Sophie and the Sibyl (36 page)

‘I never saw her name in the
Gazzetta di Venezia
. I’ve been looking out for Professor Marek.’

‘They’ll be staying somewhere quiet, under an assumed name.’

‘What did the man look like?’

‘Tall. Big. Athletic. Vigorous. Smartly dressed. He had a great reddish-brown beard.’

Max suddenly saw the grief-stricken giant tottering across Regent’s Park in mid-winter: Mr. John Walter Cross. And at the same moment he hallucinated the name he had casually passed over on the ledger before him: Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Cross.

‘You’re right, Sophie,’ Max stammered. The taste of the prostitute’s mouth rushed back to him, along with a tidal wave of shame. ‘They’re staying at the Hôtel de l’ Europe –’

‘So you did know!’ She wheeled round and pounced upon him, snatching at his jacket, her blonde curls lashing his face. ‘You did! You lied to me. You knew!’

Max, wrong-footed, taken aback, tried to stroke her shoulders. But she jibbed like a fiery pony, and lunged away.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she yelled. The nursemaid appeared momentarily in the doorway, carrying Leo, and determined upon a parental health inspection, just to prove that there was nothing wrong. Upon seeing her employers flying at one another, all claws out, she retreated, head down, to find Karl, hoping to discover the roots of this uproar.

‘Listen to me, Sophie. I didn’t know. I really didn’t. And I wouldn’t lie to you.’ (Well, not about that.) ‘I’ll write to Wolfgang at once and see if he knows anything. But I think the man is the one I told you about. Her financial adviser: Mr. John Walter Cross. The sad man who had recently lost his mother.’

‘He’s found another mother then, hasn’t he?’ snarled Sophie, scornfully, slamming her fists down upon the balustrade. ‘One who calls him “my dearest” and “my joy”!’

She spun round again. ‘That’s what Mrs. Lewes wanted. A younger man. Now tell me the truth. Did she proposition you?’

Max had no idea what he felt, let alone what to say to his furious young wife. But in a manner of speaking, he did tell the truth.

‘No, of course not. She was married to George Lewes.’

‘But she wasn’t married. That’s why Mama never let me visit her.’

This too, was certainly true. But Max now sensed that he was on safe ground: Sophie didn’t know anything about the incident with the prostitute.

‘Sophie, Mrs. Lewes isn’t rapacious in that way. She’s just like lots of other famous people. Like Herr Klesmer. Or Professor Marek. She likes to be acknowledged and admired. But she’s shy, so she chooses her admirers. You once admired her yourself.’

‘The more fool I. Look where it got me. You never read that book, Max. The one with Herr Klesmer in it. The one about the Jews. I know you didn’t. Only three people in the world knew the story of the necklace: you, me, and Mrs. Lewes.’ Sophie spat out the writer’s former name. Now everything came out. ‘She retells our story in that book. She described me playing at the gaming tables. She made me look stupid. And that’s what I can’t bear. Being portrayed as stupid, egotistical, vain and poor.’

Sophie burst into tears of frustration and rage. Max, utterly baffled, took her in his arms. This time, she did not resist him. Surely Wolfgang would have mentioned the fact that there had been a portrait of Sophie in the novel? He had described Klesmer’s surreptitious courtship of Miss Arrowpoint, but never mentioned anything else transcribed from life. Max poured out a vial of tenderness and reassurance.

‘Beloved girl, no one would ever dream that you were any of those things. And anyway, your father told me that the gambling scene was based on Miss Leigh, Byron’s grandniece. She lost £500 when the Count was playing too. He said it was a painful sight. Besides, you don’t lose, you always win.’

Max could not bring himself to actually sit down and read
Daniel Deronda,
and now, after all the trouble that the book had caused, he never would.

‘She likes young men,’ hissed Sophie decisively. ‘I know what I saw this morning.’

‘Well, I’ll write to Wolfgang. The situation may not be quite as you suppose.’

But Max suspected she was right. There had been no ambiguity in the register of the Hôtel de l’Europe: Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Cross. Sophie, on the other hand, supposed unimaginable things.

