Ascension

by Gregory Dowling

  “That’s right,” I said. His guidebook was clearly well informed. “To our right is the Doge’s palace, which was built –”

  “No dates, please,” said Boscombe. “It was built. That’s enough for me. Damned fine building, no doubt. So he lives there, does he?”

  “The Doge? Yes, certainly. It is also the seat of government. And to our left is the Marciana library.”

  “Books, eh? Your sort of place, then, Shackleford.”

  “Undoubtedly, sir,” said Shackleford. “I believe it has a priceless collection of Greek manuscripts.”

  “Well, don’t let me hold you back. Go in and wallow.”

  “I have no doubt it will be closed at this hour, sir,” said Shackleford, with a strained smile. “But I will certainly pay it a visit during the day.” However, he seemed far more interested in the strolling people than in the building; his eyes were continually flitting over the crowds. Well, even tutors are human, I thought, and probably the village square back home offered a rather more restricted array of human types.

  One particularly flamboyant specimen of humanity was strutting towards us: a young man who gave an immediate impression of being made of silver. Closer observation revealed that it was mainly his coat and wig that exuded an argentine shimmer; his complexion tended more to a powdery paleness, with just one beauty spot delicately placed high on his right cheek. He held what seemed to be an ivory cane, although it might just have been of a polished light-coloured wood; he was apparently being led by a poodle, whose white fur was as elaborately curled and powdered as his wig. He dispensed indulgent smiles to left and right, which were returned with equal benevolence for the most part. Venetian crowds are a tolerant lot on the whole.

  I glanced at Shackleford to see how this spectacle would strike him and saw that he too was smiling. I was reminded of the look of eagerness I had seen when he opened his letter at the inn.

  “My goodness,” said Boscombe. “Don’t see many like that at home.”

  The young man heard the English words and turned towards us. “I have no doubt you do not, sir.” He spoke in English himself. The voice did not ring with the silvery fluting tones one might have expected, but was rather breathy and hoarse. It had just the slightest hint of a foreign accent, one that I could not identify.

  “Ah, you speak English.”

  “I have been granted that privilege,” he said, with a slight bow. Now that we were up close, I could see that he was not as young as he had first appeared; beneath the pale powder were delicate lines that suggested he was in his late thirties at least. “You are just arrived in this city?”

  “First time,” said Boscombe. “Being shown the sights. History and all that.” He waved vaguely to the architectural vestiges of ‘history’ that surrounded us.

  “History is an illusion. The real truths of this cosmos are perpetual and unchanging. But let me present myself. I am Count Gelashvili, of Mtskheta.” (I use the spelling I learned from later research; at the time all I caught was a sudden spluttering of frothy consonants.)

  “Of where?”

  “The ancient capital city of the kingdom of Georgia,” said the count.

  “Ah, yes,” said Boscombe, with his usual vague amiability.

  “Georgia, sir,” said Shackleford. “On the eastern shores of the Black Sea.” From his eager tone one might have got the impression that he had been yearning for the day when he might meet a true Georgian.

  “That is correct,” said the count. “But geography…” He waved a fluttering hand dismissively.

  “Is an illusion?” I suggested.

  The count’s eyes turned towards me, but only for one flickering moment. Then they dropped towards his poodle, as if the creature were far worthier of his attention. “Sit, Zosimos. We must learn the virtue of patience.” The dog obediently lowered its haunches, and cocked its head, gazing earnestly up at its master. Probably we were expected to take this as a model for our own behaviour.

  Boscombe presented himself, and then Shackleford. The count lowered his head in two formal bows. Then Boscombe gestured towards me and said, “And this gentleman is our cicerone.”

  This time the count’s eyes remained perfectly still, with not the slightest flicker in my direction. “All too often the mercenary guides in this city miss the essence of things, with their insistence on tedious dates and names.”

  “I suppose it’s our fault for living in a world of illusion,” I said, straining to keep my tone light.

