2 - Painted Veil (17 page)

Chapter 17

“I have to get to Liya.” That was all I had to say to start our rush to the ghetto. With Gussie’s bright blue shoulders parting the way and Annetta and Benito directly on my heels, we hurried along the crowded pavements. A few people were running the other way, driven by some animal instinct that warned them away from danger, but most were hurrying our direction, unable to resist the lure of an exciting blaze.

The fire was definitely within the ghetto walls. The smoke had thickened into a black column above the tightly packed buildings. Each time I passed a man carrying a torch, I thought of the heaps of cotton wool in the mattress maker’s courtyard behind Liya’s building and urged Gussie to quicken his steps. We had headed for the nearest bridge over the encircling waters, but soon saw that passage across it would be impossible. We were on the fringes of a growing riot.

Violent mobs are not common in Venice. When a crowd gathers, it is usually to frolic, not brawl. But the scurrilous pamphlet, building on the groundwork laid by the gazettes and who knows how many rumormongers, had raised citywide tension to an unprecedented height. That night, Venice’s mask of grandeur and gaiety fell away and all that remained was a hideous face filled with hate and fear.

The four of us were quickly hemmed in by angry rioters carrying sacks of rotten fruit or more substantial missiles—stones. Dodging fists and elbows, I turned and yelled to Benito, “Get Annetta out of here. Take her back home.”

My sister shook her head and cried above the din, “What about you and Augustus? We can’t leave you here in this mob.”

“We’ll take care of each other. You go with Benito.” Annetta had a determined set to her jaw so I went on, “You can’t be of any help here. Please, Annetta, do as I say for once.” To my great relief, she nodded, and with a last worried look, let Benito draw her away from the hectic, roiling crowd.

“Come on! This way!” Gussie dove into a narrow alley that led in the general direction of the north bridge. By the time we reached the pavement beside that span, my heart was pounding and my side was burning. Luckily, the crowd was thinner there, and its tone was more curious than angry. For the first time that night, I caught sight of an official presence. A small barge of Venetian archers floated on the canal, but the men appeared leaderless and at a loss as to what they should be doing or whom they should be arresting. The gates in the stout walls were still open. No one tried to stop us as Gussie and I crossed the bridge and followed the smoke to the fire.

At first, Liya’s
campo
seemed like a swirling mass of pure confusion. People were pounding past us, running aimlessly, tripping over furniture and merchandise that had been tossed from endangered homes and shops. Women wailed, children sobbed, and dogs barked. Gradually I saw that efforts to fight the blaze were underway. The fire must have started in the Del’Vecchio shop. The front windows had been broken out and tongues of flame were shooting through the openings. The tunnel-like passage that Mara had led me through only yesterday afternoon was belching smoke at an alarming rate.

Some men and boys in shirtsleeves were working at a pile of sandbags, emptying them around the foundation of the pink-plastered building on the other side of the tunnel from the Del’Vecchio establishment. Another group had formed a tight line that snaked out from the well in the center of the
campo
. They were passing buckets in a well-drilled formation and throwing water on the pink walls.

We found the Del’Vecchio women huddled in front of their burning house. Pincas and Isacco were nowhere to be seen. The grandmother was propped up on a pile of clothing and bedding, her head bent nearly to her knees, her eyes covered by one skeletal hand. Signora Del’Vecchio was shaking Mara by the shoulders. “Where is the baby? You and Liya were supposed to get her while Sara and I carried Nonna down the back stairs.”

“Mama, stop.” The girl’s teeth were rattling. “Liya has Fortunata, they were right behind us.”

Her mother’s sweaty, soot-streaked face showed livid in the fire’s glow. “But where are they? Where is Liya? Where is Fortunata?” She released Mara and began to shake her younger sister, shouting the same questions.

I turned my attention to the Del’Vecchio building. The shop had become a furnace of solid orange, and the growing heat forced us all to shuffle backward. Gussie and I carried the grandmother, her weight no heavier than a bundle of dry sticks. As we set her down, the fire found new strength, leaping along the outside walls toward the upper floors. A white face appeared in the dark rectangle of a third-story window. Liya. In that instant, my blood chilled and my ears reverberated with Signora Del’Vecchio’s wailing scream.

