The Wolves of Venice

by Alex Connor

  She could hardly send men in to ask awkward questions, and Lavinia did not trust anyone else to ask them for her. There was only one solution: if the answer to her grandson’s disappearance was in the ghetto, then that was where she would go.

  *

  A swift deterioration in her mother’s condition called Rosella home to find her brother sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. Panicked, she hurried into the small bedroom beyond and stopped in the doorway. The body of her mother was covered with a sheet, the outline of her profile like a stone effigy.

  For years her presence had been that of a visitor, someone who might leave at any time. But the leaving, the final departure, was still a shock, Rosella sitting beside her mother’s narrow bed and staring at the objects on the table. A small pitcher of water and a squat glass, a china bowl with a flannel wrung out and lying over the rim. Once blue, now faded to the colour of a rheumy eye. How many times had she dipped that cloth in water and wiped her mother’s face and hands. How many times had she talked to her about work at the Golletz household. How many times had she thought – stupidly and pointlessly – that there had been a scintilla of response.

  For so long suspended, her mother had slipped away, almost like a person eager to catch the curfew. And death was a curfew. Not like the ghetto’s, but a curfew everyone was bound to obey.

  “She didn’t suffer...” Ira said, pausing beside his sister’s chair. “It was very fast, she just slipped away.”

  In time for the curfew, Rosella thought dumbly. “Why don’t you say what you’ve been meaning to say for weeks?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You know what it means, Ira.” She swivelled round in her seat to look up at him. “Marco.”

  “This is not the time!” He replied, moving to the door.

  She followed him. “But this is the time, don’t you see that? This is the exactly the time —”

  “Our mother is dead!”

  “I know! I feel her loss as much as you do. I feel the shock, believe me, perhaps even more than you. I was the one who spent the most time with her, I was the one who looked after her, Ira, when you were working. When you were away from the ghetto —”

  “I never knew you resented it so much.”

  “Don’t you dare say that!” she snapped, her voice breaking. “I wanted to do everything to help her, to make her life as comfortable as it could be, but she wasn’t here. Her body was in this place; her breathing, her sleeping, was here, but what else of her was here? I always wondered how much she could understand, if she could hear, if she laughed with us when we were joking, or saw the people who visited us. She would have been so proud of you —”

  “Is this where I say ‘she would have been proud of you?’”

  “Oh, Ira, if you want to insult me, do it directly.” She said coldly. “You’ve avoided me for weeks. You’ve come in and out without barely uttering a word. And I hate you for what you’ve done —”

  He turned on her. “‘You hate me!’ What have I done to you that’s so shameful? What about your actions? You’re right I don’t look you in the face, Rosella, and do you want to know why? Because I can’t bear to think of you with Adamo Baptista.”

  “It’s taken you seven weeks to speak to me about this!” she shouted. “Seven weeks. In which time people have gossiped and blackened my reputation. I am a pariah now, a woman without a good name. I have been tried and convicted without being invited to give evidence in my own defence —”

  “There is no defence! You knew well enough the type of man that Adamo Baptista is. You knew his reputation, his association with Pietro Aretino, and yet you consorted with him —”

  “‘Consorted with him?’”

  “Yes, and you kept it a secret. Of course you did, you knew I would never approve. But if you’d come to me and talked to me —”

  “When, Ira? When are you not busy? Not looking after your patients? Not caring for everyone – outside your own family.” She said bitterly. “I was trapped into it. Marco —”

  “Marco!”

  “ — yes, you can hate him for it. Blame Marco Gianetti, it was all his fault. None of it was my doing.” She stood up to him. “But that wouldn’t be true, Ira. Yes, you’re right, I knew about Adamo Baptista, but I didn’t seek him out. You want the truth? Are you sure? Are you really sure, Ira?”

  He stared at her defiantly. “You want to confess? Now our mother is dead —”

  She interrupted him. “Do not use her death as your excuse. Our mother was dying for years. My existence revolved around our mother —”

  “Not entirely,” he snapped.

