The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  “But you shouldn’t have done it! You’re being watched!” she said breathlessly. “When I left you—I saw Salvino, my husband’s secretary. I’m sure he wasn’t following me, but you—”

  “So Loredan’s trailing me, too, eh? Well, that’s all right. I’ve taken precautions. Your brother has been very helpful in that respect.” His eyes never left her face. “I thought you’d be happier to see me.”

  “Oh! I just didn’t expect—it’s not that—.” She felt flustered. “You knew that I am Alessandro Loredan’s wife! You might have said something!”

  “Why should I? There’s no love lost between Loredan and me, but that doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

  “Doesn’t it? You knew all along, even when you followed me to the Lido. You wanted to use me to hurt him!”

  “I admit the thought crossed my mind, briefly.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Then we have nothing to say to each other.”

  She started towards the door.

  He stepped in front of her. “I think we do. I haven’t been able to forget you. It was a fine night. I wondered how you felt about it.”

  She said tonelessly, “I don’t feel anything.”

  “Oh?” He lifted his brows. “But of course, I forgot, you’re just another bored noblewoman accustomed to casual interludes in the arms of total strangers.”

  “Please don’t,” she said softly. “You know that’s not true. I have thought about it, once or twice. I am grateful to you. You were kind to me. I didn’t particularly deserve kindness. I wish you well, Rafaello. You are a fine man. I know you will find someone who will—.” She stopped and bit her lip.

  “That’s very generous of you, Lady,” he said sarcastically. “Your wishes for my happiness will stand me in good stead, I’m sure.”

  She hung her head.

  “So that’s the way it is?” he asked.

  “Yes. I can’t see you anymore.”

  “You mean you don’t want to. No lies, remember?”

  “All right, I don’t want to,” she replied. “Thank you for the painting. You shouldn’t have done it. It’s far too valuable.”

  “I was tired of it,” he shrugged. “By rights it belongs to you anyway.”

  “Oh, so you know that, too?”

  “My grandfather kept careful records. You should have said something. It upset you to see it hanging in the house of a Jew, I know.”

  Uncomfortable silence descended.

  “I’d better go,” Fosca said. “They might worry.” Raf stepped aside and bowed elaborately as she passed him. He said to her retreating back, “Always in such a hurry to get back to the life you hate. I suppose that’s how you can distinguish the noble Venetians from the low-born ones: the nobles don’t know how badly off they are.” She stopped but didn’t turn around. “I had hopes for you, Fosca. You’re not like the rest. You’re too young to be thoroughly spoiled, I guess. But you haven’t far to go. In a few years there won’t be anything left of the real Fosca at all. You’ll be just another well-dressed vulture scavenging for new delights and diversions, dining on someone else’s kill. I thought I’d persuaded you to tell the truth, at least to me. But you’re still hiding behind lies.”

  “I haven’t lied to you.” She turned slowly. Her cheeks were flaming. “I told you the truth. I don’t want to see you again.”

  He approached her slowly. She held her breath. He put his hands on the sides of her face and kissed her tenderly. She felt a pleasurable tightening under her ribs. A soft moan escaped her lips. She pressed against him and pushed her fingers into his dark hair.

  “You’re a damned liar,” he grunted. She hid her face against his chest. “What’s the matter, Fosca? What are you afraid of? Loredan? He’ll never have to know. No one will know, except Tomasso. We need him. I’m afraid, and I think I can trust him.”

  “He’s doing it for money,” she said bitterly. “You can trust him as long as you keep paying him.”

  “I haven’t given him a sequin. Actually, I’m helping him whip the Barnabotti into a revolutionary army. That’s his price.”

  She looked up anxiously. “You mustn’t get involved with them! The Inquisitors will throw you into prison!”

  “Not right away. Don’t worry about it. And don’t worry about our meetings. It will be perfectly safe. I know how to be careful, I promise you.”

  Fosca drew away from him. “I don’t mind the danger.”

