The Gondola Maker

by Morelli, Laura

  “What makes you say that?” I feign ignorance. I pick up a broom and begin to stab at the stones.

  “Because Old Marchese has an important errand, and he’s dispatching you instead of me.” Alvise flashes his incongruously rotted yet chivalrous smile. Giorgio enters the boathouse, and both Alvise and I cast our eyes to the floor.

  “Wash up at the fountain, figliolo,” Giorgio says. I shake out my broom over the canal waters, then prop it against the wall.

  “Your man Trevisan’s got another errand, and he asked specifically for you.” He sizes me up once again, and I feel the skin on the back of my neck tingle. “Seems you made quite an impression on that painter.”

  Chapter 16

  I recognize Signora Baldi’s costume-rental shop from Master Giorgio’s description. As I maneuver the Nerina into the narrow canal, I spy racks of colorful fabrics fluttering in the breeze along a long stretch of the quayside. The frocks are organized by color from light to dark, a rainbow palette of silks, satins, and velvets of every shade: indigo, saffron, crimson, emerald, and rose.

  Before leaving the traghetto, Master Giorgio informed me that Signora Baldi operates the best costume-rental shop in the city, providing an ever-changing supply of fashionable costumes, party frocks, and masks to some of the finest families in Our Most Serene Republic. She single-handedly supplies costumes for the Doge’s ball at carnival time.

  Signora Baldi stands alongside stacks of wicker crates staged near a stone stairway that disappears under the level of the canal waters. She is a tall, elegant woman with an aristocratic countenance. Signora Baldi wears her hair in a fashionable coif with curls framing her face, the rest pulled into a tightly braided knot, studded with pearls, at the back of her head.

  Signora Baldi seems to recognize the traghetto gondola as I approach the quayside. “Are you here for Master Trevisan’s costumes?”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  “Patrizia!” she calls. “Please show Master Trevisan’s boatman where the crates are for the Carnival party.” A girl around my age, a younger version of her mother, emerges from the shop. She catches my eye and smiles. Her mother looks on warily. I load two crates onto the gondola.

  “Please tell the artist that I personally hand-selected these choices from my best stock,” Signora Baldi says. “The ones in the top crate are for the artist—wide enough around the middle to accommodate his girth, yet tailored to suit his tall frame. I know he prefers the hats with the wider brims, not the newer, more tight-fitting ones. I’ve also included a new royal-blue waistcoat with the cords and buttons. The bottom crate has some choices for Master Trevisan’s young journeyman.”

  Leaving the costume-rental shop behind, I row out into the Grand Canal, then into a narrow waterway that leads to Trevisan’s studio. As I make the sharp turn into the canal alongside the artist’s house, out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of another gondola careening toward me. Alarmed at its speed, I instinctively grip the sides of the gondola and prepare for a crash. Surprisingly, the brawny gondolier masterfully oars his craft from a steady clip to an instantaneous halt, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Its boatman greets me curtly with a nod, then ties the gondola to the mooring before the artist’s house. He jogs up the stairs to Trevisan’s studio door and rings the brass bell. The boat is fantastic, I note, covered in carving, paint, and gilding from prow to aft deck. It’s the kind of gondola I would expect two men to row, but I only see the one boatman at Trevisan’s door.

  The artist’s studio door opens, and a woman with a gentle expression appears. She wears a simple, elegant silk gown the color of sparkling white wine, trimmed with delicate embroidery around the neckline. A black cloak is draped across her shoulders. The gondolier reaches out his hand to her to help her climb into the boat, and she remains standing in the gondola, her hands clasped before her, as if waiting for something to happen.

  Then, a second, younger woman emerges from Trevisan’s studio. I hear the clomping sound of what I know to be platform clogs—their heels as high as a pig’s back—that are fashionable among patrician women. The woman is covered from head to toe in a black cloak with a hood trimmed in weasel fur. Delicate hands emerge from the fur-trimmed sleeves, and I spot at least five gold bands with large colored gems. In her arms she cradles a small brown dog, only his trembling head emerging from her voluminous sleeves.

