The Wolves of Venice

by Alex Connor

  Yet there was something Marina did not sell - sexual stimulants or devices, those she left to the old drabs hired by the courtesans. Although lucrative, such trading was always open to blackmail and the threat of the Inquisition. But the old whores, madams or apothecaries were not adverse to performing an abortion or pretending to cast a spell. In Venice it was part of life; an unwanted child, an unwanted lover, an unwanted rival – all and everyone was for sale, or for disposal. For a price.

  Over the years Marina Castilano had become a skilled funambulist. Rivalry in Venice was frenetic; a whisper in the wrong ears could result in a shop closing and a business disappearing overnight. So she had learned discretion, working with her younger sister, Lucia. Speaking Italian in public, but Spanish in private. Keeping secrets, something natural to her. The dark guile of her home country running through her blood.

  So now she was looking at the Dutch apothecary and wondering exactly what he wanted.

  “Signor der Witt, please tell me how can I help you.”

  “Pietro Aretino is one of your customers.”

  She smiled, putting out her hands, palm upwards. “I cannot say. I never discuss —”

  “I know he comes here, everyone knows.” der Witt continued. “That is not the issue. I merely wondered if his...if his colleague Adamo Baptista came also.”

  Marina could sense a movement in the alcove behind and knew that her sister, Lucia, was listening. The thought comforted her, it was always imperative to have witnesses – especially with a man like Barent der Witt. And especially when he was asking after Adamo Baptista.

  “I can deny or confirm, signor —”

  “Signora,” der Witt said, moving closer to her. “This is a matter of some importance. I assure you I understand your reluctance to break a confidence. I would not ask it of you if there was another way —”

  “You are right, I am reluctant to break a confidence and so I must, sadly, ask that this conversation goes no further.”

  Der Witt fingered the glass vial around his neck; his thumb closing over its stopper like a lock.

  “Surely there is no harm in asking if Signor Baptista is one of your clients? I could find out as much by asking one of your neighbours.”

  “I imagine you would already have done so,” Marina replied calmly “and had no luck. Or you would not be asking me directly.”

  He sighed, his heavily lined face contemptuous. “Is everyone afraid of Adamo Baptista?”

  The question hung in the air like a meat hook holding a dead carcass, Der Witt the first to speak again.

  “I find it strange, signora, that you do not ask me why I have come to you, and what this matter of importance might be. And why I might be asking about Signor Baptista.”

  “It is not my concern.”

  He ignored the reply and continued.

  “I will tell you anyway. You had a maid, signora, a woman called Gabriella Russo. She came to me afraid, very afraid. She said that she needed help and begged me to help her.”

  “I know nothing of this.” Marina replied, watching out of the corner of her eye as her sister came into view. Lucia stood beside her sister, her stout form confronting the Dutchman.

  “As my sister said, Signor der Witt, we know nothing. Gabriella did work for us and then she left abruptly, sin explicación...”

  “Without explanation.” Marina translated the Spanish into Italian as Lucia continued.

  “...and we have not heard from Gabriella since. I think my sister would agree with me that we did not know of her being in any trouble.”

  Marina nodded, the Dutchman looking from one sister to the other. “But I didn’t say she was in trouble.”

  “You said she was afraid and needed your help.” Marina continued, her tone even. “Did you help her, Signor der Witt?”

  “No.” he said bitterly. “Not in time.”

  “In time? Why, what happened?”

  “Gabriella has disappeared.”

  Marina sighed, glancing at her sister. “You say she disappeared before you had chance to help her and I’ve already explained that she left the shop without explanation. Causing us much inconvenience. If she has disappeared, maybe Gabriella chose to. Perhaps she does not wish to be found.”

  The Dutchman brushed away the explanation with one hand. “She was afraid, she needed help.”

  “And if she had come to us, we would have helped her, but she never confided in myself or my sister.”

  Marina was always discreet, but Lucia could not control her curiosity. “¿A qué le tenía miedo? Excuse me, signor, I asked ‘what was she afraid of’?”

