The Glassblower of Murano (12 page)

Leonora raised a brow. `As good as the Do Mori?'

He laughed. `You can't get better than this place I'm
thinking of. It is, quite literally, Paradise.'

She looked carefully at him. His eyes did not look calculating, or lustful. They looked frankly back at her. He
looked thirsty.

I know I shouldn't go. I know that I'm going to.

Paradise on a Saturday night was a noisy place. Leonora,
crushed against Alessandro at the bar, had to scream her
order for a Peroni directly into his ear. He emerged from
the crush with four bottles ('to save time') and led her to
the end of one of the long refectory-like tables crowded with flamboyant young bohemians. Alessandro secured them
two seats opposite each other in a dark alcove illuminated
by the inevitable candle stuffed in a wine bottle. Gouts of
multicoloured wax masked the bottle completely and told
the story of the candles that had gone before. As was her
habit, Leonora began to pick at the solid mass. By her side,
sitting close, a youth with multiple piercings rattled rapid
Veneto to his equally punctured girlfriend opposite.
Alessandro took a long drink and Leonora looked at him.
The noise had abated a little, but she still had to bellow.
`What is this place?'

He smiled. `I wasn't wholly truthful with you. This isn't
Paradise, it's Paradiso Perduto - Paradise Lost. It's just about
the only late bar in Venice - always full of students. It's a
bit of a crush, but at least you can get a drink past midnight.'

Leonora smiled wryly into her beer. Paradise Lost.

Have I lost my Paradise? Was Stephen, and Belmont and St
Martin's my Paradise? Or have I come to find a new one
here?

As if reading her mind Alessandro asked, quite suddenly:
`Why did your husband leave you?'

Leonora nearly choked on her Peroni. She was daily
surprised by the forthrightness of the Venetians. She
expected them to be as winding and circumspect as the
secret alleyways of their city, or as circuitous as their bureaucracy. But they were neither. Only this morning the
lady serving her in the cafe where she took breakfast had
asked her whether she had a special amore back home. The
receptionist at her hotel, that avuncular, kindly gentleman,
had already identified her marital status and her lack of
children. And now, here was this unfathomable man asking
her the most personal of questions. It seemed that Venetians
had an ability to cleave to the point as cleanly as the prow
of a boat slicing the waters of the canal. She played for
time, holding the glass heart at her throat to steady herself.

`How do you know he left me?'

Alessandro sat back in his chair. `You have a tan line
where your wedding band once was. And your finger has
changed shape somewhat, receding towards the knuckle,
which means you were wearing the ring for some years,
not just a short engagement. And you are sad. And you
are here - I think if you had left him you would have stayed
at home?'

Leonora looked up from her hand and saw a sympathy
in the intelligent dark eyes which twisted her gut. Stung
to a crushing retort, her own reply surprised her.

`He chose a golden casket.!

'How come?'

`Merchant of Venice? Portia's suitors had to choose between
three caskets of silver lead and gold. Happiness lay in the
lead casket, not the gold'

Alessandro smiled, `I know. I live here. D'you think you can grow up in this city without knowing the story? What
I meant was, in what sense did he choose gold?'

'I think he fell for the packaging. Such as it was.!

'Don't do that:

`What??

"`Such as it was." You're very beautiful.' He stated it
baldly, not as a compliment but as a matter of empirical
fact.

She twisted a golden rope of hair around her hand.
`Once, perhaps. But misery and loss seem to drain it all. I
feel black and white now, not colour.' She dropped the
skein of hair. `I was an artist then, a creative, a bundle of
emotions, rather than the ...' she searched for a phrase,
`synaptic circuit of chemical reactions which made Stephen.
I think he fell for the opposites in us. But once he opened
the casket he realized that what he really wanted was something practical and scientific, exactly like himself.'

`And did he find it?'

`Yes. It's called Carol.!

'Ah!

Leonora took another slug of beer, and it began to warm
her. At that moment she knew that she wouldn't mention
her infertility to Alessandro. Some small primal voice prevented her - she didn't want this man to know that she
was not complete.

