Truth to Tell

by Mavis Cheek

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Had he been a Venetian he could also have asked for payment in that peculiarly Venetian way. Like the Merchant of Venice.’

  Brando, determined to gather enough breath to do a little pontificating himself, nodded and said, ‘Well, we’re heading off in the right direction for him.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘The Merchant of Venice. Shylock. We’re heading for the Jewish Ghetto. My dear girl – why do I employ you?’

  ‘Silly Brando. The Merchant didn’t live in the Ghetto. He wasn’t a Jew. That’s why you employ me.’

  Brando made a noise of exasperation, as if about to protest, when the Italian raised his hand most elegantly and said, very delicately, ‘It is a mistake very often made, Signor Brando, but the Merchant is actually Antonio. Not Shylock.’

  ‘Shylock is the moneylender,’ I said grandly. ‘Vital to the economy, yet despised for it. Like now, really. Only it’s bankers, not Jews.’

  Down went Brando’s chest and removing his friendly arm he hurried ahead. ‘Well, well,’ he said, puffing again. ‘Anyway – you did spawn Machiavelli and we’ve been copying him ever since.’

  The Italian laughed. ‘You can’t expect any politician to speak the truth. Italian, British, Russian, American. Where there’s power to be retained there’s a problem with truth. It’s like tennis,’ he said. ‘A game won by forcing errors. So politicians have forced lies.’

  ‘Hypocritical humbug,’ I said. He laughed. The very white teeth gleamed in the moonlight. They really were remarkable for a man of his age. The darkness gave them a prominence, I suppose. Venetians, very sensibly, do not spend their energy on too much unnecessary exterior lighting. This also preserves the mystery of the place, though at this point I could have done with a bright light or two. It did all seem very dim and deserted.

  ‘Not at all. Would you have had your Mr Churchill announce the date of the invasion plan when asked? Or even acknowledge that there was one? You would have had him shot. Or would you have a politician give the exact details of who and where they are tracking someone suspected of treason most foul? Or even that the nation’s finances are sicklier than expected? No – of course not. Forced errors, forced lies. Sometimes they are necessary.’

  ‘And now we’ve got the credit crunch,’ I said, staring up at the stars. ‘Thanks to no one telling us the truth.’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Brando. ‘When someone earning tuppence gets a mortgage costing tuppence ha’penny, you don’t need someone to tell you anything. It’s plain as a pikestaff.’

  ‘Says he, who has no mortgage and who has forgotten what it is to struggle.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Venetian, ‘the British obsession with property.’

  We both ignored this remark as being somewhat fatuous in this most beautifully built-up of places.

  ‘So we blame the bankers? Or people’s greed.’

  ‘Bankers,’ said Brando firmly. ‘Who have nothing to lose. Win, win. And people’s desperation. Plain, as I said, as a pikestaff.’

  ‘Plain as a pikestaff. English is so rich in images and metaphor,’ said the Italian, smiling away. ‘I love to hear it.’

  ‘I unreservedly say we weren’t told the truth,’ I said, still feeling cross about the gondola. I thought the word ‘unreservedly’ added a certain gravitas. ‘And that is, largely, the problem.’

  ‘There were voices raised. Nobody wanted to hear them.’

  ‘But my dear signora,’ breathed the Italian, more fox-like than ever, ‘we have always known it. Marx said it years ago, and even wrote it down for us. The absolute truth. That Capitalism holds the seeds of its own destruction, and it is called Greed.’

  At which Brando gave another little snort of derision and hurried us along. Over his shoulder he said, ‘Somewhat insidious that statement – given that we are in the home of Capitalism and Greed.’ And onward we rushed.

  There was precious little time to look elegant and at one with La Serenissima but I did notice, which should have been a little warning to my heightened senses, that while Brando puffed and panted, and I glowed more pinkly than you might call attractive, our Italian was quite in breath. Fit, I remember thinking, he must be fit … I stopped to stare up at yet another exquisite facade. In the evening light it seemed tan-coloured, rich and warm, and its Serlian windows, beyond which glinted a gloriously ornate chandelier, were lit from within and glowed invitingly. We all stopped and stared up for a moment.

