The Gondola Maker

by Morelli, Laura

  “Yes, sir,” I manage.

  “And,” he adds, pulling his sour-smelling face even closer, “you make one mistake, you’re out on your ass.”

  I nod.

  “Marchese’s my name.” He shakes my hand. “You can start right away, then. Finish loading the chicken crates from the warehouse onto the three boats moored here. When you’re finished with that, come to the station house, and I’ll give you further instructions.” Without another word, Master Marchese ambles to the station house, little more than a grimy, wooden, thatch-roofed shack along the quayside. At the door of the station house, he turns to size me up again from a distance.

  I PAUSE AT THE THRESHOLD of the boathouse to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. The cavernous stone building lies low along the canal-side. Heavy wooden doors latch with an ominous-looking lock, a wonder of ironwork that must have taken a blacksmith weeks to fashion. At the center of the boathouse is a boat slip, accessible through the enormous sliding door. I judge that the boat slip is wide enough to accommodate four or five gondolas at once. Boats pull directly into the slip inside the building, making it easy to unload goods into the adjacent storage areas. A pedestrian door opens onto the quayside. On one side of the boathouse, oars the length of two men stand stacked in special holders. Beyond, I glimpse the station house, where Master Marchese is chatting animatedly with a gray-haired gondolier who has just docked his craft. From across the ferry station, I can only make out the men’s deep-throated chuckles and a few choice swear-words.

  On the other side of the boathouse stands the ferry station itself, little more than a dock where passengers wait to be ferried out to the Grand Canal and to stations elsewhere in the city. For a mere bagattin, a passenger can go as far as the quayside opposite the canal. For another five ecus, he can have the gondola and the gondolier all to himself and go wherever he pleases. For a little more, and if he is so skilled, he can rent his own boat, either a gondola or a canal raft, for an errand or a picnic on one of the lagoon islands.

  The stench of sweat, poultry, and rancid water fills my nostrils. I shiver against the dampness and wish for my woolen waistcoat, which I imagine hanging on the hook beside my bed in my parents’ house. My father’s house, I correct myself.

  On a simple wooden table in the corner of the boathouse, I find a pair of dirty leather gloves, and I slip them over my hands. The chicken crates are stacked high in one corner of the building, and one by one I bear them to the gondolas. I listen to the nervous bruck-brucking of the mottled hens and eventually grow accustomed to the putrid odor of their feces as I work. For the next two hours, I allow my mind to go blank, gratefully engrossed in the mindless task. I feel myself begin to breathe easy for the first time in days. Make money to eat—that’s all I need to think about right now.

  The stationmaster appears at the pedestrian door of the boathouse. Simultaneously, a gondolier glides his black craft into the boathouse slip. I recognize the boat. I know the emblem on the aft deck: three carved roses that are the signature of the Squero Rosmarin. Its proprietor is one of my father’s rivals. For a moment I am lost in examining the boat’s keel, its fittings, its prow, its oarlocks, but Giorgio’s gruff voice snaps me out of my dream.

  “What are you waiting for, son? Grab the towline and unload this gentleman’s cargo!”

  “Neither time nor money is wasted at the Traghetto di Giorgio Marchese!” jokes the gondolier, emerging from the boat and offering the stationmaster a vigorous handshake. “Especially not money!” he laughs.

  The boat is loaded with a dozen wooden and wicker boxes. I cannot see what is inside; I only know that they are exceptionally heavy. Following Giorgio’s direction, I stack them along the left side of the boathouse, next to a gathering of crates full of vegetables that reach the height of two men.

  Gondoliers come and go in a steady rhythm throughout the afternoon. I dutifully load and unload their goods: containers of spice, sacks of flour, bolts of silk. Most of the boatmen are older, each with his own distinctive boat. One gondolier has skin the color of coal, and I suppose that he is a freed slave who has worked his way into the corporation. I continue my endless task of moving objects in and out of boats, from one side of the boathouse to the other, sometimes for no apparent reason. At first I use a cart whose wooden wheels get stuck between the cobblestones. Finally, I give up and rely on my arm strength. I am soon drenched in sweat.

