This boat can be restored; I am certain. I have restored countless gondolas—granted, usually in much better condition than this one—alongside my father and brother. Thoughtfully brought back to its original state, this gondola could be fine, a masterpiece. I am lost in my memories, in my intimate exploration of the boat, when a voice emanating from the stairwell breaks my trance.
“Son, what are you doing with that old boat?”
I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE my good fortune.
My master is not angry with me for disturbing and working on the dilapidated old boat. In fact, he seems pleased. A strange smirk crossed Trevisan’s face when I hurriedly explained my vision for the gondola, how it could be restored to its original glory, working even better than it did when it was first launched into the canal, long before I or even Trevisan himself was born. The artist seemed amused when I listed the advantages of having two boats in working order. Trevisan did not even seem to be concerned that the restoration project would take time away from my other duties.
I slip out the boardinghouse before dawn. The common room stands empty except for Giuseppe, the unemployed tailor, a permanent fixture at the bar. He sits slumped over in a chair, snoring. I quietly unlatch the lock and move into the alley. I stop at a rusty spout that projects from a nearby wall. I place my head under it and fill my cheeks with cool water. A thick mist rises from the canal waters as I walk to Trevisan’s house, and the damp air chills my skin. I stuff my hands inside the pockets of my waistcoat. Trevisan plans to work in his studio for the morning, which will afford me the time I need to work in the boat slip. I am eager to get started.
I rap softly at the land-side door, and Signora Amalia lets me in; I do not have a key to Trevisan’s house and probably never will, given most people’s distrust of their own boatmen. I pass through the kitchen, where Trevisan’s simple breakfast of fruit and cheese has been prepared on a tray. I grab an apricot from the fruit bowl for later and stash it in my pocket, then descend the stairs to the boat slip.
Dawn’s light has not yet penetrated the dark, dank space, and I shiver and rub my palms together, watching vapors of my breath puff into the dimness. I push the canvas cover gently off the boat and stand back to take in the whole thing in one glance. I hardly see the splintered wood, the crusted, flaking varnish, the rotted upholstery. In my mind’s eye, I only envision the finished gondola. Still, I fully understand the work that must be done to get it to that point. To properly restore the boat, I must sand off every last bit of canal grub that has crystallized on the boat hull over the years. That will take some serious work, but once I have the gondola sanded back down to bare wood, I can bring it to sea-worthiness once again.
But first things first. On the side of the boathouse opposite Trevisan’s working gondola, I set up a space where I can work. I shift the clutter to the back of the boathouse, then sweep the dust and grime off the great stones and into the black water that laps against the walls. I pull the trestles out from against the wall, dragging them carefully across the stones so that I can access the gondola from all sides.
In the far reaches of the boat slip, a set of shelves is cluttered with old, forgotten supplies. I take stock of what might be of use in the gondola restoration. The turpentine is probably worth salvaging, as it hardly ever goes bad. The varnish, on the other hand, will have to be thrown out—a pity, for it will be expensive to replace. As I work, I compile a list in my mind of the supplies I wish I had: sandpaper, a saw, a mallet, some planks of elm, a bag of wooden nails, some paintbrushes. I will have to make do with what I have or locate what I need as I go.
The morning passes in what seems like mere seconds. At midday, Trevisan appears at the door. For a moment he seems disoriented as he glances around the new state of his boat slip. He seems to notice that the shelves have been wiped clean, the storage containers neatly organized. The cobwebs have been knocked down, and the corners swept. Even the moss has been scrubbed off the stones so that only a faint trace of the fetid odor remains. Trevisan clears his throat but makes no comment other than to ask me to ferry him to the scuola to inspect the progress of his frescoes.
By the time I lay down my broom and pick up an oar, I have already transformed the back half of the artist’s boathouse into a makeshift squero.
“THAT’S QUITE a project.”
