The Gondola Maker

by Morelli, Laura

  Climbing a short flight of stairs from the filthy space to the quayside, I suck in the damp, fog-laden air, drinking it in with all my might. Before me, a crowd is gathering at the façade of a church. It stands at the edge of the wide canal; only a narrow quay separates the boat mooring from a staircase leading to the church doors. Several gondolas stand docked at a quayside, and passengers are being discharged before the church. Decorative marble forms geometric patterns in the pavement in front of the church and up the stairway, appearing as an extravagant carpet leading people toward its portals.

  People begin to form into a procession, one of the many religious pageants that fill the city each day it seems, to honor particular saints and other feast days. I pause for a moment, watching three Dominicans dressed in long cloaks instructing a group of boys who are slipping white robes over their street clothes in preparation for the procession. Two or three dozen men and women, elaborately dressed, cluster on the staircase.

  Three girls emerge from one of the gently swaying gondolas docked at the quayside. Arm in arm, they chat as they process up the patterned marble stairs to the quay where the crowd is gathering. There is something familiar about the tallest of the three—the way she walks, the gentle movement of her skirts as she moves, the gesture of her hand as she talks to her sisters. The girls pause near the spot where I am standing, and the tall girl turns in my direction. She glances briefly at me, turns her head away, then turns it back sharply and fixes her gaze on me.

  Her eyes widen in shock.

  I freeze.

  Annalisa.

  Chapter 9

  It isn’t until that moment that I stop to consider what I must look like. Instinctively, I smooth my stringy hair away from my face and run my palms down the front of my waist-vest as if to smooth the wrinkles. I run my tongue over my front teeth. Now I am fully aware of my unkempt hair, my unshaven chin, my dirt-smudged vest, my mud-caked shoes. I wonder if I have carried any scent of the public latrines with me.

  Annalisa snaps out of her state of shock at meeting her betrothed by chance on the street and starts toward me with a furrowed brow. “Luca, Luca, where have you been? Your brother is looking all over the city for you! My father says the signori di notte are probably looking for you, too! The squero is practically destroyed. Your mother... There was a mass for her at Madonna dell’Orto and everyone from the guild was there. They bore her body away on a gondola covered with flowers. Everyone was talking about you! They decided to bury her in her family’s tomb on Murano. My mother and I paid our respects there yesterday. And the baby... They baptized him as Antonio; did you know that already? Your sister has taken him to a wet nurse in Dorsoduro...”

  The crowd has now turned its attention on us. Annalisa pushes forward, gripping my forearms, and looking into my eyes. I can smell her skin, can see her straight teeth up close now, and her large brown eyes under a furrowed brow. “Please, please, you must come back home. Your brother and sister are... It’s beyond words. And your father... Luca, you cannot run away. It’s your fate! We are to be married.”

  She reads my expression, then loosens her grip and takes a step backward.

  “Annalisa...” I consider my words for a moment, then start softly. “Annalisa, I am sorry. I cannot go back—ever. I have no choice.”

  Slowly, she drinks in my words, then covers her mouth with both hands.

  As I speak, I am aware that my voice is beginning to crack. “Please understand. I cannot go back. It’s impossible. I will not. The fire...” My shoulders fall. “My father disowned me. It is no longer my fate to follow, and I was never worthy of it to begin with.” I approach her, now visibly agitated, my hands drawn tightly into fists at my side. Annalisa’s sisters rush to her as I continue. “It was all his fault that she died, don’t you see? All his fault!”

  Annalisa is sobbing now. She continues to take slow steps backward, shaking her head slowly from side to side. The two younger girls bolster their sister upright. She is silent for a moment that seems like an eternity, her mind processing the events. I chew my bottom lip. The crowd of onlookers grows.

  Annalisa’s eyes seem to turn black, and a deep shadow of rage crosses her face. She explodes.

