The Glassblower of Murano (15 page)

Leonora and the pot of basil. I remember from school that ridiculous poem about Isabella - she hid her lover's head in her pot,
under the herb. Perhaps Keats' mad bad and dangerous pal had
more of a clue about love - Byron lived here, loved here. Mind
you, he threw his mistresses into the grand canal when he tired
of them. Have I been discarded too? Will I see him again?

Leonora's Cork Street glassware languished, carefully packed,
stowed in the kitchen cupboard. It seemed to her now too
sterile, clever and over-worked. Instead she chose some of
the more amateur, earthy pieces she had blown on Murano - squat, shallow hurricane lamps in primary colours - and
ranged them along the balustrade. Tealights flickered inside,
warming the glass as the dusk fell. She decided against any
patio furniture - she had no expectation of guests - but
bought luxurious, fat cushions in jewel coloured silk, on
which she lounged on sunny evenings with a glass of
prosecco. Sometimes she sat on until the night chilled and
the stars came. They seemed larger here. In London, even
on the Heath, the stars seemed distant; refracted through
a dusky prism of smog and dust. Here the stars stooped
close - she felt she could reach up her hand and pluck
one of the burning orbs like a celestial fruit. The sky was
the dusky blue of the Virgin's cloak.

Marta, her landlady, came round now and again, on little
matters to do with the house, and had begun to stay for
a glass of wine. She had become a tentative friend, and
once brought round a fragrant Venetian stew of fish and
beans in a warm stone pot. As the two women shared the
feast and a bottle of wine, it was Marta who told Leonora
the secret to Venetian cooking. `Simplicity,' she said briefly.
`Here we have a saying: "non piu di cinque". Never more
than five.Venetians say that you should not use more ingredients than you have fingers of one hand.'

Leonora nodded but her thoughts were elsewhere. She
steeled herself not to ask about Alessandro.

Alessandro.

She told herself, as the flat took shape, and as her work
improved at the fornace, that she was happy. She was a glassblower. She lived in this gem of a flat in this jewel of a city.
But on the Saturday that she found the final piece to complete
her home, she was brought face to face with the truth.

She had gone to a shop she knew, behind the Chiesa San
Giorgio by the Accademia Bridge, to find something to
hang in the empty space above her bed. It was there,
hanging on the back wall, behind the armoires and busts
and lampshades - an icon of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.
The Virgin held the burning heart in her hands, her face
serene, the heart a visceral beating red against the cerulean
cloak. Leonora bought it at once, took it home and hung
it. Perfect. Then she understood.

My heart burns too.

It was one kiss, and he had never called her, never come
round in four weeks. On subsequent, necessary trips to
the Police Station she had, as before, seen a new officer
each time. Yet she yearned for Alessandro, even to catch a
glimpse of him. Leonora had never read Dante but recalled
one of his lines (from - of all things - Hannibal) `He ate
that burning heart out of her hand.' Another Beatrice,
namesake of Dante's great love, had spoken of eating a
man's heart in the marketplace. Leonora felt the description
to be apt - she felt, in a muddle of Dante and Shakespeare, that those poets had spoken of exactly how she felt - that
she had eaten a burning heart which was now lodged in
her chest. She felt none of the serenity of the Blessed
Virgin. She wanted Alessandro, pure and simple. She thought
her heart had cooled and set for ever after Stephen, hard
and cold like the glass heart she wore.

But no, for even this heart that I wear, after four hundred years,
would be melted again if I placed it in the fire.

And then, into her completed house, he came. That same
Saturday, in the evening, an unfamiliar rasping brought her
out of her reverie. She realized it was her own doorbell,
and opened her door to Alessandro, smiling, brandishing
her work permit, her residence permit and a bottle of
Valpolicella. He made no reference to his absence, but came
characteristically straight to the point.

`Shall we get some dinner? I know somewhere you'd
like.'

Leonora felt shocked, and breathless. Vanity made her
grateful that she was at least in the right clothes - she had
put on a white crochet dress for the heat of the day.
Determined not to be won over immediately she raised a
brow. `Another cousin?'

He laughed. `Actually, yes.'

She looked carefully at him. He proffered her white
permits like a flag of peace.

