What Casanova Told Me

by Susan Swan

  He drew back, staring.

  “Miss Adams, did I bring you happiness?”

  I was still quivering with the after-effects of pleasure and could only nod yes.

  “Ah, then I am still good for something,” he murmured. “Shall I continue with these old warriors?” He held up his hands, smiling.

  I shook my head. “I wish to think about what has happened.”

  “Of course! You will need to test and verify, will you not, Asked For Philosophe?” He smiled. “May I call you Asked For now that we are better acquainted?”

  “You may,” I said.

  I retired to my room. What do Jacob Casanova and I mean to each other? It is as if he is all things to me and none. I feel I know him as intimately as I know anyone and yet I do not know him at all. I am never certain how much to believe him, or in what light to take the tenderness I feel for him.

  First Inquiry for the Day: Why is my body not My Good Friend when it can ring with joy?

  Fruitful Thought Never to Be Forgotten: Jacob

  Casanova belongs to the woman who has borne him a son.

  How extraordinary that the graze of a touch could have such power! And how lucky Asked For was to have had her first sexual experience with the legendary Venetian who would certainly have known far more about love than a farm boy like Francis Gooch. Luce winced at the thought of her own first experience. All that clumsy fumbling.

  The bus began to slow down, and in the seat next to her, Lee stirred sleepily.

  “Are we in Athens?” Lee sat up and looked out the window of the bus. They were entering a suburb and the lights were harsh after the darkness of the Greek countryside.

  “Looks like it,” Luce said.

  Twenty minutes later, at the bus stop in Athens, Lee found them a taxi and soon it was speeding through the dark streets of the Plaka. And now, without warning, it swerved up on the sidewalk of a gloomy lane and came to a sudden stop in front of a stained marble façade. Above a door, the words “Hotel Athena” glittered faintly in gold lettering. There were no lights in the old stone houses along the lane. For all Luce knew, she’d stepped back into the time of Asked For Adams and Jacob Casanova. Clutching the cat’s carrying case, she followed Lee into the lobby and over to the front desk where an old man in wire spectacles sat reading a newspaper. Surely Lee could have done better than this, Luce thought. In the dim pool of fluorescent light, the marble of a time-worn floor shone like the dusty yellow of old teeth.

  “That thief tried to overcharge us.” With the tilt of her head, Lee indicated their cab driver. He had slipped in behind them and was watching CNN in the lobby with a group of unshaven old men. When the cabby heard Lee’s comment, he whispered to the old men who bent their heads to listen. They nodded, spinning beaded bracelets and turning to stare at Luce.

  Exclaiming in phlegmy exasperation, the elderly clerk pointed to the men in the lobby and shrugged. Then he opened his palms, raised his eyes to the ceiling and slowly, very slowly, reached into a cubbyhole in a dusty cupboard and handed Lee two ancient brass keys. She hurried Luce through the shadowy lounge, and Luce did her best to keep up, stealing a backward glance at the strange old men who returned her stare with their own curious, assessing looks. They entered an ancient elevator and Lee pressed the button for the eighth floor. But before the door of the antique lift closed, the cabby put out a hand to stop it.

  “Is the girl wishing company?” he asked. As Lee pushed his hand away from the door, his bracelet seemed to make a disapproving clacking. “And the lady? Is the lady wishing company?” he called through the grates.

  On the eighth floor, Lee unlocked the door of a small room.

  “I’ll take this room,” she said. “There’s another downstairs—it should be cooler.” She threw herself into a chair. “I can see you’re going to attract a lot of attention.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Oh, don’t take it personally. He’s just being Greek. And so is this horrible creature!” She kicked angrily at something near her foot, and Luce saw a giant cockroach scuttle behind the chair.

  “Go downstairs and tell them we want our rooms fumigated.”

  Leaving Lee to fend off the creature, Luce avoided the old lift and clattered back down the endless flights of stairs. It was obvious Lee was an old hand in Greece, she thought. Getting off the ferry in Patras, Lee had given the captain a bottle of Metaxa and he had allowed Luce to pass unchallenged through customs with the cat in the carrying case, while he and Lee chatted in affable tones about the drop in tourists that spring. But if Lee knew so much about Athens, why had she chosen a dump like the Athena? In the lobby the cabby was still watching CNN with the old men. When he saw Luce, he said something in Greek and the men laughed.

