There ought to be a certain point in one’s training for the post of transitionary (our official job title – clunky, I know; I prefer the sobriquet “flitter” – or “transitioner” or “transitioneer,” at a pinch) when one realises that one has discovered or acquired an extra sense. It is in a sense the sense of history, of connection, of how long a place has been lived in, a feeling for the heritage of human events attached to a particular piece of landscape or set of streets and stones. We call it fragre.
Part of it is akin to having a sharp nose for the scent of ancient blood. Places of great antiquity, where much has happened over not just centuries but millennia, are often steeped in it. Almost any site of massacre or battle will have a whiff, even thousands of years later. I find it at its most pungent when I stand within the Colosseum, in Rome. However, much of it is simply the layered result of multifarious generations of people having lived there; lived and died, certainly, but then as most people live for decades and die just the once, it is the living part that has the greatest influence over the aroma, the feel of a place.
Certainly the entirety of the Americas has a significantly different fragre compared to Europe and Asia; less fusty, or less rich, according to your prejudices.
I’m told that New Zealand and Patagonia appraise as terribly fresh compared with almost everywhere else.
Myself, I love the fragre of Venezia. Not the fragrance – at least, not in summer, anyway – but very much the fragre.
I prefer to arrive in Venice by train, from Mestre. As I disembark at Santa Lucia station I can, if I declutch my senses and memory, fool myself into thinking that I have arrived at just another big Italian railway station, one more terminus amongst many. One walks between the towering trains, crosses the indifferent commercialism of the rather brutalist concourse and expects to find what one would find anywhere: a busy road or square, another bustling vista of car and truck and bus – a pedestrianised piazza and a few taxis, at best.
Instead, spreading beyond the sweep of steps and the scatter of people – the Grand Canal! Light green choppy water, the churning wakes of vaporetti, launches, water taxis and work boats, reflected light slicing off the waves to dance along the façades of palazzos and churches; spires, domes and inverted-cone chimneys ranged against a sky of cobalt shine. Or against milky clouds, their mirrored pastel tones softening the restless waters of the canal. Or against dark veils of rain cloud, the canal flattened and subdued under a downpour.
The first time I visited the place was for the carnival in February. I discovered mist and fog and quietness, and a chill in the air that seemed to rise from the water like a promise. My name was Mark Cavan. My languages were Mandarin, English, Hindustani, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and French. The Berlin Wall was already history, though still mostly standing.
It was your world.
Some way down the Grand Canal, on its west bank, sits an imposing near-cubical palazzo. Its walls are a glacial white, the shutters shielding its many windows matt black. This severely formal and symmetrical building is the Palazzo Chirezzia, once the home of a Levantine prince, later that of a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church, then for a hundred and fifty years an infamous brothel. It belonged, then as now, to Professore Loscelles, a gentleman who knew about and was sympathetic to the Concern. Back then, he simply made himself, his money and connections useful to us, and, equally, gained much through the association. He has since risen to join the ruling Central Council, though on that cold February morning twenty years ago this was still an ambition of his.
I had been invited to the city and the carnival as a reward for my services, which had lately been energetic if not onerous. There were no other transitionaries present, though there was a gaggle of Concern apparatchiks and officials, all of whom were polite to me. Despite the rather generous amount of blood I had on my hands even then, I was still not yet used to the idea that people who knew of my role within l’Expédience might find my presence intimidating, alarming or even frightening.
Professore Loscelles is a modest figure of a man, verging on short, though with a stately bearing which belies this. He is one of those who grow in isolation. Alone, one might swear he is as tall as oneself; in a small group he seems to shrink by comparison and in a crowd he disappears entirely. He was balding then, losing thin brown hair like seaweed dropping back from a rock with a receding tide. He has a splendid hook of a nose, prominent teeth and eyes of a frosty-looking blue. His wife was dramatically taller than him, a statuesque Calabrian blonde with a large, honest-looking face and a ready laugh. It was she, Giacinta, who taught me the dances which would be required at the series of balls to which we had been invited. Happily I am a quick learner and apparently I move well.
The palace contained a ballroom where one of the great masked balls of that year’s carnival was to be held. This took place the day after I arrived. I was appropriately entranced by the fabulous masks and costumes and by the sumptuous decor of the ballroom itself; a hymn of ancient, polished woods, glossy marble and extravagantly gilt-framed mirrors, all lit entirely with candles, imparting a distinct mellowness to the light and a smoky scent to the air, like incense. It mingled with the odour of perfumes and the smoke from cigarettes and cigars. The men were peacocks, the women whirling, dazzling belles in glittering gowns. A small orchestra in antique dress filled the space with melody. Three enormous chandeliers of red glass oversaw it all – great swirling, abstract shapes looking like vast surges of glistening blood caught in the act of spinning within an unseen whirlpool – but were reduced to mere pendulous sculptures reflecting candle flames, their bulbs unnecessary and unlit.