  I come to understand that Giorgio’s traghetto has three boats of its own. They are squalid, coated in layers of indefinable grime. I wonder if they had ever been cleaned. Another boat is outfitted with a broad felze made of green fabric to keep off the rain and a simple upholstered seat for carrying passengers. It is only a little cleaner that the gondolas used for cargo. I would be ashamed to own a boat in such a state.

  In the distance, Giorgio sits on a rickety chair outside the station house with a pair of rough-looking gondoliers. The men are playing cards, engrossed in their wagers, alternately swearing and laughing as the sun sinks lower in the sky. Noticing me watching him, Giorgio excuses himself from the game and heads down the stairs to the gondola mooring. For a moment the stationmaster pauses to observe me polishing the fórcola of one of his boats with a rag.

  Then he stops dead in his tracks. The boat I am working on is far from spotless, but it is cleaner than it was just a few hours ago. The white streaks of chicken feces have been scrubbed clean, and the black paint reflects the shifting dusk light from the canal waters.

  “Hmph,” grunts Giorgio. He seems to restrain himself from commenting. Finally, he clears his throat. “Tomorrow you’ll work with Alvise, one of my most experienced gondolieri. You will go with him to make a delivery to the studio of Master Trevisan. This Trevisan is a prestigious painter, and he’s one of my best customers.” He wags a chubby finger at me. “Don’t screw it up. Capito?”

  He leads me to a low-slung stone building adjacent to the boathouse. Its wooden roof is riddled with holes that open to the dusk sky streaked with pink clouds. I follow Giorgio down a short flight of stairs and into a cave-like storage room filled with barrels, bails of straw, and crates. In the corner is a lumpy, straw-filled mattress lashed to a bed frame with ropes, a tattered blanket thrown over the foot of the bed. A rusty chamber pot peeks out from beneath the bed. The room reeks of rotten barley and urine.

  Without another word, Giorgio hands me a brown cloth with its four corners tied together, then saunters back to the station house. Unraveling the package, I find a piece of stale bread and a pear. I devour the meal in seconds, then fall into an exhausted heap on the mattress.

  That night, the canal outside my new home echoes with the sounds of the Castello quarter. Women giggle, the tinkling sounds of their voices lifting into the air. A screaming match between two lovers breaks out, their agony and passion echoing across the water. The fight abates only to be replaced by the shrieks of battling street cats. Toward the wee hours of the morning, someone vomits loudly into the waters of the canal. The clamor of this Venetian symphony only licks the edges of my mind. I surrender to sleep, the best I’ve had since that night, hardly a week ago, when, by my own hands, my life was reduced to ashes.

  Chapter 11

  “Pellegrini!” Master Giorgio shouts. “Take the new kid with you!”

  “Cavolo, Master Giorgio has ensnared a new recruit, I see!” A chestnut-haired boatman flashes a smile at me from where he stands on the quayside next to an ancient-looking gondola docked there. “Give me a hand, will you?”

  The boatman gestures to a large wicker container sitting on the stones. I lift one side and he lifts the other, and carefully we board the boat. We nestle the heavy box onto the floor of the gondola. I take a seat on the aft deck. The boatman unties from the metal mooring ring on the quayside, letting the gondola drift. He seats himself next to me and wraps one arm around my shoulder in an amicable embrace. “Greetings! What’d you say your name was?” />
  “Luca. Luca Fabris.”

  I squirm under his embrace as he offers me his free hand in a tight handshake. “Alvise Pellegrini. It’s a pleasure. I guess we’re colleagues, as of this moment, anyway.” Two of his teeth are black with rot, yet Alvise manages to pull off a remarkably charismatic smile. He releases his grip on my shoulder, stands, and maneuvers the gondola out of the narrow passageway where the ferry station stands.

  Alvise is older and shorter than I am, a muscular mule of a man with deep creases in his cheeks and lively eyes. His hands are cracked and scarred; dried blood appears across two knuckles on his right hand.