They walked abreast through the narrow calli to the trattoria, neither one ahead or behind. Their knuckles grazed
one another's and before Leonora could register the pleasurable shock of the touch she felt her fingers clasped firmly
in his warm hand. Since childhood, when her hand had
been held, whether by her mother or later Stephen, Leonora
had felt awkward - always waiting for the moment when
she could comfortably let go without giving offence. Now,
for the first time, she let this virtual stranger hold her hand
in comfort, only breaking away as they arrived at the
trattoria and began to weave through the crowded
diners.

Alessandro was greeted by the proprietario like a long-lost
and much missed brother. `Niccolo, my cousin,' explained
Alessandro from the comer of his mouth, as Leonora found
herself on the receiving end of two effusive kisses - not
the air-kisses of the English vicarage tea-party, but wellplanted, warm salutes. Niccolo, a similar age but twice the
girth of Alessandro, led them to the best table, with a
peerless view of the twilit Campo San Barnaba, with the
fat, full moon rising.

`The moon shines bright ... On such a night as this ...' No,
I must not get ahead of myself. Take everything as it comes.

As they settled themselves at the red-chequered cloth
Niccolo appeared unbidden with two menus, a pair of
glasses and a bottle of wine. He plonked the bottle in front of Alessandro, gave him a wink and a clap on the shoulder,
then melted away.

As Leonora studied the menu she felt suddenly shy and
discomfited. Their conversations had always been so direct
and easy before that the silence troubled her. Her eyes
scanned the Italian type, looking for comfort. She seized
on two familiar words in her panic. `Minestrone and
lasagne.'

Alessandro shook his head. `No'

`What!' she was briefly incensed.

`That stuff is for tourists. You live here. You should have
this.' He rattled off two dishes in Veneziano so rapid that
even her attuned ear didn't catch the words. `Polenta with
calves liver and risotto d'oro. Both delicious, both Venetian
specialities. You'll love the risotto, it's made with tiny flecks
of gold leaf. Truly a dish of the gran signori.' He dropped
his voice `You're not ... vegetarian are you?' as if enquiring
after a delicate medical condition.

She shook her head emphatically.

`Thank God. All the English are. Niccolo!' Alessandro's
cousin appeared from nowhere and took their order before
Leonora could protest. She sat back, befuddled, and began
to munch on a breadstick to buy some time. She had been
furious when, in the past, Stephen had overruled her choices
with his superior culinary knowledge.Why wasn't she angry
now?

Because, you little fool, you're being introduced to Venice by a Venetian; you're being included, treated like a local, just as you
wanted.

As if to reflect her thought, Alessandro spoke again. `You
know, there's a story that breadsticks come from Venetian
ship's biscuits, the food that built our trading empire. The
recipe was handed down by mouth over the generations
until the end of the eighteenth century, when it was lost
forever. But then in 1821 someone found a whole batch
of them in a bricked-up Venetian outpost in Crete, and
reconstructed the formula from there.'

Leonora smiled, relaxed, and took another. `It's strange
to think of my ancestors munching on these very same
biscuits, tasting what I taste, feeling them crumble in the
mouth like I do. The Manins had quite a shipping empire
at one time. And my ... father ... he worked on the
vaporetti. So I guess the sea is in the blood!

`It's in everyone's blood here. Your father ... is he still
alive?'

'No. He died when I was very little. My mother took
me back to England. So though I was born here you are
right to call me English - it's what I am really.'

Alessandro shook his head. `No, you are a Venetian. Do
you have any other family here?'

`I remember my mother saying my Italian grandparents
are dead. And I think my father was an only child.' It was
on the tip of Leonora's tongue to tell Alessandro about
Corradino, but something stopped her. It was he, and not Bruno, to whom she felt the connection of family, but
didn't know how to adequately explain that she felt far
more curiosity about the long-dead glassblower than she
did about her own father, the man who broke her mother's heart.

`It would be interesting to find out more about him - now
you're here. Give you some history. I could ... help ... if you
let me? I've got contacts through the Questura'

Leonora smiled. `Perhaps.'

But it's Corradino who calls to nie.

