In the Company of the Courtesan (22 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

I am deep into the books when a message comes from our Crow Loredan's man: the great senator is delayed on business about the Sensa and will not be able to make it tonight, which leaves us free to entertain our generous glass merchant after all. I use the news as a reason to close my books. The ordering of numbers has calmed my self-hatred a little, and before I contact Alberini I should inform my lady.

Tiziano's house and studio are to the north across the Grand Canal near Rio di Santa Caterina, and while the walk is brisk, the day is spring sweet and the exercise will do me good.

Tiziano himself, about whom I fear I was a little casual that first evening because I did not know any better, is far and away Venice's most celebrated artist, so famous now that the paint is barely dry on his canvases before they are crated off on boats and mule trains to the courts of half of Europe. For such a great man, I must say he remains refreshingly half peasant. He is as active with his abacus as he is with his brush (he and I share a natural affinity when it comes to ideas for wringing money out of recalcitrant clients), and while I don't doubt he will go down in history for the fineness of his paint, my memories of his house have more to do with the smells from his kitchen, for he and Aretino both love their food, and their cooks often compete to produce the best dishes. Also like Aretino, he has a healthy fondness for women. This is the second time my lady has sat for him. If she has done more than sit, then she has not told me about it, and I have not asked, though when his beloved wife, Cecilia, died a few years ago she may have comforted him then, as I know he grieved sorely.

I cross the Grand Canal at the Rialto. I can almost see Aretino's house from here. He too has prospered. He toyed for a while with going to live at the French court but instead spent a season of Lent in deep and public penance while at the same time dashing off such paeans of praise to his newly adopted city that Doge Gritti was moved to intervene on his behalf, and in this way he was reconciled with both the pope and his old enemy the duke of Mantua. His rise was fast after that, and he is now one of the city's treasures. In public he sports a chain of gold received from the king of France, his letters circulate among the cognoscenti, and Venice is full of people eager to treat him well as a way to keep him from treating them badly.

He and my lady have forged an unexpected friendship over these years. The flame that once burned in them both has faded to the warmth of embers. Success has brought him enough women to fawn and fiddle over him without needing her attention, and, to be honest, I think both of them live so much of their private lives being public that they are grateful for the company of someone who knows them from the inside out and with whom they do not have to perform. When they are not gossiping, they are fond of games of chance, which have become all the rage in Venice now, and sometimes the three of us play together on idle afternoons, turning over painted cards with a dozen different capricious futures written on them. For our part, we have stuck to the bargain and for all these years have kept
The Positions
out of the public domain. With no children in the nursery, it has become our insurance against the bankruptcy of old age.

I skirt the Campo dei Santi Apostoli and head due north through a cobweb of alleys. Wealth gives way to poverty as I move, and I keep my head down now and my purse close to my chest. In contrast to the area around, Tiziano's house, perched on the very edge of the lagoon, is a statement of status, new and rather grand. On a clear day you can see as far as Monte Ante-lao in Cadore from here, which I am sure is why he chose it, for he is a sentimental fellow when it comes to memories of his native town.

His housekeeper opens the door and shows me into the garden to wait, while she tells my mistress that I am here. I sit and massage my legs, for the journey has numbed my thighs. The water is so close here that you can hear the waves slapping against the shoreline. Though Venice will never be Rome to me, there is a certain melancholy beauty to the way she flirts with the sea, like a lovely woman lifting up her decorated skirts—sometimes not far enough—to miss the rising tides. On days like today, when the water is shining and the air is sticky with the scent of jasmine and peach blossom, you can almost imagine you are in Paradise. As sweet as Arcadia. Wasn't that the phrase her mother used with her as a child when she would try to describe the smells of a rich man's garden? It was those same words my lady had used to tempt me onward that first day in Venice, when our future felt as black as her bloodied scalp. As I think this, I am struck with great force by the memory, as if it is only now, here, at this moment, after all this time, that I feel we are truly arrived at where we set out to be. And inside the wonder of the feeling, there is also a sense of terror—yes, terror—that we have risen so far and that there is, therefore, so far to fall.

