Venetian Blood

by Christine Evelyn Volker

  Anna searched his face. “How could that be? Maybe I’m not being clear.”

  “Cara Signora Lottol,” Alessandro shook his head, “I am cento per cento certain. I have passed there many times. You see, Venice is small, and I have lived here tutta la mia vita, my entire life, and invested billions of lire in real estate.” He glanced at Pablo. “So I make it a point to know these things. Surely you are exhausted from your voyage, and in the dark, things can get confused. Perhaps you speak of another building.

  “Do not forget the cats,” he added, shaking his finger at her. “Piccoli relatives of the proud lion of St. Mark on our flag. They dominate the city. They sleep by day. They moan in the moonlight, mating. Listening at night, one may think of babies crying. I have thought the same myself.”

  Anna stifled a sigh. She knew what she had seen and heard. “I can’t understand why they haven’t torn it down then.”

  Alessandro erupted into laughter. “Ah, what an American way of thinking! In Venice, our dwellings are very old. Our city was born more than one thousand years before your America was even discovered, by an Italian. What gives a city its character, after all? Insomma, its people, yes, but also what they choose to create: art, architecture—things you can see. We restore our buildings. We can make changes on the inside, but their heights, their outward dimensions and details are protected. They are our heritage forever—or at least until the hand of God takes them from us.”

  “I see,” said Anna.

  “We wish to keep the harmony we have achieved during many centuries of history. We do not want your McDonald’s on the Grand Canal,” he snorted.

  “To old Venetian buildings,” Margo said, proposing a toast. As she raised her glass, the sleeve of her blue linen shirt fell back, revealing a scar the size of two silver dollars. Its swirling patterns resembled a mocha-colored face of the moon.

  That was a narrow escape, Anna thought, as everyone joined in. Countless tangy bubbles burst on Anna’s tongue and the roof of her mouth, unleashing a stream of pleasure as she closed her eyes, escaping a moment, feeling a warm breeze. Her reverie was broken by flashes of her time in Milan with Sergio, all ending with his red-stained head. She gulped her drink and pushed the vision from her mind.

  “Last week, Sergio Corrin asked me to join him in saving Palazzo Tron on the Grand Canal,” Alessandro told the group. “We start from the bottom, by replacing thousands of ancient piles sunk in the mud to hold up the ancient walls. Before the cold weather comes, we need to accomplish this foundation work. Then we tackle the floors and the plaster inside. Once we finish, the palazzo will look better than it did originally.”

  Anna almost choked. Alessandro and Sergio, business partners. She wondered how close they had been and if Sergio had ever said anything about her. Or worse, if he had passed her pictures around in a fit of boasting. Judging from the count’s demeanor, that seemed doubtful, unless he was a great actor and had a surprise planned for her in the library. As Margo shot her a knowing look, Anna scrutinized the others. Nobody seemed to have noticed her reaction. Did someone here hate Sergio enough to want him dead? Among the nods at the table, only Pablo was frowning.

  “The man does have fine taste in art. I’ve been buyin’ pieces from him for my gallery in Dallas for years,” said Angela, pushing her bangs off her forehead. “Isn’t that palazzo a few doors up from San Stae? The one sporting a Palladian portal and an extended cornice?”

  “Why, yes,” Alessandro said.

  “You sound like a local professor,” Margo said. “How’d you know that?”

  “Well, the doctor told me I’d better walk, and I’ve been exploring four of the six sestieri, as they call ’em. I take my map and make notes, remembering my art history courses. Texas isn’t filled with hicks, Margo.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Margo said, as Gaetano began serving the colorful antipasti. “Now that our first course is arriving, it’s time to talk about food, one of my favorite topics.”

  “For lack of more interestin’ pursuits,” her cousin teased.

  “Isn’t it marvelous how such simple ingredients—tomato, mozzarella cheese, a lovely leaf of basil, and a dab of olive oil—can combine in such a savory way? Italian tomatoes are seized at the moment of perfection, gushing in little explosions when you bite them. American tomatoes taste as if they were ripened on their way to the grocery store.”

