What Casanova Told Me (10 page)
Read What Casanova Told Me Online
Authors: Susan Swan
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Psychological
What a bleak outlook her ancestor had on love, Luce thought as she lay on the hospital cot. Of course, at twenty-five, Asked For would have been considered a spinster and lucky to have found Francis. Luce was twenty-eight and, despite her mother’s anxieties, her single state did not inspire that kind of reaction—the very opposite, truth be told. But she had a secret she hadn’t admitted to anyone. She longed to fall passionately in love, in shameless retro fashion, one glorious windy spring evening when the tides were high and the moon golden above her lover’s head. Except that her longing was suffused with a sensation of futility. Her earlier sampling of love affairs had been disappointing. Luce knew that Kitty meant well, but she sometimes thought her experiences had been influenced by her mother’s proactive views on sex, left over from the 1960s. When she was sixteen, Kitty insisted she go on the birth control pill. Then one night Kitty had invited over a neighbourhood boy Luce liked and dimmed the lights,
calling over her shoulder, “Enjoy yourselves. I won’t be back for three hours.” Luce had felt dizzy from fear and nothing much had happened—not then or since.
In the days when they had talked together about such things, her mother warned her not to expect sex to be like the glorified Hollywood depictions. But she stopped trusting her mother’s insights on love after Kitty fell for Lee Pronski.
Meanwhile, there were too many nagging questions about love. She longed to be swept away but how could she fall in love without losing all sense of herself? She didn’t want to suffer the fate of lovers in Greek myths or romantic novels. It was cheesy and grim to die in a cave like Katherine, the adulterous wife in
The English Patient
and it smacked of self-indulgence. And how do you tell a frog from a prince, or recognize a frog is a prince? He wasn’t going to show up in satin tights and slippers that turn up at the toes, now was he? There was no simple answer. And, just as she was convinced that she needed to keep on searching, she was equally sure she would never find anyone who would make it worth her while to surrender to the transporting love she craved.
She supposed her yearning was the sort of thing Lee used to deconstruct in her women’s studies courses. She could imagine what the Polish Pumpkin might say: the signifier is looking for a non-existent object to signify. She smiled wistfully. Is that what she was up to? The perfect lover with the perfect nose, and a row of perfect toes? Well, love was the ultimate floating signifier as far as she could tell. The word referred to something no scholar could define or concretize. Anyway, her feelings about love were convoluted, and their complexity left her bewildered. Too bad she couldn’t follow the example of Asked For Adams and seek refuge in axioms that glorified paradox, like, say, telling oneself that without
doubt hope wouldn’t live. If one found paradoxes comforting, that is. Personally, she found them sickening.
May 20, 1797
I have suffered a grave misfortune.
Earlier this evening, Father and I stood together on the balcony outside the salon belonging to Madame Gritti. We were waiting for the guests to arrive in her small apartment (called a
casino)
, which overlooks the Piazza San Marco. Father admires Madame Gritti. He wags his head sheepishly when I tease him that the independent ways of Venetian women should help him forgive me mine. In their
casini
, upper-class wives entertain their
cicisbeos
—the escorts who act like second husbands. I notice that Father is pleased if Madame Gritti icily ignores her
cicisbeo
and he winces whenever this fellow appears a few steps behind her, bowing to her one minute and the next running to fetch a hot chocolate drink.
She, at least, found Father interesting enough to offer him her apartment and he has invited some of the élite of Venice to see the sketches from Monsieur Pozzo. Despite my warning, Father had insisted on going ahead with his purchase, saying I had acquired my knowledge of art from Peabody’s guidebook. His lack of suspicion is out of character, and I fear the effect this city is having on him. He was no longer in good humour by the time we found ourselves on the balcony watching the angry mob in the square. They were smashing the doors of anyone sympathetic to the French because they believe the Doge and his
council betrayed them by surrendering their city. At one end of the square, we heard boys yelling,
“Viva San Marco!”
And by the Molo, brigades of French soldiers rushed into the melee, shouting,
“Viva la libertá!”
“They are not bringing freedom to Venice, Father. This is tyranny. Do we need to have the French consul to our party?”