  The gondolier extends his hand to help this grand lady into the gondola. The woman waiting there—I judge her now to be the lady’s maid—extends her hand to help her mistress toward her seat. As the woman climbs into the boat, she pushes her fur-trimmed hood back from her head, then turns her face toward me, as if startled by my presence in the gondola next to her. For a moment that passes ever so slowly, the woman fixes a pair of clear green eyes on me. A thin veil covers her hair, but a few brown curls emerge, twisting around her face and entwining the small drops of pearls at her earlobes. Her cheeks are flushed pink, her lips parted. She carries a slightly surprised expression on her face.

  I watch as the two women seat themselves on the bench under the felze, whose curtains are tied to the side to allow air into the compartment. The gondolier leans his weight into the oarlock to power the craft away from Trevisan’s house. I watch as the two women grow smaller and out of focus as they glide away from me. Finally, their gondola turns the corner into the adjacent canal, and they disappear from view.

  A collage of images sears through my mind, and my thoughts race to make sense of images so foreign and yet strangely familiar: the green eyes, the gaze, the parted lips. Then, I feel as if someone has punched me in the stomach. A sudden ache spreads just below my ribs.

  It’s the girl in the painting.

  Chapter 17

  His Girls. They are his most prized—and most private—pictures.

  The Councillor follows the narrow corridor that leads from his study into the small yet ornate chamber that holds these little treasures. He enters the dark room and pulls back the curtain. Sunlight illuminates the jewel box of a space, with its gilded-coffered ceiling and paintings that cover nearly every inch of its scarlet, fabric-colored walls.

  Long ago the Councillor commissioned a plush chair upholstered in blue velvet just for this gallery, and now he positions himself in it so that he may enjoy an unobstructed view of His Girls. Each one looks out at him in return from their gilded frames—a private view for one pair of eyes only. From this position, he relishes the memory of each one.

  Signorina Faustini was his first, and he begins by looking at her portrait. The artist did well to portray her startling gaze, her large brown eyes and thick eyebrows. The Councillor runs his eyes along the silhouette of her waist. Then there was Signorina Contato, whose hips were luscious though it turned out that she talked too much. There was another one whose name escapes him; he remembers only that her father insisted that the artist portray his daughter as the mythical Flora, with one pale nipple exposed and a flower in her hand. The Councillor chortled at this thinly veiled attempt to imagine the girl, who turned out to be surprisingly ardent, as a coy mythological goddess.

  Hmm, groans the Councillor smugly to himself. He plucked each girl like an apple at the peak of ripeness, devouring her sweetness, then discarding her core. Thrilling every time.

  In exchange for each virginal deflowering, the Councillor pays a substantial sum to the girl’s father. Only rarely does the father refuse. Inevitably, a reasonable man sees the logic in getting compensated, in lieu of outlaying a sizeable dowry, for his daughter. After the fact, she is no longer be marriageable anyway. Then her father can whisk her away to a convent along with a respectable endowment and plenty to spare for his own pocket. After all, the girl has the rest of her cloistered life to atone for her own sins, not to mention secure a place for her family in the life hereafter. It makes sense for the father, the family, and of course, the Councillor, who never tires of the chase.

  In
addition to paying off the father, there is of course a pretty penny to pay for the portrait of each girl. Over the years the Councillor has commissioned some of the city’s best painters to craft each one of these little souvenirs.

  This very moment, he thinks, his latest prospect may be sitting, shivering in the damp studio of Master Trevisan, whose contract is now signed. He thinks about the first time he noticed her at a party, his eyes drinking in the girl’s flushed cheeks, the nape of her neck. He felt the usual twinge of attraction overtake him, then the obsession grew.

  Even though this negotiation was far from normal, which troubles the Councillor somewhat, he is unable to turn back now. No, he must have this dark-haired beauty. At the same time that he anticipates the encounter, he thinks about how he will rearrange His Girls to make a space for a new picture.

  Chapter 18

  My work as Alvise’s assistant in the traghetto has returned to normal, but in truth, things can never be the same, for I cannot rid myself of the image of the girl. I find myself distracted, engrossed in my work yet far away, turning over images in my mind of her face, her eyes, her hair, her teeth.

