Venice … the city of secrets
Trevor Ray

What none of us knew until later … and even then, never the full story … was that the Levantine had deliberately invited contact with the gambler … the Prince of Gamblers … for political purpose. Was that the actual truth? Political rumour rarely is …

Florian is proprietor of the finest and most popular caffe in the Piazza San Marco and is known to every long ear in the city … what he retails to a certain few is never merely rumour … but is always political. Or sexual. Or criminal. Often all three. But never merely rumour.

So listen well …

A document changed hands at that dark table. A proposal? A guarantee? A contract? A promise? A bribe? An official document, heavily sealed … an unusual sight in Venice, where a man's word can be trusted … if he wants to live.

It had long been rumoured that Napoleon was regretting having given the Veneto to the Austrians for safe-keeping … factions in the city, headed by major families, had made proposals for the return of the sea-city to the Senate but it was also believed that the Doge was the Little Corporal's man … maybe it was time for a re-election … ?

But who was the stranger? If he was truly from the Levant, he would be interested in personal benefit, whoever he might be representing.

Perhaps a racial generalisation … but built on a trading city's experience.

And now this game of three … what meaning has this? What does it obscure? Certainly the truth … for this is Venice. The city of dissemblance.

As the winter sun lost itself behind the shaft of the great campanile, Florian served the guests with more of his sublime molten chocolate … braziers were drawn closer and all around the Piazza guttering candles cut the light of the stars. L'Amiral Venga sent a signal to the Arsenale shipyards and soon we were aboard a barchiello swifting across the dark lagoon, heading for l'Osteria ai Pescatori on the tiny island of Burano.

Il Rouletto … fortunes changed hands each first day of Advent on the result of this ancient contest between the Green and the Red factions … estates changed masters … mistresses altered position … history took new direction, as the two crews circled the island.

As was customary, we purchased the lengths of fine lace that draped our lovers for the evening, ordered risotto sarde in soar and great flasks of Refosco against the night airs … and screamed abuse across the square at the antics of Goldoni's actors and the buranello of Galuppi's vibrant music. That Baldassare … his brave tunes haunt me still …

The maroon called us all to the start of the race … the noisy crowd raced through the lanes, keeping close to the shoreline, the two competing craft glimpsed briefly between the coloured houses as the fisher-crews strained at their sweeps, women cursing, men whistling … the rich man at the Red helm, the Levantine at the Green … play on, play on …

At l'osteria, we sat on, drinking, coins slapped on tables, promissory notes pocketed, men grinning through their wine-sweat as small fortunes disappeared into the dark.

Passion … desperate passion.

The widowers' garb fooled no-one, the Queen of the Sea was a tight place … sneeze and instantly your most distant enemy wished you good health. The Red helmsman's riches were his family wealth … the Principe Fortuny had inherited the great Fondi banking dynasty.

With it came the dangerous envy of every cut-purse in the trading empire of the Venetian State.

None more ominous than Europe's Rapist, himself desperate to found a dynasty that would carry his aberrant ambition into the future … and it was supposed by those who scryed for a living, that every stranger in the city was an agent of Napoleon's security service. The Doge versus the Emperor and his Austrians. Passion … desperate passion.

From the shadows around the public gabinetto, came the reappearance of the flustered beauty Fortunata, the rich one's mistress, as she rejoined the uproar of our drunken company. I stumbled past her to find a man pissing on his collapsed neighbour, both laughing helplessly as they splashed in the steaming stream. Two Austrian vigili looked on, unmoved.

'The Greens, the Greens, the Greens …' the cry cut through the night, flaming brands surrounding the exhausted crew as they stood in their craft, gasping, punching the future, waving victorious banners. Amongst the chaos, the aged Levantine slipped past me, wiping his hands on his gabardine.

The hooked golden beak of Fortuny's leathern mask pointed at the sky as he mopped away the tears of frustration that ran down his pale throat. As his man handed vellum-bound books and cased scrolls to the Levantine, the Principe tore his red sash to shreds. The silks drifted away like blood splashed on the night wind … following his fortunes …

*

Play on … play on …

*

Three packs of cards appeared … the pictures bright and taunting, aces, deuces, treys and combinations; the hands only awaiting the call of the two chancers.

