“It’s not too late—speak to her—ask her to forgive you.
‘Speak to her?” He gave a dead-sounding laugh and came back into the room. He sank into a chair and slumped forward, resting his elbows on his knees. How can I speak to her? We’ve hardly exchanged a word in six years, since her child was born. We walk past each other like strangers.”
She came up behind him and put her hands on top of his shoulders. She pulled him back and rested his head between her breasts, and smoothed the longish hair away from his forehead. He sighed and closed his eyes. “I’ve never been able to speak to her,” he said. Not since I fell in love with her—and then it was too late. The damage was done. I can’t talk to her. I become stiff and mute. Tongue-tied, like a schoolboy. Or unbelievably pompous. Because I’m terrified that she’ll mock me, or laugh in my face.”
“I know,” she said. “Why is it so terrible to be laughed at by the one you love?”
They were silent for a long time: he, taking comfort from her warmth and nearness; she, thinking about what fools men and women make of themselves in the name of love.
“Isn’t it stupid?” she murmured, stroking his temples with her strong fingers. “The two of us, here together, moaning about what might have been? It’s time to think about what is, right now.” She came around and knelt beside his chair! He smiled down at her. “Perhaps we ought to fall in love with each other?” she suggested. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea? It would serve them right! And even if we can’t—we could pretend.” She leaned forward and kissed him softly.
He caressed her cheek tenderly, and kissed her again, more deeply. Then he gave her a quizzical smile.
“You are a very remarkable young lady, Signorina Gabbiana,” he said.
She took his hands and urged him out of his chair.
“Perhaps, after you have made love to me, you can call me Lia, Signor Loredan.” She led him into the bedroom.
“Fosca, my dear girl, how kind of you to visit me! ”
Donna Rosalba Loredan stretched out a withered hand. Fosca took it and stooped to kiss her cheek. Of all of them, Rosalba Loredan had changed the least in seven years. She attributed it to her withdrawal from the world, and declared that the Angel of Death had forgotten all about her because she didn’t make a constant fuss about being old.
“As I recall, you asked to see me. Mother?” Fosca straightened up.
“Did I?” Rosalba shook her head. “You see what old age does to the mind? But come and sit next to me, dear. How well you look. You could still pass for eighteen!”
Donna Rosalba’s little dog Vespa, now quite ancient, made room for the visitor with his usual ill grace. Fosca settled herself on the edge of the bed. Her mother-in-law was not a true invalid. No malady kept her confined to her room: She could still walk, if she wanted to. But years earlier she had declared that she was tired of the world and its hollow pleasures. She didn’t want to spend her last years in a convent. So she took to her bed in her old home and was seldom seen out of it.
“If I have the look of an eighteen-year-old, I haven’t the energy,” Fosca confessed. “You’re looking remarkably well. Mother. You don’t change from one year to the next.”
“That’s easy for you to say, because you don’t visit me from one year to the next,” the old woman said wickedly.
“Forgive me for neglecting you,” Fosca said apologetically. Actually she had very little in common with her mother-in-law. She was bored by the old lady’s stories about Venice in the past. The past was dead, and there was no point in dredging it up again and again. Fosca lived in the present; or so she told herself.
“And how is dear Paolo?” Rosalba inquired. “He neglects me, too. Just like his parents!”
“I shall instruct Fra Roberto to make sure that Paolo visit you frequently,” Fosca promised.
“Not frequently, dear. Just occasionally. Frequency implies habit, and I’m too old to develop new habits. I would only get used to seeing him, and feel disappointed when he missed coming. He is a very handsome little boy, I think. Much handsomer than Alessandro at that age. Must be the Dolfin blood in him. Your father was dark, as I recall.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“I knew Orio very well,” Rosalba said reminiscently. Fosca stifled a yawn and braced herself for an endless story about people long dead—or people who, in her opinion, should have been long dead. Rosalba rambled on for a good ten minutes about Orio Dolfin’s collection of Etruscan jewelry, his keen interest in botany and physiology, his skill at translation. Fosca had heard it all before, and she nodded and smiled and interjected comments at appropriate moments while she surreptitiously busied her mind with other things.
