The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  “Fosca, don’t, please—”

  “Please let me speak, Alessandro. I know that if you had divorced me and turned me out, my son would have been a bastard and I would have been an outcast, a real outcast. You saved us both from that humiliation, at the cost of your own reputation and career. I know that you could have gone much farther in government if it hadn’t been for me. Everyone knows it. But you protected me, and sacrificed yourself.”

  “I wasn’t being noble,” he said gruffly. “I was sick with jealousy. What I did, I did more out of spite than out of love.”

  “That doesn’t matter now. You still loved me then, and you love me now, and Paolo, too.”

  “You are both dearer to me than my own life,” he said simply.

  She knew it was true. “Why do married people do the things they do to each other?” she wondered sadly. “Awful things, hurtful, that they wouldn’t do to their friends or even to people they despised. I’ve been a bad wife. I was a bad choice.”

  “I’ve never regretted marrying you, Fosca. My career doesn’t matter now. I’ve done some growing up, too, you see. I was proud enough to think that if I kept you close, and bound you to me with hoops of steel, as the English poet said, someday you’d relent, and forgive, and start seeing me as a man and not a monster—in spite of my monstrous behavior.”

  “At least,” she said playfully, “I’ll never see you as a god, as I did once.”

  “And you’ll never be disappointed, as you were then. Fosca,” he moved closer, “may I—”

  She stepped away from him. “No, please, not tonight. I’m not ready for that.”

  “It’s all right. I understand. I’ll wait. I don’t care if it takes a hundred years.”

  “I can’t promise—I wish I could.” She gave him her hand. He kissed it warmly and she withdrew it. “Good-night, Alessandro.”

  “Good-night, my dearest love.”

  XV

  LAST CARNIVAL

  The Loredan entourage left the villa for Venice in mid-October. Bonaparte’s troops had encroached on Venetian territory as they battled the Austrians, and an emergency session of the Signoria had been called. The Senate decided to send emissaries to the French General. They would bear the greetings of the Republic and sound out his intentions. Alessandro Loredan, having experience in diplomacy, war, and things French, was the logical choice to head the delegation.

  On the night before Alessandro was scheduled to leave for the French encampments at the western edge of Venetian territory, Fosca went to see him in his library. He was working at his desk and looked up wearily when he heard her enter. His face brightened.

  "Ah,Fosca,” he rose to greet her. “Have you come to wish your ageing warrior farewell?”

  She offered her hand. He held it and gazed at her fondly.

  “You look tired,” she said. “Are you worried about this trip?”

  “I have absolutely no hopes for success,” he said with a wry grin. “Otherwise though, I am cheerfully optimistic.”

  “You’re in no danger?”

  “No, unless this cagey Corsican decides to provoke a war by assassinating me on the spot. He will be disappointed. Our leaders would find some way of overlooking his bad manners. They might declare me expendable and even thank the French for ridding them of a nuisance.”

  “Please don’t talk like that,” said Fosca with a shudder.

  “I’m sorry. It was thoughtless. But I’m pleased that I’ve provoked some response.” He looked at her sharply. “You do care, a little.”

  “Of course I care.” A blush rose to her cheeks. She looked away. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I just wanted to give you something to take with you.” She handed him a flat gold case, a little bigger than a water case. “You see, when you open it, there are two portraits inside. One of Paolo and one of me. Your mother’s cicisbeo Don Carlo did them for me this summer He’s very talented, isn’t he?”

  Alessandro smiled at the miniature portraits. “Yes. he is, and at something besides gossip. They’re perfect likenesses. Thank you, Fosca. I’d been wishing I had something like this to take with me. I shall treasure this. You’re very thoughtful.”

  “There seems so little that I can do,” she said shyly “I must go now. Be careful, I beg you.”

  “I will,” he said solemnly. “I promise.”

  She nodded and went out. He sat on the edge of his desk and gazed at the portraits for a long time. Then he snapped the case shut with a sigh and went back to work.

  Fosca didn’t sleep well that night. She felt sick with guilt and apprehension. As soon as Alessandro was gone in the morning she intended to betray him.

