Leonora nodded but her thoughts were elsewhere. She steeled herself not to ask about Alessandro.
Alessandro.
She told herself, as the flat took shape, and as her work improved at the fornace, that she was happy. She was a glassblower. She lived in this gem of a flat in this jewel of a city. But on the Saturday that she found the final piece to complete her home, she was brought face to face with the truth.
She had gone to a shop she knew, behind the Chiesa San Giorgio by the Accademia Bridge, to find something to hang in the empty space above her bed. It was there, hanging on the back wall, behind the armoires and busts and lampshades - an icon of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. The Virgin held the burning heart in her hands, her face serene, the heart a visceral beating red against the cerulean cloak. Leonora bought it at once, took it home and hung it. Perfect. Then she understood.
My heart burns too.
It was one kiss, and he had never called her, never come round in four weeks. On subsequent, necessary trips to the Police Station she had, as before, seen a new officer each time. Yet she yearned for Alessandro, even to catch a glimpse of him. Leonora had never read Dante but recalled one of his lines (from - of all things - Hannibal) `He ate that burning heart out of her hand.' Another Beatrice, namesake of Dante's great love, had spoken of eating a man's heart in the marketplace. Leonora felt the description to be apt - she felt, in a muddle of Dante and Shakespeare, that those poets had spoken of exactly how she felt - that she had eaten a burning heart which was now lodged in her chest. She felt none of the serenity of the Blessed Virgin. She wanted Alessandro, pure and simple. She thought her heart had cooled and set for ever after Stephen, hard and cold like the glass heart she wore.
But no, for even this heart that I wear, after four hundred years, would be melted again if I placed it in the fire.
And then, into her completed house, he came. That same Saturday, in the evening, an unfamiliar rasping brought her out of her reverie. She realized it was her own doorbell, and opened her door to Alessandro, smiling, brandishing her work permit, her residence permit and a bottle of Valpolicella. He made no reference to his absence, but came characteristically straight to the point.
`Shall we get some dinner? I know somewhere you'd like.'
Leonora felt shocked, and breathless. Vanity made her grateful that she was at least in the right clothes - she had put on a white crochet dress for the heat of the day. Determined not to be won over immediately she raised a brow. `Another cousin?'
He laughed. `Actually, yes.'
She looked carefully at him. He proffered her white permits like a flag of peace.
They walked abreast through the narrow calli to the trattoria, neither one ahead or behind. Their knuckles grazed one another's and before Leonora could register the pleasurable shock of the touch she felt her fingers clasped firmly in his warm hand. Since childhood, when her hand had been held, whether by her mother or later Stephen, Leonora had felt awkward - always waiting for the moment when she could comfortably let go without giving offence. Now, for the first time, she let this virtual stranger hold her hand in comfort, only breaking away as they arrived at the trattoria and began to weave through the crowded diners.
Alessandro was greeted by the proprietario like a long-lost and much missed brother. `Niccolo, my cousin,' explained Alessandro from the comer of his mouth, as Leonora found herself on the receiving end of two effusive kisses - not the air-kisses of the English vicarage tea-party, but wellplanted, warm salutes. Niccolo, a similar age but twice the girth of Alessandro, led them to the best table, with a peerless view of the twilit Campo San Barnaba, with the fat, full moon rising.
`The moon shines bright ... On such a night as this ...' No, I must not get ahead of myself. Take everything as it comes.
As they settled themselves at the red-chequered cloth Niccolo appeared unbidden with two menus, a pair of glasses and a bottle of wine. He plonked the bottle in front of Alessandro, gave him a wink and a clap on the shoulder, then melted away.
As Leonora studied the menu she felt suddenly shy and discomfited. Their conversations had always been so direct and easy before that the silence troubled her. Her eyes scanned the Italian type, looking for comfort. She seized on two familiar words in her panic. `Minestrone and lasagne.'
Alessandro shook his head. `No'
`What!' she was briefly incensed.
