The Masquers

by Natasha Peters

  “Lia, I’m sorry about what happened that night. I didn’t mean—”

  “No, hush.” She stopped his mouth with a gentle pressure of her fingertips. “I was never angry at you for that. And it was partly my fault for provoking you. Come on, let’s dance!”

  Some musicians had gathered at the end of the square and a group of young people started a circle dance. Taking Raf by the hand, Lia led him over and they joined the circle.

  The smoke from the fire billowed into the blue sky and a light wind from the sea carried it away. In a few hours, the gates of the ghetto were ashes, and only a memory.

  “Is Papa coming home soon?” Paolo asked for the twentieth time.

  “Soon, darling,” Fosca said softly, pulling him closer and smoothing his hair away from his face. “Any day now.”

  How could she tell her son that in three days the man he called his father would be dead?

  Paolo had accepted the presence of Raf and the French soldiers with his usual aplomb. His own routine hadn’t changed much. He still took lessons with Fra Roberto in his third floor nursery, and practiced the piano under Fosca’s watchful eye, and sailed his boat in the pool of the fountain in the courtyard. Raf kept pressing Fosca to tell him that he, and not Alessandro Loredan, was his true father, but she put him off. Paolo wasn’t ready, she said. One disturbance at a time. There would be time for that after Alessandro was dead.

  “I like the soldiers,” Paolo chirped. “One of them, Monsieur Louis, showed me his gun today.”

  “Paolo, I forbid it!”

  “Oh, it wasn’t loaded,” he assured her hastily,“ and he said he wouldn’t let me fire it because it would knock me down. We spoke French,” he added proudly. “I’m learning a lot of words from the soldiers.”

  “I’ll bet you are,” she muttered angrily. She had tried unsuccessfully to keep her son away from the intruders, but Raf insisted on introducing Paolo to the soldiers and letting him play with the children of the servants and gondoliers, from whom he had formerly been strictly segregated.

  “Democracy,” she thought irritably. “What a lot of rubbish.”

  They sat together in the little music room. The deepening, dying sun cast its orange light on the mirrored walls. The sounds of lapping water drifted up from the canal below, along with echoes of laughter, bumping boats, a snatch of song from a gondolier. It was a peaceful afternoon, golden and quiet.

  It’s so strange, Fosca thought, to be sitting here as though there weren’t a thing wrong in the world. And perhaps there isn’t. Perhaps my fears are imaginary. There is nothing hateful or ugly in this magically beautiful world. No death, no war, no danger.

  “How ironical,” she said half-aloud, “that when you get what you want, you discover that you really didn’t want it at all.”

  She had wanted Raf. She had wanted freedom. And now she had both. But at what cost? The life of a man she had come to respect, and to love. Her friendships. Her place in the world.

  “Don’t worry, Mama,” Paolo said, wriggling out of her arms. “Papa will be home soon.”

  “I hope so,” she murmured. “I hope so!”

  This thoughtful lull was shattered by Raf’s return. He bounded up the stairs. He bellowed Fosca’s name, shouted orders to his guards, flirted joyfully with one of the maidservants. Fosca braced herself. The palazzo had always been as quiet as a church when Loredan presided there. Now it was more like a barracks. “Fosca, where in hell are you?”

  She sighed deeply and went to the door.

  “Damn it, woman!”

  “We’re in here,” she said when he came into view. “We’ve been having a music lesson.”

  He swept her up in his arms and kissed her soundly.

  “What a day, what a great, great day!” he said exuberantly, swinging her around. “Do you know what happened today, my love? We burned the gates of the ghetto! The Jews are free men now, Fosca! My dream has come true! And they cheered me, and thanked me, and wept!” He set her down and looked over at Paolo, who was watching them curiously. He went over and lifted the boy high and sat him on his shoulders. Paolo looked embarrassed, and uncomfortable. “You should have been there, both of you!” Raf said happily. “It was something that no one who was there will ever forget, ever. Better than the fire in the Piazza. Brilliant! Wonderful!”

  Paolo said to him politely, “Please put me down, Signor.”