  “Traitor!” she shrieks. “Traitor!” Her cries become louder, and churchgoers stop in their tracks. Their muttering fills the air. Annalisa’s youngest sister wraps her arms around her, and Annalisa covers her face with her hands. Then she wipes her nose on her sleeve, takes a deep breath, and cries loudly, “You set the fire in the squero! How could you? How did you dare? You betrayed your own family!” She sobs even louder. “And now you’ve betrayed me, too! You are worse than a traitor! You are a criminal!”

  “Annalisa, the fire was an accident!” I manage to say. “But don’t you see... I can’t turn back now. Things can never be the same again. I am not even my father’s true heir! My brother is the one, not I. I am a fraud, a clumsy, left-handed impostor. They will carry on better without me. And...” my voice becomes very soft, “I cannot marry you.”

  Annalisa stands momentarily silent. Then she explodes a second time. She raises her fists and shakes them vigorously toward the heavens. She howls as loudly as she can, a shriek so horrible that it makes my scalp tingle. Her sisters force her away from me, and the crowd that has formed to witness a public spectacle even more compelling than the procession they had come to see.

  I turn on my heels, duck my chin, and walk away quickly, my heart rending as I hear Annalisa’s shrieks and sobs grow muffled and distant. I feel the burning eyes of several dozen onlookers at my back, as if they could brand me with a searing glance. I walk faster.

  It begins to rain. Cold, grape-sized pellets fall from the sky, making a haphazard cacophony of concentric rings in the canals. The crowd of curious onlookers who witnessed Annalisa’s outburst disperses. Some raise their cloaks over their heads and run for cover in the church. Others scatter to arcaded walkways that line the edges of a nearby piazza.

  I march away from the church with great conviction even though, in truth, I have nowhere to go. My shirt is soaked and clings to my skin, and my feet slosh loudly inside my worn shoes. Enormous raindrops splatter against my hair and splash onto my eyelashes. Through the great drips that streak my face, it is impossible to make out the tears.

  As much as I may wish to turn around and recant everything I have just said to Annalisa, my feet march forward. Why would Annalisa have me now? She will do better to find a more worthy husband than I. I have set fire to my own family squero. I didn’t mean to, of course, but it was malice in my heart, resentment of my own father, that drove me to do it. In committing this unwitting crime, I have sealed my own fate. I love my brother and sister, and I know I would love my baby brother, too, but the oarmaker is correct: Things can never return to the way they were before the fire.

  My destiny may have once lain in my family boatyard, in Annalisa’s bed, at the hearth of my own house, in the community of my fellow squerarioli, in the experience and the talent of my own hands. But I am no longer deserving of any of it. Perhaps I never was.

  For the first time in my life, I am alone.

  A PLACE FOR OUTCASTS, a place for those with nothing to eat and nowhere else to go. That is all I know of the almshouse attached to the Convent of Santa Marta. On Tuesdays at noon, the Augustinian sisters fulfill their mission to clothe the poor, nurse the sick, and feed the hungry. Until now, I have known it only by reputation, not personal experience.

  Arriving in the square in front of the convent, still dripping from the deluge, I find some three dozen forlorn-looking, rain-soaked souls waiting in line before two enormous wooden doors. I hang back near another doorway in the square and watch as the doors scrape open to allow the bedraggled crowd to file into the convent. I drop into the back of the line.

  We file into a warm, dry, cavernous room. On one wall, a roaring fire occupies an open hearth, sending crack
les and sparks into the chimney. A servant in a brown shift tends the fire, and another stirs a pot. Several long wooden tables are arranged in the center of the room. At one end, another long table, set perpendicular to the others, stands below an enormous wooden cross hanging on the wall.

  From the iron pot, a laywoman, no doubt a member of the confraternity, is filling wooden bowls with a ladle. She passes each bowl to one of the sisters, who gives it to the next poor soul in line. “God bless you,” nods the small woman with delicate skin who hands me a bowl of steaming rice with peas. Her blue eyes shine at me like crystals. I take my bowl to one of the wooden tables, and place it on the end. I hesitate for a moment, noting that everyone else in the room is still standing.