  Tomasso told her that Raf was staying on Burano. one of the smaller islands in the lagoon. There was a small village there, where generations of women had ruined their eyes making lace for the gentry. She and Tomasso went out together in a hired gondola. Both were masked.

  It was mid-afternoon, the hottest time of the day, and the inhabitants of the treeless little island were hiding from the sun in the cooler interiors of their houses. Inside doorways Fosca could see some women working at their lacemaking. Some chased after her, offering items for sale, but she shook her head. Canaries in cages chirped and sang. A dog slunk along in the shadows of the buildings.

  Tomasso led her through a maze of small streets to a mean-looking tavern. They passed through the empty public room and mounted a flight of crooked stairs. The place seemed silent, deserted.

  They stopped in front of the door at the top and Tomasso knocked three times, slowly and deliberately.

  “Ah, a secret signal?” Fosca remarked with soft irony. “How terribly clever.”

  “Be quiet,” he grumbled. “If we went in without giving the signal, he’d shoot our heads off.”

  “Dear me! Neither of us would be much good without a head, I fear.” She felt nervous. Her hands were trembling a little.

  They heard the scrape of wood on wood as a bar was lifted. Tomasso stepped closer to the crack of the door and said his name in a low voice. As the door swung open slightly he stepped back and motioned to Fosca to enter.

  “I’ll be downstairs, drinking with the landlord in his special parlor,” he said. “Take your time.”

  She went in. Raf closed the door behind her and barred it again. The room was low-ceilinged but not too small. It was on the shady side of the house and felt cooler than the stairs and considerably cooler than the outdoors. The windows were open. No breeze stirred the curtains. A small bed in the corner, a good-sized table covered with papers and writing materials, a few rickety chairs completed the furnishings.

  She took off her mask and dabbed at her moist forehead with her handkerchief. Then she faced him. He looked drawn, thinner. The lines around his eyes and mouth had deepened, and there was a grim cast to his mouth that hadn’t been there before. As usual his clothes looked clean enough but they were plain and unfashionable. His shirt was open to the waist and his chest sparkled with beads of sweat. He needed a shave. “You look older,” she said awkwardly.

  “You don’t. You look the same. Still beautiful. It’s good to see you again, Fosca.”

  She walked around, looking. There wasn’t much to see. “So this is where you carry on your revolutionary work,” she remarked. “How interesting.”

  “It’s as boring as shit,” he growled. He jerked his head at the table. “I’ve been drafting some pamphlets. The usual stuff: “Throw off your oppressors! Arise! Deliverance is at hand!”

  “You didn’t used to be so cynical about it,” Fosca said. “You used to believe those slogans.”

  “I still do. But I’ve lost my innocence somewhere along the line. The slogans are true, it’s getting the people to accept them and act that’s hard. I watched the French shouting, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ while they were lopping off the heads of their noble brothers. Scenes like that make you think.”

  “And that’s what you want to happen in Venice? You want heads to roll?
”

  Raf perched on the edge of the table and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes were hard, unreadable. The light of youthful hope and enthusiasm had gone out of them and had been replaced by the calculating coldness of experience. For a moment Fosca was reminded of how Alessandro had been when she first knew him: ruthless, impatient, intolerant, cruel. It had taken the years to soften him, to make him see that worldly success does not bring happiness. The world will use its gifted, drain them, and forget them.

  “This is history, Fosca,” Raf said. “I’m not making it. I’m just following along, riding it to my destination. I’ve been a loyal son of the Revolution, changed my name to Leopard, paid my dues, attached myself to the men who wield real power, like Bonaparte. Now the time has come for me to step forward and claim my reward. When the French take over Venice, I’m to be leader of the Provisional Revolutionary Government. I’ll be the most powerful man in Venice. Me, the troublesome Jew from the ghetto. It’s my turn now, Fosca. This is what I’ve always wanted. I don’t care if I have to take off a few heads.”

  “You didn’t always hold life so cheaply,” she said.