  “I suspect an intention of mockery,” he said, still without glancing at me, “but words that come from the darkness of spiritual ignorance cannot touch one armoured in illumination. They pass by me as the idle wind which I regard not.” He studied Boscombe’s face, which looked a little blank at these words. “You, milord,” he said, “are at an early stage on the path towards full illumination.”

  “Oh, ah, yes,” said Boscombe. “I suppose I am.”

  “You have some acquaintance with the Egyptian rites?”

  “Oh, I see. Well, yes, actually. I knew a chap in England –”

  “Sir,” said Shackleford, with an apologetic cough. “Is this the place?” And his eyes gave a quick dart towards me. Well, it was good to know that I had not actually become invisible.

  “Come now, Shackleford,” said Boscombe. “This gentleman here is clearly one of the Enlightened. You said that we might meet someone here.”

  “Yes, but let us not forget all discretion,” he said. I do not know whether it was embarrassment at being shown up as a believer in this farrago, but he was almost squirming.

  “Ah, I see,” said Boscombe. He turned back to the count. “Perhaps we could exchange cards? You are staying in Venice?”

  “Nothing is certain on this lower plane of life,” he said. “Venice holds my physical body for the moment. But for how long…” He allowed his voice to tail off into silence, suggesting that at any moment he, like his words, might fade into oblivion.

  “Ah, well, here’s my card,” said Boscombe, bringing out a monogrammed slip from his waistcoat pocket. “We’re staying at the White Lion.”

  The count took the card and slipped it into a pocket. “But I believe in taking immediate advantage of circumstances, for no encounters are truly fortuitous; all can be traced to a superior design, had we but the power to see it. Take the tide at the flood.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “So perhaps you will join me,” the count said, “in my stroll.”

  “That is very amiable of you,” said Boscombe. “We’d be delighted. We were thinking of visiting some place of, em, entertainment,” he added in a slightly apologetic tone. Perhaps he feared that such an intention indicated too great an attachment to the lower plane of life.

  “I applaud you,” said the count. “Games of chance have their instructive side, especially for those who know that chance is always an illusion. I can certainly introduce you to an establishment where a gentleman of your standing will be made most welcome.”

  “Sir,” I put in, “it may not be my place but I think I should offer a warning –”

  The count became instantly aware of my existence. “I think there is no doubt that it is not your place.”

  I ignored him and went on doggedly. “Saint Mark’s Square is well known as a venue where new visitors are sometimes taken advantage of.” I glanced towards Shackleford; this was surely where he should come in with one of his little moralising platitudes in support of my warning. But apparently he was as beguiled by the count’s performance as his pupil and was gazing at him with an expression not unlike the poodle’s.

  “I think I can judge for myself,” said Boscombe, a touch of irritation in his voice.

  I realised I was going to lose this battle. Well, I would at least make sure that I got paid as promised. “Do I understand you wish to dispense with my services?” I said, in as level a voice as possible.

  “Yes, thank you. You’ve been very helpful but now I think we can cope for ours
elves.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll just remind you that you engaged me for the whole evening.”

  The count now gave a little laugh, probably intended to be as silvery as his shimmering coat; actually it sounded cracked. “I think we now know where the interests of our cicerone lie.”

  “I have a living to make, like most people,” I said. I added, “And an honest one…” I allowed the sentence to trail off pointedly.

  The count gave another of his fluttering gestures, waving the remark off like the idle wind. “Give the man his ‘h-onest’ wage,” he said. He gave breathy and ironic voice to the aspirate.

  “Yes, of course,” said Boscombe. There was just the faintest hint of embarrassment in his voice.

  “There is also the gondolier,” I reminded him.

  “And what could be more h-onest than a gondolier?” said the count, stooping to pat his poodle.

  I made no answer to that. I reminded Boscombe of the price that had been stipulated and he pulled the sum from a purse. Shackleford turned and examined the façade of the Marciana library, as if these sordid commercial transactions had nothing to do with him.