  “It’s because I’m a Jew, isn’t it?” he asked softly. “That’s why—”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, no! I thought that it mattered. I told myself that we were all wrong for each other, that we weren’t suited, and the differences between us were too great. I was afraid that my friends would mock me if they found out. But I don’t care now. I swear it. You’re worth ten of them! I wouldn’t care if you were a—a Turk!”

  He smiled and touched her cheek. “That’s very open-minded of you, Lady.”

  Twisting her hands nervously, she paced the floor. He watched her. She looked around for a place to sit down. The chairs in the room were dusty and rickety-looking. She lowered herself gingerly onto Tomasso’s narrow bed.

  “I think I know,” Raf said slowly. “You’re afraid of being hurt. You think I’ll break your heart, like Loredan did. You’d rather have no love at all than a love marred by that kind of pain.”

  She didn’t look at him. He knew he was right. “You think I’m going to use you, persuade you to fall in love with me, and then discard you when I’m tired of you,” he said, standing over her. “Oh,Fosca, where’s your courage, your spirit?”

  “I know what men are like,” she protested angrily. “Women are all the same to them. Why should I sacrifice myself to a man’s lust?”

  He cupped his hand under her chin. “Listen to me. If all I cared about was satisfying my grosser appetites, I wouldn’t have come here at all. You think I like climbing over rooftops and waiting for five hours in this stinking room for you to put in an appearance? I could have found some pretty little thing in the streets, paid my ten sequins, and that would be it. But I don’t want that. I want you, Fosca. God knows why, but I do. I don’t particularly want to fall in love right now. It’s damned inconvenient. There’s so much I need to do—. But that’s the risk I’m taking. Yes, I might break your heart. But you might break mine, too. We both have to risk something. It’s the only way we can have the joys.”

  “You’re very persuasive,” she said. A smile lurked around the corners of her mouth.

  “I have to be.” He sat beside her. “I know I’m dealing with a fiercely logical mind. With any other woman I’d have done my persuading in bed.”

  “Are you always so blunt?” she sighed.

  “I try to be. It’s very effective with people like you, who aren’t used to it.”

  “You think me weak-minded!” She feigned outrage.

  “As weak-minded as you are ugly,” he grinned.

  Well, Fosca, what’s it to be? Safety, and the old boring life? Or danger, and maybe love? You have to decide.”

  She threw her arms around his neck. “I want you,” she whispered. “I don’t care about the risks. I don’t care if you hurt me. I want you.”

  “I won’t hurt you, I swear it.” They kissed. “I think I knew, that day in the Senate. I knew you’d turn my life upside down.”

  “I knew it, too,” she said. “What does it mean? Are we falling in love?”

  “Would you mind?” he laughed.

  “No.” She loosened his stock and unbuttoned his shirt, and ran her hands lightly over his hard body. He quivered. “Make love to me now, Rafaello.”

  He caught her hands. “Are you always so bold?”

  “I try to be, with people like you whose minds lack subtlety.”

  “Have you forgotten, Lady, that you like to savor the delights of anticipation? I ought to make you wait.”

  “I won’t wait!” She moved against him. “I won’t wait, ever again!”

>   VII

  CARNIVAL NIGHTS

  A man in full Carnival regalia—mask, bauta, and cloak—stepped out of the alley alongside the walls of the ghetto and hailed a gondola that happened to be passing on the Canal Regio. He climbed on board and sat inside the felze. The boat moved away from the embankment and headed towards the Grand Canal.

  A spy came out of the shadows and signalled to a waiting gondola. He snapped orders to the gondolier and they followed the first craft along the Grand Canal under the Rialto, and through a watery maze of smaller canals until it drew up at the foot of a dark, deserted campo, and the masquer disembarked. The spy followed him on foot, and the hired gondola pulled away again and disappeared.

  Inside, Raf smiled to himself. Once again Tomasso had managed to decoy an Inquisitors’ spy away from him. He was free to proceed to his rendezvous with Fosca at the little casino she had rented near the Piazza San Marco.

  Carnival provided a thousand ways to evade spies who, when they lost their quarry, simply retired to the nearest tavern or café and planned the lies they would tell to their employers. Crowds of masquers camouflaged anyone who wanted to move about secretly. So many identical costumes were confusing, even to lovers themselves, who often had to speak warily to each other from behind their masks, just to be certain they had made no mistake.

