The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  Loredan watched and learned for two years. Then in 1776 he made his move. He attacked Venetian Jews, accusing them of being a drain on the resources of the State. He claimed that their share in business was unfair to Christian competition, and suggested that they were responsible for the economic woes of Venice. He proposed the immediate expulsion of all Jews from Venice and her territories, and barring that, stronger curbs on their business activities.

  His proposals met with a favorable response from those in government who were always seeking quick and easy solutions to knotting problems, and they appealed to the age-old fears and prejudices of a largely ignorant populace. Old repressive measures against the Jews—perennial scapegoats—were reinstated. Jews were forbidden to engage in manufacture and agriculture, to possess real estate, to deal in corn or grain or other essentials of life. They could not employ Christians, act as brokers, or hold any position in the financial conduct of the Republic. Their movements were restricted. They were forbidden to live outside the walls of the ghetto, or even to appear on the streets outside the ghetto after the sun had set. In some of the small territories of the Republic, they were expelled from their homes.

  At the remarkably early age of twenty-eight, Alessandro Loredan won recognition as one of the leading conservative spokesmen in the Council. His career in politics had begun auspiciously, and his rapid rise would have been assured, had it not been for one man who blocked him at every turn: Orio Dolfin.

  Dolfin was sixty, a widower whose addiction to gambling and weakness for ballerinas had impoverished him. Nevertheless, his devotion to his country was complete, and he retained considerable influence with older members of the government. As a scholar and a liberal, he publicly deplored this unfair treatment of the Jews. He attacked the movement and its leader vigorously, accusing Alessandro Loredan of inventing lies and reviving old fears in order to further his own ambitions. He lobbied hard to keep the young man from being elected to the Senate, and persuaded conservative Council members that the Jew-baiter was far too brash and self-seeking to be able to participate effectively in the important committees. In the aftermath of his early success, Alessandro found that the road to power was getting not smoother, but rougher, thanks to Orio Dolfin.

  One ripe, mellow day in midsummer, in the year 1782, Alessandro Loredan decided to pay a call on his adversary. The Signoria had adjourned for the summer months, and the members and their families had repaired to their country villas on terrafirma, the mainland, to recuperate from the rigors of pretending to rule. After eight years in government, Alessandro’s career was at a standstill. He knew that one man was responsible for his failure to rise, and he was determined to remove the obstruction.

  He rode for ten miles along the Brenta River and turned into a rutted drive. He noticed the overgrown gardens, the ruined statuary, the dying trees. The Dolfin villa itself was crumbling. Chunks of stucco had fallen off the walls, exposing patches of sun-baked brick. Roof tiles were missing. Some windows were boarded up.

  Inside, the walls were faded and stained, the furniture moldy and unsteady, the upholstery moth-eaten. A toothless manservant led him up a curving flight of stairs to Orio Dolfin’s study on the second floor.

  Without the wigs and robes of office, Dolfin looked as forlorn and threadbare as his surroundings. Only his eyes seemed young and alert, and they gleamed knowingly when he saw Alessandro.

  “Ah, I’ve been wondering whether we might expect a visit from you. Signor,” he said. “You heard that I have been ill, and you came to see for yourself just how serious it was.”

  This was true, but Alessandro said quickly, “Forgive me, Signor, I didn’t realize—”

  “You will be happy to learn that my doctors have predicted that I shall live to be ninety,” Dolfin said wryly.

  “I am delighted to hear it.”

  “Are you? That’s very gracious. And now that you nave satisfied your curiosity, Signor, I shall ask you to leave. I am rather tired.”

  “I won’t intrude much longer, Signor,” Alessandro ^aid. “But I think it’s time we had a talk.”

  “Talk? But we have nothing to talk about. I don’t like you, Signor Loredan, and I don’t trust you. Men like you are dangerous to Venice.”

  “But Venice is my dearest love, my mistress,” Alessandro protested. “If I have seemed impetuous in the past, it is only because I sensed that she needed assistance, and as any lover would, I rushed to her side.”

