The Apothecary's Shop

by Roberto Tiraboschi

  Like a swimmer emerging from the abyss, little Luca’s body came into contact with the air. It almost looked as though a final breath was exhaled through his mouth: a soul that was finding its freedom. Then, slowly, the skin began to fall apart, the hair became dull, the internal organs shriveled, and in a few instants, the mummy turned to dust, a heap of dust, fine and impalpable, that smelled of myrrh.

  Shining like a statue of salt, turned to stone for all eternity.

  Magdalena would have liked to remain like this forever, buried in her grief.

  Motionless, Edgardo and Abella couldn’t muster the strength to make sense of the events.

  Disengaging himself from astonishment and agitation, Tommaso shook himself. His face lit up and he turned to those present with a wild expression and exclaimed, “You saw him. He’s freed himself of his body. Now his spirit is ready to return to us.”

  It was his obsession; reason had given way to delirium.

  Abella bowed her head, defeated. Only Edgardo found the courage to speak. “Signore, Costanza was killed by your order,” he said, trying to bring him back to reality.

  Grimani resumed the measured tone of ancient nobility. “I did what was right.”

  “You killed my sister, and you will pay for that,” Magdalena murmured in fury.

  Tommaso Grimani looked at the witnesses, one by one. “And who will report me? You, Magdalena, my beloved wife, who have nobody but me in the world? Or you, Edgardo, my faithful friend with a dark past? Or perhaps you, Abella, illustrious physician in search of fame and glory? Who will listen to you? For what reason? A dress?”

  Edgardo interrupted him. “The body is no longer in the crypt.”

  “Purloined by one of the many body-snatchers,” Tommaso said, confident. “To feed a blooming trade in mummies. The culprit has already paid with his life for this terrible commerce.”

  Abella couldn’t contain her contempt. “And you would let Alvise die innocent?”

  “Young Alvise?” Tommaso said. “No, we don’t want to sacrifice another innocent. After all, we have a perpetrator and the missing body will bring further arguments in favor of the boy’s innocence. I’m sure they will listen to my request for grace. Have trust in God, Alvise will be saved.”

  “If we hadn’t unmasked you, you would have sent him to his death,” Abella hissed.

  Tommaso did not reply, accepting that theory as a trick of fate.

  In the universe ruled by the noble Tommaso Grimani, every celestial body had found its position. Order had been restored, and nobody would dare upset it.

  Edgardo and Abella turned to Magdalena, waiting for her reaction, but it didn’t come.

  “Don’t be sad,” Tommaso said to them, “but rejoice. We’ve used death to make life triumph. Death has been defeated.”

  XXXV.

  THE FEAST OF THE MARYS

  The April calends brought to the lagoon a gentle breeze that swept away miasmas, mud, epidemics, and the leftovers of the starvation that had afflicted the people all winter.

  Our merciful Lord had bestowed new harmony upon the city, which presaged wealthy, peaceful times.

  Venetia would soon have a new Doge. The Great Council had reached an agreement, and would choose between two noblemen of proven honesty and morals, God-fearing and brave condottieri: Tommaso Grimani and Domenico Michiel*.

  Life had resumed its natural rhythm: Sabbatai continued to sell potions in his shop; Tataro was increasingly ill and had left the foundry; Alvise, having been pardoned, had returned to the service of Ca’ Grimani; Nena, devotedly grateful, served her mistress Magdalena, who had shut herself away in her rooms. Magister Abella practised her art with success.

  Edgardo had left Ca’ Grimani and found hospitality with the Alexandrian merchant.

  In the clear air of a dawn that gave the waters an indigo hue, Venetia vibrated with lively activities, enveloped in a new hope.

  Just a few nights were enough for the story of poor Costanza to be forgotten.

  Edgardo and Kallis lived together, overwhelmed by a passion that fed on the fantasies of love they’d dreamed for too many years. In the eyes of strangers, they seemed to be leading a dull, insignificant life.