  “ – that’s right, not entirely. I loved her, but I was tired of my life. Tired of working for Hyman Golletz and listening to him endlessly berate me for not pursuing a career.” She shook her head. “ ‘…you could have been famous…’ he would say. ‘...Known all over Venice… No, I couldn’t have been, because singing lessons were a ridiculous waste of money, money we needed for living. For our mother, for our food.”

  “So this is all because of your lost musical career?”

  “Why don’t you ever listen!” she hurled back at him. “You are so stiff necked, so proud, so willing to judge and believe you are right. Singing was not important to me, but sitting for Tintoretto was.” Her voice softened. “He made me important, he was interested in my face – in Venice, where there are so many beautiful women, he picked me. That was how much I pleased him and when I sat for him I was another, better, woman… Did you know that his studio always smells of linseed oil and smoke in the winter? Tintoretto makes his little charcoal sticks on the hearth and mumbles under his breath when he draws. I watched him once shout at his apprentices who were priming a canvas. “Sbrigati! Sbrigati! Be quick, be quick, I don’t pay you to dawdle!” and then he would be sorry and send out for pastries from Signor Masaccio on the square.” She drew in a slow breath. “Our mother was dying, I was unable to reach her, to talk to her. Signor Golletz is old – but the studio was full of life.”

  “And Marco.” Ira said bitterly.

  “Yes... We played tricks on Tintoretto sometimes. Like a brother and sister who provoke an elder sibling. Marco would draw crude outlines on the canvas Il Furioso was preparing for a religious scene, and Tintoretto would curse him to hell, tell him that he was the worst apprentice he had ever hired and that Titian was well rid of him.” She was smiling at the memory. “Many times I was late and we had to run all the way home to avoid missing the curfew... Don’t you understand, you must understand! I trusted Marco.”

  “Enough to agree to go with Adamo Baptista?”

  “There was no agreement! I was at the studio and suddenly it was time to leave. Marco came in and I thought he was going to walk me back to the ghetto, but he said he was busy. I told him I didn’t need a chaperone anymore and that I would go home alone. That was when he told me about the street fighting and said it wasn’t safe.” She glanced way. Outside someone was chasing a chicken down the alleyway, the squawking and frenzied fluttering of feathers audible through the open window. “That was when Marco said he had arranged for someone else to see me home. The ‘someone’ was Adamo Baptista.”

  “And you went with him?”

  “How could I refuse?” she countered. “Marco had left. I murmured something about being able to find my own way home. But Baptista wouldn’t hear of it, he said the streets were dangerous. Repeating the same story Marco had told me. And so we walked together. I kept my head down, knowing what people would think – what I would have thought about a woman in the company of Adamo Baptista. In those thirty minutes - the time it took for the church clock of St Marks to cover half its dial - my reputation was ruined.”

  Ira’s voice was damming. “Believe me, Marco will pay for this.”

  “For what? For sending Adamo Baptista to walk me home? How should he pay for that?” she glanced away, her face flushed.

  “There is more?”

  She
stayed silent, Ira pressing her. “Is there more? You kept all this a secret for seven weeks, have you been seeing him all that time?” he moved towards her, Rosella stepping back. “Have you been sneaking behind my back for seven weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  Shaken, Ira slumped into a chair. “You know what Baptista is? Dear God, how could you?” He thought rapidly before speaking again. “We will have to find you a husband, although I doubt even Angelo Fasculo would agree to marry you now.”

  “I doubt he would.”

  “We will find you a husband” Ira repeated, “Someone older, a widower perhaps. I will ask the rabbi to intercede —”

  “The rabbi can do nothing. The only person who can help me now is Barent der Witt.”

  Ira looked at her, bemused, then realised what his sister was saying.

  “You are having a child? You are having Adamo Baptista’s child?”