`That stuff is for tourists. You live here. You should have this.' He rattled off two dishes in Veneziano so rapid that even her attuned ear didn't catch the words. `Polenta with calves liver and risotto d'oro. Both delicious, both Venetian specialities. You'll love the risotto, it's made with tiny flecks of gold leaf. Truly a dish of the gran signori.' He dropped his voice `You're not ... vegetarian are you?' as if enquiring after a delicate medical condition.
She shook her head emphatically.
`Thank God. All the English are. Niccolo!' Alessandro's cousin appeared from nowhere and took their order before Leonora could protest. She sat back, befuddled, and began to munch on a breadstick to buy some time. She had been furious when, in the past, Stephen had overruled her choices with his superior culinary knowledge.Why wasn't she angry now?
Because, you little fool, you're being introduced to Venice by a Venetian; you're being included, treated like a local, just as you wanted.
As if to reflect her thought, Alessandro spoke again. `You know, there's a story that breadsticks come from Venetian ship's biscuits, the food that built our trading empire. The recipe was handed down by mouth over the generations until the end of the eighteenth century, when it was lost forever. But then in 1821 someone found a whole batch of them in a bricked-up Venetian outpost in Crete, and reconstructed the formula from there.'
Leonora smiled, relaxed, and took another. `It's strange to think of my ancestors munching on these very same biscuits, tasting what I taste, feeling them crumble in the mouth like I do. The Manins had quite a shipping empire at one time. And my ... father ... he worked on the vaporetti. So I guess the sea is in the blood!
`It's in everyone's blood here. Your father ... is he still alive?'
'No. He died when I was very little. My mother took me back to England. So though I was born here you are right to call me English - it's what I am really.'
Alessandro shook his head. `No, you are a Venetian. Do you have any other family here?'
`I remember my mother saying my Italian grandparents are dead. And I think my father was an only child.' It was on the tip of Leonora's tongue to tell Alessandro about Corradino, but something stopped her. It was he, and not Bruno, to whom she felt the connection of family, but didn't know how to adequately explain that she felt far more curiosity about the long-dead glassblower than she did about her own father, the man who broke her mother's heart.
`It would be interesting to find out more about him - now you're here. Give you some history. I could ... help ... if you let me? I've got contacts through the Questura'
Leonora smiled. `Perhaps.'
But it's Corradino who calls to nie.
When the food arrived, it was indeed delicious. She ate heartily, but with nothing of the relish and concentration that Alessandro afforded to his meal, head down, spooning up his dishes. She watched him indulgently, and he caught her at it.
`What?'
`You eat with such ... not appetite, not hunger, not lust, but a bit of all three.'
Gusto?'
`Yes, exactly! It means all those things and more. I guess we don't have an equivalent word in English.'
`The English don't need one,' he said, including her again. And then he smiled.
And that was that.
Gusto. The word stayed in her head for the rest of the night.
Gusto, she thought, as he kissed her hungrily on the Ponte San Barnaba.
Gusto, she thought as they drank Valpolicella straight from the bottle on the balustrade of her roof garden, their feet dangling perilously over the canal far below.
Gusto,
she thought as he took her by the wrist and led her, unprotesting, to her bed.
Gusto, she thought, as he took her loudly in the darkness.
In her dream they were in bed; Leonora's blonde hair tumbled on Alessandro's chest. But when she woke he was gone. Light from the canal played on the ceiling of her apartment, and illuminated the icon above her bed, with the heart burning still. Brighter today.
Leonora smelled coffee and padded through to the kitchen. The pot was on the stove, still warm, with plenty left. She poured herself a cup, concentrating hard on not feeling hurt.
He owes me nothing, has promised me nothing, why should he stay?
When she went to the fridge for milk she saw it. A postcard stuck under her fridge magnet. She recognized the style of Titian; a picture of a cardinal flanked by two young men. The man on the right, also in priests' robes, was the image of Alessandro. Leonora read the back; Tiziano Vecelli, portrait of Pope Clement X with his nephews, Niccolo and - surely not! - Alessandro. 1546. Beside the legend there was something else too. A hasty scrawl which read: `Ciao bella.'
