The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  He went into the bedroom. “Fosca, are you here?” he called softly. He struck a flint and lit a candle on the dresser.

  “Rafaello?” She rose out of the tumble of bed-sheets. He sat on the edge of the bed and held her in his arms. He could tell she had been crying. Her voice sounded husky, and the hair around her face was still damp. “I’m so evil, so selfish,” she whispered. “I have no right to expect you to change your life and beliefs because of me. But I die with fear when I think of the danger you’re exposing yourself to. I don’t trust Tomasso. He’s been good to us, because he needs you. And you’ve given him money, haven’t you?”

  “Some,” Raf admitted. “When he needed it.”

  “He always needs it,” she said bitterly. “But he doesn’t always think clearly. He loves me, in his way, but he helped Loredan to seduce me, I know he did. Because he thought he could gain. He didn’t. He was bitterly disappointed when Loredan didn’t appoint him to a committee or hire him as his secretary. He turned on him; he hates him. And he’ll turn on you, too, if he thinks you’ve failed him.”

  “Don’t worry about Tomasso,” Raf said. “I know what he’s like. I’ve known a hundred Tomassos.”

  “I thought you weren’t coming back, ever. I made myself sick with fear and worry. Oh, Raf, I love you, I love you so much! Why does it have to be this way? Why do I have to be afraid that every time we part. I’ll never see you again? Can’t we go away together, just the two of us?”

  “No, Fosca, I can’t leave now.”

  “Why? Is it money?”

  “It’s not money, Fosca. I have plenty. But I won’t run away now. Please don’t ask me.”

  He stood up abruptly and left the room. She followed him into the sitting room. He took off his cloak and hat, and poured himself a glass of wine without offering her any.

  “The Barnabotti are a real force in this city,Fosca,” he said. “They have enough votes in the Council to enact real changes, but they need to recognize their common purpose. We’re putting out pamphlets, speaking to them, trying to get them to see that it’s possible for them to wield real power.”

  “But what do you care about the Barnabotti?” Fosca asked. “They’re nothing to you. They don’t care about you, or the Jews. They’re nobles, remember?”

  “A noble instituted the laws that repressed us, and nobles can lift them,” he said. “I can’t expect you to understand what this mean to me, Fosca. You didn’t grow up behind walls. And neither will my sons, if I can help it. The elders in the ghetto are terrified to act. They’re afraid to ask for what’s rightfully theirs. They’re afraid of more repression, more laws, more restrictions, more heartbreak. But we’ve lost so much already, Fosca. We have little else to lose, except our lives, and it would be worth dying if it would insert freedom for our children. They excommunicated me because I tried to speak out for them. As far as they're concerned, I don’t exist anymore. Damned old fools!” he said angrily. “Compromisers! Diplomats! I don't want compromise, I want rights. Any government that wins rights for the Barnabotti will win them for everyone, including Jews, because I’ll see to it.” He glowered at her. “I won’t give up fighting for them Fosca. I can’t.”

  “I don’t know you when you’re like this,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re a stranger to me.”

  “I’m the man you fell in love with. The man you laughed at in the Senate Hall. The man who opened your eyes, and your heart. I know you don’t care about any of this. I’ve avoided talking to you about it because it would only upset you. But you have to know that my heart is here, in the fight. I love you. But I won’t run away. Damn it, I hate this!” He gripped his wineglass so hard that it shattered in his hand. Fosca gave a little scream. “I hate the subterfuge, the trickery, the disguises, the lurking about in the shadows! I hate it! 1 want to be able to come to you in the light of day, freely. I want to take you out on my arm and show you to the world as my life and my love. I would defy Loredan in the minute for you, you know that. But if they imprison me now, my cause is lost, and so are you. When his government falls, Fosca, he will lose his power over us, and then we can come out into the open.” He shook his head and gazed at her sorrowfully. “This was all a mistake. I should have known better. I should never have intruded into your little life.”

