Daughter of Venice (20 page)

“Oh, no. What will happen to the Jews?”

“Nothing. They won’t bother the Jews, because we bring prosperity to Venice. Today’s handbills proclaim that there will be no more tolerance of blasphemy, sodomy, prostitution, or procurement. A new tribunal has been formed to enforce these bans.”

“That’s good, though, Noè,” I say in relief. “These other things are sins.”

“Have you ever been with a prostitute?” His voice is angry.

My face goes hot. “Of course not.”

“Then what do you know about them, Donato?”

“In selling their bodies they sell their souls.”

“You told me your father has not chosen you as the son to get married. Sooner or later, you’ll find yourself frequenting prostitutes, like most Venetian men.”

“I will not,” I say. “But even if I did, that wouldn’t make what the women do right.”

“Nor what the men do,” says Noè.

“I agree. There are two sins for each act. They willingly choose to sin.”

Noè puts his hands on his head in exasperation. When he takes them down, his yarmulke is off center. I realize that’s why his yarmulke is so often off center—this is his habit. Now he holds his hands out to me. “Some sins are worse than others, Donato. Some of these women choose the life of a prostitute, yes. Some are courtesans who live in luxury. But there are twelve thousand prostitutes in Venice, at the last census. Twelve thousand, in a city of one hundred thousand. That’s too many for you to believe the nonsense you just spoke. Not all of them freely choose to sell their bodies, and the vast majority live in quarters that are far from luxurious. They are simply poor and trying to make enough money so they won’t starve, so they have a bed to sleep in when the customers go home. Maybe you have never imagined that kind of misery, Donato. But I ask you to now. What would you be willing to do if you had no money?”

I have imagined misery—just such misery. And I know I would never turn to prostitution.

Still, Noè’s question disturbs me. Why does my heart harden in the face of a prostitute’s misery, when in tutorial only yesterday I was able to feel sympathy for the misery of the beggar boy who has plagued me? Jesus himself said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” And certainly I am not without sin, yet my hand holds a stone.

I’m crying now. I am sad for myself. I am sad for every prostitute, every lost soul. I am so very sad.

Noè puts his hand on my back. It is warm and much too welcome for me to find the moral strength to shake it off. “That’s right, Donato. What should be done about these problems, I don’t know. But one thing is certain: Prison does not cure poverty.” He goes to his desk and works.

I look through my tears at this wonderful man who has helped me in so many ways. I love him.

I wipe my eyes and work again.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
ONE

GOD AND OTHER THINGS

Y
esterday I ate only one meal: the evening meal. And while I filled my plate, it wasn’t enough. Today I’ve had no food yet. At the midday mealtime, everyone else left the printer’s to post the morning handbills in the Merceria, then go home to eat, while I stayed and worked. It’s late afternoon now and the copyists have gone off again, this time to post the afternoon handbills. I’ve finished the fifth copy of the boy’s play and I’m waiting for Noè, who left a while ago on an errand. There’s nothing to keep my mind off the aching emptiness of my stomach. I feel faint.

I lean forward from my stool and let my head drop. When the wooziness passes, I walk out to the courtyard. An unfinished handbill lies on a table. That’s unlike Noè. But he disliked these afternoon handbills, too, almost as much as he disliked the morning handbills. That must be why he didn’t ask Emilio, the fastest copyist, to finish it.

At first I didn’t understand Noè’s commotion at the afternoon handbills; they were simply about a proposal to build a new Rialto bridge, out of stone this time, so it cannot burn down. But then Noè explained. The architects had gotten word early about the harsh new proclamation—and the part about clamping down on prostitution interested them especially. They gathered last night, and by today they had this proposal. The Rialto area has the most squalid brothels of all Venice. If the prostitutes are rounded up and thrown in prison, the area can be developed as a place for expensive stores.

Everyone wants to profit from any change. That’s what Noè said. They forget at whose expense their profit comes.

I fold the unfinished handbill and bring it inside to the stack of papers that cannot be used because of scribe mistakes. When the pile is high enough, it will be sent to the papermaker, who will soak it and make new paper. I know so many things about this bookmaking industry now. This is a good industry, for nothing nourishes the whole self better than books.

I can imagine Noè’s response to that. He would say a hungry body must be fed before a hungry mind. He’s seen so many more troubles than I have. Yet even if I lived a thousand lives and each one was as a poor person, I feel sure that I’d take a book before a loaf of bread.

