The Glassblower of Murano (2 page)

Perhaps it is she that plays - I wish it were so - but I will
never know.

He passed the grille without a glance inside and banged
on the door. As the maid approached with a candle he did
not wait for her inquisition before hissing: `Padre Tommaso
- subito!' He knew the maid - a surly, taciturn wench who delighted in being obstructive, but tonight his voice carried
such urgency that even she turned at once and soon the
priest came.

`Signore?'

Corradino opened his cloak and found the leather gourd
of French gold. Into the bag he tucked the vellum notebook, so she would know how it had been and one day,
perhaps, forgive him. He took a swift glance around the
dim alley - no, no-one could have drawn close enough
to see him. .

They must not know she has the book.

In a voice too low for any but the priest to hear he said:
`Padre, I give you this money for the care of the orphans
of the Pieta' The mask changed Corradino's voice as he
had intended. The priest made as if to take the bag with
the usual formula of thanks, but Corradino held it back
until the father was forced to meet his eyes. FatherTommaso
alone must know him for who he was. `For the orphans,'
said Corradino again, with emphasis.

Recognition reached the priest at last. He turned over
the hand that held the bag and looked closely at the fingertips - smooth with no prints. He began to speak but
the eyes in the mask flashed a warning. Changing his mind
the father said, `I will make sure they receive it,' and then,
as if he knew; `may God bless you. 'A warm hand and a
cold one clasped for an instant and the door was closed.

Corradino continued on, he knew not where, until he
was well away from the Orphanage.

Then, finally, he removed his mask.

Shall I walk on till they find ine? How will it be done?

At once, he knew where he should go. The night darkened
as he passed through the streets, the canals whispering
goodbye as they splashed the calli, and now at last Corradino
could hear footsteps behind keeping pace. At last he reached
the Calle della Morte - the street of death - and stopped.
The footsteps stopped too. Corradino faced the water and,
without turning, said `Will Leonora be safe?'

The pause seemed interminable - splash, splash - then
a voice as dry as dust replied.

`Yes. You have the word of The Ten.'

Corradino breathed relief and waited for the final act.

As the knife entered his back he felt the pain a moment
after the recognition had already made him smile. The
subtlety, the clarity with which the blade insinuated itself
between his ribs could only mean one thing. He started
to laugh. Here was the poetry, the irony he had searched
for on the dock. What an idiot, romanticizing himself,
supposing himself a hero in the drama and pathos of his
final sacrifice. All the time it was they who had planned
the final act with such a sense of theatre, of what was fitting, an amusing Carnevale exit. A Venetian exit. They had
used a glass dagger - Murano glass.

Most likely one of my own making.

He laughed harder with the last of his breath. He felt the
assassin's final twist of the blade to snap handle from haft,
felt his skin close behind the blade to leave no more than
an innocent graze at the point of entry. Corradino pitched
forward into the water and just before he broke the surface
he met his own eyes in his reflection for the first and last
time in his life. He saw a fool laughing at his own death.
As he submerged in the freezing depths, the water closed
behind his body to leave no more than an innocent graze
at the point of entry.

Nora Manin woke at 4am exactly. She was not surprised,
but blinked sleepily as the digital numbers of her bedside
clock blinked back. She had woken at this time every night
since Stephen left.

Sometimes she read, sometimes she made a drink and
watched TV, numbing her mind with the inane programming for insomniacs. But tonight was different - tonight
she knew there was no point even trying to get back to
sleep. Because tomorrow - today - she was leaving for
Venice and a new life, as the old one was over.

The digital clock and the bed were all that remained in
the room that didn't wait in a box or a bag. Nora's life
had been neatly packed and was destined for storage or
... or what? She rose with a groan and padded to the
bathroom. Clicked on the fluorescent strip that blinked
into life over the basin mirror. She splashed her face and
then studied it in the glass, looking for resolve in her reflection, finding only fear. Nora pressed both hands to
the place on her front between her ribs and stomach where
her sadness seemed to reside. Stephen would no doubt
have some medical term for it - something long and Latin.
`It wearies me,' she said aloud to her reflection.

