Daughter of Venice

by Donna Jo Napoli

  I duck in and out of the crowd on the Rio Terrà di Maddalena, keeping an eye out for the beggar boy. Everyone’s going home to eat. I spent more time in the Ghetto than I realized. Please, please, dearest Lord, don’t let me be late. And, oh, if I am late, my brothers will have come in already and surely locked the door behind them. I run now.

  I go in the side door of our palazzo, which is, mercifully, still unlocked, straight to the storeroom where I left my nightdress. Within seconds, I’ve changed.

  The sounds of my four older brothers are loud outside the storeroom door. They’ve just come home, only steps behind me, and they’re joking about something. A woman, I think. A woman from the Castello area of Venice. Perhaps it is not only Francesco who wastes his time with prostitutes, for Castello has so many of them. All of us girls know that.

  They pass by the storeroom door, which I realize with a skip of my heart is slightly ajar. One of them closes it. Oh, thank you, Lord. I bet that was Piero. He cannot abide disorder.

  And I cannot believe my good luck to have arrived without their seeing me and then to have them be so involved in conversation that they didn’t even investigate an open storeroom door. This is a very good day, despite how it started.

  I hide my zoccoli and the yarmulke in a corner. Then I roll my trousers and shirt tight and hold them under my nightdress, as I held the satchel when Paolina and I played pregnant this morning. When my brothers’ voices fade to nothing, I peek out.

  The side door opens again.

  I duck back into the storeroom, my heart thumping. I cannot risk the noise of pulling the door shut all the way.

  Footsteps fall heavy. It must be Father. And he’s tired—he passes slowly.

  I run to the foot of the stairs. Father clomps upward. His footfalls echo up and down the empty stairwell. I walk as softly as I can, staying a floor behind him. He enters the piano nobile. I creep up the remaining flight and peek into the corridor.

  Laura sees me; she’s been waiting for me. She gives me a quick glance, then she rushes down the corridor after Father. “Papá,” she calls, “Papá, tell me about your morning and I’ll tell you about mine.” She chatters as she pulls him into the dining hall.

  I slip across the corridor into Laura’s and my bedchamber. I hide the fisherboy clothes in the bottom of the closet and dress as fast as I can.

  Andriana comes in. “You’re late. But you’re lucky; it seems everyone is late.”

  “Help me,” I say, unbraiding my hair.

  Andriana sniffs at my hair. Then she takes a jar of rose water and sprinkles it lightly. “Be gone, fishy smell,” she says in a mock-religious tone.

  I laugh, but I’m grateful to have been saved from difficult questions at the meal. Tonight I will rinse my disguise thoroughly.

  Andriana picks up the brush now and works her wonders. “Was it wonderful?”

  “I think so.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Things happened. I’ll tell you everything tonight.”

  We walk down the corridor toward the dining hall. I stop in the hall by the glowing portrait of Father’s grandfather. An artist called Bellini painted it. Great-grandfather is in a crimson robe on a black background. Beside it is a portrait of Father’s father by a different Bellini. He’s in a black robe on a gold background. The colors are alive.

  Both Bellini artists were masters whose colors Venice’s nobles said could never be equaled. But Venetian painters since then have excelled with colors over and over again. Father just had the famous Tiziano make a portrait of Mother. Her eyes actually glisten in it, and her lips are rosy and seem to tremble. And recently Father’s been talking about an artist called Tintoretto, who uses colors so marvelously, he’s been appointed to paint ceilings in the Palazzo Ducale itself, in rooms used by the Senate and the Collegium. Father intends to have his own portrait done by this Tintoretto.

  What Mother said was true: Venetian colors and dyes are the envy of the world. Venice has to protect them.

  That’s what Mother said. She talked of secrets and spies.

  My eyes burn. I feel as though I will burst into tears. Everything I’ve looked at since that morning with Mother has conspired to make her words—words that I was so eager to hear more of—gain in meaning and hurt horribly. The mysteries of Venice are like a rainbow—and I am soon to be shut away from them. It’s as though my future has lost its color.

  “Come.” Paolina is beside me. She stands on tiptoe and kisses my cheek. “There’s sausage from Modena. You like it. Come.”

  “Please, Paolina.” I clasp her hand desperately. “The next time I go out, if I’m not back before the boys, I’ll need you to unlock the side door for me. Promise you’ll do that.”

  “Will you really go out again?”

  I nod.

  “I promise.”

  We’re the last to take our places, but no one cares. This is an ordinary meal, no announcements today. People talk and laugh. Nicola knocks over Aunt Angela’s wine glass. The sweet smell of Malvasia tinges everything. This is wine Uncle Girolamo brought back from Cyprus last time he was home. As Giò Giò rushes to help clean it up, Aunt Angela kisses Nicola on the cheek and fusses happily, for overturned wine brings good fortune. Bortolo stabs Nicola with a carrot that is so soft from boiling, it smushes on his sleeve.

  “Don’t do that, Bortolo.” I point a finger at him. “Poor Cara will have a terrible time trying to get that stain out of your shirt.”

  “Since when do you worry about Cara’s work?” asks Francesco.

