Ascension

by Gregory Dowling

  As the buzz of voices below my apartment gave way to the familiar clattering of pots and pans, I decided that for my purposes it was probably better to take a definite position on certain questions and then force everything to accommodate itself to that position – probably a standard enough academic approach. Hermes Trismegistus was therefore Egyptian, I decided, to be identified with the god Thoth. The more exotic and distant, the better. Similarly, Brother Christian Rosenkreuz had travelled, in the fourteenth century, to Damascus and lived in Egypt, which was where he had discovered the foundations for his “order”, possibly in the writings of Hermes himself. This way I only needed to concentrate on those texts that supported my interpretation, which simplified my task. Maybe I could even work out a connection with Marin Falier. It was the same century, after all.

  Eventually I snuffed out the candle and got a few hours’ sleep; crosses and circles and moons and suns and pyramids and all-seeing eyes floated through my dreams on a steadily sloshing sea of cheap malvasia. I was achieving spagyria, Paracelsus might have said …

  The next morning I got up when the Marangona sounded, the bell with my name that announced dawn and told the marangoni of the Arsenale that it was time to start work. It was a long time since I had turned up early at the well head in the nearby square and so I found a different set of women there to make more or less good-natured fun of me as I stood there with my single bucket. None of them asked me about the sbirri, but I could tell from one or two sidelong glances that I would provide a fruitful topic of conversation the moment I left them.

  After I had washed and refreshed myself I set off towards Saint Mark’s Square. Preparations there were already under way for the great feast of the Ascension in three days’ time. Along the sides of the square great stacks of planks and piles of painted wooden columns were waiting to be assembled into the elaborate colonnade of booths that would take over the square for the duration of the holiday. For a couple of weeks the coffee shops would lose their view of the square, looking instead on to the backs of these booths; nevertheless they would probably not do too badly, given the numbers of visitors who would be flocking into the city, some of them from small towns that had no coffee shops at all.

  At this hour in the morning the shops had that curious early morning mixture of raddled-looking clients who had not yet been to bed and grumpy-looking ones who had just got up. I probably looked somewhere in the middle. I treated myself to a cup of coffee at Florian’s, sitting at one of the tables and watching the people on their way to their offices, workshops, schools …

  It felt like my city. After all, I was being paid to protect it, wasn’t I?

  Although I did not as yet know what from.

  After draining my coffee I set off towards the sunlit western end of the square. Close to the church of San Geminiano, in the north-western corner, was the Missier Grande’s headquarters; I learned later that he had an apartment above the offices.

  There was no name or number on the door, as Sior Massaro had warned me. One simply had to know where the offices were; if one did not, one was the wrong sort of person, who would have no business with the Missier Grande. Now I knew; now I was the right sort of person. As I climbed the dark stone staircase I had a momentary hankering for the days when I had not known – which is to say all the days in my life before today.

  On the first-floor landing was a monumental arched doorway, with a door slightly ajar. I pushed it. A young man in dark clothes sat at a desk by the door and said: “Yes?”

  “Ruppemi l’alto sonno ne la testa / un greve truono,” I said. This line from Canto IV of the Inferno was today’s password, Sior Massaro had informed me.

  He nodded and indicated I should go straight through the door behind him, which led into a large room with windows looking on to the square. Immediately facing me was a long desk; apart from the windows it was very much like the office in the Doge’s palace. Once again the walls were lined with dark bookcases and cupboards.

  Facing me sat Sior Massaro. Maybe this was where he spent the night.

  “I’m not too early then,” I said.

  “Of course not,” he said. What a suggestion. “Here are all the relevant files.” He indicated a pile of ledgers and manuscripts on the desk.

  It was almost as intimidating as the pile of books on Rosicrucianism.

  “This is all on nobleman Garzoni?” I said.

  “Well, it’s not all we have, but it’s all the relevant information,” he said.

  “Can I take them all down to the coffee shop and browse through them there?”

  “I trust that is a joke,” he said.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Very amusing.” He picked up his quill and scribbled something on a sheet.

  “Oh dear,” I said. “Has my joke been filed for future reference?”

  “You know it’s my duty to keep records. Now, I need you to sign a few documents before you start consulting these.”

  “Of course you do,” I said. “And I’ll sign my joke as well, if you like.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” He pushed the documents towards me and I started signing, vowing to myself to reduce my joke-telling to the bare minimum.

  “Can I take notes?” I asked.

  “Yes. You’ll see that the second document you just signed specifically confers that privilege.”

  A few minutes later I pulled the pile of manuscripts and ledgers towards me and started to leaf through it. “My God,” I said after another few minutes, “there are records of every single thing this man has ever done.”

  “I like to think we’ve done a fairly thorough job in his case. We could have kept closer observation during his years abroad, perhaps.”

  “When he was in England.”

  “That’s correct. I see you already know something of his life.”

  “That’s about all I know,” I said. “So I have a good deal to learn.”

