace, piety, and praise. Or for a while at least.” And he grins.

I take a breath. “So there will be no poems of pricks and snatches and prelates sodomizing courtesans in Venice then. No more screwing until we die of it, in celebration of poor Adam and Eve, who brought the sin of shame upon us.”

He stares at me. “Bucino! You have a better memory than I do. I did not know you were so fond of my work that you could quote it so eloquently.”

“Well, it is my work too, in a manner of speaking.”

“Indeed, it is. And as you know, I have the highest opinion of it, and I am sure I will return to it someday. For the time being, though, I am a reformed pen, giving my attention to more civic and spiritual concerns.”

“Of course. So you wouldn't know anything about a boatload of drunken louts outside our windows two nights ago.”

He stops for a second. “Hmm. Has your lady been receiving admirers?”

I say nothing.

“Well, it is true that I sang her praises to a few who appreciate real beauty. But only because I miss her.”

I keep my silence.

“She is all right, though? I mean, there was no trouble? That's not why you're here, I hope. I wish her no ill, Bucino. You of all people know that.”

And his posturing makes me feel better about what is to follow. “Actually,” I say, “I am here because I have a business proposal to discuss with you.”

“Business. Ah.” And he reaches for the bottle and pours me some wine. It is pale gold, and the sunlight in the room plays through its bubbles. “I am listening.”

“Something has come into my hands. A work of art, of considerable worth. It is a copy of Giulio's
Positions.
” I pause again.

“In the original engravings…”

“The original! Marcantonio's?”

“Yes.” I am enjoying myself now. “And with ‘The Licentious Sonnets' attached.”

“But how? It's not possible. Marcantonio's plates were destroyed long before I put pen to paper.”

“I cannot tell you how,” I say, “because, to be honest, I do not know. All I know is that I have them.”

“Where did you get them?”

I pick up a few more berries. They are a little sharp in my mouth, but it is early in the year, and the sun has not had time to sweeten them. “Let us say they came to me in the madness of the last days of Rome. When many people were on the run.”

“Ascanio,” he mutters. “Of course, the little shit.”

“If it is any consolation, he left Rome without the one volume that would have made his fortune.”

He glances at me. “Where is it? Can I see it?”

“Oh, I didn't bring it with me. Its carnal sentiments would stain the streets of this pure city.”

He grunts. “I see. What do you want from me, Bucino?”

“I thought we might enter into a publishing venture together. With your connections, we could get them well copied and sell them around town. They would make our fortune.”

“Yes,” he murmurs. “Your fortune and, at this moment, my disgrace.”

“Ah. In which case, perhaps it would be better for me to sell them to a single collector. Someone of taste and influence. We are a little pressed for funds at the moment, and I think it possible we might get a few bids.”

“Ooh—blackmail!” He takes a swig from his glass and watches me as he swallows. “I must say, I am disappointed. I had thought more highly of you.”

I bow my head. “I learned everything I know from a man more talented than myself. A great writer who has earned his living spreading scandal. Or being paid not to.”

And this time he laughs. “God's blood, I do like you, Bucino. Bring the prints and your mistress here to live with me. Together we will rule Venice.”

Again I stay silent.

He sighs. “Alas, I could not support her anyway. For I have no money. That is the real problem with your plan, you see. This, all of this”—he moves his hand around the table and the room—“is as yet just the charity of friends.”

“I don't want money,” I say.

“No? Then what do you want?”

I take a breath. “I want you to find her a patron. A man with position and wealth. Someone who appreciates beauty and wit, and who will treat her well.”

He sits back in his chair. “You know, I think it was for the best that she and I fell out all those years ago. For we would have found ourselves rivals otherwise, and I would have lost her in another way. Poor Fiammetta. Has it really been that hard?”

“You have no idea,” I say.