  “We have cockroaches in our room,” Luce stammered, uncertain if the elderly clerk would understand. He tinkled a bell on his desk, and a red-eyed boy shuffled out of a dark region behind the television.

  The old clerk acknowledged the boy with a little half-wave of his palm. “May I present Mr. Exterminator?”

  “You want your room sprayed?” The boy yawned.

  “What kind of pesticide will you use?” Luce asked. She added nervously, “We may have to move to another hotel.”

  “I am sorry,” the old clerk said. “It is late. The hotels in Athens are fully booked. But—if you like …” He nodded doubtfully towards the phone.

  Luce and the boy found Lee drinking a glass of wine at the window, the tall blue shutters open wide. She was smiling up at a Disney-like spectacle on a cliff above their hotel, its fabled columns glowing acid pink.

  “The sound and light show at the Acropolis is on every night,” Lee said. “Isn’t it glorious?” She toasted the sight. At that moment, the boy spotted the cat on the floor by Lee’s chair patting the cockroach as if it was a toy.

  “You can’t have that filthy gata in our hotel!” the boy cried. Lee spoke to him in Greek and he waited stonily while she fished around in her purse for a bribe. He deposited a can of Raid on the dresser and left without another word.

  “I’d forgotten how relaxed I feel in Greece. Would you like some retsina?” Lee asked, her startling big, light blue eyes soft with happiness. She held up a golden bottle and smiled at Luce.

  A mysterious shift seemed to have taken place in the older woman since Luce had gone downstairs. Lee stood hatless by the open window, her head a wild landscape of black curls, her cheeks flushed. Luce noticed that her own face felt hot. For the first time, she was aware that the room was airless even though the occasional breeze caused the skinny white curtain to flap listlessly. There was no sign of an air conditioner.

  “I’m not fond of Greek wine,” Luce said, remembering Casanova’s remark about pine resin.

  “You’ll end up liking Greece, Luce. Everyone does.”

  “I’m not everyone, am I?”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m not everyone.”

  Lee sighed as Luce moved to the door. “Haven’t you forgotten your little exterminator?” She bent down and pulled Venus out from under the bed. Then she opened the door of the carrying case in one quick, nimble movement, and the cat succumbed, feet first, into his plastic prison. “I think we should re-christen him Aphrodite.” She picked up the case and handed it to Luce. “We’re in Athens now.”

  “Aphrodite?” Luce asked.

  “I’ll take that as an affirmative. Calo iypno. It means have a good rest.”

  Luce’s room was on the ground, seven floors below. It was identical in every spare, utilitarian detail to Lee’s room except that it was half the size and looked into a dirty cement courtyard instead of up at the Acropolis. Lee had taken the best room, she thought irritably. Hearing her mother’s stories about Greece, she’d pictured an idyllic land where lucky travellers lazed about under olive trees, sipping fine Attic wines. Well, she’d imagined wrong: the Athena offered all the comforts of an army barracks.

  Locking the door, she
let the cat out of his case, and he began to hop about anxiously on his three legs, meowing up at her. Luce patted his head, and then she, too, began looking around anxiously. Finally, she noticed the dead potted plant in the small courtyard outside. She picked up Aphrodite and set him on her windowsill. He seemed to understand; in seconds, he was out the window and scratching in the dirt of the plant holder. A moment later, he hopped back into the bedroom and began to eat the tuna she’d scraped out of a can onto a magazine she’d found by the bed. Then he settled down on the short, narrow bed, and she stretched out beside him.

  July 2, 1797

  I stayed in my room this morning to contemplate my circumstances. Jacob, as he insists I call him, gave me a friendly wave this morning as he set out with Monsieur Gennaro. I am confused by soft, new feelings. It is as if I dreamt our encounter, and perhaps that is the truth of it. I barely heard a word of my Greek lesson this morning from Stavroula, the Mavromatises’ half-grown daughter. If one has studied Hellenic Greek, it is possible to make out the local dialect. Still, I find it difficult, and Stavroula was patient with my awkward noise. I was glad when our lesson was done, and I could return to my daydreams.

