“By these people you mean me.”
“Bah. You are not Venetian. You are naïve. You cannot be truly Venetian unless you are duplicitous. Oh do not look so hurt. It is a compliment.”
“If you were not a Jew, if you were a member of a family in the Golden Book with all the trappings of nobility, would you still rage against the injustice of the Republic?”
“But I am a Jew, and I have no time for hypothetical supposition. I cannot pontificate as my father does for intellectual stimulation. I am too busy being oppressed.” A small smile played across her lips. She realized she was becoming dramatic. Did she know how beautiful she was? He did not know how he would endure this time with her.
They sat at a small table near the kitchen in Bercu’s modest apartment on the second floor of the peeling four-story building, a plate of crusty bread and a dish of olives between them. Climbing up the narrow stairs Paolo had feared the structure would collapse, the creaking so pronounced. The moneylender had given strict orders that he stay inside at all times until they could formulate a plan for what to do next. It was his second day in hiding, Paolo still unsure how Chaya felt about the task she had been given.
“Despite being naïve I am still a Venetian, and I am sorry you are being forced to endure the company of one whom you so despise. As you might imagine, I would rather it not be so.”
“Stop. Yes, you are a victim, but you need not play at one so blatantly.”
He smiled now, enjoying the banter. “I take it, as a Jew, your persecution is far nobler than my own.”
“It is true of course.” She returned the smile, though it seemed to Paolo she was trying not to. “Perhaps my sentence will not be so unbearable. You seem to have a sense of humor. We may have lively debates after all, despite your ignorance about the true nature of your fellow citizens and what they are capable of.”
“A higher compliment I could not have hoped for.”
Chaya’s expression, playful only an instant earlier, turned somber, as though she were afraid of what was transpiring. She was letting her guard down, something to be avoided for reasons she alone knew.
“You do realize there is no way to clear your name. Once you have been branded by the council, it is done.” She continued, hesitant, not wanting to say the words. “And as an enemy of the State, death is assured.” This Paolo knew. There were only two punishments in Venice, banishment or death, the death sentence carried out by either strangulation or drowning.
He said as much, wishing to spare her having to say the words. “Quite convenient, the drowning I mean, given the nature of our fair city.” It was false bravado and they both knew it. Chaya’s expression didn’t change. She had a look of hopelessness, as though she were remembering someone already dead.
“Tell me about your mother,” she said abruptly, feeling no need for subtlety in changing the subject. Paolo silently thanked her, although this new subject was nearly as painful.
“My mother.” Chaya saw the sadness in Paolo’s eyes and cursed silently. In her haste to avoid the unpleasantness of his situation, she unthinkingly prodded something still sore and tender. He didn’t seem to mind however. He spoke softly with the hint of a smile, his eyes focused on nothing in particular. He was remembering. “She bound our family together,” he began slowly, “loved us without limit, and when she was gone, there was nothing left to hold us. There had been a break between my father and me before her death, but even so, never once had I felt that I would never see her, or my family reunited, again. She had always been the strong one, and I knew as long as she was there, we would all somehow find each other again. But then she died, and we were lost.”
“I’m sorry.” Paolo nodded, turned away, the tears beginning to form. He fought them back. “No,” Chaya said gently. “Let them come. I suspect you have not given your grief the time it deserves.”
He continued, his voice thick. He spoke in a monotone, absorbing the words as he said them. “I had seen my brother on occasion over the years, but those meetings became less frequent. It was odd. One would think that a mother’s death would draw the remaining members of the family more closely together, but it seemed to do the opposite with us. I saw my brother less and less frequently, and of course never saw my father. He blamed me for my mother’s death. I hated him for that but was secretly afraid that it might be true.” Paolo brightened for just a moment. “But we have found one another again.” Just as quickly however a darkness settled, his eyes hooded as he thought of his father’s fate. His head drooped and he ran a coarse hand through his hair. “Everyone is gone,” he mumbled.
