The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  “Please, Paolo,” said Fosca quickly. “It’s not nice to talk about such unpleasant subjects while you’re eating.”

  “Why not?” Paolo wondered.

  “It might spoil the appetites of those around you,” she explained, “even if your own is, as usual, unaffected.”

  “Excuse me. Mama. I didn’t know,” Paolo apologized cheerfully. “I think I shall become a doctor and cut people up all day long. Oops, I forgot.” He looked guilty while Fosca tried to assume a stern expression. Paolo swung his feet under the table and then said to Raf, “Have you been to Africa, Signor?”

  “Yes, a few times. The Mediterranean coast, mostly.”

  “I would like to go there,” Paolo decided. “I want to see the animals and the jungle. I don’t want to see the slaves, though. Papa says that slavery is wrong. One day on the Molo we saw a whole line of black men, all chained together. They didn’t look very happy. Mama’s friend Signor Valier has a little black boy named Zabar, but he is not a slave, he is a servant.”

  “Is there a difference?” Raf asked.

  “Of course. Servants are paid and slaves have to work for nothing. That’s not fair, is it? If they do the same work, they should get the same pay.”

  “I quite agree with you,” Raf smiled. “All men should be treated equally.”

  Paolo scraped his spoon against the bottom of the bowl. “I’m finished". May I have a sequin to go and see the puppets now, Mama? Please?”

  “Two treats in one day?” Fosca said doubtfully. “I don’t know—let me see if I have a sequin. ” She opened her purse.

  “Permit me,” said Raf, digging into his pocket and producing a coin. Paolo looked at his mother before accepting it, and when she nodded he thanked Raf politely and ran out of the shop. Raf watched him go. “He’s a fine boy,” he said softly.

  “I’m afraid I’ve had very little to do with that,” she said with regret. “His tutors and nurses, and mostly Alessandro.”

  “Come to Burano tonight,” he said, covering her hand with his. “It’s important. Please.”

  She felt a warm thrill just at the touch of his hand, but she said, “I can’t Raf. Not tonight. I’m supposed to go to Giacomo’s salon for cards.”

  “Make some excuse. Tell him you’re ill. Tell them something. But come.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not right—not fair to Loredan, or to Paolo. Please, Raf, I don’t think we should.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow, Fosca. I have to see you again.”

  “Leaving?” She looked alarmed. “For where?”

  “The lines. I’ve gotten things started here and there’s nothing more I can do for the moment. I’ll be back in a few weeks, or maybe a month. Come tonight, please?”

  She nodded, knowing it would be impossible for her to refuse him anything. Suddenly she saw him stiffen, and looking over her shoulder she saw one of the Inquisitors’ police strolling past the latteria. Raf pulled a white larva out of the folds of his cloak, put it on, and disappeared into the throng in the Piazza. Fosca paid their check and followed slowly. Why did their meetings always have to be like this, tense and dangerous? There had been a time when she had loved the danger, but no longer. She felt frightened, and she was relieved when she saw Paolo standing in front of the puppet theater and laughing delightedly at the antics of Pulchinello and Harlequin.

  Once she raged at the restrictions that Loredan placed on her movements, but now, when she had her freedom again, and his trust, she found that she no longer wished to violate those limitations. She had narrowed the scope of her desires. She didn’t need to reach out, to search for danger and adventure, to test the limits of society’s and Loredan’s permissiveness. She thought fleetingly about how simple life would have been if Raf hadn’t come back. Now, all of a sudden here she was, looking over her shoulder again for spies, shying away from the police, feeling sick and apprehensive because Raf was in danger and because she was betraying the trust of one who loved her. Suddenly, cuckolding Loredan was not the sport it used to be.

  She went to Burano alone and found her way to the inn. She didn’t trust herself to speak when she saw Raf, and she threw herself into his arms at once. He didn’t say a word, but kissed her hungrily. They undressed each other and went to bed.

  Later he said, “I’m taking you away from here, Fosca. To Rome. You’ll be safe there, and when it’s all over I’ll send for you.”