Venice possessed a violent reputation for passions and assassinations. Nevertheless a week of sightseeing and sea bathing passed happily without any sign of the witch-like Sibyl or her red-bearded
cavalier servente
. And no violent scenes occurred. Professor Marek and his party fell foul of the heat and remained on the Veneto in a Palladian pleasure dome, a palace with fourteen entrances, all caressed by soft winds. Picnics and gallops on fabulous steeds through tall open fields with the misty Alps above her filled Sophie’s days. Leo thrived in the hot climate and seemed quite immune to the mosquitoes. He never gave his parents a moment’s anxiety. The Sibyl receded into a remote corner of Max’s mind. He hoped, fervently, that, whatever her relation with Mr. John Walter Cross, he would not encounter her unsettling presence, or be forced to act. He paddled well away from the Venetian pleasure grounds and clung to the highway of marital virtue. But he did write to Wolfgang in Berlin, explaining the odd situation and asking for information. There was no immediate reply.

On Wednesday 9th June 1880 Max and Sophie set out in two gondolas to visit the Byzantine basilica of Santa Maria Assunta on the island of Torcello. The party also consisted of the indispensable Karl and Leo’s nursemaid. Every eventuality had to be taken into account; the luncheon picnic accessories therefore amounted to several baskets. A cool box, with ice wrapped in sacking to contain the wine, fish pâté, various fruits including apricots, washed several times, game pie, cooked yesterday, only one slice missing, which Max could not resist at breakfast, an entire lobster, packed with long hooks and pincers to extract the meat, plates, glasses, napkins, cutlery, a bottle of freshly squeezed juice for Leo, a canvas screen in case the wind got up, rugs in case the ground proved damp, and two gigantic parasols to ward off sunburn. Sophie rubbed lemons on her arms and hands to prevent them from becoming discoloured. She had been known to wear a Venetian carnival mask to protect her nose, when she walked the terrace in the privacy of their balcony apartments, and had terrified the housekeeper bringing up the flowers. Her sea-bathing outfits covered her from throat to toe; but she had learned to swim in the chill lakes of Brandenburg, and often abandoned the security of the bathing machine to kick out powerfully into the warm sea. All Max could see from the shore was a large brimmed straw hat, fastened with a damp red scarf, rising and dipping in the gentle swell.

‘I won’t swim today,’ she informed Max. ‘Leo would want to come in too, and without the floats and the bathing machine it’s far too risky.’

‘Good.’ Max discarded a large basket of swimming equipment. ‘We might now fit into two boats.’

Even so, as they drifted across the green swell towards the islands both gondolas lurched dangerously low in the water. Sophie’s matching jacket and dress in pale gold and green stripes shimmered against the black. Leo fell asleep, snuggled in her lap. Once again she removed her gloves and let her fingers drift in the dreaming lagoon, keeping her hands carefully in shadow. The long voyage to Torcello in the early day as the distant isles hardened in the mist gave Max the miraculous sensation of approaching Elysium. This is eternity, this endless rolling voyage, gliding through calm waters and a ceaseless rocking green. The great square tower of the Torcello Campanile loomed up as the only marker in the dawn mist. As he gazed at the distant basilica the bells rang out across the marshes, channels and lagoons, over the fishing boats, barges and little leisure yachts, fluttering forwards with barely enough wind to fill the jib.

Sophie raised her eyes from the hypnotic, gentle green and Leo awoke in her embrace.

‘
Glocken
,’ he murmured sleepily. Bells.

As they approached the narrow jetty Sophie dug out her volume of Ruskin and read the descriptions of the mosaics aloud in English.

‘Listen, Max, the Madonna in the apse is surrounded by gold. We have to see “the two solemn mosaics of the eastern and western extremities, one representing the Last Judgement” – oh dear, I hope it’s not too fearsome, but then Leo always loves the devils – “and at the other the Madonna, her tears falling as her hands are raised to bless”, and “the noble range of pillars which enclose the space between”. He says that the whole is “expressive at once of the deep sorrow and the sacred courage of men, who had no home left them upon earth, but who looked for one to come”.’

Sophie slammed the book shut.

‘I hate all that.’

‘What?’

‘The wretchedness of this life and the bliss stored up for the virtuous in the next. The pastor pours all that down our throats every Sunday. And I think it’s poison. I don’t believe in another life as beautiful as this one. It’s all clearly lies.’

Max smiled. So did their gondolier, who despite the fact that he understood not a word, liked to watch the Countess working herself up into an outburst.

‘I want my happiness here, now, with you and Leo. I don’t want to wait.’

