Marianne and the Rebels

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  Marianne had listened to this extempore speech with fascinated admiration, nor did the soldiers make any attempt to interrupt, being probably too dazed by the flow of words. But neither did they stand aside and their leader asked again:

  'What's your name?'

  'Zani, signor officers, Zani Mocchi, and this is my cousin Appolonia—'

  'Mocchi? Any relation to the courier from Dalmatia who disappeared near Zara a few weeks ago?'

  Zani bowed his head, as though under the weight of great grief.

  'My brother, signor. It's a dreadful thing because we still don't know what has become of him…'

  He seemed to be prepared to continue in this vein but one of the soldiers leaned across and said something in the officer's ear which made him frown.

  'I understand that your father was shot in 1806 for making subversive speeches against the Emperor, and this sister Annarella, who will be worrying so, is the notorious lacemaker of San Trovaso who makes no secret of her dislike of us. Your family does not love us and there have been suggestions at headquarters that your brother may have gone over to the enemy…'

  Things were beginning to look awkward and Marianne cast desperately about for some way of assisting her small friend without betraying herself, but Zani spoke up bravely.

  'What cause have we to love you?' he cried boldly. 'When your General Bonaparte came here and burned our Golden Book and proclaimed a new republic we thought he was going to give us real liberty! And then he handed us over to Austria! And now he's taken us back again, only he's not a republican general any more but an emperor, so all we've got out of it is a change of emperors. We could have loved you. It's your fault if we don't!'

  'Ho ho! You've a long tongue for such a little shrimp! I wonder now… but what about this one, your cousin is she? What has she got to say for herself?'

  One of the lanterns, held up by an arm in a braided sleeve, shone full on Marianne's face. The officer whistled through his teeth.

  'By heavens! What a pair of eyes! And what a rig-out for the cousin of such a ragged urchin! More like a fine lady!'

  This time, Marianne knew it was up to her to take a hand in support of Zani's story. The officer was altogether too suspicious. Entering into the spirit of the thing, she favoured him with a saucy smile.

  'Well and so I am a lady – almost! It's a real pleasure to meet with such a discerning gentleman, Signor Officer. It didn't take you long to see that I don't belong here even if I am Zani's cousin. I'm just on a visit for a few days to see my cousin Annarella. I live in Florence, really.' She smirked complacently. 'I'm a lady's maid to Baroness Cenami who's companion to her royal highness Princess Elisa, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, God bless her!'

  She crossed herself several times very fast as evidence of her devotion to so illustrious a princess. The effect, indeed, was magical. At the mention of Napoleon's sister, the officer's face relaxed. He drew himself up, ran a finger round the inside of his high collar and gave a twirl to his moustache.

  'Indeed? Well then, my pretty dear, you can think yourself lucky to have met with Sergeant Rapin, a man that understands these things! Anyone else might have taken you in for questioning—'

  'You are letting us go?'

  'But of course! But we'll see you on your way a step, just in case you should happen to run into another patrol that might not know how to treat a lady like yourself…'

  'But – we should not like to put you to any trouble…'

  'Trouble! Not a bit of it! A pleasure! If you're going to San Trovaso, our way is in the same direction. You'll not have to look far for a ferryman to take you across the Grand Canal if you're with us, and besides…' he dropped his voice to a confidential whisper, 'Venice is not safe tonight. We've been warned to look out for conspirators! The south of Italy is full of them and they are sending their agents up here. Seems they call themselves Carbonari – charcoal burners, that is. Not that that makes it any easier to tell them in the dark.'

  Delighted with this evidence of his own superlative wit, Sergeant Rapin gave a roar of laughter, dutifully echoed by his men, and then gallantly offered his arm to Marianne who was still gaping at the success of her diplomatic invention.

  The patrol resumed its way, swelled by the addition of Marianne, walking ahead on Rapin's arm, and Zani who was so overcome with admiration for his new friend that he attached himself to her skirts and clung inseparably.

  The light was growing swiftly, driving out the darkness with the eager haste of a summer morning. In the east the grey dawn was already tinged with pink. In a little while, people and things stood out clearly and the lanterns, now no longer needed, were put out.

