The Undrowned Child (43 page)

She looked Renzo straight in the eyes without fluttering her eyelashes and held out her hand to shake his. It was as if to say, “I know I don’t deserve for you to kiss my hand like Teo.”

“Thank you, you saved my life,” she said simply and quietly. Renzo shook her hand and smiled.

Maria’s mother scoffed, “Typical Maria. Always melodramatic and attention-seeking. Boarding school will sort that out.”

“Boarding school!” thought Teo. “They’re going to send her away? Poor Maria.”

Teo’s parents exchanged sad glances. Maria’s father said, “As it turns out, there’s a really tough convent school here in Venice that takes hussies like this young miss and turns ’em into decent little girls. Been to see the headmistress already. What a battleaxe!” Signor Naccaro added with admiration. “Face like a charging bull!”

Teo saw Renzo squeeze Maria’s hand under the table and smile at her encouragingly. He whispered, “Don’t worry about your parents. You’ll be in Venice! Their loss is our gain.”

Teo felt a little shock of something disagreeable. Maria in Venice with Renzo, and Teo herself back in Naples—that was not easy to swallow. But it passed in a moment. She was more glad than sorry that Renzo was at last being genuinely friendly to Maria. And now, she thought protectively, Maria wouldn’t be left to the tender mercies of the fashionable crowd back in Naples.

“We can come and visit Maria, can’t we?” she asked her parents. Teo’s mother’s look clearly said, “I never thought I’d hear you ask that!”

“You want to come back, Teodora? After your frightening experience here?” asked Teo’s father.

Teo reflected privately, “You haven’t the least idea how frightening, Papà!”

She tried not to meet Renzo’s eyes across the table. If she did, they would both explode into uncontrollable laughter, and in her case, perhaps even tears.

“Mind you,” said Teo’s mother, blushing, “we have come to be rather fond of Venice. I never thought we would be, but its charm has grown on us. When we were looking for you, we spent so many days walking the streets … even though we were miserable, the beauty of the city helped raise our spirits. Then we started thinking …”

“We began to see what you see in the place, Teodora,” admitted her father. “We began to see that Venice has a magic of its own. We could not hate this town. It brought you back to us.”

Charm. Beauty. Magic??? These were not words that usually came from the mouths of Teo’s highly rational and scientific parents.

Teo had no time to answer because the manager came bustling up with a fat manila envelope in his hand. It was addressed in purple ink to The Honorable Alberto and Leonora Stampara, their names underlined with flourishes.

“This was delivered personally by the mayor,” he announced reverently. “I had no idea that we were hosting such important guests in our humble establishment.”

He bowed low and backed away. “I leave you to your highly confidential correspondence.”

Teo had a strong feeling that he had not been able to resist reading the letter before he delivered it. Her father opened the envelope, scanned the contents and handed it to her mother, saying, “I don’t believe it.”

He slumped in his chair, grinning broadly. Teo’s mother turned pale as dust as she read the brief letter. Her hands seemed to be suddenly without bones, and the letter dropped onto the table. But a smile played about her lips.

“What is it?” Teo could not wait any longer. She picked up the letter.

“Honored Professors,” she read aloud, “your excellent work on the marine wildlife of Venice has come to my attention, courtesy of our famous Venetian naturalist, Professor Marìn, author of many celebrated volumes. Here at the Town Hall we have quite fixed our ambitions upon the founding of a living museum in the lagoon, a way to study and preserve our dear native creatures. Think of how many new visitors such an attraction would bring to Venice! We feel that you would be the ideal candidates for the positions of director and chief scientific officer. We hope that you will consider our offer. You shall find our terms more than generous, and, naturally, living accommodation in Venice will be provided, and schooling for your precious daughter, Teodora, who has been so felicitously returned to you.…”

The mayor signed himself off with many extravagant compliments and assurances of his undying esteem.

Teo glanced over to Renzo, whose face was lit up with joy.

Then she took one of each of her parents’ trembling hands. “You don’t have to decide this minute, you know,” she told them. More than ever, it was as if she was the adult and they were the children, who could not make up their minds and were fearful of doing the wrong thing.

“Our jobs in Naples … our home … your school,” stuttered her mother.

Teo said calmly in her new grown-up voice, “But Mamma, Papà, is this not a vast promotion for you both? Your very own museum to run?”