  “I didn’t know just how cheap it was. Taking a life is as easy as making one.” He saw her flinch. “I have a son, I hear. How is he?”

  She swallowed. “He’s fine, just fine. It’s very kind of you to take an interest. How did you find out about him? From your dancing whore?”

  “So that’s what’s been eating at you. I might have known.”

  She said, “You couldn’t wait to get away from me so that you could fly to her side! Well, where is she?” She tossed her head. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring her along to keep you company in this desolate place and to help you with your writing. I hear she’s a brilliant correspondent.”

  “Stop that,” he said sharply. “You have no reason to be jealous of her.”

  “I, jealous, of that! You’re joking, of course. In order to be jealous of her I’d still have to care about you, and I don’t. I don’t care about you at all. I hate you!”

  She spun around and covered her face with her hands. He came up behind her and put his arms around her. “You always were such a rotten liar, Fosca,” he said with a sigh.

  “You went away,” she said thickly. “It was like you had disappeared from the face of the earth. You never wrote, never sent word. But you wrote to her, didn’t you!”

  “No, I didn’t,” he said. “She sent a few messages through our people here because she thought I’d like to know about my aunt’s illness. I was grateful for the news, even though there wasn’t anything I could do to help.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you were. And I’m sure you expressed your deep gratitude the first time you saw her after you got back. Well, why not? It didn’t cost you anything, and I’m sure it made her very happy!” She tried to break away from him but he held her arms tightly and jerked her around. “Let me go. I’ve had enough of you and your slut and your stinking Revolution! I’m sick of you! I wish I’d never set eyes on you! Let me go!”

  She was becoming hysterical and her voice was rising. He struck her sharply with his open hand. It didn’t slow her down. He slapped her again, very lightly, and shook her. Fosca moved her mouth silently, and then burst into tears. Raf held her as she sobbed. "

  “You’ve been storing this up for a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Why didn’t you write to me?” she said, choking. “Just once? Just to tell me you were alive and that you loved me.”

  “I don’t know, Fosca. I thought it would be easier not to. I told myself that you’d forget me, that it would be better.”

  “How could I forget you, when I had your child to remind me of you? I thought of you every day, every hour.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I thought about you, too. When things were unbelievably ugly and cruel, I’d close my eyes and remember how it was with you, here, and in Paris. Just the two of us. How beautiful you were. How much I loved you.”

  “We quarreled then, too. Just like now. I’m such a jealous bitch.” She looked into his face. “You must tell me, Raf. Do you love her? Be truthful. I need to know.”

  He sighed. “What do you want me to say, Fosca, that I hate the sight of her? She’s done a lot for me. I don’t hold what she did to us seven years ago against her. She was a child then. Now she’s taking care of my aunt, and she’s bought back my furniture, the things I had to sell—”

  “So that you could afford to run away with me,” she said bitterly.

  “Yes, and I was glad to do it. But now—I have a lot to thank her for.”

  “She saved your life, too. Remember that? She rescued you from the Inquisitors’ prison—you were very lucky. If you had waited for me to save you, you’d be dead now. I’m only a corrupt and helpless noblewoman. I don’t have the courage and the imagination of a scheming peasant!”

  His fingers bit into her upper arms. “Will you stop that? I’m telling you that I love you, Fosca.” He said it again very slowly. “I love you. I have never loved any other woman the way that I love you, never. Not Lia. Not anyone. You, Fosca. Only you.”

  A fresh torrent of tears spilled down her cheeks. “I can’t stop myself. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I think about her and what she tried to do to Alessandro, and then I picture the two of you together—”

  “What are you talking about? What about her and Loredan?”

  “Oh, you’ve heard about it. I’m sure. You even planned it, didn’t you? You told her to seduce him, to bleed him of every cent that she could, to drag him down into the mire of disgrace and ruin! She was spying for you, trying to weaken the moral fabric of the nobility.”

  “That doesn’t need any help from Lia or anyone else,” Raf said curtly. “Loredan? Lia and that smug, pompous bureaucrat? I don’t believe it!”