  Ibrahim continued his trade in glass with Alexandria. Edgardo had been hired as a scribe to help Lippomano transcribe the accounts.

  The burden of what had happened kept him awake at night, and his only relief was to feel Kallis’s light breathing next to him.

  He wondered if he and Abella had been cowardly or compassionate toward Magdalena, who had accepted living in the shadows, next to a man guilty of her sister’s death.

  This time, his instinct had led him to the truth. He’d saved the life of an innocent, but hadn’t had the strength to do his duty all the way. And all the others had been his accomplices, nobody was without sin.

  He avoided talking with Kallis about the past, and she asked no questions about the present. They lived intensely, burning these days that Edgardo felt could end as if by magic. Never was the word tomorrow uttered, and whenever Edgardo would indulge in plans, however vague, about their joint lives being lived in broad daylight, Kallis would smile and narrow her eyes, as though studying him to assess the consistency of his soul, the real weight of the love he had for her.

  In that state, Edgardo felt breathless, as though his life was running along a steep, uncertain slope, constantly falling from one condition to another, without ever finding a firm landing, calm waters where he could stop and rest forever.

  One morning that was ablaze with the glow that spring had placed on the waters of the lagoon, Kallis, protected by her mask and long dark tunic, asked Edgardo to accompany her to an event.

  The scaula left behind galleys and dromons anchored in the bay outside San Marco, and took the direction of the islands in the north.

  “Where are we going?” Edgardo asked.

  “Follow the canal to Torcellus,” Kallis replied without any other explanation.

  They went beyond Amurianum, along Majurbium and Burianum, around Torcellus, and between Costanciacum and Aymanas, until they arrived within sight of an abandoned island, covered only in ruins.

  That’s when Edgardo remembered. Once before, in the past, Kallis had taken him there. The monastery of San Lorenzo had once been there, and it was where her mother was buried.

  When they reached the shore, he realized with a sense of deep sadness how the power of the waters had transformed this place of prayer: abandonment and desolation were everywhere. Privet bushes, cordgrass, and brambles had invaded the inside of the church, reduced to a heap of debris. The slabs of marble that still covered the floor ten years earlier had been stolen, and the frescoed walls had collapsed. Only the broken altar still stood, alone, encrusted with algae, guarding the wooden statue of Christ bleached by salt.

  “My shelter has also collapsed.” Kallis indicated the tower where she sometimes liked to find a little peace in the past. The top of the bell tower had been reduced to a broken stump.

  They walked around the ruins as far as the internal cloisters, where poplars stood out against the sky.

  “Mind the snakes,” Kallis warned him.

  Edgardo smiled. “You also said this the first time you brought me here.”

  They reached the field behind the church. There was no more sign of the uprooted headstones. Kallis searched through the grass, dug, scraped. There was no trace of her mother’s grave. So she kneeled and recited a prayer. When she stood up, her eyes were filled with tears.

  She took Edgardo by the hand and led him to the broken altar, under the statue of Our Lord. “Do you remember when I took you to Santa Maria Formosa to watch the celebrations of the Feast of the Marys?”

  “Nothing has vanished from my memory about those days.”

  “When I saw the twelve brides go into the church, I told you that when
I was little and I was sad, to comfort me, my mother would tell me the story of the marriage, and say that someday I too would marry. I never believed this dream could come true.” Emotion was filling her chest. “Perhaps the time has come now.”

  She tore off her mask. Her amber face was radiant, the scars seemed to have disappeared, and her skin glowed in the morning light.

  With meticulous care, she slipped off her large tunic and revealed a white dress, embossed with roses, decorated with gold, pearls, and diamonds. She smelled of frankincense.

  “Can a knight marry a simple slave?” she asked in a thin voice.

  Edgardo, forgetting that knights don’t cry, abandoned himself to uncontrollable weeping, shaken by a joy he’d never known before.

  Kallis, his bride . . . He’d had to wait over ten years since he’d first asked her to be his wife, and now the dream was coming true.

