At that point, Edgardo impulsively decided not to let go of his prey and leaped beyond the table, intent on stopping him. In response, Lippomano grabbed him by the habit, trying to hold onto the scribe.
“You must answer my questions!” Edgardo cried, and with a tug, he disengaged himself from Lippomano’s grip and ran after him.
The garden swallowed them in its greenery.
Ibrahim’s black caftan appeared and disappeared amid bushes and vines, blending in with the shadow of the enormous fleshy leaves.
For a second, Edgardo glimpsed him on the staircase leading to the upper loggia. He disentangled himself from the vegetation with a leap and went up to the second floor. There was a series of doors opening onto the long corridor. He was about to throw one of them open when he was stopped by a loud crash. It came from the garden. He rushed to the parapet in time to see the caftan vanish through the arch leading to the steps.
He went back down into the garden, then ran to the platform that connected to the canal.
In the sparkling air, cleansed by a light northerly breeze, a scaula was struggling to slice through the surface of the lagoon.
At the stern, the merchant was maneuvering the oar with smooth, precise movements. The wind swelled the caftan, turning it into a black shadow.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Edgardo jumped into a gondola and reached open water.
Not without difficulty, they reached the bay outside San Marco.
The scaula had taken the direction of the open lagoon, slicing through the dark leaves. Edgardo was forcing the oar, determined to catch up, but the distance between them never seemed to decrease.
The farther he went, the more he felt as though that man would drag him to the edge of the known sea, into an abyss that would swallow him forever.
They went past the compact shores of Dorsoduro. The signs of human presence were diminishing. Edgardo started feeling tired and his body grew heavy, while the merchant’s energy seemed inexhaustible: the arm movements, the leaning of the torso, like a perfect dance.
For a moment, a distant memory numbed his mind, then he was overcome with fatigue.
The gondola slowed down, collided with a trunk, and stopped with a sinister rustle. He’d lost, once again.
The scribe looked up and was extremely surprised to realize that the merchant’s boat was also slowing down.
Like a knight who raises his lance before the start of a tournament, the merchant raised his oar to the sky.
If this was a challenge, then, Edgardo thought, this was the opportunity for him to redeem himself. Free from the weight of monstrosity, he felt like a new man, reborn, the knight his father had always dreamed of having for a son.
He mustered his strength and spurred the gondola on, standing straight at the stern, going to face the enemy.
The merchant was waiting for him, motionless, his face shining with serpent scales.
They studied each other for an moment. The two boats were turning in front of each other.
Edgardo crossed himself, not knowing why, perhaps a memory of his past life.
And, almost as a signal, a gust of wind pushed his gondola against the scaula.
Edgardo raised the oar, as though it were a spear. “Confess!” he cried, full of anger.
The merchant’s oar, pointing up at the sky, did not move.
“Confess!” he repeated.
It was an instant. “Yes, I confess.” The merchant’s voice hovered in the air. And everything blended and blurred. The wind slid over the lagoon, the sky turned ruby, and a wave of heat came over his chest.
He abandoned his oar, exhausted. He felt the merchant’s eyes, under the mask, piercing through him. He thought his heart would burst.
That voice, the unmistakable sound of that voice he could never forget . . . It was not a man’s voice.
XXVIII.
THE RETURN
A sudden current pushed the scaula away. The merchant remained motionless at the stern, his robe swollen like a sail in the storm.
Edgardo was stunned, unable to move, clinging to that voice he’d never forgotten: a sharp, vibrant sound, a breath of wind through the rushes.
Could he really believe it was . . . or was it just an illusion, the ghost of a memory, desire toying with his imagination?
He clutched the oar and, with two strokes, brought the gondola back into position. Now scaula and gondola were bobbing next to each other, gently tapping each other.
“I am guilty and you know that perfectly well,” the voice said again.
Edgardo couldn’t restrain himself. He leaped onto the scaula. The two bodies were now a step away from each other. In the air, as well as myrrh and frankincense, there was an ancient scent of amber.