A man—I perceive him to be a private boatman—peers around the doorway to the boat slip. I am wiping down the prow of the old gondola with a wet rag. Decades of dust have collected on the boat, and my first order of business is to remove it so that I can fathom where to begin this project. It has taken me some fifty hours of work to remove the dirt caked in every crack and crevice of the boat. I feel gratified that someone has taken notice. I smile.
“Yes. Well, it’s not much to look at now, but it will be a beauty once it’s finished. That is, after many hours of work.”
“Indeed. You must be Trevisan’s new boatman.” The man enters the boathouse. He wears close-fitting pants in the fashion of the day, one leg white and the other black. His shirt is also close-fitting, with a white collar and a red and black diamond design across the breast. He wears a sleek cap and black leather shoes polished to a gleam. In my mind, I make a rough estimation of the cost of the man’s clothes, even if they are rented. My own new clothes, though an improvement for me, pale in comparison to this boatman’s finery. Something about the man is familiar. I search my mind to think where I have seen him before. I step forward to greet him. “Come xea, vecio?” I offer, and the man greets me back with the camaraderie that I am beginning to grow accustomed to since my entry into the world of private gondoliering.
Outside the boat-slip door, I notice the prow of the man’s boat rocking gently in the canal. At once, I recognize it, as well as the boatman steering it. The girl. I suck in my breath.
Mistaking my expression for a reaction to his boat, the man smiles. “A beauty, is it not? And it’s a dream to row, too,” he says, inflating his chest. “Usually there are two of us, but the prow man was sent on another errand at the markets today.” I nod. Only the wealthiest in Our Most Serene Republic can afford to employ two boatmen, one for the fore and one for the aft. The front man sometimes doubles as a butler or house servant, which would explain why his partner has been dispatched to the market.
“Giacomo da Molin,” he extends his hand. “But you can call me Beppe. Everyone does.” I am hardly paying attention. My heart is pounding. “You mean old Trevisan managed to find a boatman who restores boats as well as rows them?”
“I suppose,” I hesitate. “I have to keep myself busy during the quieter hours. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course. But I don’t know of any of my colleagues who spend their spare time like this! You’re an industrious soul,” Beppe bursts out laughing. “I guess you heard what happened to Trevisan’s last boatman?”
I hesitate again. “Actually, no.”
“How could you have missed it? At the guild hall it was the topic of conversation for a good month.” I can see that that won’t stop Beppe from relishing the tale again. “The man stripped Trevisan’s gondola clean. Stole the felso, the oarlocks, even the upholstery.” He shakes his head. That would explain why all the trappings of the boat Trevisan uses every day are brand new, even though the boat itself is dusty and neglected.
“No one’s seen the man since, as far as I know. Probably left the city already,” he says.
I am eager to turn the conversation toward the girl. “You work for the lady in the boat?” I wince immediately, regretting how stupid the question sounds.
He smirks. “No. I work—worked—for her father. It’s most accurate to say that I work for the whole family. The upper class wouldn’t dream of letting their daughters go around in a boat with just anybody, or subjecting them to the vagaries of street traffic. So, here I am.” He sweeps his hand dramatically from head to foot then laughs again, a deep-throated
chortle.
“Of course,” I open my palm but imagine that my gesture must appear unconvincing. “Who is she?”
“Giuliana Zanchi. Yes, that Zanchi—the banking family. She’s having some kind of picture painted here,” says Beppe, waving his hand in the general direction of Trevisan’s studio.
“Is the picture for her husband... or, um, fiancé?” I utter the question, then hold my breath.
The boatman smirks. “Signorina Zanchi? Married? Hardly... Though any man in Our Most Serene Republic would sell his soul to Satan in exchange for ten minutes alone with her.”
“The Zanchi family... Is that the Ca’Leoncino?”
The other boatman smirks again. “Goodness, no. You must be kidding! No, it’s the big pink brick palace further down the Grand Canal, the one you can see from the Church of San Silvestro. Care to have a look at the gondola?” Beppe asks, and I follow him from the boat slip onto the sunlit dock. My gaze goes straight to the leaded glass window of Trevisan’s studio that overlooks the canal. The curtain has been drawn, and I can see nothing except the dull side of the green velvet.