  “I don’t understand you,” she frowned and pushed the tumble of hair out of her eyes. “What are you talking about? What about Paolo?”

  “Him, too. I want you both out of Venice. The Papal States have capitulated to Napoleon. The agents of the Inquisition can’t follow you to Rome—French protection is too good. You’d be safe there, out of danger.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I was in any sort of danger,” she said slowly. “I don’t want to leave Venice. I don’t want to take Paolo away from his home. He wouldn’t understand. And frankly, neither do I.”

  Raf shifted impatiently. “I don’t understand you, Fosca. A few years ago you couldn’t wait to get away from here. You wanted to be with me. You didn’t care about Venice, about your home. What’s happened to you, Fosca? You don’t want to forsake Loredan. That’s it, isn’t it? He’s turned you against me. You’re in love with him!”

  “No, no. I’m not!” she said quickly. “Oh,Raf, you know that I love you and no one else. But why must you make impossible demands of me? You’re just testing me, aren’t you? You think you can ask me to do something ridiculous, and if I loved you I would do it. But I won’t. My life is here now. It’s not a bad life. My son has a secure home and a loving father—”

  “A loving jailer!” Raf rasped. “Listen, Fosca, Venice won’t be secure very much longer.”

  “But it is secure now. We are in no danger. You’re just trying to frighten me. You're jealous of Loredan. But there’s no reason to be. I don’t love him,” she said firmly. “I don’t hate him, as I used to. I couldn’t bear the burden of that hatred forever. He is not the archfiend I thought him. He just wanted to do what was right, and so do I now. I won’t let you bully me into running away for no reason. You aren’t even going to be in Rome with us. You’ll be here, bringing down the Republic!”

  “Damn it, Fosca,” he breathed, “I am not trying to test your loyalty. I know you love me. I just thought you’d be safer removed from all this.”

  She sighed. “Oh, darling, let’s not spend our last night quarrelling.” She pressed close to him and kissed him. “I love you so—”

  Raf pulled away from her. “You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?” You’re letting him make love to you!”

  “I have slept with several men since you left Venice,” she retorted. “Loredan is my husband, after all. I have treated him very badly in the past and I owe him—”

  “You don’t owe him a damned thing!” Raf barked. He gripped her wrist. “I won’t let you go back to him, Fosca. You’re mine. Mine! I’m taking you away with me tonight, whether you like it or not!”

  “I won’t go with you,” she said, jerking her hand away. “And you can’t force me without exposing yourself to danger. He would follow us, I know he would. Napoleon and all his armies couldn’t stop him! I want to stay in Venice. I’ll—I’ll come and see you as often as you like, after you get back. I’ll do whatever you say, but not this. I won’t leave!”

  “Will you spy on him for me?” Raf demanded. “Tell me what he’s thinking, planning?” His eyes were burning.“ Will you do that much for me? I need to know what kind of resistance he’s got here—I know he’ll organize something—. How many men can he muster? What’s their strength? You could find all of that out from him, and tell me.”

  She stared at him. “No,” she said. “No, I won’t!”

  “Why not? He trusts you now, doesn’t he? Love loosens tongues. Men are flattered when women take an interest in their affairs. Ask him a few questions. He’ll tell you just what I need to know.”

/>   “But it wouldn’t be right!” she cried. “He trusts me, yes. Just betraying him now, with you, is agony for me. But I love you—I can’t help myself. How can you ask me to do this—to use his love for me as a weapon—to destroy him!”

  “I told you before, Fosca, this is war. You’re going to have to choose sides. Me or him. Freedom for all men, or continued privileges for the few. You know in your heart that the old ways are wrong. Change has to come, even to Venice.”

  “But he’d suspect. He’d learn that you were here and he’d guess that I was spying for you!”

  “What’s the matter,” Raf sneered, “are you afraid that he’ll stop loving you? What difference does it make? When this is all over, you’ll belong to me, not to Loredan. Can’t you see that, Fosca? The life you knew is ending. The ancien régime is gone forever. The nobles are dead. Men like Loredan are obsolete. The future is now! Freedom, equality for all men, the right to say what you like and write what you like and take part in your own government. That’s what this is all about!”