At length he spoke, but not of her. From now on it was
clearly quid pro quo. `But you know, it's possible to be too alike. I had a girlfriend till last year who was pretty much
my twin. We grew up together, we liked all the same things,
we were both ambitious, we even supported the same
football team. But then she was offered a promotion based
in Rome. She took it. Left. Finito. Her ambition separated
us in the end.' He drank.

Leonora was stumped. She didn't see this man as vulnerable - but he too had been left. She said gently, `Was she
in the police too?'

`No. A journalist' He seemed reluctant to say more, and
Leonora let their personal silence fall amid the universal
chatter. At length, though, he continued.

`Until then we were happy. There didn't seem to be any
problems. No ... bones of contention:

Leonora was struck at once by both the story and his
articulation, and saw a way to divert the course of their
conversation.

`Where did you learn such good English?'

`London. I went there for two years after my military
service, while I was deciding what to do with my life. I
worked in a restaurant - with Niccolo, another cousin. I
spent my time between a Soho kitchen and the London
Hippodrome, picking up terrible women.' He grinned. `I
learned the swearwords first!

`Where?'

'Both places. Then I came back to the Police Academy
in Milan, and then home to Venice when I qualified.'

Alessandro expertly tapped out a cigarette, and offered her one with that international symbol of the raised eyebrows and questioning grunt. When she waved it away, he
lit his own and took a long draw. She thought of what he
had said. Home. Venice.

My home too now.

`So you made your decisions, then, in London?' she
asked.

`Not really. There was never really a choice. My parents
were indulging me with those two years, giving me a false
sense of autonomy. But I was always going to be a policeman.
They knew it and I did too.'

`Why?'

Alessandro shrugged expressively. `Bardolino tradition.
Father, uncles, grandfather ....'

`But you're happy?'

`I will be, if I pass for Detective. That's what I'm training
for now.'

`Well. The Mystery of the Missing Wedding Ring was
all pretty convincing.'

He laughed, not displeased. `Sherlock Holmes, eh? We'll
see. It depends if I pass the exams. But being a beat cop in
Venice is not much fun, unless you can take your nourishment from the views alone. It's all stolen cameras and lost
luggage - tourist teething troubles. And we have a terrible
reputation for stupidity - have you heard the one about
why Venetian policemen always go around in twos?'

Leonora shook her head.

`One can read and one can write.'

She smiled.

`You think that's bad. The fire service have it even worse
- they say the fire station in Venice has an answerphone
for their emergency number, and a recorded message tells
you that they'll attend to your fire in the morning.'

Leonora laughed. `Is that how you lost the Fenice?'
Venice's jewel of a theatre had burned to the ground ten
years before.

`No, that was the city's fault. The canal to the Fenice
was so silted up that the pompieri boats could not get
through in time to stop the blaze. Civic irresponsibility,
I'm afraid. This place is falling apart.'

`And sinking?'

Alessandro shook his head. `None of the locals really
believe that the city is sinking. But one thing they do
believe is that lots of people are making money out of
perpetuating the fear that it is. There are plenty of so-called
funds collecting to save the city, but most of the money
just lines the pockets of the officials. No, the tourists are
more of a problem than the water'

Leonora was at once surprised at this statement and
gratified that Alessandro did not seem to include her in
his definition. `The tourists?' she queried. `Aren't they the
lifeblood of the city?'

Alessandro shrugged expressively. `Yes. But if blood pressure gets too high it can kill, you know. There are about a hundred tourists for each native Venetian now That's why
all the locals know each other. We stick together. And the
city will survive. Venice has been here for centuries, and
she'll be here for centuries more. There's a certain ...
continuity.'

Leonora nodded, while her fingers plucked at the wax.
`I know what you mean' Then, as if taking a step towards
intimacy, she admitted, `When I first saw you, I thought
you looked like a painting. I don't know which one
though.!

`I do.' He smiled, but did not elaborate. `It's common
here. You see the same features walking around that have
been here for hundreds of years. The same faces. The only
face you never see is that of Venice. She always goes masked,
and beneath the mask she's always been corrupt.'

