The Venetian

by Mark Tricarico

  “Thank heaven,” he murmured when he saw a man turn the nearest corner. Il mio dio but he was huge! A head taller than Abramo’s considerable height, he looked twice as wide. Piercing blue eyes sat above a great blond beard. He was covered in at least three layers of silk shirts with an outer cloak of scarlet satin embroidered in gold. Beneath the yards of vibrant fabric, he wore voluminous pantaloons of the finest Venetian cloth. An opulently jeweled scimitar hung at his waist. Had Abramo seen him in daylight, he would have been blinded by the sight.

  A Mamluk. Abramo was well acquainted with the Mamluks, as was every Venetian merchant. A very strange people he reflected as the giant marched toward him with enormous strides, his pantaloons billowing.

  The Mamluks had ruled Egypt for nearly three centuries and had been Islam’s elite fighting force for seven hundred years. A slave caste, they were white Eurasian men kidnapped or purchased as children and sold at markets in Damascus, Cairo, and Constantinople to be trained in equestrian fighting and rigorous Islam. Rather than reproduce with their women, they replenished their ranks with Caucasian boys purchased from slavers.

  No wonder the brute is such a physical specimen. They were specially selected as boys, he knew, by experts who examined their limbs, eyes, and teeth. In order to maintain control of the spice trade, it was crucial for Venice to cultivate its relationship with them.

  “Ah, thank goodness signore,” Abramo breathed with obvious relief as he strode forward, extending a grateful hand to the stranger. “In all the excitement of the day, I seem to have…”

  Abramo stopped suddenly as the scimitar entered his abdomen, piercing his back. Eyes wide in disbelief, his hand still extended in greeting, he looked down at the ruin of his body. Thick blood oozed from his mouth, salty and metallic. He could feel its warmth as he tried in vain to stagger backward, the blade still embedded in his torso.

  The Mamluk’s blue eyes were impassive as he held the scimitar in place, patiently waiting for the Venetian to die. Abramo tried to speak. What was happening? He opened his mouth, bubbles of dark blood coating his chin. Finally he slumped, eyes frozen in bewilderment. The Mamluk dipped his blade and gently pulled, sliding the scimitar from Abramo’s chest. The body crumpled to the ground, its blood slowly mingling with the city’s dust like the ritual waters of the Nile Abramo had arrived too late to see.

  Three

  Tomaso Avesari shuffled slowly along the Fondamenta dei Vetrai in the small morning hours just before dawn. A chill wind blew off the canal. Pulling his light coat tight, he huddled, trying to lessen the surface area exposed to the sting of the swirling air.

  He was getting too old for such early morning excursions, but his pre-dawn stroll had become a routine. He needn’t go out at all with the workshop attached to the house. But it helped clear his head of the fog from sleep and prepared him for the day. Besides, he had little choice until Ciro took over the daily running of the shop. His elder son had made great strides in his technique over the last few months he mused, ducking further into the coat like a badger into his burrow.

  One of Europe’s most respected glass blowing houses, Avesari e Figli had become known for its expertise in the latest trends in decorative glass, particularly the filigrana a retortoli; vases, goblets and bowls infused with threadlike patterns of colored glass, as though lace were made from light itself. Tomaso was close to handing over the reins of the business to his son. He was tired yes, but still not ready. While Ciro had demonstrated a natural affinity for producing the clear cristallo glass and a firm grasp of the complexity of lattimo, the white glass mimicking porcelain currently in fashion with the Venetian nobility, he had yet to master the intricate composition of the filigrana a retortoli.

  And then there was Paolo. Tomaso shook his head sadly in the unconscious reflex that always attended thoughts of Ciro’s younger brother. His disappointment in his second son was something he had never been able to conceal. Paolo had shown such tremendous promise, far more than his older brother, his talent nothing short of a revelation, and Tomaso had been convinced of his continuing legacy and the survival of Murano’s most revered family of glassmakers. But Paolo rejected his family’s art, choosing to waste his talents on shipbuilding in the Arsenale, Venice’s tribute to greed and the wars waged to protect it. Tomaso was devastated, taking Paolo’s decision as a betrayal. The relationship, once so loving, had become nothing more than two men with a shared name.