But the Levantine swept the cards from the table. He spoke haltingly with a biting note.

'The first gambit is mine by chance and good fortune … the side-wager foolish and for you, sire, crippling. My skills lie in knowledge, not chance. In culture, not fashion. In art and in craft, not in guile and moral usury. Propose your second side-bet … if you have any fine thing to match your losses …'

The Prince half-rose from his seat in anger but a touch on his shoulder made him turn.

The beautiful Fortunata kissed her Prince's hand and made it plain to all that she offered herself as his wager-stake …

Passion … desperate passion …

The Levantine smiled … like a fox eating scorpions.

'Then I propose a small adjustment, perhaps in my favour … I have no understanding of these games … Scopone or the devil's picture gallery, Triomphi … but what if, hooded, we both sit before a well-known painting and with the Master of the Casino to describe it … we each ask but a single question … which he must answer truthfully … and one of us must identify the work, the subject and the painter … agreed? Better that than these … images …'

At the Accademia, cushions were strewn about the room for the bystanders, Fortunata seated with the vellum books of account and the scrolled deeds of property at her feet. Food and drink served in plenty and varied tensions in the festive air.

Three strikes of the Master of the Casino's bastone di comando echoed the night bell of San Salute … three o'clock of a wintry night, so dark the murk over the canals that even the dead were grateful to be rotting in eternity.

The Prince and the Levantine hooded with silvered leather and an easel set before us … three more strikes upon the marbled floor and a rectangle, shrouded in black velvet was brought in …

Play on … play on …

The Master of the Casino said, 'Sirs … since the fifteenth century after the death of Christ until tonight, what you seek lives always in the Accademmia … your questions, please …'

The Levantine craned his neck in a listening gesture, his head turning from side to side.

The silence was broken as the Prince asked, 'What are its proportions … ?'

The Master of the Casino hesitated, then stepped forward and first, placed his forefingers on Fortuny's shoulders, then one finger on the nape of his neck, the other with delicacy, on the Prince's rump.

'Ha!', breathed Fortuny, 'a landscape …'

The Levantine's head twisted about as he tried to find the meaning of the gasps and stifled laughter from all around.

Finally, he managed, 'And its constituents … its working?'

The Master of the Casino held up a hand to still the whispers all about, lifted a corner of the velvet and said, 'Oils worked on oak wood … a panel.'

The silvered hoods were removed and the contestants moved apart, the Prince to a cushion at the feet of his mistress, the Levantine to a corner of the salone, pressing his flushed cheek to the chill marble of the wall.

Three more strikes of the bastone and a questioning gesture toward the Prince.

'Oils on panel … an oil … it is a portrait …'

The Levantine laughed, triumphant, 'A portrait! You were shown it was a landscape … we all heard you say it was a landscape!

'It is a portrait … of a young man … standing in the open air … A Young Man Standing Before a Landscape. By … fifteenth century … ah, yes … that thoughtful, rustic young man, caught so well by Hans Memling … it's the Memling, the beautiful Memling.'

The Master of the Casino remained impassive, turned to the Levantine. He snarled as he faced the assembly.

'Bastards. Landscape … portrait … you are cheating lying bastards … all of you, bastards … Venetians, every one of you. Bastards.'

He snivelled his anger into his sleeve … but suddenly, realisation dawned. 'Christian lying bastards … since the fifteenth century after Christ … you think you can trick me … you think you can insult my people with your lying Christian tricks? A landscape of the fifteenth century that no one of my faith would suspect? It is … it is … it is the Bellini … you and your desperate passion … it is The Procession of the Reliquary of the True Cross in the Piazza San Marco by Gentile Bellini … !

And with a scream of triumph, he stepped forward and ripped the velvet from the easel.

The panel was a portrait of a young man standing before a landscape.

'BASTARDS. Venetian bastards … !

Fortunata flew at the Levantine, her fingers reaching for his eyes. He caught her arms and twisted her about … as he thrust her away I fancied that I saw a flash of something reflected in a fine old wall mirror. Had he pressed into her hands an object … ? It was certainly the flash of something, gold, silver, steel … niello perhaps, that caught my eye.

