“I’m honored by your presence and happy to see you again. A whole summer’s been and gone since your last visit. Come, come,” he said, drawing away from the bed. “How can I be of service? Are you still hunting for manuscripts?”
Teodora insinuated herself into the conversation. “We’re expecting a prodigious shipment.”
Karamago lost his temper. “Silence, silence, infidel’s daughter. She knows nothing but tries to stick her nose into everything. As I was saying, I’m expecting a prodigious shipment—”
Ademaro interrupted him. “We’ll be happy to see it but right now I need your help with another delicate matter.”
“My heart will be full of joyful joy if I can be of service. . . ” Karamago always seemed on the point of losing his balance and being dragged forward by an oversized belly that his small body could not support.
“My fellow brother’s name is Edgardo. He’s a talented scribe, one of the best at Bobbio Abbey. Unfortunately, despite his youth, his eyes have been growing weaker for some time now and his eyesight is failing. As you can appreciate, this is a terrible misfortune for one who has chosen to devote his life to writing.”
“It would be like depriving a Venetian of the sea,” Karamago said in a cutting tone.
“During my last trip,” Ademaro continued, “I remember you told me about a merchant back from the Orient who’d seen elderly scholars in those countries use stones that help cure ailing eyesight.”
“A stone for ailing eyes,” Karamago repeated. “Let me just recall my recollections.”
“Of course, yes, don’t you remember?” Teodora butted in, her flesh wobbling and spreading wafts of civet.
“Silence! Keep silent.”
“It was Bartolomeo Ziani, just after he returned from Alexandria,” Teodora continued, unperturbed.
Karamago darted a peeved glance at his wife. “Oh, yes, that’s right.”
“And where can we find this Bartolomeo?” Edgardo asked, on cue.
“In the sea,” Teodora promptly answered, “probably being eaten by fish.”
Karamago nodded. “That’s right, he was abducted, dismembered, cut into pieces, and thrown into the sea by Dalmatian pirates. But our beloved Doge Falier promptly responded to the outrage by sending out five galleys that destroyed their entire accursed fleet.”
“Was there anyone else who knew what Bartolomeo had seen?” Edgardo insisted.
“I don’t know. I remember he told me about a transparent stone, a crystal maybe, yes, a miracle crystal that restored the sight . . . but he never told me how it worked, whether it had to be finely crushed and applied like an ointment or else diluted in a liquid and drunk.”
It was over. It had been just a brief illusion. Ademaro looked at his friend.
A high-pitched sound rose from the bed of spices. “Still, if it concerns crystals, then perhaps Jacopo Zoto* knows something about it.”
“Who’s Zoto?”
“They call him that because he limps. He’s a crystal-maker, he works with many different polished crystals and knows their every secret. He was in touch with Bartolomeo because the latter obtained precious stones for him for his trade.”
“Where can we find him?” Edgardo asked.
“In San Giacomo di Luprio. Go to Rivoalto and ask there. Everybody knows him.”
“Many thanks, Karamago, you’ve given us a precious piece of information.”
“I’ll send for you when I receive a new shipment of manuscripts.” Karamago drew his beard closer to Ademaro’s ear. “Would you like me to set some special morsel aside for you?” He gave a complicit smile. “Ars amatoria by Pubes Ovidius Naso?”
Edgardo approached Teodora. “Thank you, and may God watch over you.”
“So what about that foreskin?” she hissed, leaning forward. “Will you think about it?”
Edgardo smiled and nodded. They said goodbye to Karamago and went down the stairs. A cloud of spices and fragrances pursued them as far as the door.
“We stink like that odalisque,” said Edgardo, nauseated.
Ademaro smelt his habit. “This way we’ll corrupt the entire abbey. Won’t Carimanno be pleased!”
They laughed and dived into the crush of Calle delle Merzerie.
VI.