Beppe begins a detailed tour of the Zanchi gondola, and I feign fascination. Even without the dolphin emblem carved near the prow, I have already recognized the boat as a product of the Squero Delfin, a rival squero that produces beautiful boats. The ferro decorating the prow is enormous, a hulking iron fork engraved with flowers and grape vines; it is a wonder of metalworking. I gasp in genuine surprise when Federico demonstrates how the top half of the ferro can be ingeniously folded in half, to avoid bumping low-lying bridges. The stern ferro is hardly less ostentatious. The oars are painted with the family coat of arms. The oarlocks, too, are nothing short of masterpieces.
The felze is one of the newer enclosed kinds that allow passengers to travel in utter privacy. The frame of the cabin is constructed of wood, but you would hardly know it. Every single inch is carved, painted, and gilded. Whereas by law, all felze with certain exceptions are supposed to be black, its cloth cover, at least the one for this season, is made of bright royal-blue velvet with fringe and tassels. Beppe gestures for me to have a look inside. Wooden, louvered doors open to an interior space that I can only describe as a jewel box. One wall is covered in mirrors, which reflect the gilded damask fabric that upholsters the remaining walls and ceiling. The two seats are upholstered in royal blue velvet, and behind the seat stands a mahogany panel richly carved with scrolls and shells.
“And there are two more fine boats in the Zanchi boathouse,” Beppe tells me. “Over the years Signor Zanchi has paid enough zecchini in fines for breaking the sumptuary laws to buy ten new gondolas. A small price to pay in his view, I suppose.” I gasp.
On any other day, I would have been thrilled to explore every single inch of this fine craft, but I am distracted. Throughout Beppe’s tour, my mind is focused on the door to Trevisan’s studio, straining to hear or see something—anything—from inside. I hear the clang of the bells of San Biagio. A solid hour or more has passed since the boatman poked his head around the corner of the boat slip. Beppe chats about the new guild regulations on boatmen’s salaries, and I pretend to listen.
Finally, I hear the lock scrape against the wooden door that leads to the artist’s studio. Beppe continues to talk—something about guild elections this time—but I am no longer listening. The gondolier’s voice recedes into the background, and the pounding in my chest takes over. My eyes are fixed on the canal-side door to the artist’s studio.
As the door opens, her face is illuminated in the light. She is laughing at something Trevisan is saying to her as he escorts her down the stairs to her boat, her hand looped through the crook of the artist’s arm. Her maid is following the pair, carrying her mistress’s brown dog. Trevisan leads Giuliana Zanchi to the quayside, where her boatman is now waiting with a gallant gesture to help his lady board the gondola. As they pass, she turns and looks at me. My heart in my throat, somehow I manage to nod to her in greeting.
Trevisan pauses for a moment, then says, “Signorina Zanchi, may I introduce my new boatman, Luca Fabris?” To my surprise, she meets my gaze with her bright green eyes. “Signorina,” I greet her, unlocking my rigid pose. I bow in her direction, which feels awkward and unpracticed—I can’t recall ever having done this before for a lady.
“Signorina Zanchi,” interrupts Trevisan, turning his attention back to her, “Will I have the pleasure of seeing you again on Saturday at the Councillor’s party?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she replies.
Beppe extends his hand to help the lady into the boat, and she accepts it, stepping gingerly from the steps into the rocking gondola. Her cloak covers her entire body, but I drink in every detail of her face, her hand, and her foot as she boards the boat. Seemingly aware that I am watching her, she looks directly at me with a curious expression. Behind her, the girl’s maid follows her mistress into the boat. She regards me with a disapproving glance. Trevisan’s assistant now appears at the door, paintbrushes in one hand, and bows slightly to the ladies in the boat. I stand transfixed for a moment, not believing that I have finally encountered this woman, the one who has filled my mind for weeks.