  “What? Oh, all right.” He lifted the child down from his shoulders and tousled his hair. Paolo frowned a little and smoothed it back into place. “Listen, Fosca, we have to celebrate, all right? I want you both to join me for dinner tonight, in the big drawing room at the front of the house. I’ve already ordered the meal. You won’t have to worry about a thing. We’ll celebrate, just the three of us.”

  She said quietly, “Really, I’m afraid that it will be too late for Paolo—”

  “Oh, just this once, Fosca, please?” he pleaded, laughing. “Come on, don’t be a drudge. Paolo will survive very well on a shorter night’s sleep, won’t you, Paolo? We won’t keep him up too late.” He grinned at the boy. “What do you say, Paolo? Would you like to dine with your mother and me?”

  “If she says it’s all right,” Paolo said cautiously, looking at Fosca.

  “Of course it’s all right, isn’t it, Fosca? Come on, you know you’ll have to agree sooner or later.”

  “Very well,” she said with a little shrug. “If you wish.”

  “Yes, I wish. It’s settled then. Make yourselves beautiful—I want it to be really special. My tailor just delivered a new dress uniform for me today.”

  “Getting used to the trappings of authority already, are you?” Fosca remarked.

  His face clouded. “No. Certainly not. But you have to wear something when you appear in public, after all, and why not show off your position, impress the people a little?”

  “You might impress them more by dressing as one of them. That’s what democracy is all about, isn’t it? Come along, Paolo. I think you ought to have a little nap if you’re going to be up late.” She extended her hand and Paolo obediently slipped his smaller one into it. “Please excuse us, Captain,” she said with a polite nod to Raf. “We will see you at dinner. Because you insist,” she added pointedly.

  He stepped aside to let them pass, his face stiff with anger. Damn her, he thought. Why does she have to act like this? He went to Loredan’s library and looked over some plans for a new sea wall near the Lido, but he couldn’t concentrate. The joy he had felt when he came in was gone. She had spoiled his pleasure, blighted his great happiness with the day’s events. He stood up. He couldn’t let this go on. He would have to have a talk with her.

  She was in her room. She was standing at the open windows that faced the courtyard. Emilia was with her, arranging flowers in a vase on a little table near the bed. Raf entered without knocking. Emilia looked up, cast Fosca a sharp look, and left without a nod or a curtsy. She detested Raf, but she couldn’t abandon Fosca.

  “We need to talk, Fosca,” Raf said sternly. “This has gone on long enough. How much longer are you going to act the martyr? The longer I’m here, the colder you become! Why? You love me. You’ve said it a hundred thousand times, and I know it’s true. Why won’t you let us be happy together? We have everything we wanted now. I’ve tried cajoling, pleading, bullying and scolding, and I’m getting tired of it. My patience is wearing thin. You’re trying to shut me out. And you’re trying to turn the boy against me, aren’t you? What have you been telling him about me?” He gripped her shoulders and whirled her around to face him. Once again he had the peculiar sensation that she wasn’t even there. “You’ve been filling his head with lies, haven’t you? That’s why he doesn’t like me. You’ve been telling him that I’m nothing but a Jew, a commoner, a ruffian! Haven’t you? Haven’t you!”

  “No.” Her face was oddly expressionless. “I have not spoken to him about you at all. If he’s a little shy of you it’s because you frighten him. You’re so big,
so loud. A stranger. And he doesn’t know what to think—about us.”

  “Then tell him the truth. Tell him I’m no stranger, but his father. I love him. I want to be his friend. Tell him, Fosca, or I will. Tonight.”

  This time she didn’t argue. She said with a shrug, “It doesn’t matter. In three days—nearly two, now—Loredan will be dead. I won’t be able to lie to him about that, will I?”

  “No, you won’t,” Raf said firmly. “Listen, Fosca, you’re not going to let this execution come between us. I won’t let you!”

  “I can’t help the way I feel. I did this. I am responsible for his death. If I hadn’t gone to see you—”

  “It’s not true, Fosca.” He shook her. He tried to control his anger and spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a child. “We were meant to be together, Fosca. Loredan came between us once, or tried to, and we wouldn’t let him. You don’t love him. You can’t. After the way he treated you, and what he did to your father.”