“We do not know that yet Paolo. Your father may still be alive.” It was the first time she had said his name.
“If he is, he soon will not be.” Chaya didn’t respond. She knew he was right. “My mother understood better than my father why I left, why I couldn’t work as a glass blower. I wondered if she ever spoke to him about it, explained it to him for me. He wouldn’t have listened of course. He never did.”
“And I am sure she knew that. It is difficult,” Chaya ventured, “for a woman to contradict a man, point out the unsound reasoning of his position, particularly when that man is her husband. Even when it concerns her son.”
Paolo grinned. “Apparently not for you.”
“No,” she laughed. “Apparently not for me.”
“And what of your own mother? I have not heard mention of her.”
“She died as well.”
Now it was Paolo’s turn to offer condolences.
“Yes, thank you. In childbirth. She died in childbirth, delivering my brother, who lived only a few hours. I was eight.”
Paolo nodded, knowing how devastating the loss of his child must have been to Bercu. But losing a son also meant losing a legacy. His daughter could never hope to succeed him in his business.
Chaya noted his reaction. “Yes, my father nearly did not survive. Like all fathers, he only wished to pass on what he had built to his son.”
It was not a reproach Paolo knew, but he felt it all the same. “As did my father,” he said softly. “Only it was not the cruelty of fate that was to blame.”
“You must not blame yourself Paolo. There is no blame. There are only people who love and sometimes love blindly.” How surprising Paolo thought, that this woman who could eviscerate a man with her tongue continued to rescue him from his guilt. “But my father came back to me,” she continued. “And I wanted to learn all that he had been intending for my brother. Oh it was difficult at first. He refused. But I pestered him night and day. ‘But what will everyone say?’ he had asked exasperated. ‘I will be a laughing stock. No I cannot. I will not. I am a respected member of this community. Everyone looks up to me.’” Chaya laughed at the memory, pounding her hand on the table in time to the mimicked protestations of her father, the olives bouncing in their dish. “And then I knew that I had him. And I said, ‘Exactly. And they will follow you. I will make you proud, and I will give them even more reason to marvel at your wisdom.’ And he did. He taught me everything.”
“And it seems you were right. He appears the very image of a respected man in his community. Do you think he has any regrets?”
“Oh yes,” she said, laughing again. “Every day, as you yourself have seen. But I know that he is proud of me, and would not change a thing.”
“And the rest of the community? How do they see you?”
She smiled again, and he realized just how much she enjoyed upsetting the order of things. “The men see me as trouble. A woman with ideas? And worse still, the mouth with which to express them. Very dangerous. But they would never say so to my father. It is no secret though, and my father has come to find some amusement in it all.”
“And the women?”
Chaya scowled. “You don’t want to know. I have been called every name imaginable by those gossipy old crones. They would much rather I be the obedient Jewess, doing nothing save caring for my father without an independent thought in my head
. To hear them speak you would think I alone will be the downfall of our entire race. I know that should a Venetian woman wish to take up a trade, she would be considered a fallen woman, worse than a common prostitute. It is no different with the Jews.”
Paolo nodded, smiled sadly.
“What?”
“Oh, I was just thinking. My father got exactly what he wanted, a son, two sons actually, to carry on his legacy, and my lack of desire to follow him was the great disappointment of his life. And your father had in you the most eager of pupils, and yet could not take advantage of your intelligence and resolve.”
“Life can be a funny thing.”
“Yes.”
“But it’s the only life we have, and we must live it the way we see fit. It is a precious thing Paolo.” Indeed it was, and Paolo was beginning to see life, his life, in a way he hadn’t before. There was much more to this world, he was realizing. Danger, of course. He looked at Chaya. But much beauty as well—beauty and perhaps hope. The irony was, it may have been too late.
A timely creak of the stairs kept Paolo from settling into despair. Chaya sprang up, rushed to the top of the stairs. She made no sound save the soft swishing of her skirt, gliding over the rough floorboards like a dancer. Peering around the corner, she relaxed when she saw her father.