  “And what time would you like me to meet you tomorrow?” I said, as a purely token gesture, knowing what the answer would be.

  “How the h-onest man insists!” said the count. He had found a line of banter and clearly intended to stick with it.

  “Well, perhaps we can leave things as they are,” said Boscombe. “Many thanks for all your help. Hope you find some other client.”

  “I have no doubt I will,” I said, lying through my teeth. “In the meantime, let me offer you a card, should you decide to avail yourself again of my services.”

  I gave him the small printed card I had had prepared on a rather extravagant whim a few weeks earlier. It gave my name, listed my services (“Professional Cicerone and Adviser to Travellers of all Nationalities; fluent Italian and English”) and my address (“Salizada del Pignater, San Giovanni in Bragora”). “Should you need me, I live above the magazen in the salizada.” I realised how unlikely it was that a wealthy English gentleman would come seeking my services in the back streets of Castello but I told myself, a touch dishonestly, that I owed it to Bepi to make this gesture, desperate though it might seem.

  “Yes, of course,” said Mr Boscombe. He put the card away with his purse without looking at it.

  I gave a stiff bow to him and then to Shackleford, who made a fumbling show of being surprised at my departure.

  “I trust your new acquaintance will live up to the glittering promise of his outward appearance,” I said. As a parting shot, it was not quite as arrow-sharp as I would have liked; I would probably wake up around three o’clock knowing exactly what I should have said. I turned and walked back towards the waterfront, just catching behind me a final cracked laugh from the count and the words “So h-onest!” Well, his was not exactly a lethal shaft either.

  Bepi looked up from the game of dice he was playing with two other gondoliers. “Ah,” he said.

  He did not have to make it sound quite so inevitable, I thought with a touch of irritation. “Yes,” I said, “we’ve been dumped.”

  “So what did you say this time? Argue with them over the height of the campanile?”

  “You know I always defer to the client,” I said. “There was just that one time with that arrogant Scot who thought he could correct my Italian. And my knowledge of Venetian history. And art history…”

  “Yes, I remember. Anyway, what got you riled this time?”

  “Nothing. They just decided they preferred a Georgian count with a poodle.”

  “A what?”

  “A count from Georgia. Who is apparently armoured in illumination, which must make a difference.”

  Bepi gave a puzzled flick of an eyebrow and I added, by way of explanation, “He talked nonsense about Egyptian rituals and spiritual planes which seemed to go down well with Mr Boscombe. And with the tutor, to tell the truth.”

  One of the other gondoliers looked up. “Ah, that fellow. He’s out on the Liston most evenings.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Nobody knows. Some foreigner. But he lives in Palazzo Garzoni. With the nobleman Piero Garzoni.”

  “Ah,” I said. That was a curious coincidence.

  “Oh, him,” said Bepi. “Walks around with two arsenalotti, as if he expects to be assassinated.”

  “That might not be the only reason he likes to have them around,” said the other gondolier, with a snigger. That, of course, was one of the rumours that circulated about the nobleman.

  “Well, anyway, we’ve lost the clients,” said Bepi, returning to practical matters.

  “Yes. But they paid us for today. Not quite as much as you’d have got if I hadn’t interfered this afternoon, but I’ll make up the difference.”

  Bepi gave a generous wave. “Those people needed taking down a peg or two. Don’t want that sort around Fusina. So I suppose it’s back there tomorrow.”

  “I suppose so,” I said. “Meet you at the usual place tomorrow afternoon. Thanks, Bepi.”

  And so ended our brief association with Mr Boscombe and his tutor.

  Or so I thought …

  7

  Over the next week Bepi and I found an English family by the name of Higgins who wanted an occasional short gondola ride and an occasional short introduction to the splendours of Venetian civilisation, for which they were prepared to pay an occasional and much-reduced fee (usually after much sotto voce wrangling between husband and wife, while their two sons, aged twelve and ten, took advantage of the situation to start a fight).