  He took her hand. “A wretched knight is the man who falls at your feet, swears to you eternal faith, and is honored to take your hand.”

  “Now I really am one of the Marys,” Kallis said in a childlike tone.

  They kneeled before the altar, amid brambles and bushes. They had no celebrant, and their only witnesses were snakes.

  Edgardo took Kallis’s hand and raised it toward the cross. “I accept you in such a way that you become my wife and I your husband.”

  “I accept you in such a way that you become my husband and I your wife.”

  They had no rings. Edgardo tore off a blade of cordgrass, rolled it up, and put it on Kallis’s ring finger. She did the same.

  It was then that, like a rustle of wind in the reeds, they thought they heard a voice coming from the sky, “And thus I mean for these two to be married.”

  Is it man’s destiny that happiness not last longer than a night, and that a diseased thought always creep into the mind and dig and fester, like a cruel demon?

  Why had Kallis, by using that word, “knight,” reminded Edgardo of a past he hoped was buried?

  What kind of knight was someone who had never respected any of the fundamental guidelines of his position: honor, rectitude, sincerity?

  His soul was pierced by many wounds. The deepest one, the one that prevented him from fully enjoying his supreme earned joy, was the thought of his cowardice, that he hadn’t found the courage to report Tommaso to the law.

  When he couldn’t sleep, he would tell himself the fairytale about respecting Magdalena’s wishes, and the terrible responsibility of destroying a family. But were those really the Signora’s wishes, or was she also roaming in search of a courage she wasn’t able to find?

  What was the right choice for a knight? The answer was obvious.

  He asked Kallis’s advice.

  “You must follow your conscience. But be aware that if you take the path of honesty and purity, you must go all the way. If you report Grimani because he’s guilty, you must also report me. We have both gravely sinned.”

  Kallis could be so ruthless, so terrible in her simplicity.

  She’d placed him at a crossroads: did pursuing truth mean sacrificing their love?

  After a night spent roaming down streams and calli, getting lost in thick beds of reeds on the outskirts of the city, at the first light of dawn, he took a scaula, went to see Abella in Torcellus, and told her of his intentions.

  He was relieved to hear that the Magister too lived torn by the same torments. So taking a decision wasn’t hard.

  They went to make a report to the magistrate and were surprised to be admitted immediately.

  Perhaps this was owing to the procedures surrounding the appointment of the new doge.

  In secret, given the noble origins of the accused, a detailed investigation was conducted and various witnesses heard.

  The evidence of the young nun from San Zaccaria was crucial, as she confessed her part in the abduction of Costanza and the purloining of her body: the abduction had been staged in every detail, and would have been successful even if Edgardo hadn’t been distracted. The confession of Tommaso’s associate, Romano Marzolo, who admitted to the traffic in mummies that had long been conducted with Alexandria, also carried considerable weight.

  Tommaso Grimani, nobleman, was found guilty of young Costanza’s death, but not being the physical perpetrator of the crime, was sentenced to exile, under pain of beheading should he ever return to the city of San Marco.

  His wife Magdalena was never called as a witness.

  The church bells began to ring Prime in every district: the city was celebrating.

  The new doge had been elected: the most illustrious and magnificent Domenico Michiel, a brave fighter and an honest man.

  Magister Abella walked into Ca’ Grimani, accompanied by the pealing that fueled the hopes of the people of Venice. She was very surprised when Magdalena had called for her. After that terrible day, she’d had no occasion to see her.

  “I want you to examine me.” Those were the only few words the Signora uttered.

  Magdalena had very much altered. Her body had expelled the unnatural swelling and her flesh had recovered its natural glow. Her luminous face wore no ceruse, and her eyes were sparkling with life.

  Abella asked for her urine. She observed it, studied it, checked its transparency, and sampled its flavor. Then she got Magdalena to lie down, felt her pulse, her belly, and conducted an in-depth investigation, with meticulous care, of the os matricis, the collum, and as far as the vasa seminalia.