  And it’s true. I never do. None of us do. The worry over my disguise has made me consider things I never thought about before. I flush and look quickly at Mother. But she’s talking with Father; neither of them heard me. Perhaps no one but Francesco and Bortolo heard me, and maybe Uncle Umberto—for his head is turned toward me now and there’s a quizzical expression on his face. The rest of them are all busy cleaning up the spilled wine or eating. This is a lucky lucky day.

  Bortolo throws a carrot at me. It lands on the edge of my plate. I go to scold him, but he’s looking at me hard. Oh no, I forgot my promise to bring him home a treat. And he already rejected the remaining baubles in my jewelry box the last time I had to bribe him. Maybe Andriana will let me give him something of hers. I smile at him reassuringly.

  The rest of the meal passes without event, but when Father puts his hands on the table to push himself up to a stand—the signal we recognize as the end of the meal—I blurt out, “Father, where do the Jews live?”

  The table goes silent. My brothers and sisters look at me as though I’ve suddenly gone daft.

  “In the Ghetto,” says Father.

  “All of them?”

  “No. Some live on Giudecca and some live here and there around Venice.”

  “But aren’t they supposed to live in the Ghetto, all of them? Wasn’t there a decree passed years ago?”

  “Yes, there was a decree.” Father looks to the boys, as though asking who has told me about this decree.

  But I press on: “Why aren’t they punished?”

  Father’s mouth curves up at one corner. “Is my daughter taking an interest in Venice’s government?” He leans across his plate toward me. “Don’t be hostile to the Jews, my little daughter. They are important to the well-being of our Republic.”

  “I’m not hostile,” I say quickly. “I just want to understand.”

  “Then your brothers will explain to you later.” Father looks across the table. “Francesco and Piero know about these things.” He stands and leaves.

  Laura and I go back to our bedchamber for our usual rest before the afternoon music lessons. As soon as we shut the door behind us, Laura takes my hand. “Tell me about it.”

  I shake my head. “I’ll tell everyone tonight, when we all gather after dinner.”

  Laura squeezes my hand. “Then just tell me this: Did it make you happy?”

  Her question takes me by surprise. But it is, after all, the
heart of the matter. What else could merit the risk of my parents’ wrath? “Yes. Bad things happened. But good things, too. I’m happy I went out.”

  “Then I’m happy for you.” Her voice catches.

  “You don’t seem happy. Did something happen?”

  Laura shakes her head. And now she’s crying.

  I pull her to me and cradle her head in my hands.

  “Where’s my treat?” Bortolo yanks on my skirt.

  “I told you to knock first,” I say crossly. I give him a small pinch.

  Bortolo goes to the door and knocks. “Where’s my treat? And why’s Laura crying?”

  “Don’t talk about me as though I’m an idiot who can’t answer for herself.” Laura stamps her foot. “Besides, how did you know it was me crying and not Donata?”

  “You have different faces.”

  This is true. But no one else has ever noticed the small differences. Or no one has let us know if they have.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I have a toothache,” lies Laura.

  Bortolo looks at her with respect. Toothaches are common at our age, but he’s too young to have ever had one. “Too bad,” he says in his most grown-up voice. He kisses Laura on the back of her hand tenderly. But a second later he turns to me with his usual eager face. “Where’s my treat, Donata?”

  I put my hand on his head heavily and am about to explain that I forgot, when I realize that his head is about the same size as Laura’s. So it must be about the same size as my own. “I have a treat for you, Bortolo. But it’s special. And, in a way, it’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” Bortolo’s eyes narrow. “I have a knife. Francesco won it gambling and gave it to me. The blade is sharp, but I’ve never cut myself.”

  “Does Mother know?”

  “No. And don’t tell her.”

  “I won’t,” I say. “But this treat for you also has to be kept a secret. And not just from Mother. From everyone.”

  Bortolo licks his lips. “I understand.”

  “But, as I said, this is very special. You don’t get it for free.”

  Bortolo frowns. “I get it because I’m not telling on you for going down the stairs this morning in your nightdress.”

  “That’s not a big enough secret for such a special treat,” I say.

  “What else do you want?”

  “Your bareta.”

  Laura looks at me quickly.

  Bortolo sticks out his bottom lip.

  “Not your velvet one,” I say. “Your plain cotton one. For when you play in the campi.”

  Bortolo shrugs. “All right. If it’s a really good treat, you can have my old bareta. I’ll tell Mother I need another.”

  “But you mustn’t tell her you gave it to me,” I say.

  “I’m not stupid, Donata.”

  I smile. “Stay here with Laura while I fetch it.”

  “I’ll go get my bareta.”

  “No!” I don’t want him in the stairwell, where he’ll see me running past him. I don’t want him to know I have business on the ground floor. “Stay here and wait. Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  I go out, shutting the door behind me, and cross to the stairwell quickly. I race to the bottom and into the storeroom. The shoes and cap are exactly where I left them. I take the yarmulke and fold it small enough to fit in my fist. Then I race back up the stairs.

  I go into Laura’s and my bedchamber.

  “There you are,” says Piero. “We’ve been waiting.” Francesco sits on our bed.