‘The very fact that you can even envisage joy in this world, Sophie, is a measure of your privilege. You already possess wealth, health and general blessedness.’ Max’s fond gaze undercut this piece of sententious superiority. ‘And you are one of my blessings.’

‘Then why can’t everyone be blessed? Each in their own way? The pastor says that God is just. But God is not just.’

‘If it’s any help to your rebellious theology, dearest love, the Greeks never solved the problem of God’s justice either. Professor Marek says that’s why their gods are capricious: to explain the fact that no providential pattern exists in the world. And no justice either.’

‘Did Lucian believe that? Is that why he wouldn’t listen to Myriam when she spoke about her Christian faith?’

But Max, startled by this sudden eruption of the atheist philosopher into their holiday idyll, remained silent. He simply reached out for the looped ropes bound to the jetty and steadied the swaying gondola. Lucian and all his works could wait for another day.

Max, Sophie and Leo set out at once for the basilica, leaving Karl to choose a shady spot and organise the picnic. However, as soon as their employers had gone Karl and the gondoliers set off into the marsh flags and bulrushes to find a peaceful spot to piss and smoke, leaving Leo’s nursemaid staring at the lobster. Max carried Leo on his shoulders as they tramped up the white path. They merely glanced at Santa Fosca and the remains of the baptistery, then pushed past the gathering beggars into the main nave of the church. At first, in the powerful gleam of the southern lights, high up, pouring through the ten round arches of the windows, Sophie saw only the luminous mosaic on the pavement beneath her feet. A rich and striking pattern of geometric perfection, all in black, white and red marble wheels, lozenges and arabesques, swirling beneath her white canvas boots. The warm brick and white light suggested not sorrow, but joy, present and to come. There were very few other tourists, for they had arrived at Torcello early in the day. Leo chuckled and gurgled as Max set him down upon the precious, cool floor, then the boy hoisted himself up and set off at speed, each tottering step a triumph of motion over balance. His sun hat fell off. Down he went, then up again and away, leaving Max to salvage the tiny boater with its sailor’s ribbons.

Sophie now looked up, facing the east, her back to the massive and thunderous
Last Judgement
, which dominated the gigantic west wall above the tiny doorway. Leo toddled straight towards the great gouged vault of the apse, with the single colossal figure of the Virgin, flanked by Greek symbols proclaiming her identity: the Mother of God.

Nothing else challenged her extraordinary presence. There she stands, Queen of Heaven, haloed in gold, showered with gold, standing on a shallow golden podium, her long folded robes fringed with gold. Her right hand points to the golden child, cradled in the crook of her left arm, and in her left hand she holds the white shroud of death.

Sophie deciphered the Latin words unfolding at the Virgin’s feet.
Epitome of virtue, star of the seas, doorway to heaven, Mary through her son frees those whom Eve and husband reduced to sin.
Sophie gazed at the names, Mary, Eve. They are named. These are not simply decorative women, there to give pleasure. They are the Bible’s heroines, the pivots on the gates, whose actions and decisions changed all our lives for ever. The men are simply generic: husband, son. It’s the women who count. This struggle between women marks the spiritual history of the whole world. Beneath the Virgin’s pointed slippers a bright window lit the golden dome; on either side the twelve apostles, all on a far smaller scale, frisked through fields of poppies, joyfully embracing their symbols of martyrdom. Sophie felt Leo pulling at her skirts, and bent down to touch the tender, upturned face of her only son.

‘Papa!’ cried Leo. He decided to drag his mother back to his father, but she resisted him gently.

‘No, my love, look up. Look up at the beautiful Madonna.’

Leo peered at the gigantic immobile blue figure, then decided that the pitchforked host of scowling devils which claimed his father’s attention presented a more interesting spectacle. He scuttled off in search of Max, who was contemplating damnation on the western façade, and now carried both the tiny hat and a lost shoe. As Leo skipped over the inlaid marble floor, he missed one step, and fell straight into the grey satin folds of another tourist. The lady raised him up, her companion whisked her dangerous parasol with its pretty white flowers out of the way as she set the child upright. Leo beamed up at the ancient lady whom he now took to be his grandmother, turned and pointed his chubby finger in the general direction of his luminous mother, who stood before the altar, drenched in white light, directly beneath the gigantic blue virgin, surrounded with gold. Sophie gazed upwards, transfigured in sunshine and glory.