  “You can take the documentation into that office where you won’t be disturbed,” he said, pointing to a door to his left. It was a small room with devotional paintings from the previous century on the walls, mostly of saints in dark craggy landscapes; nothing that was likely to distract me from my reading.

  And for the rest of that morning I sat at the desk in this room and took notes. It was not just a series of official documents, like the registration of his baptism, his wedding, his appointments in the various posts he had held (and Fabrizio was right – he really had been Provveditore alli Biscotti at the Arsenale); there were pages and pages devoted to observations of his private life. For example, with regard to the wedding, in addition to a copy of the certificate, there were reports on the number of guests, the amount that had been spent on the feast, the clothes worn by both bride and groom, the speeches that had been made …

  “Who provides all this information?” I said, almost appalled, when Sior Massaro looked in about half an hour later.

  “Well, who do you think?” said Sior Massaro.

  “An army of snoopers,” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “People like yourself. What would we do without you?”

  I winced. Quite possibly he had not meant it maliciously.

  I began to build up a picture of Garzoni’s life. The family had always been important in the life of the republic, and in the previous century they had acquired considerable wealth through their holdings in the Levant. The Turkish advance had not been as damaging to them as it had been to other families, since they had always managed to find a channel for their trade, sometimes even in the midst of war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, with the aid of useful connections in Constantinople. Even now, despite the fact that Piero Garzoni had eschewed all direct intervention in commerce, he still held a considerable fortune, thanks to the possession of property in Venice, on the mainland and on Corfu. His long involvement in the Arsenale had been financially rewarding as well, since the family owned areas of forestry in the Friuli which supplied timb
er for the fleet; questions had been raised in the Senate about a possible conflict of interests but no individual act of malpractice had ever been proved against him.

  He had spent some time in England early in the century, probably at the same time as Zanotto’s brother, although detailed documentation was missing. As Boscombe’s uncle had thought, he had gone there to observe new ship-building techniques, but there was no record of his having introduced any major innovations on his return to the Arsenale.

  He had married into another wealthy family, his bride being Elena Foscari. However, she had died in childbirth a year after the marriage; the baby had not survived. Piero Garzoni had shown no inclination to embark on a second marriage, despite the fact that the family now risked extinction. There was just one nephew, the son of his deceased sister, who had married beneath her years before and had been cut off from the family as a result. Garzoni had probably never spoken to his nephew, who owned – oh, the shame of it – a cheese shop in western Dorsoduro.

  I found documentation on the scandal that had led to the nobleman’s final resignation from his post as Sopraprovveditore; Fabrizio’s account had been more or less accurate. After the regulation that permitted flogging for arsenalotti had been brought in at his personal insistence, a worker in the caulking section had been flogged for insubordination and had subsequently developed gangrene and died. Pressure from above eventually led to Garzoni’s resignation, but it had clearly required a good deal of pressure, and that exerted from especially lofty locations.

  Since then he had become something of a recluse, devoting himself to his historical and occult studies (the reports were rather vague on this, so I could only be grateful to Fabrizio), and rarely leaving his palace on the Grand Canal. After his wife’s death he had reduced his household to a minimum, and now shared the palace with three ex-Arsenale workers and the mysterious Count Gelashvili.

  All I had to do now was go there and find out what he was up to, then come back and let the Missier Grande know. After that it would be back to my guide work as usual, I presumed. Or rather, I hoped.

  * * *

  Around midday I pushed the documents away and stretched, noticing as I did so that I was imitating the pose of St Jerome on the wall opposite me, as he raised a large stone high in the air. Perhaps a little breast-beating on my part would not come amiss. I certainly did not feel proud of the way I had spent my morning.

  I returned to the main office, where Sior Massaro was still at his desk, poring over new reports. I had heard several people call on him during the morning, presumably bringing the results of their observational activities. I had not seen anyone, nor had I heard the words of most of the conversations, but I had been able to get some impression of the tones and timbres of the callers. I had been struck by the variety of voices: all ages, both sexes, apparently most classes, usually but not always with a Venetian cadence. Many recognised the appropriateness of speaking in low, stealthy tones, but for one or two the conversation with Sior Massaro was clearly just part of their daily routine, and they chatted away in casual, breezy tones. I even caught enough of what they were saying to gather that they began by chatting about the weather or their health before passing on to delivering their confidential reports.

  All colleagues of mine.

  “Have you read enough?” he said.

  “For my purposes,” I said.

  “Good. Have you decided how you are going to approach this case?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You needn’t tell me. In fact it might be better if you didn’t, because as the Missier Grande indicated we do not officially know anything about this operation.”

  However, despite this disavowal, I was pleased to see that he was human enough to be curious. I said, “I’m going to use what I’m good at.”

  “Very sound idea.” He waited.

  And I realised that I wanted to tell him. After all, there was no one else I could talk to about it.

  “I’m just following the suggestions of the Missier Grande himself. He mentioned my theatrical background. So I’m going to put on a show.”

  “A show,” he said, sounding a little doubtful.

