The Glassblower of Murano

by Marina Fiorato

  He was once again alone, as he had been the night before, before all this sorry business had come to pass. He could cry now for the friend - the son - who had gone. But his tears had left him, and he felt nothing but a dry grief for his loss. Once again he took up his viol, exactly as he had done before his world changed. But all was not exactly as before - there was a piece of vellum twisted in the strings. Vellum that Giacomo would know anywhere - it was the fine Florentine vellum of Corradino's notebook. Giacomo remembered now, as his heart beat fast in his throat, how he had pulled Corradino to sit down right next to the instrument the night before. With shaking fingers Giacomo slipped the note out from under the strings. Corradino was not one for penmanship, as he had been untimely ripped from Monsieur Loisy's tutelage at the age of ten, but these letters were clear enough. He had carefully spelt out, in the middle of the page, the Latin tag:

  NON OMNIS MORIAR

  Corradino was no great reader - in fact the only volume he knew well was the Dante from his father. But Giacomo was a learned man, and had no need to search through the volumes in his chamber for the meaning of the phrase. It all fitted - the bloom on Corradino's cheeks, the shine of his hair, the loving leavetaking of the night before.

  NON OMNIS MORIAR I SHALL NOT ALTOGETHER DIE

  Giacomo clasped the vellum to his heart before pressing it gently between the pages of his own copy of Dante. As he closed the book he smiled for the first time that day.

  Corradino was still alive.

  CHAPTER 19

  The Fourth Estate

  `Read this.'

  The newspaper slapped down onto Adelino's desk in front of Leonora. She could smell the acrid printer's ink under her nose. Adelino turned his back and went to the window, struggling with some emotion she could not yet divine. Could it be anger? She supposed that the press had bungled the ads, or misspelled something. Warning bells only began to ring when she saw Vittoria Minotto's byline and photo on the folded page.

  My interview? No, worse.

  "Hapless vetraioAdelino dellaVigna has spectacularly backed the wrong horse for his splashy advertising campaign. In an effort to flog the glass of his ailing Vetreria Della Vigna on Murano, he recently introduced the Manin range, an exclusive line of antique and modern glass. The range was to be sold on the back of famous maestro Corrado Manin, known as Corradino, and his decorative ancestor Leonora Manin, who lately became the first maestra on the island. Our readers will remember, just days ago, the glossy ads in these and other publications featuring the two Manins, and our eyes have been assailed by the posters adorning the walls of our fair city. But little did we know then what this paper has been able to discover, with the help of one of the master glassblowers of the fornace, Roberto del Piero."

  Leonora went cold.

  Roberto.

  Shaking, her sweating fingertips blurring the print, she read on.

  "`The whole thing is a joke,' says Signor del Piero. `Corrado Manin was indeed a master glassblower, but he was a traitor to the Republic and his craft. He was solicited by French spies and went to Paris to sell our secrets to the French, who were then our greatest trade rivals. Corradino single-handedly smashed the Venetian glass monopoly. It would be laughable except for the fact that the affair holds a sinister history for my own family. My own ancestor Giacomo del Piero was Corradino's lifelong friend and mentor, and yet Corradino betrayed him and caused his death. He's a Murderer, not a Maestro"'

  This catchy piece of alliteration had obviously drawn the editor's eye, as the words `Murderer not Maestro' formed the subheading of the paragraph. Leonora swallowed and read below.

  "Signor del Piero's grievances are modern as well as ancient. `I approached the advertisers with my own story. Giacomo was Corradino's mentor - he taught him everything he knew Moreover, there have been del Pieros working at the fornace ever since his day. I offered them the opportunity to introduce a line of glass in my family name, and they threw it back in my face. Clearly they preferred this bimbo who's only been in Venice a few months.' Signor del Piero is dismissive of Signorina Manin's talents. `She can blow the glass a little, but really she's just an English girl with no talent and a yard of blonde hair.' Particularly hard, then, is the fact that after hundreds of years of service to the glassblowing industry, the family's run now seems to be over. `I tried to alert Adelino to the truth, and his answer was to fire me. He'd rather keep his precious bimbo because he needs her for his ad cam, paign.

