The Glassblower of Murano

by Marina Fiorato

  Perhaps it is not too late to enter this house of God, throw myself on the mercy of the priests and seek sanctuary?

  But those who sought him also paid for this jewelled shrine that housed the bones ofVenice's shrivelled Saint, and tiled the walls with the priceless glittering mosaics that now sent the candlelight out into the night. There could be no sanctuary within for Corradino. No mercy.

  Past the Basilica then and under the arch of the Torre dell'Orologio he hurried, allowing himself one more glance at the face of the huge clock, where tonight it seemed the fantastical beasts of the zodiac revolved in a more solemn measure. A dance of death. Thereafter Corradino tortured himself no more with final glances, but fixed his eyes on the paving underfoot. Even this gave him no respite, for all he could think of was the beautiful tessere glasswork he used to make; fusing hot nuggets of irregular glass together, all shapes and hues, before blowing the whole into a wondrous vessel delicate and colourful as a butterfly's wing.

  I know I will never touch the glass again.

  As he entered the Merceria dell'Orologio the market traders were packing away their pitches for the night. Corradino passed a glass-seller, with his wares ranked jewel-like on his stall. In his mind's eye the goblets and trinkets began to glow rosily and their shapes began to shift - he could almost feel the heat of the furnace again, and smell the sulphur and silica. Since childhood such sights and smells had always reassured him. Now the memory seemed a premonition of hellfires. For was hell not where traitors were placed? The Florentine, Dante, was clear on the subject. Would Corradino - like Brutus and Cassius and Judas - be devoured by Lucifer, the Devil's tears mingling with his blood as he was ripped asunder? Or perhaps, like the traitors that had betrayed their families, he would be encased for all eternity in `... un lago the per gelo avea di vetro e non d'acqua sembiante ... a lake that, frozen fast, had lost the look of water and seemed glass.' Corradino recalled the words of the poet and almost smiled.Yes, a fitting punishment - glass had been his life, why not his death also?

  Not if I do this last thing. Not if I am granted absolution.

  With a new urgency he doubled back as he had planned and took the narrow bridges and winding alleys or caller that led back to the Riva degli Schiavoni. Here and there shrines were set into the corners of the houses - well-tended flames burned and illumined the face of the Virgin.

  I dare not look in her eyes, not yet.

  At last the lights of the Orphanage at the Ospedale della Pieta drew near and as he saw the candlelight warmth he heard too the music of the viols.

  Perhaps it is she that plays - I wish it were so - but I will never know.

  He passed the grille without a glance inside and banged on the door. As the maid approached with a candle he did not wait for her inquisition before hissing: `Padre Tommaso - subito!' He knew the maid - a surly, taciturn wench who delighted in being obstructive, but tonight his voice carried such urgency that even she turned at once and soon the priest came.

  `Signore?'

  Corradino opened his cloak and found the leather gourd of French gold. Into the bag he tucked the vellum notebook, so she would know how it had been and one day, perhaps, forgive him. He took a swift glance around the dim alley - no, no-one could have drawn close enough to see him.

  They must not know she has the book.

  In a voice too low for any but the priest to hear he said: `Padre, I give you this money for the care of the orphans of the Pieta.' The mask changed Corradino's voice as he had intended. The priest made as if to take the bag with the usual formula of thanks, but Corradino held it back until the father was forced to meet his eyes. FatherTommaso alone must know him for who he was. `For the orphans,' said Corradino again, with emphasis.

  Recognition reached the priest at last. He turned over the hand that held the bag and looked closely at the fingertips - smooth with no prints. He began to speak but the eyes in the mask flashed a warning. Changing his mind the father said, `I will make sure they receive it,' and then, as if he knew; `may God bless you. 'A warm hand and a cold one clasped for an instant and the door was closed.

  Corradino continued on, he knew not where, until he was well away from the Orphanage.

  Then, finally, he removed his mask.

  Shall I walk on till they find me? How will it be done?