  She said, “Are the French so free now? I saw Paris that day. And I’ve heard about the Terror.”

  He snorted impatiently. “That’s not the point, Fosca. Aren’t you paying attention? I’ll admit that crimes have been committed in the name of Liberty. I was there at the Bastille, and I saw what you saw. It was horrible, I know. And I’ve seen worse things since then. The Terror. The day they executed the King. Bloodthirsty crowds at the guillotine. Heads rolling into bloody baskets like cabbages. It was sickening. And there isn’t a man in France who isn’t ashamed of it and who doesn’t regret it. But that’s behind us now.”

  She left the bed and started to put on her clothes. “You keep forgetting. I’m one of them. Part of the ancien régime you’re trying to bury.”

  “No. You’re one of us.”

  “You think that because I’m in love with you, I have to want what you want, and believe what you believe. But I can’t, Raf. You’re talking about destroying everything that is important to me. These obsolete institutions that you sneer at are the framework of my whole existence, and the same is true of everyone in Venice. I don’t think you can persuade even the common people to give up the things that they’ve lived with all their lives.”

  “A child that’s brought up in a cage doesn’t know the meaning of freedom,” he said. “How could he? Ask any man out there if he’d like to choose his own representatives to government, if he’d like to be equal to the nobility, and he’ll say yes. A thundering yes!” She sat on the edge of the bed and started to draw on her stockings. “Do you remember that last day in Paris? You told me then that I was more important to you than any revolution. You were ready to take me away with you, to a safe place where we could wait for our child to be born, where we could live without fear. Will you do that now, Raf?” she asked softly. “Will you give it all up and come away with me now? To England, or America, or to the moon? Will you?”

  He looked grim. “I can’t, Fosca. Do you remember what happened that day? Agents of the Inquisition stuck a knife into my back and dragged us both back here. It doesn’t matter what kind of dreams you have when history intervenes. We didn’t have a choice then, and we don’t now. I’m not going anywhere until I see Venice free and men like Loredan brought down. I’ve come too far to turn back now. We both have. What’s happened to us, Fosca? Once you would have dared anything to be with me. You didn’t care two damns about Venice or Loredan or anyone else. You would have defied Heaven itself to be with me, because you loved me.”

  “I still love you. I have never stopped loving you.”

  “Then why won’t you help me?” he demanded.

  “Because what you want me to do is abhorrent to me. Ugly.”

  “War is ugly. Revolution is ugly. Oppression is ugly. Wake up, Fosca!” He turned her around to face him. “You can’t go back now. No more hiding from the truth. Our lives were changed forever that night on the Lido when I kissed you for the first time. You felt it then, remember? I felt it, too. You fell in love with a revolutionary, and you took on the Revolution. Because it was part of me, and you loved everything that was part of me. That hasn’t changed. Nothing has changed. I’ve been away, and now I’m back, and I need you, Fosca. I need you so much.” He buried his face in her hair. She shivered. “When this is over we’ll be together, just the two of us, no one spying on us, no one trying to separate us. I’ll never let you go then, never!”

  She let him kiss her, then she stood up and gathered up her cloak and mask. “You’re as persuasive as ever,” she remarked without looking at him. “You should do well as a leader of men.”

  “Then you’ll do it?”

  “If you loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to do something that was distasteful to me.”

  “It’s all in the way you look at it, Fosca. In other days you would have thought that meeting in places like this was distasteful.”

  She walked to the door. “Will you lift the bar, please? I don’t think I can manage it alone.”

  “Of course.” He let her out. Before she left she gave him a long look, but neither spoke, and they did not touch each other again.

  In January, 1797, Napoleon’s Army of Italy subdued the Papal States. The Pope and his armies came to terms. The French were in control of all of Italy, with the exception of Venice.

  In Venice, the last Carnival was reaching its climax. Living in the shadow of war, the Venetians seemed to think of nothing but pleasure. Parties were never gayer, pranks never more outlandish, the women had never looked more beautiful nor given themselves so freely. The streets were never empty, never silent, but were filled until dawn with groups of revelers who didn’t want the night to end. They were afraid that if they went to their homes to sleep, they might wake up under foreign rule.