  “No, no!” She hurtled across the room and threw her arms around him. “Don’t say that, Raf, don’t say it!" Forgive me, forgive me for being a shrew and a nag. I’m stupid and blind and selfish and I don’t know any better. But don’t wish you hadn’t fallen in love with me. You are dearer to me than my own life. I don’t want what I had before. I don’t want to go back. I will try to be good, to be grateful for the time we have together, even if it’s only a few minutes in a gondola. I can dream of better days, can’t I? But that doesn’t mean that I want this to end. I have no right to make demands of you. We are different. I’ll try to understand you, if I can. Just love me, love me when you can, and I’ll be grateful until I die.”

  They held each other. He stroked the fragrant mass of red-gold hair. “It couldn’t stay the same,” he muttered. “I knew that. At first it was like a game—the secret meetings, the masks, the go-between. But you want more, and I want more. The game has lost its charm. I have to tell you, the Inquisitors have put spies on Tomasso.”

  “Oh, no!” Fosca breathed. “Does that mean that they know about us?”

  “No, it’s just a precaution. Keeping an eye on us rabble-rousers, that’s all. But it will make meeting more difficult. Tomasso is going to find someone else to help us. It’s going to be harder to keep it a secret, Fosca.”

  “What will happen to us?” she wondered for the first time. Then, “Well, what if Loredan and the Inquisitors do find out? What can they do? You’re a hero! And they can’t imprison a man just for taking a mistress!”

  “They can do anything they want to do. They can exile a man because he made a suit of clothes for a noblewoman. What do you think Loredan will do to to a Jew who’s been enjoying the favors that you’ve denied him for four years? No, Fosca, perhaps we should stop now, before—”

  “Oh, Rafaello,” she murmured, threading her fingers through the tangle of his hair. She pressed her body close to his and planted burning kisses on his cheeks and throat. As she moved slowly against him, she could feel the anger and the worry drain out of him as desire began to overtake him.

  He knew he should leave her, for both their sakes. because he loved her, because their love had no future But he made no move to go as she undressed him and loved him with her soft hands and mouth.

  Raking her long nails down his chest, she sank to her knees in front of him. “Are you sorry, Raf? Sorry we met? You want to leave me?Then go. I won’t stop you. I won’t say a word of blame—”

  In reply, he grabbed a fistful of hair and jerked her head back. He threw himself down on top of her and took her violently and ferociously, trying to possess her completely, and forever. His fury made her moan aloud, but she smiled to herself and drew him even closer.

  “Fosca is looking so well lately,” Rosalba Loredan remarked to her son. “I’ve never seen her looking prettier. I might think she was pregnant, if I didn’t know better.”

  Alessandro looked at her sharply. She knew very well—as did everyone in the house—that he and Fosca hadn’t shared a bed for over four years.

  Rosalba smiled artfully and went on. “I hear she’s rented a casino for herself, at long last! Carlo called upon her there. He says it’s really charming—she’s decorated it all in blue and silver, with the most gorgeous French fabrics. He said it would make the most perfect little love nest. But of course, she only uses it to entertain her friends. They play cards, and she’s even started to hold conversazione on Tuesday nights. All the wits go there, and they say she’s a perfect hostess. Perhaps Fosca is finally growing up and starting to take an interest in serious things.”

  Alessandro said, “Yes, I know about her casino. I’ve not seen it, of course. I ha
ve no wish to interfere in her pleasures. I’m sure they are innocent enough.”

  “They have been in the past,” his mother agreed. “Carlo thinks she has a lover,” she said unexpectedly. “And I think so, too. I’m not saying there’s been any whisper of scandal, but Carlo is very intuitive in these matters, and if he says it’s so, it’s so. What we don’t know yet is who.”

  “I think you’re both wrong,” Alessandro Loredan said stiffly. “Fosca has always had plenty of admirers, some quite passionate, as you know. But she dislikes the physical side of love.”

  “Thanks wholly to you,” his mother said sharply. “Don’t let your pride cloud your thinking, Alessandro. You are her husband. You are much older than she. What she feels towards you, and what she feels towards a lover who is nearer to her own age are two entirely different things. I am only telling you this so you won’t be caught by surprise when word leaks out, as it surely will. It always makes husbands look so foolish if they are the last to know, but they invariably are. The very fact that she’s showing some sense and using discretion is a good sign. She is maturing. My advice to you is, keep a weather eye on her. Say nothing so long as she behaves with propriety, but it really would be better if you could let the affair run its own course. She will tire of him before long, and become bored by the whole thing. She will soon find out that love is as overrated a pleasure as everything else.”