It did. She was tired of being sad. Tired of being bright
and breezy to those friends that knew Stephen's defection
had left her shattered. Tired of the mundane workload of
dividing what they had bought together. She remembered
the excitement with which they had found and bought
this house, in the first days of marriage, when Stephen had
got his post at the Royal Free Hospital. She thought that
Hampstead seemed impossibly grand for a teacher of glass
and ceramics. `Not when they marry surgeons,' her mother
had dryly said. The house even had a name - Belmont.
Nora was not accustomed to houses so grand that they
deserved their own names. This one sat, appropriately, on
the beautiful hill that led to Hampstead village. A model
of pleasing Georgian architecture, square, white and symmetrical. They had loved the place instantly, made an offer
and had, for a time, been happy. Nora supposed she should
be glad. At least the money from Belmont had provided
her with security. Security - she smiled wryly at the
word.

I have never felt less secure. I am vulnerable now. It is cold outside of a marriage.

For the thousandth time she began to take an inventory
of her reflection, looking for clues as to why Stephen had
left. `Item - two eyes, wide and indifferent green. Item -
hair; blonde, long, straw-coloured. Item - skin; olive. Item
- two lips; chapped with the perpetual chewing of self
doubt.' She stopped. For one thing she was no Shakespearean
widow, despite the fact that she felt bereaved. And for
another, it gave her no comfort to know that she was
younger and blonder and, yes, prettier than Stephen's mistress. He had fallen for a forty-year-old brunette hospital
administrator who wore severe suits. Carol. Her antithesis.
She knew that Carol wouldn't sleep in an ancient Brooklyn
Dodgers t-shirt and a scruffy plait.

`He used to call me his Primavera,' Nora told her reflection. She remembered when she and Stephen had seen
the Botticelli painting in Florence on their honeymoon.
They were both taken by the figure of Spring in her
flowing white gown sprigged with flowers, smiling her
slight, hermetic smile, beautiful and full of promise. With
her burnished blonde ropes of hair and her leaf-green
hooded eyes she bore a startling resemblance to Nora.
Stephen had stood her by the painting and taken down
her hair while she blushed and squirmed. She remembered
the Italians calling `bellissima', while the Japanese took photographs. Stephen had kissed her and put a hand on her
stomach. `You'll look even more like her when ...'

It had been the first year they had been trying for a
baby. They were full of optimism. They were both in their early thirties, both healthy - she was a runner and Stephen
a gym fanatic - and their only vice was quantities of red
wine, which they virtuously reduced. But a year went by
and eventually they visited a colleague of Stephen's at the
Royal Free, a round and cheerful aristocrat with a bow
tie. Interminable tests later, nothing was found. `Unspecific
infertility'.

`You may as well try blue smarties, they'll work as well
as anything,' said the colleague, flippantly. Nora had cried.
She had not fulfilled the fruitful promise of the
Primavera.

I wanted something to be found - something that could be
fixed.

They put themselves through a number of invasive, intrusive and unsuccessful procedures. Procedures denoted by
acronyms that had nothing to do with love or nature, or
the miracles that Nora associated with conception. HSG,
FSH, IVE They became obsessed. They took their eyes off
their marriage, and when they looked back, it was gone.
By the time Nora entered her third cycle of IVF both
knew, but neither admitted, that there was not enough love
left between them to spare for a third party.

It was around this time that a well-meaning friend had
begun to drop hints that she had seen Stephen in a
Hampstead bar with a woman. Jane had been very nonchalant about the information - she had not been damning, as if to say; `I'm just telling you this in case you don't
know. It may be innocent. I will say nothing which you
cannot ignore with impunity, if you choose to. Nothing
from which you cannot draw back. Nothing is lost. Only
be aware.'

But Nora was consumed by the insecurity of her infertility and challenged Stephen. She expected denial, or
admission of guilt and pleas for forgiveness. She got neither.
The situation backfired on her horribly. Stephen admitted
full culpability and, in his misplaced conceit of honourable
behavior, offered to move out and then did. Six months
later she learned from him that Carol was pregnant. And
that was when Nora decided to move to Venice.

I am the cliche after all. Stephen is not. He left a young blonde
woman for an older brunette. A jeans-wearing artist for a beancounter in a suit. I on the other hand, instantly enter a mid-life
crisis and decide on a whim to leave for the city of my ancestors
and start again, like some bad TV drama.

She turned away from the mirror and looked at her packing,
wondering for the millionth time if she was doing the
right thing.

But I can't stay here. I can't be always running into Stephen, or
her, or the child.

