In the doorway an old man appeared. His back was curved with scoliosis but his huge head beamed up at us, his vast mouth displaying a few brownish teeth. His amiable, short-sighted eyes were bloodshot mahogany, his jowls were covered in white stubble. Dressed in a coarse, brown monk’s robe, he appeared to be a priest. His resemblance to Fiorello was striking. If he lived long enough my friend would one day exactly resemble his sire.
Hugging the old man tightly, Fiorello introduced us to his father. Servants appeared, greeting us all with the same nods and grins before carrying our luggage into the house. With warm thanks and ample tips, da Bazzanno dismissed our guard of honour, informed the deputy mayor that he would call at the town hall as soon as he was settled, shook hands and closed the door on the street.
The palazzo was like the backstage of a theatre. I half expected to find dressing rooms leading off the main passages of what was, in fact, a typical old Venetian house, built around an interior courtyard completely inaccessible and invisible from outside.
The high-ceilinged passages were lit by candles and oil lamps. They threw long shadows upon walls, staircases and old black beams. Our shadows continued to dance and shudder as we followed the two Bazzannos, deep in happy conversation, through a house smelling strongly of the canals outside and for which, over his shoulder, Fiorello periodically apologised. His whole attention was focused on his father. I have rarely known two male relatives take such tremendous joy in each other’s company. I experienced a pang of loss for my own father, whose foolish radicalism had separated us. I assumed them to have been apart for months, but a fondly indulgent Margherita Sarfatti told me it had been only a couple of weeks since da Bazzanno had departed. ‘It is a love affair that has been going on since he was born.’ She shrugged and offered me a droll wink. ‘How can I compete?’
Not by nature a discourteous soul, da Bazzanno remembered himself soon enough to tell us how he had wanted the house to be ready for guests. ‘But we have almost a hundred and fifty years of neglect to cope with. They did nothing. They didn’t spend a penny on the place.’
‘A Jewish family,’ said old da Bazzanno by way of explanation. He shrugged. ‘Very pleasant people. Nothing wrong with them. But you know how they hate to part with cash.’
‘We’re having electricity, gas, water — everything piped in. And new sewers. And walls have to be repointed. Plastering . . .’ Fiorello returned his attention to his father.
Old da Bazzanno added: ‘They were not real Jews. They went to the same church as my aunt. Everyone liked them. They were generous to the church, she said. But not to themselves. Or the house.’ His shrug was a distorted echo of his son’s.
‘What happened to them?’ I asked Margherita, as we continued to penetrate the warren of tiny passages and rooms. She shook her head. She had heard something, she said, but she wasn’t sure if it was true. She had an idea they had moved to Austria where they had a son. She sauntered ahead of us to inspect a faded tapestry.
‘They weren’t Jews at all, then,’ interposed Maddy Butter almost aggressively. ‘Were they? I mean, they were Christians.’
‘Once a Jew always a Jew,’ I told her kindly. ’In America you have not had quite our experience of the Children of Abraham.’
I would remember those words some years later and only then understand their full significance. At that time I did not pursue the subject as Margherita had rejoined us with a murmured apology and an enthusiastic diversion on the subject of fourteenth-century Norman tapestry.
Eventually the passages opened out on to a gallery. Here the smell of mould was strongest. We were on the first floor, looking down into a large hall where a table was being laid and a fire made. Clearly the servants had not known when da Bazzanno fils would return. We crossed the gallery into another wide corridor. We discovered our bedrooms, our bags already there.
Again I felt I had wandered into some Hollywood historical extravaganza. The rooms had huge four-poster beds. Their iron-hard oak was carved with dark animals and plants tinted with faded gold leafing. The heavy hangings were filthy with age. The furniture was preserved by candle wax and cooking fats, the grease and grime of centuries. Mysterious pictures, so blackened it was impossible to tell the subject, clung to the walls. A small fire had managed to take hold in my grate, and fat copper lamps guttered in iron sticks mottled with oil and verdigris. My evening clothes had been unpacked and laid out for me. My few other clothes were put away in a massive armoire. The rest of my possessions — my films and my plans — had not been touched, but I leafed through my rather dog-eared blueprints and notes to make sure no enterprising trainee spy had removed anything. I also checked that my cache of cocaine was in order. Here I made a happy discovery. With a rush of gratitude I found my cousin Shura, as a parting gift, had left me with ten large packets, sealed neatly in waxed paper like grocer’s sugar, of the very finest sneg. A year’s supply, even if used with irresponsible abandon! To celebrate I called Signora Sarfatti and Maddy Butter to my room, and we indulged a small line or two before dinner, chopped out by Margherita Sarfatti under the gaze of an admiring Miss Butter. She had only with our acquaintance become an enthusiast for the life-enhancing powder. Da Bazzanno had, at least for the moment, renounced cocaine. I had every sympathy for him. From time to time a little fasting is good for the soul as well as the blood. But he did not like to be reminded of what he had given up, so Signora Sarfatti was delighted to join us in this innocent secret.
Later, we enjoyed a simple meal of tripe soup and fried shellfish while da Bazzanno the Younger, in graphic gestures and with wild laughter, retailed the problems they had had with the flying boat. Da Bazzanno the Elder, devoting himself to his dinner in the manner of the aged, occasionally interjected a polite exclamation. I was again reminded of two trick horses from the old Funabile enjoying a gossipy manger of hay together. At one moment they might break into the mock-philosophical patter for which Ah-Ee and Ee-Ah were famous when I was a boy in Kiev. The candle flames graced the faces of our female companions with new angles and secrets. The servants all had that prematurely wizened appearance of a people with blood so ancient, so little diluted, that they could be representatives of a different and earlier race altogether.
The Venetians, Signora Sarfatti, a native of the city, would tell me, not only looked different and spoke differently, they also thought differently. They had, she said, antique minds, full of sophistications and experience unknown to the rest of us, full of strange, uncommon assumptions about matters of health, morality, politics and even literature.
‘What they value is not always what the rest of us value,’ she said. ‘The Venetians built their first houses on stilts above the swampy delta islets which in those days were already inhabited by a race whose skills and appearance were not wholly human. The two species interbred. Some believe the Venetians are the only survivors of Atlantis. Their inhuman ancestors escaped the deluge which drowned that extraordinarily advanced civilisation. Venice is full of great cathedrals and churches, yet she is still as profoundly pagan as she is practical. Venice will survive any disaster and adapt herself to any changing conditions. She is a city whose principal trade is in illusion. For her, deception really is an art! And a saleable art, at that!’