  “This one is yours, cucco!” Giorgio’s voice booms across the ferry station. A man carrying a satchel over his shoulder is waiting at the dock. “Take figliolo with you.” The two of us board the boat.

  “Good day, missier!” Alvise flashes a smile and tips his hat with an exaggerated gesture toward the passenger waiting on the dock. “Where may we escort you today?” The man—I take him to be a shop owner because of his costume and businesslike demeanor—steps confidently aboard and ducks into the seat under cover of the felze. “Drop me off at the new ferry station in San Polo,” the man rattles off in a brusque voice.

  “Of course. Right away, missier,” replies Alvise. He places the oar into the lower notch of the oarlock and tilts the oar to the right. The boat responds immediately and pushes away from the quay. Once the craft is set into motion, Alvise moves the oar to the upper lock and plies his strength into it. The gondola gathers speed. The gondolier’s body sways rhythmically as he rows, a natural movement that makes him seem as if he were part of his craft. Soon fanciful façades appear as nothing more than a blur of arches, pink and mauve stripes with wavering mirror images in the canal. Alvise begins to hum a popular tune under his breath, a satisfied look on his face. The humming grows louder, and then breaks into whistling. Alvise rows to the rhythm as he hums and whistles. The boat skims along silently with a gentle rock. For the first time since I left home, I savor the familiar sensation of riding in a gondola, with wind in my hair and the sun on my face. A wave of contentment washes over me. We pass under several bridges, gliding at such a clip that I have the feeling that the bridges are moving toward us rather than the other way around.

  Alvise turns the boat into the Grand Canal. The great basin teems with boat traffic. I recognize the flat-bottomed water barges we call burchi, surprisingly strong, from which owners sell fresh water by the bucketful. During times of drought, when people’s wells and cisterns go dry, these water vendors make a fortune transporting fresh, clean water from the Brenta and floating around Venetian canals shouting “acqua fresca!” then doling out eight buckets for a mere soldo. A hunting boat slides stealthily out toward the lagoon, carrying two patrician men with crossbows. Cargo barges carry firewood, produce, and other supplies. I recognize two public ferries, today unusually empty. Alvise waves to a friend rowing another gondola some twenty yards away and greets other acquaintances with a lift of his chin or a hand gesture I cannot interpret. His body sways rhythmically as he rows, a natural movement that makes him seem as if he is part of his craft. Alvise Pellegrini, rowing confidently across the Grand Canal, is in his element among these boatmen.

  Somewhere along that stretch of Grand Canal, I notice that Alvise begins to slow his strokes. He places the oar in front of the oarlock and even swirls the oar in a seeming backward motion. The craft decelerates, and I am confused. Alvise’s countenance remains the same. A grin on his face, he continues to hum his contented tune without skipping a beat. Catching my eye, he winks.

  Alvise maneuvers the craft around a bend in the Grand Canal and into one of the ghebi, the network of small canals that feed into the lagoon. I recognize this particular ghebo as a cut-through from the Grand Canal to the northern basin. Alvise expertly slides the craft into the cramped space, and slips by another gondola moving in the opposite direction. I marvel that the two boats glide by one another so closely without touching, a mere inch or two apart. As the two boats pass, Alvise and the other gondolier extend their arms and wordlessly salute one other with a quick clasp of their hands, a fierce yet fleeting arm-wrestle.

  We approach San Polo. Alvise slows the gondola and drifts toward the quay. The side of the boat skims the algae-covered stone wall near a short flight of stairs leading up to the street. The shopkeeper emerges from the felze and gathers his belongings.

  “Here we are, missier! What a delightful ride, if I do say so myself! That’ll be four soldi, per favore.”

  The man’s bottom lip drops slightly, and he looks at Alvise with a confused expression. “Quattro?” the man clarifies. “But you only ferried me from Castello. That should cost no more than two.”