  At once, he knew where he should go. The night darkened as he passed through the streets, the canals whispering goodbye as they splashed the calli, and now at last Corradino could hear footsteps behind keeping pace. At last he reached the Calle della Morta - the street of death - and stopped. The footsteps stopped too. Corradino faced the water and, without turning, said, `Will Leonora be safe?'

  The pause seemed interminable - splash, splash - then a voice as dry as dust replied.

  `Yes. You have the word of The Ten.'

  Corradino breathed relief and waited for the final act.

  As the knife entered his back he felt the pain a moment after the recognition had already made him smile. The subtlety, the clarity with which the blade insinuated itself between his ribs could only mean one thing. He started to laugh. Here was the poetry, the irony he had searched for on the dock. What an idiot, romanticizing himself, supposing himself a hero in the drama and pathos of his final sacrifice. All the time it was they who had planned the final act with such a sense of theatre, of what was fitting, an amusing Carnevale exit. A Venetian exit. They had used a glass dagger - Murano glass.

  Most likely one of my own making.

  He laughed harder with the last of his breath. He felt the assassin's final twist of the blade to snap handle from haft, felt his skin close behind the blade to leave no more than an innocent graze at the point of entry. Corradino pitched forward into the water and just before he broke the surface he met his own eyes in his reflection for the first and last time in his life. He saw a fool laughing at his own death. As he submerged in the freezing depths, the water closed behind his body to leave no more than an innocent graze at the point of entry.

  From the shadows of the Calle della Morte, Salvatore Navarro - the new foreman of the fornace on Murano - watched, terrified. He had been given this time and place by an agent of The Ten and been told to attend on pain of death. Coming so lately upon the death in the Piombi of his predecessor Giacomo del Piero, he had dared not refuse. As he watched the demise of the great Corradino Manin, a man he had looked up to since his days as a garzon, he knew he was here as a witness. That he was expected to go back to Murano and tell all that he had seen.

  And that he, and all other glassblowers through him, were being given a warning.

  CHAPTER 39

  The Notebook

  Alessandro followed the sacristan as they wound upward in a small spiral staircase leading from the vestry of the Pieta.

  `It's not a library as such, mostly old music books and some records,' the sacristan continued, his words punctuated by the whispering of his flowing robes. `Once, of course, we had a very significant collection ofVivaldi's handwritten scores. After his popularity revived in the nineteen-thirties we had our book collection properly stored at the correct temperature and insured. That collection is in a museum in Vienna where he died. Are you a student of Vivaldi?' The sacristan did not seem to need an answer but launched into his well rehearsed guidebook version of the red priest's life. Alessandro climbed higher and fought to remain polite. At other times he would have been deeply interested in the history, today he was fired with a quite indecent urge to push past the kind old man and rush ahead into the library. Each turn of the stair seemed the thread of a screw that wound Alessandro's impatience ever tighter. At last they reached an ancient door and Alessandro fidgeted whilst the sacristan went through what seemed like dozens of keys. At last the right one fitted. Turned.

  The small room was barely lit by one arched window. Golden motes of dust danced in its light. The draught of the opening door caused the dead-leaf rustle of pages which whispered that no one had read these volumes for years. From f
loor to ceiling they were piled, not shelved; the dusty bookstacks of Prospero. Alessandro forgot the cant of his guide as he looked around. It would not take long to find what he sought, if it was here, if it existed. He turned decisively.

  `Padre. I am most grateful for your guidance. Could I beg you to excuse me while I take a little look around here? I'm sure you have other things to do. I'll be most careful, I promise.'

  The sacristan set back a little, but then his eyes crinkled. They held the exquisite trust of a man of God, one that believes the world holds no ill. He patted Alessandro's arm. `A private matter. I see. I'll be downstairs.'

  Alessandro flashed his most charming of smiles as the robe whispered from the room.

  Then he turned to his task.

  There were perhaps a thousand volumes here. Not many.