  Der Witt paused, his expression unyielding. “As you say…” he replied, moving to the door “…it is not your concern.”

  Chapter Four

  The Jewish Ghetto

  Venice

  Stepping over a pool of rain, Ira Tabat moved down the narrow alleyway towards his home, pushing open the doorway and climbing two flights of stairs. The rain had seeped through a crack in the roof, a sliver of water ribboning down the plaster. He consoled himself with the fact that it was worse for the Jews in Rome; their living quarters in the capital were flooded every year in the rainy season, and they were still forced to pay taxes for their board.

  At least in Venice life was less Draconian; the Republic’s Jews allowed to work in the city in daylight. But at night they were forced to obey the curfew, the gates locked at dusk. Since childhood Ira had hated the sound, the dull metallic thunk of the gates slammed shut, the realisation that he was imprisoned, jailed for nothing but an accident of birth that had created him a Jew.

  He took off his jacket and glanced over to the bed against the wall. As usual, his mother was asleep, breathing rhythmically like a clock. Tick, tock, in, out, tick, tock, in, out. But no alteration, no chimes, no striking of some relieving bell. Her clock was uniform, a silent soldier stomping down the minutes to some unknown destination, in some unfamiliar time.

  “She’s resting well.”

  He turned to smile at his sister, Rosella, solemn faced, but undeniably handsome; with great dark eyes and a long fine nose over a wide mouth. Within the last year Ira had seen her mature, noticed how the ghetto boys stared after her and he had warned them off, proudly protective – as their late father would have been.

  “Did she eat anything today?”

  “A little, but mostly she sleeps.” Rosella replied, setting out two places at the scrubbed table and then jerking her head towards the door. “Angelo Fasculo next door was caught by the shirri for not wearing his hat,” Ira thought of the yellow cap all Jews were forced to wear, along with a small yellow wheel on their jacket. If they forgot, or lost the badge, it was sometimes overlooked - but not if they were caught without the cap. “He was fined 50 ducas and they said he was going to have to spend a month in jail.”

  Ira shook his head. “But he’s new here —”

  “Angelo told them that but they still want the 50 ducas.” She sighed. “It’s stupid, everyone knows some people are allowed to stay beyond the curfew. I heard the Corenelli family have their Jewish lawyer and banker at their parties, and no one objects. Instead, they show their cleverness off to their friends, like a couple of Jewish dancing bears.” She cut some bread and cheese and laid it out on the table. “Someone else told me that Abel Solomon attended Mass at Chiesa di San Giacomo di Rialto with his employers. A Jew in a Catholic church —”

  “He attended Mass, he didn’t take Mass.”

  “Attend it, take it,” she retorted heatedly, “what’s the difference? It’s still a betrayal of faith. If we don’t defend who we are, we will become like everyone else.”

  “And have easier lives,” Ira replied, smiling wryly as he began to eat.

  “Easier lives, but false lives. We were born what we are and must remain true to it. We don’t belong to Venice, or Rome, or any other city or country. We are complete in ourselves.”

  He smiled at her earnestness, her conviction. She was emph
atic about everything. What was right, what was necessary, what must be fulfilled. All her life, Rosella had wanted to study music, but in a ghetto there was no money for tuition, so instead she worked as a maid for a Hyman Golletz, a Jewish piano teacher, and he had paid her in singing lessons. Her progress had been intermittent, his teaching uneven, but as she had grown and developed a strong contralto voice, Golletz’s interest had increased. At weddings and feasts in the ghetto Rosella had been encouraged to perform, her voice intense and haunting as she sang the ancient Jewish songs.

  There was even talk of her having a career outside the ghetto, so when Rosella suddenly announced that she was no longer working for Hyman Golletz, Ira stopped, bread on one hand, cheese in the other, his expression baffled.

  “What?”

