by Roberta Rich
Matteo’s memory hung between them like a heavy tapestry. When they spoke of their son, Isaac recalled the good memories from Constantinople; Hannah remembered only Matteo being torn from her arms in the courthouse.
Isaac clasped Daniel’s foot in his hand and jiggled it.
“He is a stout little man. Such a desire for food! You don’t think he has worms?”
“Only his father’s appetite.” Behind Isaac’s jest was an anxiety neither of them could give voice to. They had lost Matteo. Would they lose Daniel, as well? Not to a stranger but to disease or accident? The ghetto, with its charcoal braziers that could tip over at any time, canal rats, dank air and families living twenty to a room, was a hazardous place for babies. An infant could be robust at dawn and a stiff, grey corpse by sunset. A goodly portion of children born in the ghetto never lived to see their fifth birthday. The stealers of babies were numerous: the pox, bloody flux, breeding teeth, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough, worms, diphtheria, typhus, rickets and measles.
“Matteo demanded any number of delicacies we were hard-pressed to supply. Do you remember, Hannah? Things like quails’ eggs, oranges and cherries. This baby would eat table legs and cobblestones and the lids from cook pots if we let him.”
It was better to talk of Matteo than pretend he had never existed. But it was difficult not to tear up at the mention of his name. Hannah smiled and hugged Daniel, thinking how strong his suck was and how vigorously he kicked at the air.
Would she and Isaac always compare one son with the other? Would there ever be a time when she could look at Daniel without imagining how Matteo would have enjoyed the role of older brother, how he would have caught bugs for him to examine, held his hand while he took his first steps, helped him form his letters?
Jessica wandered over, unwrapped the blanket from around Daniel’s feet and began to tickle his toes.
A gentile, dressed in black, walked in through the gates and came toward them, peering at the buildings surrounding the campo as though taking measure of them. As he drew nearer, Hannah recognized him as Palladio. The architect had the look of a man with no one to tend to him. Gone were his gloves, his brushed jacket and patterned velvet waistcoat. His shoulders slumped. He leaned on his cane. His mouth looked caved in, as though a barber surgeon had pulled a number of teeth. His belt drooped below a shrunken belly. A small figure skipped at his side. A figure dressed in new clothes. A red-haired boy. It was Matteo.
When Matteo caught sight of Hannah, he broke free of Palladio’s grasp, raced to her side and threw his arms around her neck, pressing Daniel against her. His arms felt like iron bands so fiercely was he embracing her. Hannah laughed. “Do not strangle me. Or smother your brother. Let me look at you. How are you faring in your fine villa? Give me a turnaround.” When he relaxed his arms and stood back so she could inspect him, she saw the answer. Pale skin, purple shadows under reddened eyes, cheeks no longer dimpled.
Palladio caught up with Matteo. “I thought I would find you here.”
Hannah said, “I am so happy. Thank you for coming.”
Isaac gathered Matteo to his chest and held him close, ruffling his hair, rubbing his knuckles along his cheek. He stood, keeping one arm around Matteo, and extended a hand to Palladio. “Isaac Levi, sir, at your service. You must be the signor Palladio about whom I have heard so much.”
Palladio nodded. “A pleasure, Isaac.” They shook hands. “May I join you?” Without waiting for an answer, he lowered himself between Hannah and Isaac. Jessica stood to one side, her thumb in her mouth as she gazed shyly at Matteo.
“I thank you for assuming the responsibility of Matteo and his estate. My wife has told me how you interceded on our son’s…on Matteo’s behalf in court,” said Isaac.
“I confess it was your wife who convinced me, Isaac.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” said Hannah.
“Cesca implored me to act as guardian, but I was suspicious of her. I made inquiries about Foscari and concluded he was a rogue. I wanted nothing to do with either of them, not even for the sake of the Conte. It was your presence, Hannah, your longing, your eyes as you looked at the judge and at Matteo high in the balcony. You risked everything to save Matteo. I thought the least I could do was to step into the breach.”