  ‘So beautiful,’ I murmured.

  ‘Very,’ said Brando softly.

  ‘Do you know, despite everything we’ve been looking at, I could forgive this city everything, absolutely everything, because of the beauty it produced.’

  The Italian laughed. ‘You are becoming a Venetian,’ he said. ‘Saying one thing, doing another.’

  Campari can make you a little belligerent, I find. ‘Not at all. I’m simply respecting something beautiful. The sublime.’

  ‘But you know that the something beautiful was built out of exactly what you now feel is so wicked. Banking. Yes? Brought back from the Mongols by Marco Polo, which led to Venice having the first chequebook, the first issues of credit, thereby allowing –’ he stood back and gestured grandly with his arms – ‘all this. Yes. Here arrived the idea of credit in banking – this city was its very home in the West – and because of that, aspiring Venetians sought to borrow and with what they borrowed to rise, and rise, and build and build, and borrow more and more until –’ he clicked both fingers, ‘it disappears. In the middle of the fifteenth century – eccolo – inflation, failed banks, businesses collapsing, the poor suffering. And did they learn?’

  Brando and I waited, both looking a little cross at this invasion of our highly enjoyable sentimentality. Neither of us reacted one way or the other – no nods, no shakes, just silence.

  The Italian did not seem to mind at all. ‘No. Of course not. This building, any fine building you choose in my most lovely city, shows that they did not. Those beautiful windows you so admire were added on in the sixteenth century – build another floor to impress, more fine acquisitions, more money spent to inflate the image – everything bad forgotten in the call for more credit, more debt, more forgetting that at some time or another it must be repaid. This beauty came out of boom and bust. Yet you admire it. Pikestaff? What do you think of your pikestaff now?’

  Brando broke the silence with a little over-careless laughter. ‘I think we should move on. But I also think Venice is unique. No one in five hundred years’ time will forgive what’s happening now because they can gaze in wonder at the bloody Gherkin.’

  The Italian looked puzzled. ‘Gherkin?’

  ‘A small cucumber, pickled,’ I told him, smiling in the same understanding way he had smiled earlier. ‘Or a large, phallic modern building in the financial centre of the City of London. It was one of the first high-rise buildings to represent the new millennium’s boom times. Bit of an icon, bit of a joke. Shaped like a bullet or a penis.’

  ‘Nothing connected with these troubles can be considered a joke,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘And how many new buildings raised to the God Mammon were received with rapture when they were first created? Your Gherkin will probably survive the levity and be as highly praised as a Venetian palace one day. All pains forgotten.’

  He was right, wonderfully right – and so clever, so honourable, so far-seeing. Everything was going to be all right one day, and then it wouldn’t be, and then it would happen again. And then get better again. Wonderful, wonderful revelation. I wanted to throw my arms around him and kiss him. Either Brando guessed this, or it was coincidence, but he took hold of my arm very firmly and began to march me away. Just as well.

  Given that the pavings were bumpy and there were a number of little bridges between our restaurant near the Strada Nuova and the Ghetto, I took off my shoes. There comes a point in a woman’s life when the wearing of strappy sandals with heels loses its charm, and I had just found that point. After that, and no longer concentr
ating on keeping upright, I enjoyed the new terrain. We passed the facades of a remarkable number of large and interesting-looking churches and buildings, less poshed-up than those in the more frequented parts of Venice, and I longed to go into one or two of them. ‘You can never underestimate the interesting beauties to be had behind the most crumbling of ecclesiastical exteriors,’ I said to no one in particular. Another metaphor, I thought fondly, that the surface belies the reality. Ah well. Onwards we hurried, my feet feeling oddly free on the cold, uneven ground. No gondola rides, no stops in churches, no pauses on little bridges to admire some fine building. What were we doing in Venice if experiencing none of those? What we were doing was going at a lick to find something secret, and I could only hope that would bring frisson enough.