“You are back early.”
“Just for a short while. It is slow today.”
“Do you have news signore?” Paolo could not keep the anxiety from his voice.
Bercu hesitated. Paolo saw the look on his face; saw the sorrow there. He felt sick, acid rising up the back of his throat.
“Your father is dead Paolo. I am sorry.”
Paolo lowered his head, stared at the floor. He was truly alone now. “Could it be a rumor,” he asked quietly, not lifting his head, knowing it was true. He had known the moment he had heard the struggle coming from the workshop.
Bercu answered in the same quiet tone. “Yes, it is a rumor, but a reliable one.” He went on reluctantly, pain etched into the lines of his face. “There is something else Paolo, another death. A murder. An Alessandro Bonifati. A noble. He was strangled. His body was found near his family’s palazzo.”
Paolo looked at Bercu, puzzlement replacing the sadness.
The moneylender took a breath. “They are saying that you killed him. You escaped and then murdered the man that had implicated you.”
Bercu could see Paolo struggling with the thought, eyes blankly searching the floor for the answer. “The man that implicated me? But…” Then he saw it. “The man in the council’s chamber,” he whispered.
“Yes. That is what I think as well. I imagine he was being used to bolster the council’s case against you. But when you fled, he was no longer needed. Given that his testimony was a lie, I suspect they are relieved to be rid of him. There was no attempt to hide the body. They wanted him found.”
“He was there when he did not need to be. In Venice there is no right to confront one’s accuser. The council has no obligation to reveal their evidence. They wished me to see him so I could later be charged with his murder.” Paolo ran a hand across his face. “And my father’s actions further implicate me.”
“No Paolo. The council saw to that long before your escape. You are alive only because of what your father did for you.”
The enormity of his predicament was bearing down on Paolo now. “But there you are wrong signore. I am already dead.”
“Paolo,” Chaya said softly. “You cannot lose faith now. Otherwise your father will have sacrificed himself in vain. You said yourself that you had just found one another again. Let that mean something.”
Paolo nodded, forced a smile. “I seem to have all the world arrayed against me.”
“Not all the world,” Bercu replied, clapping his hands together. “I have a plan.”
Twenty Four
“Avesari has fled, as I knew he would.” The fading light slid through the part in the dense curtains, laying dull spears of gray on the floor. They were in the same house as the last time they had met. Francesco heard the hard smile in Gabriele’s voice. “I need you to find him.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, one of only two he had noticed upon his arrival—their recent ally no longer requiring a seat. “Surely you do not need me for that signore. I suspect the Council of Ten is already looking for him. If the council looks for something, as you of course know, they always find it.”
Francesco heard the weary sigh that had become the hallmark of their meetings. He was forever disappointing Gabriele, the tired exhalation more than simple displeasure however. There was a menace there, no doubt meant to convey that Francesco, like Bonifati, was expendable. Its lack of subtlety was chilling, and Francesco marveled at what could be declared with little more than a breath.
“With all due respect Francesco,” Gabriele answered icily, “I will tell you what I need and do not need of you. Yes, Avesari has fled and in so doing has fixed his guilt, but I would still prefer to find him myself. As you so ably put it, the council is quite adept at finding what they seek, and while Bonifati’s testimony is no longer required for the garrote, a trial, however perfunctory, is something I would prefer to avoid. I will use my network and I expect you to use yours.” Gabriele appraised Francesco with a long look. Do you understand?
In the few moments it took to conduct their conversation, the dim light of the room had faded to darkness and Francesco was glad of the fact that he could no longer see Gabriele at all. Hearing him was quite enough. “Of course signore,” the merchant replied stiffly, looking away uncomfortably despite the dark.