After all, I’m hungry now, but that hunger doesn’t shake my belief.

I laugh out loud. What a rich girl I am, through and through, that I can hold on to such lofty beliefs.

And how can I think this is hunger? All I’ve missed is a couple of meals. I’m a complete dolt.

“What’s funny, Donato?” Noè walks past me and into his workroom, giving a smile as he goes.

“Nothing worth talking about.” I follow. “Will you help me with the letter now?”

“That’s why I came back. Where is it?”

“I haven’t written it yet. I want you to write it.”

“If I write it, how can you learn?” Noè sits at his desk and takes out some work. “Write a draft and I’ll correct it, then you can write the finished letter.”

This is a better plan, I see immediately. If Noè were to write the letter, there’s the chance, no matter how slim, that someone might recognize the handwriting from some book Noè has scribed for him.

I sit down and write the letter. Short and blunt. “I’m through,” I say.

“So fast?” Noè gets up to come over. In a flash of clarity, I realize my error. I turn the paper over.

“What? Now you won’t let me see it?”

“It turned out to be easier than I’d thought.” Which is true. I don’t need Noè’s help. I must have been crazy to think I did. The letter has only two sentences in it; even if there are errors in the Latin, I’m sure it is comprehensible. And if Noè reads it, he will try to stop me.

Maybe Noè should stop me. Maybe if Noè knew everything, he would come up with a better solution.

Maybe that’s why I wanted him to write the letter.

Wretched me, that I almost involved him—and after I’d sworn to myself never to put anyone else at risk again.

Noè gives a confused laugh. “All right, then, I’ll pay you the piecework rate for the copies of the plays you just finished.”

“Thank you.”

Noè gets his ledger off the shelf. He writes in it.

“But can’t you pay me now?” I ask.

“I don’t have that much money on me. And the master pays me only once the customer pays him. I’m sorry, Donato. But I’ll ask the master if we can have the copies delivered tomorrow, for I’ve already finished the clean library copy, too. So the job is done.” Noè smiles. “With luck, I can pay you midday tomorrow.”

I can’t wait till then. If I don’t carry out my Great Plan tonight, I won’t get another chance. Mother will never let me out of her sight again. “Could you give me enough money to pay for two gondola rides?”

“Here, there are three
soldi
in my pocket. You can have them and I’ll deduct them from your pay.” Noè lays the
soldi
in my outstretched hand. Then he goes about putting away the things on his desk. “Think you’d like another job?”

“No.”

“Why not, Donato? We have fun together. I missed you when you stopped coming, you know.” He fumbles through a pile. “I think I have something here you’d be perfect for.”

“Noè?”

“What is it, Donato?”

“Who will you marry?”

“We already talked about this. Why torture yourself?”

Has he guessed how I feel about him? Did he understand even before I did? “What do you mean?”

He sits on his stool, so that now we are each sitting on stools, with half the room between us. “You told me you can’t marry and you want to marry, right?”

Ah, yes. This is what I told Noè, before Father announced my engagement. It’s almost funny how I thought I was sad then.

“But if you can’t do something,” continues Noè, “what’s the point in dwelling on it, my friend? The world is full of satisfactions for a noble like you.”

Satisfactions for a noble man. “Humor me, Noè. Tell me about the woman you’ll marry.”

“I’m not betrothed.”

“Have you ever loved a girl?”

Noè smiles.

“Answer me. Please.”

“When my father died, I put girls out of my mind for the short term. My family needs me too much now.”

“Then tell me about the sort of woman you’d like to marry,” I say.

“That has no meaning,” says Noè.

“But surely there are some things about her that must be so in order for you to choose her.”

Noè lifts his shoulders.

I won’t let this go. This may be my only chance to know. “Must she be Jewish?”

“That goes without saying,” says Noè.

I swallow. “And could she be a convert?”

Noè looks long at me. “No. I’m not against conversion, Donato. And you know I have no trouble caring about a Christian. I’ve grown closer to you than I ever expected. But a mother holds a special place in a Jewish family. She is the bearer of tradition. A Jewish child needs a mother steeped in Jewish tradition. My children need such a mother.”

“But you are steeped in Jewish tradition. Why couldn’t you teach your wife?”