  “Old Man Marchese has dispatched us to Master Trevisan’s studio,” Alvise informs me. “We make deliveries there often. He’s some kind of famous painter, but it makes no difference to me; I just go where the old man sends me. Marchese... he’s a lecherous old strónso, is he not?” I blink hard, unaccustomed to the foul language for which Venetian boatmen are famous. “But I must give him some credit,” Alvise continues. “He knows how to make money and keep it. He’ll work your ass off. Just watch your back, that’s all I can say. So, where’d you come from, Luca Fabris?”

  “Um...” I stammer, not knowing where to begin, and trying to ensure that my story lines up with the lie I have already constructed for Giorgio.

  “A man of mystery,” Alvise smirks. “That’s okay, you don’t have to reveal your dark secrets if you don’t want to.”

  “No, it’s alright,” I say. “I needed work, that’s all.”

  “Don’t we all... So, did Old Man Marchese tell you why he hired you?” Alvise raises his eyebrows.

  “No, but I don’t care. I just needed to earn a few soldi to eat.” I gaze into the canal as if I can see the bottom.

  Alvise smirks. “Well, you might care about this: Your esteemed predecessor got knocked off in a brawl last week by one of the servants from the Ca’ Servadei.”

  “Really?” My jaw falls as I check Alvise’s face to see if he’s joking.

  “Really. The guy—Paolo was his name—was an imbecile. And constantly drunk, macarón. Paolo’s job was delivering wood and wine from Rialto to the Servadei household. Paolo and the servant who accepted deliveries at the palace were constantly fighting—calling each other names, punching each other at the slightest provocation. Would have killed each other already if I hadn’t stopped them on more than one occasion. It was all over a woman—

  inbeçiìli both of them.” Alvise releases one hand from the oar to make a dismissive gesture.

  “The other night Paolo was out with some men from the ferry docks. They spent the evening in a tavern down near Rialto,” Alvise explains, gesturing vaguely with his thumb to an area over his right shoulder. “They see this man-servant, and he’s with Paolo’s lady friend. Paolo flew into a rage. Needless to say they got into a fistfight, and the guy chased Paolo onto the bridge near the Ruga Vecchia. Well, that’s one of those old-fashioned bridges with no rails, you know. Paolo was drunk, like I said. The guy punched him good in the face, and he went over. Never came up.” Alvise nods his head and smiles as he finishes the sordid tale.

  I am stunned for a moment. “So, what happened?”

  Alvise shrugs and continues rowing. “What happened? Well, you showed up, that’s what happened.” He snickers and raps me on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll find Paolo floating in the canal on our rounds. Now, here we are.”

  Alvise slows the gondola as we approach an impressive-looking brick palazzo that dwarfs the buildings adjacent to it, a grand house with tall windows and several chimneys reaching their long columns toward the sky. A stone stairway leads from the waters of the canal to a landing beneath an arched wooden door. At eye level, the door is pierced with a small, sliding portal, which has bars so that the occupant can see who is at the door without opening it. Below the portal, a window box displays yellow and purple flowers. Alongside the impressive-looking door, a glazed window with diamond-shaped panes stands at the level of the canal.

  While Alvise ties the boat to the artist’s mooring, I stand and find my balance in the boat. From this vantage point, I am able to peer inside the large leaded window, and I pause to take in the scene.

  The painter—who else could this man be—sits with his back to the window. He wears a silk shirt the color of a ripe peach, gathered at the shoulders with the sleeves rolled up to expose strong forearms. Velvet breeches the color of rubies cover his stout legs, and his hat sits askew on gray curly locks. Deep in concentration, he perches atop a stool with his knees wide apart, examining a canvas on the easel before him. In his right hand he holds a paintbrush; in his left, a stick to steady his hand. On a small wooden table sit a palette with several colorful smears and a dingy rag.

  Sensing our presence, the artist wheels around to face the window. A surprised expression crosses his face, then he rises and moves quickly to the door. I hear heavy footsteps approaching, then the iron bar that locks the door scrapes against the wood.