FOUNDRIES
They spoke of nothing but Marco Balbo’s horrific death. The Doge’s gastald had arrived with two soldiers, asked questions, and examined the body in an attempt to establish when the glassmaker had been killed. The purple skin tone and flabby flesh suggested the body had been in the water for several days, so he could have been stabbed anywhere. What nobody could understand and everybody found worrying was the chisel job the murderer had done on the eyeballs, which had been carved out with expertise, like peach kernels, then filled with perfectly crafted glass castings. If all this had been inflicted on the man while he was still alive, he would have suffered the torments of hell, truly sublime torture worthy of a pain artist. If, however, the murderer had spared him by ripping him open before the extraction, then one wondered as to the meaning of those glass eyes with fiery irises. Was it a warning? A curse? An omen? Many were already grumbling about the unease Marco’s ghost would cause in the city, wandering in search of his torturer, staggering about angrily because his vision had been distorted by those two pieces of glass. Those who worked in foundries claimed that only a master glassmaker could have performed such a precise operation, while others were saying that gouging eyes out was common practice these days, since it was the penalty for thieves and murderers, so anybody could do it. As for the glass, you didn’t need to be an expert: all you had to do was go to the garzone of any shop.
Opinions differed, but nobody could put a face or a name to “the eye murderer,” as the residents of Amurianum promptly christened him.
The rio of the glassmakers was still crowded with people discussing the event when Segrado arrived, followed by Niccolò and Kallis, who was buckling under the weight of the bundle in which she had gathered all the equipment salvaged from the fire.
“What happened?” Segrado asked a glassmaker he knew well.
“They killed one of our own, someone called Marco Balbo, and shat molten glass into his eyes.”
Segrado gave a start and bent over as if someone had just torn out his guts, then forced himself to take a deep breath to clear his head.
“God almighty, Marco . . . he was my garzone until just recently. He suddenly disappeared, so I thought he’d gone to set up his own business, as garzoni often do . . . Poor Marco. He was a good assistant . . . Do they know who did it?”
“Some say it’s the devil . . . and they’re right, but it’s a devil who lives here in Amurianum.”
Segrado’s face grew even darker. “But why did they have to work him over like that?”
The glassmaker smiled. “Who knows? Maybe his eyes were as dull as a boiled fish when he was alive, so at least he might be happier now.” Then he added, “Didn’t your oven burn down last night?”
“We’ve lost everything,” said Segrado.
“God doesn’t love you anymore . . . Your furnace destroyed . . . your garzone murdered . . . ” The glassmaker looked sad. “You must repent—”
“Listen,” Segrado interrupted, “I can’t work without fire, so I’m looking for a foundry owner who can hire an oven out to me.”
The glassmaker smiled. “And who’s got an oven of his own anymore? You know Tàtaro has gobbled them all up, by hook or by crook. The few who’ve still got one are working for him . . . He’s got us all by the balls.”
“So what are we supposed to do—starve to death?” Segardo glanced at Niccolò and Kallis, who was sitting quietly on the bank, staring at the green surface of the water.
“I’m telling you, Segrado, it won’t be easy to find an oven. Nobody wants to upset Tàtaro, they’re all scared.” Then he w
inked with a sly expression. “You can always go to him. Maybe he’ll give an oven to you, since you’re one of the best . . . You never know.”
Segrado chewed saliva with his toothless gums, ruminating like a cow, then spat on the ground. Even though the sun was not high yet, drops of sweat ran down his shiny skull, marking his dark face like slug mucus. He turned and motioned to Kallis. The girl did not budge. Her hood had fallen to her shoulders, revealing glossy black hair like an obsidian casting that ran thick and smooth and framed a high forehead, pronounced cheekbones, and eyes as narrow as the sliver of a waning moon.
“Move. Get the stuff,” Segrado grumbled.
She gave him a cold, piercing look, then slinked to her feet, stretched her thin arms, and, as though picking up a bundle of wool, lifted the load on her shoulders and followed him. Niccolò looked at her with compassion but said nothing.
Tàtaro’s oven was the most important in the lagoon. It was right at the beginning of the rio, just beyond the lighthouse: a wooden tower on top of which burned a fire like the one at San Marco and which, through a mirror trick, could be seen from all the islands in the north: Burianum, Majurbium, Torcellus, Costanciacum, and Aymanas.
