Harem (8 page)

The girl stank of wine and sweat. She collapsed, laughing, onto Ludovici's lap. He put his hand inside her dress and popped out her breast, weighing it in his hand as if it were a fine vase he was displaying to a guest. The nipple, Abbas noticed, had been rouged.

'Now look, Abbas!' Ludovici shouted. 'What are you getting so upset about? They're all the same underneath!'

The girl cuffed Ludovici playfully around the head. She pulled up her bodice in a feigned attempt at modesty.

'She's like a whale drawn up on the beach,' Abbas said. 'All that's missing are the gaffer's hooks.'

The prostitute's laughter died in her throat. '
Bastardo
!' she hissed. 'Black devil. I suppose you'd rather fuck a camel!'

She got up and flounced away. Ludovici shook his head. He picked up his goblet and drained the thick
rosso
, some of it spilling on his white
camicia
, where it spread like a bloodstain across his chest. 'You don't have to be mean to a girl just because you don't love her,' he said.

Abbas nodded, abashed. What had made him say that? No good taking out his frustrations on some poor whore. He looked around. The tavern was crowded with the sons of
togati
and their tarts. The girls were a riot of colour beside their young suitors; under the strict laws of La Serenissima only the working class and prostitutes could wear what they liked, the wives and daughters of patricians always wore black with perhaps a white linen
camicia
. The young noblemen rebelled in their own ways; they wore their shirts wide open in front and their black
baretas
glittered with gemstones.

'You take life too seriously,' Ludovici said.

Abbas wondered what they were doing there. The dive reeked of sour wine and cheap perfumes; from the back of the inn came the even less alluring aroma of stale urine.

'What is wrong, Abbas? You were never so fussy before.'

It was true, there were enough times he had paid these doxies for their feigned endearments and easy-parted thighs but tonight the very thought disgusted him. Some of the girls made him pay more because he was a Moor; others charged less because they were curious. They were all either very drunk, very coarse or very old, God forgive him.

'I'm tired of all this,' Abbas said. He stared at his friend; the red wine had stained his teeth and he looked ridiculously young. He pulled him to his feet. 'Let's go,' he said. Ludovici's goblet clattered onto the wooden floor.

Ludovici protested but he was too drunk to resist. Abbas stood him against the wall of the tavern, holding him up by his shirt. It was sodden with wine. 'Listen' he said, 'you have to help me.'

'Help you? Help you do what?'

'Julia. Can you get a letter to her?'

Ludovici started to laugh.

'I'm serious! Will you do it?'

'But Abbas …'

'Will you do it for me?'

'I told you before, Gonzaga will kill you!'

'I don't care about Gonzaga. I want to meet her, just once.'

'No!'

'You said she is Lucia's cousin.'

'It makes no difference …'

'Then she can take the letter for me.'

Ludovici sagged in his arms. 'It will come to no good.'

'Please, this once. Do this for me. I beg you.'

Ludovici groaned. 'All right, I'll ask her. Now let me go.' He felt suddenly sober again. 'It's dangerous, Abbas.'

'Danger gives meaning to life.'

'More often it ends it. Don't do this. If you do meet with her - and that is impossible for she goes nowhere unescorted - even your father will not be able to help you. You cannot toy with the honour of a man like Gonzago.'

'What of my honour, Ludovici? My father may be content to be the Doge's lapdog, but I am my own man!'

By the balls of all the saints! Ludovici thought. Love and rebellion; when did any good come from such a heinous mix?

'I will write the letter tonight!' Abbas said and put a hand around his shoulder and led him down the
ruga
toward the Piazza San Marco. Ludovici cursed himself for a fool for ever mentioning that he knew Julia Gonzaga. He would regret it. They both would, he was sure of that.

***

Julia draped her lacework across her knees, feeling the warmth of the yellow sun on her skin as she worked. Lucia sat beside her, whispering the petty gossips she had heard from her brother. She visited her often during the summer - escorted by her
duenna
of course - to chatter and to sew. It was a welcome relief for both of them from the monastic solitude of their lives.

Lucia was a dark, thickset girl with the beginnings of a faint moustache on her upper lip; yet her older brother, Ludovici, was fair and did not yet even have a man's beard. Life was not fair, Julia thought.

'I hear you are to be married,' Lucia said.

'Yes. In the autumn.'

'Is he handsome?'

'I have only heard my father speak of him.' Julia pretended to examine her stitches. 'He is a member of the
Consiglio di Dieci
also. His wife died three summers ago.'

From the corner of her eye she could see the horror on Lucia's face. She leaned closer and whispered: 'But how old is he?'