  Tired and anxious as she was, Marianne thought their curious procession certainly had its funny side.

  'We must look like a village wedding gone wrong,' she told herself, as her unlooked-for gallant went on pouring nonsense into her ear, doing his best to obtain an assignation although it was not clear whether he was prompted by her personal charms or by her connection with the court.

  The Merceria dived suddenly underneath a broad archway cut through the base of a tower supporting a vast clock surmounted by a bell. As they emerged on the other side, Marianne had a sudden sense that she had been transported into a fairytale, so beautiful was the spectacle which met her eyes.

  She saw a cloud of white pigeons fly up into the pale violet morning, and go circling up, like spiralling snowflakes about a slender rose-coloured campanile. She saw the twin green domes and alabaster pinnacles belonging to a church that was like a palace, and a palace like a jewel: delicate, flesh-tinted stone, gold mosaics, lace-work of marble and enamelled turrets. She saw a huge square fringed with a border of arcades and marked out in white marble like some outsize game of hopscotch. Last, between the splendid palace and another box-like building with a row of statues along the top, framed by a pair of lofty columns, one topped by a winged lion, the other by the figure of a saint with a kind of crocodile, there lay a wide expanse of silky blue that made her heart beat faster.

  Lateen-sailed vessels moved like bunches of anemones over the silvery surface, and beyond them another dome, another campanile emerging from the misty distance. Yet it was the sea all the same, the roadstead of St Mark where Jason might be waiting for her…

  Sergeant Rapin, for his part, had seen something rather different. He dropped Marianne's arm abruptly as they came out from beneath the clock-tower, for they were now in sight of the guards on duty outside the royal palace, formerly the Procuratie, and gallantry must yield to discipline. He saluted in correct military fashion.

  'I and my men leave you here, Signorina, but you are not far from home now. But before we part, may I beg the favour of another meeting? It seems a shame that we should be such near neighbours and not see one another, don't you think?' He smiled engagingly.

  'I'd be glad to, Sir!' Marianne simpered, with a readiness that did credit to her acting talents. 'But I don't know that my cousin—'

  'You're not dependent on your cousin, surely? And you a member of her Imperial Highness's own household?'

  Rapin's imagination was clearly as fertile as Zani's and in the short interval of time they had spent together he had contrived to do away with Marianne's supposed employer, the Baroness Genami, whose name evidently meant nothing to him, and remember only her august mistress, the Princess Elisa.

  'No, no, of course not,' Marianne said hastily. 'But I shall not be here much longer. Indeed, I am leaving—'

  'Don't tell me you are leaving tonight,' the sergeant interrupted her, giving another twirl to his moustache, 'or you will oblige me to stop all vessels leaving for the mainland. Stay until tomorrow… then we can meet tonight… go to a theatre… I can get tickets for the opera, at the Fenice. You'd like that…'

  Marianne was beginning to think her importunate soldier would be more difficult to be rid of than she had anticipated. If she were to rebuff him, he might turn nasty, and Zani and his sister might have to pay for it.
So she controlled her irritation and glanced quickly at the boy who was observing the scene with a little frown. Then, her mind made up, she drew the sergeant a little apart from his men. They, too, were beginning to show signs of impatience.

  'Listen,' she whispered, remembering suddenly his questions to the child. 'I can't go to the theatre with you, or ask you to come to my cousin's to call for me. Ever since my other cousin, the courier from Zara, disappeared we have been more or less in mourning. And Annarella hasn't the same reason to like the French as I have.'

  'I see,' Rapin breathed back, 'but what is to be done? I like you, you see.'

  'I like you too, Sergeant, but the family would never forgive me. It's much better to be quiet about it – meet in secret, you understand? We shan't be the first.'

  Rapin's plain, honest face lit up. He had been long enough in Venice to have heard of Romeo and Juliet and now he was obviously seeing himself in a mysterious love affair with a spice of adventure about it.

  'You can count on me!' he declared enthusiastically. Then, remembering to lower his voice to a conspiratorial mutter, he said in muffled tones: 'Tonight… at dusk… I'll wait for you under the acacia at San Zaccharia. We can talk there. You'll come?'

