The spectacle nearly over, onlookers scatter away from the square to resume their lives as if nothing of significance has happened. Their voices echo through the narrow alleyways that snake away from the Piazza San Marco. Beyond, in the wide expanse of the Grand Canal, an eerie light makes shimmering patterns on the water, and the dark gondolas crowded there begin to disperse without a sound down the smaller rivulets and watery passages that pervade our great city.
I cannot seem to move myself from the spot where I have stood transfixed. The flames of the burning boat are dying now, but the embers glow, making wavering reflections in the water. Overhead, a bird coos. I watch it hop from its perch on the stones of a building facing the square and sail gracefully to a fluttering landing. Birds begin to gather and peck at detritus left behind by the crowd. Two gray birds squabble over a crumb lodged in the crack of a cobblestone. I take one last look at the pyre and then force myself to leave the square.
The harsh stench of burning lacquer lingers in the air long after the crowd has dispersed. The smell of scorched paint stings my nostrils, yet I feel incited to inhale this aroma. It is repugnant and yet at the same time strangely comforting. I sense that my clothes and even the dark locks of hair that fall across my cheeks are impregnated with the smell. I feel my head reel and my stomach turn. Of course. I don’t know why I did not recognize it before. It is my family’s secret recipe for boat varnish, a special lacquer we use to protect the boat keels from the lichen that collects on them in the canals. The origins of the recipe were lost even to our own boat-making ancestors, but we continue to mix it in the jars of my father’s workshop every day. The smell grips me, haunts me as I quicken my pace, eager to find my way through the narrow alleys leading back to my neighborhood in Cannaregio.
When at last I reach the fish market near home, I find that Signora Galli, the fishmonger’s wife, has already set aside something for me. I approach her stall as she plunges her arm into a bucket, scooping out a writhing handful of eels trawled from the sea this morning, and plunks them on the scale.
“Tell your sister to make everyone a nice risi e bisoto for the midday meal,” she says, wagging a pudgy finger at me. “Good for the baby.”
“Thank you,” I say.
It looks as if someone has dumped the entire contents of the Venetian lagoon onto a wooden table before me. From this bounty, the fishmonger’s wife selects a few small fish and presses them into my satchel.
“She’s a bit old to be birthing a baby, your mother,” Signora Galli continues. “But a woman must accept children from God no matter when they come.” She puts her hands on her hips and nods.
“Santo Stefano, let the poor boy go home,” says Signor Galli the fishmonger, slapping his wife’s backside affectionately with a rag as she accepts my coins. “He has no time for your opinions. The boy has a full day’s work ahead of him in his father’s boatyard.”
“Salve.” I salute the fishmonger and his wife.
It is true, I am eager to reach home now. We are waiting for the baby.
Keep reading at:
www.books2read.com/GondolaMaker
The Painter's Apprentice Page 34