'He is in his sixtieth year. But he may yet be handsome.' She fought to keep the tremor from her voice. What a match her father had made for her!

'What is his name?'

'Serena. Don't ask me his first name, I don't remember.'

Signora Cavalcanti looked up sharply and frowned at her. Julia lowered her eyes.

'I have seen him,' Lucia said. 'He is very … important.'

They lapsed into silence. Signora Cavalcanti put down her embroidery and rubbed her eyes. 'I think I shall rest,' she said and went inside. Julia heard her pull the drapes at her bedroom window on the
terrazzo
above.

Sunlight bounced from the canal and threw dappled shadows on the walls of the
palazzi
. A line tagged with clothes danced in the breeze. On the other side of the canal an ancient
duenna
leaned out of her window to haul up a basket of provisions from a gondola moored below.

Lucia's
duenna
excused herself for a moment and the two girls were left alone. Lucia reached into the folds of her vesture and produced a letter, sealed with red wax. She almost threw it into Julia's lap, as if it were aflame.

Julia gaped at her, astonished. 'What is this?'

Lucia glanced over her shoulder. 'Quickly, open it!'

'Who is it from?'

'You have an admirer!'

She held up the envelope. There was one word written on the face, in black ink: Julia. She tried to swallow.

'Well, open it!'

Julia broke the seal. She read:

You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. I must meet you. I will face any danger. Just tell me what I must do.

Her hands started to shake.

'What does it say?'

'Lucia, who is this from?'

'I don't know. A friend of my brother.'

'What is his name?'

'He would not say. He just asked me to give it to you. Show it to me!'

Lucia tried to snatch it from her but Julia turned away, folded it and slipped it down the front of her
vestura
. She tore the envelope into small pieces and dropped them over the balcony into the canal.

'Why does this friend of your brother's send me letters? Does he wish to disgrace me?'

'Ludovici said it was the only way.'

'The only way for what?'

'I don't know. The only way you might ever meet, I suppose.' She gripped Julia's arm. 'What did it say?'

Julia tried to compose herself. Her cheeks felt hot. If Signora Cavalcanti saw her now, she would know something was wrong. She fanned herself with her embroidery. She was startled by her own reaction to this outrage; a part of her had already started to form a plan. But this was madness, she told herself, you are bound to be discovered, you will disgrace the family name and your soul will be condemned to eternal torment.

And then she thought about Serena. Perhaps it would be worth it.

Yet it was impossible, to meet a complete stranger without introduction, without escort. No, she must burn the letter, she decided, as soon as she was alone. If the author of the missive were a suitable companion - husband even - for her then he would have arranged a meeting through her father; that he had persuaded a friend to smuggle his message this way only proved that he could not be a member of any noble family of note, or even a gentleman.

'What are you going to do?' Lucia whispered.

You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. I must meet you. I will face any danger. Just tell me what I must do.

On one side disgrace and damnation and an ancient friend of her father's; on the other a young man who thought she was beautiful and would risk for her. Lucia looked over her shoulder, expecting her
duenna
to come back at any moment. She must decide.

'Signor Cavalcanti sleeps every afternoon between None and Vespers, while I study the Bible in my bedroom. Tell your brother … tell your brother that his friend should have a gondola waiting by the canal at that time. If he is any earlier, or later, I will not come down, and he is not to bother me again.'

'You are going to meet him … without your
duenna
?'

'Yes, and I don't care if I am damned for eternity. It's better than being damned to marry a sixty year old
Consigliatore
!'

Julia wrapped the long mantello cape around her shoulders and pulled the hood low over her face. It was not too late to turn back, she thought.

She could hear Signora Cavalcanti's snores coming from her bedroom window. She smiled to herself. There was a certain pleasure in outwitting her.

She opened the heavy wooden door and peered down the stone steps that led to the water stairs. The bright light hurt her eyes. Mary, Mother of God, forgive me, it is there!

The gondola was moored there, a line slung carelessly around the striped mooring pole. The gondolier was a tall Moor with a scarlet satin
camicia
with slashed sleeves, and his broad-rimmed hat was trimmed with scarlet ribbon. He leaned on his punta with arrogant ease.

She inched the door shut again and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. It's not too late to go back. It's not too late to go back.

Go back to what? Go back to her dark loggia and open the great black Bible; go back to watching other gondolas like this glide by under her loggia, to peer at the curtained canopies and wonder …

To go back to waiting to marry a sixty year old senator.

She inched open the door, slipped through and ran down the steps. When she reached the gondola she pulled the curtains aside and jumped in.

She stifled a gasp.