'Plenty to do for a Detective then, with such widespread
corruption'

Alessandro gave a wry smile. `Yes, actually. High Crime
in Venice is as interesting as the petty crime is tedious. Art
theft, property fraud, smuggling. Boys' own stuff.'

She could sense that he wasn't entirely joking. `And when
are the exams?'

`In two month's time. If I pass those, I'll be happy.' He
finished his beer and regarded her over the empty bottle.
`And you? What will make you happy? Are you looking
for a lead casket? A new Paradise?'

Leonora dropped her eyes.Again his thoughts had chimed
with hers - plucked out the heart of her mystery. She looked at the candle between them and realized that she
had picked off every vestige of wax from the bottle that
held it. The glass stood as green and smooth as when it
had first held wine, freed from its wax prison. As she
watched, fresh clear wax spilled from the pool below the
wick and assumed a milk-white solidity as it fell on the
virgin glass. She answered at last. `No. I'm not looking.'

I believed what I said ... then. I went on believing it right up
until the moment that he leaned over and kissed me. Hard stubble,
soft mouth, and afire I had forgotten about.

They walked in silence through the empty streets. San
Marco was deserted, a yawning space like a roofless cathedral. Only the crystal stars formed the crossribs and bosses
overhead. The night was chill but Leonora burned. The
pigeons now roosted but her thoughts flew.

With an impulse she could not explain she turned perfect cartwheels across the square, stars wheeling over her
feet, hair sweeping the stones. She could hear Alessandro
laughing as she span. She did not know the meaning of
the kiss, but she knew what she was feeling.

It feels too much like joy, senseless joy.

Corradino stared into his double mirror with satisfaction.
It hung, in pride of place, on the back wall of the Cantina
Do Mori. He knew he had done good work - the surface
was smooth as the lagoon on a spring day and the bevel
was perfect - even his eye could see no flaw. He averted
his gaze before it could meet itself and sat at the couch
beneath his mirror to wait. Corradino had never met his
own eyes in a mirror. He barely knew his own image. He
always looked at the glass - his vision stopped at the surface and looked no deeper to peruse his own visage. Perhaps
he feared what he may find there, or perhaps he had no
interest in his own features, but only those of the glass.
He never asked himself these questions.

He only knew that Signor Baccia, the proprietario of the
Do Mori, would be pleased with this mirror. He wondered
though, why he had been summoned again - the walls of
the Cantina were now completely clothed in paintings or mirrors. Such opulence reflected the prosperity of the place,
a thriving watering hole for two centuries now. Baccia no
doubt had more money to spend, and was about to overdo
it. Corradino winced - more mirror work would throw
off the beautiful lucent balance of his unique double mirror,
shining in its twin loveliness - like Castor and Pollux - a
constellation of perfection. Part of Corradino's disgust was
reserved for this new brew, coffee, that he was sampling as
he waited. He had never really formed a taste for it.

It rots my guts. Give me a good goblet of Valpolicella any day.

At length Signor Baccia emerged from the back of the
busy cafe. Rotund and richly dressed in the latest Frenchstyle chemise, he stopped to talk to a group of gaudy
Venetian matrons who were participating - a little self
consciously - in this latest of fashions.

Baccia looks a little strange today.

Normally the proprietario was affable, avuncular, jolly. Today
he was all of those things, but seemed nervous, as if today
his demeanor was little more than an act. A heavy man,
he nonetheless sweated too copiously for the cool of the
day, and cast darting glances from side to side, as if followed. Corradino wondered if he had got himself into
some kind of trouble with The Ten, and was under the
eyes of an agent. Corradino had no such doubts about himself. He had the relaxed air of someone who knew he
was constantly being followed.

He had seen eyes staring at him from masked darkness
for years now. The man leaning at the traghetto stop. The
bonbon trader in the street who looked a little too hard
at him. The courtesan on the Ponte delle Tette with a
warm smile but eyes of flint. A thousand different guises
in a thousand different places. Always discreet, but over the
years Corradino had learned to identify them in a moment.
Each time his eyes fleetingly met those of these spies,
whether tall or short, male or female, he had a sick fancy
that each pair belonged to the same agent - the dark
phantom that had followed him to the fornace all those
years ago.