Leonora sat heavily at the table, heart thumping. What did it mean? Was the postcard something he carried around with him, a device for susceptible foreign girls? What did `Ciao bella' mean? It had a terrible ring to it, the tacky sign-off of a lothario from a hundred movies. Even `bella' in this context held no weight. It was all of a piece with the offhand phrase - it did not denote beauty. She tortured herself over the semantics of the phrase. She knew that Ciao came from `ci vediamo'. The same meaning as the French `Au revoir' - I'll see you again. She did not know the Italian for `Adieu'.
Leonora shook her head. She did not want to plan, or flagellate herself with these thoughts. She did not know what Alessandro wanted from her, if anything. She watched the water on the ceiling, listened to the cries of children playing outside and two old men having a shouted conversation with each other across the campo. Sunday stretched ahead, yawning empty. She must busy herself; find something to do, something to think about, before it was too late.
It's already too late. I'm in love.
CHAPTER 14
A Rival
It was Monday. Leonora was on the roof, leaning on the balustrade, looking over to the lagoon and wishing she were on the boat to Murano. But today Adelino had insisted that she stay at home, to be interviewed by a journalist from Il Gazzettino, the foremost newspaper of the Veneto region. She had dressed carefully in a white linen dress she had found on the Rialto, and bound her abundant hair with lace ribbons. She knew that today there was to be no photographer, but she was under instruction from the Milanese advertisers to appear as feminine as possible at all times. They didn't want to sell their campaign on the back of a tomboy - the whole point of Leonora's appeal, apparently, was that she was a girl in a man's job. Oh well. If she could project an image of womanly vulnerability she might appeal to the journalist's better instincts.
If he has any.
What she really wanted to do was don her usual uniform of old jeans, vest and ancient army jacket, put up her hair and take the number 41 to work. She was sick of being primped and posed - the last few weeks had been a test of her endurance as she had been photographed at work, at home and even in period costume. She had to grudgingly admit that the resulting print adverts and posters did make her look ... well ... pretty, and they were certainly more tasteful than what had first been proposed.They had centred on placing Corradino in modern environments and Leonora in ancient ones. Leonora had balked at the idea of sharing a frame with her dead ancestor, but the results had been interesting, even intelligent. One featured a modern cafe with a couple enjoying wine from a pair of exquisitely modern goblets from the newly launched `Mann' range.
The scene was determinedly contemporary, but a careful look in the `Manin' mirror beside their table showed a reflection of the interior of the Do Mori, circa 1640, with patrons in period costume and a composite of the young Corradino standing at one of the tables. Leonora found it quite ghostly, but intriguing in the manner of The Marriage of Arnolfini: the image in the mirror was the point of the piece. Her role was to bring modernity to the Antique end of Adelino's business. In modern day dress she was placed in classic Venetian paintings which featured glasswork and mirrors. In the main image she was computer manipulated to match the colour and style of paint and brushwork. She was dressed in seventeenth century costume of golds and greens, her hair flowing in the golden ripples of the most desired courtesans, her ivory skin given the craquelure of ancient tempera. Once again, in the image in a mirror - antique Manin this time - she was reflected in her work clothes, holding the tools of her trade instead of a fan or flower. But however tasteful the ads, Leonora felt increasingly uncomfortable as the huge machine of the campaign swung into motion. She knew that Adelino had poured all the money he,had into the enterprise, borrowing against collateral he no longer owned, plunging deeper into debt on this one desperate chance. She felt too, the growing contempt of her colleagues - her face burned as she posed in front of the furnace - not from the heat but from the glances of her colleagues who, watching, worked around her. At the centre of the antagonism Roberto was ever present, his resentment and growing hatred palpable on his face. It was clear that, at the same time that he thought Leonora unworthy of such attention, he thought himself very much worthy of it. She knew that he had approached the Milanese with his own family history; by chance she had heard Semi and Chiara laughing about him. Roberto did not enjoy being laughed at.