  A tall, regal-looking sister enters the room and stations herself at the head table. Nodding her head to her motley guests, she addresses us with a prayer, thanking God for his mercy and for sustenance. We cross ourselves, then sit down to eat. I heave myself on the wooden bench, possessively reaching my arm around the bowl, and lower my face into the steam emanating from the pile of rice. In less than a minute, the bowl is empty.

  Only now do I look up to survey my dinner partners. Two men sit at the other end of my table, pouring diluted beer from a blue ceramic pitcher placed in the center of each table. They are regulars, I think, from the commentary they run on tonight’s choice of rice and peas. “Not as good as Sister Francesca’s risi e bisi,” one man with no teeth comments. His companion nods, but it doesn’t stop either man from inhaling the steaming meal in front of them. “Hers is more mealy, and it has more spice,” adds the critic. “This one’s too bland, he continues,” stuffing his cheeks with it. His friend nods in silent agreement.

  From across the room, I spy a legless African whom I have seen performing impressive hand-walking feats in the Piazza San Marco. He wears ragged breeches that brush the stumps where his legs should be, along with a dirty shirt and a tight-fitting cap over his coarse hair. Alongside him, his scraggly-haired partner translates on his behalf in Venetian dialect for another pair of ragged-looking men seated across the table from them. At another table, a portly, street-wise looking man is regaling two others with a tale about a fight, describing in gory detail how one man had punched another one so hard that his teeth had exploded out of his mouth and rattled on the cobblestones. The other two men howl with laughter. The laywoman in the soup line casts them a cold, stern glance.

  Soon a nun emerges from a small door with a stack of neatly folded woolen blankets. She moves from table to table, distributing them among the men. She seems to know everyone by name. She looks each one in the eye and inquires about his welfare—where he is sleeping, if he is working, what of his family, what of his health. A few of the men chat with her as if she were a close friend or sister. She listens intently to the woes and tales of each man and asks for God’s mercy on behalf of each one individually.

  Having talked with the sister and received their blankets, a few men rise from their tables and amble to the wall. They spread their blankets and sit. Out of view of the nuns, one man produces a deck of playing cards and begins to deal them to his friends. Another man rolls himself tightly in his blanket, lays his head on the cold bricks, and closes his eyes.

  When she approaches my table, the sister scrutinizes me with a frown as if trying to recognize my face. She takes note of the spoon in my left hand and I see her recoil, though she quickly composes herself. “Good evening,” she says. “Have you been here before, missier?”

  “No,” I reply, lowering my eyes. “First time.”

  “And what misfortune, may I ask, brings a young man like yourself to a place like this?” she asks.

  I hesitate. My mind goes blank.

  Seeming to consider my appearance, after a moment, the sister asks, “Are you a tradesman?”

  “I work—I worked—with boats.” I cast my eyes to the floor.

  “I see. Are you ill? Or in trouble with the authorities?” she asks.

  “No,” I reply too quickly. Again, I hesitate. “Just unlucky, you might say.” Her eyes wander briefly to my left hand again.

  “Hmm,” says the sister, with an expression that I interpret as a combination of sympathy and doubt. I must admit that I look out of place amongst the other men in the room.

  “What a shame,” she replies. “It is our mission here to feed the hungry, aid the poor, help the sick. We serve meals here on Tuesdays and Saturdays, if you are in need.”

  I nod, continuing to inspect the floor.

  “May God have mercy on you,” says the sister, dropping a drab woolen blanket on the bench beside me and moving away from my table.

  Behind the nun, a kitchen maid approaches, clearing the table and wiping it with a rag. She leans toward me but does not meet my eyes as if, like me, she is trying to remain invisible.

  “Excuse me, missier,” she whispers. “Please forgive me, but I overheard you say that you are a boatman,” she says.

  I do not answer.

  “If it serves you, my brother is the station master at the ferry dock near San Biagio. On occasion he hires day laborers to help with the boats. Perhaps you would find work there. You must ask for Master Giorgio.”

  I try to meet her gaze, but the servant woman’s braids and face are mostly hidden behind the folds of her bonnet.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  She nods. “God help me if I have presumed too much, missier, but it seems to me that there would be no reason that a young man like yourself might not be apprenticed. I wish you well.”