Liya leaned over the casement, but a stream of orange flame shooting out of the window of the second story drove her back. The heat must have been intense, but she didn’t panic, just peered around the window frame more carefully, twisting from side to side with a calculating look. Anguished moans and feverish curses rose from the crowd. I yelled up to her, not even sure what I was saying.

Liya didn’t seem to hear any of it. The fire had shut her into an isolated, nightmare world where only the next few moments’ survival mattered. Suddenly, a huge crack sounded, and a cloud of black smoke rolled up the front of the building, obscuring my view of the woman I then realized had taken full possession of my heart. Dimly, I felt Gussie squeezing my shoulder so hard I thought he might splinter my bones.

The light breeze soon sucked the smoke away in writhing wisps. I spotted the window, but Liya had vanished.

“Gussie, we’ve got to do something.” I whirled in a tight circle, desperate, searching, then ran toward the cordon of men passing buckets. Stumbling down the line, I begged them to turn from the pink building, to throw their water on the Del’Vecchio house, but they continued to douse their target with dogged precision. I shoved and pulled, grabbing at their buckets. “Can’t you see that someone is still in there. She’s trapped for God’s sake.”

A tall, bearded man in the garb of a rabbi grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. “Leave them alone, my son. The fire brigade is doing what needs to be done. The Del’Vecchio house is lost, but if this building catches, the fire will burn right around the
campo
.”

I swayed on my feet, not sure whether I had tears or sweat running down my cheeks. “What about that building?” I pointed to the taller edifice on the opposite side of Liya’s house.

The rabbi had to raise his voice to be heard over the terrible clash of roaring flames and shouting people. “Its roof is tile and its walls are brick. Triple-thick masonry between it and Pincas’ place. With God’s mercy, that house will withstand the blaze.” Sure enough, there was no sign of fire in the neighboring house.

Gussie ran up, gesticulating wildly. “Look, Tito. She’s still there.”

My gaze followed his pointing arm. Liya had found her way to the house’s top story. She stepped onto a balcony that embraced a tall, narrow window just under the eaves, then pulled a wiggling bundle through the window behind her. It was Fortunata. Both girls were coughing and grimed with soot, but Liya still had her presence of mind. She pushed the window casement closed and knelt on the balcony to tend to her sister.

On the pavement below, several men made a cradle of their arms and urged Liya to throw Fortunata down to them. Others fetched a canvas tarpaulin, stretched it into a taut square, and shouted for Liya to jump with Fortunata in her arms. Nearby, Signora Del’Vecchio covered her face with her hands. The woman was near collapse, held up only by her other two daughters pressing to her sides.

Still kneeling, Liya looked down through the bars of the iron railing. I imagined the thoughts that must be fleeting through her mind: were the excited men capable of catching the child that would drop like a thirty-pound cannonball, could that canvas hold their combined weights or would it rip apart to dash them both on the hard paving stones? From her fourth-floor perch, the ground must have seemed very far away. Groaning, my hands balled to fists, I watched Liya place Fortunata’s hands firmly around the railing bars and put her mouth next to her ear. Was she instructing the little girl to jump if the flames broke through the window? I shook my head as Liya stood up, patted her stomach, and climbed nimbly onto the balcony railing. Balancing carefully, she began to inch her hands along the window frame toward the lower edge of the roof. It wouldn’t work. Liya wasn’t tall enough to reach the roof. Even if she could, there was no way she could pull them both over and around the projecting overhang.

“Come on, Gussie.” I pulled my friend toward the brick building to the right of Liya’s. “I have an idea… if we can just get up to them.” The brick house topped Liya’s by a story and, so far, its façade was free of flames. Its inhabitants had fled the building, but were standing in a protective knot in front of it. They howled as we barged through and Gussie applied his shoulder and then his foot to their door.

Though the inside was smoky and dim, enough light filtered through the large shop windows to see the stairs at the back. I looked furiously for a length of rope or wire that could help us get to Liya’s roof, but we were in a bookshop—not much useful there. I finally charged the stairs, somehow believing that we would find a way to rescue Liya and Fortunata if we could just make it to the roof.