Leonora felt a chill as a breeze reached the balcony. Autumn was coming, and the tourists would soon be gone. She looked down into the campo and noticed that already the steady stream of tourist traffic had abated as, swallow-like, they prepared to move south to warmer climes. Firenze, Napoli, Amalfi, Roma.
Not me. This is my home.
She looked fondly down at the square, her square, which shared her name and Corradino's too. It occurred to her for the first time that this place she had chosen was the architectural embodiment of past and present, of herself and Corradino, ofAdelino's cross-centuries campaign.Along one side, Luigi Nervi's vast modern bank, the Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia. On the other, the beauteous historical houses where she now lived. And in the middle (she had been delighted to learn) a statue of another Manin: Daniele, the revolutionary whose past she had glimpsed in the library that day. An unknown kinsman who came between herself and Corradino on the timeline of centuries. An upstanding lawyer who had resisted the occupation of the Austrians with as much conviction as Doge Lodovico Manin had sold the city to them. Rewarded for his loyalty he stood upon his plinth, the winged lion of Saint Mark crouching at his feet, one hand tucked Napoleon-style into his waistcoat with unconscious irony. But his sacrifice and struggle had been corroded to comedy by the passing years, as the dignified copper of his likeness had oxidized to bright jester's green.
As she watched, her attention was caught by a sharply dressed woman crossing the square with purpose, her stiletto heels clicking on the stone.
No tourist she: clearly a local.
She wore a navy suit which screamed designer tailoring, with a nipped-in waist and a skirt with a length just the right side of trashiness. Her hair, razor cut to skim her shoulders, flashed blue-black in the sunlight. She wore the inevitable sunglasses, which only gave greater emphasis to her glossy red lips. Her sexy confidence allowed her to acknowledge but at the same time ignore the vocal admiration of a handful of masons working on the bridge. She was clearly accustomed to such tributes.
A woman like that would tell Semi and Chiara to go to hell.
She watched the woman with admiration until she disappeared from sight, and seconds later heard the now familiar rasp of her own doorbell. Leonora ran down her spiral steps, heart thumping. She would not admit that each time the doorbell rang she hoped for Alessandro.
But it was not Alessandro. It was the woman from the square. She held out her hand.
`Signorina Manin? I'm Vittoria Minotto.'
Such was the force of her personality that Leonora reached out to shake her hand, and moved aside to give passage to the apartment. She clearly looked as confused as she felt, for in explanation the woman said, `From Il Gazzettino.' She flashed a press card in the manner of a member of the FBI.
Leonora attempted to pull herself together and offered a chair, but the journalist was off, stalking around the house, peering at the furnishings, picking up objects and putting them down again. With a practised gesture she pushed her shades into her raven hair and peered at the view as if making mental notes. Her one word `hello' at once praised the decor and condemned it. `This will do for you,' it seemed to say, `but it is not in my taste' At close proximity her confidence and sexuality were almost tangible. Her style and poise, her sharpness of dress, made Leonora feel blowsy and badly put together. Her dress and the twisted locks of her loose hair, with which she had been pleased as she looked in the mirror that morning, now seemed messy and amateur.
I'm behaving like a sixth former with a crush. If she's having this effect on me, what must she do to a man?
With an effort that she was afraid was visible to her guest, Leonora pulled herself together, trying to regain her composure, and with it, the ascendancy. `Can I offer you a drink? Coffee?'
Vittoria turned and favoured Leonora with a smile of immense charm and startling whiteness. `Please'
The journalist sat, this time unbidden, at the kitchen table and snapped open her briefcase with the sound of a cocked gun. She took out an innocuous notebook and pen, and something else - small, silver and threatening, it squatted on the table. A tape recorder. Vittoria took out a third item, a pack of cigarettes, shook one out and lit it. Both the brand and the way she lit the thing reminded Leonora sharply of Alessandro, with a brief stab of pain. Vittoria made a waving gesture, and the smoke wreathed around her blood-red nails. `You don't mind?'
The Glassblower of Murano Page 11