  But Carnival was drawing to a close. When it ended, at midnight on Shrove Tuesday, and Lent began, forty days would pass before Easter marked the end of the Holy Season and the beginning of a new spate of festivals and holidays on which the public would be permitted to mask.

  Raf scouted the area for spies, then entered one of the houses on the Calle Contarina and let himself into Fosca’s apartment with his own key. She hadn’t tried to keep its existence a secret from her husband or friends, and in fact she entertained there frequently. So far no one knew that she had set up this casino, or “little house,” as a lovenest, or that the regular Tuesday night conversazione she held, a bright gathering of artists and wits, was really a smokescreen to allay suspicions. Many Venetian nobles, men and women, maintained pieds-á-terre where they could receive their friends more comfortably and informally than they could amidst the stately grandeur of their palaces.

  Fosca was waiting for him. She flew into his arms with a joyous cry and covered his face and neck with soft kisses. Her flesh felt firm and warm through the thin silk of her wrapper. He couldn’t conceal his desire, and she laughed and wriggled out of her robe.

  “What kind of greeting is that?” he growled as she led him to their bed.

  “The best kind,” she replied.

  “You were so late in coming tonight,” she scolded him warmly much later. “I was about ready to go out onto the balcony and start screaming your name, just like a peasant wife. ‘Rafaello!’ ” she trumpeted happily.

  Raf covered her mouth with his hand. “Are you crazy? Do you want to get the whole Council of Ten up here?” She nodded vigorously. “The Inquisitors?” Another nod. “Your husband?”

  She pulled away and said breathlessly, “Yes, ever him. I don’t care if he finds out. I want him to know! I want to walk right up to him and say, ‘See here. Signor. I have taken Rafaello Leopardi as my lover and I understand you are having him followed by spies. Desist at once! I don’t interfere in your love life, do I? Then stop interfering in mine!’”

  “Oh, does he have one?” Raf wondered.

  “Yes, he and Pietro—,”Fosca said. “Actually, my spies tell me that his latest mistress is an actress. My dear, can you believe it?” she squealed in imitation of a noble gossip. “One of those painted creatures from the stage! Such low taste!”

  “If you were a better wife, he wouldn’t need mistresses at all,” Raf teased.

  “If I were a better wife, I wouldn’t be here with you now,” she retorted. “I’m yours now, Rafaello Leopardi, whether you want me or not. This was all your doing anyhow. I didn’t follow you to the Lido; you followed me. And invited me up to see your art collection.”

  “And you were silly enough to come. Even stupid country girls don’t fall for that ruse anymore. But what do I care if you’re a brainless ninny? You still have a reasonably attractive body—”

  “Reasonably attractive!”

  “—and a pretty enough face—”

  “Pretty enough!”

  “—even though it must be said, in all fairness, that you are somewhat clumsy and awkward in bed—”

  “Clumsy and awkward! You wretch, I’ll teach you—”

  Laughing, they tumbled over each other like puppies, clawing and nibbling and tickling. A sharp rap at the sitting room door startled them. They froze, silent, then Fosca got out of bed and drew on a robe.

  “You stay here,” she said. “I’ll see who it is.”

  “Probably the people downstairs,” Raf said with a yawn. “Come to complain about the noise.”

  Fosca wasn’t fooled by his show of unconcern. She pulled the bedroom door closed behind her and stood with her ear pressed against the door to the hallway. “Who is it?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Tomasso.”

  Relieved, she turned the key in the lock and let him in. He lifted his mask when he was safely inside.

  “Terribly sorry to intrude, dear sister,” he said cheerfully. “Where’s your lover? I’ve come to take him away.”

  “Take him? But why? We were to have the whole night together. Oh, Tomasso—”

  Raf came out of the bedroom. He had dressed quickly and he was pulling on his coat. “I’m ready.”