  “It was common gossip for weeks, until I put a stop to it. Ask anyone. Tomasso, anyone.”

  “Why did you stay with him, Fosca?” he asked suddenly. “Why didn’t you let him divorce you?”

  “He didn’t give me a choice. He wouldn’t let me

  “That damned villain,” he breathed. “That spiteful, evil—”

  “You’re wrong,” she said quickly. “He did it because he loved me. He loves me still. I know that my husband has many faults, but he is not what you think. We were both very stubborn and unsympathetic to each other after we were married. We hurt each other. But now—I understand him better.”

  “Well.” Raf let out his breath in a long whistle. “That’s very cozy. Very cozy, indeed! So you and he have come to an understanding, is that it?”

  “Yes, we have.”

  “He’s tricking you, Fosca. He’s tried everything else—force, captivity. Now he’s trying a play for your sympathy.”

  She moved away from him. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

  “Meaning I don’t have the refined sensibilities of the nobility,” he sneered. “You’re right there, Fosca. When I love a woman I don’t treat her like a piece of filth.”

  “No, you just forget about her altogether and fall into bed with the first little trollop that comes along!”

  “Very well, Lady,” he said coldly, “so I’m a boor, a brute and a lout. I’m crude, barbaric, lusty, and uncivilized. You found all these qualities very attractive when we first met, remember? And I’m not ashamed of what I am. But you—you’re so weak-minded that you’d fall for the first lie that that overbred imbecile Loredan spins!” He threw back his head and let out a shout of laughter. “I can just see it: Loredan scraping along on bended knee, mumbling pretty metaphors about how like the sun and the moon you are—depending on the time of day, of course. Kissing your hand, feeling your breasts, flattering and petting, just like one of those damned prissy castrates you were always so fond of!”

  “They were my friends,” she barked, “and if they couldn’t do anything else at least they knew how to make a woman feel wanted!”

  “They were a bunch of
weak-kneed, simple-minded fops,” he snorted. “As scented as women and about as manly as ten-year-old boys. You people are all such goddamned cowards. All of you! Hiding everything behind your masks. Not just these,” he picked up her black oval and tossed it into a corner, “but masks of pretense. Manners. Conventions. Everything false and meaningless and corrupt.”

  “Oh, of course simple peasants like you have honor to spare,” she said scathingly. “If someone annoys you, you just chop off their heads! Even the King and Queen of France! I suppose you were there when they dragged Marie Antoinette to the guillotine? I’ll bet it was a pretty sight. It must have made you proud to be part of the revolution that slaughtered them!”

  “A revolution is not an exercise in gentility, like the minuet,” he said. “It’s a struggle, a fight. It’s war, not between nations but between classes.”

  “Yes, yes, I know all about that,” she said disdainfully . “War between the oppressors and the oppressed. Well, I think it’s just so kind of your lovely General Bonaparte to take the happiness of the rest of Europe into his own hands, and to liberate all the peoples of Italy from their oppression, even those who don’t want to be liberated. He must be counting himself lucky at this very moment for finding a Venetian traitor who would pave the way for him here!”.

  He flushed angrily and clenched his fists. “I’m no traitor, damn you,” he said through his teeth. “No one loves this country more than I do. No one! I’m here to help, Fosca. Not to hurt.”

  “Then leave Venice now. Stop your dirty work. Let someone else do it. Come back when it’s over. But don’t help destroy the city and the people you love.”

  “There won’t be any destruction. Any more than necessary, that is. Listen to me, Fosca.” He put his hands alongside her face and made her look at him. “Why are you treating me like this? You’ve always known what I wanted. You believed in me once. You loved me. I think you still love me. What’s happened to you? Have you let Loredan persuade you that we’re all a bunch of animals, and that Revolution is a nasty, ungenteel business that no gentleman would soil his hands on? He’s right. Gentlemen haven’t the guts to change what’s wrong because they know that they’re at the core of the problem. What can they do, eliminate themselves? But they have to be eliminated, Fosca. And it’s happening, all over Europe. It’s really happening. The upper classes are vanishing.”