*

Play on … play on …

*

Only the death to be decided … the man of brightest riches or the figure from the furthest dark? The Venetian or the Levantine? Was the risk, the thrill, the pleasure worth a life? Passion … desperate passion …

*

Play on … play on …

*

The blind dominos of death …

Again we drank our way past Santa Maria della Salute and out into the lagoon … the musicians we took with us did their jangling noisy best to keep the night at bay … a castrato who was aboard started to sing and was howled down by the sailors but his tears were soon kissed away by a couple of slim-hipped young oarsmen.

A vessel approached … water police? Austrians? We were past caring … hailed us, seemed satisfied by the reply and veered away.

'Whither bound?'

'San Cristoforo della Pace …'

… the Island of the Dead.

We landed in a sudden squall, a bitter sheet of horizontal sleet that stirred the still waters of the winter lagoon into maddened foam. Ashore we found shelter in the Cappella Emiliana, beneath that miraculous hexagonal dome … there I noticed, high among the hatchments, a tablet commemorating Pontus, the innocent murdered by order of Valerian … and realised that this was the saint's feast day, the second day of Advent … had this nightmare been all of a few hour's making?

The blind dominos were the Prince's choice of hostile wager … masked, the contestants to be set free in a burial ground perilous with opened graves … vaults in preparation for winter's casualties of life in the city of treachery … ground broken before frosts ironed it into concrete. Black vaults waiting for the season's promise.

'He who first falls', cackled Fortuny, 'will have found his true level in life …'

The rules proposed? Each contestant to carry a spade with which, as does a blind man, he might guide his steps … and with which to infill the trap into which his opponent fell … to heap spoil upon him … interring the loser where he lay, still living …

Play on … play on …

The rain now torrential, the blind domino masks with no eyes cut were carefully adjusted and to make doubly sure, that silvered leather hood was again placed on each man's head and fastened firmly at the throat …

Flaming brands flared and smoked among the spectators, the winds sending the light in eerie gusts across the newly opened cemetery … a temporary resting place for the great and good of the city state … bones to be disinterred each few years to make way for sons and daughters … a place of finite sadness before the nestling-together with neighbours, loved or despised, in the municipal charnel house.

Fortuny tries a few tentative steps back towards the chapel … the Levantine remains still, spade raised, listening, his hooded head craning forward on his neck, listening, trying to hear beyond the wind … listening …

Fortuny moves in a shuffle, testing each step before committing to an advance, searching for indications underfoot of the condition of the earth, whether firm or not, brought to a sudden halt by the feel of spoil beneath his boot … a gasp as he realises the danger he has found … beads of sweat run from the throat of the hood to mingle with the rain …

The Levantine seeks his target, the merest movement carried on the wind … and gambling, makes the shortest way towards the Prince … stumbles once … leaps clear across an opened grave, landing close beside his rival … his spade, by chance, strikes against Fortuny's implement … a second swing bites the soft earth of the grave edge … the third is the death blow, cleaving the richly-clad shoulder near the heart … and with a scream of triumph, the Levantine tears off his hood and domino, catches up the fatally stricken body of his opponent, tosses him into a nearby hole, shovels a token spadeful of earth on top and races into the dark …

*

Passion … desperate passion …

*

The following day, state police discovered the clothes of the Levantine abandoned at the landing place … ivorine teeth, false hair, a great hooked nose of papier-mache, realistically sallow … but, despite their close enquiries among those who know most in the Giudecca, no further sign of the man himself.

But … rumour is rife in San Marco that a document signed by Napoleon himself was found in the Principe Fortuny's portfolio. Florian smiles but says nothing.

Venice is the city of secrets … but secrets known to more than one are, as Florian says, not secret at all … earlier today, a close friend, a pretty young sailor, steersman aboard an Austrian barquetto, told me of a sweet adventure …

Laying in close to an island in the lagoon, a young Englishman had leapt aboard to join a beautiful woman whom they were taking out to a fast brigantine bound for Falmouth. She seemed excited … my sailor imagined that they were eloping … the only baggage she had brought aboard was a great leathern chest of books and scrolls. The Englishman was angry with her, would not respond to her caresses … kept asking for the flask, the flask, the flask … why had she not used the flask? Over and over.