  "We should stress at this point that this paper is not in the habit of printing the vengeful vitriol of the wrongly dismissed. We have been shown documentary evidence of the treachery of Corrado Manin from what historians would term a `Primary Source'.

  "These revelations will be an undoubted embarrassment to Signor della Vigna, who has been touting for business with the aid of such copylines as `The Glass that built the Republic'. Such phrases must be ringing in his ears this morning, and may explain why he has so far refused to comment. Readers can expect to see the campaign withdrawn."

  `Is this true? You're withdrawing the campaign?'

  Adelino turned, his face bleak. `What else can I do?' He took the paper from her hands and flipped over the folded page.The black headline bawled out at her.`TREACHERY ON MURANO: There flanking the type was the portrait of ten-year-old, innocent Corradino, and herself, in her vest and jeans by the furnace.

  Then, all at once, of the sea of her thoughts one alone surfaced and consumed her body:

  I'm ,'oink to be sick.

  She rushed from the room and through the fornace, to the canalside where she vomited helplessly. How could she know that Corradino had done the same, four centuries before, the night before he became a traitor?

  CHAPTER 20

  The Eyes of the Old

  Leonora stood outside the University of Ca' Foscari in Dorsoduro. She had come to meet Professore Padovani, the only link in the city to her family, to her past.

  She had come home the previous night, from the scene at the fornace, distraught and upset, her nausea remaining with her as she left Murano. Even the welcoming sight of the night lights of San Marco did little to soothe her mood. She left the island boat at Ferrovia and waited, as she rarely did, for the number 82 vaporetto to take her up the Grand Canal to the Rialto. As the vaporetto roared to a stop, and the gateman expertly tied the boat, she thought of her father for the first time in weeks. His presence here, his very existence, seemed ephemeral when compared to the relationship she had with Corradino, dead for many centuries longer. She felt clearly now how much she had relied on Corradino, felt pride in him and even love for him. She could not have been more devastated by such accusations of treachery had they been directed at her own father. She felt her father to have been someone belonging to her mother alone - Leonora had never seen him and Bruno had never seen her. Their link was purely biological.

  My connection to Corradino, paradoxically, seems much more real to me.

  And yet Roberto del Piero had struck at the very roots of that cross-centuries bond. She felt vulnerable, exposed. Even the sight of the silver palaces roosting in the twilight along the canal did not give her the usual comfort. Autumn was here, and the friendly frontages of the buildings had assumed a shuttered look as the lifeblood of the tourist trade ebbed away from their faces like a fading blush. The decorative windows looked back, blank-eyed and uninviting now. She wondered if Corradino had betrayed all this, of what secret conferences he had had, what meetings he had held in these very buildings. As she disembarked at Rialto and ducked down the darkening calli to the Campo Manin her feelings of unease multiplied - she began to feel hunted, followed, to listen out for soft footfalls in the shadows. She felt tainted by the slur on Corradino.

  If he has done this thing, the city remembers and condemns me too.

  Leonora felt rejected by the stones that had lately welcomed her. Even when she walked at last into the Campo Manin she felt pursued. The beautiful shadows could hold ugliness too.

  Don't Look
Now ...

  She chided herself. For it wasn't a dwarfish red figure that she feared, but Roberto del Piero. She had ended his career at the fornace, and his family profession. He could, of course, work elsewhere, but it was she who had cuckooed him out of his nest.

  She ran across the still-warm stones of the campo and fumbled for her keys. In a childish game she felt she was outrunning the unseen assassins.

  If I can just reach my door ...

  As she fitted the key in her lock she expected a hand to pluck at her sleeve, or even clutch at her throat ... struggling with the latch she wrenched the door open and fell inside. She backed the door closed and leaned in the dark, breathing hard. Seconds later she left her skin as the phone began to ring. Shaking, she moved into the kitchen and picked up the receiver. But it was not the rasping tones of a horror film cliche. It was him.

  `Alessandro!'

  She sank into a chair and switched on the lamp. As the pool of light spread and she listened to the longed-for voice, the shades of her daymares fled.