  “It’s selfish,” she said emphatically, cutting into the cheese. “what this family needs is to make money, not waste time pursuing a pointless hobby —”

  “Hyman thinks you could be a professional singer —”

  “Only in the ghetto.”

  “Not necessarily,” Ira persisted, “he said that your voice had improved so much he might be able to find work in the city for you —”

  “And a fat fee for him,” she retorted.

  He studied his sister’s face, her hands busy, breaking the bread, crumbs falling onto the scrubbed table like dry snow.

  “Has Golletz behaved improperly towards you?”

  Her dark eyes were scornful. “Hyman’s seventy years old!”

  “I just wondered, your decision seems very sudden.”

  “It’s just that I feel...” Rosella ripped into the bread, “I feel guilty. I’m not earning much as a maid and I wondered if well... if there was another way to bring money in.”

  Ira laid down his knife and leaned back on his stool, his gaze moving over to where their mother was sleeping. “Why do we need more money? We can’t do anything for our mother now. There is no more –”

  “I know there’s no medicine that can help her. You know that. You’ve tried everything, God knows. You’re a doctor, Ira, you would know if you could do anything. You’ve even asked other doctors in the ghetto, but we all know our mother’s slipping away, she’s dying...” She baulked at the word, then moved on. “But if we had some more money we could get better lodgings, somewhere more comfortable for her, for all of us.” She hurried on, seeing a look of irritation cross her brother’s face. “You can’t work any harder, no man could. Your patients have grown to trust you, they ask for you, they rely on you. Ira, everyone values you. Even the traders come to you for advice —”

  “For the pox.”

  “Not always,” she retorted, smiling. “You’re known, people talk about you. They trust you —”

  His tone was cold. “But I don’t earn enough.”

  “Don’t be offended! I didn’t mean to hurt you, you’ve provided for us since I was a child, but now I can provide too. And what I’m saying is that working as Hyman Golletz’s cleaner is not the way to a fortune.”

  “So you have found a way to make a fortune?” Ira asked, his eyebrows raised. “Tell me, Rosella, I’m fascinated as to how you are going to fill our coffers and put us all in a palace.”

  Angered, she pushed back her stool and rose.

  “Don’t mock me! I’m not a child, and perhaps it’s time you realised that, Ira. I have a right to a say in this family – just as much as you do.”

  “I have never said otherwise!” He snapped, his tone softening. “So what’s your idea?”

  She turned to move away, then turned back, taking in a breath. “You know the painter, Tintoretto?”

  “I know of him. Everyone in Venice knows of him. Why?”

  “I was in the piazza last Wednesday afternoon, it was raining very hard —”

  “I remember.”

  “– and he approached me. Very politely. He’s rather a shy man, a little awkward. And he asked —“

  “He approached you in the street?” Ira repeated, enraged. “And you spoke to him?”

  “Tintoretto was very polite and begged me to forgive his presumption, but he wondered if —”

  “If?”

  “ – I would sit for him.”

  Sighing, Ira leaned forwards with his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. “Sit down, Rosella.” She could tell from the tone of his voice that he was angry and regained her seat as he continued. “You’re seventeen years old, respectable young Venetian women of your age are kept in their homes and only enter the streets with a chaperone —”

  “But we are not Venetians, we are Jews.”

  “We are no less than them! You are as respectable as the daughters of the Rannuccio family or the Colonia —”

  “But I have to work for a living.”

  “Not as a whore!”

  She flushed. “Is that what you think? That being a sitter for one of Venice’s finest painters is being a whore?”

  “Titian —”

  “We are not talking about Titian! We are talking about Tintoretto, and he is an honourable man. I have asked around, spoken to Hyman Golletz and others in the ghetto and I’ve heard many good things about the artist. I admit that if it had been Titian I would have been nervous —”

  “You would have had every right to be nervous. Titian may well be powerful and admired, but his circle is one of the most infamous in Venice. And most of his models are courtesans.”

  “But Tintoretto is not Titian.”

  Ira rolled his eyes Heavenwards. “It doesn’t matter, Rosella, it’s not what it is in reality, it’s what it appears to be.”