  Merda! But it was cold. His old bones were as peevish as the rest of him now. The flickering lamplight reflected in the canal’s restless water brought to mind the fireflies and warmer days of his youth. The squat buildings, shuttered against the damp, leaned forward, straining for a glimpse of the light play on the water.

  The scraping of his soles rang loudly in his ears without the competing sounds of day. The skiffs and gondolas of the canal chafed against their mooring poles, protruding from the black water at awkward angles as though placed there by chance.

  Finally the twin doors of the workshop emerged from the gloom, two enormous oaken tablets, gracefully curved at the top, embracing their reinforcing strips of iron, making the shop’s entrance look more like a fortress than the seat of gifted artisans.

  While early mornings at the workshop were necessary to ensure a full day’s productivity, Tomaso knew that he was unique in his habit of commencing this early. And he attributed his success to that practice. Talent and technique were surely the lynchpins of his art, but many a talented and starving artist littered the streets of Venice. Desire and discipline, a strong work ethic, these were the things that kept his family from peddling his wares, beautiful though they might be, in dank alleys swimming with the stink of the canals.

  The moment he undid the lock and pushed open the doors Tomaso knew something was terribly wrong. The smell blotted out everything else like a cloud covering the sun. It ravaged his nose, and his other senses along with it. It didn’t drift or linger, it attacked, and before even crossing the threshold, he was overcome. He turned, his limbs wheeling without direction, and opened his mouth to the canal.

  He lay crumpled at the water’s edge, sobbing though he’d seen nothing. Between his violent heaves, when nothing more would come, he scratched at his eyes with the edges of his coat. Something horrible lay within. He knew that should he enter, he wouldn’t survive the sight.

  ***

  THE ROOM WAS dark, and it shouldn’t have been. Alessandro was not here. As stizzador of Avesari e Figli, he was responsible for keeping the fires burning throughout the night so Tomaso and his workers could begin as soon as they arrived. The workshop had three crucibles, the first to heat the mixture of plant ash and sand silica. The second to reheat glass, making it pliable for shaping and decoration. The third for annealing, the slow cooling process which lasted for hours or days, depending on the size of the piece. Only the first showed signs of activity. Tomaso approached it gingerly, as though he hadn’t spent the better part of the last thirty years at its side.

  Inside, tiny flames licked upward with reduced vigor while the timber fuel smoldered, only recently abandoned. Tomaso turned slowly toward the far wall. He knew the smell, the stench of burnt flesh, the odor unmistakable, from a life spent amidst fiery glass. He inched forward, aware of his heart, how it could not possibly survive, each beat like a fruit hurled against a wall.

  The clinging tears and residual smoke made it difficult to see. The figure hung before him, Christlike in the haze of the room. He had never seen anything like it, and it would haunt him for the rest of his days. Every flap of black flesh, every drop of blood would follow him to his death. Ciro was balanced against the wall, his legs beginning to stiffen outward from what stood between them. Tomaso had to look up to see, his own legs failing, the muscles understanding what his eyes beheld before his brain could grasp it. A pontello had been violently inserted into Ciro’s anus. Dried blood and feces covered the shaft.

  Tomaso choked on his breath, staggered backward, the world rolling
beneath his feet. He fell, tried to get up, and fell again. Now he remained there, slumped, unable to move. Unable to face the slaughter of his son. Clutching his head in trembling hands he prayed, though he knew it not to be true, that Ciro had already been dead when the rod was inserted, prayed frantically as if he could still somehow spare his son from the unthinkable pain he had endured.

  He began to slip away, his body and mind shutting down, the sight too ghastly to be real. But then he saw it, and it focused his mind like a whip crack. Ciro’s eyes were wide, rimmed painfully red with tears, nearly bursting from his skull. Terrified, disbelieving eyes. His left hand covered his mouth to silence a scream, his right hand covered his left. Plunged through the center of both, pinning them in place, was one bloodstained blade of a glass-cutting shear. It wasn’t just a murder Tomaso realized now, his mind numb with fear. It was a message.