  He laughed at the fervour of her greeting.

  `Detective Bardolino to you.'

  `You passed!ff

  'Yes.' Pride in the voice. `I have a week of orientation here and then I start at division, back in Venice.'

  She could not dampen his enthusiasm with her own troubles. Il Gazzettino was a local paper, and news of her humiliation or Corradino's reputation would not yet have reached Vicenza. Plenty of time to talk of that face to face. She suddenly felt terribly tired, and besides, a small sense of shame lodged just below her heart would not let her tell this man of her tarnished ancestor. While Alessandro talked about his weeks away and the exam, Leonora felt the fear and panic abate. She felt confident in the circle of his conversation as if protected by his nativity. Of course Corradino was no traitor. It was not true. It was an ugly rumour perpetrated by his rival. And what did it matter anyway? Corradino was long dead, and his work lived on to testify for him.

  But it does matter. I want to know for myself, to find out for certain.

  Something Alessandro had said floated back from memory. `When we first met, you told me that you might be able to help me find out more about my family ... my father. Well, I'd like to, if you can make any suggestions?'

  Alessandro considered. `When your mother and father were together in Venice, did they have any friends or colleagues that may still be here?'

  `There was someone. A lecturer at Ca' Foscari. I met him when I was very little.'

  `Can you remember his name??

  `It was Padovani. I remember because my mother explained to me that his name meant "comes from Padua". She taught me an old rhyme ..

  `Ah yes, Veneziani gran signori, Padovani gran dottori ..

  'Vicentini mangiagatti, Veronesi tutti matti.'Leonora finished. `I always wondered why theVicenzans ate cats in the rhyme. But I suppose it's better than being mad, like the Veronese.!

  'Ah yes, but the best thing to be of all is a great lord, like the Venetians.' Alessandro interjected proudly.

  `Anyway, Professore Padovani still sends Christmas cards to my mother. But I don't know if he's still at Ca' Foscari '

  She could hear him stretching on the other end of the line. He was clearly tired, but his voice was alert and she was encouraged that he was treating her enquiry in earnest. `Then I think the thing to do is to talk to this man, if he is still there. He will certainly know something of your father, which seems a good place to start. Go tomorrow,' he said with his customary dispatch, `because on Sunday I'm back for the day and we'll do something, if you're free.'

  She clutched the receiver with joy, feeling like a teenager. But with a desperate effort for detachment, she stayed with her theme. `D'you really think I can find out about him, after all these years?' And it was Corradino she meant.

  `Sure. He only died in, what was it? 1972? And, you know, if you want to find something out, you should really have a Detective on your team.' She could hear him grinning down the phone as he signed off with promises to see her on Sunday.

  Leonora felt a sudden resolve to unravel the mystery of Corradino, and felt that the Professore would be a good start. She couldn't wait for tomorrow. She couldn't explain to herself why she had not been entirely honest with Alessandro, had let him think that she wished to find out principally about her father.

  She slept badly, and in the morning was sick again. Nerves, she thought.

  But I know it isn't nerves.

  Leonora entered the modest side gate leading into the University precincts from the Calle della Foscari. Once inside, Leonora was deafened by the antics going on around her. Though it was Saturday morning, a study day for most students, there seemed to be some sort of Rag taking place - Leonora recognized the same misrule, the same anarchic spirit, which had moved her to dress as a nurse and help push a hospital bed down the Charing Cross Road during Rag week at St Martin's.

  Eggs and flour were flying everywhere, and she had to duck more than once as she crossed the desecrated lawn.

  They must be graduating. I read somewhere that Italian students think that making cakes of themselves is a fitting way to mark their transition to Dottore. Soon they'll all be gone, like the tourists.

  She perused the faculty lists on a noticeboard cloistered behind glass, with fading hope, but at last Leonora spotted; `Professore Ermanno Padovani.'

  He's head of the faculty for `Storia del Rinascimento'. Renaissance History. I might just be in luck. `Padovani gran dottori' indeed.