The consortium of Master Tàtaro’s foundry was the largest in the city. There were four of them working there: Master Tàtaro, the senior assistant, the junior assistant, and the boy, plus the occasional craftsman who came from outside the consortium, an apprentice aspiring to become a maestro.
Segrado arrived at the shop and was immediately enveloped by a heatwave that made him feel as if he were on fire. The center of the workshop was dominated by an enormous furnace, circular, dome-shaped, and divided into three levels. In the largest chamber, at the bottom, four loading mouths opened up so that the fire could be fed with alder and willow wood. The central mouth was for the production of molten glass, a mixture of beechwood ash and purified sand. The combusted gases went from the first level through a hole in the middle of the shelf where the crucibles were heated, from which molten glass was then collected so that it could be blown through a blowing pipe. On the top level of the oven the glass objects that had been manufactured were placed for gradual cooling. Maestro Tàtaro’s assistants moved around the furnace with expert, fluid gestures. Their naked bodies, drenched in sweat, reflected the quiver of the incandescent paste, which bathed everything in a vermillion light shot through at times by pearly thunderbolts and by explosions of sparks that floated through the air like incandescent snowflakes. To the eyes of someone unfamiliar with the world of glassmakers, this would have appeared like a scene from hell. Bodies with burned skin twisting among the flames, blinded by the glare. Yet to Segrado this was a vision of heaven, an example of universal harmony, of man’s mastery over the elements, and of his ability to turn stone into a substance that was pure, transparent, malleable, and essential—a manifestation of divine perfection.
Maestro Tàtaro had just collected a little ball of vitreous paste from the crucible and was about to blow it into the form of a chalice. It was amazing to watch the transformation—almost a miracle—of that body. Unlike Segrado, Maestro Tàtaro was slender, bony, with nerves pushing up under his skin at the slightest effort.
The same way many birds, in the act of courting, swell, increase in size, and alter their color, shining in their splendor, the same way Tàtaro, in the act of blowing, seemed to gather in his miserable little lungs the wind contained in the sails of a thousand chelandions, and in his arms the power of all the waves in all the world’s oceans, thus transforming his gaunt body into a Greek statue.
Segrado approached, leaving Niccolò and Kallis at the door. Totally absorbed by his art, Tàtaro did not notice him at first; then he turned and saw him. Segrado thought he glimpsed a sneer in the blown chalice.
They had known each other for many years, too many to remember the exact number. They had started off together as garzoni, when there were still few people molding glass in Amurianum, and had grown up observing one another with a certain detachment, albeit with respect. That was until the different paths their spirits had chosen became evident. Tàtaro had decided to pursue what he called his “art”: objects manufactured out of top-quality glass, which he knew how to sell to noblemen and merchants, and which had earned him success, wealth and power. In just a few years his operations had expanded to include every field of production and he had even become the largest supplier of mosaics to the Basilica of San Marco, thus establishing a monopoly on glass production in Venetia.
Segrado had ventured along different, more winding, and hidden paths. He had never spoken of art, preferred instead to follow his inspiration. His inventions and his pieces were prized not only throughout the city but also by inland merchants who sold them in Germanic lands and even in Constantinople. However, his masterpieces remained unique pieces. He did not like to repeat himself and was forever in search of something new, desirous to experiment and seek to conquer absolute perfection. Thus, since he had never pursued wealth, he had condemned himself to an uncertain and unsteady life.
“My oven burned down,” he said in a hoarse voice and detached tone.
Tàtaro handed the junior assistant his blowing pipe, wiped off his sweat, and looked at him as if he were seeing him for the first time. “So?”
“I’ve come here to ask you to hire one out to me so that I can carry on working.”
Tàtaro rubbed his hands on his apron and moved closer, with an expression of arrogance. Next to Segrado, he looked even more slender. “I have no oven for hire.”
His eyes semi-closed and his breath heavy, as though about to fall asleep, Segrado waited with indifference for his destiny to be fulfilled.