“Oh, I would not be so sure of that. There was a moment in an alley in Rome when I thought I heard death's rider in the steps of the assassin who butchered my writing hand. And I have stood by and watched a man with a bigger soul than either of us beat his head against the wall to stop the agony of an amputated leg dragging him into death. I cried like a baby after he went, for he was one of my greatest friends.” He shakes his head. “I have no appetite for suffering, Bucino. I like pleasure too much. Sometimes I think I must have something of the woman in me. Which is why I love their company so. It will be my undoing. But I will make life run before it stops me. So, the demand is that I find her a good patron. Anything else?”

“That you get her name into the Register of Courtesans. I will write the entry, and you will find one of your noble friends to put it in.”

“No,” he says firmly. “That I will not do.”

For a second I am not sure what to do. I squirm my way off the chair. “Then I will take the book elsewhere.”

“Ah! Wait! If you claim to have learned from the master, then do not be so hasty. For men to make a bargain, there must be give and take on both sides. Sit down.”

I sit.

“The entry in the book I will find a way to do.” He makes me wait. “But the words will not be yours. They will be mine.”

I stare at him. “And how do I know you will not cheat her?”

“Because,” he says. “Because, because, because, Bucino, even when I exaggerate, I tell the truth. Especially about women. As you know only too well.”

I stand up again.

“And how do I know that you will keep to your end of the deal, and once she is settled and rich, I won't wake up the next day to find copies of
The Positions
all around Venice with my name attached?”

“Because, if you are loyal to her, then I will be loyal to you. As you know only too well.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Across the canal, our old bat is at her window, transfixed. The day is cooler now, and the same drafts that rattle our frames will be rattling hers too, but still she does not budge. Her face is set like thunder, and if she could manage to focus her roving eyes for long enough, I daresay we would feel the hammer of her disapproval, but we have our own witch to protect us and are too busy with the business of decorating young beauty to give much credence to soured age.

La Draga and my mistress have been together since the early afternoon. I have not been allowed in until they are finished, and my job is to be impressed by what I see. As it happens, my capacity for dishonesty is barely stretched at all. She is so high in her clogs that I have to stand on the bed to get the full impression. She is wearing the best of the secondhand dresses. It is made of a wild scarlet silk. Its sleeves are pale cream, gathered tight at the wrists before exploding into clouds of red at the elbows; its bodice is trimmed with gold to draw attention to the swooping neckline, and its skirts fall wide and billowing from a jeweled band under her breasts. It contains such a luxury of material that one might hope Aretino's guests do not include the doge himself, for he has been known to send women home from gatherings when the lengths of cloth were so obviously excessive that it wouldn't take a measuring tape to define them as outside the law.

But no one would send my lady home. For the dress is just the wrapping. As for the woman inside, well, after this many years in her service, my compliments are threadbare with overuse. But I will offer a few words about her hair, some of which is not her own and therefore worthy of criticism, and which has been coaxed and teased into a dozen feathery curls at her brow and a few flying ringlets around her cheeks, with the rest of it falling in slow, rolling waves from what looks like a braided band of her own tresses set halfway back on her head. I close my eyes to see the imprint of her on the backs of my lids, and the air is filled with the smell of musk roses and the promise of summer.

“Well?” I open my eyes onto her question. “You could at least say something. We've been at this all day. A few lines of Petrarch perhaps? Or that other man you are so fond of quoting. What is his name? Something about the way my lady eclipses sunlight and joy?”

But she is so confident that I will not please her without some fun first. I keep my gaze as empty as I can manage. “You smell nice,” I say flatly. “If the dress and the hair don't work, we could always ask them to close their eyes.”

“Bucino!” She throws a redundant hair comb at me, and I glance in La Draga's direction in time to see what could almost be a smile passing over her ghostly face as she gathers up her pots and picks up her shawl, ready to leave. I watch the concentration in her face as she walks to the door, each step already marked out in her head.

 

She and I have not discussed money since the theft of the jewel. Though she has offered my lady help, the fact is we still owe her, not just for the hair but also for various new potions that have moved between them over the last few days, things that pertain to the secret places in a woman's body, no doubt, and, I suspect, a few tricks to increase a man's appetite for love, of which my lady knows I disapprove and of which therefore I will be told nothing. While my lady tells me she is content to wait for payment until our fortunes are more recovered, I would prefer to settle with her now. I do not like to be in anyone's debt, and since my lady's conquest and the boatload of raucous youngbloods set tongues wagging, La Draga's continued presence in our house has done nothing to improve our reputation in the neighborhood.