  Under a tree dripping lemons as big as fists, I sat and pictured Jacob as he was with me the other night. Did his hand linger on my cheek while I lay in my ouzo stupor? Or on my breast? As I allowed my thoughts to drift I became aware of someone playing a mandolin. I stood up and peered around the corner of the house and saw Jacob seated on a rush-bottomed chair, singing a Venetian aria in the little courtyard.

  I did not call out to him.

  He began to play a lively, pre-revolutionary tune I had heard before in Paris, and when he was done, he put down his instrument and danced the forlana, which Francis and I had learned so clumsily in Venice. His arms raised gracefully, his legs in his satin breeches folding and unfolding, he smiled and bowed to an imaginary partner. So it is with my companion, I thought. I watch him as one watches an incoming storm that leaves the viewer uplifted and uneasy.

  I was not the only one watching him. Stavroula stood in the courtyard door. He beckoned her over, and I realized he had been dancing for her all along. She accepted his hand shyly and he bowed, like an elegant heron extending its long-necked head to a fledgling. Stavroula lifted her skirts and pranced in front of him and Jacob motioned with his hand for her to lift her skirt higher and this she did, spinning and lifting her skirt until even I could see the plump cleft between her legs. Then, suddenly, he was on his knees before my Greek tutor, kissing her bare toes in a sprightly fashion while declaiming in Italian. Giggling and shrieking, Stavroula ran out of the courtyard, and I stole away, ashamed and excited by what I had seen.

  First Inquiry of the Day: What has shocked me more? Jacob Casanova’s admiration of a girl’s beauty or my own greedy need to see what would happen?

  Lesson Learned: It is not my curiosity but what it yields that is hard to accept.

  July 6, 1797

  Dear Isaac,

  I intend to spend the rest of my life in this antique land. The Arcadian sunlight makes every man feel like a god! Yes, here, I can breathe without fear. And I have the company of Asked For Adams, whose capacity to appreciate beauty rivals my own.

  Yesterday morning I took her with me to a tailor. I appreciate the leave-taking sum you bestowed on me, but there is a practical need for my new expenses. It is fiercely hot, and my clothes are unsuitable. My favourite lilac vest and suit, my sulphur-yellow drugget, my garters with the gold brass buttons over rolled-up silk stockings are not for a climate such as this.

  I found our tailor on the outskirts of town, near the Temple of Jupiter. When he had finished taking our measurements, he invited us to lunch. As I began to make excuses, Asked For accepted the man’s offer. In Athens, it is usual for servants to sit down for coffee with their betters, and on the street, rich and poor Greeks greet one another like old friends. Asked For admires this custom of theirs, while my opinion of the rascals is mixed. The Greeks cheat any foreigner they can—and this I understand. I have never turned down the opportunity to take advantage of a fool myself.

  Perhaps one needs to grow up in the backwoods, Isaac, to be comfortable in the Ancient World.

  In any event, the tailor served us a democratic meal of tiny brown fish known as merides, and eggplant baked in his own homemade cheese. To fayito ton theon—the man called his peasant fare—the food of the gods. And I did not quibble with him.

  I itemize the following purchases for your amusement: (1) two baggy pairs of pantaloons; (2) three cotton shirts resembling a woman’s chemise with baggy sleeves; (3) a large embroidered shawl known as a “zone,” which is wrapped in layers around the waist and used by many rich gentlemen for the storing of purses and documents—the wealthier the merchant, the bulkier his zone, so they say here; (4) a pair of blue satin slippers and five pairs of short socks; (5) a vest and a jacket of silk in mazarine blue, bordered with gold lace, and one of the immense felt caps called a calpac that are worn by the Greeks instead of turbans. Aside from their hats, you would be astonished at how difficult it is to tell the Greeks from the Mussulmani. Even the Greek women wear veils in public and slip them to the side of their faces only when no Mussulmano is present.

