The Gondola Maker (16 page)

One of the men, a gallant-looking patrician, is doing his best to engross the women in conversation. He moves close to Giuliana and leans down to talk near her ear. My heart fills with uncontrollable jealousy for this stranger of whom I know almost nothing. I inch closer to her along the balustrade, to a spot where I can observe her while at the same time appearing to observe the twinkling lantern lights in the canal. I do my best to seem inconspicuous, as if I have found something fascinating in the canal to watch.

From the corner of my eye, I notice that one of the house servants is watching Giuliana as closely as I am. The slight man, whom I judge to be a North African, nearly disappears into the richly ornamented fabric on the wall, where he stands with his hands behind his back. I may not have noticed him if not for his seemingly abiding watch over Giuliana Zanchi. He is also watching the man talking to Giuliana, as if waiting for the man to make a false move.

I am now close enough to hear the man recounting a story about his exploits in the Dolomite Mountains. From the corner of my eye, I see the other lady in the group stifle a yawn. I listen vaguely to the man’s monologue, but all my senses are directed toward the girl in the green dress. After a few moments, I muster the nerve to turn directly toward her. From this vantage point, I can see the delicate skin behind Giuliana’s ear and wisps of brown hair loose at the nape of her neck.  I inhale, trying to catch her scent, but only the rotten, damp vapors of the canal fill my nose.

Giuliana seems suddenly aware of a presence behind her. She turns her head slowly. My heart leaps, and I look away, pretending to gaze again at the twinkling gas lamps swinging in the boats in the canal. Giuliana fixes her eyes on me with a blank stare for a moment. Then she smiles.

“I know you!” she exclaims. “Master Trevisan’s boatman!”

Chapter
24

“That’s a pretty good disguise! Well, except for the baggy pants.” She utters a deep-throated laugh. “And the shoes.” I look down at my sagging breeches and my embarrassingly scuffed shoes, which I now realize look even more ridiculous than I had originally thought. She leans toward me, and I can smell her perfume. I instinctively flare my nostrils, catching a mixture of daffodils and rose water.

“It’s fine,” she whispers. “Your secret’s safe with me.” She stifles a giggle with her hand. “What are you doing here, dressed like that?”

I gather my wits. I clear my throat and inflate my chest. “Well, I happen to be here on a secret errand for someone. I’m afraid I am not able to reveal more than that, Signorina Zanchi.” I try my best to sound confident and serious, corralling all my force to conceal my sheer panic. I am not at all sure that I have convinced her.

“I see,” Giuliana says, her expression now serious too, mirroring my own. I glance to see if the two men and the woman have turned to listen, too. To my utter relief, the tall man continues to drone on about the Dolomites, and the other two continue to listen to him politely. I turn my gaze back to Giuliana.

“I thought I recognized you,” she continues. “I don’t usually forget a face, though I often forget a name. What is it again?”

“Luca. Luca Fabris.”

“Yes,” she says. “Now I remember. Trevisan told me that he hired a new boatman. Poor man. He has had terrible luck with boatmen in the past. I’m glad to see that he seems to have found someone reliable. And how are you finding your work with the artist?”

I try to look confident. “Very well. You know, the artist has many important social engagements and business appointments, so I am very busy, too.” As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I second-guess myself. “But of course, like every
gondolier de xasada
, I have a lot of time, too, for...” I hesitate, “my own tasks.”

“Of course,” Giuliana says slowly, as if her mind is processing the information, and she seems suddenly and deeply engrossed in her own thoughts.

At that moment, Trevisan enters the room.

I recognize the artist’s portly, confident frame as it fills the doorway. A small entourage surrounds the artist, and the group heads toward the balustrade near the spot where I am standing.

This is my cue to flee.

“Excuse me,” I say to Giuliana, then I duck my chin and make my way purposefully across the room, sticking close to the wall. I navigate through the crowd in the room with the banquet table, then jog down the great marble staircase into the main entryway of the Ca’ Leoncino. A short-statured servant mans the front door. As I approach, the man opens it, bows, and wishes me a curt “
Bona serata
,
Signore
,” with a thick accent. I tip my hat briefly, then hurry out the door before I can be recognized by anyone else.

As I sprint down the alley to the gondola mooring, I hear the clanging of church bells. Blast! I have lost track of time. I reach the mooring and leap into Trevisan’s gondola. Inside the
felze,
I rip off my silly costume in desperation, my fingers fumbling with what seemed like thousands of minuscule silk-covered buttons. I stuff the outfit and hat under the aft deck, unlatch the mooring rope, then row with all my force to the alley adjacent to the palace.