“But I have a proposal for you. Come and work for me, I’ll hire you as a craftsman outside the consortium—the pay is good.”
The garzoni turned, curious to see the bald bear’s reaction: he, who had years of experience and was considered one of the glassmaking geniuses, to be hired as an apprentice craftsman?
Segrado did not stir. His shiny skull suddenly glowed with sweat.
“I cannot work for you, Tàtaro,” he said slowly but loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I’m not good enough . . . Not good enough at blowing pretentious, vulgar pieces. Not good enough at licking the asses of noblemen and counselors. I’m not good at thinking just about money when I blow in the pipe, and I’m also not good at taking away other people’s ovens by any means necessary . . . ”
His nerves tightened, like the strings of a bow, his veins swelled with black blood, and his metallic voice rose from his stomach as if from beyond the grave.
“What are you implying?” Tàtaro shouted. “Don’t you dare insult me! Every oven I’ve taken, I’ve taken with my work, with a mouth burned by fire and lungs full of sand! I’ve built every other one with these hands and with my art.” He came so close, he was almost touching him. “You, on the other hand, you’ve created nothing, you are nothing, you have nothing, and you’ll end up like Balbo, with no eyes and no soul. And when they bury you, nobody will remember you or weep over you, because you’ll have left nothing behind in which the people of Venetia can take pride. I feel sorry for you, Segrado.”
In the hot, damp air, exhausted by the glare of the flames, the bodies of the garzoni grew tense, anticipating blood. Some said later that Segrado rose as if to strike Tàtaro, while the latter seized a pair of shears, ready to ram them into Segrado’s belly. But that is not what happened. Nothing happened. The violence that might have exploded and blazed up continued to flash in their eyes until these were filled with tears of anger, yet it remained locked in their hearts. And so the air fed on hatred until it had created a self-enclosed vortex. Segrado did not utter a word. He was seen walking backwards toward the door without taking his eyes off Tàtaro, then vanished along the bank, amidst timber and sails.
VII.
LUPRIO*
Walking across the city, diving i
nto the world, risking getting lost, facing dangers. Alone. Edgardo was trying to control the slight agitation quivering in his labored breathing. Ademaro had to stay in the abbey for the daily functions and could not have accompanied him without arousing suspicion. A cleric in search of manuscripts, however, is only praiseworthy.
Jacopo Zoto, the crystal-maker, lived in Luprio, an area made up of different small islands, near Campo di San Giacomo. Edgardo had followed Ademaro’s directions to the letter. “Go along Calle delle Merzerie, past Karamago’s shop, and you’ll get straight to Rivoalto.” And yet Edgardo had gotten lost. Perhaps “lost” was not the right word. Rather, he had fallen under a spell: a vortex of lights, blinding glares, land that appeared and disappeared, vapors that would suddenly wrap around you and drag you into the void, suspended between stretches of suffocating slime and gashes of turquoise sky. Paths that led nowhere but dissolved into water streams, reeds compact as walls concealing little houses that sprang, fragile, in a lagoon giving off odors that clouded your mind, triggering hallucinations and mirages. For a few minutes, Edgardo abandoned himself to this sort of dream, wondering if he would ever leave this labyrinth. Then, turning behind an imposing building made of wood and thatch, he suddenly found himself on the shore of Rivus Altus,* which cut Venetia exactly in half. In the blink of an eye, he was transported from his dream and immersed in a feverish and frantic wake. Large freight and transport boats loaded with timber, hay, baskets, sacks, and amphoras were sailing along the canal. Goods were being loaded onto and unloaded from other boats moored along the shore. Where the canal formed a wider bend, there were shops, boathouses, and warehouses, all clustered together, stealing space from the water, and a huge two-story building with a stone façade, one of the few, with an open gallery on the first floor, two turrets on the sides, and a portico on the ground floor, under which horses and travelers from faraway countries took shelter. Edgardo heard expressions he had never come across before, and saw faces, skin colors, and styles of clothing he had never seen drawn, even in the books of his library.
The Eye Stone Page 4