“How kind you are. And how is Matteo faring?” asked Hannah.
Palladio cleared his throat and spoke with evident reluctance. “He is a brave little boy, but he misses you.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Hannah. Boys did not need their mothers forever. But Matteo was a sensitive child. Things that came easily to other children—using the chamber pot, walking on his own, leaving their mothers’ side for a few hours so she could go to market—he found difficult and would do only with the greatest reluctance.
“I can see he is pale.”
“The only time he seems truly happy is when he is playing outside.”
“And you, sir?” asked Hannah, looking at his wispy grey hair, which fluttered about his face and shoulders. “How are you managing?”
“In truth, not well. A fine pair we are, Matteo and me. A couple of lost souls. My wife died soon after the judge made the court order.”
“I am very sorry to hear that. Aleha HaShalom. Peace be upon her,” said Isaac.
Matteo pulled back Daniel’s blanket and peered at the baby. “He is my brother?”
“Would you like to hold him?” inquired Hannah.
Matteo fell cross-legged to the cobblestones and stretched up his hands, and sat still as Hannah placed the new child in his arms. “What a good, calm brother you are. Hold him well.” Matteo brushed a fly off Daniel’s cheek and kissed his forehead.
“And Lucca? What news of him?” asked Hannah, thinking of his gravely whispered confidences. Without Lucca’s help she would never have found Matteo in the oespedale. Lucca had trailed after Palladio that day in court like a puppy. She had wanted to hug Lucca goodbye, but he was gone before she had the chance.
Matteo’s face brightened. He grinned up at her. “Lucca rides his pony up and down the towpath along the canal with a sword he fashioned from a barrel stave. Everyone in the district knows him because he is so brave. We pick grapes in the neighbours’ vineyards and catch pesce persico in the canal. Sometimes it is dark when we get home and Marie—our housekeeper—scolds us.”
“In other words,” said Palladio, “they are a couple of savages, running wild. Soon they will be painting their faces blue and swinging like apes from the willow trees along the canal.”
Matteo said, “Lucca needs his own pony. Apollo is too fat and old to carry both of us.”
“Matteo’s days are happy, but his sleep is full of night terrors,” Palladio said. “His nurse tells me he has trouble sleeping.”
“Have you given him warm milk with a little brandy? That might help.” But Hannah knew it would not.
Isaac stroked her hand. “Matteo must learn to be without us. There is nothing to be done. Would you prefer him to grow up here in the ghetto like Asher’s boys? Never seeing more of the world than what is outside their window? Never seeing the sweeping fields, the birds in the sky, or having a chance to pursue a vocation other than dealer in second-hand clothing or moneylender because those are the only occupations the law permits Jews?”
Isaac was right, but she could not help wondering if Matteo had forgotten all his prayers; his Hebrew; the lovely letters Isaac taught him to form. Was he growing up uneducated? And she could hardly give voice to her worst fear. Was he growing up, as most Christians did, to hate Jews?
Hannah put a hand on Matteo’s head. “How nice that you have a companion.” The children of the ghetto had no fields to play in, no ponies to ride. Most were working when they were little older than Matteo, fetching and carrying, loading and unloading barges, delivering bolts of cloth, working as porters in the Rialto market, firing the brick makers’ kilns, stoking the bakery fires.
Palladio said, “Every day I oversee the improvement
s to Matteo’s villa. The corner of the loggia is now true. Those vexing frescoes have been plastered over. The drawing room is now as white as a nun’s cell. The dovecote is scraped out and the guano spread on the fields.”
“All that must please you,” said Isaac.
But Palladio did not look pleased.
“Every time I finish an improvement, instead of taking pleasure in it, I think, Allegra is not here to enjoy this. She knew how to divert me when I became too serious, to comfort me when I was puzzling out how to best distribute the weight of a roof. Now there are no dinner parties, no smells of her stews and barley soup drifting from the kitchen, no smile as she comes and goes in the garden, no scent of lavender from her bedclothes. I have only the thundering of Lucca and Matteo as they rampage through the halls. Lucca rides Apollo along the loggia, which vexes the masons and makes them shout at the boys.” He paused; then, with the air of a man about to say something he knew he would regret and didn’t mean, he said, “By the blood of the Virgin, I wish I had never attended court that day.”