She grew angry and said she might have a better use for it at some future time … he laughed at her obvious threat, which annoyed her even more … she waved a small beautifully worked steel and gold vial at him, before secreting it between her breasts …

'Venetian bitch', the Englishman called her …'Fleming the English … Fleming the mercenary', she called him … as they embraced.

*

Passion … desperate passion … play on … play ...

*

© Trevor Ray, 2007. On Trevor Ray:

... mouthing filigree silver chains and amber set in golden riddles,
I swear by the ancient rubric of the goddess who made life smile …
[I wonder what I’m thinking as I exercise these worms?]
Celts couldn’t write until the fourteenth century was dead,
since when what curious crap have we sung, penned and said …

-----

Part of the Process
Karina Mellinger

Mary and Tony are going for a weekend to Venice to revive their flagging marriage. Even now, squirming in their leather seats in the First Class Lounge at Heathrow, sipping from flutes of chilled vintage Krug, they both know this trip is a bad idea.

It reminds Mary of the first night of their honeymoon when they stood side by side on the balcony of their suite at The Georges V and watched the fireworks which spelt out their names spilling down over the Seine. She knew marriage to Tony had been a bad idea then.

And it reminds Tony of their first date when Mary arrived at the Royal Opera House wearing an orange trouser suit, almost as hideous as the emerald silk dress she has on now. That’s when he first knew a relationship with Mary was going to be a bad idea.

But, bad or not, life goes on and their marriage guidance counsellor, Diana, has told them that going on a holiday may sound like a cliché but it really can make a huge difference.

Diana says she has cancelled her other plans and she will be at their complete disposition the entire weekend of their stay. They can ring her whenever they want. That’s how much she wants their marriage to work. So they’re off to Venice to give things one last try. They’re doing it for Diana. More than anything Mary and Tony really don’t want to let her down.

*

When they land at Marco Polo Airport Mary immediately disappears to the ladies lavatory so she can ring Diana and tell her about the flight, how it had been a nightmare, how her langoustine had had a metallic taste to it, how the novel she was reading had ended implausibly and how for the entire journey Tony had rustled his copy of The Telegraph like a man possessed.

Diana suggests to Mary that her reaction to the newspaper noise may be related to their previous discussions about Mary’s feelings of sexual inadequacy. Will Mary reflect on that? Mary says she will. Diana says she’ll ring her soon to see whether she’s come to any conclusion – would Mary like that? Mary says she would.

Diana tells Mary that to calm herself down she should do the Body Contact exercise they have been practising together, the one where Mary rests her hand gently on her thyroid, heart, liver and pubic bone for three seconds and says to each of them in turn, ‘I accept you.’

Mary looks at herself in the mirror above the long line of handbasins.

She touches herself. She says, ‘I accept you. I accept you. I accept you. I accept you.’

Two women are standing next to her washing their hands. One of them says to her friend, ‘Questa qui è matta.’

The other woman shrugs. ‘Cosa vuoi – è inglese.’ Mary feels better already.

*

Mary and Tony walk out of the airport into the hot sunshine. Tony flinches. Warmth he likes but this kind of heat he finds oppressive, excessive. They have booked a small, exclusive hotel on the Venice Lido. That way they can absorb the aesthetic energy of the city without actually having to plod round it. They walk down the pier to their waiting speedboat. Tony notices that the driver has a slight squint. Tony is frustrated. You don’t come to the most beautiful city on the face of the Earth to be ferried around by someone who looks like that.

They set off across the lagoon. The water is flat and soft and giving like a turquoise cashmere carpet. Then, of his own volition, without even bothering to ask if this is something Mary and Tony would like, the driver does a detour up the Grand Canal instead of going straight to the hotel. This is annoying as Tony wanted to get to the hotel sooner rather than later to check the latest Nasdaq prices. The motorboat splices past Piazza San Marco, Santa Maria della Salute, Palazzo Dario, Palazzo Loredan, Santa Maria della Carità. Mary scrabbles in her handbag to find her favourite lipstick which she thinks she must have left on the bloody plane.

Tony looks at the buildings filing past. The driver turns to Tony and gestures towards them with a squinty-eyed look of pleasure and pride.

