by Roberta Rich
A breeze blew through the window. From downstairs came a noise. A muted footfall? The scuttling of a mouse? Leaning over the balustrade, she tried to locate the source.
Terrazzo floors lacked the comforting squeak of the pegged wooden floors she was accustomed to. Stone deadened noise. An army of men could march in the next room and there would be no revealing creak of floorboards. At home Hannah had always known where Isaac was—by the crack of the tread he was on as he climbed the stairs at night, the groan of their horsehair mattress when he was sleeping, the splash of water in the basin when he rose to make his morning ablutions before going to shul.
Hannah paused again, thinking she heard a sharp sound. A musket firing? A loose shutter banging? The sound did not repeat.
She cupped her ears. Noise came from outside—wings flapping, another owl hooting, murmurs from the boatmen on a passing barge. And again the scrape of an object being shifted, perhaps a chair, perhaps a wooden crate, and after that a muffled squeak like the cry of a baby animal.
She wanted to run to the canal and board the next boat back to Venice, but she forced herself to be calm. She lowered her shoulders, which tensed when she was frightened. Her imagination provided her with scenarios: Matteo in bed, half dead of fever; Foscari standing over him with a bloody knife; Cesca holding his limp body.
She must act. Which door to try first? The one nearest to her. There was a click as she eased it open. The room was a bedchamber—but unoccupied, judging by the bed covered with a torn damask spread and by the tattered, once-splendid padiglione suspended from the ceiling.
Moonlight played on the walls in front of her, exposing a looming black figure. Hannah froze at the sight. Then she relaxed. How silly to be frightened by one’s own silhouette.
From down the corridor came a noise so abrupt she could not identify it. When she tried to re-create it in her mind a moment later, she could not. A walking cane on a terrazzo floor? The heavy breathing of a man past his prime? A child struggling for breath? There was someone nearby. Her ears were not playing tricks on her.
She stood holding her breath, feeling the sweat dripping between her breasts. A crashing sound came, like someone stumbling into a cupboard full of china. Through an open window reverberated the tiny cries of night creatures.
Light appeared at the end of the hallway. But she had not heard flint striking steel to ignite a candle. A chill ran over her as she recalled her grandmother’s tales of menorah candles igniting spontaneously on Passover, of witches hovering in trees outside the room of a birthing mother and of two-headed wolves howling in apple orchards. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the light vanished. Hannah’s mouth was so dry she inserted two fingers to stimulate the flow of saliva. It was like thrusting her fingers into a parchment twist of flour. She must put her grandmother’s stories back into the dark box where they belonged.
The next four rooms were bare. The stairway beckoned her back to safety. Then a child coughed. There was no mistaking it. Matteo was close. She could feel his presence, almost smell his sweet scent. She reached the last room, and paused, unsure of what might be behind the door. This room must have been the source of the light.
Afraid she would find it as empty as the five other rooms, she pushed open the door. The hinges rasped with an unearthly sound. She stood in the threshold, hesitating. A slight breeze stirred up dust and blew it in her direction. She gave a small sneeze, peering around the edge of the door. There was an answering sneeze from within the room. A small figure in the middle of a bed sat hugging something. It was too dark to see more than a hazy outline, but the size and shape were right. If only she had a candle, even a rush taper, so she could drink in the sight of his handsome little face.
She ran over to the bed. “Matteo!” she whispered.
The child rubbed his eyes and blinked up at her. It was difficult to make out his features. “Matteo,” she whispered again, this time more loudly. “It’s Mama.” She sat down on the side of the bed. Her heart was fluttering so wildly she thought it would give out. She felt dizzy. Eight weeks she had endured on the Fortuna for this moment. She had abandoned her husband, jeopardized her life and the life of her unborn child, all for this moment. “Hello, my darling boy. It has been so long.”
The boy sprang out of bed, ran to the window and flung back the curtains. She heard a frightened intake of breath as he stared at her. Silvery moonlight streamed into the bedchamber.
Yes, the boy had blue eyes. Yes, his hair was red. But it was the red of beet root, not the rich red of a fox’s pelt. His lips were thinner, the teeth small and regular. He had no dimples.
He was a lovely boy, healthy, slender, straight limbed, about the same age as her son.
But he was not Matteo.
CHAPTER 15
Villa di Padovani,
San Lorenzo, the Veneto
“SORRY TO DISAPPOINT YOU, my dear,” a voice said behind her.
Hannah startled, and then turned to face Foscari. “I see you are masquerading as a nun. What an odd thing you are, or did you convert?”
Foscari had changed little since Constantinople—the old fawn jacket had been replaced by a new blue one with bone buttons and now he wore finely tailored breeches, but otherwise he was the same. The silver nose would have looked outlandish on a less patrician face. The nose piece was polished to a lustre and attached by nearly invisible silk threads wound around his ears. It caught the gleam of the candle in his hand. On his right cheek blossomed an angry-looking boil. He strode toward her so swiftly she stepped back, thinking he meant to strike her, but he simply stood close to her, close enough that she could smell the brandy on his breath. She wished she had something to defend herself with.
