What Casanova Told Me (13 page)

May 23, 1797

I pray the weather stays temperate so that Father will not spoil.

I went early to a chapel by the Arsenal and prayed for Father’s soul. When I returned, the hotelkeeper told me he is keeping my parent in an old gondola on the bottom floor of his
pensione.
He has filled the gondola with ice, and to preserve Father’s body we must buy daily supplies from fruit vendors who bring it from the island of Murano. Francis says the price is highway robbery, and for once I find myself agreeing with him—fifty American dollars! I will not let Father be pickled in alcohol. I intend to bathe my parent in aromatic vinegar and wrap him in linens soaked in aloes.

Poor Father. How he would dislike his resting place.

Alas, no funerals are being conducted since the French came. This morning an undertaker on the Rialto refused
our request because he had been ordered by General Junot to accept only military commissions. The undertaker was anxious to get us out of his shop and he hinted that the French will kill any Venetian undertakers who fail to comply.

Francis and I took a gondola to the convent run by the Capuchins and met with the Abbess. She was sad to hear about Father. He was the only supplicant, she told us, who had ever given her a present, and she was clearly disappointed when Francis explained that in New England, parents of engaged couples always give presents to their pastors. I believe she had taken Father’s gift for an expression of romantic interest.

The Abbess took us out into the garden and I found myself looking for Monsieur Casanova. She showed us a plot of pumpkins with hopeful pride and Francis pointed out that pumpkins, like corn, are from America.

“Is that so, Monsieur Gooch?” she said, winking at me as if she wished to share her amusement over his stolid manner. “Well, I cannot hold your wedding now. Perhaps late in June—when things have settled again. None of us know what to expect from the French.”

“Let us settle on a date, then,” Francis said imperiously. “I will marry Asked For on the third Sunday in June.”

“A very romantic time for a wedding.” The Abbess smiled. “If the French permit it.”

“The third Sunday, then. I will ask their permission.” My gap-toothed Francis seized my arm and steered me out the garden, muttering that our Indians at home know more about growing vegetables.

In our gondola, I asked why he fixed the date without consulting me.

“Asked For, you are under my charge now,” he said.

“But I am in mourning. I cannot be married so soon after Father’s death.”

“It was your father’s wish that we be married at once. Venice is at war and you and I lack a chaperon. We shall marry as soon as we can and depart soon after for Massachusetts.”

I hid my angry face in a handkerchief of Father’s. It smelled of him and gave me comfort. Francis has no right to tell me what to do. I do not love him. And I will not return to America as his bride. I would rather be shut up in the convent with the silly, stunted pumpkin garden than go back to Massachusetts as the wife of Francis Gooch.

I am omitting my catechism of questions. Until Father’s body is properly buried, I can think of nothing else.

May 24, 1797

Showers have staunched the sun’s heat so Father can rest safely in his wooden ship.

This morning a note arrived, slipped under the door of my hotel room. I recognized the hand. It was from him. From Jacob Casanova. He uses a gold writing ink, which he sprinkles with sand. “A friend is waiting for you at Rio ———. He is trustworthy and will take care of the precious cargo you are keeping on ice.”

I did not show Francis the note, nor did I ask him to accompany me to the undertaker. I set out on my own, somewhat afraid as I walked quickly through the half-deserted city. Small bands of French troops patrolled the streets but there was no sign of Venetians. They have
retreated behind the curtains of their tall, narrow houses, waiting to see if Napoleon will inflict the same bloodshed the Jacobins brought to Paris. I feel a kinship with these frightened people forced to host their gaolers in their own homes.

I was carrying an English guidebook bought for me by Francis. It was written for Grand Tourists by a Mr. Gilbert Burnet and it is stuffed with attacks on Popish icons and religious orders, which the author argues manifest luxury, vanity, superstition and misery. I soon became weary of Mr. Burnet, but I relied on his small hand-drawn map of Venice for my compass.

Walking through a labyrinth of lanes and across several small bridges, I found myself in a section I had never seen before. I was in the north part of the Cannaregio, moving through deserted squares and half-empty streets where clothes hung drying upon cords and dirty children were throwing stones at one another.