“Is it unthinkable you will someday remarry? It would lessen your burden,” said Hannah.
He faced away from her, toward the gates where Vicente was oiling the hinges with goose grease. Hers was a tactless question, one she wished she had not asked.
“I am too old and crotchety to inflict myself on another wife. I would compare another woman’s looks and cooking and dress to Allegra’s.”
“We have this in common, sir. The ache in the heart, that missing place, that hole that cannot be filled.” Hannah put a hand on his knee but then, embarrassed, withdrew it. To change the subject, she said, “And what of Cesca? What has become of her?”
Palladio’s face softened and a hint of pink crept up his cheeks.
Another man with an eye for a pretty face and narrow waist.
Tossing his cane to one side, Palladio said, “Gone to Rome.”
With my ducats tucked in her pocket.
Hannah waited. There was more. When he said nothing, she prompted, “What will she do there?”
“Cesca has a scheme to set herself up as a courtesan in a townhouse near the Tiber.”
“A costly enterprise,” Isaac remarked.
Palladio looked sheepish. “Life is difficult for a woman with no funds and no friends. I hated to see her banished without a scudo to her name. I gave a few ducats to help her get established. She promises to repay me.”
Yes, when octopuses pull carriages fashioned of peridot and mother-of-pearl.
“And Foscari?”
“He cheated the hangman of his fee. He grew ill in prison. He insisted he had been poisoned by Cesca, which I do not for one moment believe. He got into a scuffle with another prisoner over a piece of gristle. In his weakened condition Foscari got the worst of it—a stab wound in the belly, which became pus ridden.”
Hannah could not help a feeling of relief.
Isaac spoke. “ ‘Do not rejoice when your enemy falls.’ ” It was a quote from the Torah.
“But a difficult rule to obey, is it not?” Hannah looked across the campo to where Asher sat at his moneylender’s table. Losing such a huge sum to Foscari had chastened him. For the first time in his marriage, he was beholden to Tzipporah. Her salves and creams were selling well enough to support the family, a fact she never let him forget.
Forgiveness is the glue that holds all families together. Hannah’s first thought was that Asher must bear the consequences of his folly. She would not smooth his path, no matter how grievous his situation. But she refused to bear a grudge like Asher. Without his disposal of Niccolò’s body, she might have been charged with murder. She loved Tzipporah and their children. And so Hannah convinced Isaac to make Asher a loan. Tzipporah, at last, had borne a daughter.
“We leave soon for Constantinople,” said Hannah. “It was so kind of you to bring Matteo all this way from San Lorenzo to bid us farewell.” She would be glad to quit the ghetto. Its shadow-filled alleys reminded her at every turn of her murder of Niccolò. To take the life of another, even when justified, is a hard memory to live with. Perhaps in another place, another setting, her guilt would lessen. Until then she was doing her best to make her peace with herself and God.
Palladio shook his head. “You misunderstand. I came on an altogether different errand.”
CHAPTER 32
Jewish Ghetto,
Venice
“I HAVE A PROPOSAL to discuss,” said Palladio. “I want you to join me at the villa and assume the rearing of Matteo.” He leaned over and tousled Matteo’s hair. “And Lucca, as well. I have grown fond of that boy. He is intelligent and has a talent for drawing, as well as an interest in designing boats. I suspect that someday he will make a fine ship’s architect.”
Hannah was taken aback. “There is nothing I would like more, but as I have said, we are soon leaving Venice.”
Isaac said, “We have a silk workshop and house waiting for us.”
“But what of Matteo?” Palladio said. “You see him at his best. For your benefit he puts on a brave face. But he is a different boy at the villa. Some nights, he awakens screaming. Red foxes live under his bed. Wolves lurk outside his door. Vultures roost in the trees outside his window. He will not rise to use the chamber pot and soaks his bed.”