The boat glides to a stop before the canal-side entrance of the palace just as Trevisan and Valentin emerge from the door. “There you are, Luca! Excellent timing!” exclaims Trevisan, still in the mode of gallant socialite.

“
Bonasera
, Master Trevisan,” I respond breathlessly. The important-looking men whom I had seen walking with Trevisan inside the palace are still with him. Each grasps Trevisan’s hands and kisses his bearded cheeks warmly, then bids the artist farewell as he steps into the gondola.

I row the artist and his assistant home, struggling to calm my wildly beating heart.

I SMELL THE TANNERIES, the famous
scorzeri
, long before I bring the gondola to rest along a stone quayside on the island of Giudecca. The stench is overwhelming, a nauseating combination of animal carcasses and rancid water. An acrid odor—some kind of alchemical concoction—fills the air. It has been years since I have had any reason to row to Giudecca. Now I understand why the tanneries lie at a distance from the city center.

If Valentin notices the stench, he doesn’t show any sign of it. The boy sits on the foredeck of Trevisan’s gondola, the wind blowing his hair as I row. The sun shines brightly and there is a tinge of warmth in the air, a harbinger of spring. Valentin is a puzzle to me, a quiet and withdrawn young man who seems completely self-absorbed. From my vantage point rowing the gondola, I observe his profile. His skin is soft and delicate. There is something dreamy about him, as if his mind were far, far away, except when I find the boy narcissistically gazing at himself in the mirror of the master’s studio. Although we are around the same age, it seems we have little to speak about. Trevisan has dispatched me to accompany Valentin to pick up supplies from a pigments seller in the Giudecca, and I think that it might provide an opportunity to learn more about what is happening inside the boy’s head—and inside Trevisan’s studio.

“Picking up supplies today?”

“Yes,” replies Valentin, not turning his head.

“So, why the Giudecca?”

Valentin continues to look to the horizon but turns his body to face me. “One of the pigments sellers there carries some special materials that Master is using as an experiment. We’ve started grinding colored and colorless glass particles in with the pigments. When we apply them in thin layers on the new twill canvasses, they make the surface of the picture appear more... translucent.” He makes an odd gesture with his hand, as if to try to replicate the effect of the paint.

“Hmm.” I nod as if I understand perfectly. “What project are you working on?”

Valentin turns his face to me, and his expression softens. “Master and I are working on several commissions right now. There’s the
scuola
, of course—that project seems never-ending. And as of yesterday we have a new commission from the Greek ambassador for a painting of Leda and the Swan. And we have our usual stream of portraits—everyone in this city wants to flatter themselves, it seems. We need to stock supplies since over the next month there will be a lot of work in the studio.”

I nod. “Does that include the picture of the girl... what’s her name again? Signorina Zanchi?” I feign ignorance.

“I don’t know,” replies Valentin. “I’m not working on that one. Trevisan’s doing that picture by himself. It’s small.” Valentin puffs up his chest. “I usually work on the bigger paintings—mythological scenes or religious pictures like the new triptych we’re doing for the church of San Giacomo dell’Orio.”

I nod. I have no idea what a triptych is.

We fall into an awkward silence, and I turn my gaze back to the other side of the Giudecca canal, where I glimpse a line of
squeri
along the banks that lay between the Punta della Dogana and the Zattere. From my standing position on the aft deck of the gondola, I have an unobstructed view of the ramps where the boat makers launch their new boats. I know each one of the families—Pisani, Sanuto, da Riva—all colleagues of my father, not one a rival.

“Would you please drop me at the quayside next to the tanneries?” Valentin asks. “That’s closest to the shop where I need to buy the supplies.” Then he falls silent again, idly chewing his fingernails and gazing off into the distance.

While I wait for the boy to return, I watch a man scraping a large animal hide tied to a wooden frame next to the banks of the canal. It is backbreaking work, barely a step up from slavery. The stench—created during the process of curing the hides—is nearly unbearable. On the north side of the tanneries, animal carcasses are piled high, a hellish sight. The hoofs of the slaughtered beasts reach stiffly skyward with rigor mortis. I wonder how the tanners endure these miserable conditions and figure that they must grow accustomed to the ghastly sights and repulsive smells.

A young man, no older than fourteen, carries two wooden buckets with rope handles down to the water. He is shirtless, his muscles too developed for a boy his age. He is drenched with sweat. As he bends over to fill the buckets, I perceive the strip-like welted marks across his back. He staggers back up to the tannery with the buckets full of water, and I see the long lashing-scars across his back again. I shudder.