  “There are kinds of love,” she said softly. “Love given freely, out of ignorance or innocence, like a child’s love. Love given out of a sense of duty. Even love of your oppressors. Why else did your Jews give their gold to save the city that you say treated them so badly? Even dogs are faithful to the masters who mistreat them. I started to love him—but what difference does it make? I betrayed him with you. I’m killing him.”

  “You’re being ridiculous, Fosca,” Raf growled. “He killed a man, Laugier. He has to pay like everybody else who murders . Just stop this nonsense right now. Forget him. I won’t let you spoil this day for me, do you understand? Now pull yourself together.” He kissed her lightly and released her. “Wash your face and do whatever women do to make themselves beautiful for the man they love. I expect you and the boy to be downstairs at nine o’clock.”

  “As you wish, Captain,” she said with distant politeness. “I shall endeavor to obey your—”

  “Oh, Fosca,” he said despairingly. “Don’t duck behind that mask of artificial aristocratic mannerism. I hate it! Better tears, better self-pity or real honest-to-God anger than this—pose!”

  “But you don’t like me as I am. You want me to change, don’t you?” she said coolly. She could feel his irritation growing. She wanted to hurt him, and so drain away some of the pain that was making her life unbearable. “I only want to please you. Captain.”

  “Nine o’clock, damn it.” He left her.

  Raf thought that she had never looked more beautiful or seemed more unattainable. Her hair was dressed in thousands of ringlets and piled on top of her head. Two strands of pearls gleamed lustrously across the crown. Her gown was pale green silk decorated with silk leaves of darker green. The bodice was cut very low and square across the top half of her breasts. A small gold cross dangled in her cleavage. Small puffed sleeves rode low on her shoulders. He gloves came up over the elbow, and she had rolled them back to the wrist so that she could dine. Rings flashed on her slender fingers.

  The three of them, Fosca, Paolo, and Raf, sat silently at the long linen-draped table that had been set up in the large room at the front of the house. Long windows opened onto the balcony that overlooked the Grand Canal. A liveried manservant moved around the table, pouring wine, offering tidbits from silver platters.

  They had feasted on a delicious vegetable soup, followed by a whole fish, poached and delicately sauced. There had been green beans and mushrooms from the country, lamb scallops in a piquant wine sauce, ices, salads, cheeses. When the servant brought coffee, Raf told him to leave them alone and to clear up later.

  He glowered at Fosca over the sea of china, crystal, and gleaming gold flatware. The mood of forced joviality with which he had started the evening had quickly turned sour. His attempts to carry on a light and amusing conversation had been met with perfunctory politeness, and his fund of small talk, never large, quickly ran dry.

  Two enormous candelabra with a dozen branches each cast considerable heat as well as light. Raf had removed his coat, cast off his neckcloth, and opened his shirt. The forest of black hair on his chest gleamed with sweat. He slouched in his chair and never took his eyes off Fosca, who sat at the opposite end of the table from him. She fingered her wineglass. She had drunk a lot, but had touched not a morsel of food. Between them, on one side of the table, Paolo had slipped down, drawn his legs up under him, and rested his head on the arm of his chair. He was sleeping soundly, breathing through his mouth.

  “Don’t you think we ought to let Paolo go to bed?” Fosca broke the silence.

  “No. He’s all right where he is. I want him to stay. I want you both to stay. This is my party, remember? My celebration.” Raf had drunk a lot of wine and he was feeling surly.

  “Of course, Captain.” She folded her hands in her lap. She was sitting bolt upright, her straight back never touching the chair. She had sat that way for the past two hours, queenly and cold.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t like the menu,” Raf said. “I suppose I should have consulted with you.”

  “Not at all,” she said. “Everything looked wonderful. But I have no appetite these days. Please forgive me.

  “Oh, you’re forgiven. You have no appetite for anything these days, Fosca. Not for food, or love, or life. I was worried. I thought you were put off by my shortcomings as a host. You didn’t find my jokes funny. You weren’t interested in my stories. I know I’m not as clever as your fancy friends—”

  “Please don’t,” she sighed. “I have always found you very interesting, Raf. You know that.”