  I did not see Boscombe or his tutor during that week, although Fabrizio told me the latter had called again at his shop and passed an hour or two browsing and eventually buying a second-hand copy of Francesco Sansovino’s Venetia, città nobilissima et singolare. As far as he and Lucia could tell, Boscombe and Shackleford were happily settled in the city and there appeared to have been no further episodes involving snake-like pursuers or infiltrating burglars. Lucia gathered that Boscombe was much taken with his new acquaintance, the Georgian count, who had introduced him to an exclusive casino, where he had even won some money. It sounded a fairly typical story; it would be interesting, and probably a little depressing, to hear what happened on subsequent visits to the same casino. As for the more esoteric interests of the count, the subject had not arisen in their conversation. Discretion remained Shackleford’s rule in this area, it seemed.

  The English family had no interest in strolling the Liston in the evening – the boys tended to become fractious, or at least more fractious, around seven o’clock – and so I had no chance to renew my acquaintance with Gelashvili. I heard that Boscombe had been seen on the evening parade together with the count.

  On 16 April, as Bepi rowed us back from a visit to San Giorgio Maggiore, I mentioned to Mr and Mrs Higgins that for the Feast of Saint Isidore there was always a grand procession in Saint Mark’s Square, with the Doge and all the authorities, followed by a Mass in the basilica. As good Protestants they wanted nothing to do with any Papish nonsense in the church, but they thought the boys might enjoy watching the procession; they had been rather disappointed to find that not everyone in Venice wore masks all the time, as they had been led to believe, and maybe a little pomp and ceremony would be some kind of compensation.

  “Who was this Saint Isidore?” said Mrs Higgins, “and why should they celebrate him?” It was always she who asked the questions, usually in a suspicious tone; the premise for all her actions was the notion that anything done in this city – and probably everywhere outside England – had as its primary aim the extortion of money from guileless visitors, and she was not going to fall for it.

  Knowing the likelihood of this question, I had prepared myself. “He was martyred under the Emperor Decius on the island of Chios and his remains were brought to Venice in the early twelfth century.”

  “Why?”

  “Well,
the veneration of saints’ relics is common in the Roman Catholic world,” I said, trying not to sound too apologetic. As this remark only provoked a snort from Mrs Higgins, I went on: “But there’s a historical reason for the procession as well. The day of the Translation of his body was April the sixteenth and that happens to be the day that Doge Marin Falier was condemned to death.”

  This was met with blank silence; they clearly had not done the same preparatory reading as Shackleford and Boscombe. I went on: “In 1355 Marin Falier attempted to overthrow the Venetian state.”

  “I thought you said he was doge,” she said.

  “Yes, you did, you know,” said her husband, eagerly nodding. He would put in the occasional comment to show that he had not fallen asleep.

  “Yes, but being doge doesn’t mean you have absolute power,” I said. “Quite the contrary. Almost everything the doge does has to be approved by the Senate or the Great Council. And he wanted absolute power, like the other rulers in Italy at the time, and so he conceived a plan, along with a number of malcontents, to slaughter all the members of the Great Council. Unfortunately for him one of the conspirators warned someone in the Council and so word got out; all the conspirators, including the doge, were caught and executed. Ever since then the Venetian state has commemorated his execution, as a warning to the ruling doge of the limits of his power.”

  The boys wanted to know the details of the execution and were disappointed to hear that the procession did not involve a re-enactment of the beheading.

  “And you say we’ll see the doge and everyone,” said Mrs Higgins.

  “All the authorities that count in the city.”

  “And they’ll all be dressed up in their finery.”

  “All in their ceremonial robes of office,” I assured her, knowing that if she suspected that just one minor senator was missing a button or a frill there would be arguments over my fee (“such a disappointment for the boys after all they’d been promised”), but also knowing that if there was one thing the Venetians could be relied upon to do, it was to put on a good show.