  I watch her disappear into the convent kitchen.

  Chapter 10

  Chicken droppings streak the faded black hulls of three gondolas moored at the Traghetto San Biagio. A rancid odor fills the air around the old ferry station.

  A strapping man with a silver beard is loading crates of live hens onto one of the boats. The man wears breeches and a gray shirt—both in need of washing—covering muscular, suntanned arms. Each time he plunks one crate on top of another with his stumpy hands, the chickens squawk and flutter their wings, then squat nervously as the boat rocks gently from side to side. Lost in his work, the man is suddenly aware that someone is standing on the quay alongside his boat. He steps back with a start but catches his balance on the rocking boat.

  “Dio Mio, boy, you gave me a scare.”

  “Excuse me for startling you, sir.” I remove my hat. “I’m looking for work.”

  The man wipes his lined brow on his grubby shirtsleeve, then looks me in the eye. “Is that so?” He brings his hands to his hips and frowns.

  “Are you the gastaldo of this ferry station, sir?”

  “Going on thirty years,” he says. “Do you know how to row a gondola?”

  “Yes, sir. My father was a gondolier, so I learned from him.” I surprise myself with this lie, which seems to have materialized out of thin air. “I know the city like the back of my hand. My parents died when I was ten, and I’ve been apprenticed to a carpenter since then, but he died of a terrible affliction. Last week. I need to work.”

  The ferry station’s master considers my story, eyeing me suspiciously as he balances his strapping frame on the gondola. “You have no other family?”

  “None. I am alone in the world.”

  “Hmph.” The gastaldo runs his hand over his head of lustrous silver curls. “It is not every day that a stranger appears wanting work. All of my dock boys come recommended by my cousins or my closest colleagues.” He carefully inspects me.

  I straighten my back and continue to look the stationmaster squarely in the eye. “Your sister from Santa Marta directed me here, sir.”

  He hesitates, then lets out a gruff chortle that causes the gondola to sway. Then he pulls his stout frame out of the gondola and heaves himself up the four stone stairs to the quay. He stands close to my face, and I note that he is slightly shorter than
I am. He slowly looks me up and down from head to foot. I feel the skin on my arms and scalp tingle. “My sister... What is your full name, son?”

  “Luca... Fabris.” I swallow hard.

  “And how old are you, Luca... Fabris?” The stationmaster mimics my hesitation with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Where were you born?”

  I hesitate again. “In... In Dorsoduro, sir.”

  “Can you lift heavy loads?”

  “Of course.”

  The stationmaster scratches his head and circles me slowly, sizing me up from behind. “Son, do you realize that I run one of the largest ferry stations in Our Most Serene City? More than eight dozen boats go in and out of here every day. All of our boatmen are part of the corporation: they are elected, they pay their membership, they own their own boats, they follow the rules. They entrust me with collecting dues, scheduling their shifts, maintaining this ferry station, and most importantly, screening any potential new members of our corporation.” He raises his gruff voice and pokes his chest with a stubby thumb. “That means it’s up to me to keep out any of the salabràchi that give our profession a bad name!”

  I examine the ground.

  “However,” he says finally, completing his circle, “you find yourself in fortunate circumstances. I am buried under deliveries right now, and it just so happens that I lost a dock boy this week; stupid kid had càca for brains.” The man projects a large wad of spittle onto the cobblestones. I blink hard. “I’m willing to take a chance with you for one day, provided that you play by my rules. So... you want to start right now?”

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir!” My shoulders fall in relief.

  He holds up his hands, displaying large callouses on his palms. “Now I’m not promising anything. We’ll give you a try, but just for today, understand? Then, tomorrow’s a new day, and we’ll see how you do. If things work out, I will provide you a place to sleep and I will pay you eight soldi per day, paid every Saturday, which you can spend on food and drink. You will do exactly as I say, go exactly where I tell you, keep your nose clean and your opinions to yourself. Stay out of trouble, and you and I will get along just fine. Got it?”