  “You should be food editor at the Chronicle instead of girl reporter,” Angela said.

  “The Italian tomatoes are a lot like their men,” Yolanda said. “Many years ago, before my Pablo, an old boyfriend, Gennaro, and I were sunning ourselves in the back of his boat.” She took a slow drag from a cigarette and exhaled. “I had brought a dozen cherry tomatoes with me. We had just gone, how you say, swimming with no clothes, yes, skinny-dipping, off L’Isola degli Armeni, where the monastery is. I took one of the tomatoes in my mouth and gently turned Gennaro over. He—”

  “Por favor, mujer. Nunca debes repetir esta historia,” Pablo snapped, turning his head abruptly, a ray of sun accentuating a jagged scar on his jaw.

  “Jesucristo, there is such a thing as controlling yourself too much.” Yolanda finished the rest of her drink and crossed her arms.

  Alessandro cleared his throat and said, “Basta with the Bellini. Più prosecco, Gaetano.”

  Limping toward them, Gaetano poured the bubbling prosecco from a carafe of opalescent glass, handmade in Murano, Anna was sure. The diffuse points of sparkling light reminded Anna of distant suns enmeshed in the milky cloud of a nebula, not unlike M8, the Lagoon Nebula in the Constellation Sagittarius—her first. Lying low on the horizon, ten parsecs in diameter, blue stars forming among reddish gases. When she had first glimpsed it through a telescope, she had been awestruck by its beauty. Wondrous new worlds were being born in its midst.

  Turning to Anna, Pablo asked, “You have a science background, Margo tells me.”

  “Math undergrad and master’s degree in astrophysics.”

  “Now working at?” he asked.

  She thought about how to describe her current job without getting into sticky details. “I work with financial transactions and modeling.”

  Her job in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a secretive unit of the US Treasury Department, involved creating algorithms to catch money launderers. The specifics were beyond the ken of most people and her comfort level with this group.

  In the rarified world of financial intelligence, a background in math and science was coveted. Mathematical prowess plus scientific precision built models that could capture questionable transactions slithering through the US financial system. Once Anna’s division identified a likely launderer, another unit would take over, deepening the investigation, gathering facts, and uncovering the underlying crimes before American agents risked their lives pursuing cartels and kingpins. In her second year at Treasury, Anna had been awarded a certificate of appreciation from the assistant director for preventing the transfer of fifty million dollars to a Grand Cayman account of José Proserpina, a Colombian drug lord and private banking client of Bank Lillobrandt.

  “Margo told me you catch drug dealers by following their dirty money,” Angela said. “Do you carry a gun?”

  Frowning, Anna looked at Margo. Telling Angela anything about her work was a terrible lapse in judgment, particularly when she knew that Sergio had threatened Anna’s job. Anna had distinctly sought to avoid what Margo had now stirred up with her irrepressible need to blab. Sergio had partners in crime someplace; she just hoped they weren’t sitting around this table.

  “Oh, no—far from it,” Anna said. “I work in a cubicle with computers all day long. We screen data. I’m sure all of you would find it extremely boring.”

  “I know I would,” Yolanda said. “I need the green places, and I also like to think that life can’t be modeled. Who would have predicted that two Peruvians like Pablo and me would be sitting here now?”

  Gaetano returned with steam
ing risotto piled onto porcelain plates edged by crimson crests, a delectable fragrance rising from the saffron cloud.

  “Pablo, how did you decide to enter government service?” Anna asked, burying her fork in the creamy rice.

  “My medical training in Italy prepared me to deal with the ills of my country,” Pablo replied, “but only up to a point. Peru is a poor nation, with mineral wealth, but without great fortunes. My old profession is part art. Often I was frustrated but only able to do so much.” He grimly set his jaw.

  “I am happier with Consul Pablo than Dr. Pablo,” Yolanda said, beaming at her husband. “Maybe next year, Roma. I would like that. Villa Borghese, the Lazio countryside, the Sibillini.”

  Angela leaned forward and angled her youthful, heart-shaped face toward Pablo. “This is very far from Peru, though. Why did you come here so long ago?”