“—not gambling that broke him, but women,” she heard Rosalba say.
Fosca jerked her head up. “That’s not true!” she said sharply. “My father never had women, never! Not even after Mother died!”
“Of course it’s true. He just didn’t let you know about it. It’s no business of a young girl what her parent does. The body has its needs and its reasons. The only thing that worries me is that Alessandro seems to be going the way of his father-in-law. Wouldn’t that be ironical? After he married you and saved you from poverty and disgrace, he should lose all his money to that little dancer and leave you impoverished anyhow!”
“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” Fosca said crisply. “Of course my father gambled. That was his weakness, everyone knows. He couldn’t help himself.”
“He gambled on women as well as on cards,” the old woman chuckled. “That’s a losing game, every time. I can’t remember her name: Marianno? Mariucci? His last mistress. A common girl. She took everything he had and when he was destitute she deserted him. I wonder if that isn’t what really broke his heart in the end.”
Fosca’s brain was reeling. Suddenly little faded images from the past floated up to her conscious mind. A woman’s laugh. Unexpected. Unexplained. Her father, coming home very late, saying that he and a friend had been talking and lost track of the time. A strange, sweet smell that clung to his shirts sometimes.
“Do you love me, Papa?”
“Of course, my dearest. You are my only darling, my sweet, little Fosca. You are the love of my life.” A note written on rose-colored paper, whisked out of sight into the top drawer of his desk. A pair of earrings in his waistcoat pocket. He said they were for her, a surprise gift. Footsteps outside her door, very late at night. He was leaving her. Running to his room to find him gone, and crying herself to sleep in his bed.
“You look very white, dear. Let me get you a glass of something,” Rosalba said.
“No, thank you, I’m all right.”
She felt suffocatingly warm. She never knew, never even suspected. He sent her away to school. It nearly broke her heart. But he wanted more time with his mistress, who betrayed him in the end.
“I’m surprised you never heard about it.” Rosalba searched through the mountain of objects on her bed until she found her snuffbox. She put a generous pinch up each nostril, snorted, then sneezed noisily into a lace-edged handkerchief. “Ah, that’s good! Now, about Alessandro. It’s a great pity. I’d hate to die in a convent after all, because my son was too poor to keep me at home.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about, Mother,” said Fosca waspishly. “I’m quite willing to believe that Father had mistresses. It’s quite a normal thing for a man to do,” she said bravely.
“I’m not talking about Orio anymore, dear, but about Alessandro. This new fancy of his is milking him dry. As though the government hasn’t strapped us enough already! Did you know that he had to put a third mortgage on this house to cover the expenses of the reception for the English Ambassador? Thank heavens for rich monasteries. The nobles have supported them generously, and they deserve to get a little of their own back.”
Fosca moved her shoulders impatiently. “I fear that I have very little interest in my husband’s affairs, Madame. He h
as always had mistresses. Who they are and what he spends on them are no concern of mine.”
“You’re wrong there, girl,” Rosalba said. “This one concerns you very much indeed. He’s spending money on her like he really had it to spend. It’s the talk of Venice! Carlo told me everything, and he suggested that I speak to Alessandro at once. He sounded quite alarmed. Why, he and this dancer are seen everywhere together. At the Ridotto, at the theaters, even sailing around the Lido! They shop together, dine together, dance together. He buys her expensive clothes, even pieces of furniture! Antiques! And jewels! And expensive wines for her table. If he keeps on at this rate, we’ll all be out on the street in our small clothes, mark my word. This little Gabbiana is a shrewd creature. I’m surprised. Usually he chases women who haven’t the brains they were born with. But this one knows what she’s doing. She’s set out to ruin him, and she will.”
“Gabbiana!” Fosca said incredulously. “You’re making this up. Carlo is mistaken, surely!”
“My Carlo? My dear, he is never wrong. When he brings me news like this it is because it is true and he has seen it with his own eyes.”