  Alessandro Loredan worked night and day with a commission of Senators on new treaties with France and Austria. In February, the French and Austrians met to do battle on Venetian soil, thus violating Venice’s neutrality. The French won the battle. The Venetian Senate drafted a message to Napoleon, congratulating him on his victory and asking for restitution for damages done to the towns of Brescia and Cremona. Once again they asked a reluctant Alessandro Loredan to carry their message to the Corsican.

  On the eve of his departure Fosca attended the theater and a ball. She came home very late and saw that a light was still burning in his bedroom. She hesitated, then knocked lightly.

  “Enter.”

  The room was strewn with books, papers, articles of clothing, rolled documents, leather portfolios. There were heaps of charred paper on the hearth.

  Fosca was shocked at how tired her husband looked, and how old. But he smiled when he saw her.

  “Ah, my Masked Lady has come to call. Please, come in, Fosca. You’ll forgive this appalling mess—I’ve been trying to pack and also to sort through some of my things before I left, and I’m not managing either very successfully, I fear.”

  She removed her mask and offered her hand. “I hear you’re off on another mission,” she said. “I wanted to wish you good luck and a safe journey.”

  “I wish to Heaven I didn’t have to go,” he sighed. “I feel a fool before I even start. I know very well what Bonaparte is going to say, and I don’t much feel like listening. If these idiots in the Senate would stop trying to pretend that they can slip out of this mess through diplomacy—but forgive me, I’m boring you with my woes. You look extraordinarily lovely this evening, Fosca. Did you have a good time tonight?”

  “It was a nice enough ball—the play was terrible. Antonio and I left before it was over.” She took off her cloak and perched on the only clear chair in the room. Her gown was green silk, slim and high-waisted, with a scalloped overskirt that showed glimpses of a peach-colored slip underneath. “You are very kind not to chastise me for neglecting you, Alessandro,” she said.

  “It is I who have been neglecting you,” he aid apologetically. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to become so abso
rbed in work ever again. I haven’t even been able to spend time with Paolo lately. I’m sure he’s very annoyed with me.”

  “He understands,” Fosca said. “And so do I.”

  “If only it weren’t so futile!” he said, exasperated. “They’re so blind, so imbecilic! Sending requests for compensation when they should be girding their loins for war! We could defend ourselves. We don’t have to give up without a fight.”

  “Then it’s true that the French will invade?”

  He looked sorry for his outburst, and said, “Oh, I don’t think there’s anything for you to worry about, Fosca. You know we’ve never been invaded before. Strategically, our location is superb, and there’s always the chance that Bonaparte—.”

  “You don’t have to lie to me, Alessandro,” she said. “I know very well that we have no navy, just a rag-tag collection of ships and no one to sail them, and that we are exposed and vulnerable. Then he will come, this Napoleon?”

  “Yes, it’s inevitable, I’m afraid.” He sat wearily on the edge of his bed and rested his elbows on his knees. “Despite the enormous efforts of many good men in the Council and Senate to wish him away, Bonaparte will come. And why not? Venice may be powerless and pathetic in her dotage, but she still has a lot to offer a greedy conqueror. Imagine the prestige attending the first conquest of the Queen of the Adriatic—toothless and crippled as she may be! He’s so close—he’d be a fool not to try for Venice. And believe me, Bonaparte’s no fool. But don’t think about it. There’s no point in letting the encroaching menace rob us both of sleep.”

  “And what will happen afterwards, when the French take over?” she asked.

  “I have seen that you and the boy will be quite safe. The riches that you and my mother persuaded yourselves I was squandering on my mistress have really gone into banks in Switzerland and England. I have dear friends in London who will look after you both if it becomes necessary for you to escape. So far Bonaparte has instituted no reprisals against the wives and children of the men who oppose him. When things settle down, you and Paolo will be able to travel quite safely if you should decide that you do want to leave.”