He was a Moor, like the gondolier. She remembered him immediately; he was the boy who had stared at her in the church. This was why he could not approach her father!

He smiled, embarrassed; he must know, of course, what she was thinking. 'They tell me I have all the makings of a fine gondolier,' he said. 'But my father would not permit it. He thinks the son of the Defender of the Republic should aspire to greater things.'

'Your father is -?'

'-is the Captain General of the Army.'

'If you find my appearance too shocking, my Lady, you may leave now and I promise you will never hear from me again. I guarantee it, because I will immediately throw myself in the canal.'

He was young, almost as young as herself. His skin was the colour of mahogany and his hair tightly curled; a ruby glinted in his left ear. He was at once forbidding and forbidden, and she felt the same thrill of excitement that she had experienced in the Santa Maria dei Miracoli.

'But that linen
camicia
you are wearing must have been fearsomely expensive. I should hate you to get it wet. Where are we going?'

'We can just pole around if you like. We can see nothing with the curtain drawn so it hardly seems to matter. I have everything I want to look at right here in front of me.'

'I may only be away for a few minutes.'

She sank back into the cushions. There were blue velvet curtains on all sides so they were safe from prying eyes. The only thing she could see outside the tiny cabin was the gaily coloured hose of their gondolier as he stood at his position on the
punta piede
. The boat smelled of mildew and walnut.

He leaned through the curtain and said something to the gondolier. The boatman unhitched the rope and she heard the gentle splash of the pole as he steered them towards the centre of the canal.

'What is your name?' she said.

'Abbas.'

'Abbas,' she said, testing the exotic name and liking the sound and the feel of it on her tongue.

'It is not a Venetian name but as you can see, I am not quite a Venetian myself.'

She reached inside her mantello. 'Here is your letter.'

'I do not want it back.'

'It is too dangerous for me to keep. If you like I will burn it …'

'I do not want you to burn it.' He took it from her. 'I meant everything I said. Since I saw you I have not been able to think about anything else.'

She felt her cheeks grow hot. 'You know Ludovici Gambetto?'

'His father is a general and an adviser to my father. We are both renegades, I suppose. Outsiders.'

'But the Gambetti are one of the noble families of Venice.'

Abbas looked embarrassed. 'You don't know?'

'Know what?'

'Ludovici came from outside the marriage. Signor Gambetto had a mistress. When she died Ludovici was still a baby. Signor Gambetto is a good man, he raised him as one of his own - but, you know, Ludovici can never really belong. That is why we understand each other so well. But perhaps I should not have told you. You are Lucia's friend and I assumed that you knew.'

Why would she know? No one ever told her anything.

'I am sorry for …' He spread his hands to take in the little velvet canopy. '… for this. I wanted my father to speak to your father for me, but he said it was impossible. But I am a man who believes nothing is impossible. And I had to speak to you.' He reached up suddenly and pulled back her hood. She froze, thinking that he meant to touch her. But instead he just stared at her, studying her face with a frightening intensity.

'You are … glorious,' he said.

For a moment she thought she might laugh; it was the most wonderful thing anyone had ever said to her. She knew she was beautiful, of course. But what good had beauty had her beauty been to her, until now? Suddenly the risks of the afternoon were all worthwhile. She would have run the gauntlet of a thousand knives for this sort of adoration.

She had no idea what she was meant to do or say. She pulled her hood back over her face, overwhelmed. 'I should be getting back.'

'Not yet.'

'If my
duenna
discovers I am gone …'

'Just a few moments more.' A shadow passed over the canopy as the gondola slipped under a bridge. She heard the shouts of urchins playing on the cobbles. 'I have to see you again.'

'I cannot.'

'You must. Please. I feel as if I am on fire.'

'What do you want from me? I am to be married in the autumn. My husband will return from Cyprus for the wedding at the end of summer.'

'I cannot let this happen.'

'Signor Abbas, it is what will happen and there is nothing you or I can do about it. Please take me back.'

He took her hand. The shock of his touch made her gasp. No man had ever touched her before, not even her father. 'Could you love a Moor like I love an infidel?'

'Just take me back,' she repeated.

He sighed and leaned through the curtain and gave the orders to the gondolier. A few moments later she felt the boat scrape along the steps outside her
palazzo
. Julia stood up and the gondola swayed. She lost her balance and Abbas caught her arm to steady her.

'Let me see you just once more before you go.'

'You can never see me again,' she said and scrambled out of the gondola and ran inside. She did not stop running until she had reached her bedroom, where she threw herself on her knees before the wooden crucifix on the wall and prayed for forgiveness, and then prayed again for just one more chance to sin.