Foscari smiled, revealing a row of teeth unnaturally even and white. “I have been following you as you made yourself at home on my villa without having the courtesy to announce yourself. I was hunting for something in the attic—a stool to rest my poor foot upon—when I glanced out the window and caught you disembarking from that turnip-laden barge. And then hiding in the willows. Dear me! I have never seen such a thing. I had no idea what you were up to.”
What had she been thinking, showing up here alone, pregnant, her nun’s habit making her even more ungainly? She should have brought someone with her. But she had no one to bring. The thought of Foscari spying on her, perhaps as she slept, or performed her bodily functions, gave her gooseflesh.
“I am here at your invitation.”
Foscari played the role of the fop, but he was a calculating, clever man. Isaac was right. Foscari was not human, merely an animal that had learned to walk upright.
“You kidnapped Matteo from me and spirited him off to Venice. I hardly think—”
“My dear, it is pointless to argue about the past.”
“Who is this child?” Hannah pointed to the boy, who now stood in a corner, staring at her.
Foscari walked over to him. “Lucca is from Venice. Rather a pretty little thing, isn’t he?” Foscari removed a handkerchief from his pocket and, wetting it with his tongue, wiped a smudge of dirt off the boy’s cheek. “And healthy, to boot.” He shook his head. “Which is remarkable, considering the air in Venice. That sulphurous, yellow cloud hanging over the canals every night.” He gave a mock shiver. “Lucca is flourishing in the salubrious air of the countryside. He was a skinny lad, but now we are fattening him up like a Pasqua lamb.”
“He is your son?” Lucca had high cheekbones and narrow shoulders like Foscari, but unlike Foscari, the child’s eyes were not cold as well water. And they were an azure blue. His mouth did not look like the slot in a poor box, as did Foscari’s, but was as pink as a flower petal.
“Can you not tell the difference between well born and low born? Do all Christians look the same to you? He is a beggar’s bastard, plucked from the streets of Castello.”
But there was none of the hard, coarse street Arab about the boy.
“I bought him from a woman who claimed to be his gr
andmother.”
Bought? How does one buy a child? “What have you done with Matteo?”
“All in good time. First, I suggest you calm yourself. There is a solution to our dilemma, which will serve us both.”
“Our dilemma? My only dilemma is getting my son back.”
Lucca tugged on Foscari’s arm. Holding the handkerchief once again to Lucca’s face, Foscari looked down, patting the boy on the head. “Lucca, we will disturb you no longer. Hannah and I will make our way downstairs. Take yourself back to bed.” Lucca’s face fell. He seemed about to protest, but he climbed back into bed.
Hannah tucked the covers around him. Lucca appeared older than Matteo by about a year, but he did not have Matteo’s stocky build. Only the sweet smell of little boy sweat was familiar. Lucca reached up as Hannah bent to smooth the sheet over his chest. He touched her face and stared at her. His gaze was nothing like Matteo’s—which was slightly critical and appraising. This boy looked at her with the ardour of a hungry child gazing at a tray of marzipan in a confectionery shop. She wondered if he had ever slept in a bed before; whether anyone, a mother or grandmother, had told him a bedtime story or sung a lullaby to him. His smile moved her, and for an instant she clasped his bony chest to hers and rubbed a small circle on his back. He relaxed in her arms. “Good night, tesoro.“
Foscari beckoned her into the hallway and guided her down the staircase. His hand on her back felt as boneless as a glove filled with porridge. And yet, she suspected, if she tried to dash for the attic or the basement or the stable to look for Matteo, his hand could tighten on her neck with the strength of a blacksmith’s.
Foscari settled her in a chair in a reception room so huge and with a ceiling so high that the entire Ghetto Nuovo could have fitted within its perimeters.
“Where is my son?” Hannah asked again.
“Your son? Matteo is not your son.”
“Of course he is mine.”
“Before I tell you where he is, let me offer you some refreshment. You must be exhausted after your trip from Venice.” He rang a bell on the table next to him.
It was true. She was weary. The baby within her kicked, pressing onto her sharing bones, making her feel the need to use a commode. A servant, a stout country girl carrying a candle, brought mugs of spring water on a tray and, without glancing at Hannah, placed them on a small table.
The red boil on Foscari’s cheek seemed to have grown bigger. Her fingers itched to prick it with a sewing needle and squeeze it until the blood ran. She shifted her chair so his face fell in shadows.
“What do you want of me?”
“We shall get to that in a moment.” Foscari leaned forward and patted her hand. “First, I am going to have a brandy. Will you join me?”
Hannah shook her head. Foscari rang for the servant again, who returned with a bottle of the amber liquid and a glass, which she set down on the table. Foscari quickly poured himself some.
“It is simple.” He steepled his fingers in a grotesque imitation of prayer. “I have petitioned the courts to appoint me the boy’s guardian.”
His words did not surprise her. It was as Isaac had suspected. “You are contriving to steal Matteo’s fortune.”
“Such an unpleasant word. I prefer salvage, or save, or rescue, even retrieve.“
Hannah said, “You and Cesca are very persevering—I grant you that. You failed in your first attempt to snatch Matteo from me in Constantinople. So you bided your time. Then you sank your talons into him and carried him off.”