Lia. Fosca felt her jealous anger swelling inside her. Lia. The little whore had already taken Raf away from her, and now she was trying to ruin Loredan!
“I should have known she’d try something like this,” Fosca said through her teeth. “That—tramp!” She took a deep breath and straightened her spine
“Well, what difference does it make to me if she makes a fool of Loredan? I don’t care what happens to him.
She can ruin him, for all I care. It’s nothing to do with me.
“I don’t think you appreciate, Fosca, how close Alessandro is to enjoying the fate suffered by your late father and my friend, Orio Dolfin. Alessandro was deeply in debt before this business came up—a fact of which I am sure you were ignorant. His businesses have not been going well, and the demands of the state are nothing short of ridiculous. But lately he has been selling off things that should rightfully go to your son. If he keeps this up, Paolo could well end up like your brother Tomasso: a charming but penniless ne’er-do-well.”
“No!” Fosca cried. “He can’t! He won’t! He loves Paolo, I know he does!”
“So did your father love you,” Rosalba said reasonably. “But men, especially when they get to be Alessandro’s age, are often very foolish about young girls.”
“He’s doing this to hurt me, I know he is!”
“You think so?” Rosalba wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “I disagree. This has nothing whatever to do with you—at least not on his part. Whatever is between you and that girl is another matter entirely. But Alessandro is very lonely. I suspected he would tire of these useless wenches of his, and now it has happened. She is beautiful, and she is also talented. She is rather special, and a challenge to him.”
Fosca made an angry noise. Rosalba sighed and took her hand.
“I know what has happened between you, Fosca. I have always known that you were not suited to each other. But I have tried to remain impartial. Yes, I want what is best for each of you, but I particularly want what is best for the Loredan name, and for Paolo, who bears it. He is a charming boy, a credit to all of us. No one would ever guess that he wasn’t really a Loredan.” Fosca started. She gave the old lady a sharp look, and received one in return. “Is there nothing you don’t know?”
“Not very much. Although this was something that Carlo didn’t have to tell me. I’m not a complete fool, and even though I don’t go out, I keep my finger on the pulse of this house. I knew very well that you weren’t really ill or incommunicado or whatever that lie was that Alessandro invented. But servants talk, when I urge them a little. Ah, he was like a wounded lion when you were gone! Now, it’s none of my business if he wants to pass off another man’s bastard as his own. I think it was a fine idea, actually. A brilliant solution to many problems.”
“Well, I don’t know what you expect me to do now that you’ve told me about this sordid business,” Fosca said, trying to regain her shattered composure. “Do you want me to tell him that he’s making a fool of himself with this strumpet? He’d laugh me to scorn or wither me with one of those freezing looks of his.”
“Don’t mix your metaphors, dear. Really, I don’t know what kind of advice to give you. But I have done my duty by telling you. I leave the matter in your capable hands. Run along now, like a good child. I declare. I’m feeling rather sleepy. I shall take a little nap so I can be fresh for Carlo when he comes.”
Fosca stood up slowly . “You will be disappointed, I fear. I can do nothing, nothing at all. I don’t know why you don’t just talk to him yourself.”
Rosalba slid lower in her bed and closed her eyes. Her lids were so thin and papery that Fosca had the impression that she was still watching her.
“I couldn’t possibly do that,” Rosalba murmured. “I am only his mother, after all.”
Fosca walked through the house in a trance. Yes, things really were missing. A vase, an oriental rug, a small table, a candelabrum, a statue. The mausoleum of a house was looking a little threadbare these days, but she had been so preoccupied with her own problems that she never noticed.
She went downstairs to his library. Her heart froze. An old nightmare reared up. Whole sections of Alessandro’s precious library were missing, volumes he prized. Exquisite samples of the Venetian art of bookbinding and printing, treasures he had displayed proudly when they were first married. Vanished from their accustomed places on his shelves.