“God almighty, don’t let this be the hallucination of a sick man, slave to opium,” he prayed. Then he addressed the merchant. “Signore, I fear my mind is upset by delirium: I’m hearing lost voices, seeing ghosts floating in the water. My desire is so overwhelming that it is giving substance to my memories. My soul is very confused, so I beg you, make yourself known, reveal your identity.”
He thought he saw a smile crease the serpent skin. Without a word, the merchant took off the caftan, revealing a slender body covered with a tortoise-shell-colored tunic.
“A thread of wool, delicate and sinuous, made by the hands of a Mongolian weaver,” Edgardo murmured. A strong sense of burning was ravaging his chest. “I beg you, take off your mask too.”
The merchant bowed his head, hesitant.
“Your steward said your face is disfigured by smallpox,” Edgardo insisted. “He also stated that you couldn’t utter a word, and yet that’s not the case . . . I therefore beg you.”
A long sigh full of sorrow and desolation, then the hand rose and, with a determined gesture, the merchant tore the serpent skin from his face.
Not even a poet, a magician, and a madman put together could have described what Edgardo felt the moment he recognized that face: dismay, bliss, the miracle of resurrection, a dream incarnate, a ghost acquiring its body anew, the revelation of a mystery, and, at the same time, fear, revulsion, God’s punishment. Everything got mixed up in a vortex.
Dark eyes slit like a blade, obsidian hair, amber skin, the face of a Mongolian slave ravaged by the disease that had left deep furrows and lines of damaged skin.
It was her, the woman he’d loved, dreamed of, waited for, pursued during all those nights. “My God, Kallis . . . ” he murmured.
“I have returned.”
She came closer. He felt her chest heaving. He was about to embrace her but she pulled away, lowering her face.
“As you see, Lippomano wasn’t lying. The mask conceals a monstrous face. Keep away.”
Edgardo violently brought her close to him, hugging her, kissing her ravaged face, her cracked lips, caressing her hair. “Don’t ask me that, you who have loved a twisted, crooked being when you were the most beautiful creature in the universe. Do you really think that the love I feel for you can be undermined by the weakness of the flesh? I thank God for bringing you back to me. I saw you vanish amid the waves, I thought you were lost forever, and yet you’re here, you’ve returned from the realm of the dead.”
“I’ve dreamed of this moment so many times.” Kallis spoke in a thin voice. “I wanted to see you sooner, but I didn’t have the courage after soiling myself with all those sins . . . I am evil, Edgardo, don’t forget that.”
He hugged her tighter, again and again, almost suffocating her. “If this is evil, then God has chosen to make fun of us. For over ten years I’ve hoped you would rise from the waters that swallowed you, and prayed for a miracle . . . God has answered my prayer, and God wants no harm for His children.”
Kallis pulled away and looked down at his chest. “It’s gone.” She stroked his tunic. “How is this possible?
”
“An illustrious physician called Abella has freed me from the horrible excrescence.”
Kallis touched the scars on her face. “God’s ways are unfathomable. Those without faith struggle to accept the wounds inflicted by life. Our bond seems to be indissolubly linked to deformity.”
The boats had started to drift.
“We must go back now,” Kallis said. “And find an explanation so as not to arouse suspicion.”
Still confused, Edgardo brought his gondola closer, and tied it to the prow with a rope, then stood at the stern of the scaula and began to navigate. Kallis was looking at him, moved. “You’ve become a good sailor. Remember? When we first met, you were surprised by how I could sail a boat.”
Edgardo couldn’t get enough of drinking in Kallis’s face. “Do you remember this place?” he asked.
“You asked for my hand here?”
“And you didn’t reply.”
Kallis closed her eyes. “It all belongs to our past lives.”
