“Can’t wait,” he said, bemused.
22
Rebecca receives a gift
Complications! Complications! Before the first evening concert when, nervously, we might try out our scheme, my dear sister, we found ourselves enmeshed in plots of my uncle’s making. The negotiations with Delapole continue. Leo decided we must join the Englishman on a boat journey across the lagoon to Torcello with a small party of musicians from La Pietà, Rebecca among them, to provide entertainment along the way.
A pretty group we made too: Delapole smiling benevolently as he handed out money right, left, and centre, to the boatmen, to the players, to just about everyone but Leo. Gobbo wore some shiny finery that made him look like a clown’s baboon. Rousseau fluttered about, still angling for a job. Rebecca, without her scarlet scarf, felt sufficiently brave to make her own way to meet us, joining three other female players, plain girls who looked as if they didn’t see the light of day much. She cast me a familiar glance and then set her eyes on the water. It was best, we both knew, to keep our relations private in such a gathering.
The summer heat receded the moment our ski f sailed past St. Mark’s and out into the lagoon. It was unusually clear. To the west lay the mountains, still capped in snow, to the north Torcello, and to the east the low, blue flatness of the Adriatic, with scarcely a wave on it, as if the ocean itself felt like dozing on this idle afternoon.
The musicians had struck up some of Vivaldi’s lesser stuff as soon as we set sail from the small jetty outside Ca’ Dario. Quite why, I don’t know, since almost everyone on board talked over them as if they were mere decoration. The priest would have had a fit if he’d witnessed it.
The city receded into the distance. The little band played and played, red Veneto wine flowed profusely, and the party settled into a lazy glow while lounging on the cushions in the stern. Delapole could not take his eyes o f the musicians, Rebecca more than any. It strikes me as odd that the Englishman, who’s a handsome, amiable fellow in the prime of life, appears not to own some mistress. Perhaps he does and keeps her out of sight. Perhaps there is in Delapole a secret to match Oedipus’s sad history. But he wasn’t the only one whose eyes were on stalks. Uncle Leo was at it, too, openly admiring Rebecca with something close to lasciviousness.
At around three we entered the narrow canal that leads to the centre of the island. The captain pointed our bow at the tall tower of the basilica. Torcello was the capital of the lagoon before Venice and lost its position only because of the malarial nature of the swamps. Now a handful of peasants and ageing clergy live there, both sets trying to swindle visitors for the odd ducat or two.
We disembarked close to the basilica and, as a group, inspected the place. Rebecca, being in her Gentile guise, was allowed through the door but did not loiter long, and I understood why. The west wall is covered with a vast mosaic depicting Judgement Day. It’s a spectacular thing and must make the bucolic locals positively quiver with fear every time they see it. Some very cross-looking devils are busy pushing sinners down to Hell along with every other race on the earth that is not pale-faced and Christian too. She looked at those Saracens and Moors all going to their doom through nothing more than an accident of birth, then excused herself and went outside. When, after a suitable interval, I followed, she was seated on a giant throne hewn out of rock, with some local crone pocketing a coin for allowing her this dubious privilege.
“Do you know what this is, Lorenzo?”
“A chunk of broken Roman stone, like most of the stuff around here, I imagine.”
“Don’t be so cynical. The good lady tells me it is nothing less than the throne of Attila!”
“Hmmm. And there was me thinking the Hun never did manage to conquer Italy.”
“Perhaps it is a prize of war?”
She was so taken by the thought that some element of history might hang around the thing I didn’t have the heart to tell her the likely truth: it was just another piece of trickery to bring in the tourists. “Perhaps.”
“Hah!” She waved her hand in the air. “I can feel the very power of this rock infect my veins! Behold, slave! I rule from the Caspian to the Baltic! They call me lord from Gaul to Constantinople!”
“Actually,” I felt it relevant to point out, “they call you ‘Flagellum Dei.’ The Scourge of God.”
“Then some part of Attila’s spirit has been reincarnated in me already! Kneel to your master, villein! For do I not own your very soul?!”
Grinning like a simpleton, I got down on one knee. “Naturally, and I do you honour, great lady. Or is it lord? But if you do not accept the existence of God, how can you believe in reincarnation?”
“Insolent slime! Do you think the human spirit so flimsy it cannot disperse itself a little from generation to generation without some arrogant push from the sky? Why, we’re all a witch’s brew of everyone who’s gone before us, man and woman, mixed together like wine and flesh in a stew. We inhale the humours of our ancestors with every breath. I have the temper of Caesar, the cunning of the Hun, and the vocabulary, on occasion, of a Russian fishwife. Look to your manners, cur, or you’ll hear it!”
“And the face?”
She paused over that one. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
The words just tumbled out of my mouth. “Helen of Troy. No other possibility.”
Suddenly she wore an expression that told me I had destroyed the game. Oh, dear sister! One day I must find the strength to speak out loud the contents of my heart.
I have no idea how your own a fairs go — you scarcely mention them in those scraps of paper that are supposed to pass as letters. I don’t know whether to wish you this exquisite torture or pray for your deliverance to a saner, more even-tempered life.
“They’re coming, Lorenzo.”
The party had left the basilica and was ambling back to the ski f, Rousseau twittering away like a canary and stabbing the afternoon air with that long, thin index finger of his.
“Then we had better join them.”
There must have been some accidental tone of regret in my voice. Watching carefully, to make sure she wasn’t seen, Rebecca extended her hand and, for one short moment, touched my cheek. “Never despair, Lorenzo. Soon we venture out into the city like thieves in the night. This is no time for the faint of heart. Besides…”
She drew herself up to her full height, like some ancient Roman empress surveying her empire. “I have sat upon Attila’s throne. Fortune is on our side. We are invincible!”
I set this down now, sister, not knowing whether any will ever read these words after your eyes have scanned them: I doubt I shall ever see Rebecca look so magnificent again. On Torcello, with the golden tower of the basilica and the jumble of rose-tiled roofs behind her, arms folded across her chest, eyes blazing with determination, she looked like a goddess. I could have thrown myself at her feet then and begged for her hand. Instead, I cast a wary glance at the party nearing the boat, who were now becoming interested in our absence.