***
QILIJ DESPISED VENICE. He felt suffocated by the stink of the canals. The damp of winter covered everything, save the hypocrisy of the people, which knew no season. And now he was forced to sit and wait. Gabriele had ordered him to remain in place, but hidden. The brother had run, just as Gabriele had said he would, and Qilij had been eagerly preparing to give chase. He hated idleness, especially in a godless place such as Venice. The degeneracy of the city clung to him like a viscous film and he hoped the arid sirocco would cleanse him once he was back in the desert.
He longed for home where Allah was evident in every grain of sand, every breath of wind. Search as you might for however long, God would never be found in this, the whore of the Adriatic. It had only been a short time since he had strangled the squealing noble, and the task was over too quickly for him to have derived any pleasure from it. He longed to continue his work, but Gabriele had said no, that there were too many eyes looking for Avesari—the Council of Ten being the most problematic. It would be impossible to send Qilij after Avesari without being found out. The council had spies everywhere, and a hulking Mamluk on the scent of a Venetian fugitive would not go unnoticed.
The other three had been simple. The glassblower, the trader, the noble—none had a reason to die, or so anyone realized, and that had afforded him anonymity. But this one was different. Of course Gabriele had his own spies, and once he found Avesari, he assured Qilij that he would not be deprived of his kill. So he would wait.
Thinking about it now, it occurred to Qilij that he had been slowly working his way through the festering heart of Venice like a maggot. He lay down on his pallet and smiled. He rather enjoyed the thought.
Twenty Five
“Absolutely not. I appreciate your trying to help signore, and I know that it was I who came to you, but I cannot possibly leave. Not now.”
Bercu looked to his daughter for help, his expression a mix of despair and frustration at Paolo’s naiveté.
“Paolo,” she began gently, resting her hand lightly on his arm, “you must know that you are not safe here. The council has spies everywhere. Every servant in every palazzo, every whore in every bordello reports back to them. Even alleyway beggars serve the council. You would be apprehended within hours.”
Bercu was shocked at the intimacy of the gesture, the softness in his daughter’s voice. Had something h
appened between them in such a short time? They could not afford this. He could not afford this. Too many eyebrows had been raised in the community by Chaya’s unconventional upbringing. The death of his wife and son, while tragic, did not excuse such…disregard by a father. He had maintained his position of prominence in the community it was true, but only just barely. He sighed, pushed the thought away. What could he do? He was coming to like the young man. Besides, he had made a choice, had raised Chaya to become the woman she was. He could not complain now when that woman followed her heart as he himself had taught. In any event, there were more pressing matters to attend to. He would deal with it later, if Paolo survived.
“Paolo, you have already fled. You cannot run and not go anywhere. You must ensure that you remain free. I have made some inquiries and have secured you a place on a galley heading to Candia. We have a sizable colony there, Jews expelled from Spain. You will be safe.”
More expelled Jews, everywhere one turned. He was becoming an honorary member of the race it seemed. So, it would be Candia. When the Byzantine Empire was partitioned following the siege of Constantinople in 1204, Venice received Crete, among other things, as a reward, and in a fit of hubris renamed it The Kingdom of Candia.
“For how long?
“Until we can decide what to do next.”
Paolo’s heart sank. “That could take months. Or years. Could I not go to Torcello? I could hide among the mosquitos.” A small smile despite everything. Was he becoming accustomed to this now, finding bits of humor, small pieces of real life tucked away in the cracks and crevices of a wrecked existence? Take it where you can get it, like rancid meat in a famine. Some men were destined for greatness. Was this what he was born to become, an outlaw but without the outlaw’s romance?
Torcello, the first Venice. Near Burano in the north of the Venetian lagoon, it was the first island to be occupied in the fifth century. At its height, it was the opulent home to 20,000 people, littered with gleaming churches and palazzos, wealthy from extracting and trading the salt of the nearby marshes. The canals, which brought the world to Torcello, eventually took it away as well, filling with silt from the residue of mainland rivers. The great ships, now moved to Venice, were replaced by mosquitos. They too were prosperous in their own right, thriving in the stagnant canals, bringing malaria, a new commodity. And so went Torcello, a city of ghosts.
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