What Casanova Told Me (25 page)
Read What Casanova Told Me Online
Authors: Susan Swan
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Psychological
July 22, 1797
Fotis Stamatapoulos took us to his mother’s village in the hills behind Sounion, because Monsieur Gennaro said he wanted to paint a country scene. We rode for hours on donkeys, seated on uncomfortable wooden saddles, following a narrow stony path that gradually circled its way higher and higher up to a pine-clad ridge. The air was sweet with resin, and the heat the most severe since Athens. Fortunately, Fotis took it upon himself to make the rest of us comfortable. He is a portly Greek who dabs himself frequently with a lemon-scented handkerchief. I believe he feels the heat more than the rest of us.
We lunched on figs and small stuffed birds and drank a refreshing yogurt drink to cool our throats. To stay cool, I hid my hair under my
calpac
and dressed in the blouse and pantaloons Jacob purchased for me in Athens. The men laughed and joked that I had become like a brother to them.
For the first time in many days, I thought of Father with his stern, plump face, lying under the sand of a Venetian beach. How he wished I had been born a son, and not a large, willful daughter.
The village of Fotis’s mother was a farming hamlet with whitewashed houses. We rode in as the men of the village were having their tea. Jacob found it amusing when they mistook me for a man, even though I did not try to fool them. Fotis told us that my size makes it easy for me to confuse his countrymen who do not expect to meet women outside the home, let alone a woman as tall as myself. And certainly, in the village, there was not a female face to be seen. Emboldened by my disguise, I left Jacob and the men to enjoy themselves and set out to find the women. I discovered them in the fields, hoeing the ground in bright jackets and billowing skirts, their faces as round as water-smoothed stones. They turned away when I smiled at them, and I realized they were frightened of me in my man’s clothing. It gave me a lonely feeling.
This evening, I am writing in these pages while sitting with Jacob and the men of the village, watching
ghazals
, as they are called, from a small travelling fair. Rapturous music floats in the air, and the dancers slide their heads like snakes from side to side, their arms rippling like wind in the grasses. They do not seem to grow hot or perspire.
As we sit in the deepening shadows, a large woman comes forward, clothed in gold coins which hang in tiers
from her neck. Even her mammoth hips are sheathed in belts of coins. Clapping tiny gold cymbals above her head, she insinuates herself hip-first into the circle of dancers. Now the fat woman’s hands flutter about her head; she touches her forehead and her breasts. And then, pivoting with an upraised hip, she offers her body in generous supplication. The men peer lasciviously at her and she utters high little shrieking sounds in her throat, animal-like in intensity. Jacob is watching her with fascination. It seems a bee or some other insect is trapped in her garments. She peers down through her blouse, shaking and bobbing. And suddenly the blouse is on the ground and the fat woman stands before us clad in large pantaloons and a second blouse. The men laugh. She begins again to turn and pivot, her face twisted in mock distress. She flicks the material of her blouse in and out so her gold coins clatter and ring, and I am frightened she will remove her clothing. I have never seen such a fat woman.
She lies on the ground and allows one of the village men to place two water glasses on the curve of her enormous belly. Then she wiggles her stomach so the half-full water glasses clink together musically. A virtuoso feat! The men grow mad with pleasure. They throw sweets and flowers at the large dancer, and Jacob is laughing and clapping. She has won him over and I am glad. We have both felt gloomy lately, knowing our time here is coming to an end.
Lesson Learned: There is no body too large or too fat for the pleasures of the dance.
“Did I tell you your mother tilted her head just like that when she was concentrating?”
Luce glanced up to see Lee standing before her. Behind Lee, the guides were clearing the food tables and putting empty retsina bottles into packing crates.
“Yes, you told me that in Venice.”
“I’ve never met anyone who concentrated so intensely. It was as if she pulled down a blind.”
“My mother could be … distracted.” Luce closed the guidebook so Lee wouldn’t see the copy of the journal hidden inside.
“Your mother had a difficult time understanding that she mattered to others. I don’t know why. It was as if she couldn’t see herself.”
“My mother couldn’t see herself?”
“Well, God knows, it’s hard for any of us to see who we really are, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so,” Luce said, startled by the reminder of how Lee had loved and accepted her mother.