Suddenly, Edgardo put down the oar, came close to her, and embraced her. “I’m bursting with happiness . . . you’re here, you’re alive, you’ve returned forever. Nobody can ever pull our destinies apart.”
He brushed his mouth against hers. Her lips still tasted of almond, like they used to. “But tell me, how did you save yourself from that terrible storm, all those years ago? What happened?”
“When I fled from the shore of the Luprio salt pan, I found myself surrounded by the scariest tempest ever known on the Venetian seas,” Kallis began. “My scaula capsized not far from Metamauco. I was almost submerged by the waves, but I managed to cling to a plank and, with great difficulty, managed to go back to my island.
“There was devastation everywhere, waves as tall as towers came crashing on the harbor, the bishop’s palace had been razed to the ground, boats were stacked up on top of one another like firewood, galleys folded, with sails tossed by the waves, the fishermen’s huts nothing but a heap of beams. There were fires burning everywhere. It was as though long tongues of fire were coming out of the earth, burning everything.
“I walked through ruins and desolation on a soft, hot soil that gave at every step. Everything seemed to be sinking into an abyss. The inhabitants of Metamauco were running, terrified, trying in vain to stem the power of the wind and the waters that were simmering as if in the mouth of a volcano.
“I managed to reach our hut. I found nothing left, not even the goat. Everything had been swept away by the violence of the waters. There was only a little box stranded on the beach, which contained just a few things.” Kallis looked at him with great tenderness. “The goose quill and the horn you’d given me.”
“So I wasn’t wrong . . . It was the same horn Lippomano brought to sign the contract.”
“It’s been with me through all my tribulations.”
“So in the end you learned to write,” Edgardo exclaimed.
“I had a great teacher who initiated me into the art.”
“And the pupil was stubborn.”
“I knew,” Kallis continued, “that after the sins I’d soiled myself with I was marked forever and had to leave Venice as soon as possible. For two nights, I hid amid the ruins of the huts. Then I heard that a Paduan merchant was organizing a journey to the Orient, to Alexandria. I went on board as a slave.
“It was a long, dangerous crossing. We were attacked by Narentine pirates, struck by two tempests but, in the end, with God’s help, we disembarked at Alexandria.
“I was alone, I didn’t know anyone, I had nothing except my arms and . . . ” Kallis paused, as though uttering that word caused her enormous pain. “And a formula, the formula for pure glass, crystalline glass, that Segrado had discovered.”
At these words, a deep sadness overcame their hearts and Kallis’s eyes filled with tears.
She let the swish of the waves against the keel sweep away the weight of their memories, then continued.
“Nobody in Alexandria knew the art of glass-making as I did. I offered my services as a servant in a foundry and, even though I was a woman, after putting me to the test, they hired me immediately. And so began my apprenticeship, and my new life. After three winters, I managed to have my very own foundry . . . only then did I decide to try experimenting with the crystalline glass formula. It was an unexpected, overwhelming success. I began to manufacture every piece out of transparent glass: cups, phials, vases, bottles—”
“Even eye circles?” Edgardo interrupted.
“No, never eye circles . . . I didn’t feel worthy enough.” She looked at him. “Do you still have them?”
Edgardo took out the case from his tunic. “Here they are, I’m never without them, they’re my salvation. And so . . . carry on.”
“My products were in demand everywhere. Merchants sold my glass pieces to Mamluks, Persians, Armenians, and even Mongols. I started two new foundries, and became wealthy and respected. Everybody forgot I was a woman and formerly a slave.”
Edgardo rowed, unable to take his eyes away from her, full of loving admiration.
“Not a day went by when my thoughts didn’t return to Venice . . . and you. I knew nothing of your fate. I gave a steward the task of buying me a palazzo in the city, and so every so often I started coming back, incognito, as an Alexandrian merchant called Ibrahim al-Fazari.”
“So that explains why I found the glass pieces in your storeroom,” Edgardo said.
Kallis was surprised. “Did you sneak into my palazzo?”