‘Una meraviglia!’ the driver cries.

‘Yes. Very nice,’ Tony says.

Tony feels the lagoon water spray onto his face and a mild sensation of sea sickness at the pit of his stomach. He is with a woman with poor dress sense and a man with a squint. He wants to be happy but how can he?

He texts Diana, ‘Life is so imperfect!’

She texts back, ‘This awareness is part of your process,

Tony. Cherish it.’ So he does. Thank God for Diana.

*

hen they arrive they find that Diana has arranged for flowers – white roses, tuberoses, calla lilies and gingers – in the bedroom suite. The room is swooning with their fragrance. Tony has them removed before they set off his hayfever. There is a hand-written note from Diana: it says ‘I’m so proud of you both.’ Tony feels tears well in his eyes. They ring her to say thank you, taking it in turns on the phone. She asks how they feel going down to dinner. They both say it’s going to be tough. Diana says she is there for them. Tony and Mary both wish she were.

When the time comes, however, Tony and Mary feel they cannot face the hotel dining room so they arrange instead for room service. As they cannot decide what they want to eat they order a buffet. The hotel sets up a table outside on their private terrace, a wide platform of ornate terracotta, engorged with jasmine and bougainvillia, edged with steps down to a small lawned garden which leads to the hotel’s private beach.

The sun is setting. The sky has settled to a rich russet streaked with lemon and red.

Mary and Tony decide they would rather have supper in their room so they can watch the evening news on TV while they eat. They have the table brought in from the terrace. The waiter fills their glasses with a 2001 Chardonnay delle Venezie. He presents them with ripe melon and peaches and figs and with Mozzarella Bufala Campana, Carpaccio and Prosciutto Veneto Berico-Euganeo. Tony doesn’t care for starters on principle. Mary has never liked raw meat, for Christ’s sake. She nibbles at a bread roll.

Mary and Tony leave their mobiles out on the dining table, just in case Diana rings.

Mary knows she should make small talk with Tony but doesn’t know where to start. She texts Diana, ‘Nothing to say!’ Diana texts back, ‘Relax. Silence is rich with possibility.’ Mary sighs with relief. The waiter removes their empty plates. Mary notices that he is very handsome with high, taut buttocks. Of course. Italian men are so predictable.

The waiter returns with a large tray laden with dishes. He sets the tray down. He says, slowly, ‘C’è Vitello in Salsa di Cacciagione al Tartufo, Fritto Misto di Mare, Moleche Frite, Cozze all’Aglio e Prezzemolo, Sardine in Saor, Bigoli co’l’Arna. He looks intently at Mary and waits.

Mary looks at the dishes paraded before her. She sniffs. ‘Ugh. Garlic,’ she grimaces. She puts up her hand to indicate revulsion and refusal. Tony accepts some of the veal but nothing else. He’s not sure what any of the rest of it is and, anyway, he never has much of an appetite after a flight.

A pianist from the Accademia di San Rocco arrives and sits at the Fazioli grand piano in the salone just off the terrace. She plays the last movement of Schubert’s Sonata in D Major. The music seeps in through the open doors of the room. The waiter bows his head in reverence. Tony gets up and closes the doors. He can’t concentrate on the bloody news with that noise going on.

Mary and Tony sit wordlessly. Tony chews; Mary picks at the crust of her roll.

Finally, when the news is over, Tony puts the TV on mute and announces that he thinks this is getting silly and that they should ring Diana.

‘Fine,’ says Mary eagerly.

They dial Diana’s number. ‘Hi Diana,’ says Tony. ‘Look, Diana,’ he says, ‘this isn’t going very well. Could I just put my mobile on speaker phone and you just stay on line for a bit?’

‘OK, of course, I’m here for you.’

Mary and Tony both sigh with relief.

Tony returns to his supper.

‘How is it?’ Mary asks politely. ‘How’s what?’ Tony asks desperately. Jesus, not another analysis of his existential state, he prays, please God no.

‘The food.’

‘So so. Aren’t you going to have anything?’

‘I’m finishing this cigarette first.’

‘Yes, I noticed that.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Is this the prelude to another lecture about smoking? Because I don’t think I could handle that right now, I really don’t!’ Mary shrieks.

