“I meant the volume itself, not the words within it.” The man waved towards the green kiosk in front of them. Jostling in the window with the magazines and panoramic views of the Canal Grande were the gaudy covers of translated Georgette Heyer and Conan the Barbarian. “Though your taste in reading matter is plainly more sophisticated than the common herd’s. But it is the book as objet d’art that fascinates me these days, I must confess. May I take a closer look?”
Without awaiting a reply, he picked up the novel, weighing it in his hand with the fond assurance of a Manhattan jeweller caressing a heavy diamond. The book was bound in green cloth, with faded gilt lettering on the grubby spine. Someone had spilled ink on the front cover and an insect had nibbled at the early pages.
“Ah, the first English edition by Secker. I cannot help but be impressed by your discernment. Most young fellows wishing to read Thomas Mann would content themselves with a cheap paperback.”
“It is a little out of the ordinary. I like unusual things.” Joly let the words hang in the air for several seconds. “As for cost, I fear I don’t have deep pockets. I picked up the copy from a second hand dealer’s stall on the Embankment for rather less than I would have paid in a paperback shop. It’s worth rather more than the few pence I spent, but it’s hardly valuable, I’m afraid. The condition is poor, as you can see. All the same, I’d rather own a first edition than a modern reprint without a trace of character.”
The man proferred a thin, weathered hand. “You are a fellow after my own heart, then! A love of rare books, it represents a bond between us. My name is Sanborn, by the way, Darius Sanborn.”
“Joly Maddox.”
“Joly? Not short for Jolyon, by any chance?”
“You guessed it. My mother loved The Forsyte Saga.”
“Ah, so the fondness for good books is inherited. Joly, it is splendid to make your acquaintance.”
Joly ventured an apologetic cough and made a show of consulting his fake Rolex as the church bell chimed the hour. “Well, I suppose I’d better be running along.”
Sanborn murmured, “Oh, but do you have to go so soon? It is a hot day, would you care to have a drink with me?”
A pantomime of hesitation. “Well, I’m tempted. I’m not due to meet up with my girlfriend till she finishes work in another hour...”
A tactical move, to mention Lucia. Get the message over to Sanborn, just so that was no misunderstanding. The American did not seem in the least put out; his leathery face creased into a broad smile. Joly thought he was like one of the pigeons in the square, swooping the moment it glimpsed the tiniest crumb.
“Then you have time aplenty. Come with me, I know a little spot a few metres away where the wine is as fine as the skin of a priceless first edition.”
There was no harm in it. Adjusting his pace to the old man’s halting gait, he followed him over the bridge, past the shop with all the cacti outside. Their weird shapes always amused him. Sanborn noticed his sideways glance. He was sharp, Joly thought, he wasn’t a fool.
“As you say, the unusual intrigues you.”
Joly nodded. He wouldn’t have been startled if the old man had suggested going to a hotel instead of for a drink, but thankfully the dilemma of how to respond to a proposition never arose. After half a dozen twists and turns through a maze of alleyways, they reached an ill-lit bar and stepped inside. After the noise and bustle of the campo, the place was as quiet as a church in the Ghetto. No-one stood behind the counter and, straining his eyes to adjust from the glare outside, Joly spied only a single customer. In a corner at the back, where no beam from the sun could reach, a small wizened man in a corduroy jacket sat at a table, a half-empty wine glass in front of him. Sanborn limped up to the man and indicated his guest with a wave of the stick.
“Zuichini, meet Joly Maddox. A fellow connoisseur of the unusual. Including rare books.”
The man at the table had a hooked nose and small dark cruel eyes. His face resembled a carnival mask, with a plague doctor’s beak, long enough to keep disease at bay. He extended his hand. It was more like a claw, Joly thought. And it was trembling, although not from nerves — for his toothless smile conveyed a strange, almost malevolent glee. Zuichini must suffer from some form of palsy, perhaps Parkinson’s disease. Joly, young and fit, knew little of sickness.
“You wonder why I make specific mention of books, Joly?” Sanborn asked with a rhetorical flourish. “It is because my good friend here is the finest bookbinder in Italy. Zuichini is not a household name, not even here in Venice, but his mastery of his craft, I assure you, is second to none. As a collector of unique treasures, few appreciate his talents more than I.”
A simian waiter shuffled out from a doorway, bearing wine and three large glasses. He did not utter a word, but plainly Sanborn and Zuichini were familiar customers. Sanborn did not spare the man’s retreating back a glance as he poured.
“You will taste nothing finer in Italy, I assure you. Liquid silk.”
Joly took a sip and savoured the bouquet. Sanborn was right about the wine, but what did he want? Everyone wanted something.
“You are here as a tourist?” the American asked. “Who knows, you might follow my example. I first came to this city for a week. That was nineteen years ago and now I could not tear myself away if my life depended on it.”
Joly explained that he’d arrived in Venice a month earlier. He had no money, but he knew how to blag. For a few days he’d dressed himself up as Charlie Chaplin and become a living statue, miming for tourists in the vicinity of San Zaccaria and earning enough from the coins they threw into his tin to keep himself fed and watered. But he hated standing still and after a few hours even his narcissistic pleasure in posing for photographs began to pall. One afternoon, taking a break in a cheap pizzeria, he’d fallen into conversation with Lucia when she served him with a capuccino. She was a stranger in the city as well; she’d left her native Taormina after the death of her parents and drifted around the country ever since. What they had in common was that neither of them could settle to anything. That night she’d taken him to her room in Dorsoduro and he’d stayed with her ever since.
“Excellent!” Sanborn applauded as he refilled his new young friend’s glass. “What is your profession?”
Joly said he was still searching for something to which he would care to devote himself, body and soul. His degree was in English, but a career in teaching or the civil service struck him as akin to living death. He liked to think of himself as a free spirit, but he enjoyed working with his hands. For six months he’d amused himself as a puppeteer, performing for children’s parties and at municipal fun days. When that became wearisome, he’d headed across the Channel. He’d spent three months in France, twice as long in Spain, soon he planned to try his luck in Rome.
“I wondered about learning a trade as a boat-builder, I spent a day in the squero talking to a man who builds gondolas.” He risked a cheeky glance at Zuichini’s profile. “I even thought about making masks...”
“An over-subscribed profession in this city,” Sanborn interrupted. “I understand why you didn’t pursue it.”
“Well, who knows? One of these days, I may come back here to try my luck.”
“You have family?”
“My parents dead, my sister emigrated to Australia where she married some layabout who looked like a surf god. So I have no ties, I can please myself.”
“And your girlfriend?” Sanborn asked. “Any chance of wedding bells?”
Joly couldn’t help laughing. Not the effect of the wine, heady though it was, but the very idea that he and Lucia might have a future together. She was a pretty prima donna, only good for one thing. Although he didn’t say it, the contemplative look in Sanborn’s pale grey eyes made it clear that he’d got the message.