“It wouldn’t be the same,” says Noè.

The four meters between our stools might as well be the whole lagoon of Venice. “I thought your mind was wider, Noè.” I take off my
bareta
and shake my hair out.

Noè stares. “Are you a girl?”

Now it’s my turn to lift my shoulders.

He stands, his face stricken, his eyes bright. Then he sinks back onto his stool and stares down at his own hands.

“You didn’t sin when you touched me,” I say quickly. “Sin takes conscious choice—whether you be Jew or Catholic, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you didn’t choose to touch a girl.”

Noè gives the smallest laugh. “And here we were pretending you were a girl.”

“It got complicated,” I say, with my own sad laugh.

“Donata, after all,” says Noè softly. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands folded in front of him. “You’re a girl and your father has not chosen you to be the one to get married. I’m beginning to understand.” He speaks very slowly. He’s wrong, of course. “But you dressed like a boy. Why?”

“It was the only way to go outside my
palazzo
without being in danger.” I wrinkle my nose at my own words. “Or at least that’s what I thought when I first went out. Then I learned going out as a poor boy carries dangers I didn’t guess at.”

“Why did you want to go outside your
palazzo
?”

“Wouldn’t you want to?” I ask.

Noè sits up straight. “What’s the letter about?”

I put my hand on the turned-over letter, as though to weigh it down. “I don’t want you to know. It’s false, anyway.”

“False?”

“Do you believe my God is false, Noè?”

“There is only one God.”

“I believe that, too,” I say. “People are different. People make up different ways of believing. But God is one and the same.”

Noè stands up and comes to me. He kneels before me. “That’s not all there is to it, Donata. God is not the whole thing.”

“Yes, I know,” I say through my tears. “There are spoons that have to stay with their mates on special shelves.”

“You are my good friend, Donata. I cherish you.”

We bow our heads toward one another. But they do not touch.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
TWO

IT’S DONE

I
go by gondola to the Piazza San Marco—for the second time in my life. It’s getting late and people rush past every which way, going home for the evening meal. Boys pick up litter from the wide
piazza
. Pigeons flutter from spot to spot. Nothing has any direction.

I’m lost.

Then I see the tall bell tower. I rush to it. I know facts about this tower from Messer Zonico. He spread an illuminated codex out before us and explained that the bell tower was originally a lighthouse and lookout, and it rose not nearly so high. Now it stands alone, the buildings nearby having recently been leveled. Everything Messer Zonico said stays clear in my head.

Last time I was here, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I didn’t know what anything stood for, where anything came from. But now I do.

The bell gongs loudly. I look up and see the two statues of Moors striking the hour with their hammers. I see the sign of the zodiac. I am filled with the pride of my heritage. This is my birthright. I kiss the air.

Beyond the bell tower is the Basilica di San Marco. I walk to it, as though drawn forward with an invisible string. When I came here with my family that one time so long ago, we didn’t enter the church. Mother felt too poorly to battle the crowds in the
piazza
. But the
piazza
is not crowded now. And who knows when and if I’ll ever get another chance.

There are so many columns, on so many levels, and arches within arches. The Quadriga—the four gilded bronze horse statues above the great central arch, which were brought to Venice from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade—are even more massive and majestic than I remembered them. Messer Zonico says no one knows where they were made. I’m glad of that. Their mystery wraps me as I enter the church. First five steps, a landing, then another two. Seven. A mystical number.

The light is immediately reduced, yet the height of the ceilings lifts. I walk as in clouds. Little windows run along the bases of the cupolas allowing me to see better as I reach the transept. I look at the mosaics above archways, on the cupolas themselves, even under my feet. I know about these mosaics. Messer Zonico has shown us drawings, and discussed their history and artistry. But seeing them, seeing the glittering gold and grays and reds, seeing Adam asleep and God causing Eve to be born from his side, seeing Adam and Eve summoned to God’s judgment after their sin, seeing all of it dazzles me. Light comes through a rose window at the right end of the transept, a window resembling delicate lacework. It’s Gothic, I think to myself with a smile. Messer Zonico has taught me well.

“What are you doing here, child?”

I jump at the voice, which seems to come from some heavenly source.

A priest walks along a side aisle. Just an ordinary priest.

“Looking, my Don,” I say, with a bow.