  But if what he sought was here, it would betray itself by its size. He anticipated his search would take a few hours. But after perusing only two floor-to-ceiling stack's worth of books, finding only leather bound music scores and hymnbooks, he saw it. Wedged between the horizontal stacks was a small vellum volume, bound in fine calfskin, the best Venetian workmanship. As he had guessed, the size told the secret.

  A book of days. A notebook. A diary.

  Alessandro sank to the floor and the velvet of his costume rose around him. He could have been a man from another age as he sat in the pool of cloth, in this ancient chamber, the light from the window turning him back to a painting. His hands shook as he realized this was it - the notebook whose existence he had assumed but not been certain. Surely this was the grail at the end of Leonora's quest? But as he turned the fine pages, wondering at the crabbed script, the detailed drawings, the scrawled measurements and mathematics, a new notion held him. What if this book confirmed her fears?

  And so it was. Alessandro's fingertips were suddenly soaked, and the thin vellum began to bubble beneath their wetness till he hurriedly wiped his hands on his robe. For here it was, proof - irrevocable and incontrovertible. The last pages were measurements and drawings that pertained to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Alessandro sat back as the enormity engulfed him. In a legacy of treachery, that room had once housed Vittorio Orlando, Prime Minister of Italy. Had Orlando and the other signatories -Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau - looked into Corradino's glass as they had cut the heart and soul out of Germany in that `Treaty' of 1919, and set in train the inevitable grinding machine which led to the Second World War? Ill deeds bred ill deeds, never more so than here. Alessandro could have wept. He had solved the mystery, but brought the answer Leonora dreaded.

  Leonora.

  His eye caught her name on the page - the last pair of pages in the book. Here the writing was different - scrawled, passionate, not exact and mathematical, and here and there was a splash of brine or tears. So Alessandro sat and read the letter Corradino had written to his daughter, which could have been written to Leonora, his Leonora, herself.

  CHAPTER 40

  The Ruby

  Someone was screaming and crying. Twisting in blood and mess on the sheets. It sounded like Leonora's own voice.

  How many hours have I been this way?

  Concerned nuns and a doctor in blue scrubs collected at her stirupped feet. Monitoring belts bound her heaving belly. A machine chattered at her side with a needle spiking over reams of graph paper in improbable peaks. The pain darkened her eyes and she called again for Alessandro, as she had done at every labouring of her body. At last, miraculously, he answered. Not as an ephemeral pain-filled daydream - for she had relived their time together to get her through this - but as a strong presence, here by her bed, his firm dry hand holding her damp one tight. She clasped his fingers, hard enough to bruise bone. The fog cleared and she saw him clearly then, raining kisses on her hand and forehead. He held something in his hand - a book. He whispered something in her ear - through the thrum of blood in her head as she pushed again, she heard:

  `He came back! Corradino came back!'

  The pain abated. She knew its dark ways now - there was time enough for her to say what she had to before it came again.

  `I don't care. Don't leave me.'

  She heard him say, `never again,' before the pain made her insensible. She was not aware that, as she laboured, he slipped onto her third finger a ring with a ruby red as the banked fires of a furnace. He had been carrying the little box around with him all day - he had meant to propose at the Carnevale, and that had been the reason for his excitement of last night. This was not as he had planned it. This way she knew nothing of the question that had been asked of her. He could have waited for tomorrow, for hearts and flowers, and the bending of one knee. But he wanted her to have the ring now.

  In case tomorrow was too late.

  CHAPTER 41

  The Letter (part 1)

  Leonora was still. Alessandro, his eyes still wet, still held her hand. The hand that wore his ring. Her suffering was over.

  And the prize? He slept too, in a clear plastic box next to the bed. A small, perfect bundle with a face crumpled from his ordeal, but to Alessandro the most beautiful thing in the world beside Leonora. He would battle tigers for him. His son. He should be in a casket of gold, not this incongruous tupperware.