  'I'll come. But take care! No one must know!'

  On this promise, they parted and Marianne had to bite back a sigh of relief. She had felt for a moment as though she were taking part in one of the farces so beloved of the strollers in the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. Rapin saluted, but not without stealing a furtive and passionate handclasp with one whom he evidently regarded as his latest conquest.

  The weary patrol marched off into the palace, trailing their weapons, and Zani led his supposed cousin, somewhat to her disappointment, away from the sea to the far end of the square where workmen were beginning to arrive on the site of a new series of arcades destined to fill up the fourth side.

  'This way,' he hissed. 'It's quicker.'

  'But – can't I have a look at the sea?'

  'Later. We'll get to it sooner like this, and the soldiers would think it funny if we went any other way.'

  The city was beginning to wake up. The bells of St Mark's rang out and women in black shawls, some of them made of lace, were hurrying to church for early mass.

  When, after a short walk, they reached the waterfront, Marianne's heart missed a beat and she had a temptation to shut her eyes, hoping and yet fearing to see the proud lines of Jason's brig Sea Witch at anchor in the roads. However much she reasoned with herself, she could not help feeling as guilty as an adulterous wife returning to her husband.

  But except for the little fishing boats, flitting out towards the Lido, the shallops laden with vegetables making their way up the Grand Canal, and the big barge which served as a passenger link with the mainland, there was no vessel worthy of the name in the pool. But before Marianne had time to feel disappointment, she caught sight of the tall mastheads of sea-going ships standing up behind the Dogana di Mare, on the other side of the Punta della Salute. The blood rushed to her cheeks and she grasped Zani by the arm.

  'I want to go across there,' she said, pointing.

  The boy shrugged and glanced at her curiously.

  'We are. That's the way to San Trovaso, surely you know that?'

  Then, as they made their way to the big gondola that ferried passengers across the Grand Canal, Zani voiced the question which must have been on his mind for some time.

  Ever since their parting from the patrol, the young Venetian had been oddly silent. He had walked ahead of Marianne, his hands dug deeply into the pockets of his rather frayed blue canvas trousers, pushing up folds of the still-damp shirt of yellow wool which came down nearly to his knees. There was a stiffness in his attitude which suggested that he was not altogether happy about something.

  'Is it true,' he asked, in a small, hard voice, 'that you are lady's maid to that Baroness… thingummy?… Close to Bonaparte's sister?'

  'Of course. Does it worry you?'

  'A bit. It means that you must be for Bonaparte too. The soldier know that, he—'

  Doubt and disappointment were written so clearly on the round brown face that Marianne forbore to add to his trouble.

  'My mistress is for – Bonaparte, naturally,' she said gently. 'But for myself, I have no interest in politics. I serve my mistress, that's all.'

  'Then where are you from? Not from here, at any rate. You don't know the city and you haven't the accent.'

  Marianne's hesitation was scarcely perceptible. It was true that she did not speak with the Venetian accent but her Italian was a pure Tuscan which made her answer come quite naturally.

  'I am from Lucca,' she said. It was, after all, not altogether a lie.

  The result more than rewarded her. Zani's worried little face broke into a dazzling smile and his hand crept back into Marianne's.

  'Oh, that's all right then! You can come to our house. But it's some way yet. You're not too tired?' he added anxiously.

  'A bit,' Marianne confessed, conscious that her legs were numb with fatigue. 'Is it much farther?'

  'A bit.'

  A sleepy ferryman took them across the canal, which was almost deserted at this hour of the morning. It promised to be an exceptionally lovely day. The sky was a soft blue, washed clean by the night's storm, streaked across with flocks of pigeons. The wind off the sea was cool and smelled of salt and seaweed, and Marianne took deep rapturous breaths as they moved slowly on to where la Salute on its point hung like a gigantic seashell in the clear morning air. It was a day made for happiness, and Marianne dared not look ahead to what it might hold for her.