Teo’s and Renzo’s eyes met across the table for a long look, and each simultaneously winked. Meanwhile, under the table, Teo passed Renzo a parcel wrapped in flowered lining-paper that she’d removed from the drawer in her hotel room. There was a note inside, which she had written earlier in her best Venetian dialect. He would find it when he got home.

Dear Renzo, I think there was one more reason why you were chosen for this adventure. It’s your job as a historian to write the story of what happened these last weeks in Venice, and to put it inside this book.

Anyway, I could never take The Key to the Secret City away from here. The book belongs to you and Venice. Thank you for sharing them both with me for a while.

I love the book, but I don’t need it anymore. Conoso Venessia come e me scarsee, I know Venice like I know my own pockets. After all, I’ve been between-the-Linings. And back.

Teodora Gasperin, Venice, June 18, 1899

Places and things in

THE UNDROWNED CHILD

that you can still see in Venice

Just behind the clock tower in San Marco is the Sottoportico del Cappello Nero. If you look up and left you can see a relief of an old woman with the mortar-and-pestle that felled the standard-bearer of Bajamonte Tiepolo.

Piazza San Marco, the square of San Marco, is where Bajamonte Tiepolo lost the battle with Doge Gradenigo’s loyal forces, and where, in this story, his torture instruments appeared hanging from the lampposts and the Baja-Menta ice-cream seller pitched his trolley.

The Campanile in San Marco did fall down in 1902, three years after the date of this story. The spectacular collapse was foreseen by engineers, so the only casualty was the caretaker’s cat. The Campanile was rebuilt “as it was and where it was” by 1912. The Venetians call it el paron de casa, the owner of the house, it being the highest building in the city.

In the Piazzetta are the two columns between which Bajamonte Tiepolo’s fellow-conspirator Badoero and also the Butcher Biasio were executed.

Ca’ Dario is the “haunted” house where Bajamonte Tiepolo made his fake Brustolons. It’s not open to the public, but you can see it from the Grand Canal and Campiello Barbaro behind. Since the late fifteenth century, when it was built for Giovanni Dario, there have been an unusual number of mysterious and bloody deaths there.

The Campo dei Mori is the home of the statue of Signor Rioba and his brothers Sandi and Afani, who were spice merchants, possibly from Morea in Southern Greece. And there’s a relief of a camel on the Palazzo Mastelli, not far away, near the Church of Madonna dell’ Orto. It is sometimes called Palazzo Cammello. A small note: it was unlikely that Signor Rioba wore underwear beneath his tunic. Modern underwear was unknown in the twelfth century, when he probably lived. Perhaps he had a camicia, or undershirt. He acquired his iron nose in the nineteenth century.

The Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo contains the tomb of Marcantonio Bragadin with the hero’s skin inside. Bragadin did indeed suffer the terrible fate described in this story. Just outside the church is the place where the children met the headless Doge Marin Falier and persuaded him to join them. Next door to the church is the hospital.

The children found the ghost of the blind Doge Enrico Dandolo at Barbaria delle Tole. He was, in fact, buried in Istanbul. He died a year after his great massacre of the civilian population there.

The Doges’ Palace, in the Sala Maggiore, still displays the frame in which Doge Marin Falier’s portrait is blacked out. His palace is thought to be at Santi Apostoli, and is now a hotel. There’s another Palazzo Falier on the Grand Canal, near Santo Stefano.

The Correr Museum, established in 1830, moved to the square of San Marco in 1922. Among its holdings are relics of the Bajamonte Tiepolo conspiracy, including the flag that the old lady was authorized to hang from her window after quashing the rebellion with her mortar-and-pestle.

The Rialto Bridge is now built out of stone. The earlier wooden version was burned down by Bajamonte Tiepolo in 1310, and another collapsed when too many people crowded onto it to watch a noble wedding procession.

Campiello del Remer: There are several little squares of this name in Venice. The one where the original Tiepolo palace was built (and destroyed) is in Sant’Agostin, but there’s another on the Grand Canal opposite the Rialto market, and this is the site used for the Palazzo Tiepolo in this novel.

The Naranzaria is on the Rialto market side of the Grand Canal. In this story, it is the place where the mermaids and their troops waited for Bajamonte Tiepolo to emerge from his palace on the opposite bank.

The stone lions—with their paws on open books—are everywhere in Venice. Recently scholars have cast doubt on the old story that the lions sculpted in time of war were always shown with closed books, but this idea has been popular for centuries.