While many of our neighbors now move to the other side of the
campo
when they see me coming, my old well man still talks to me, if only to swamp me with “good advice.” His views about La Draga are clear enough. She is, he says, a witch of the womb, and he crosses himself as he uses the words, for anything to do with the fertile, bloody parts of women fills men with suspicion and dread. He says she was born on one of the islands but came to the city when she was young, though it seems her parents died soon after. He tells a story of how, when she was small and still had some sight, she went missing from her home and was found in the
piazzetta,
near the Pillars of Justice, her hands filled with earth gathered from the cooled pyre on which a sodomite had been burned to death the day before. When she got back, she made a paste from it, along with various herbs and plants, and that very day cured a local woman of the most terrible fits. It is the kind of tale that has already changed hands many times and thus may or may not be true, but it is potent enough that, once known, it cannot be refuted. After that, he said, any women who fell sick in her district didn't bother with the doctor but always went to her. As much as anything, no doubt, out of fear that those she did not cure she might take to hammering with curses instead. The way he tells it, the more she healed, the more crippled she became, and the clearer her second sight, the blinder her eyes.

While I am less susceptible than many to the panic that surrounds witches (anyone who has suffered terrible pain will take help wherever he can get it), I have never known a healer who doesn't pretend more wisdom than she has, and in particular I have seen too many courtesans develop an appetite for love spells to bind men and help them in their work, which—since it creates a dependence in them as well as the men—is in the end no help at all. While it might be churlish to attribute La Draga's generosity toward us solely to business, the fact is, her kind of help we can live without—certainly if I have anything to do with it.

She has made her way downstairs and is already out the door and moving steadily down the street by the time I reach her. In a race across the city, I would not pit myself against her, because, while her sight may have gone, she has taught herself to see well enough by the use of her ears. So she knows it is my flat feet following her long before she turns, and I sense the wariness in her face.

“Bucino?”

“Yes.”

She relaxes slightly. “Did I forget something?”

“I…You left without payment.”

She gives a little shrug, but her eyes stay fixed on the ground. “I told you before, it can wait.” And she turns again. Even before I attacked her that day, she was as uncomfortable talking to me as I was to her.

“No,” I say more loudly now. “I would prefer to settle with you now. You have been most kind, but my lady is healed, and we will have no need of you for a while.”

She puts her head to one side, like a bird listening to a mate's call. “I think she and I are not finished yet,” she says, her voice like a rustle of wind and a silly little smile on her face.

“How? How are you not finished? My lady is healed now,” I repeat, and I hear an edge in me. “And we have no need for love spells in this house.”

“I see.” The smile shifts, and her mouth contorts a little. Close to her now, I am amazed by how much movement there is in her face. But then, she will not know its impact on others. I only learned the power of my full grin from reading it in the mirrors of other people's faces.

“Tell me what it is that you have around your neck, Bucino?” Her hand darts out toward me, but even she cannot judge my height in her darkness, and it flaps above my head like a bird in caged panic.

“How do you know I have anything there?” I snap back, and emboldened by her mistake, I move closer until we are almost touching, so that I look up straight into her eyes, straight into the foul fog of her blindness, and she must feel my breath on her face, because she stiffens, but she still holds her ground.

“I know because you swore upon it the other day.”

I remember I did and am angry with myself that I hadn't realized it. “It is a tooth.”

“A tooth?”

“Yes. From one of my father's dogs. He gave it to me when it died.”

“And why did he give it to you? As a memory? A decoration? A charm against misfortune?”

“I…Yes…and why not?”

“Why not indeed?”