  Alessandro found that his breathing had deepened, and that the fist that tightened inside him whenever he thought about Fosca was clenched in anger. But he maintained an outward show of calm and said, “Your advice is good, as always. Mother. But premature, I think.”

  “A love affair was inevitable, Alessandro,” his mother said seriously. “The way she was acting—the wild pranks, the passionate outbursts. I knew it was coming. Perhaps it’s only her cicisbeo, Valier. He’s quite handsome and he adores her. It won’t last. Be patient, son. If you don’t want to divorce her—”

  “Never,” he said tightly. “I’ll never give her up.”

  “So stubborn,” she sighed. “Then you must be forebearing. Perhaps, in time, she will come to appreciate your special qualities.”

  He gave her a sharp look, to see if she was mocking him, but she seemed perfectly serene and sincere. He took his leave of her. When he had gone, she clucked her tongue and patted her little dog.

  “Poor Sandro! How long will he go on tormenting himself over her? This cannot end happily, Vespa, mark my words. But I had to tell him. Better he should hear it first from me than from someone not so gentle. ”

  Alessandro stood in the corridor outside his mother’s room. So it had happened at last, the thing he feared most. Fosca had taken a lover.

  A merry peal of laughter reached his ears and he jerked his head up. She was at home, holding court in her boudoir. He decided to see for himself how she acted. Perhaps his mother was wrong.

  Her two cicisbei were there, and the dwarf, Flabonico. They all rose politely when he entered and bowed over Fosca’s hand.

  “I’ve been neglecting you, Madame,” he said. “Forgive me.”

  He straightened up and studied her carefully. A flush had mounted to her cheeks when she saw him, but the laughter hadn’t vanished from her eyes. They sparkled. He thought he had never seen her looking more beautiful, and in that moment he decided that his mother was not mistaken; Fosca was in love.

  “I forgive you, Signor,” she said. “I know how busy you are, and how the cares of government weigh on your mind and occupy your time. We are silly, frivolous wretches who laugh and sing all the day, like the grasshopper in Aesop’s fable. But you are the sturdy ant, diligent and serious. We should take a lesson from you, shouldn’t we, gentlemen?”

  The other men agreed quickly. Flabonico protested that he was quite diligent and serious about love and pleasure. She laughed prettily. Alessandro felt himself growing warm. She offered him a cup of hot chocolate. Ordinarily he would have refused, but today he accepted and sat down on a little chair near her chaise lounge.

  Giacomo suddenly remembered an urgent appointment and excused himself. Flabonico asked if Giacomo would be so kind as to drop him at the Molo. They went out. Antonio remained, after receiving an unmistakable signal from Fosca’s eyes: Don’t you dare leave me alone with him!

  They conversed stiffly about the weather and about Carnival, now winding to its close at the end of February. Alessandro watched the two of them carefully. Antonio was as attentive as ever. Fosca accepted his praises graciously but no more warmly than usual. Her eyes kept straying to the Titian that hung over the mantle, the painting that Antonio Valier couldn’t possibly have afforded to give her.

  Finally he said that he had to leave her. “I am delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,” he said as he took her hand.

  “But you look rather tired, Signor,” she observed. “You are working too hard, I think. It is the last week of Carnival. Leave your work, enjoy yourself!”

  He felt mild astonishment. Never before had she expressed any concern for his health or evinced any interest in his work. Something was definitely afoot.

  He went to his offices in the Doge’s Palace. Pietro Salvino greeted him, took his cloak and hat, and handed him a cup of coffee.

  Alessandro said, “I am disappointed in you, Pietro. You have failed to discover where Valier got that painting—”

  “I tried, but I couldn’t trace it, Excellency!” Pietro said quickly. “It was impossible!”