  “How right you are, sir,” Alvise replies diplomatically. “But don’t forget, sir, that today is the Feast of San Rocco, so the rates are higher, naturally. And, sir, I don’t know if you remarked—if you’re not a boatman you may not have noticed—but on the smaller canals in this section of town, the current runs east to west when the tide goes out. I was rowing against the tide, sir, and that always takes longer,” Alvise counters. He continues to flash his crooked smile.

  The man purses his lips, and his expression hardens. He drops his satchel on the floor of the gondola with an exasperated gesture, then raises his finger to Alvise’s face. “You!” he begins. “You’re trying to extort me! I’m not some stupid foreigner, you know! I’m a Venetian citizen, and I know how much it costs to go from your blasted ferry station to San Polo! It should cost no more than a bagattin. I’m giving you two and no more!” He continues to stare down Alvise.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I can accept no less than four. I must make my living, you know, with the cost of grain these days.” Alvise crosses his arms and taps his fingers on his muscular forearm.

  “You’re nothing but a no-good thief! You boatmen are all the same! I ought to report you to the Great Council!” The man reaches into the pocket of his breeches, pulls out a coin, and flings it on the floor, then scrambles out of the gondola. Standing on the stairs, he turns to address Alvise again. “San Rocco, my ass!” He spits a large wad of saliva, which hits the inside rim of the gondola. I watch the wad of spit streak slowly down to the floor of the boat.

  Alvise immediately breaks out of his diplomatic guise and raises his left hand to make an obscene gesture. “Well you can kiss San Rocco’s ass as far as I’m concerned!” Alvise powers the gondola away from the quay, a self-righteous look on his face. He turns the craft into a narrow canal, then glances toward me and nearly collapses from laughter.

  But I am hardly paying attention. My thoughts still lie in Master Trevisan’s studio.

  AT DUSK, THE ARTIST APPEARS at Master Giorgio’s ferry station.

  I am polishing Nerina’s keel when I catch sight of Trevisan’s hefty frame moving briskly toward the station hut from the shadows of the alley.

  Startled, Giorgio looks up from his solo card game. “Master Trevisan!” he gasps, scrambling to his feet. “What a surprise... I usually expect to see one of your shop assistants! To what do I owe this honor?”

  Trevisan motions with his hand for Giorgio to be seated, and the artist pulls up a chair to the other side of the rickety table outside the hut. “I have an acquaintance from the scuola—a certain Signor Brunelli of Dorsoduro. You know the type. Connected. Upstanding. Married. Very married—to a woman who
is even more connected than he is. He needs a little diversion of the type that only you can provide.” He looks at Giorgio and raised his eyebrows. “I was thinking of those twins you sent to Signor Fonta the last time? It requires the utmost discretion.” Trevisan examines his own fingernails. “My acquaintance is prepared to pay you handsomely, of course.”

  “Are you... involved with this Brunelli?”

  “Heavens no,” replies the artist, waving his hand. “Strictly business.”

  Giorgio nods. “Consider it done, sir. As always, we’ll take care of it. Anything else?”

  “Yes, one more thing. Have your dock boy Fabris pack up his belongings and report to my studio first thing tomorrow morning.” From the inside of his cloak, the artist produces a small velvet bag pulled tightly with a cord. He plunks it down on the table in front of Master Giorgio. It rings with the heft of a large mound of coins. Giorgio’s eyes widen.

  “If it please you, of course, Master Giorgio,” begins the artist, using his most polite graces, then meeting the grubby station master eye to eye, “release your dock boy from your charge. I have a pressing need for a new boatman. Luca Fabris now works for me.”

  Chapter 19

  “You’re one lucky fionàso, did you know that?” Alvise guffaws at me from his seated position on the rear of the boat.

  I grin and row the little puparin—a skiff that Master Giorgio affectionately calls Piccolino—into the canal. Reading my expression, Alvise continues, “Santo Stefano! Who has heard of a boy your age—not even part of a guild, for God’s sake—hired as a private boatman?”

  Before leaving the ferry station, I had filled the flower box of the tabernacle with fresh flowers I purchased at a street market and bid a silent farewell to the stone faces of the Madonna and Child. From Giorgio, all I got was a gruff salute, but I expected little more.