  “You found me crude and quaint, a novelty, like Paolo’s rhinocerous.”

  “And what did you find me?” she asked softly.

  He stared at her for a long moment. “Beautiful,” he said. “Then, as now.”

  One of the French guards knocked and entered without waiting for permission.

  Raf snarled, “Get out of here, damn you! I gave orders not to be disturbed!”

  The soldier began to speak quickly, breathlessly, in strongly accented French that Fosca couldn’t follow. Raf sat up straighter. His eyes never left Fosca’s face as he listened. Once she heard Loredan’s name and she jerked a little. Raf gave some brisk orders. The soldier nodded and hurried out of the room.

  “It appears I won’t be able to stay,” Raf said with mock regret. “There’s a fire at the Arsenal. Not a bad one—they think they have it under control—but it had the effect they planned. It was a very nice diversion.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, frightened. “What effect? What—?”

  “A band of Arsenalotti attacked the Doge’s Palace and stormed the prisons. Two of my men were killed. Loredan has escaped.”

  She closed her eyes and sagged against the back of her chair. “He’s free!” she whispered thankfully. “Oh, thank God. Thank God!” She took a few deep breaths then her eyes flew open. “Surely you don’t think that I had anything to do with this!”

  “Didn’t you?” he barked, leaning forward and taking a long chink of wine. “No, I guess you didn’t. I’ve given orders to have this house searched, and to stop and search all boats. We’ll get him back, I promise.”

  Paolo shifted and muttered a little in his sleep. Fosca looked at him anxiously. “You won’t—you won’t kill him, will you?” she asked.

  Raf gave a snort of laughter. “No, I want him alive as much as you do. To face the firing squad.” He lifted his wineglass.

  A strong gust of wind billowed the curtains and the table cloths and extinguished some of the candles. Suddenly Fosca felt a hand on her shoulder and an icy cold sharpness under her throat.

  “Don’t move, either of you.” Alessandro Loredan stood behind Fosca’s chair. He pressed the sharp edge of a dagger against Fosca’s neck. “Don’t say a word, Jew, or she dies. I mean it!” he hissed.

  Raf stared. Fosca could see his incredulity, and shared it.

  “Where in hell—?”

  “This is my house, remember? I know every passage, every closet,
every approach.”

  “You shouldn’t have come here, Alessandro,” Fosca whispered. “It’s so dangerous. You should have escaped.”

  “Don’t bother with any little shows of consideration for my well-being, my dear,” he said scathingly. “I came back to finish a job that I thwarted years ago, sentimental fool that I was. I should have known you’d come back, Jew. Accursed plague that you are. And I should have known that Fosca would run to your bed.”

  “You won’t hurt her, Loredan,” Raf said, pushing his chair back a little. Fosca felt the edge of the blade press a little harder against her skin. “Your fight is with me. All right, you’ve got it. Come on.”

  Raf reached over and removed the sword from the scabbard that hung on his chair. The pressure on Fosca’s throat relaxed and Alessandro Loredan stepped around to the front of the table to face his opponent.

  Fosca had her first look at her husband. His clothes were filthy and they bagged on his wasted frame. They were stained with blood, fresh and still red. His hair was long and vividly streaked with gray, and his lean cheeks were covered with a thick brush of beard. His shirt was open to the waist and the sleeves were torn off at the elbow. In his right hand he held a knife with a curved blade, and in his left he hefted a sleek sword. He didn’t even glance at her, but kept his eyes fastened on Raf.

  Fosca left her chair and ran around the table to Paolo, who was beginning to awaken. She didn’t want him to cry out.

  Raf moved toward the older man, sword in hand.

  “No!” Fosca pleaded softly. “Alessandro, you mustn’t! There are soldiers everywhere—they’ll hear you!”

  He gave a dry, short laugh. “I think not. You know how thick these doors are. After they’ve failed to find me in the house, they’ll start to scour the city for me. They’d never dream of looking for me here. Well, Jew, it looks as if we’ll get that little duel we both wanted,” he said to Raf. “Let’s get it over with.”

  “It will be a pleasure, old man,” Raf said, eyes shining. “I’d like nothing better than to spill your blood on your own carpet.”