  “Quite a pretty analogy,” Dolfin said approvingly. But Venice doesn’t need any more flowery metaphors, and she doesn’t need glory-grabbers. She needs honest men. She is a demanding mistress. She has worn out many men in her service, including myself. But I have never regretted the years that I have given her. And now you’ve come to curry favor with her old cicisbeo. You think he’ll put in a good word for you, and use his influence on your behalf!”

  “Why not?” Alessandro asked reasonably. “You are highly respected, even revered by some. Signor. Others have courted your approval after having incurred your enmity, and you have favored them. I foolishly thought that I could forge my way in government without anyone’s help. I was wrong. We can continue to disagree, and Venice will suffer for it.”

  “You hold yourself in too high esteem, Signor,”! Dolfin growled.

  “Not myself, but you. The attention you are devoting to holding me back is drawing you away from more vital problems, I fear. I respect your judgment, your good sense, your experience. But even you will admit that your energies are limited. Let me help you. Enlist me in your service, and together we shall bring greater honor to Venice.”

  “You have a flair for deceit which will stand you in good stead,” Dolfin said. “But not while I live. You are wasting your time. You cannot expect me to believe that you have seen the error of your ways; you have merely recognized the inefficacy of your methods. And you are tired of waiting for me to die and remove myself from your path. But I am not ready to die. I have a good many years left, and I intend to use them to keep you and men like you from raping Venice. That campaign against the Jews was your first and greatest mistake, Signor.”

  “I admit that the results were not what we hoped—”

  “You knew from the beginning that you were preaching poppycock! I have no great love for the Jews myself, but I dislike seeing an innocent people sacrificed on the altar of personal ambition. I saw what kind of game you were playing. I knew that you were ambitious not for Venice, but for yourself, and the Loredan name.”

  “I am sorry you feel this way,” Alessandro said stiffly. “I had hoped—”

  “You had hoped you could talk me around. No, Signor. I am immune to flattery, and deaf to your lies. Good day.”

  Seething inwardly, Alessandro took his leave of the elder statesman. Only when he was alone in the hall outside the study did he give vent to a stream of muttered curses.

  “I sympathize. He has that effect on me sometimes.”

  He turned quickly. It was Tomasso Dolfin, Orio’s only son. He was younger than Alessandro by a few years but he looked ten years older. His dissipation showed in his bloated features and bleary eyes. His clothes were dirty and in need of mending. His hair was uncombed and hung in greasy strands to his shoulders.

  He sidled up to Loredan. “You’ve come to pay a call on the old man, and found him unreceptive to your peaceful overtures,” he said. “Perhaps his illness has made him even more stubborn, but I doubt it. It wasn’t serious. A little gastric trouble coupled with the usual financial woes. He recovered nicely from the former, but the latter will never cease to plague all of us, I fear.”

  Alessandro shrugged. “I anticipated failure. All the same—”

  “It would have been nicer to succeed,” Tomasso grinned.

  Their attention was caught by the sound of girlish laughter outside the tall window at the top of the stairs. Alessandro looked out over the unkempt lawns. Two women were playing at a sort of lawn tennis; that is, when one of them managed to hit
the ball, it was generally not in the direction of her opponent. One of the women was buxom and plainly-dressed, a servant. The other was a girl, slight and thin, with glorious red-gold hair that swung loosely around her shoulders.

  Once the maidservant hit the ball in the direction of the house and the girl lifted her face. Alessandro caught his breath, and wondered if her beauty, so luminous from a distance, would hold up to closer scrutiny.

  “Charming, isn’t she?” murmured Tomasso at his elbow. Alessandro suppressed an impulse to move away. His dislike of the younger Dolfin wasn’t tempered by grudging respect, as it was in the case of his father.

  “Lovely,” Alessandro agreed. “A servant?”

  Tomasso gave a short, bitter laugh. “You’d think so. We can’t afford to dress her in silks, which is what beauty like that deserves. She’s my sister, Fosca. The child of my parents’ old age, the apple of my father’s eye, his consolation and joy, the image of my sainted mother, the only person in the world he really loves.”