Above the first floor, the smoke thinned and breathing was easier, but the thickening darkness made for a treacherous enemy. We banged into closed doors, smashed heads on low crossbeams, and tripped over crates of books. Clumsily feeling my way to the top of the staircase, I found the arrangement much the same as at my own home. A door opened onto a flat roof area surrounded by sloping, tiled surfaces dotted with chimney pots. Only the bookshop family did not use their roof as a garden. Soot-flecked laundry was strung on a line that ran from corner to corner.

Gussie had the rope down in an instant. He wound it several times around a stone drain spout and grasped the end with his feet firmly braced against the parapet. “Can you get down by yourself? I’ll have to stay up here to catch the rope and pull you and the girls back up.”

I didn’t stop to discuss the plan, just grabbed the rope and threw a leg over the parapet. As boys, Alessandro and I had climbed every tree and bridge support within a mile of the Campo dei Polli, but those energetic days were long past. I had forgotten how much strength it took to hang by arms alone and found I had no idea how to make my feet find the wall and start backing my way down to the lower roof. I simply slid, burning the skin from my palms and meeting the roof tiles with a hard thump on my backside. Dazed, I struggled to my feet and explored Liya’s flat roof on rubbery legs.

The smoke was thicker there, making it difficult to get my bearings. Cautiously, I peered over one edge, hot breath catching in my throat. I was staring down into the gateway to hell. Individual fires like dancing haystacks of flame dotted the courtyard, and the very air shimmered with the terrible heat. A roar more like the crashing waves of the sea filled my ears. It was the mattress maker’s courtyard. I was on the wrong side of the building.

In a blind panic, I ran straight across the roof. I don’t know which angels kept me from tripping over loose tiles or crashing into chimney pots, but I reached the opposite edge and threw myself down at full length. Clutching the edge of the tiles, I extended my head and shoulders out into smoky space. Liya was crouching in the corner of the balcony with Fortunata in her arms. Black, grasping tendrils swirled around them. I only had to cry her name once.

“Tito! Where did you come from?” She jumped up, face blackened by smoke but brightened by new hope.

“I’m going to pull you up.”

Her eyes searched the roof overhang in desperate confusion. “How?”

My heart sank. In my haste, I’d left the rope back where I’d slid down. I looked into Liya’s huge dark eyes. How could I have been so stupid? A glowing strand of flame started up the wooden frame of the balcony’s window. Fortunata screamed in terror. Liya called up, “Hurry, Tito. Do something or we’ll have to jump.”

Would there be time to go back for the rope? Sobbing in fear and frustration, I bounced to one knee for the dash back across the roof. But no, I didn’t need to run. The rope was suddenly in my hand, and Gussie was materializing out of the billowing smoke like a stage god lowered magically to the rescue.

“We have help,” he shouted as he made the rope fast and threw one end over the edge. Through gaps in the smoke, I saw several young men positioning a ladder against the wall of the bookshop building that connected the two roofs. After I’d raised Fortunata from the balcony, a muscular Jew about Mara’s age took the shrieking child and ferried her to others who passed her up the ladder in short order. Together Gussie and I hauled at the rope until Liya was also pulled from danger.

Finally I held my beloved in my arms. She was coughing and sputtering, sweat-soaked, and soot-streaked, but she was alive. I caressed her hair and cried with joy.

Liya clung to me for a few moments, then pushed me away. She tilted her chin back and looked deeply into my eyes. She shook her head. “You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?”

“I saved you and Fortunata,” I answered, surprised by her accusing tone.

“Yes, you saved us.” Her blackened face was a study in warring emotions. “From a fire that would never have started except for your meddling.”

Part Three

Terra: Earth

Chapter 18

The ghetto finally slept. The riot had been quelled by the arrival of Messer Grande and his constables. The
cittadini
had gone more than a little mad that night, but it had taken only the sight of Messer Grande’s red robe to restore their sanity. No man wanted to face Venice’s dreaded prisons if he could avoid them. After the rioters had slunk back to their own neighborhoods, many no doubt bewildered by the uncommon violence they had wrought, the ghetto had licked its wounds, shuttered its windows, and locked its gates.