  Pablo fingered his sparse black goatee. “I am a student of history. As a boy, I read that before kidnapping and killing Atahualpa, the Spanish had hoped to seduce him with beautiful gifts and steal his empire in that way. They presented him with a set of Venetian goblets. As a young man, I wanted to visit the place where such marvels were made. I ended up studying at Padua to obtain my medical degree.

  “Oddly, the longer I stayed here, the more I recognized connections with my homeland. For me, the Aymara standing while rowing their boats of totora reeds on Lake Titicaca, the birthplace of the Incas, could be the gondoliers of Venice. Coricancha, the Inca palace once covered in gold, the tears of the sun, could be the Ca’ d’Oro on the Grand Canal. And our jaguar god could be the Lion of St. Mark. So,” he concluded dreamily, “ya ves—you see, I had to come here.”

  Pablo glanced at Angela’s polka-dot tent dress. “Is it long before your baby is due?”

  “Sixty more days. I wanted to visit now, since it’ll be a long time before I come back.”

  Sixty days, Anna thought. That’s how old mine was when it died. Our second try. A tiny sweater still hung in the back of Anna’s closet, forgotten by all except her and the moths. Sometimes she pulled it out, inspecting it before burying it again. She took a few more swallows of her drink.

  “No one besides Michael back home knows, but I don’t mind tellin’ y’all.” Angela’s ivory cheeks blossomed into pink. “It’s a girl.”

  “A baby girl, how wonderful,” Alessandro said. “Why not stay? Ask your husband to come over and have the baby born in Venice.”

  This man lives in a bubble, Anna thought.

  “You were here two years ago for Carnival, then early this year for your work when the baby was maybe just a spark in your imagination,” he went on. “Too much time has passed since I heard a child’s laughter in my home.” He reached over and squeezed Pablo’s hand. “Pablo will deliver the baby. And Gaetano will make her beautiful wooden toys.”

  Pablo gagged on his wine. “Alessandro, I am a little out of practice.”

  “Nonsense, it is like bicycle riding, and lovemaking. I am sure—one of those things you do not forget.”

  Anna certainly could never forget. A child. Or rather, not having a child. How could that void dominate her so? She found herself unwittingly staring at babies, feeling an unwelcome jolt if she passed a store for expectant mothers, condemned always to look in from the outside. Would she never feel the sublime fullness of pregnancy nor the miracle of birth? Try as she might, she could neither expunge nor bury the pain; it was nowhere and everywhere, biding its time, stalking its prey. Just a single brief thought or image would reignite it like an ember hiding under cool ashes, erupting into flame and searing her all over again. The march of time had no balming effect, for time itself was the enemy.

  “Pablo is still quite skilled,” Yolanda said, flicking her cigarette into an ashtray. “It is no comparison, but recently he set the broken leg of one of our llamas back home. We have a herd of them, more than an hour outside Cusco, not far from the Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley. Each summer, I host a group of orphans from Cusco at our farm so they can explore nature and understand their heritage. Last year, the boys discovered two llamas had fallen in a ditch. Pablo wrapped one in a blanket and tended to its leg. Its twin was not so lucky. It was a hard lesson for the children. You know, many times he—”

  “No. Cállate,” Pablo said firmly.

  “I think Pablo was saying no to your offer, Alessandro,” Angela said.

  Examining Yolanda’s crestfallen face, Anna knew that Pablo was referring to something altogether different.

  Angela’s green orbs riveted on the horizon, her mobile mouth hinting at a wistful smile. “Alessandro, your offer to stay here is so kind, but it’d be foolish. For one thing, I hardly speak any Italian. I’m fixin’ to leave next week.”

  As they were finishing their risotto, they heard gondolier cries and songs from the water. Craning her neck, Anna glimpsed a flotilla heading up the rio. Despite daunting odds, the low-sitting gondolas, overloaded with Nikon-bedecked tourists, were making progress instead of sinking into the murky depths. Above them stood the gondoliers, ribboned hats set at a jaunty angle, pushing their oars against the water, overcoming her resistance.