Fosca remembered when she first noticed the gaps in her father’s library. “But where have they gone?” she wondered. Those vellum-bound tomes that she used to love to look at. Beautiful engravings. Verses that she didn’t understand, but which teased her imagination.
“Oh, those old things? I got tired of looking at them and sold them, that’s all. Fine books always find ready buyers. Venice is full of collectors.”
Trembling, she sat down in the chair in front of Alessandro’s desk. Rosalba hadn’t lied. It was happening all over again. Soon her son wouldn’t even have a roof over his head.
She wanted to scream. She had sold herself to Alessandro, sold her silence and her good behavior, in exchange for her son’s legitimacy. Now Alessandro was cheating the boy of everything that should be his.
It was all the fault of that dancer, that whore. Lia.
Lia, who at this very moment was sneering at her, mocking her, laughing at her blindness and stupidity.
Fosca could almost hear the common little voice in her ears: “I took your lover. And I’ll take your husband as well.”
Paolo. Paolo would become like Tomasso, who couldn’t live up to his noble heritage because he couldn’t live down his poverty. Paolo, one of the Barnabotti, dressed in soiled lace and patched velvet. Paolo, bored, idle, a troublesome dreamer who would live in shame and die unmourned by anyone. All because of her. Lia. La Gabbiana.
“She won’t get away with this,” Fosca vowed. “Not as long as I have a breath left in my body. I will destroy her before I’ll let her destroy my son!”
XIII
THE CAMPAIGN
The curtain went up on Vestris’ new ballet, Turandot, based on the play by Count Carlo Gozzi. The audience was well-behaved enough by Venetian standards—a Venetian visitor to Paris having observed with astonishment that audiences there actually paid attention to what was happening on the stage—until Lia made her entrance, dressed in the flowing robes of the mythical Oriental queen. Then angry shouts came from the balcony, drowning out the applause of her ardent admirers.
“Whore! Tramp! Get off the stage! Get out of Venice! We don’t want you here!”
Lia ignored them and began to dance for her courtiers. Then objects began to crash to the stage: bottles, fruits, marbles and nails that made the floor impossible to dance on safely. The mob never stopped its shouting, and when other members of the audience tried to silence them a riot broke out. Vestris ordered the curtains closed an
d the stage cleared of debris. He intended to begin the performance over again when the house was reasonably quiet. But quiet never returned. The fighting spread to all parts of the theater. Women ran screaming to the doors. A few shots were fired into the air. One man was trampled to death.
Behind the curtains the dancers milled uncertainly, wondering aloud what had sparked such an incident.
Lia stood quietly off to one side, a worried frown on her face.
The next day the newspapers were full of stories of the riot. Writers editorialized on the immorality of La Gabbiana’s dancing, her lewdness in exposing parts of the female body never before seen on a public stage: a bare arm, a leg bared to the knee, naked shoulders. Others remarked on her bad example and on the undesirable character of dancers in general.
The next performance by the company was also disrupted. This time some mischief maker greased the stage, and when Vestris entered with a leap, he slipped and fell, badly hurting himself. The performance was cancelled and ticket money refunded. The audience felt cheated and angry, and several small fights erupted. The following morning wall posters appeared, urging the police and the Council of Ten to ban further performances by the Vestris Company and particularly by La Gabbiana, in the interests of public safety. That night Lia appeared in a solo recital in one of thepalazzos, and several uninvited guests pelted her with fruit and eggs.
“La Gabbiana is a whore!” they shouted as they were apprehended and subdued. “She is corrupting public morals! Throw the whore out of Venice!”
The miscreants were Barnabotti. The police demanded to know who had hired them, but they refused to speak.
“I just don’t understand it,” Alessandro said angrily. “Why? Why these attacks on you now, after the public had accepted you so graciously? It must be the Church—who else? Every so often they feel the need to flex their muscles. It’s not safe for you here, Lia. Perhaps you should leave the city for a while.”
Lia didn’t look up from the flowers she was arranging. “But that’s just what they want,” she said calmly. “No, I won’t go. Not yet.”
The Masquers Page 28