When the food arrived, it was indeed delicious. She ate
heartily, but with nothing of the relish and concentration
that Alessandro afforded to his meal, head down, spooning
up his dishes. She watched him indulgently, and he caught
her at it.

`What?'

`You eat with such ... not appetite, not hunger, not lust,
but a bit of all three.'

Gusto?'

`Yes, exactly! It means all those things and more. I guess
we don't have an equivalent word in English.'

`The English don't need one,' he said, including her again.
And then he smiled.

And that was that.

Gusto. The word stayed in her head for the rest of the
night.

Gusto, she thought, as he kissed her hungrily on the
Ponte San Barnaba.

Gusto, she thought as they drank Valpolicella straight from
the bottle on the balustrade of her roof garden, their feet
dangling perilously over the canal far below.

Gusto, she thought as he took her by the wrist and led
her, unprotesting, to her bed.

Gusto, she thought, as he took her loudly in the darkness.

In her dream they were in bed; Leonora's blonde hair
tumbled on Alessandro's chest. But when she woke he was
gone. Light from the canal played on the ceiling of her
apartment, and illuminated the icon above her bed, with
the heart burning still. Brighter today.

Leonora smelled coffee and padded through to the
kitchen. The pot was on the stove, still warm, with plenty
left. She poured herself a cup, concentrating hard on not
feeling hurt.

He owes me nothing, has promised me nothing, why should he
stay?

When she went to the fridge for milk she saw it. A postcard stuck under her fridge magnet. She recognized the
style of Titian; a picture of a cardinal flanked by two young men. The man on the right, also in priests' robes, was the
image of Alessandro. Leonora read the back; Tiziano Vecelli,
portrait of Pope Clement X with his nephews, Niccolo
and - surely not! - Alessandro. 1546. Beside the legend
there was something else too. A hasty scrawl which read:
`Ciao bella.'

Leonora sat heavily at the table, heart thumping. What
did it mean? Was the postcard something he carried around
with him, a device for susceptible foreign girls? What did
`Ciao bella' mean? It had a terrible ring to it, the tacky
sign-off of a lothario from a hundred movies. Even `bella'
in this context held no weight. It was all of a piece with
the offhand phrase - it did not denote beauty. She tortured
herself over the semantics of the phrase. She knew that
Ciao came from `ci vediamo'. The same meaning as the
French `Au revoir' - I'll see you again. She did not know
the Italian for `Adieu'.

Leonora shook her head. She did not want to plan, or
flagellate herself with these thoughts. She did not know
what Alessandro wanted from her, if anything. She watched
the water on the ceiling, listened to the cries of children
playing outside and two old men having a shouted conversation with each other across the campo. Sunday stretched
ahead, yawning empty. She must busy herself; find something to do, something to think about, before it was too
late.

It's already too late. I'm in love.

It was Monday. Leonora was on the roof, leaning on the
balustrade, looking over to the lagoon and wishing she
were on the boat to Murano. But today Adelino had
insisted that she stay at home, to be interviewed by a
journalist from Il Gazzettino, the foremost newspaper of
the Veneto region. She had dressed carefully in a white
linen dress she had found on the Rialto, and bound her
abundant hair with lace ribbons. She knew that today
there was to be no photographer, but she was under
instruction from the Milanese advertisers to appear as
feminine as possible at all times. They didn't want to sell
their campaign on the back of a tomboy - the whole
point of Leonora's appeal, apparently, was that she was a
girl in a man's job. Oh well. If she could project an image
of womanly vulnerability she might appeal to the journalist's better instincts.

If he has any.

What she really wanted to do was don her usual uniform
of old jeans, vest and ancient army jacket, put up her hair
and take the number 41 to work. She was sick of being
primped and posed - the last few weeks had been a test of
her endurance as she had been photographed at work, at
home and even in period costume. She had to grudgingly
admit that the resulting print adverts and posters did make
her look ... well ... pretty, and they were certainly more
tasteful than what had first been proposed.They had centred
on placing Corradino in modern environments and Leonora
in ancient ones. Leonora had balked at the idea of sharing
a frame with her dead ancestor, but the results had been
interesting, even intelligent. One featured a modern cafe
with a couple enjoying wine from a pair of exquisitely
modern goblets from the newly launched `Mann' range.