  “Ah, a child.”

  “No, not really. She’s sixteen. Girls are married at sixteen.”

  “What’s she doing at home?” Alessandro asked. Venetian girls of rank, even poor ones, were normally sent to convent schools at an early age, as much to preserve their virtue as to educate them in the wifely arts of embroidery, music, and gossip. They stayed in these schools until marriages were arranged for them by their parents.

  “Nothing would keep her away when she heard that Father was ill,” Tomasso explained. “She escaped from the convent. Stole a boat, got herself stuck on the mud flats, and was delivered to us here by a couple of fishermen. She’s got plenty of spirit, our Fosca. A little too much, perhaps. Father didn’t want to send her away at all, until one of his sisters pointed out that a maturing young girl wasn’t really safe in a houseful of men. Not enough chaperones. The maid’s the only other female here.” He sighed feelingly. “It’s a pity, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “That she’ll never marry. You’ve seen how we live. There isn’t a sequin to spare. The old man’s gambled it all away—what he hasn’t thrown away on whores. Fosca has no dowery. And lovely as she is, no one will take her without one. That’s the way the world is. I’d say that it would be a shame to bury her behind convent walls. Don’t you agree, Signor?”

  “Of course.” Alessandro had to agree, but he couldn’t quite follow the convoluted lines of Tomas-so’s thinking.

  “Now you, Signor Loredan,” Tomasso went on softly, “have no need of the lure of a dowery to help you choose a wife. You are rich. I realize that I shouldn’t mention money—such bad manners!—but money is rather like a woman: when you don’t have it, you can’t think of anything,else. Still, like most Venetians, when you marry it will surely be for gain, and some would consider political gain even more important than money.”

  The man’s opportunism was so evident. Desperation showed through the crumbling veneer of his manners like bricks under broken stucco.

  “I think I’m beginning to understand,” Alessandro said dryly. “As my father-in-law, old Dolfin could hardly foil my prospects as he’s been doing.”

  “Exactly! His influence is still enormous, and if he threw his support behind you—”

  Alessandro gave Tomasso an appraising look. “You’re a shrewd fellow. Signor. I suppose that as my brother-in-law, you’d be entitled to some special considerations.”

  Tomasso’s face broke into a sly grin. “I knew that a fine gentleman like yourself would not be ungrateful for good advice. Signor.”

  Alessandro looked out the window again. Fosca raced across the lawn in pursuit of the tennis ball. Her hair streamed banner-like behind her, and she picked up her skirts as she ran. She and Emilia watched helplessly as the ball bounced and landed in the muck of an unused fish pond. Fosca laughed brightly and threw her arms around the other woman’s neck. Emilia threatened to beat her with her racket. Through the open window the two men could hear their laughter and their words.

  “Well, you young idiot! It’s the only ball we had, and now it’s gone!”

  “It’s not gone,” said Fosca. “We’ll just fish it out, that’s all.”

  “You fish it out,” said Emilia squeamishly. “I’m not digging around in that mud. Who knows what’s down there!”

  “Sea serpents,” Fosca suggested. “Or dragons! Perhaps the pool has no bottom at all, and the ball has fallen through the earth to the other side! Oh, we’ll just ask Luigi to come and get it out for us.”

  “Him?” Emilia snorted. “He’s so rheumatic that he can’t even bend over to fasten his own breeches at the knee, much less go fishing for a ball.”

  “What about Tomasso?”

  Another snort from Emilia.

  “Then I’ll just have to go it myself,” Fosca sighed, rolling up her sleeves. She sat down in the grass and pulled off her shoes and stockings, then she stood and gathered her skirts into a bunch around her hips.

  “Are you crazy?” Emilia demanded. “What if somebody sees you?”