“I had to. I thought you were—I mean the Alexandrian merchant—was involved in the disappearance of two young people and in Costanza’s death.” He paused. “You have nothing to do with the abduction of these young people, have you?”
Kallis looked toward the Lido of Spinalunga. “That’s not entirely true.”
Edgardo shuddered.
“When I returned to Venice, my first concern was to redeem myself from the harm I’d done. I immediately tracked down Niccolò’s family, remember Niccolò, Segrado’s servant?”
Of course. Edgardo still had before his eyes the ghastly details of that day.
“Well, I tracked down his younger brother, who was still a child then. He’d become a talented garzone at Tataro’s foundry, his name was Giacomo.”
“So you met him?”
“No, I never met him in person. Lippomano took care of everything. He managed to see him with the excuse of an order of glass, and made him a proposition on my behalf: I would hire him as an assistant at double the pay. However, the agreement had to remain a secret, and nobody could know about the position. He agreed. He is now working, very content, in one of my foundries in Alexandria.”
“That’s why he vanished into thin air.”
Kallis nodded. “But that wasn’t enough. I decided to buy Segrado’s old foundry. I didn’t want it to remain in Tataro’s unworthy hands. I want to make it active again, and give it as a gift to Giacomo, when he becomes a skillful master. I’m also looking for poor Balbo’s family.”
“You’re repaying all your debts.”
“I was blinded by hatred. “ Kallis sighed. “I’m looking for a glimmer of light, even though it’s not easy to forgive completely.”
“What about Costanza? Do you know anything about her? She was found near your palazzo.”
“I know nothing about this girl. Did you say she was killed?”
“I have reason to believe that they wanted to turn her into a mummy, even though I don’t understand why. An innocent man is about to be executed for her murder.”
They were approaching the city. As though a deep sense of shame prevented her from showing herself in public, Kallis hid her face under the hood of her tunic. “Too many innocents pay unjustly for the folly of men.” These words concealed the torment that was tearing her to pieces.
At that moment,
as the scaula was went past the far strip of Spinalunga and came into view of the bay of San Marco, Edgardo grew self-aware.
He’d thrown himself blindly, certain he’d solve the riddle of Costanza’s death by following the tracks of the Alexandrian merchant, and now he had to start his search from the beginning. Had his intuition tricked him again?
His instinct, the visions overwhelming him, his strange deductions, were worthy of the ravings of someone who entrusts his body to opium as its only food.
He looked up at Kallis. She was there before him, resplendent, and he realized that his intuition hadn’t tricked him at all, on the contrary, it had led him safely to his coveted aim: that of finding Kallis. That had been his first task. His heart, without his knowledge, had guided him to the light.
Now he had to immerse himself in the darkness again, in order to save Alvise.
Advancing with difficulty through the grassy lagoon, the boat had reached the entrance to the canal of San Zaccaria. A few more instants, and they would arrive at the palazzo. Kallis covered her face with her mask.
“Nobody must know I’ve returned,” she said. “It’s not time yet. It could be dangerous.”
“I’ll say that we’ve explained everything to each other. That you provided evidence that you have nothing to do with these events. And that I was wrong.” Edgardo smiled. “They’ll believe me. They’re used to it.”
“Beware of Tataro. He’s very cunning.”
“When can we see each other again?”
“We’re safe in the palazzo. Lippomano and my servant can be trusted.”
“The thought of leaving you throws me into despair. I fear something might happen that will separate us once more.”
Kallis squeezed his hand. They were already going down the canal, and, in the distance they could see, cold and imposing, the palazzo of the merchant Ibrahim al-Fazari.
XXIX.
THE NEST
Edgardo’s immense joy at Kallis’s return from the underworld had generated a sense of omnipotence in him. Two miracles in just a few hours: freedom from the horrible excrescence and Kallis’s resurrection. He was convinced he’d now be able to succeed in every venture, including the impossible one of saving Alvise.
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