“Our life is in Constantinople,” Isaac said.
Isaac loved his workshop. He loved Constantinople. He did not find the Ottoman language impossible, or the customs of the other Jews strange.
“And you?” Palladio looked at Hannah.
Surely he was not suggesting the unthinkable: that she remain behind without her husband. Isaac looked at her. He did not need to speak the words aloud: we must never again be parted.
“We have a prosperous workshop, a house, an orchard,” said Isaac.
Hannah began, “The two of us could—”
“Life is good for the Jews in the Ottoman Empire,” Isaac interrupted. “We can work at whatever pleases us. We own property. The Ottomans do not vilify us as casters of spells, poisoners of wells and child murderers.” He took Hannah’s hand and kissed it. “We have already been apart too long.”
Hannah sat thinking. “What of the management of the estate? Are you faring any better with that than you are with the raising of two high-spirited boys?”
“I have as much skill for commerce as the baby you have recently borne. I fear that by the time Matteo is of legal age there will be no more left of the estate than if Foscari had been put in charge. The way matters are proceeding, the boy will not have a scudo. Trade debts go uncollected because I cannot find anyone to collect them. The tenant farmers refuse to pay their rents because their cottages are falling down. I cannot find anyone to repair them because I have no access to the estate funds until the court order is confirmed by one of the judge’s clerks. And I have no time to attend court because I am busy in San Lorenzo overseeing the improvements to the villa. Even if I did get the court order, I have no time to travel to the Fugger bank in Augsburg where the Conte kept his money on deposit.”
“You must have a manager?” said Isaac.
“The Conte’s steward—he’s been robbing the family for years. More barrels of wine end up in his cellars than in the villa’s. I cannot think why the Conte did not send him packing years ago. I’m too lily-livered to fire him and too busy to find someone to replace him. And worst of all—” Palladio pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow “—the ground floor rooms of the di Padovani palazzo on the Grand Canal are filling with water because some of the oak foundation timbers need replacing. As for the Conte’s brigantines? Are they transporting peppercorns and cinnamon from the Levant, their sails bellied out with good strong winds? No, both ships have sprung leaks and are rotting in dry dock. The caulkers won’t lift a finger unless I pay them in advance.”
“A sad state of affairs,” said Isaac.
“It never occurred to me that having a great deal of money could be as difficult as havin
g none at all,” said Hannah. She could see an arrangement cobbled together that would suit them. The best course was to gently guide Isaac in the right direction. But if he came to the opposite conclusion, there was nothing to be done. To change Isaac’s mind was like trying to unbake a kugel.
Hannah held out her arms to take Daniel from Matteo, who was growing restless. Matteo scrambled to his feet and raced to the wellhead, slapped it with his hand and raced back to Hannah. He grabbed Jessica and dragged her away to look at a man selling cakes.
Hannah put a hand on Palladio’s sleeve. “You need someone like Isaac.”
“Can you read, sir? Have you a head for figures?” asked Palladio.
“Can he read!” said Hannah. “With the speed of a goshawk taking a rabbit from the undergrowth. There is nothing he cannot decipher, from a bill of lading in Latin to a marriage contract in Aramaic.”
Isaac opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Hannah forged on. “He is the cleverest of men. Undaunted by any column of figures you care to place in front of him. Unfazed by the wordiest passage in any book. Able to write as well as a scribe.” Hannah tucked Daniel’s head under her shawl again and gave a little jump as he rooted around, found her nipple and began to suck. “Isaac would do nicely for you.”
“What do you say, Isaac?” asked Palladio. “I am certain I can obtain permission from the Council of Ten for you and your family to live outside the ghetto.”
Hannah waited while Isaac pondered Palladio’s offer.
At last Isaac said, “It is an inviting proposition, sir, and I am honoured you think me capable.” He cleared his throat. “To change our lives so drastically is not a step to be undertaken lightly.” Isaac glanced at Daniel, lying peacefully in Hannah’s arms.