The Del’Vecchio family had taken refuge at the house of Pincas’ brother, Baruch. A few alleys away, the ruins of their household and shop were smoldering under the steady patter of a light drizzle. The skies had eventually answered the Jews’ prayers with yet more rain, a bit late but welcome nevertheless. Gussie and I were sitting with Pincas at his brother’s dining table. The clothing dealer stared into an untouched glass of wine, blood crusted along a gash that blazoned his forehead. His bruised jowls hung slackly and his face seemed drained of all emotion. Fortunata nestled fast asleep on her father’s lap, one cheek buried in his shoulder. Someone had wiped the little girl’s face and hands, but she was still wearing her reeking, smoke-stained dress.

“Pincas, if you won’t drink your wine, take a little brandy.” Baruch, a stocky graybeard several years older than his brother, poured some amber liquid from an exquisite Murano glass decanter. “Here, just a thimbleful. You have need of a restorative.”

Pincas barely shook his head. I glanced across the table at Gussie. Was he feeling like as much of an interloper as I was? My friend looked as exhausted as I felt, and since we had both inhaled a copious amount of smoke, I suspected his throat must be burning as fiercely as mine. We had made several attempts to leave, but each time I stood and reached for my jacket, Pincas placed a restraining hand on my arm and murmured, “No. Don’t go. Not yet.”

Across the room, a door opened with a soft click and Liya emerged from the shadows surrounding the table. She had bathed and changed into a clean but over-sized gown that she’d hitched up with a man’s belt. She reached toward Pincas. “Papa, let me take Fortunata. The others are finally asleep. She needs to get in bed, too.”

Pincas’ eyes glinted with a wary but unfocused light. His arms tightened protectively around the sleeping child.

“Papa, please. She’s safe now. We all are.” Liya stroked her father’s cheek with the back of her hand. He inclined his head in Liya’s direction and relaxed his grip on Fortunata but wouldn’t allow Liya to remove the child.

“Isacco isn’t safe,” Pincas said in a low, monotone rumble. “I let them take him and now he’s dead.”

Baruch shook his head sadly. “Pincas, Pincas, you mustn’t blame yourself. You did everything a man could do.”

Gussie and I had heard the story along with Baruch and his family. How a jeering crowd had invaded the square, stormed the Del’Vecchio home, and demanded Isacco, the murderer of Christians. How the terrified Jew had scrambled to escape through the maze of passages that connect all the ghetto dwellings only to be brought down as he called attention to himself by running across the
campo
like a hunted rabbit.

Pincas and some of the other men of the
campo
had followed along, remonstrating with the crowd, pleading that Isacco be released or at least given up to the authorities. Their brave efforts had come to naught. With the fury of a storm at sea, the mob rained violence on everyone in its path. They strung a rope around Isacco’s neck and threw him from the bridge on the eastern side of the ghetto. Anyone who resisted was threatened with the same treatment.

No one was quite sure how the fire had started. Signora Del’Vecchio ranted and swore that the blaze had been deliberately set, but Pincas and Liya blamed a lamp that had been accidentally overturned in the melee.

I felt Liya’s black eyes drilling through me. It was definitely time to leave. I put my hand on Pincas’ unencumbered shoulder. “Signor Rumbolt and I must go. Believe me, we are both sorry for the fire and the loss of your cousin.”

“Yes, Signore. Tonight I was ashamed of my adopted city,” Gussie added uncomfortably.

Pincas nodded slowly and shifted Fortunata so he could place his hand on mine, but Liya sprang forth with a snappish reply. “You should be sorry, Tito. Since it was the scheme you and my grandmother concocted that put the mob onto Isacco’s scent in the first place.”

Gussie rose to my defense. “That’s an absurd idea. Tito knows Isacco didn’t kill Luca. He would never accuse an innocent man.”

Pincas shook himself out of his gloomy contemplation. “You should bite off your tongue, daughter. Is this a way to speak to the man who saved the lives of you and your sister?”

Liya would not let her father’s words shame her. She stood before us, straight and proud in her borrowed, ill-fitting clothing. “I’m grateful for what you did tonight, Tito. And you, too, Signor Rumbolt. But your heroics would not have been necessary if the rumor had not gone round that Isacco murdered Luca over a business deal gone sour.”