  “Dio Mio, how you startled me!” the artist cries as he pokes his head around the door. I see a shock of silver curls, a thick beard, and piercing gray eyes that examine me.

  “Good day, Magnificence, and please excuse us for startling you,” Alvise bows to the artist. My cheeks turn hot in embarrassment. Alvise and I work together to lift the box out of the boat, and we carry it up the stairs and through the doorway of the artist’s studio.

  “Come in, come in.” The door swings wide and for the first time I take in the full presence of the artist.

  Trevisan is a strapping, virile man with strong arms and long yet stout legs like the trunks of pine trees. He wears his aristocratic clothes with flair. His beard and mustache are closely cropped, but his curly gray hair remains tousled and unkempt. The artist stands with his back perfectly straight and looks down his nose at me, though somehow without haughtiness. His girth implies gluttonous habits but also lends him an air of authority. I manage to bow slightly, an awkward and unpracticed gesture. I avert my eyes.

  “You will come into the studio and wait for me, please,” the artist says, wiping his hands on a rag and throwing it across one shoulder. “I have another delivery that you may make on my behalf now that you are here.”

  It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the interior light. Dust-flecked sunbeams illuminate the studio, a space so richly appointed that I stand dumbfounded. Apart from the basilica of San Marco, I have never seen a place so splendid in my whole life. On one end of the room, a fire crackles in a tremendous stone hearth carved with winged feline creatures with human heads. Two rich carpets from the East blanket the floor with fantastic red and blue designs. From one wall hangs an enormous tapestry with a hunting scene, a nobleman sounding a trumpet and dogs leaping after a stag. Dark panels of wood make decorative patterns across the ceiling. They decorate the walls, too, but I can hardly see them, as paintings cover the walls from the floor all the way to up to the wooden beams that line the ceiling. I cannot begin to count the number of paintings that hang from the walls. There are portraits, saints, horses, mythological figures that I fail to interpret, and so much more that my eyes can hardly take it in. Candelabra taller than a man stand clustered around the artist’s easel, lighting his work. I have only seen such massive candelabra inside my parish church. A crimson, velvet-upholstered divan sits before the easel, with purple silks draped across the back.

  The artist leans over a large wooden desk, writing something on a parchment folio with a feather pen. Alvise stands before the desk waiting, hat in his hands. Light from the window filters into the room, illuminating the artist’s workspace, as well as the painting on the easel.

  And that’s where my eye stops.

  The painting shows a woman’s face. Her skin is smooth, her lips full and moist. Fine wisps curl around her forehead and temples, then the image disintegrates into brushstrokes. One hand
rises to her flushed cheek, but the artist has not yet fully painted it. In fact, the picture remains little more than a colored sketch, yet in my whole life I have never beheld something so beautiful. Without a doubt, this is the most captivating woman I have ever seen. I stand transfixed.

  Worried that the artist might be observing me, I glance at Trevisan. He paces slowly across the studio, pulling on his beard as he reads the document in his hand, lost in concentration. Alvise waits silently. My eyes turn back to the picture on the artist’s easel, and I move closer. It is remarkable; the woman seems to be looking straight at me. Brown hair frames her delicate face, and her greenish eyes have an alluring quality that I cannot begin to describe. Never has a woman ever looked at me this way. My collar seems to tighten around my neck, and I need some air.

  Wheeling around on his heel, Trevisan breaks his trance. “Very good, very good.” He returns to the wooden desk near the hearth, pulls the feather pen from its inkwell, and signs the document with a flourish.

  “I need for you to deliver this contract immediately to my client’s palace in San Marco.” He rolls the signed contract into a scroll.

  “Magnificence,” Alvise says. “With all due respect, this service falls outside the normal course of today’s delivery.” Alvise gestures to the box we have just placed on the studio floor. “Master Giorgio is expecting my colleague and me back at the traghetto to attend to our work. An additional delivery would require a premium on today’s fees. Of course, my colleague and I would be delighted to provide this service at a lower rate if you will work directly with us.”

  The artist fixes his silent, piercing gaze on me, and pauses. Finally, he demands, “What is your name, son?”