“He declined, child. And I worry the others will not come. Let us check to see if Monsieur Pozzo has brought the sketches.”
Together we walked back into the
casino.
It was nearly midnight and, to Father’s relief, our Venetian guests began to arrive. They were a mix of rich merchants and poor members of the aristocracy, though many of these
barn-abotti
have already fled Venice. I could hear the chatter of the women, dressed in long black silk coats and the mannish hats that spout a single white feather. The men wore frock coats and perukes and appeared untroubled by the sounds of the violence in the square. As we greeted them, the chalky smell of hair powder floated in the air around us, mingled with the vinegary scent of the cologne that is the fashion here.
Bestowing his gap-toothed grin upon our guests, Francis emerged from the thicket of perfumed bodies and whispered that he and our guests had come through the back entrance to avoid the mob of angry citizens. For once, I felt glad to see him. I took his arm and we went in to our late dinner of champagne and risotto served with platters of local artichokes. After the meal, while Madame Gritti translated his awkward French into Italian, my parent spoke about his mission. He told our guests that Uncle John, together with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin
Franklin, had sent a letter to the Venetian ambassador in 1789, expressing interest in trade with Venice.
“And I am here to extend our invitation. We in America will trade our cattle and wheat for your Venetian glass and lace.”
“You’re setting up shop in the midst of a civil war!” someone called out in French.
“Is there a better time?” Madame Gritti replied. “What is more conducive to money-making than a war?”
Our guests clapped and laughed. I stared shyly at their powdered Venetian faces, alight with excitement. A few of our guests wore silver masks and I admit I found their faces strange and alarming. Outside, the noise of the crowd had grown louder, and Father had to shout to be heard.
“Welcome guests, today we from America will show you Rome’s finest art and you will see how greatly our republic admires yours.”
Once again, our guests clapped, but they had begun whispering to each other, their eyes wandering, and I realized they were only feigning interest in Father. I told him that we should get on to the exhibit and he responded with, “My friends, let us proceed now to the Paper Museum.”
The guests stood aside as Madame Gritti put the key in the lock of a door leading to an adjoining room. The door swung open and they pressed in ahead of us. We heard laughter and angry exclamations. The walls of the little chamber were bare. Except, alas, for the single sketch Monsieur Pozzo had shown us that day in the Café Florian. The sketch lay on a small table, held down by stones. There was no sign of Monsieur Pozzo. Madame Gritti removed the stones and inspected the drawing with her lorgnette.
“Monsieur Adams, this is a forgery.” She beckoned Father over and pointed to the corner of the drawing. The tiny watermark read 1795. Father staggered backwards, and Francis had to catch him by the arm so he would not fall. Madame Gritti dismissed our guests and they filed out, neither thanking Father nor looking at us. It was a humiliating occasion.
Madame Gritti left quickly with her
cicisbeo
, leaving only Father, Francis and myself. My betrothed at least had the good grace not to pester Father with questions. We hurried down to the square where some Venetian men were setting little fires. Fearful, we rushed by them, but they did not harm us. Outside our
pensione
, a large group had gathered in the
campo
around a tall beggar in a Harlequin mask standing with another beggar in a sleeveless coat. A covered basket sat nearby, guarded by a small, rough-haired dog. The tall beggar growled some words in Italian and the dog bounced over to the basket and raised one of the sides with its teeth. It hopped inside and out again, holding in its mouth a small piece of folded paper. It placed this at the feet of the old man. He called out in Italian, and some of the audience shrieked and waved their slips of paper at him. Others walked away, their heads down.
I knew Venice is fond of gambling. No one can miss the colourful windows in lottery offices which display the winning numbers on placards decorated with fantastic figures in blue and red and gold. At night, these windows are well lit with lamps and candles so the Venetians can check their ticket with the winning numbers predicted by the city’s successful gamblers.
Still, I had never seen two wretched beggars and a half-starved dog holding a lottery in the midst of a civil war.
What kept these unfortunates from taking the money for themselves, I wondered.