  Four

  After a long day filled with too many people enamored with their own importance, Paolo slowly exited the Arsenale. The sun was sinking, its orange light setting the lagoon ablaze. A few galeoni were lazily slicing their way through the serene waters with partly furled sails. Turning, he once more marveled at the shipyard’s towering walls. The great winged lion of Saint Mark—the symbol of the Republic—perched atop the gate, gazing stoically upon those who entered. The entrance stood a few feet to the side of the canal where ships moved in and out of the compound, flanked by two turreted towers looking like Moorish castle battlements.

  Paolo thought he might like some wine after the long day, but being Canever removed the pleasure of drinking it. He was like a cook who has lost his appetite. How unfortunate for such a lovely thing as wine to remind Paolo so acutely of his failings. But the long day he thought was ending was in fact only beginning. Gathering himself for the walk home, Paolo stretched, turned, and froze. Standing before him, head slightly bowed, was Tomaso, his father.

  “They killed Ciro.” He spoke softly, head still down. Did Paolo hear correctly? He leaned forward to bridge the space between them. Tomaso raised his eyes to meet his son’s for the first time in five years. “The guild killed my son.”

  Five

  Ciro was dead. Paolo and his father, even now, could not look at one another. Paolo sat, dumbly staring at his hands, an infant suddenly aware of its fingers. Ciro was dead. That was all he knew. His father had said little since those first words. Paolo lowered his eyes, staring at the small table in the kitchen, the grain of the wood fascinating, bits of crumb lodged in the cracked slab, the imperceptible stain of oil where he had taken his last meal. It didn’t seem real, his brother dead, and so instead he chose to ponder the mysteries of a dried crumb of bread.

  Unnerved by his father’s sudden appearance outside the Arsenale after so many years, Paolo’s astonishment turned to disbelief at Tomaso’s whispered revelation. They had walked the short distance to Paolo’s apartment along the Riva degli Schiavoni in a stupor, Paolo unable to remember how they had gotten there, traversing the streets in their own personal fog. Neither had touched the other, the gulf of seven years stretching between them. Paolo glanced at his father, his shrunken form. Was he always that small? Or is that what the death of a wife and child brings?

  Paolo looked at his father’s mouth as he spoke, his chin, his forehead, anywhere but the eyes. He couldn’t bear the look of them, what they did to the rest of his face. The voice was troubling enough. It was so strange, his voice. The strength, the conviction that had always been there was gone. He had once cursed the power that had resided there, the way it could expose the self-doubt of a young boy. Now he missed it, almost longed for it, its presence a sign that the world was, while not perfect, at least as he had known it, how he had left it the day before. But now it was just an old voice coming from an old man.

  Paolo rose from the table, eyes still averted, the scrape of the chair accentuating the silence. “Are you hungry?” he asked, his back to Tomaso.

  “Yes,” his father responded in a husky voice, cracking at its edges. “Thank you.”

  Thankful to have something to do, Paolo busied himself with preparing the meal. Leaving his father’s house had forced him to fend for himself, a prospect he had relished at the time, but only he soon realized, when contemplating his future with wide philosophical strokes. It was the infinitely smaller details of everyday life that took him by surprise. Cooking, for instance had terrified him. He had no idea even where to begin. Always a solitary young man, Paolo wandered the dense streets and slippery alleyways of Venice for hours, peeking inside dark nooks and alcoves formed by the cluster of peeling palazzos and shops, bunched together like so much rotting fruit.

  It was during these excursions that the reserved Paolo had become enthralled by the chunks of boisterous humanity he encountered at the fish markets and trade centers. From the Rialto Bridge it was but a short walk down the Ruga Orefici where the goldsmiths plied their trade and then through the piquant haze of the Ruga Speziali and the spice sellers’ stalls before arriving at Venice’s ancient fish market. Piles of sparkling creatures littered the market, their still-wet scales shimmering in the morning light as though the fish themselves were inviting the basket-laden nonnas to come have a look.