  “I get the impression that nobleman Garzoni likes spectacle. That’s the best explanation for his having taken in Count Gelashvili.”

  “I see.”

  “I simply have to put on a better show than the count. And that’s where my main skill might be useful.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’m a good improviser.” My highly varied upbringing had forced this skill upon me. I was expert in nothing, almost certainly because I lacked the gift of persistence (this was clearly Lucia’s opinion), but there were a number of things I was quite good at, and, perhaps more important, I was good at assessing when and how to put these things to use.

  In fact, I had everything one needed to become a first-rate frappatore. Just like Count Gelashvili.

  18

  I made my way to western Dorsoduro. Perhaps the nephew could throw some light on his uncle’s personality, even if only through family hearsay. For my purposes any extra titbits of information might be useful.

  I found the cheese shop near the church of San Nicolò dei Mendicoli; this area of the city has its own definite character, which can be summed up in one word: fishiness. Everything in the area is permeated with the tang of fresh and not-so-fresh fish. The alleys that slope down to the lagoon are lined with glistening tangles of fish-nets; everywhere you look are barrels and chests either crammed with squirming heaps or coated with the silverily gleaming evidence of their passing. The streets themselves are slippery with sloughed scales and oily innards.

  The inhabitants, whether bearded fishermen, busy traders or sharp-tongued fishwives, mostly appear to wear clothes of a squamous consistency, and the children, who weave in and out of the crowds like darting minnows, all seem to be playing elaborate games with oyster shells and crab claws. The accent is different, with a rising intonation and truncated syllables, almost as if one were hearing the voices through water. The separate nature of this area of the city even has official recognition, with the local population being allowed to elect their own “doge”, usually a leading fisherman, who is received by the Doge himself in the ducal palace after his election. I imagine that fastidious Doge Pietro Grimani washes his hands thoroughly after greeting his piscatorial counterpart.

  The cheese shop was in a quiet street close to the church, and the owner had decided to do his best to combat the overwhelmingly marine atmosphere by hanging a number of pungent goat-cheeses around the doorway. It almost worked. I entered the shop and breathed in the rich crumbly odours with pleasure.

  “Sior, can I help you?” came a voice from behind the counter. Leonardo Mantovan, as I knew him to be called, was a small man in his mid-thirties; he wore no wig but pulled his thinning hair back in a neat pigtail. He had a vaguely harassed look; maybe that came from trying to sell cheese to fishermen. In any case, there was nothing to indicate that he was the nephew of a nobleman who lived in a palace on the Grand Canal.

  “Sior Mantovan?” I said.

  “That’s my name,” he said. “And whom do I have the pleasure…” He did not finish the question; he allowed it to fade away into inaudibility, like a crumbly ricotta in your fingers. I noticed that he did not have a Nicolotto accent. But then I remembered that he had grown up in Cannaregio, after his mother had left the family home.

  “My name’s Alvise Marangon,” I said. “I hope you won’t mind my troubling you with some questions about your uncle.”

  “Which uncle?” he said, giving me a sharp look.

  “Your maternal uncle,” I said.

  “Ah. Well, I’ve never spoken a word to him in my life. And why are you interested?”

  “I’ll be quite honest,” I said, meaning it – more or less – but knowing the instant I’d said it that it was the surest way to be disbelieved. “I’m enquiring on behalf of the Missier Grande.”

 
‘You’re a sbirro?” he said, looking at me with narrowed eyes. As he lived and worked in this area, a certain wariness was understandable. Most of the city’s sbirri are from this parish – it’s probably the only career open to anyone not fond of fish.

  “Not exactly,” I said, “just someone appointed to make discreet enquiries.”

  “And so you come and talk to a shopkeeper about him.”

  “Of course, I can’t guarantee your discretion but I thought it worth trying. You might be able to tell me something that you heard from your mother.”

  “Well, I certainly never heard anything good about him from her.”

  “I imagine not.”

  “Enquiries about what, anyway?”

  “Leo!” came a shrill voice from a room beyond the shop. “What’s going on?”

  “Just a customer asking some questions, my dear.” His voice became as harassed as his face when a large woman appeared in the doorway, her hands holding a wet cloth, which she was clearly in the process of wringing. She fixed me with a glare that intimated that my neck was next in line.

  “Are you here to buy cheese?” she said.

  “Well, I’ll take a little of that pecorino,” I said, pointing at the counter, and her husband quickly picked it out and placed a knife over it in interrogative fashion, so that I should indicate the required amount.

  “You weren’t talking about cheese,” she said accusingly. Her accent was definitely Nicolotto. I hoped that mine was not too obviously Castellano; I could imagine her in the front line during the regular fights between the two factions on the Bridge of Fists.

  “No,” I said. “I was asking your husband some questions about his uncle. On behalf of the Missier Grande.”

  I had not really hoped that the name would send her fleeing back in terror to the kitchen. “A sbirro,” she said contemptuously, and gave a sudden savage twist to the cloth, which dribbled a few last drops.