Suddenly, the little dog stopped its jack-in-the-box performance and turned a pair of familiar golden eyes on me, wagging its tail. The tall beggar man looked at me warningly. Then he whistled and the little dog trotted to his side, its head down. And I realized I knew the beggar man.
Francis and I have put Father to bed. I have retired to my room and have brought out my new quill.
First Inquiry of the Day: Why did Jacob Casanova dress up as a beggar? To avoid Count Waldstein? And why did Father, a suspicious judge of character, believe a man like Monsieur Pozzo, a person he would not have invited to our home in America?
Lesson Learned: When in a strange country, trust no one, not even your own travelling companions who may be altered by their experiences in new lands.
Newest Thought I Am Entertaining: I am wiser than my own parent, and this is a melancholy prospect.
Postscript
A few hours ago, I heard Father shout my name from his bedchamber. I hurried to his side and found him, his bedclothes a-tumble, his cotton nightcap still on, vomiting into his chamber pot. When I rushed over, he raised his eyes up to me like a frightened child and pointed at his heart.
“Father, please don’t talk!” I began to wipe his face with a cloth I dipped in the washing bowl. His forehead felt feverish and he was struggling to catch his breath.
“I must talk, child,” he whispered as he tried to sit up. “Before the pain makes it impossible to speak.”
“Father, be still!” I pushed him gently back on to the bed and for a moment I thought he might strike me, although he was as feeble as I have ever seen him.
“You must marry Francis if anything happens to me. Promise me that,” Father said as I pulled the coverlet across his chest.
“Nothing will happen to you, Father.”
“Do you trust me, child?”
I nodded.
“Then say you will marry Francis if I do not live to see it.”
I took a quick breath. “Father, I trust you,” I said. “But I do not trust myself.”
“Is that your answer, little one? If so, it does me no good.”
“I do not wish you unhappiness, Father,” I said.
“Then say it—say it, Asked For!”
“No.” I was shocked by the firmness of my answer.
A shattered hopeless roar rose out of Father’s throat and he threw himself out of the bed linen. The noise struck me like a hammer blow. He raised both fists, I thought to strike me, but instead he hit his fists with singular force against the front of his chest, and fell backwards on the bed. I knew, before bending to check his pulse, that he was dead.
When dawn came, I was still lying across his chest. From the street came the cries of vendors selling their fresh melons and strawberries to the late night gamblers. Father, there is nothing you can do for me now, I thought sadly. I am alone in the world. As the sun grew brighter, I washed myself and set out to find Francis.
On such a day there are no new thoughts or lessons learned. There is only life, as absolute and as unbiddable as death.
Luce realized that her appointment with Signor Goldoni at the Sansovinian was in half an hour. Where was Lee? Why hadn’t she returned? She put the journal back in its box and checked out of the hospital. Reading about the death of Asked For’s father had distressed her and she longed to be reassured by the companionable bulk of regatta crowds. Ignoring the sign that said USCITA, she found herself in a shady arcade where patients with drawn faces sat talking to one another. Luce remembered seeing the cemetery of San Michele on the way to the hospital, so conveniently close to its customers, and grew frightened she wouldn’t be able to find the exit. She asked a family for directions, and the mother and father began to argue in Italian over the best way out. To her relief, the son walked with her to the front door and pointed her towards the square of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Two minutes later, she was lost in a new square that looked exactly like the one by the hospital. She hadn’t realized how confusing Venice could be, despite the ubiquitous plaques with little yellow arrows pointing in the direction of Piazza San Marco. At a café, she pleaded with a waiter who drew her a map but in minutes she found herself lost again. She felt dehydrated from the heat of the still May afternoon, and in the next
campo
she made herself stop and take off her jacket.
She stood by a news kiosk, a striking figure with her height and bright clothes. A few of the young men in the crowd stared her way, with sly looks of appreciation. The exertion of walking had made her cheeks ruddy and her cropped brown hair was windblown and standing slightly on end. Out on the canal, gondolas with straw-hatted rowers scudded past the
palazzos
that rose up in the water-dappled sunlight like country houses fringed by narrow green lawns. Except that the green borders under the houses were not lawns but algae exposed by the tide.