Her voice, when it comes, makes me jump.

“Bucino! I thought you were tied to your abacus.”

I turn to see her dressed in a robe as if she has just risen from her bed. Her hair is long and free down her back. He has especially requested her to wear it in the same style as when they first met. While even I must admit that she is not as fresh as she was then, the braided band of hair and the mischief of tiny curls playing around her forehead still bring out the girl in the woman.

“I was, but a message arrived.”

“It had better be important. Tiziano rumbles like thunder when he is interrupted.”

“It isn't finished yet? I thought this was the last sitting.”

She laughs. “Oh, it will never be finished. At least not to his satisfaction. I will be old before he puts his brush down.”

“Well, you look young enough now.”

“Really? You think so?” And she twirls around so that her hair flows with her. How she drinks it up, flattery. Feeds on it, grows from it, like a plant moving toward the light, as if she can never get enough. “You do not compliment me so much these days, Bucino.”

“I cannot get a word in between all the other voices.”

She pouts a little, a device that has more impact on her suitors than on me. But then I know her better, and, unlike them, I have caught her hard at work with her hand mirror, and the look she gives herself there has little enough of flattery to it. Given my time again, I no longer know if I would choose beauty over ugliness. There is too much anxiety in its fragility.

“So tell me, what is the message?”

“Loredan is caught up with Sensa business and will not visit tonight after all.”

“Oh.” She gives a shrug as if it is of no particular import, though I can see she is pleased. “Then perhaps we might send a message to Vittorio Foscari,” she says lightly. “I know he would be happy to join me instead.”

“I'm sure he would. But we are committed first to Alberini for his generosity.”

She groans. “Oh, of course, Alberini.” And she wrinkles her nose. “But we told him already we were busy. He would never know. His and Foscari's paths never cross.”

Indeed they don't, since one of them works for a living and the other lives off his family. Though I choose not to mention that. “Why don't you give Foscari time to recover?” I say.

She laughs and takes it as a compliment, but that is only half true. He is something of a challenge to me, this Foscari. He is both our newest and our youngest suitor. A Crow by birth, he is as yet still a half-feathered fledgling, but once he takes off his patterned stockings, he is so new to the pleasures of his own prick that he seems to exhaust them both with his ardor and his chatter. Of course, every courtesan needs to be adored sometimes, and his worship has made her gay enough. He arrived in the wake of an affair with a gizzard-necked Florentine scholar who huffed and puffed so much that it was hard to tell if he was coming soon or going forever. While I had been careful to negotiate payment by the hour, I don't doubt that Foscari's fresh, firm flesh was pleasant enough contrast. Yet this young Crow has proved a disaster when it comes to business, for he does not control his own fortune, exceeds his allowance, and is not smart enough to know how to get himself more.

“You know he still owes us for half a dozen meetings last month.”

“Oh, Bucino. You worry too much. He is from one of the best families in the city.”

“Which keeps its money for the elder sons rather than him. They paid for his deflowering, not for him to keep a mistress. Business would be better served by a sweet thank-you to Alberini.”

“Really—I don't need you to lecture me on what would be best for business,” she mutters irritably. “I think I would prefer to entertain Foscari.”

“As you wish. But if he comes, he must pay. Our charity to him is already a matter for gossip in the house, and if we are not careful, it will be around the city that we are giving away what others are charged for. And you know the damage that can cause.”

She shrugs. “I have heard no gossip.”

“That is because you have the door closed,” I say gently. “And I have been snoring louder than usual to cover up the noise.”

I smile so that we might find a way to make it up through my quip. But she chooses not to take the olive branch.

“Oh, very well! If you are so insistent, then he had better not come. Even so, I will not entertain Alberini. I shall use the time to rest instead. It is not nothing, you know, sitting here all day like a living statue while Tiziano fusses and fiddles with his brushes.”