  She watched him falter, his usual composure upturned, his orderly life disordered, his family disgraced. She could imagine him thinking of Adamo Baptista, the black crow of Venice, and the Dutchman brought into the mess to abort an unwanted child. She could see in her brother’s expression the thoughts scatter like fireworks. Exploding, imploding, then disappearing into nothingness; his plans no more solid that Tintoretto’s little wax figures.

  “Rosella, for God’s Sake, tell me it isn’t true.”

  “It isn’t true...” She admitted. “...the child isn’t Baptista’s. It’s Marco’s.”

  Chapter Thirty Two

  His paunch barely encased by the velvet doublet, Lauret hurried over the bridge and then paused, panting for breath. Fear and obesity were a dangerous combination, the little man leaning against the stonework to compose himself. It had been a mistake to tell Adamo Baptista about the Castilano shop, but his hand had been forced and now he was hurrying to the quayside and the boat leaving for France. Within hours he would be away from Venice and would never return whilst Adamo Baptista remained in the Republic.

  “Lauret.”

  He swung round at his name, Baptista standing in the archway on the other side of the bridge. “There was nothing there.”

  “What?” Lauret croaked.

  “There was nothing hidden at the Castilano shop. You cringing turd, you were lying —”

  “No, monsieur! No, I was not! There is something in the Castilano shop. Something valuable, something important —”

  “What exactly?” Baptista asked, moving towards the merchant. “Please tell me, because I could find nothing. But then again you told me to look for a notepad – “

  “A list.”

  “Very well, a list! But you didn’t say where to look.”

  “Because I didn’t know where! I just heard about some list.” Lauret blundered.

  “And then - after I have been treated like a fucking clown - I hear that you are trying to sneak off and leave Venice.” Baptista walked over to Lauret, prodding him in his belly. “All dressed up, like a big fat beetle. You do realise how ridiculous you look? Those bowed legs of yours and that bald head make you look like a pair of nutcrackers.” He reached into his pocket, Lauret flinching. “You think I’m going to cut your throat? No, runt, not yet anyway.”

  Sweating, Lauret blundered on. “I was told the list was in the shop and that it was the names of the people who were involved —”

  “In what?”

  “I don’t know!” Lauret said desperately. “Some crime, perhaps? I don’t know what! I’ve told you everything I know, monsieur,” he stopped talking suddenly, his panic subsiding as he remembered something. “No! No, there is a little something I have for you. Something that you will like —”

  “That I will like?”

  “Yes. No… Maybe,” Lauret was moving from foot to foot, his bladder leaking. “I remembered who the girl was and where I’d seen her before.”

  “Which girl?”

  “The girl that stole the old man’s purse in the market.”

  “The imaginary girl?

  “She is not imaginary,” Lauret replied, his tone pleading. “I knew of her in Paris. Her name’s Tita Boldini. She looked different when she was in France, I think she has darkened her hair, dressed it differently - but it’s definitely her. I would swear it on my life.”

  “There you go again, holding your life so cheaply.” Baptista replied, but Lauret could see he was interested, his mocking tone had a curiosity to it. “Tita Boldini is one of Caterina Zucca’s whores.”

  Lauret nodded. “And in Paris she worked for Madame Dinette.”

  “And why did she leave Paris?”

  “I don’t know —”

  “That is not the answer I was looking for, Lauret.”

  “ — but I can find out!”

  “Much better. But there is still the matter of the elusive list, and your sneaking departure.” He tapped the Frenchman on his bald head. “What would I have done without you, Lauret? You can’t leave Venice. You stay here as long as I tell you to. As long as I need you.” He tapped his head again, this time so hard it made the man wince. “Do I not pay you well enough to serve me?”

  Lauret stammered. “Monsieur, you do... you do… not pay me.”

  “You’re alive, aren’t you?” Baptista replied smiling. “Now let’s go over this again. You told me about a list which had important information which could be valuable for me to have... Surely you must know more about it?”

  “Only that it was dangerous if it got into the wrong hands.”