  “Then I will give you another assignment, and I trust, Pietro, you will not fail me this time. My wife,” he paused and took a breath, “my wife has a lover. I want to know who he is. Follow her. She has a casino, understand—”

  “Yes, Excellency, I have heard about it. Donna Fosca has already achieved a reputation as a very charming hostess.”

  “Who is he?” Alessandro repeated grimly. “That’s all I want to know. Who is he?”

  The old Doge, Paolo Renier, died before the end of Carnival. The highest officials in government decided to keep his death a secret, lest they spoil the merry season for the people—and for themselves.

  On the night of Shrove Tuesday, the last and wildest night of Carnival, a pack of Pulchinellos, dressed in their characteristic white costumes and hideous masks, kidnapped a willing Columbina from her friends as they stood watching a troop of acrobats perform by torchlight in the Piazza.

  One of the friends protested, and Columbina was heard to say, “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Antonio, be quiet!”

  The whole pack stampeded off to the Molo and hired gondolas to take them across the lagoon. The boats pulled away, trailed by a gondola that hung back slightly. In the shadow of the loggia under the Doge’s Palace, Columbina giggled.

  “You look ridiculous!” Fosca kissed the tip of Raf’s elongated mask nose. “Did you hear the fuss Antonio made? I wanted to hit him.”

  “A brilliant maneuver,” Raf said approvingly. “Well, let’s go. The Piazza is much too noisy and there’s no privacy.”

  “But where? My casino isn’t safe anymore; someone’s watching it all the time.”

  “Ah ha, a friend of a friend of Tomasso’s has a casino that he won’t be using for a week or two, and I have the key.” Raf displayed his trophy.

  “Why won’t he be using it?” Fosca wondered.

  “He just got married. His mistress was so angry that she left him and found somebody else.”

  They laughed, and exchanged awkward kisses under their masks. Hand in hand, they left the noisy Piazza and disappeared into the quieter side streets. They were followed by a slim young girl dressed entirely in black, so that when she drew her shawl up in front of her face, or turned her face to the wall, she became one with the darkness.

  Lia had followed Raf from the ghetto. Like the Inquisitors’ spy, she had been confused by the milling crowd of identically dressed men; but she had seen Columbina and one of the Pulchinellos evading the spy on the Molo, and she knew they were Raf and his woman.

/>   Raf led Fosca through winding alleys to the courtyard of a rambling palazzo. He pushed open a vast iron gate, which screeched deafeningly. Suddenly Fosca balked.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked.

  “Why, this is where the casino is located,” he said

  “Oh, Raf, this was my home,” Fosca said sadly “This is Ca’ Dolfin. I played in this courtyard before I went away to school. Up there, that’s where Father’s study was, and my room was on the third floor, on this wing. I used to sit on the balcony and watch the servants making love in this very courtyard, very late at night. I had no idea—I didn’t realize it had been converted to apartments. I can’t go in there, Raf. It would break my heart.”

  “It’s all right, Fosca,” he said gently. “We don’t have to go in. We can sit here, on the fountain, and make love as the servants did. Don’t be sad, my darling. It’s not our last night together, after all.”

  “But it’s the last night of Carnival. It will be much harder to meet after this. You’ll forget me, during Lent.”

  “I won’t. I’ll come to Holy Mass if I have to, and pretend to be a Catholic, just so I can be near you.” He sat on the edge of the fountain in the center of the courtyard and pulled her down on his lap.

  She laughed delightedly. “You are a blasphemer. Signor! A Jew at Holy Mass!”

  “What’s wrong with that? Christians are welcome to attend services at our synagogues, if they wish. You can come on Saturday and sit behind the screen with the women—”

  “Why do they sit behind screens? Are Jewish women so ugly, then?”

  “No, they’re beautiful, and would only distract the men from their worship.”

  “Then I won’t come! Oh, Raf—”

  “Hey, you two, get off that fountain!” A shrill voice came out of the darkness above them. “Do your screwing some place else!”

  “My dear Madame” Fosca said imperiously, wriggling out of Raf’s arms and standing unsteadily on the edge of the fountain, “I will have you know that this is my fountain and my courtyard and you are trespassing in my house, and not the other way around!”