The priest walks past and disappears beyond curtains near the altar. On the other side of the altar is the Doge’s chair for popular assemblies and aulic ceremonials. Oh, yes, Messer Zonico has done his job.

But no amount of talk could have prepared me for the ecstasy of being before the Divine.

I don’t know how long I spend going from mosaic to mosaic, but I realize finally that my eyes cannot strain hard enough through the dark to make out the details any longer. I go out the great archway that I entered by.

The evening sky is pink and deep blue. A few stars show, more with every second. From the tops of the two colossal columns by the Palazzo Ducale the statues of the winged lion and of Saint Theodore reign over the city.

Here and there people walk in groups or alone. But very few now—and none that I dare ask for directions.

I need to find a
bocca di leone
—a lion’s mouth—but I don’t know which walls to search. I need to find one because I am about to deliver the letter I wrote at the printer’s. It reads:

This is a denunciation of Donata Aurelia Mocenigo, daughter of Augustino Marcantonio Mocenigo of the Sestiere di Cannaregio. She has converted to Judaism.

Reciting the words in my head sends chills deep inside, so that my bones would splinter. This denunciation is false. And yet . . .

I never converted. I never even explicitly thought about conversion.

Nevertheless, the idea was intimate with me. Like fingers brushing lightly on my back—hardly felt, but nonetheless demanding.

Talking to Noè ended that elusive intimacy.

Even if he would have me—and he will not have me, I know that now, I have to know that—I could not be a good wife to him, not so long as he wants children. I am a Catholic, in every part of my soul and body. I revere Saint Thomas Aquinas, though I love Noè.

Noè is Jewish; I am Catholic.

What does that mean?

Noè is Jewish; I am Catholic.

Maybe Messer Zonico was more right than I guessed—maybe I am obsessed with questions of theology. Yet I am a dunce; I get no closer to sense.

Noè is Jewish; I am Catholic.

There are differences here—there must be differences. And these differences must matter. Though I keep forgetting just how.

I keep wanting to straighten his yarmulke and run my fingers lightly over his ears and hold that thin chin with the straggly beard. I keep crying.

I collapse against the nearest wall, my head hanging back, face to the sky. The water of my eyes blurs the stars into one glowing heaven. I sit and watch, a long time, until finally each point of light grows distinct again.

It’s time to remember Laura. It’s time to carry out my Great Plan.

My Great Plan is this. I will search this
piazza
until I find a
bocca di leone
. Then I will deliver my letter through its mouth. Tomorrow I will be arrested and stand trial.

I will be found innocent. After all, there is no evidence that I have converted to Judaism. No worldly evidence, at least.

Nevertheless, I will become suspect, for a woman who draws the public eye is always suspect. But the Mocenigo family name—with all its wealth—will still shine. My betrothal will be unthinkable. And, as is custom, when a girl withdraws from a betrothal, a sister takes her place. Laura will marry Roberto Priuli. She will have children.

I will have done the right thing.

There are consequences.

The most devastating is that I will never have children.

The thought does not torment me, for the idea of children is joined to the idea of a husband; and I would not want Roberto Priuli’s children. I would not want any noble’s children. I could not bear to send my daughters to a convent.

This denunciation means I will never even marry.

This thought does not torment me, either. Marriage is not a goal in and of itself. The lure of marriage for me was the lure of love. I don’t love Roberto Priuli. I love Noè. It would be a travesty of all I hold dear to marry anyone else.

Noè is the husband of my soul.

Dear Lord, how could you teach me such profound love of the soul and deny me love of the body? Never to feel the weight of his hand, the heat of his breath on my skin. Never to touch him, to embrace him. Never. What wretched loss.

But at least Laura will know a more complete love than I do. At least the denunciation will have benefits, rather than costs.

So long as I am found innocent.

And now Noè’s news about the new tribunal worries me. I don’t know anything about trials. Not really. What if the new tribunal decides to make an example of me and, despite all reason, finds me guilty? What if I’m locked up or worse, much worse, what if I’m exiled from Venice just when I’ve learned so much of her glory? Lost and alone. Without my family. Who am I then?

I put the side of my index finger in my mouth and bite down hard. I will not allow terror to wipe out reason.

And I will not look for excuses to back out.

I will be true to Laura and, most of all, to myself.