  Once on the far side, there were more alleys, more little flying bridges, more half-glimpsed wonders and more prowling cats. The sun rose in a glory of gold and she was reeling with exhaustion by the time they came to a point where two canals met. The wider of the two, lined with tall pink houses with washing drying at their windows, flowed directly into the waters of the harbour. It was spanned by a slender bridge.

  'There!' Zani said proudly. That's where I live. San Trovaso! The squero of San Trovaso is the hospital for sick gondolas.'

  He was pointing across the water to where, beyond the orange peel and rotting vegetables, lay a number of brown wooden sheds with a dozen or so gondolas drawn up before them, lying on their sides like wounded sharks.

  'You live there?'

  'No, over there. The last house on the corner of the quay, right at the top.'

  A masthead sticking up beyond the corner of the house showed where a tall ship lay at anchor. Marianne could not help herself. Her weariness was forgotten as she picked up her skirts and ran with the bewildered Zani hard on her heels. She could not wait to see if Jason was there waiting for her.

  It had already occurred to her that he might be late for their meeting and this was the real reason why she had followed Zani so far.

  Friendless and penniless, she had nowhere else to go if Jason had not come. Now, suddenly, the possibility seemed to have receded. She was sure he must be there.

  She emerged, panting, on to the quay. Sunshine was all about her and there, all at once, on all sides, was a forest of masts. Ships were everywhere: serried ranks of slender prows on one hand and a solid mass of sterncastles with gleaming lanterns on the other. A whole fleet was there, connected to the shore by long dipping planks on which the porters moved up and down under their heavy loads as nimbly as acrobats. There were so many ships that Marianne felt dazed. Her brain reeled.

  Orders rang out, mingling with the shrilling of bosuns' whistles and the striking of ships' bells. Music hung in the air, played by an unseen mandoline, and the tune was taken up by a barefoot girl in a striped petticoat carrying a shimmering basketful of fish on her head. The rose-coloured quayside was alive with people going about their business, as noisy and colourful as characters in a Goldoni play, while on board the moored vessels men stripped to the waist were swabbing down the decks with big buckets of clean water.

>   'What are you doing?' Zani's voice reproached her. 'You've gone past the house. Come in and rest.'

  But the impatience of love was stronger than fatigue. At the sight of all those ships, Marianne felt the fever of anticipation stir in her again. Jason was there – not far away! She was certain, she could feel it! So how could she possibly think of going to sleep? Suddenly, all her earlier doubts and hesitations fell away, like so much dead skin. The only thing that mattered was to see him, feel him and touch him.

  Resisting all Zani's efforts to detain her, she thrust her way through the busy crowd on the quay, gazing up at the vessels at their moorings, studying the faces of the men and peering at the silhouetted figure of a captain pacing the poop, but nowhere did she see the one she was looking for.

  Then, quite suddenly, she saw it. The Sea Witch was there, right out on the Giudecca, several cables' length away from the vessels ranged along the quayside. She was veering gracefully on the calm waters while out ahead the men in the longboats bent manfully to the oars and barefoot sailors swarmed in the shrouds.

  Marianne had a brief glimpse of the siren figure at the prow, twin sister to herself.

  The sun gleamed on her brasswork and Marianne gazed, fascinated, at the lovely ship, scanning the moving figures on the deck for one she knew would be unmistakable. But the Sea Witch was putting on sail, as a gull spreads its wings, she was swinging round by the head, lifting to the wind, moving out to sea…

  Understanding burst on Marianne. A wild cry broke from her:

  'No!…No! Don't!…Jason!'

  She began to run along the quay, screaming and shouting like a lunatic, hurling herself blindly through the crowd regardless of the knocks she received or of the stares that followed her. Dock hands, market women, sailors and fishermen turned to look after the dishevelled, tear-stained woman running with outstretched arms and uttering heartbroken cries, apparently on the point of casting herself into the sea.

  Marianne herself was aware of nothing, she saw and heard nothing, only that the ship was going away from her. The thought was torture. It was as though an invisible thread, woven from her own flesh, had been drawn between her and the American vessel, stretching tighter and tighter, agonizingly, until it tore the heart out of her breast and drowned it in the sea.