  Baptista folded his arms. “So we have a dangerous list. Why? Are the page poisoned?”

  “Not dangerous like that.”

  “Ah, so you do know more about it.”

  Lauret could feel a trickle of urine run down his leg, his voice shaking. “No one said anything about poison, it’s more the names on the list, that’s what’s dangerous.”

  “So why would anyone hide this lethal list in a dress shop?” Baptista enquired dryly. “Or was Signora Castilano involved?”

  “No, no.” Lauret replied, shaking his head. “She left Venice because she was frightened. You know all about it, her maid was killed. My beautiful Gabriella had no arms or legs, they were cut off and her face disfigured —”

  “And you still insist that have no idea who killed her?”

  “Why would I know?” Lauret replied, stricken.

  “Because you seem to know so much about it. Perhaps it was you? After all, with your podgy fingers and your bald head, you are no Adonis. Did you try to seduce Gabriella and she laughed at you?”

  “No!”

  “A man doesn’t like to be mocked, and there is…” he looked him up and down, “... a lot of you to mock.”

  “I would never have hurt Gabriella,” Lauret said helplessly. “she was like a daughter to me.”

  Baptista feigned ignorance. “So how did they know it was her?”

  “What?”

  “If her face was disfigured how could they be sure it was Gabriella Russo?”

  “The painter Tintoretto identified her ...”

  “Ah, Tintoretto.”

  “... Gabriella used to sit for him and he saw her body in the morgue.” Lauret could tell that he had Baptista’s interest and hurried on. “The painter went to the authorities to tell them who she was, and then he went to see Marina Castilano —”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “To tell her what had happened to her maid.”

  Baptista’s eyebrows rose. “And Marina Castilano left Venice because of this?”

  Lauret nodded. “She was scared away. Returned to Spain.”

  “And who were Marina Castilano’s friends in Venice?”

  The urine had soaked into the left leg of Lauret’s breeches, the silk sticking to his thigh as he continued. “She knew many people and had customers who only wanted the best available in Venice. She was very well respected. I sold her some of my finest linens —”

  “Get on with it!” Baptista snapped.

  “ �
�� she knew Caterina Zucca quite well and I know she visited Barent der Witt.”

  “The Dutchman…” Baptista said, musing. “Now there is a man who moves around Venice like a lizard, getting in all the nooks and crannies, the intriguing glass vial always around his neck. I hardly think that dour creature is attempting to be fashionable. Tell me, Lauret” Baptista said, “what do you suppose is in that vial?”

  “A potion?”

  “‘A potion?’” Baptista repeated. “And what would this potion be used for?”

  Lauret was sweating. He had been relieved to slide off the subject of the list, but now he was being interrogated about the inscrutable der Witt he wavered.

  “Perhaps for... There are rumours about the Dutchman everywhere. He’s from The Hague –”

  “Hence he’s called ‘The Dutchman’” Baptista replied sarcastically.

  “ — yes, but he had to leave there because his daughter died.”

  Baptista whistled between his teeth. “Do you see how helpful you can be, Lauret, when you try? Like telling me about The Wolves of Venice, as Gabriella called them. Perhaps, do you think, that Barent der Witt might be one of these Wolves?” Lauret stared at him, not knowing how to reply as Baptista continued. “And perhaps this list, the one in the shop - that wasn’t in the shop - contains the names of all these legendary Wolves. Would that make sense?”

  Cautiously, Lauret answered: “I don’t know.”

  “That’s right, you don’t. But you said something when we last spoke which I’ve been thinking about. You said ‘…If I tell you, don’t say you heard it from my lips. It would be the end for me...’ Now, explain something, will you? If you are just sharing with me the existence of this list, how would that be dangerous for you?” he put his forefinger over Lauret’s lips to silence him and then continued. “In itself, it wouldn’t be. But it would be very dangerous if you knew who was listed. And that makes me wonder if your sudden desire to leave Venice was not merely due to my presence - but to what you know.”