  The city has its own special magic in whatever part of it you roam. Now, with so few people around and such low lights coming from the residential buildings we passed, the feeling of being a free spirit transposed itself into feeling like a teenager out on a midnight spree. I had no idea where we were going and was entirely happy to be led. Ah yes, I thought, I always thought of the seventies like this – shoeless, flowers in your hair – how good and innocent it seemed before the darkness to come. And I was also thinking enjoyably about its legacy of Free Love. Free Love and no credit cards in those days, I thought, suddenly sad. Sweetly young and foolish. How much nicer to be that than old and pontificating. I sighed – and I was about to suggest to Brando that we had a little dance, but it was not to be. They were having a conversation.

  ‘It is surely more important for the private citizen to be honest than the politician? On a daily basis it is nice to trust your neighbour. Whereas with politicians it is best to trust none of them. Indeed, if a politician says “I honestly think …” you know he does not.’

  Brando laughed. ‘All right for some and not all right for others?’

  The Italian nodded agreement. ‘Yes, the weak are usually the ones who lose. In the light of that I have another place to tell you about …’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Brando. ‘Where?’

  ‘But not tonight. One excitement in an evening is quite enough, I think.’ And he walked ahead.

  I was a little bored now with all this seriousness. ‘Piggies,’ I said, twirling my shoes and looking downwards, ‘I was thinking of piggies.’ The Italian looked confused. Brando smirked. ‘She means her little toes,’ he said condescendingly. We all looked down at my little toes, toes which I dutifully wiggled. ‘No I don’t,’ I said, indignantly. ‘I was thinking about George Orwell and Animal Farm. Perfect example, those piggies. Some being more equal than others.’

  ‘Erudition as well as beauty,’ said the Italian, touching the top of my arm for emphasis. I felt that touch for some time. Brando held his head high and on we went.

  Venice by night. The thin alleyways, the far-off sounds, the sudden surprises of window boxes festooned with colour, the yowl of a cat. Without my shoes I had thought I could walk forever. Another Venetian illusion. After a while those rough stones and broken pavings made walking barefoot a chore. Clever this, I thought, as you then need to sit down and very probably have a drink. ‘Shall we have another drink?’ I asked, seeing a small bar to our left as we walked past a row of small shops. No one paid me the slightest attention. The men were on the scent of one-upmanship. The girl did not count.

  Now we had moved into a much darker part of Venice – away from the Strada Nuova and almost at the Ghetto – where the Italian took a sudden turn sharp left down a very narrow alleyway – with a few dim lights at doorways and the usual clutch of inscrutable cats. Of necessity we were walking in single file, this now being the only way possible, and there was a sense of the sinister in the place. My euphoria removed itself and I felt a little less happy and secure. These were the alleyways and not so charming facades where anything could happen and no one would ever know.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he said.

  ‘And then we’ll have a grappa,’ said Brando, who was still a bit puffed. ‘And really, Nina, I think you ought to put on your shoes.’

  I did as he suggested. Those inscrutable cats tended to be fed very squishy items from very greasy bits of paper. Lovely as the idea of going barefoot in Venice was, practicality was required. But the pavings were even older here, and more uneven. My feet clattered, loud and echoing, and the air was growing chillier. I felt suitably frightened. Where was the Italian taking us? And were we being fools to believe and trust him? Venice has ever been good at dissembling, and Venetians even more so. A cat ran off hissing suddenly and I jumped and gasped. The Italian turned – I couldn’t really see his face, save the eyes in shadow and white smiling teeth. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you are alarmed. Good. You are safe,’ he said reassuringly, ‘but that will add to the – nature, er, of the object. We spend too little time nowadays being afraid of things.’ He turned away and led us onward.

  ‘I am feeling a bit afraid,’ I said. ‘To be truthful.’

  ‘In Venice,’ he said, and I saw his arm, shadowy, move in a gesture, ‘in Venice life has never been very far from the feeling of fear. It is good that the ancient sense of it still lives in us.’ I could not be sure if he was being serious or not. I thought probably that he was. But all I seemed to be able to do was giggle nervously – largely at the image we made, ploughing our echoing, single file along this dark and rather putrid place – the fear did not bite very deeply. Just enough.