  Meanwhile, Asked For purchased several new walking dresses. I bought her a pair of pantaloons and a man’s blouse, pointing out that it is easier to go about in the heat wearing the clothes of a Turk. How she blushed when I whispered that such a wardrobe is the best way to excite the imagination of a man like myself. Then, Isaac, the look on our tailor’s face when she reappeared in the trousers I had bought for her. I laughed heartily. But he accepted the spirit of my gift and gave Asked For a calpac that sat like a crown on her auburn hair. Her beauty is bringing us attention, although she is as fierce as a barnyard rooster when admired.

  Returning home, she attacked a group of local herdsmen, Isaac. The courage of New World women! We were walking back across a sandy field by the temple to Jupiter when we heard heartrending cries. A flock of baby lambs had been penned inside a shed on the dusty grounds while a crowd of Greeks were noisily intoning some ancient encomium. The ewes stood outside the shed bleating pitifully and this noise made their babies cry more loudly. The Greeks paid no attention although clearly they were the cause of the animals’ misery. Without warning, my pretty hoyden strode past me and threw open the shed door. A wavy river of woolly heads surged around her pantaloons. The men turned on her angrily, and Finette raced barking into the dusty clouds of wool as the little things ran baw-baawing to their mothers. I called out to Asked For to shut the gate. Did she listen to me, Giacomo Casanova, a scholar of the world and its ways? No. She hurled one of the men to the ground. And when the fellow realized his attacker was a woman, his face took on the Stygian shade of local eggplants. I strode to her defence, and one of the knaves drove his head into my stomach. I fell backwards, carrying him on my chest.

  I wished at that moment I was dressed as Tante Flora and not Giacomo Casanova.

  “Sir!” I cried when I could get my breath. “Be a gentleman and get off me!”

  The man shrieked noises into my ear, and I felt a sharp object press my ribs. Then, with a frightened intake of breath, he suddenly lifted himself off me and I saw two horses galloping towards us, one rider brandishing a whip. It was our new friends, Domenico Gennaro and Manolis Papoutsis.

  “She fights like a man!” Domenico said, nudging me with his riding crop as I staggered to my feet and patted the dust from my new clothes. The shepherds had taken to their heels, and Asked For appeared unhurt. “Do you think she could best you in a struggle?”

  I laughed. “Why, Dom, I am sure of it! What were these Greeks doing here?”

  “They are shepherds,” Manolis explained. “They hoped the bleating of their flocks would move the heart of Zeus.”

  “They were praying for rain?”

  “There have been public prayers for nine days,” Manolis said. “The drought is very b
ad.”

  After our battle with the shepherds, I escorted Asked For to our lodgings and then set out with Dom to see the dervishes in the Tower of the Winds. In its hall, we found a man beating a kettledrum while the Mussulmani spun slowly about in long white skirts, one palm to the heavens, as graceful as women. The sublime picture quieted my heart.

  There is a quality to this land that pushes one’s emotions to the extreme. Even Asked For is obliged to put aside her stoical view and embrace her feelings while I, born of the floorboards like many a Venetian, know these lessons well.

  Ah, the lively daughter of my hostess, the widow Mavromatis, has arrived with my morning chocolate. I have run out of time, old friend. I will finish this another day and see if she can help an old man sweeten his morning mood …

  Yours in friendship,

  Jacob Casanova

  Postscript

  Isaac, how I wished for you today! I have been amusing Domenico Gennaro with tales of our days spying for the Council. My new friend makes sketches for a Neapolitan named Roberto Gambello who is paying him a stipend to record the glory of the ancients. I spent yesterday wandering with him through the ruins.

  While Dom sketched, I told him of my report on the ballet depicting the life of General Coriolanus. I explained how I had described the ballet as an allegorical criticism of the Venetian Senate and its sumptuary laws, particularly its restrictions on the clothing of women. (I said not a word to him about the help you gave me on its wording.) He laughed a great deal over my heartless denunciation of those exquisite dancers and said that art is never mere entertainment. He claims it invariably serves the views of the governing class. I have believed that too, in my time, yet I shudder to think how I went on about the ballet’s corrupting influence, as if I were no older than the Puritan girl.