Breathless, gripping a glass of Tokaj, I stepped out onto a little terrace bounded by fat white marble balustrades shaped like tears. A small crowd of partygoers stood quietly watching snow descend against the lights of the few passing boats and the light-flecked buildings on the canal’s far side. The spiralling chaos of flakes appeared from the darkness overhead as though created by the lanterns of the palazzo and disappeared silently into the oily blackness of the gently moving waters before it.
I went out early the next morning into that cold, encasing whiteness, my breath spreading into the dark narrow spaces in front of me, and found some untrodden stretches on the Sestiere Dorsoduro. I strolled the ancient, hidden stones, breathing in the cool, clear salty scent of the place and soaking up the world’s fragre. It tasted, of course, of all the things that all the other worlds taste of, but the identifying highlights spoke of a kind of seductive cruelty, an orchidaceous venality, so infinitely sweet it could only be redolent of corruption and decay. Here, in the eternally sinking city, with that odour of glamourous savagery filtering through my mind like mist off the lagoon into a room, it all felt spent here but only paused elsewhere, like something waiting to resume.
The snow lay across the city for the next few days, creating a starkness beneath those sea-wide skies, draining colour from the passing clouds, water and buildings and promoting the views of that city of Canaletto and fractious colour to a ravishing monochrome.
The final ball was held in the Doge’s Palace in a vast and splendid room built half a millennium ago to house two thousand milling princes, merchants, ambassadors, captains and dignitaries. An airstream originating in Africa had pushed up over the heel of Italy and the Adriatic, melting the snow and bringing mists and fog as it collided with and was slowed by contesting winds spilling down from the mountains to the north. The city seemed to submerge beneath the resulting vapours, cloaking itself in veils and shrouds of moisture.
I met my Masked Woman there, then.
I wore the costume of a medieval Orthodox priest, topped with a mirror mask. I had danced some dances, sat at the Loscelles’ table and taken part in some slightly stilted conversations with my fellow house guests and the Professore, who was too interested in the details of my assignments for the health of either of us, had I answered him honestly. One of the non-Concern guests of the Loscelles – a tall, pre
tty brunette who was a distant relation of the Professore and whose lissom form had been squeezed most attractively into the garb of a renaissance lady – had rather taken my eye that evening. However, she seemed to be equally captivated with a dashing cavaliere and so I had put any thoughts involving her to one side.
I took a break from the eating and drinking and dancing and talking and sought to explore what I could of the palace, strolling through some of the lesser chambers, being shooed out of others and finally ending up back in the Hall of the Great Council while a dance processed like a gaudy vortex in the centre of the vast room. I stood staring up at the frieze of paintings depicting the sequence of Doges, my gaze eventually fastening on one which appeared to be missing, or at least covered by a black veil. I wondered if this was some tradition of the carnival, or just of this particular masked ball.
“His name was Doge Marino Faliero,” a female voice announced at my side, in lightly accented English. I looked round to discover that I was being addressed by a pirate captain. Chunkily high-heeled boots brought her almost to my height. Her jacket hung, attached like a hussar’s, from one shoulder. The rest of her uniform appeared motley, arranged to look thrown together: baggy breeches, brass-buttoned, an extravagantly frilled blouse, a half-undone waistcoat worn like a bodice, a tricolour sash plus beads and various chains and some sort of brass plate like a half-moon slung around her neck, which looked pale and slender. Her mask was black velvet, misted with what looked like tiny pearls set out in spirals. Beneath the mask her mouth looked roseate, amused. A few locks of black hair escaped a crumpled cap of navy blue surmounted by a cocky burst of gaudy feathers.
I glanced back up at the veiled space in the succession of Doges. “Is it now?”
“He was Doge for a year in the mid thirteen hundreds,” my informant told me. Her voice sounded young, melodious, confident. “He’s covered up because he’s in eternal disgrace. He tried to make a coup to sweep away the republic and have himself declared prince.”
“But he was already Doge,” I said.
She shrugged. “A prince or a king would have had more power. Doges were elected. For life, but with many restrictions. They were not allowed to open their own mail. It had first to be read by the censor. Too, they were not allowed to conduct discussions with foreign diplomats alone. A committee was required. They had much power but they were also just figureheads.” She gestured with one hand (black-gloved, silver rings over leather). Her sword – or at least a scabbard for a sword – swung at her left hip.
“I thought perhaps he was only veiled for the ball,” I said.
She shook her head. “In perpetuity. He was condemned to Damnatio Memoriae. And mutilated, and beheaded, of course.”
“Of course.” I nodded gravely.
She might have stiffened a little. Was I talking to a local? “The republic took such threats to its existence seriously,” she said.
I executed a fraction of a bow, smiling and tipping my head. “You would appear to be an authority, ma’am.”
“Hardly. Merely not ignorant.”
“I thank you for relieving me of some measure of my own ignorance.”
“You are welcome.”
I nodded to the swirl of people. “Care to dance?”
She moved her head back a fraction, as though appraising me, then bowed a little further than I had. “Why not?” she said.