  “Ah, the gondoliers!” Anna cried, happy for a change of subject. “What pleasant songs they sing. I’ve never been on a gondola. I’m dying to see the city that way. Maybe we can all go together.” Looking around the table, she encountered a sea of worried faces. Margo quickly swept her head right, then left, signaling a “no.”

  More romantic melodies drifted on the air, mocking the brooding tension on the terrace. Alessandro stared at his empty plate, then scowled. With one rapid blow, the exquisite Murano carafe flew onto the brick floor and shattered, the splattered prosecco advancing in a widening circle through the shimmering fragments, like a sinister, exploding star.

  Gaetano looked at his master dolefully, lifting his shoulders in a soft shrug.

  “What’s wrong?” Anna asked.

  “O, Madre di Dio, I am cursed,” Alessandro cried out. “I have been sentenced to hear their maddening voices a dozen times a day and even at night. They know I hate it. They are an eternal brotherhood. They sing louder when they come by. My late, beloved wife kept the windows closed, the curtains drawn, blocking their voices. You, the others will never understand.” He looked away, lost in thought, a shroud of melancholy enveloping him.

  When a group of gondoliers started a con brio chorus, Alessandro rose from the table.

  “I must go inside,” he said. “Gaetano, prendiamo la torta e il caffè nella biblioteca. That is, if it is all right with you, my guests, we have cake and coffee in the library.” He surveyed their faces with wild eyes, then threw down his white linen napkin and bolted through the door, Nero right behind him.

  Anna sat, shrunken.

  One by one, the others slipped from their seats in silence.

  In the Heart of the Faviers

  Monday, afternoon

  What could be better than sitting on your terrace with a million-dollar view of Venice, sipping wine with friends and listening to singing gondoliers?

  Anna deeply regretted hurting Count Favier. And yet, she resented feeling guilty. The question of whether rationality applied here gnawed at her. Alessandro’s anger about gondoliers made no sense. Her grandfather had warned her about this city’s inhabitants, such a temperamental lot, he had said, mercurial as the sea and just as dangerous. While Nonno had lived in New York for decades, he had worked for the Italian consulate and was always coming home with stories of his countrymen.

  Anna trailed the others as they descended a staircase curved like a snail, past expanses of Venetian plaster walls and nooks filled with classical sculptures or colorful amphorae. As she came through a burnished gate into the library, Pablo was patting the count’s shoulder while he cast a worried glance toward his guests. Nero sat at his master’s feet. Anna yearned to rest her eyes on something safe that would not stare back, or look at her with disapproval. Even the dog might be risky.

/>   Light filtering through the leaded-glass windows illuminated floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookcases with carved screens protecting the volumes. Anna assumed the collection extended beyond this cavernous chamber to a far cluster of rooms, rivaling the specialty libraries where she had often retreated on the Berkeley campus. Green mosaic snakes guarding tiny treasure chests of golden tesserae covered the floor. Tallying the repeating pattern to determine the room’s dimensions, Anna was halfway through her multiplications when Alessandro called them to enjoy the light cake Gaetano was serving with coffee. He sounded calmer now.

  “Buono, Alessandro,” Angela said with an acute American accent. “This cake’s finger-lickin’ good.” Her plump red lips pressed together.

  “Torta della nonna is simple to make,” Alessandro told her. “A little flour, a lot of ricotta, some lemon. I baked it myself.”

  “I’m impressed,” Yolanda said. “I always tell Pablo he needs to learn. There is nothing like a man who can cook.” She licked her fork with the swiftness of a lizard’s tongue.

  “Well, maybe a man who can work in wood,” Alessandro said. “Gaetano’s family has served the Faviers for many generations in this way. They are masters. Much of what you see here is made by their hands.” He pointed to the gilded ceiling, shaped like an inverted hull, arching above them. In the center hung a gigantic coat of arms: a crimson-and-gold divided sun, raining red drops into a blue sea.

  Anna wandered over to a nearby desk where a glass pen rested on some papers: “L’isolazione l’ha salvata.” She pondered the written words and translated to herself: “Isolation saved her.”

  “Alessandro, what are you writing?” Margo asked, peering over Anna’s shoulder.