And she smiles now, that same dreamy smile she used on Aretino, the one that takes over her whole face and makes her skin shine. In the same way that she does not know when her expression is forbidding, she is unaware now when it becomes luminous. While I spend my life holding my fists up against her, there is a peculiar sweetness to her sometimes that threatens to undermine me.

“Yes, the lady Bianchini is healed in her body. But it has been a long time since she was out in the world. She is nervous. You are busy running all around the town, and so you miss what's in front of your eyes. What I give her is something to take away the fear. That's all. If she believes in it, it works. Like your dog's tooth. You understand? That is what my ‘love spells' are about. And for this I do not charge anyway. So you can put away your purse.”

There is nothing to say. I know that she is right and I am wrong. And, though I have been stupid, I am not so stupid that I do not recognize it now.

A boy is moving toward us on the other side of the street. I recognize him as one of the baker's assistants who helps with the bread in the early morning on the square. As he draws up to us, he stops, his eyes out on stalks, because, of course, together we are probably the strangest thing that he has ever seen in his life. I offer my largest openmouthed grin to get rid of him, and he pulls away as if I had spat at him. It will be around the commune within minutes: how the witch and the midget were cavorting together in broad daylight. In the telling, it will probably take on the shadow of carnality, for the sins of sex are never far away in idle imaginations, especially when there is deformity involved, and everyone would know that we both work for the whore whose smell pulls boats of panting young men to her doorway in the middle of the night.

She waits, and when I am still silent, she says, “Tell me, why is it that you don't like me, Bucino?”

“What?”

“We are both servants to her. We care for her. And she for us. Yet we always fight, you and I.”

“I don't…not like you. I mean—”

“Perhaps you still think that I swindled her somehow, that her hair would have grown without me. Or that I am a witch, because people gossip about me as much as they do you. Is that it? Or is it that you don't like looking at me? Am I really so much uglier than you?”

Of course I do not know what to say. I, who have an answer for everything, have no answer to this. I feel almost sick, like a child caught out in a lie. Her face is still, and for the moment I'm not sure what she will do. Now, when her hands come out, they do not miss. She touches the great pate of my forehead and it is my turn to freeze. I am amazed by how cool her hands are. She moves her fingers slowly across my face, feeling her way over and into my eye sockets, then over my nose, my mouth, my chin, reading me with her touch. I feel myself shiver, not least because she says nothing but, once she is finished, simply drops her hands and after a few seconds turns and walks away.

I watch her until she is across the little bridge and has disappeared into the next alley. I see it all: her limp, the stones under her feet, the deep blue of her gifted woven shawl. Clear as daylight, all of it. But I have no idea what I feel inside. Though I know why I do not like her. It is because in some way she makes me feel smaller than I am.

“Oh, it is come, Bucino. It is come. Quick…”

When I reach the room, my lady is up and gathering her cloak excitedly. “The gondola is here. It is waiting outside.”

I look down from the window. Now that we are rich with promise, we can feel easier about the money spent on one night's transport. It is a stately craft. Not as sumptuous as the one we might have hired to earn our living, but graceful enough, its polished silver rudder glinting in the fading light, its black-skinned boatman clad like a courtier in red and gold velvet, standing tall in the stern, his single oar resting in its socket. It would have been a long time since this house had welcomed such ostentation, and across the canal, our cockeyed spy is now bent so far out of her window that at any minute she might risk drowning in her own curiosity. Only this time she is not alone. Farther along there are faces appearing from houses everywhere, and by the time we get ourselves downstairs and open the gates onto the canal entrance, the nearby bridge has become a viewing platform, with the baker's boy and five or six others gathered to gape. I think of my old man, who prides himself on knowing everything, and I almost wish I had warned him in advance so that he, too, could watch us go.

I brace myself for the taunts. The young Saracen takes my lady's hand and helps her into the boat. The sun is low across the bridge, and its rosy light sets fire to her scarlet skirts, which sweep around her. She looks up, taking in the audience in a single glance before moving into the cabin and arranging herself on the cushions. I perch myself on the wooden bench as the boatman slides his oar down into the water and maneuvers us away from the dock and out to the main channel.