  Laura looks at me and her shoulders lift the smallest amount, enough to let me know she was helpless to stop them coming in.

  “I’m going downstairs.” Bortolo runs and stands directly in front of me. “Aunt Angela’s looking for me,” he says more loudly than normal. His eyes search mine.

  I put my hands behind my back. “See you later, Bortolo.”

  He smiles. As he goes past me, he takes the yarmulke from my hand and slips out the door.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.

  “We came to talk about the Jews,” says Piero.

  I wring my hands behind my back. What could they know of my morning? Who saw anything? I stare at them.

  “Father wants you to understand. He says you’re the daughter with a head on her shoulders.” Piero looks at Laura with a teasing grin. “No offense, Laura.”

  My knees go weak with relief. They’re here merely to finish the conversation I started at the midday meal.

  Laura smiles and I know she’s feeling the same relief. “How can I take offense from someone incapable of accurately representing Father’s ideas, my poor half-wit brother?” she quips back.

  Piero laughs.

  “Jews are bankers, little sister,” says Francesco. “And they’re bankers who take chances. They lend money to the poor. If they didn’t, there would be even more poor in Venice than there presently are. And we already have way too many beggars. So it’s in Venice’s best interests to let the Jews do what they want, including live where they want.”

  “And it’s not right to force people to live in a given place,” says Piero. “If we want a serene republic, we cannot behave like brutes.”

  “But if that’s the case,” I say, “why was the law passed in the first place?”

  “To appease the Vatican.” Francesco slaps his hands on his knees to accent his words. “We pass a law, the Inquisition is satisfied. Whether we enforce it or not is no one’s business but ours.” He looks at me thoughtfully. “The Holy Office of the Roman Inquisition has an agenda against Protestantism as well. Do you want to know about the Lutherans, too?”

  Lutherans? That’s what the little girl Sara accused me of being. “What have the Lutherans to do with the Jews?”

  “Because of the Pope’s grumblings, the Lutherans haven’t been welcomed into most Venetian neighborhoods,” says Piero. “But the Jews have sheltered them in the Ghetto.”

  “How strange, Jews and Protestants together,” I say.

  “That’s not all,” says Piero. “The Ghetto is a hodgepodge of everyone who doesn’t have Venetian heritage. Jews from Spain and Portugal, Protestants from Holland, Muslims from Constantinople and Salonika and Cairo. Somehow they all manage.”

  “It’s no mystery how,” says Francesco. “They tolerate each other well because they rely on each other for survival. And the Republic of Venice tolerates all of them for the same reason. It’s a question of money, little sister. Tolerance is good business.”

  “But immigrants rarely have money, I thought.”

  “It’s not the immigrants themselves,” says Francesco. “It’s the countries they come from. We trade with Amsterdam and Barcelona and Alexandria. We trade with almost everyone. If Venice mistreats the immigrants, the countries they come from will curtail trade.”

  “We are a tolerant republic,” says Piero. “When a complaint is lodged against a Lutheran, the Tribunal and the Committee on Heresy—as well as the locally chosen Inquisitor—listen carefully and decide whether to investigate, or simply to take measures toward absolution, or, even more simply, to drop the whole matter on the grounds of insufficient evidence.”

  “And the evidence is rarely sufficient,” Francesco says. “Yes, tolerance is good business. As I told you girls the other morning, Venice is practical.” He winks at me, like Father.

  I know Francesco expects me to feel privileged to be part of a discussion that’s supposed to be among men only—and I do, and yet . . . The world that’s been presented to me by Mother, the world that I hear about at church, that world operates on principles that have to do with goodness and godliness. But despite Piero’s talk of not acting like brutes, both brothers spoke mainly of money.

  “Any other questions?” asks Piero. “The tutor is waiting for me.”

  “And for me,” says Francesco. “I’ve returned to my studies. I can’t let Piero outshine me too much at the university next fall.
”

  “I have a question,” says Laura. “Can we come listen to your tutor with you?”

  My lips part involuntarily. Never has Laura asked anything so bold.

  Piero looks at Francesco.

  “Why not?” Francesco gives a wry smile. “The famous courtesan Veronica Franco got an education, after all. She wrote poems.”

  Laura’s face opens in horror.

  “Don’t tease,” says Piero to Francesco. “All right, little sister, why would you want to do that, anyway? Going to afternoon tutorials would mean missing your music lessons.” He looks at Laura. She doesn’t flinch.

  “In any case,” says Francesco, “that’s a decision only Father can make. And he’s already left for a special meeting of the Senate. You can ask tonight. If you dare.”

  Piero and Francesco leave.

  I turn to Laura. “I didn’t know you cared about studies.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I thought you truly loved the violin,” I say.

  “I do.”

  “Why did you ask that, then?”

  Laura tilts her head. “Isn’t it a request you would have liked to make?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why, then.” Laura smiles sadly. “Paolina was right the other day. We have to make the most of what we love. I love you, Donata.”

  We hold each other tight.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE BROOCH

  The first morning light breaks over the roofs across the Canal Grande. I watch it gradually filter through our room, lighting up the painted white and green walls, bringing to life the plaster flowers and ribbons and tassels that decorate our ceilings.