“May I sit down for a minute?” Luce nodded, and Lee lowered herself carefully onto the grass.
“Kitty would have liked the idea of you being here, don’t you think?” Lee asked. Luce felt a twitch of dread. Even though she knew she was stalling, and not only that, trying to deny the sad afternoon that lay ahead, the last thing she wanted was to talk over family matters with Lee. She had only a few more entries to go and she had hoped to finish before they had to leave for the cave near Skoteino.
“She was always sorry to leave you behind, you know. You could have come with us any time. She said she asked you.”
“I had to do my university courses.”
“Oh yes, that’s right. But I wondered … did you—did you disapprove of us?”
“Well, I didn’t feel totally comfortable with—you know.” Luce shrugged angrily.
“No.”
“With her being far away—in a place where I couldn’t look out for things.”
“You felt responsible for Kitty?”
“If she’d stayed in Canada she wouldn’t have died.”
“Luce, no! Any of us can be in the wrong place at the wrong moment. We can’t control the world’s chaos.”
“We can. If we try.”
“Everyone dies, Luce. You will find a way to make peace with this—I know you will. Do you know what you are going to say this afternoon?”
“I think so. But I don’t have an object that symbolizes my feelings for her.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Most of us are bringing something from Greece because Kitty loved it here. You’ll see. Things will go smoothly today.” There, Lee thought. She had said her words of maternal comfort. But now the girl was looking at her as if something more was expected.
“Lee, can I ask you something?”
“Fire away.”
“Why don’t you want to go to Zaros?”
“Who said I don’t want to go?”
“You keep finding excuses.”
“Fair enough. Well, you’re right. I don’t go in for morbid experiences. Seeing the places Kitty loved is more important to me.”
They sat for a moment in silence, Luce’s head bowed, her chest moving rapidly up and down. Finally, Lee heaved herself to her feet and lumbered off to join Christine, who stood talking to Andreas. And when she was sure the other woman
wasn’t coming back, Luce opened up the guidebook to the user copy, her face stubbornly turned away from the group in the meadow.
July 23, 1797
Dear Isaac
,
How sad I was yesterday, old friend. My dear companion has asked me if we should go on to Constantinople to find Aimée. I want to stay in Greece where she and I can find a home for ourselves and love each other well. There is so little time left to me.
And so this morning, I awoke from unhappy dreams. The worst were of my mother as she was when I was a boy. “Her son of the floorboards,” as she called me. Naturally, my brothers and sisters took her to mean that I was conceived in the hull of a gondola, but already I knew enough to deduce that I was the result of a lagoon rendezvous with Grimaldi and not the son of the wretched man I called Father, who died agonizingly of an ear abscess. My conception in a boat left me with my lifelong craving for crayfish.
In my first dream I was a boy hardly into breeches, standing with my grandmother on a balcony above the Piazza San Marco as a magnificent parade swept by. At the head of the parade, I saw my mother in a gold mask and a padded wig so high it stood half as tall as myself. My mother was costumed as Diana, the mistress of the hunt. In her hand, she held a golden bow as bright as the sun. I cried out to this heartless, dazzling creature who stood flirting with the masked actor beside her.
“Zanetta! Speak to your child!” my grandmother called.
My mother turned my way, smiling and parting the opening
of her gown so I saw the ripe swell of her breasts. Then she began to laugh and point.
“Look at my bambino!” she shouted. “The bird has risen!”
I stared down in horror.
L’uccellino si è alzato!
I had burst out of my breeches. I hid my face in my grandmother’s skirt while the crowd laughed.
The second dream was so vivid, I wondered if it was a memory revisiting me. I dreamt that my mother’s lover, Michele Grimaldi, had anchored his craft in the rushes by the witch’s house in Murano so they would be well hidden from the village. She had coaxed him into bringing me along and he agreed on condition that she kept me out of sight. Of course, I disobeyed her, and from behind a curtain I watched as he removed her extravagant bonnet with the wax fruit and butterflies; skilfully unbuttoned her brocade gown and then her
zenda
whose black lacy pleats fluttered in the breeze. I was jealous of him in his handsome bag wig and drawers, his waistcoat open to display the fine quality of his undershirt. Tenderly, he sheltered my mother with his bulk so the sea winds wouldn’t dimple her young body. “Zanetta, why should you feel a chill?” he whispered, and when she was naked, he fed her a little crayfish and several glasses of
prosecco.