  Paolo had been looking forward to a quiet evening at home, preparing his favorite dish—cuttlefish in their ink. Late summer and early autumn always brought the flickering lamplight of fisherman on the horizon catching the chewy delicacy, the little flames igniting Paolo’s desire to race to the market the next morning and secure his precious share of the catch.

  But he would take no pleasure preparing the meal this evening. He began cleaning the cuttlefish with practiced, precise movements, taking care to conserve the small sacks of jet ink that he would later add to olive oil and wine to make the sauce. Lost in the motions of preparing the meal, he had almost forgotten about his father until he heard a soft cough from behind, Tomaso attempting to suppress the sound.

  Paolo poured oil in a pan over the fire and added a clove of garlic he had minced before, gently dropping the slices of cuttlefish into the pan. He added the wine slowly to avoid a sizzling eruption of oil, and broke the sacks of ink into a cup, mixing it with a little warm water. After adding the ink to the wine, fish, and garlic, he covered the mixture and set the pan over the flame to cook. Paolo turned back to his father with an audible sigh that was louder than he had intended. He had imagined so many times what this moment might be like—if it were ever to come—this clearly not what he had envisioned. His brother had been murdered.

  Paolo sat down opposite Tomaso, and only then did they finally and truly look upon one another. His father’s dark, deep-set eyes were rimmed in red. He looked very old, his expression one of still dissolving shock, as though what he had seen in the workshop had not had time to take leave of his face.

  “Ciro is dead,” Tomaso murmured, wide-eyed, staring more through Paolo than at him. Paolo wondered if his father believed he was saying this for the first time.

  “I know,” Paolo answered softly. “How?”

  “The guild.” He winced as he said it, looking about the room with odd interest. True he had never been there before, but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t curiosity, but rather he seemed to be trying to distract himself, to find something new to replace the horrific images conjured by the words. He shut his eyes violently as though to dispel the visions that would haunt him for the rest of his days.

  “The guild killed him Paolo.” He spoke with a low vehemence, something boiling beneath the surface. He stared at Paolo with a frightening clarity. His strong hands, gnarled from years of working the molten glass, opened and closed like two powerful crabs seeking purchase on the smooth table.

  “Father, please,” Paolo said softly, glancing at Tomaso’s hands as they continued to clutch at the air. “Tell me what happened.” Tomaso was alternating between despair, anger, and something else, the edge of mania, Paolo unsure of what he was dealing with. Ciro was dead, but this was no ordinary sorrow, nor
outrage, even such as the death of a child brings. Something had shaken Paolo’s father to the core.

  “Il Diavolo.” It was a whisper, the register of Tomaso’s voice rising and falling from one sentence to the next. “It was the Devil’s work.” Tomaso took a deep breath, laid his palms flat upon the table to steady them. He fixed Paolo with a steely gaze, and the grisly account spilled forth like a deluge. Now he left nothing out, every detail described in its barbaric exactness. The stench of Ciro’s charred flesh, the bulging eyes, the pierced hands, the pontello. Christ in heaven. It came relentlessly in a single breath. Paolo felt himself retreating from Tomaso’s words, wanting to hear no more. They seized him though, made him look upon nightmarish things, his mind cowering away in a corner. And then it was done. Tomaso was covered in sweat. He gulped at the air as though afraid he would never get enough.

  ***

  THE CUTTLEFISH SAT untouched, the idea of food preposterous. Paolo searched his feelings. There was only numbness. The anger and despair would come he knew, for Ciro. But what of the man before him? He looked at his father, the weathered face twisted with grief, and saw only a stranger. He felt nothing. Would things have been different had he stayed? Would Ciro still be alive? Would his father blame him for this death as well? No, he had put all that behind him. How easy it is for the poison to return. He would grieve, but it would be for his brother. Finally he spoke.

  “Have you contacted the authorities?”

  “Of course,” Tomaso replied with an impatient wave of his now steady hand. “I notified the Signori di Notte.” The twelve man night patrols kept the Venetian peace, inspecting taverns, frisking prostitutes, keeping track of known criminals as well as new arrivals with unsavory reputations preceding them. Homicides would also be investigated by the Men of the Night, if requested by a relative.