I don’t want to see any more. I leave the boat at the quayside and, hands in my pockets, stroll down the wet alley. I pass a cobbler’s shop, a tailor, and a few residences. The shops are little more than grubby hovels with dirt floors, their doors open to the street to allow light onto their workbenches. Yesterday’s rain gathers in a trough in the middle of the cobblestone street, which forms a sieve that drains back into the canal. I step to the side here and there to avoid stepping into little piles of dog feces.

Ahead, a meat and cheese market stands cobbled together in a muddy piazza. Laundry flaps haphazardly like ragged flags on crisscrossed clotheslines overhead. I plunk a few coins on the table at one of the butcher’s stalls, and a heavy-set man with blue eyes and a bloody apron slices off a few wafer-thin pieces from a hock of prosciutto. I sit on the stone threshold of a door overlooking the piazza and chew the fleshy meat, which tastes grainy, salty, and delicious.

I wander toward the street where Valentin had indicated he was going for the supplies.  The street is lined with modest residences and grimier, hole-in-the-wall shops. It is just as Valentin described, a place where there are numerous specialists involved in the business of mixing things—alchemists in the service of painters, tanners, and other artisans. One shop catches my eye, mainly because it is large, clean, and filled with light from the storefront. Behind a counter stands a spry man, mixing several ingredients with a mortar and pestle. He has a shock of gray hair, an intelligent face, and a piercing gaze that makes me think of my dear oarmaker. I remove my hat and cross the threshold of the shop. The shopkeeper looks up from his work and greets me with a polite “
Bondì
.”

“
Bondì
,
signore
. I wonder if you have any muriatic acid?” I ask.

“I can make some for you,” replied the man. “Do you want cornstarch, too?”

“Perfect,” I say. “Thank you.”

While the man mixes the ingredients, I look curiously around the room at the shelves stacked high with glass bottles and ceramic jars. The shop resembles a fantastic apothecary, neat and organized, with labeled jars stacked from floor to ceiling.

The man sees me observing his shop and smiles. “I can make anything you want. I mostly work with the tanneries but I supply quite a few of the boatyards, too.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Well, mostly those along the Zattere. The boat builders in Cannaregio and Dorsoduro have their own sources. Say, I hear that the Squero Vianello is being rebuilt,” he says.

My heart pounds.

“What a disaster of a fire; what a shame for everyone involved. It’s a wonder no one was killed. Do you know how the family is doing?”

I am speechless, my heart in my throat.

“No,” I stammer, caught unprepared.

“Surely you are a
squerariol
?” asks the proprietor, sizing me up with a piercing gaze.

“Um, no,” I say. “I am just helping out with restoring an old boat.”

“Is that so?” asks the man, with a hint of distrust in his voice. “I would have guessed you were a
squeriariol
, without a doubt. And I’m usually right. There’s something about you... Plus, only a
squeriariol
would know about the magic of muriatic acid. Whose boat are you restoring?”

I am anxious to leave. “I’m sorry. I just remembered that I am late to meet my friend in the square. How much do I owe you?” I count the coins that I remembered to put in my pocket that morning, pulled from the burlap bag in the boathouse where I collect my weekly salary.

I emerge just in time to see Valentin walking purposefully down the alley, a panicked look in his eye. Then I notice that a bear of a man—black curly hair covering his head, chest and arms—is pursuing the boy. The man is staggering down the muddy alley after Valentin, visibly drunk, his eyes wild and tongue wagging.

“Come,
caro
! Just fifteen minutes! How much do you want?” The man’s voice booms, echoing through the alley.

I act instinctively. “Leave him alone!” I yell at the man.

“Why? Who are you, his lover?” the man booms, then howls with laughter, leaning over to slap his knees, which makes him take three sidelong steps before regaining his balance.

Valentin looks relieved to see me. We walk quickly, side by side, toward the quay where the gondola is moored. Behind us, the drunk man makes loud kissing noises, puckering his lips exaggeratedly and then cackling and hooting so loudly that a stern-looking woman slams the shutters of her house closed as we pass.

“Thank you,” says Valentin. “I’m sorry to say that it happens to me all the time. For some reason they think I am a prostitute.”

I pull the last slice of ham from my knapsack and share it with Valentin. The two of us board the boat, and once again, Valentin stations himself on the fore deck. As we move into the boat traffic in the Grand Canal, Valentin faces me, the wind at his back.

“You asked me before about Signorina Zanchi. Are you interested in her?” The boy chews the grainy piece of prosciutto and studies my face.

“No,” I reply a little too quickly. “Just curious. Why?”

“No reason. But just in case you were, she’ll be at the studio tomorrow morning.”