The House of the Spirits is not open to the public, but you can look into the garden from the bridge at the opening to the Sacca della Misericordia. You can see the place where Renzo and Teo climbed across boats to get to the Watergate of the garden. The Palazzo Contarini del Zaffo, which one sees from the street, is today known as La Piccola Casa della Divina Providenza “Cottolengo.” The Cottolengo nuns devote their lives to helping the sick and disadvantaged. The House of the Spirits at the end of the garden is the home of a group of elderly nuns of this order, who help to look after old people in the rest-home. There’s a neoclassical chapel in the garden, and a beautiful freestanding fireplace in a courtyard. There was once an orchard there. There is an atmosphere of kindness and humor about the place. The nuns say that when a certain wind blows, there is indeed a special howling or whistling noise that reverberates around the house. At the time when this novel was set, the house was still under private ownership.

The Gardens of Sant’Elena are where the winged Syrian cats saved Renzo. Near it is the sports stadium—the Games Pavilion of the book.

There is a small secondhand bookshop in the square of Santa Maria Nova, behind Miracoli.

The Bone Orchard is more usually known as the San Michele cemetery. From the Sacca della Misericordia you can look across the water where Teo and Renzo swam with the mermaids and where they were attacked by the sharks. You can reach the cemetery by vaporetto.

For an idea of how an old Venetian apothecary used to look, you can go to a shop at Santa Fosca and look at the old majolica jars through the window. Its original name was Farmacia Santa Fosca all’Ercole d’Oro, which means “Golden Hercules.” Other beautiful Venetian apothecaries can still be seen at Campo San Polo and on the island of San Servolo. Alle due Sirene scapigliate, the Two Tousled Mermaids, is still open, and situated near the ghetto. It is now known simply as the Two Mermaids. The owner says it lost the “scapigliate” of its title some time in the twentieth century. There is also an apothecary called Il Lupo Coronato, the Wolf-in-a-Crown, at Santi Filippi e Giacomo.

Along the Grand Canal, you can still see the striped poles that were the tentacles of the Creature in this book. In the lagoon you can see the bricole, the three-legged wooden poles that strode out into the lagoon to surround Bajamonte Tiepolo at the end of the story; you can also see the stazioni—the command posts for the various groups of gondoliers—and the tower-shaped lamps where Renzo left instructions for the gondolier children.

La Riva di Biasio, named after the Butcher, who lived nearby, is on the Grand Canal, near the station.

Calle del Angelo lies behind San Marco. There is still a relief of an angel on the palace wall to cover the hole made by the devil in the shape of a monkey, after he was exposed by a priest and forced to make a hasty escape. (The Key to the Secret City takes Teo there in Chapter 12.)

The large crab baskets, where Teo and Renzo hid from Bajamonte Tiepolo, used to be made out of straw but now tend to be hexagonal wooden structures and can still be seen in the Venice lagoon. They are called vieri—an abbreviation of viveri from the word vivere (“to live”), as live crabs and fish were kept inside them.

Saint Lucy still lies in a glass casket, wearing her mask, in the Church of San Geremia (or Santa Lucia). You can see her bare feet and fingers. Santa Lucia is the patron saint of eyesight: her martyrdom was to pluck out her own beautiful eyes, but God restored them. A traveler to Venice a century ago recorded that near her body the offertory boxes were overflowing with notes begging, Santa Lucia, please save my eyes! It seems that these prayers could be effective, because there were also spectacles in the box with notes saying “Thank you for restoring my sight!” Venice has relics of more than seventy saints. The little leg of the child-saint Tryphon can be seen at Sant’Apollonia. Santa Maria del Giglio also has quite a few reliquaries.

A former convent near the Frari has housed the Venetian state archives since 1814. Before that, different archives were stored all over the city.

The elegant Hotel Danieli, on the Riva degli Schiavoni, is where the pirates attacked the tourists in this story. It is close to the Bridge of Sighs.

Visitors to Venice will see and hear the magòghe (singular magòga) or gabbiani reali, the huge fierce seagulls, and the smaller black-headed gulls the Venetians call cocai (singular cocàl). They may even see a rat, known in Venice as a pantegana (plural pantegane). The other birds mentioned are all natives of the Venetian lagoon. Sharks and swordfish can also be seen—sold in slices on tables at the Rialto fish-market. Vampire Eels are an invention of the author.