For the second time since we fled the fiery rooftop I denied having spread such a tale, but Liya was not to be convinced. She had decided I was out for Isacco’s blood after Mara had bragged about the secret errand she had carried out for Nonna. Under Liya’s pecking questions, perhaps spurred by a girlish craving for attention and self-importance, Mara had added considerable embroidery to the fabric of my conversation with Signora Gallico. Liya might be silent for her father’s sake, but the look on her face made her feelings quite clear.

I thought of a few more things I could say, then bit my tongue, sighed and shrugged. Perhaps I could explain in the future, but just now, Liya was ill-disposed to hear me out. Gussie also started to speak again, but Baruch interrupted. The man had been rummaging through the contents of a basket on a nearby shelf. He handed a pamphlet to Liya. “My dear, I also think you accuse unjustly. Many of the intruders were waving one of these. I plucked this one out of the gutter after they’d passed by. This little book is what inflamed the mob against Isacco.”

Liya quickly flipped through the pages of the same pamphlet that Benito had presented to me. I let her read in silence for a few moments, then asked, “Do you really think me capable of expressing the opinions contained in those vile papers?”

She grimaced and drew a shuddering breath. “No, of course not. You are not the man who penned these lies, but I would very much like to know who did.”

I remained silent, watching the blood drain from her face.

“What you must think of me, Tito,” she finally whispered. “Forgive me. I didn’t realize…” Her words trailed off as her chin sank to her chest.

“That’s better, daughter.” Pincas nodded. “It’s the author of the pamphlet that’s behind all this. He has much to answer for.”

“We should live to see the day.” Baruch sighed, shoulders bowed. “A Jew dies. A Jew’s home is burned to the ground. Who cares besides his fellow Jews?”

Pincas did not seem to share his brother’s pessimism. He was studying me with a practiced smile, as if he were measuring my frame for a new suit of clothing. “Things might be different this time. The authorities don’t want to waste their time investigating ghetto crimes, but Messer Grande is interested in apprehending the murderer of Luca Cavalieri, is he not?”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“Yes, Papa. What are you hinting at?” Liya sank into a chair at the table, propping her chin up on her hand.

Fortunata moaned in her sleep. Pincas smoothed her hair with loving fingers. To me he said, “You and your friend are partially right. Isacco did not kill the painter, but the son of my cousin was not blameless.” He patted my chair. “Sit down, my friend, I will tell you all. Since you’ve been pestering everyone with questions about the painter, you should find this of great interest.

“Isacco was a good boy, serious and hard working like his father, but he was never satisfied. Scraps… that is what he called my profits from the shop… scraps from the Christians’ table. Isacco aspired to greater things than the lot our God bestowed on him. So did this painter, Luca Cavalieri.”

“Father.” Liya scowled and shook her head.

“It’s all right, Liya. Isacco and Luca are no longer with us. They have gone on, and nothing on earth can hurt them now. I don’t know how their association began—men who value the same things seem to find each other no matter what barriers of religion or nationality separate them—but this was the sum of their business. Luca produced relics that your fellow Christians believe to have great powers, and Isacco sold the counterfeits for handsome sums. The latest was a veil that the woman you call the Blessed Virgin wore at her son’s crucifixion.”

I nodded slowly, realization dawning. “A cloth with the Virgin’s face magically transferred to the fabric.”

“Yes, I don’t understand it. It seems like a ridiculous idea, but when Isacco was selling something, his tongue turned to gold. He was able to convince a number of people that these veils were genuine.”

“All very hush-hush, I’d imagine,” Gussie put in. “Wouldn’t do to have more than one Madonna’s veil floating around.”

“Exactly.” Pincas nodded. “The boys had the scheme well planned. Part of Isacco’s role was to convince the buyers that the veil’s powers depended on absolute secrecy.”

I looked at Liya. “Did you know about this?”

She shrugged uncomfortably. “What if I did? This is the ghetto, Tito. You may live just down the canal, but you have no idea of how we are forced to exist.”

“I think I’m beginning to understand the obstacles that Isacco faced, but what was Luca’s excuse?”

“That I couldn’t say. Remember, I barely knew the man.” Liya wouldn’t look me in the eye. She turned her face away so that the lamp on the wall behind her outlined her profile with a glowing nimbus of light. As I regarded her just-washed hair that had dried in soft, curling tendrils surrounding her strong nose and cheekbones, several thoughts washed over me in a tumbling cascade.

