In my jacket pocket my fingers fiddled with the dice.
8
I climbed the wooden ladder, and this time Tuota went ahead of me. The trap door led to the roof space of the old warehouse. As the stench of mold reached me from above, I hoisted myself toward the opening.
In the corner I recognized the straw mattress, the bowl, the worm-eaten table. It was there that we used to wait for the right time of night to go to sea. I remembered the first evening, my heart in my mouth, the feeling of expectation that devoured me, and Tuota telling me to get up and follow him. That was what I had done for years, and when I had chosen another destiny for myself, I hadn’t been able to keep a scrap of my soul from being trapped there.
I had come back. I thought of my house in Venice, where I had lived at ease and in prosperity, and I smiled contemptuously. Tuota noticed and gave me a wry look.
“You know the place,” he grunted. “If I were you I wouldn’t show my face in these parts.” He looked around and added, “I’ll fetch you something to eat.” He looked as if he were about to go downstairs.
“Tuota. .”
He stopped, and for a moment I said nothing, looking at his sunburned face. He was still as powerful as I remembered, like a mooring post. I wanted to hug him as I never had when I was a little boy, to feel his muscles, the protective hardness of his belly.
I took the medal from around my neck and handed it to him. The medal with the warlike symbol of Venice. Intent as I was on hiding the truth from him, I wanted to buy the right to his help.
Tuota looked at the precious object, turned it around in his hand and then, without even raising his eyes, he handed it back to me. He disappeared through the trap door, which closed over his head. I heard the squeak of the rungs and the fading footsteps.
I went and stood by the only source of light, the little skylight in the roof. Ragusa was a clutch of fire-red tiles and white stone, between the green of the mountain and the green of the sea. When I was a boy, I had watched the ships coming into port through that opening. How many times, in the clear May days, had I daydreamed, looking for the outline of the Gargano. And how many nights had I spent admiring the constellations.
Many years before, one summer day, I had run to the port. I was shouting, “Tuota, Tuota,” because I had learned to throw a knife and wanted him to see me. Some of the sailors standing around thought that “Tuota” was a mispronunciation, my way of saying “Tuone,” or Ante, Toni, Antumi, Antal. Everyone liked the sound of the name, and from that point on they started using it all the time, although the Dalmatians knew that tuota is a word from the island of Veglia and means the same as baba in Turkish, tata in Croatian, pare in Venetian and papa in Ladino, the Jewish dialect. That was what I had started calling him, papa, in the language of my mother and the Jews of Spain, but he had told me he didn’t like the word, because “il Papa” is the king of all the priests and he didn’t like kings or priests. So he had given me permission to call him Tuota, as he had called his father, and I, who was eight years old and didn’t know who my father was, didn’t need to hear him say it twice. At the port everyone knew that Tuone Jurman had no children, that he wasn’t married, and, as I knew, the idea that someone might call him Father even made them laugh. So the nickname became official, and to close the circle they started calling me el Feil, and the dog that was always near me in those days was rechristened Spirit Sant. A fine paradox, for a little Jewish boy.
I lay down on the mattress, my mind caught somewhere between my memories and the uncertain present. I looked at the walls around me, the ruined objects. It took me a long time to get to sleep, and I entertained myself by throwing dice, playing against myself, losing even when I won.
I was wakened by the sound of the trap door opening. I instinctively brought my hand to my stiletto, under my cape. I didn’t know what time it was, but the light outside the window was intense.
Tuota’s gray head emerged from the floor, followed by the rest of his body. He was carrying a bag over his shoulder, and from it he took a bundle. Bread, sardines and a canteen full of water.
“I was hoping you’d offer me some of your grappa.”
“It isn’t that cold yet, and you don’t need it.”
There was no room for discussion with Tuota; age hadn’t softened him. We sat in silence, chewing our food. He was the first to speak.
“You haven’t told me where you plan to go.”
“Because I don’t know yet. Anywhere I can stay alive. Far from Venice, that much is certain.”
“I’m trying to find a boat for you, but it’s going to take a few days. You’ll have to be very careful in your movements if the Venetians really are looking for you. You’re hiding in their backyard.”
I couldn’t help provoking him: “When I left, the word freedom was written on the banners of Ragusa. The Sultan’s still guaranteeing you protection.”
Tuota hissed between his teeth. “Freedom. The more they write it on their shields the less they want it. I come from a line of pirates that has never bowed to anyone. My ancestors were enemies of Julius Caesar. The aristocrats of this city are as despotic as your Venetian friends; they’re just a bit smaller.”
“Age is making you bitter, Tuota. You used to be proud of the independence of Ragusa. You were the one who brought me to the castle of San Lorenzo to read the motto carved above the door. Do you remember? It says Freedom isn’t sold for all the gold in the world.”
“And you’ve learned it off by heart to spit on it.”
I couldn’t hold my tongue. “You’ve never learned to see things from above sea level, have you, Tuota? Do you think Venice doesn’t fight for its freedom? It’s a little republic squashed between giants that would like to bend it to their will. On the one hand there’s the Great Turk, on the other the Holy Roman Empire, and then the Church of Rome, which is hatching every imaginable plot to impose its power on the city. And yet Venice resists. In freedom.”
“Then you could have stayed there,” he said, and his words were like a tombstone. I was a fugitive, my old homeland wanted me dead, and yet my tongue went on defending it.
“I’ll help you,” Tuota went on, “but I don’t want to know anything about what’s happened to you, or about what you’ve done for the Venetians.” He got up. “I’m setting off at dawn tomorrow. Over the next few days a woman called Dinka will bring you something to eat. If I were you, I would hole up here for a while. If you really can’t resist the temptation to go down, remember to leave your dagger behind. In these parts they don’t deal kindly with Jews who walk around the place carrying weapons.”
He must have noticed the stiletto under my cape. His eyesight was still sharp.
“I’m not a Jew anymore.”
He shook his head. “We aren’t in Venice here. Lots of people remember Manuel, son of Sarah. That’s enough.”
9
Very soon, boredom came to dominate my days. Time passed slowly and languidly, minute by minute, hour after hour. The next day, Dinka, an old woman who didn’t waste her words, climbed up to bring me some food and empty the pot. She made me take off my Venetian clothes and replaced them with a pair of torn trousers and a jacket that had once belonged to who knows who. The signs of my previous life slipped away and I assumed a new appearance. I looked at my reflection in the glass of the jug, my beard longer than before, and prickly, my face pale, my eye vague. A different man. Flight was a chrysalis, but the caterpillar didn’t turn into a butterfly, just a different caterpillar.