  Then, a window above us opened and a Venetian signora leaned out, calling, ‘Caterina, Caterina …’ I wondered if it were the name for a cat or a daughter or a friend. ‘Odd,’ whispered the Italian over his shoulder. ‘And a little disturbing. The name of the last sad woman known to be – associated, um, with where we are going was Caterina. Yes, very odd.’ Then I did feel a deeper chill up my spine. It was the way he hesitated over the word ‘associated’ – like a wrongdoer choosing his words carefully. It was the first of many little shiverings, not entirely to do with the evening air. Behind me Brando gave another little gasp of amusement. He had obviously given up talking as he could not walk, breathe and talk at the same time. So it felt almost as if I were on my own with this knowing Italian and being led towards who knew what. ‘Caterina isn’t such an unusual name hereabouts, is it?’ I asked. My voice was not exactly firm. In front of me the shoulders shrugged, but their owner was silent for a moment before saying, in a low voice, ‘Perhaps.’

  I was beginning to feel really spooked when our narrow alleyway finally opened out into a decent little square – very close now to the Ghetto – a square that was one of those rare places up here for being blessed with a couple of trees and a bench. I could see the skyline of the tall, thin houses of the Jews of Venice beyond, and hear the occasional slap of water on bow, so we were close to the water here, too. The state of Venice was cruel in many ways but, as a good merchant society, it needed and therefore tolerated its moneymen and usurers and they had lived here in medieval times in a condition somewhere between protected and persecuted. Capitalism, according to the Bible, was a sin – but not if you had a go-between. Jews, it seemed, had their uses. In much the same way, as objects of barter, had women, I supposed. There was a price for everything then, not so different from now.

  Suddenly I thought of Robert somewhere in Florida doing who knew what. In a way that was his payment, the fee for participating in a fully paid-up world. While he bought his ticket to solvency his wife was free to indulge herself in geegaws such as telling the truth … And maybe that wasn’t all. I took a sideways look at the Venetian and wished I had not, for just at that exact moment he took a sideways look at me. ‘We are here,’ he said softly, as if he were speaking only to me. I stared straight ahead, bereft now of my Dutch courage.

  We sat on the bench. The moon was very bright, the air cool and still, and the night sounds of Venice – the plash of water, the murmur of conversations from open upstairs windows, the occasional sound of a footstep – echoed about us, all comfortingly human. ‘
It is always a shock to remember that this was the first Jewish ghetto,’ I said. ‘And in Venice of all places. My, my.’ I hadn’t meant to sound quite so sarcastic but I wanted to distance myself from that exchange of looks.

  The Italian moved – twitched almost – and answered with an oddly stinging tone, ‘As you British created the first concentration camps. We all have our dark sides. Even you.’

  ‘Indeed we do,’ I said compliantly. ‘It wasn’t a criticism, it was an observation.’

  ‘Do you have a dark side?’ he said, keeping his voice low.

  ‘Oh, we all do,’ said Brando cheerfully. ‘So what are we here to see? And do you know of a bar nearby?’

  The Italian resumed his mild expression and nodded. ‘The bar is a good one and just around the far corner. What we have come to see is there, in front of us, beneath that scrolled window. It is a secret letter box.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, with pride, ‘it is the secret letter box for denouncing Jewish blasphemy, Brando. We are only a few metres away from the entrance to the Ghetto. I read that one was placed somewhere around here but I didn’t think it still existed.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ said the Italian. ‘And it would not be here in any case – it was further away. That one you speak of was much larger and quite flamboyantly beautiful – the perfection of baroque. The city fathers made the Jews pay for it and the Jews responded by installing the most splendid they could commission – a nice little message of one-upmanship. It was removed by Napoleon. He took it away, he said, in the spirit of beneficence but also to own and admire it. A beneficence that seemed to include wrecking the place. He had certainly read his Machiavelli. But somehow he missed this other one. Very probably the locals covered it up. Who knows how it remained. And it has a special purpose. It is for women. For badly behaved women.’

  That made me sit up. I peered at the wall but it was heavily in shadow and I could only just make out a shape. ‘What – for women to put notes into or notes about women?’