Liya had posed for the veil. Whatever ingenious science Luca had employed to create the relic, he had modeled the subtle image of the weeping Virgin after Liya’s striking profile. And Pincas didn’t know it. Somehow, Liya had evaded the protective family net and kept her trysts with Luca a secret. Only her grandmother, whose wise, old eyes missed very little, might have a hint of Liya’s love for the painter. Liya was a clever girl, no doubt about it, but I found myself dismayed that her cleverness had more of cunning than wisdom about it.

Gussie was questioning Pincas. “Is that why you say Isacco didn’t kill Luca, because their deception was so successful?”

The clothing dealer gave his head a decisive shake. “No, not at all. It was because of the argument and… what happened after.”

“What argument?” Liya asked quickly.

Pincas was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was tremulous. “It was a dilemma such as I had never faced. I’ve never courted trouble. You know that, daughter. I’ve told you and your sisters a thousand times—outside these walls, a Jew should be invisible. It is the only way to keep safe. So I cautioned Isacco, but he refused to listen.” The Jew’s jowls quivered with emotion as he looked around the table. “Wealth is a blessing if fairly got, but Isacco was pirating on men’s weaknesses, exploiting the gullible. I knew the scheme with the veils would come to ruin.”

Baruch sighed with frustration. “You never could tell a coherent story, Pincas. Just get back to this argument and tell us what happened.”

“I’m trying, I’m trying.” Pincas handed Fortunata to Liya and began to pace the floor, running his hand over his shorn pate. “It must have been almost two weeks ago. I was playing cards with Signor Cardoza from across the
campo
. He had acquired a cask of Cyprus wine. Excellent wine it was, so smooth and mellow. What? Oh, yes, the argument. Well, we were at our cards and Isacco burst in. We invited him to join us but he prowled the room, as nervous as a cat, and finally insisted I come away with him. It took me a moment to understand it all, to realize what a terrible pass Isacco had come to. He had quarreled with Luca over those damned veils. The painter accused Isacco of breaking their bargain and skimming the profits. They argued, horribly. I think there was more to it, but after I’d learned the worst, I didn’t want to hear any more.”

Pincas covered his face with his hands and rocked on his bowed legs. He seemed about to collapse. Baruch hurried to his side with the brandy. This time Pincas drank a bit and allowed himself to be supported back to the table. He continued in a grim voice.

“Those two didn’t stop at angry words. They pummeled each other and yelled odious names. At one point, Luca had Isacco pinned against the wall and was beating his head against the plaster. The boy thought Luca was angry enough to kill him so he grabbed something off a shelf and brought it down on Luca’s head.”

I heard an odd hissing noise. It was Liya, ramrod straight with Fortunata on her lap, shaking her head and expelling her breath through clenched lips.

As Pincas paused to take another sip of brandy, I spoke up. “This object. Was it a statue by any chance?”

“Why, yes.” Pincas gave me a vague look. “Some sort of bronze, Isacco said.”

“Did Isacco take it away with him?” Liya asked, staring at her father intently.

“No, my dear. Our cousin panicked. When Luca fell back, blood streaming from his head, Isacco bolted. He ran straight back to the ghetto as fast as his legs would carry him. By the time he got to me, he was in a terrible state. He didn’t know if Luca was alive or dead or what should be done about either eventuality. He wanted me to go back to the theater with him.”

Gussie wrinkled his brow. “But, how could you get through the gates and over the bridge? Wasn’t it after dark by then?”

The Jews traded uneasy glances among themselves. Baruch finally answered, “There are ways. Boats can be hidden. Guards can be bribed.”

Pincas quickly resumed his tale. “I didn’t know what to do, but I had pledged to Isacco’s father that I would look after him as my own son. Isacco was determined to go back, that meant I had to go with him. We approached the Teatro San Marco with care, but there was no one about. The place was dark and shut up tight. It was then that Isacco showed me another secret he’d been keeping. At a back door covered by a portico, he pulled a wicked-looking dagger out of his waistcoat. I didn’t even know he carried a weapon! He forced the door latch as if he had been breaking into buildings all his life.” Tears started down the Jew’s cheeks. “Oh, how will I ever tell his father about all of this? He will never understand how I let this happen.”