“Seventy now, fifty after. Not a cent more.”
The old man needed the money, he told himself. None of this was for his own purpose. “Done,” Daniel answered. “Provided Scacchi agrees, of course.”
“Oh,” said Massiter, smiling from ear to ear, “he’ll agree. He knows a good price when he sees one.”
Daniel took Massiter’s outstretched hand and was surprised to discover that, unlike his own, it was completely free of perspiration and as cold as stone.
20
On the Jews
Institutions have rules. It is their undoing. The ghetto is no exception. Rebecca had explained to me how this particular prison had come about. When the Venetian Republic decided to welcome Jews again into its midst, it did so with conditions. One was that they stuck to certain trades, mainly banking. Another was that they lived where they were told and consented to be locked up there each evening. For this the city needed some kind of fortress, so a small island in Cannaregio formerly used as an iron foundry was selected. It was known as gheto, from the term for casting iron (and I still do not know where that extra T came from).
Nothing in Venice can be quite that simple, of course. We have three breeds of Jew, if you please: Ashkenazim, from Germany; Sephardim, from Spain; and the Levantines, who have found their way here from the East. Rebecca is an Ashkenazi; her family originally hail from Munich but fled when the city authorities accused the Jews of poisoning the wells and causing plague. Life was not much better in Geneva, where they ended up. The Ashkenazim were the first Jews allowed back into Venice and, as luck would have it, remain the least trusted. The Sephardim, though they continue to speak a language entirely of their own in addition to Hebrew and Italian, seem to have some sway with the city. The Levantines behave almost like true citizens of the Republic; since most come from Venetian territories, such as Corfu and Crete, they are, to a man, deemed to be good servants of the state. Consequently, the Sephardim and the Levantines live mainly in their own, more recent ghettoes, where the restrictions on trade are somewhat more lax, though the rules on the wearing of yellow badges and scarlet scarves continue to apply, as does the law against usury.
I knew none of this, of course, assuming simply that a Jew was a Jew was a Jew. In truth they are as varied in their ways as the rest of us, with their own idiosyncrasies, their likes and dislikes, their prejudices and dogmas. Perhaps the Ashkenazim tell Sephardic jokes, much as the Venetians make up ribald stories about the matti, the crazies from Sant’ Erasmo, the island in the middle of the lagoon where everyone, word has it, is mother or father or brother and sister to everyone else. I rather hope so. We are merely human, after all.
Each community has its own synagogue — the Ashkenazim own that curious ark-like wooden structure I mentioned, next to and above Rebecca’s house. The demand for living space means there is no room for these places of worship on the ground. Instead, they must be built several storeys above the warrens of small rooms where the ghetto people live, cheek by jowl, sometimes as many as ten to each quarter. And with a temple on the top!
How do Rebecca and Jacopo manage to maintain a single room of their own in this sea of Jewry? His position as a physician helps, I imagine, since his services seem greatly in demand throughout the city, particularly when it comes to female illnesses. Yet I think there is more to it than that. They are different still from the Ashkenazim I see on the stairs when I visit, and that is not simply because they have lived here for little more than a year.
Most of those in the ghetto wish merely for more space. They have no desire to enter the outside world for anything other than business. The Levis, I suspect, harbour broader ambitions. For them the only way to establish their true identity is to see how they might rise in the society beyond those three drawbridges. It is an impossible wish, as you may have gathered. That does not make it burn any the less fiercely. They are also openly sceptical about their own and everyone else’s religion, which must, I imagine, make them distant from their neighbours. Thank God the Jews are so sensible they have no inquisition or burning of witches, for if they did I suspect Jacopo and Rebecca might well be first on their list. You should see the colour rise in Jacopo’s cheeks when he discusses the efficacy of prayer and votives as a way of curing the sick. He seems to have a point too. Why should a candle hold such power? And if it does, why will it wield it only on those of a particular religion, curing only the devout while ignoring the Protestants, the Jews, and the Arabs or whoever? For him there is, I suspect, only one god, and that is Science, a haughty master, and a little too close to alchemy were we living in a less enlightened time and place.
But back to those rules, and the obvious flaw in their structure. No one is allowed out of the ghetto at night except for physicians (what practical folk we Gentiles are — when it comes to our survival, we’ll let the Hebrews race to our aid every hour of the clock). For Rebecca to escape for her performance at La Pietà, she need only don the heavy disguise of Jacopo’s robe, wear his yellow badge on her shoulder, then let me summon her at the gate for an urgent appointment. The drawbridge falls, I engage the guard in conversation so she need say nothing, and, when we are back in that dark labyrinth of alleys beyond the ghetto, she may throw off the costume, become a lady musician on her way to the concert once more, please Vivaldi and his audience, then assume the guise when I bring her back home.
I used Leo’s absence, haggling as he was with Delapole over something or other at Ca’ Dario, to race over to the ghetto the following morning and explain my plan. Rebecca listened with shining eyes full of hope. To perform behind La Pietà’s dusty shutters was better than not to perform at all and would, at least, diminish greatly the chance of her being recognised.
Jacopo shook his head and said, “You’ve been going to the commedia dell’arte too much, Lorenzo. This is not some story in a playwright’s head. It is life. And death or ruin if we’re found out playing such pranks, not just on the state but the Church also. There are vengeful men in that palace up the canal, and the basilica too.”
“This, Jacopo,” I replied with as much iron and determination in my voice as I could muster, “is Venice. A malleable world. Everything here concerned with our lives will take on the shape we make of it. If you fail to understand that, you may as well stay locked in the ghetto forever.”
He gave me a sharp look for no good reason. I might have sounded forward, but I was merely telling the truth. Each life has crossroads, moments at which fateful decisions will be made, whether we like it or not. To shirk these waypoints in our destiny is to make a decision in itself, and one we’ll likely regret not long after.
“You’re a brave one, lad, and your heart’s in the right place,” he declared. “But is it worth the danger for an evening’s entertainment? One step wrong and there’ll be a betraying note in one of those finely polished bronze cats the Doge loves so much, and the next we know we could all be arguing for our lives.”
Rebecca saw how we agonised, then reached out and took each of us by the wrist. “Please don’t ask me to make this decision for you. I have no right to ask anything of either of you.”
Jacopo leaned forward and chastely kissed her on the forehead. “Such a ladylike way of putting it, dear sister. So tell me. This Vivaldi? This place? They merit the risk?”