The two women disappear into the passenger compartment of the gondola. Beppe salutes me with two fingers to his forehead, then pushes away from the mooring, expertly backing the boat and turning out of sight around a narrow corner of the canal.
I return to my work in the boat slip, my entire body on fire.
Chapter 23
I uncork a bottle of varnish, draw it under my nose, then make a disgusted face. It is rotten, and I can only imagine how long the bottle has been sitting there, collecting dust in Trevisan’s boathouse. Too bad. I will have to figure out how to procure the ingredients I need to mix a new batch. I am intent on stripping the split wood from the gondola’s hull. Several of the oak planks are water-damaged and warped, a result of sitting partially sunk beneath the surface of the water for so long. I inhale the pungent, moldy scent of the wood, a strangely comforting smell that transports me to the past.
I locate a pair of stiff leather gloves from the back of the boathouse and figure they will suffice to protect my hands from splinters. With the help of a hammer and saw I locate in the jumble, I wrench the pieces of splintered wood out of the bottom of the boat and toss them into a pile on the cobblestones. Those, I think, may be recut and fashioned into wooden nails of the kind I have made ever since I was a little boy.
After a solid three hours of work, I have managed to clean out the splintered wood from the hole. Thankfully, most of the corbe, the structural ribs that I know all too well, are not damaged except for two small V-shaped members near the prow, which can be easily replaced. One of the masse, the long elm boards that normally run the length of the boat on either side to protect the craft from scraping alongside docks, has been stripped off. It will need to be replaced as soon as possible to ensure the structural integrity of the boat.
What remains of the original upholstery, as ragged and rotten as it is, proves surprisingly difficult to strip. I prop myself on my knees in the bottom of the boat and tug on the faded velvet with all my might. None of it is salvageable, and I move it to another heap.
I test the soundness of the prow by pushing my weight into it. It does not budge, and I smile, satisfied that even on a damaged boat, the techniques of my own family’s squero have withstood the test of time. I run my hand up and down the prow as I imagine my grandfather forming this shape on the dirt floor of the Vianello workshop. My fingers bump over the slight notches in the wood, and I am certain that I have held the ax that made these marks in my own hands.
I WEAVE THROUGH boats docked along the narrow canal to Signora Baldi’s costume rental shop. Trevisan’s gondola is laden with two large crates, filled to the brim with costumes that the artist has worn. I recognize the wicker containers as the same ones I picked up some weeks ago, in what
I now realize was a test that Trevisan had organized to see if I would prove a trustworthy boatman.
I arrive at the canal-side entrance of the costume-rental shop just as Signora Baldi is helping another client. She references a list scrawled on a large parchment, stretched across a piece of wood, as a gondolier calls out the contents of a box to her. Signora Baldi acknowledges my arrival with a businesslike smile and a nod, and the other gondolier greets me with a silent hand gesture. Behind him, another gondola awaits.
Signora Baldi stifles an exasperated sigh, then finally instructs me, “I’m sorry. Tonight’s party at the Ca’ Leoncino has made me fall behind. Go inside the shop. My daughter Patrizia will help you. We have the crates ready for the artist.” I moor Trevisan’s gondola and climb out, staggering slightly as I ascend the stone stairs to the costume shop, bearing the weight of one of the crates with the costumes inside.
Inside, Patrizia sits mending a shirt with a needle and thread. She looks up from her sewing to face me. She looks startled, then composes herself and smiles. “You’re Trevisan’s man, right? I thought I recognized you from the last time.” She sets down her sewing and, in a self-conscious gesture, smoothes the front of her dress. “Come... I’ll show you where my mother has put aside the new cartons for the artist.”
I follow the girl into the storehouse behind the shop front. As she walks, she reaches up and pulls a pin from her hair. I inhale a floral scent as she lets her hair cascade down her back. She turns her large brown eyes on me and twirls a lock of loose hair with her finger. She gestures for me to follow.
The Gondola Maker Page 13