  “That’s a rabbi’s argument. So we should go without because of people’s opinion? In reality we’re poor, and that’s also what we appear to be. But this is a way for us to prosper.” She took in a breath, her eyes fixed on her brother. “I went to temple, to ask advice...”

  He realised then that his sister was serious. She had not said I went to the synagogue, but I went to temple to ask advice.

  “...the rabbi said it was a matter for my own conscience.”

  Ira shook his head “The usual answer —”

  “But it is a matter of my own conscience.” Rosella replied, “and my conscience says that I wish to do this. I trust Signor Tintoretto, he said that if I preferred I could come with a companion.”

  “Would it be a waste of my breath to forbid you to do this?” She reached out towards her brother’s hand, but Ira moved it away, his expression unyielding. “We do not need better lodgings, Rosella —”

  “You do not need better lodgings,” she replied. “Because you, brother, are not here for more than a few hours a day. You come in with the curfew, bone tried, and then you fall asleep. When they open the gates at sunrise, you leave. And sometimes before, because a doctor has a freedom to come and go when he is called for. You live here, but your life is beyond the ghetto, your thoughts far beyond this sticky cluster of houses crammed one on top of each other. You don’t see that the sun has to fight to make any impression on the alleys, or that the weak plaster we pack into the holes in the roof when it rains never lasts and falls off again with the next storm. Your life – your mind – is out there.” She gestured to the city beyond the ghetto walls. “And I don’t blame you for that, Ira. You’re building a reputation, something encouraged in Venice; it’s a city of reputations. Any man without an idea or a dream wouldn’t last a week. You have a dream, Ira,” she leaned towards him. “It’s a good dream, because you’re a good man…And now you pull a face at me! But I’ve heard people talk about you ‘Ira Tabat is a remarkable doctor. Amongst the finest in Venice.’ Even the Dutch like you,” she smiled, trying to coax him back into good humour. “and the Dutch seldom like anyone.”

  “They are surly.” He agreed.

  “But when Lijsbet comes to Venice, who does he seek out? You. You healed his leg when he could barely walk on it. Your reputation is known. Your name is spreading.”

  “As it should be. I’m thirt
y one, Rosella, not a boy.”

  “And most of the doctors in the ghetto are much older men —”

  He brushed her words aside. “You’re changing the subject, this has nothing to do with Tintoretto —”

  “It has, because I’ve made up my mind.” She said quietly. “I would never dishonour my name or my family, I am no whore, nor will I ever be. I have too much respect for myself. But I will sit for Tintoretto and you must trust me... You see, I want a life outside the ghetto too.”

  “It is not safe outside. Not for a young woman.”

  “I understand, but I will not take risks.” She assured him. “You have ambition and I want to be something more. I can’t marry a rich man, or parade like a Venetian Contessa, but I can live another way.” She held his face with her hands and looked into her brother’s eyes. “I want my escape. And Tintoretto is my escape. He is famous, his paintings are seen by thousands, people stand in awe of his work. Even if I live and die in the ghetto my life will mean something. If he paints me, I am someone. If he paints me, I exist.”

  Chapter Five

  Walking silently over the bridge towards the alleyway, Adamo Baptista paused at the main entrance of the Jewish ghetto in Cannaregio, then walked in. The buildings were blank faced, unlike the Venetian opulence of their neighbours, several covered stone wells breaking up the bareness of the square, a few listless trees as dowdy as their surroundings.

  He was aware that he was being watched, that a small clutch of people had gathered, standing under an awning at the doorway which lead to the Kosher butcher and the synagogue above. Venetian law forbade the building of free standing temples, so the synagogue was built over the shop, above the bones and offal of the dead animals below, crushed between a boarding house and a dressmaker’s. Baptista checked the street signs, then moved towards a house with a green painted door. As he approached a man came out, glanced suspiciously at him, and then moved off. Unperturbed, Baptista pushed open the door and looked in.