  She mounted the ancient stairs and trawled the empty corridors reading the names on the history department doors. From here the screams and merriment from outside were muffled. It felt like there was no one in these upper floors at all, so when she reached the Professore's door at last, Leonora felt little hope of him being inside. But when she knocked and heard a faint `Entrate,' muffled by the oak, her insides fluttered with the knowledge that the man inside this room may have some of the answers that she sought. As Leonora entered the sight she beheld almost made her forget why she had come. Ahead was a wide, ornate window, made up of a quartet of the most perfect, intricate, Moorish frames of which Venice was so proud. And beyond - the most incredible vista of the San Marco bank of the Canal Grande, water shimmering at the foot of the splendid palaces, as if in supplication to their grandeur. Leonora was so lost in the view that the voice that addressed her was an audible shock.

  `One of the privileges of having taught here for thirty years is that I get the best room in the faculty. One of the drawbacks is, sometimes I find it very hard to get any work done. You must have come in the back way, through the gate? A pity. It is not the best aspect of the place!

  Leonora turned to the old man, who had emerged from behind his book and desk with the aid of a stick. Kindly, white-bearded, beautifully dressed and with penetrating eyes, he looked faintly amused. She apologized. `But it's so beautiful, for a ...'

  'You were going to say for a University? But it has not always been one. Ca' Foscari was formerly a palace built for the Bishops ofVenice, and you know how prelates like their creature comforts. And surely, Signorina, you have beautiful seats of learning in your own country do you not? Oxford and Cambridge?'

  Leonora started. She had flattered herself that her English accent was gone. But she was not chastened - it seemed that this was a man with a formidable intelligence, from whom nothing could be hidden. It seemed all the more likely that he could help her. She took a deep breath. `Professore, I apologize for disturbing you. I'd like to ask you a few ... historical questions, if you have a moment'

  The old man smiled, his bright eyes crinkling at the corners. `Of course,' he said. `I can spare more than that for the daughter of my old friend Elinor Manin. How are you, my dear Nora? Or,' the old eyes twinkled immoderately, `is it Leonora now that you have become ... assimilated.'

  Leonora marvelled at the quickness of the Professore's mind. Not only had he remembered her instantly, but he had divined, in a few short secon
ds, that she had changed her life and her name. She smiled.

  `You're right. I am Leonora. And I'm amazed you remember me. I must have been ... what ... five years old?'

  `Six,' countered Padovani. `It was at a University drinks party in London.You proudly showed me your brand new shoes. They were nicer than the ones you have on today.' His eyes travelled to Leonora's battered converse trainers, which she shifted sheepishly on the wooden floor. `And, you know, you mustn't give me too much credit for my perspicacity. You have become somewhat ... notorious ... since you arrived here, have you not?'

  Il Gazzettino. Of course. The paper was taken by just about every household in Venice.

  `But the rest of you has grown up so well, I suppose we must not be so exacting. The Primavera, yes? Botticelli is much more you than those Titian poses they put you in. But I suppose you have been told this many times, by younger men than me:

  Encouraged by his old-world charm, Leonora got to the point. `I wanted to ask you some questions about my family ... if you have a little time.'

  The Professore smiled. `Time is plentiful at my age.' He motioned to the window, where four easy chairs were placed for tutorials. `Sit down then. I'm going to, so you might as well.'

  They sat in front of the peerless view, the chairs comfortable, but not cosy enough to induce sleep in the drowsy scholar. Settling himself, the Professore began, `At the risk of sounding like the villain of a bad movie - they always seem to be English, don't they, my dear? I wonder why - I've been expecting you. I take it Elinor doesn't know that you are here.'

  Leonora shook her head. `No. I mean, she knows that I'm in Venice, but she doesn't know that I've come to talk to you.,

  The Professore nodded, and his gnarled hands tapped the head of his cane. `I see. Then I must tell you, first of all, that I will not divulge anything which she has shared with me in confidence, but other than that, I will be as helpful as I can be.' The Professore looked frankly at Leonora, waiting. Her fingers were twisting the glass heart she wore on its ribbon - a sign, surely, of stress. He thought the trinket was a clue to which relative she would ask about first. And so it proved.