It had happened, with astonishing bad luck, on a fairly regular basis, despite Nora's attempts to scrupulously avoid
the environs of the hospital. Once she met them on the
Heath, of all places - all that square mileage and she had
met them while running. It occurred to her to keep going,
and had she not been attempting civility with Stephen
over the division of Belmont, she would have. Stephen and
Carol were hand in hand, wearing similar leisure clothes,
looking happy and rested. Carol's pregnancy was clearly
evident. Nora was bathed in sweat and confusion. After a
stilted exchange about the weather and the house contracts,
Nora ran on and cried all the way home, tears streaming
into her ears. Yet Stephen had been more than generous
- he had all but given her the house. He has acted well
throughout, thought Nora.

He is no pantomime villain. I can't demonize him, I can't even
hate him. Damn him.

The house sale had given her freedom. She could now
embark on her adventure, or her mistake. She had told
no-one what she planned, not even her mother Elinor.
Especially not her mother. Her mother had no love for
Venice.

Elinor Manin was an academic who specialized in
Renaissance Art. In the seventies she had gone on a tutor
exchange from King's College London with her opposite
number in Ca' Foscari at the University of Venice. While there she had rejected the advances of the earnest baby
professors from Oxford and Cambridge and fallen instead
for Bruno Manin, simply because he looked like he had
stepped from a painting.

Elinor had seen him every day on the Linea 52 vaporetto
which took her from the Lido where she lived to the
university. He worked on the boat - opening and closing
the gate, tying and untying the boat at each , fermata stop.
Bruno twisted the heavy ropes between his long fingers
and leapt from the boat to shore and back again with a
curious catlike grace and skill. She studied his face, his
aquiline nose, his trim beard, his curling black hair, and
tried to identify the painting he had come front. Was it a
Titian or a Tiepolo? A Bellini? Which Bellini? As Elinor
looked from his profile to the impossibly beautiful palazzi
of the Canal Grande, she was suddenly on fire with enthusiasm for this culture where the houses and the people
kept their genetic essence so pure for millennia that they
looked the same now as in the Renaissance. This fire that
she felt, this continuity and rightness, did not leave her
when Bruno noticed her glances and asked her for a drink.
It did not leave her when he took her back to his shared
house in Dorsoduro and bedded her. It did not even leave
her when she found that she was pregnant.

They married in haste and decided to call the baby
Corrado if it was a boy and Leonora if it was a girl, after
Bruno's parents. As they lay in bed with the waters of the
canal casting an undulating crystal mesh onto the ceiling, Bruno told her of his ancestor, the famous maestro of glassblowers, Corrado Manin, known as Corradino. Bruno told
Elinor that Corradino was the best glass-maker in the
world, and gave her a glass heart made by the maestro's
own hand. It was all incredibly romantic. They were happy.
Elinor made the heart reflect the light on to the ceiling,
while Bruno lay with his hand on her belly. Here inside
her, thought Elinor, was that fire, that continuity, that eternal
flame of the Venetian genome. But the feeling faded as the
modern world broke into theirs. Elinor's parents, not surprisingly, felt none of the respect for Bruno's profession
that the Venetians feel for their boatmen. Nor were they
impressed by his refusal to leave Venice and move to
London.

For Elinor too, this was a shock. Her reverie ended
abruptly, she was back in London in the seventies with a
small daughter, and a promise from Bruno to write and
visit. Baby Leonora spent her first months with her grandparents or at the University creche. When Bruno did not
write Elinor was hurt but not surprised. Her pride stopped
her from getting in touch with him. She made a gesture
of retaliation by anglicizing her daughter's name to Nora.
She began to appreciate feminist ideas and spent a great
deal of time at single mother's groups rubbishing Bruno
and men in general. At the Christmas of Nora's first year,
Elinor received a Christmas card from an Italian friend
from Ca' Foscari. Dottore Padovani had been a colleague
in her department, a middle-aged man of intelligence and biting humour, not one given to patronage or sympathy.
But Elinor detected a note of sympathy in his Christmas
greetings. She rang as soon as the Christmas vacation was
over to demand why he thought that just because a woman
was a single parent she deserved to be pitied. He told her
gently that Bruno had died of a heart attack not long after
she had left - he assumed that she had heard. Bruno had
died at work, and Elinor pictured him as she had first seen
him, but now clutching his chest and pitching forward
into the canal, the city claiming its own. The fire was out.
For Elinor her love affair with Venice was over. She continued in her studies but moved her sphere of interest
south to Florence, and in the Botticellis and Giottos felt
safe that she would not keep seeing Bruno's face.