I wander along the edge of the Palazzo Ducale looking for a
bocca di leone.
I wander back again along the outer walls of the Basilica and around to the small
piazzetta
at the side. Again and again. It is only by chance that my hand finds letters carved into smooth stone. With a fingertip, I read,
“Denoncie secrete contro ministri et autri che cometessero Fraudi a . . .”
—secret denunciations against magistrates and others who would commit fraud. There’s no need to read further. This is not the correct
bocca
—the one for heresy is inside the Palazzo Ducale—but this one will do. My hands run down the cool of the stone to the lion’s head. To the open mouth.

I look around. No one appears to be looking this way. But I cannot see who might watch from inside a window. Still, who would watch at this hour? And what would they see? A shadow of a poor boy standing by the wall. They cannot see this
bocca di leone,
even if they know it’s right here. They cannot see my hand reach inside my shirt and pull out the letter.

The white paper catches a bit of starlight at the last moment, before the lion devours it.

It’s done.

And the details of the moment press upon me suddenly, with all their necessities. I walk past the Palazzo Ducale again, quickly now. The
fondamenta
along the wide Canale di San Marco is mostly empty. I have to find a gondola soon. Night carries too many dangers. But my nose detects the scent of food. I walk along the
fondamenta
and over a bridge.

“Have pity,” comes a scream.

A hand stretches out through bars from a window only a meter above the water level. I can barely make out a face pressed against those bars, lit from behind by a weak oil lamp. The prison beneath the Palazzo Ducale. Messer Zonico talked about this, too.

What happens to the prisoners when the high water comes in autumn and winter? I didn’t ask this when Messer Zonico talked of the prison. None of it seemed particularly real to me then.

A morbid sense of curiosity consumes me. “Tell me, kind sir,” I call from the bridge, “what’s it like inside there?”

“Pity,” he screams. “Have pity, you scoundrel. A crumb of bread. Pity.”

“The walls are damp,” says a stronger voice.

I peer into the dark, but I see no one.

“The stench makes it hard to breathe. Summer bakes and winter ices.” He laughs. “Disease comes in every season. Food is always scarce.”

I see him now—he’s not behind bars. Instead, he squats outside in the shadows by the wall beyond the bridge.

“Pity!” screams the prisoner.

I turn my back on both of them and walk quickly along the
fondamenta,
staying close to the water’s edge. I go toward the smell of food.

A man cooks in a pot over an open fire. Others crowd around him. He fills a bowl from the pot and hands it to one man. The man eats it with his fingers. Rapidly. He hands the bowl back to the cook. The cook fills it again. Another man gives him a coin and takes the bowl, slurping it down. He hands back the empty bowl. I push forward with the crowd. I’ve never eaten from a shared bowl. I’ve never eaten without utensils.

I’ve never been this hungry.

Finally, it’s my turn. I give the man a
soldo.
He hands me a bowl full of rice with a fish head in the middle. I eat it as fast as I can. It’s hot and the rice fills the maw of my stomach. I give back the bowl, holding onto the fish head. I suck out its tasty juices.

I want another bowlful. But the single coin left in my pocket is my passage home.

I turn and walk back over the bridge, keeping to the open water side again, as far as possible from the sighs of prisoners. I stop at the place where the gondola left me off. Surely another gondola will come along.

The air off the water is warm. This was a very hot day.

A man limps past. He looks at me, but doesn’t talk. I don’t know if he was the man who squatted in the shadows before.

I can’t stay here. So long as I stand alone like this, I’m a target for who knows what. Panic creeps up on me.

But there are things I know. I’m not helpless. The Merceria runs from the Piazza San Marco all the way across to where the Rialto bridge used to be. If I can find the Merceria, I can at least get that far toward home without having to ask my way. And I realize with an involuntary laugh that I can recognize the Merceria easily, though I’ve never been there, for that’s where the copyists put up the handbills.

I walk around the
piazza
now, checking every alley that runs off it. At last there they are, the handbills I know so well, on the large passage that opens close to the Basilica. I walk as fast as I can, staying close to one wall, even though that makes my steps fall practically in blackness. A cat hisses. I kick something that clatters away. A man’s voice calls out. I have to work at not running; it would be stupid to run when I can’t even see the ground.

Finally the Merceria opens onto the Canal Grande. I wave my hands over my head, calling to a gondola. It passes.