  Alessandro had been there just in time for the birth. The events of last night were as a dream to him - returning in triumph to an empty house, fearing that Leonora had gone away, then spying the winking red light of the answer phone. The message from the hospital. The mad dash to get here, fearing he knew not what.

  She stirred. Her eyes opened and the bloom returned to her cheeks, Spring no more, but full blown Summer, rich, abundant and with a healthy son. He thanked God for the first time since he was a child.

  He kissed her gently as she smiled, and the baby, as if sensing his mother's wakefulness, woke too. They smiled at each other as the boy opened his eyes, their dynamic for ever changed from two to three. A triangle now. Alessandro tenderly picked up his son and held him to his chest. Tiny, heavy and real. He moved to the door.

  `Where are you going?' A new mother's anxiety.

  `My son and I are going for a walk,' his heart thrilled at the words. `You should rest. But before you do, read that.' He nodded to the vellum notebook where it lay on the coverlet.

  `On the final page is a letter for you.'

  `For me?' But Alessandro had left the room with their son. Their son. She barely had the patience to read, so cocooned was she in her new happiness. But her name on the parchment caught her eye.

  Leonora mia,

  I will not see you again. Mid-way through the journey of my life, I took the wrong path, the right way being lost. I have sinned against the State, and now I must be punished. Moreover, two line men, Giacomo del Piero and Jacques Chauvire, died because of what I did. But I want you to think kindly of me if you can. Do you remember when I came to see you last, and we said farewell, and I gave you your heart of glass? I went to France and gave away the secrets of that glass. But now I will make amends. Now I am coming back home, to Venice, so you will be safe and the glass will be safe. And you will be safe, I have been promised. I will walk back through Venice once more, and leave this book for you. By the time I reach the other side of the city, I know they will find me and finish me. Keep your glass heart close, and think of me. I want you to think of the way we touched our hands together that last day, do you remember? Our special way? Every finger and the thumb? If you should read this, remember that Leonora, remember me that way, on that day. And Leonora, my own Leonora, remember how much your father loved you, loves you still.

  Tears dropped on the coverlet and soaked the hospital gown they had given her, when they had taken Spring's raiment away. She cried at last for Corradino, but also for Giacomo, for her mother, for her father and for Stephen. They were her past. But by the time her future came back into the room, she was smiling and ready to hold her son. The notebook was tucked away, tidied carefully onto the night stand, ready to return h
ome to the Pieta and the kindly sacristan who had understood why Alessandro needed to take it away.

  CHAPTER 42

  The Letter (part 2)

  PadreTommaso climbed the stair to the girls tiring chamber, expecting to find the bride-to-be surrounded by her contemporaries, all twittering over her dress and hair. Instead, his heart failed him as he beheld the girl that had become as a daughter to him, the girl that had been like his own since the defection of her father, the girl that had been the delight of his old age. She was alone, kneeling in the sun of the dorter window, her bright head bent.

  She was at prayer.

  He knew as he watched that the trinket she held at her throat as she prayed was no cross but the heart of glass that her father had given her the day before he had disappeared for ever.Then Corradino was in her thoughts today. It was natural, he supposed, that an orphan should think of her dead parents on her wedding day. It made it easier to tell her what he had to. He waited with his head bowed while she finished her intercessions and chose his words.

  She smiled up at him. `Padre? Are they ready for me?'

  `Yes, child. But before we go, may I speak with you a little?'

  A slight frown crossed her perfect features and then cleared. `Of course.'

  The Padre lowered himself slowly onto a faldstool, as his bones were no longer young. He gazed at this peerless beauty and tried to remember her as Corradino would have seen her last - without the silver brocade gown, the ringleted hair set with moonstones, and all the trappings of a woman who was shortly to marry into one of the most powerful families in Northern Italy. `Leonora, are you happy in this match? Is Signor Visconti-Manin truly the choice of your heart?Your head is not turned by his riches? I know his gold must be tempting to one orphaned such as yourself ...'