And so we danced. She moved with a lithe grace. I sweated beneath my mask and robes, and understood the wisdom of having masked balls in winter. We talked over the music in the rhythm imposed by the dance.
“May I ask your name?”
“You may.” She smiled slightly, fell silent.
“I see. Well, what is your name?”
She shook her head. “It is not always the done thing to ask someone’s name at a masked ball.”
“Is it not?”
“I feel the spirit of the late Doge looks down upon us and demands due reticence, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “Probably not even if I knew what you were talking about.”
This appeared to amuse her, as the soft lips parted in a smile before she said, “Alora.” For a moment I thought she was telling me her name, but of course it is simply an Italian word, nearly identical to the French “alors.” I found her accent impossible to place. “Perhaps we come to names later,” she said as we danced around each other. “Otherwise, ask what you will.”
“I insist; ladies first.”
“Well then, what do you do, sir?”
“I am a traveller. And you?”
“The same.”
“Indeed. You travel widely?”
“Very. You?”
“Oh, extraordinarily.”
“Do you travel to a purpose?”
“A series of purposes. Yourself?”
“Always only with one.”
“And what would that be?”
“Well, you must guess.”
“Must I?”
“Oh yes.”
“Let me see then. Your pleasure?”
“I am not,” she said, “so shallow.”
“Is it shallow to seek pleasure?”
“Exclusively, yes.”
“I know people who would disagree.”
“So do I. May I ask what you’re smiling at?”
“The scorn in your voice when you mention those people.”
“Well, they are shallow,” she said. “This proves my point, no?”
“It certainly proves something.”
“You are smiling again.”
“I am aware that my mouth is almost all you can see.”
“Do you think it is all I need to see of you?”
“I would hope not.”
She tipped her head to one side. “Are you flirting with me, sir?” she asked curtly.
“I’m fairly sure I’m trying to,” I said. “How am I doing?”
She appeared to think, then moved her head side-to-side, like a nod rotated ninety degrees. “It is too early to tell yet.”
Later – the music echoing down stairwells and through chambers and corridors – we stood in front of a great wall-wide map of the world. It looked reasonably accurate and therefore late, though of course in some ways I would be the last to be able to judge. We stood close, both a little breathless after the last dance. We still wore our masks and I still did not know her name.
“Does it all look present and correct to you, sir?” she asked as I gazed up at the configured continents and cities.
“We return to my ignorance,” I confessed. “Geography is not my strongest subject.”
“Or does it then look wrong to you?” she asked, then seemed to drop her voice a little. “Or too limited?”
“Too limited?” I asked.
“It is, after all, just the one world,” she said calmly.
I looked at her, startled. She returned her gaze to the map. I recovered my composure. I laughed, gestured. “Indeed. A starry vault or two would not go amiss.”
She stood still, looked at the map, said no more.
For some time I divided my attention between her and the map while various individuals, couples and groups of people passed to and fro, chattering and laughing. Then, in a lull, I reached out to take her gloved hand. She moved away and swivelled. “Walk with me, would you?” she asked.
“Where to?”
“Must it be to anywhere? Might we not just walk?”
“I think you’ll find that when you stop walking you’ll have arrived somewhere.”
She fixed me with a stare. “I thought geography wasn’t your strong point.”
We collected our cloaks. Outside, in the Piazzetta and then the Piazza, a misty rain was falling, blurring the lines of lights set high on the great square’s walls between the lines of dark windows.
She led me north through a succession of narrow, twisting calles and across small bowed bridges over dark narrow canals, quickly leaving behind the scatter of people in and around San Marco
, our steps echoing from overhanging buildings, our shadows – unbearably dramatic in our out-belling cloaks – dancing around us like ghostly partners, sometimes ahead of us, sometimes behind, to one side, or just a pool of darkness at our feet.
She found a tiny bar off an ill-lit calle which would have been too narrow for us to walk down side by side. The establishment was shady, almost empty save for a couple of workmen sitting near the back nursing beers – we were given slightly contemptuous glances – and a diminutive blonde bar girl in jeans and a baggy jumper. My companion ordered a spritz and a bottle of still water. I accepted a spritz as well.
Our hostess disappeared into a storeroom, clutching a clipboard and pen. We remained standing at the bar. I took off my mask, faced my pirate captain and smiled expectantly. “There,” I said.
She merely nodded, made no move to remove her own mask. She did take off her hat. The moment might have called for a shake of the head, coquettish or not, but she just let her long black curled hair fall about her shoulders without ceremony. The workman facing us glanced up, nodded to his fellow, who turned. Both eyed her for a few moments. She put her head back and glugged half the bottle of water in one go, exposed throat moving. She wiped her mouth with a couple of fingers, then sipped delicately on her spritz, back to ladylike. Dim though the bar was, the angle of a light above the gallery of bottles gave me the best view I’d had so far of her eyes behind the almond-shaped piercings in the black mask. They glittered, hinting at lightness; pale blue or green or a delicate hazel.
“Would it be time for names yet?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“I could tell you mine,” I said. “Like it or not.”
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