  “What if they do?” Fosca tested the water gingerly with her toe. “Doesn’t everybody have legs?” She sat on the edge of the pool and eased herself in gently. The water came just above her knees. “This isn’t so bad,” she said bravely. “It’s even warm. Now where did it go? Over here?” She stooped over and poked her arm down among the water lilies. The white flesh of her upper thighs gleamed like mother-of-pearl.

  Tomasso stole a glance at the man beside him. Loredan was smiling slightly.

  “Beauty is an unexpected bonus, Signor,” he said meaningfully. “It is a brilliant solution, is it not? To all our problems.”

  “It is indeed. But you forget, your father despises me. He has convinced himself that I am arrogant, ruthless, and ambitious. He might be difficult to persuade.”

  “Oh, I don’t think a man of your diplomatic skills will have any problem,” Tomasso said confidently. “And you can count on me for help.”

  “I’m sure I can,” Alessandro murmured.

  “Still, he might be stubborn,” Tomasso said thoughtfully. “How convenient that Fosca should be right here, at this time. I think you should meet her. The two of you might be able to work things out between you.”

  His meaning was clear. Alessandro was revolted by the man’s callousness. He wanted to knock him down, but he didn’t. He needed Tomasso Dolfin.

  Fosca came forward to meet their visitor. Emilia, catching a look from her young master, discreetly disappeared into the house. Fosca felt annoyed with Tomasso for not giving her warning. Her dress was old-fashioned, a little shabby and a little too small, and her hair was a mess. Her feet were still bare and her gown wasn’t quite long enough to hide them.

  Tomasso performed introductions. Alessandro gave the girl a friendly smile. “This is a surprise and a pleasure, Signorina,” he said. “I had absolutely no idea your father had anyone so lovely tucked away at his villa.”

  He studied her. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion and embarrassment. She was a little too thin for beauty, and rather awkward in her movements. But that might have been caused by self-consciousness. Her face was very animated. It was the kind of face that reflected every thought, every feeling. It was never still. Like her eyes, which seemed to change color. Little pools mirroring moods and emotion. At the moment they were wide and wondering.

  “I wouldn’t be here if Father hadn’t become ill,” she explained shyly. “He says that having me at home has helped him to recover.”

  “I can believe that,” Alessandro said warmly. “I’m sure that if you were to visit Venice’s hospitals, they would be empty in a day. Your beauty is a better tonic than anything a doctor or chemist could concoct.”

  She blushed. She was unaccustomed to flattery, and she had never before received attentions from a strange man.

  “Would you like to walk a little, Signorina?” Alessandro suggested. “It’s such a fine day—.”

  Fosca saw to h
er dismay that Tomasso, too, had disappeared, leaving her alone with this man. She feared she would bore him, because she had no conversation and no wit. But he didn’t seem bored. As they strolled he asked her questions about her school. He knew it very well, because one of his sisters was a nun there. Fosca lost some of her shyness.

  “This was a beautiful place once,” Fosca said, turning to look back at the house. “I remember when I was very small, I thought it the most beautiful place in the world.”

  “It may have lost its beauty, but you have gained. That seems a better way of proceeding,” Alessandro said.

  “You don’t need to talk to me like that,” she said softly. “I’m not used to it.”

  “You should get used to it, Signorina,” he said. “When you marry and go out into society, you’ll be besieged by admirers and inundated by compliments.”

  She looked up, and he was surprised by the knowing look in her eyes. She was perfectly aware that no man would ever offer for her, because she was poor. At the end of the summer she would go back to the convent, and very likely she would spend the rest of her life there.

  “You’re being kind to me.”

  “You should be dressed in velvets and silks,” he told her, “and you should wear pearls in your hair.”

  “Are such things necessary for beauty?” she asked.

  “No, they only enhance it, like a beautiful frame enhances a painting.”

  “I would love to go to the opera, to concerts and balls,” she said wistfully. “I think Venice must be the most perfect place on earth. The way the canals whisper. The way the stars and the moon swim in the water, for everyone to touch. Out here they are so far away, out of reach. All the women are beautiful there, aren’t they?”