“May I read a little first, sir?” I asked, and felt a degree of trepidation when I made the request. Uncle Leo has a forbidding manner at times.
“Books are for selling, not reading,” he replied firmly. But at least I had it for the night, since the dealers were by that hour closed. I have since searched diligently in other chaotic corners for similar jewels but found little of importance. Our uncle is a businessman first and a publisher second, though he has an ear for music too. Sometimes he asks me to play pieces that are sent for setting, and, by accident, I discovered he once had ambitions in this field (the Scacchis are born polymaths, girl, even if fate sometimes thwarts us).
There is an ancient harpsichord in what passes for the parlour, on the first floor, above the main bridge. The tone… well, imagine holding a couple of our old Leghorn hens, the ones past laying age, and trying to extract a sound in unison by tickling their feathered breasts. “Cck-cluck, Cck-cluck, Cck-cluck… CCK-CLUCK!”
Still, as Leo says, an instrument is only one half of the bargain. Even such an amateur as I may extract something akin to a melody from the keyboard. Music or literature, most of the compositions we print are turned into ink and paper out of vanity, of course. The “author” pays, or, if he has found a patron, then some poor sap with a surfeit of unwanted cash foots the bill. Some show merit, though. Three nights ago Leo placed a single sheet in front of me and barked, “Play that!” then afterwards asked my opinion (not a common occurrence).
Something told me this was a time to be politic. “An interesting piece, Uncle, but I find it hard to judge on a single page. Is there no more?”
“None!” he said with a sardonic grin on his face. He held up his right hand in front of me and I saw what previously I had only glimpsed. The little finger and the index were horribly bent, as if the sinews of each had decided to withdraw on themselves and pull the flesh tightly into the palm. I had wondered why Leo was so slow at setting type. Now I knew. His musical days were surely past, at least as a player. “Nor will there be any more with a hand like this.”
“This was your work?” I tried not to look too surprised. Just between you and me, Lucia, it was rather good.
“Something to impress the Red Priest and his little girls at La Pietà. Had I finished it before this claw appeared.”
“I’m sorry, sir. If you like, you could dictate to me and see if I might turn your ideas into something on a page.”
“And if I go blind, perhaps you will paint on my instructions so that I may rival Canaletto?”
It seemed best to say nothing. Uncle Leo has few friends, and none female as far as I can judge, a shame since a wife might mellow him. His trade is his life, and a hard trade it is, too, with hours too long for much in the way of romance. The two of us must do everything in this publishing process, from setting the type to working the press, though Leo assures me he will seek hired help should the contract warrant it. If Aldus Manutius (or Aldo Manuzio, as the locals knew him better) could not make a living as a publisher in Venice, I wonder sometimes how a mere Scacchi might manage.
I reread that last sentence, and how I hate it! To hell with pessimism (excuse my language). We are Scacchis, all. There is a profession here, a good one, that keeps me close to words and music. We may not be artists ourselves, but we are, at least, their mouthpiece, and that counts for something. Nor is any of this a simple way to make a living. Today, tired from the previous night’s work, I misunderstood Leo’s instructions and arranged the imposition wrongly for the printing of a small pamphlet on the nature of the rhinoceros. Everything will have to be redone, at Uncle’s expense; there is no unmaking my mistake (printing is a business which punishes errors very severely). Leo beat me, but not hard, and I deserved it. An apprentice is there to learn.
Across from our house, in the parish church, is a painting of the martyrdom of San Cassian, the patron saint of teachers, if you recall. I stared at it for ages this evening. It is a dark, gloomy work with no joy inside the pigment (martyrdoms, which litter the churches here, tend to fall into that category, I suppose!). Cassian’s bare, muscular form fills the foreground; around him, madness in their faces, wielding pens and knives and even an adze, the saint’s tormentors prepare to send him to eternity. The tale the priest tells is that Cassian was their master; the pupils turned on him when he sought to teach them Christian ways.
There is an important allegory there. The priest assures me so. Still, I cannot help but wonder. What would make not one but several pupils turn on their master with such deadly intent? Had he punished them more than they deserved? They are fallen; you can see it in their faces. But what made them fall? I see no sign of Satan anywhere in the picture.
I feel the tone of this letter is becoming cheerless, so you have perhaps put it to one side already and gone with your newfound friends to the dancing and the fiesta. I send you my fond love, my dearest sister, and am glad to hear your health is much improved.
6
An appointment with the Englishman
Hugo Massiter was fifty-one. He seemed, in Rizzo’s eyes, like a character out of one of those sixties films that sometimes came up late at night on RAI. Movies where the women always wore short skirts and too much makeup and the men seemed possessed by some weird version of Mediterranean cool, like ageing play-boys pretending to be teenagers. Massiter dressed straight out of that era. Today the Englishman wore a pair of fawn slacks with a knife-edge crease down the front, a white shirt ironed so much it had the appearance of a fancy restaurant tablecloth and — the finishing touch — a light-blue silk neck scarf tucked in at the open collar.
He was tall and must have been good-looking once. His face had a patrician cragginess. He was tanned in the cracked way the English male went when he spent too much time under the hot sun. He could break into a sudden smile that seemed permeated with some genuine warmth if he wanted. But his hairline was receding, and, against all obvious attempts to hide the fact, a shiny red patch of forehead was growing larger all the time. More memorably, there was the question of the eyes. Massiter had grey eyes, large, intelligent, and piercing. He looked at people as if he had some extra sense of focus, seeing more than their outward appearance. When Rizzo wanted to know what Hugo Massiter was really thinking, all he had to do was seek the answer in those eyes. In their cold frankness lay all the answers and, Rizzo felt, the true measure of Massiter’s character. It was the eyes that made him fear the Englishman. Sometimes they looked only half-human.
It was three weeks since Susanna Gianni’s early disinterment, and Massiter ought to be thinking of other things. He sipped from a glass of sparkling mineral water, then stared out of the window at the Grand Canal. The small apartment was in Dorsoduro, between the Accademia and Salute. It was on the second floor of a converted palace and must, Rizzo knew, have cost a fortune. Massiter could afford it. He had homes in London and New York too. The art trade paid better than thieving from tourists, though Rizzo suspected that if everything were out in the open, there might be precious little moral daylight between them.