After she finished these delicacies, she excited him by sitting on the stern, legs akimbo, releasing water over the side of the craft …
I could not help myself. I burst out of the cabin, giggling, and the two of them stared at me in shock.
“Look, Zanetta,” Michele Grimaldi said. “The boy loves you as much as I do!”
He pointed at the tent I was making of my trousers, and I wept with shame while my mother laughed.
Why do we cry out for our mothers at the moment of our death, Isaac? Because we need her still, and while we may travel
to the end of our lives before we know this truth, as a boy, I already knew it well.
Yours,
Jacob Casanova
Luce noticed that some of the women were packing up their things. She knew that she should do the same. She put away the photocopy and walked over towards the women lining up to get on the bus. Only Toby and Jan were still lounging under the olive trees. Julian was shouting for them to come. Andreas had slipped into the driver’s seat and was already starting the engine.
That afternoon, the tour bus climbed a hill and stopped near the small whitewashed church of Agia Paraskevi, which had been built above a Minoan shrine. Waves of green hills rolled away from the church towards the same pointed mountains Luce had seen from the olive grove.
Her mother’s entourage filed out of the bus, talking in excited, boisterous voices. She trailed after them. She had never been inside a cave and the prospect was daunting. She had not realized until now that she was frightened of going below ground.
Around her, the women began putting on their “cave clothes”—what they called the closed-toe shoes and the pants that they pulled on over their shorts and sundresses. Yannis had politely absented himself, but Andreas stayed on to watch, playfully hiding his eyes behind his fingers as if the women were stripping to the buff.
Luce turned her back on Andreas and pulled on thick denim jeans and a sweatshirt over her light summer clothes.
She had no idea how far down they were going. She’d overheard Andreas joke that it was hundreds of feet and the group would have to climb down a vertical drop, but she didn’t know whether to believe him.
“Are we all here?” Christine clapped her hands and the group stopped talking and nodded.
“Andreas and Yannis are joining us today for the tribute,” Christine said, turning to smile at the two guides. “As some of you know, Andreas has been guiding people down this cave for most of his life.”
“Yannis and me—we cave men!” Andreas said, and Christine waited politely while the group laughed.
“The guides will help any of you who need assistance,” Christine said. “Ready, Andreas?”
Andreas nodded and started down the narrow road, walking with his sloppy, shuffling gait. Yannis strode quickly after him and the group followed. The opening to the cave lay halfway down the hill, directly below the church. The two guides halted at the entrance and pointed solemnly at a formal stone staircase leading into the cave under a high, arched opening. Lee whispered to Luce that the black limestone rocks above the entrance had been darkened by bonfires built during the annual celebration of festivals for the Virgin Mary.
The line of women followed Christine down the stairs, some of them carrying little clay figures of Minoan snake goddesses they had bought in a shop near Knossos. On the fourth step, Luce stopped. Perspiration, thick, almost creamy like hand lotion, was trickling down between her shoulder blades, and there was an uncomfortable moist sensation at the back of her neck. She remembered that she had left her bottled water on the bus. She stared at the stream of women moving
past her, wondering what to do. Then she spotted Lee, already far below, looking up at her.
“Keep moving, Luce,” Lee called up. “It’s a long way to the bottom.”
She began to walk slowly downward, fighting the impulse to go back. This was not what she had come to Crete for—to be enacting goddess rituals with older women. But she couldn’t run away like she did in Athens, she told herself.
On either side of the passageway, the rocks were sweating like ripe cheese. Up ahead a flashlight was illuminating a large grotto where some stragglers like herself stood gazing up at the cave wall, murmuring admiringly. Huge stalagmites rose up out of the darkness like gigantic folds of wet drapery. When Luce looked closely, she realized they had been created by other formations growing down from the cave ceiling. The group moved on and she lurched after them, trying to keep her arms from touching the moist walls of the passageway. She felt as though she were threading her way through slick intestines.