I look at her for a moment, but she drops her gaze. “Ooh, this jasmine,” she says extravagantly, burying her nose in its blossom. “There is no perfume like it in the world. I have tried to buy this scent on the Rialto a dozen times, but it never lasts longer than a few minutes once it is out of the bottle.”

“It is very sweet, yes,” I murmur, impressed by how quickly she has moved the subject on, for this is not the first time we have crossed swords over this pup. “Sweet as Arcadia.”

And she looks at me and smiles again, as if there is something that she cannot quite remember. “Arcadia? Yes, I suppose it is.”

“I don't care how much they're offering, you can't have her, Bucino.” Tiziano is at the door. “I was promised the whole day, and I need every minute of it.”

“Don't worry, maestro. You are safe enough. I came only to deliver a message.”

“Some randy old man wants her tonight, eh? It's a shame—she'll be missing a roasted loin of pork dripping with apple juices. Come, Fiammetta, the light is perfect. I need you back now.”

“One moment and I will be there.” It is clear that she is relieved to be pulled away. Her smile to me is fast, distracted. “I will see you later, Bucino.” The fact that she does not tell me when she will return shows how peeved with me she is over Foscari. She leaves, and he makes to follow her. But it has been a long walk from there to here, and I may not get this chance again for months. “Tiziano?”

He turns.

“Now that I'm here, can I see the painting?”

“No! It isn't finished yet.”

“But I thought this was her last sitting.”

“It isn't ready,” he repeats stubbornly.

“It is only that dwarves have weak hearts.” I smile. “I have it on good authority that I could be dead within the year.”

He scowls, but I know he likes me well enough, or as much as he likes anyone while he is working. “What has she told you about it?”

“Nothing.” I shrug. “Except that holding the pose has given her a crick in her neck that I have to massage out each evening. Without me, you wouldn't have a model.”

“Ah! Very well. But you look and then you go. What you see is not for gossip, understand?”

“Gossip? The only thing I talk to is my account book. Everything else goes on over my head.”

His studio is within the house, with a shed next door where he dries his canvases. I follow him upstairs to a room on the
piano nobile
where two great stone-trimmed windows let in a river of light and where the view can take him home sometimes without the journey. The canvas is on a great easel in the middle of the room, and if it is not finished, I cannot see what is left to be done. But then I am something of a blockhead when it comes to art. I have been present at a handful of entertainments where I have heard great men—and the odd show-off courtesan—wax lyrical about Tiziano's “genius” with such verbal flights of fancy that what they describe seems to grow more out of their own imaginations than out of anything I see on the canvas. “Oh! Oh! See how he sanctifies the human body with his art.” “In Tiziano's colors God has placed Paradise.” “He is not a painter but a miracle.” Their flattery is as sticky as honey, and I sometimes think the reason Tiziano favors my lady as a model is that she does not torment him with such prattle and so gives him room to let the brush fly.

As for this, his latest work—well, to minimize the confusion, I will keep the words simple.

The setting is the room itself—in the background you can see part of the window, with a luminous sunset streaking the sky; on the walls are tapestries and in front, two decorated chests, by which two maids, one kneeling, the other standing nearby, are sorting clothes.

But while you see them, they are not where your eye lingers. For in the foreground of the painting, so close that you might almost touch her, is a naked woman. She is lying propped on a pillow on a bed of red floral mattresses covered with rumpled sheets, and at her feet a small dog is snoozing, curled head to toe. Her hair is falling across her shoulders, the nipple on her left breast, firm and pink, stands out against the dark velvet of the curtain behind, and the fingers of her left hand curl over the cleft of her sex. While all this is lovely enough and—as far as I can tell from bits of flesh I already know—a perfect replica of my lady's body, it is familiar even to a dunce like myself, for the pose of Venus reclining has long been a popular one for sophisticated palates.