I came suddenly upon a shipwright caulking a boat amid an evil-smelling cloud of smoke. Down another lane, wretched-looking mattresses stood on end against the houses—as if the Venetian sunshine could do anything for the ugly stains I saw upon them. I noted the absence of religious signs or images. I saw no chapels, no Madonnas, no carved crosses in the squares, no effigies of saints used in the display of religious devotion one finds in other quarters of the city. Nor did the faces of the occupants of this section look Venetian. The men wore black jackets and small caps from which coiled long, straggly curls.

Turning a corner in a narrow little laneway, I bumped headlong into Francis, who cried out in surprise when he saw me.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was told an undertaker lives in this part of Venice. And you?”

“I came in search of a moneylender,” he said sheepishly.

Francis said we were in the Jewish ghetto, and together we set out to find the establishment on Rio —. I was relieved to have him by my side although he eyed each passerby, from the smallest child to the eldest beggar, as if they were responsible for our sorrows.

At last we came to the street address on Monsieur Casanova’s note. It was set off by two ruinous bridges at either end of a filthy canal. Dead cats and excrement floated on its surface. I held Father’s hanky over my nose and knocked on the door. From inside, I heard footsteps; the door opened a crack, and I said my name loudly.

A hand seized my wrist and drew me in, leaving Francis on the doorstep. I found myself in the reception hall of a modest
palazzo.
My host wore breeches and a simple coat, his long grey curls quelled by a skullcap.

I considered calling for Francis but the stranger’s hand remained firmly on my arm, preventing me.

“My name is Isaac Bey, and I will not harm you,” he said. “We have no time to waste. Your father can be buried in our cemetery by sunset, if you are willing.”

“‘Our’ cemetery?” I asked.

“The Hebrew cemetery at the Lido. The humble spot has given sanctuary to my ancestors.”

“Why should I believe you?” I asked. “Perhaps you will take my money and throw Father’s bones into the canal.”

“I need no payment. It’s a favour for my friend

Giacomo.” He put a finger to his lips and opened a small stained-glass window in the wall behind us, motioning for
me to look. “You see him, in his
vestimenti di confidenza?
These hard times require many disguises.”

In the next room, I saw a tall Venetian lady in a grand court wig playing dice with two men in nightcaps and undershirts. I did not know the gentlemen, but I recognized Monsieur Casanova. He wore a petticoat and smock sleeves with pretty trailing ribbons. As my host closed the panel, Monsieur Casanova turned our way and smiled.

“Handsome, isn’t it?” my host said. “His mother wore the wig on the Vienna stage.”

“She was an actress?”

“One of the most beautiful in Europe.”

Father or Francis would be humiliated to be seen in such a costume, while Monsieur Casanova appears delighted to garb himself in the clothes of my sex. As for me, my size often leads people to mistake me for a man. “What is it you desire, sir?” shopkeepers call out before they notice my skirts. Then they stammer apologies. I should be accustomed to these blunders. But I still feel a great shame when it happens.

“Miss Adams, let us return to the business at hand.” My host was purposeful now, his voice low and serious. “We will say the funeral Kaddish for your father as if he were one of us. You understand?”

“I would like to see Father buried,” I said.

“It is better if you do not know how I am able to arrange this. But I will do this for you as a good Christian woman because the Chevalier tells us you have been kind to him. Look for the red gondola by the San Marco wharf at seven o’clock this evening.” Isaac Bey led me to the door. “All will be taken care of. You need only appear.”

He nudged me outside, where I found myself face to face again with Francis.

“Why did you leave me out here, drumming my fists on the door!” Francis cried.

Before I could shush him, two men in skullcaps leaned out the window above us and screamed in Italian.

“Shut your mouths, you foreign swine!” Francis yelled.

Somewhere higher up, another window creaked open, and the next thing I knew, Francis was standing before me, spluttering and shaking like a bedraggled rooster, his homespun suit covered in yellow slop.