  “But Raf! Where are you going? It’s not safe,” Fosca protested. “I don’t understand—”

  “I’ll come back,” Raf promised. “There’s an important meeting tonight, Fosca. I have to go.”

  “A meeting!” Her eyes snapped. Storm clouds gathered. “Well, I must say, Raf, it was very kind of you to visit me at all tonight. I am very grateful that you felt you could spare the time.”

  Raf and Tomasso exchanged glances. Tomasso said, “Some very influential members of the government are planning to come. Some of Loredan’s enemies. If we can rally them behind us—”

  “Yes, they’ll be there, and so will a half-dozen informants for the Inquisitors!” Fosca said angrily. “Oh, you make me tired, both of you! You’re dreamers, you’re little children waiting for your birthday, except this revolution you talk about is never going to happen. It can’t. As soon as you gain a little headway, they’ll crush you!” She stamped her foot. “Listen to me, Raf,” she said more softly, putting her hand on Raf’s arm, “stay here with me tonight, I beg you. Don’t get involved with Tomasso’s foolishness. He’s been associating with these trouble-makers for years, and it hasn’t done anyone any good.”

  Raf kissed the tip of her nose “I was a trouble-maker long before I set eyes on your brother, darling. I believe in what he’s trying to do, and I think I can help. We can help each other. The day is coming when all people will be free—”

  “Free! Is freedom more important to you than me?”

  “You’re both important to me,” Raf said firmly. “I have to go, Fosca.”

  “And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone, sit here and knit?” she raged. “What if you’re arrested? What if you’re thrown into prison? How long do you think that silly speech is going to protect you? You won’t be a hero forever, and they’ll take you away. I won’t visit you. I won’t even think about you! I hope they arrest you, too, Tomasso!”

  “Dear Fosca, so loving, so kind,” sighed her brother.

  “I know I’m selfish,” she cried. “And I don’t care! I know what I want!”

  “And I know what I want,” Raf said. “For both of us, for all of us. Come on, Tomasso.”

  He put on his mask and cloak, draped the bauta over his head and put on his hat. He and Tomasso were of a height, although Raf was broader; masked they looked identical.

  “I’ll be back, Fosca,” Raf said.

  “Don’t bother. I won’t be her
e!” She slammed the door behind them. She didn’t know whether to cry, or scream, or break something. She wanted to do all three. How else could she give vent to her anger, her jealousy, and her fear?

  “No, not that way. Over here.”

  Tomasso kept Raf from going down the stairs to the street, and led him toward the back of the building. He opened the small window at the end of the hall and stuck his head out. There was a five foot drop to the rooftop below. He had helped Fosca choose her casino, with an eye to needing an alternate escape route.

  “What’s the matter?” Raf whispered as Tomasso sat on the windowsill and twisted around. “Were you followed here?”

  “I’m afraid so. The Inquisitors seem to be taking an interest in my movements. I went to the Café d’Oro after I left you, and an agent followed me from there. Damned nuisance. I expected it, but we’ll have to find you another Pandarus.”

  They moved along the roof to the bell tower of the tiny church of Santa Giuliana. They climbed onto a chimney pot and boosted themselves over the sill of the bell chamber, ducked under the silent iron bells, and descended the cramped, narrow stairs to the rear of the nave.

  Candles in red glass holders flickered under the side altars. The place smelled of incense and mildew, beeswax and flowers. Raf looked around curiously. He had never been in a Catholic church before.

  An old woman stood up from a kneeling position and came towards them.

  “Genuflect,” Tomasso hissed. He yanked at Raf’s cloak and the two of them went down on one knee.

  Tomasso made the sign of the cross, and Raf somewhat awkwardly, followed his lead. The old woman dipped her fingers in a holy water font, blessed herself and genuflected towards the front of the church, and went out.

  “Let’s go,” Tomasso said.

  The street outside was empty. The two men darted swiftly into the shadows on the other side. Raf saw a cloaked figure lurking at the other end, in front of Fosca’s house.

  Hours later Raf entered the apartment again. Squares of moonlight patterned the blue carpet. The sitting room was dark. He was afraid Fosca had left, as she threatened.