  “There isn’t the shadow of a doubt,” she concluded, “a new life is taking shape in your womb.”

  Magdalena remained impassive. No word came out of her mouth. Just a slight crease on her face that might evoke a grimace of horror.

  Regal, almost as though her husband’s authority and power had been transferred to her, Magdalena stood up. “I will call for you again,” she said.

  Abella bowed and, before she left, carefully studied the radiant aura emanating from the Signora, and couldn’t help thinking, “Now that she’s free of her husband’s presence, her soul has begun to live again. That’s why she couldn’t get pregnant, she didn’t want to, her body refused. Now that Tommaso is no longer with her, her womb is fertile once more.”

  The bells were still ringing when she left.

  Outside the Basilica and the Palace, the people were singing the praises of the new doge who would bring prosperity and prestige to the city.

  Edgardo had allowed himself to be dragged by the crowd, inebriated by this exceptional event. Around him, blended with the multitude, were all those who had been with him during those dark times: Abella in her blood-red tunic; Tataro, limping, supported by a servant; Sabbatai, who was sneaking reverently through the legs of the nobility; Ermanno d’Istria, who’d arrived from the abbey of San Giorgio; the innkeeper Teodora who struggled to drag around her flabby flesh; Alvise and Nena, finally carefree; and even the fat man and the man from Bergamo, half-drunk. Everybody was celebrating the new doge in front of the dock full of galleys, dromons, and chelandions.

  Only Ibrahim, the Alexandrian merchant, had refused to participate. It still wasn’t very prudent for him to be seen in public. Pushed around by the crowd, Edgardo suddenly found himself a few steps away from old Tataro. He felt his weasel eyes pricking his chest, a mocking, contemptuous grimace on his face. He raised his hands and with his fingers formed two circles in front of his eyes, like the eye circles, then added a gesture around his neck that left no doubt as to its meaning: the hanged man.

  At first, Edgardo did not understand, almost bewitched by that toothless smile. Then a dismal thought, an omen, flashed through his mind: Tataro had discovered the true identity of Ibrahim al-Fazari.

  He started running like a madman, pushing, kicking, until he’d reached the merchant’s palazzo.

  He was greeted by an unnatural silence as he walked through the vestibule.
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  He looked for Kallis in the salon, the garden, then went upstairs to the rooms on the main floor. They were deserted, in perfect order. In vain, he called her. Kallis had disappeared.

  In her room, on a lectern, next to the goose quill and the horn, he found a parchment. In uncertain but clear handwriting, Kallis had traced just a few words:

  “The day of absolution and peace hasn’t come yet. The path to the truth is long and winding. I leave you so that I can continue seeing my reflection in your face. Wait for me. Your wife.”

  Alvise Grandis

  The Venice Lagoon, ancient and modern, newly outlined and distinct with its Islands, Valleys and Canals in the present day, as well as, in comparison, the Lagoon as it was at the time Venice was founded, with both the old and new names.

  Paolino da Venezia’s map (1346), reproduced by Temanza (detail)

  GLOSSARY

  Arengo: General assembly of free men, citizens, and patricians, responsible for electing the Doge.

  Abulcasis: Living in Cordoba at the turn of the 11th century, he was the most important representative of Hispanic-Arabic medicine in Islamic Spain.

  Brolo: (vegetable patch) was the name given to Piazza San Marco in those days because it was covered in grass and trees.

  Ca’: Short for “Casa” (house). In Venetian, it stands before the name of a house.

  Calle: Venetian word for a narrow street.

  Campo: Venetian word for a city square, which in the early days often had vegetation growing in it.

  Circassia: Region in the Western Caucasus, extending as far as the Black Sea, currently part of Georgia.

  Consiglio dei Primates: Group of laymen representing the Church and noblemen assisting the Doge in his decisions and in applying the law.

  Dogado: Ancient Dukedom of Venice, which included the city and the lagoons.