“Do you wish his estate to devolve to the Monasterio San Francisco de Rosas? Yes, don’t look so startled. The monks, those filthy, brown-garbed reprobates, are the residuary legatees if no di Padovani heir can be found. Is that your wish?”
“Matteo’s estate benefiting one of the most powerful enemies of the Jews? Of course not.”
“Alternatively, there is the Office of the Public Trustee, so corrupt, so dishonest that—”
“It does not bear thinking of,” she said. The Office of the Public Trustee was notorious for stealing, with the blessing of the state, the fortunes of widows and orphans with no male kin to protect them.
“This is what will happen unless I am appointed guardian. Fortunately for us, the courts work slowly. The monks have been trying to get their greedy hands on the estate ever since the Conte’s death. They had nearly succeeded, when I intervened. You should thank me for saving Matteo’s fortune, instead of sitting there glaring at me in your ridiculous nun’s costume.” Foscari swirled the brandy in his glass. “What have you done to safeguard the boy’s wealth?”
“My husband and I planned to bring Matteo to Venice next year after the birth of my baby and hire a notary to claim his estate.” It was untrue. She and Isaac had discussed it many times but had reached no conclusion about the best way to safeguard Matteo’s inheritance.
“Oh? And what would be left of his riches by then? The monks would be well on their way to squandering them. And who could be his guardian? Not you, not your husband.”
Hannah opened her mouth to protest but thought better of it. Foscari only spoke the truth.
“I think you are forgetting how large the di Padovani estate is. All this land, the ships and the palazzo in Venice would keep the monks as fat and happy as fleas on a dog.” Leaning over, he touched her shoulder. “The judge wants to hear you testify, my dear. You must explain you took Matteo from the di Padovani palazzo then fled with him to Constantinople, where you have been passing him off as a Hebrew. In short, the truth.”
“But I will be hanged for raising him as a Jew.” Never mind my other crime.
“The judge has promised me he will not charge you with any offence when you appear before him. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I do not believe you,” Hannah said.
“You have no choice.”
He held up a finger as though an idea had just occurred to him. “But this is what I will promise you. If you testify Lucca is the heir, Matteo is yours to do with what you like.”
Hannah said, “I do not understand. If you wanted to pass off Lucca as the heir, why did you steal Matteo?”
“Sometimes even the most carefully conceived plans must be altered. Matteo turned out to be entirely unsuitable. We have tried various methods to make him more compliant—to no avail.”
Methods. What a bland, dangerous word. A word calculated to appease worry while concealing the truth. What had they done? Beaten Matteo? Withheld food? Confined him to his room? Hannah tried to control her voice. “What methods?”
“Cesca was confident she had won the boy’s affection. She indulged him by giving him endless treats, petting and spoiling him. She arranged for a pony, persuaded a farmer to string up a tightrope between two trees so Matteo could practise his tightrope walking. It’s nothing short of a miracle that he didn’t fall and break his leg.”
“What methods, Foscari?”
“The judicious use of a willow switch. Something you should have done a long time ago.”
“You are a brute.”
Foscari continued as though she had not spoken. “When the switch failed to convince, I came up with an easier solution. I happened upon Lucca—eager to please, sunny disposition, all the qualities your son lacks. I have been preparing him to give testimony.”
Foscari crossed his long legs. “However, the judge wishes to hear from you, the Jewish midwife who delivered Matteo.”
“And a substitute for me, I suspect, would not be so easy.”
“Precisely. Another Jewish midwife who could describe not only the birth but when interrogated by the judge—and he is a very finicky type of a judge—the interior of the Conte’s palazzo and his wife and family and so on? Not possible. Hence Cesca’s letter summoning you.”
“So my testimony is essential.” If Isaac were here, he would tell her: we Jews have a long history of negotiating with gentiles in circumstances where we have no power. Consider the contratto, the contract between
the Venetian government and the Jewish community in which the Jews purchase the right to live unmolested in the city for a certain number of years. No one ever made a successful bargain giving into hotheadedness. Leash your tongue as you would leash a vicious dog.
“One could put it that way.”
“Take me to Matteo.”
“Will you testify?”
Nothing would have given Hannah greater satisfaction than to say: you are mad to even dream I would be part of your wicked scheme.
But if Foscari refused to let her see Matteo, how could she find him? The child could be hidden anywhere on this estate of several hundred hectares.
“Why should I help you to steal my son’s fortune?”
“Because if you testify Lucca is the rightful heir, then Matteo is yours. You can roast him with rutabaga and serve him for your Passover dinner.” He sipped more brandy. “I will take you to him right now. He is with one of the tenant farmers.”
“And if I refuse to testify?”
“Then I shall have him killed.”
CHAPTER 16
Villa di Padovani,
San Lorenzo, the Veneto
HANNAH AND FOSCARI entered a thatched cottage. In answer to Foscari’s call, a plump woman emerged from bed, wearing a nightdress and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She stood in front of the last embers in the hearth, shaking her head at Foscari’s question.
“She took him away, sir, this very morning. I don’t know where she went with him.”
“It seems I cannot produce the boy at this instant,” said Foscari.
“You must know where he is.”