‘You see, Diana – even the most trivial comment is misinterpreted.’

‘Let her express herself, Tony,’ Diana advises calmly over the airwaves.

‘Is this part of her process?’ Tony asks in a thin, tired voice.

‘Yes, Tony, it is,’ says Diana.

‘OK,’ he whispers meekly.

‘The fact is,’ Mary continues loudly, ‘I can’t stop thinking about the langoustine I had on the plane. It was definitely off, I could taste it, I could smell it, and I think that it may have been a metaphor for my marriage. That too is off, over.’

‘OK, Mary, this is good,’ Diana says reassuringly. ‘You’re getting in touch with your anger. That’s good.’

‘No, it’s not! You know I can’t do anger without you here, Diana,’ Mary trembles.

‘I know that,’ says Diana. There is a knock at the door. When the waiter opens it there is Diana.

‘Diana!!’ Mary and Tony both cry as they rush over to embrace her, their bodies colliding spontaneously against each other for the first time in years.

‘I thought I’d better come to support you in case things got really tough so – here I am.’

‘Marvellous!’ Tony beams. ‘Waiter!’ he instructs, ‘bring another place setting!’

‘No,’ says Diana firmly, ‘no, I won’t actually sit with you, I’ll just sit near you, so you know that I’m here, so you’ve got the confidence to really be yourselves.’ Diana goes over to a low armchair at the edge of the room.

‘Oh. OK,’ Mary and Tony both mumble in disappointment. Dejectedly, they walk back to their seats.

The waiter brings a bottle of Vin Santo and cheeses and desserts. Quartirolo Lombardo, Robiola di Roccaverano, Provolone Val Padana. Zabaione, Tiramisu, Panna Cotta, Amaretti, Cioccolatini con Aceto Balsamico di Modena. Tony takes one of the biscuits but it’s terribly dry, nothing like Digestives. Mary pings her finger against her cut-crystal glass. Eventually the handsome waiter clears the plates of uneaten food away. ‘Non è piaciuto?’ he asks them both.

‘What did he say?’ Mary asks.

‘God knows,’ says Tony. Why should he care what the waiter has said?

*

It’s time for bed. Tony and Mary undress and put on their pyjamas. Diana sits quietly on the chair at the foot of the bed.

‘Thank you for being here,’ says Tony humbly.

‘No problem,’ says Diana. ‘Use me as you need me.’

‘Fine,’ says Mary gratefully.

Mary and Tony get into bed. Tony reads The Financial Times, The Investors Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal and Money Week. Mary watches Casablanca on TV and orders a new Fendi handbag from the internet on her laptop. There is a reproduction in oil of Lorenzo Lotto’s ‘St Catherine’ on the wall. The saint is holding her head at an irritating angle. Mary gets up and takes the painting down.

Eventually Tony feels sleepy and turns out the light. Mary nods off at the bit where things get emotional in the film.

*

Diana takes off all her clothes and walks out onto the terrace. She feels the terracotta stone still warm with the heat of the day. She feels it glowing, vibrating under her feet. The waiter comes and takes her in his arms and kisses her. He massages Vin Santo into her breasts; he wipes Zabaione down the length of her back and licks it off. He crams Carpaccio into her mouth and eats it out of her. He wipes ripe figs across her thighs, and smears Panna Cotta up between her legs then devours it all.

*

The next morning Mary and Tony wake up. Diana is there, awake, in her chair. Tony has an erection. He says to Diana, ‘I had an amazing dream in the night.’

‘Dreams are good,’ Diana says.

He turns to Mary. ‘Shall we take a boat to the islands today? There’s the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta on Torcello which is a thousand years old.’

‘Jesus, Tony,’ says Mary, ‘I don’t think I can be bothered, not in this heat.’

‘Yes. Maybe you’re right,’ he says. He reaches for the phone to order breakfast and then to ring the office in London.

Diana smiles.

*

© Karina Mellinger, 2007. Karina Mellinger worked in Italy and is now a full-time writer. Her novels Defying Reality and A Bit of a Marriage are published by Dedalus.

This story previously appeared in The Decadent Handbook, also published by Dedalus. Dedalus have specialised in publishing contemporary English language and translated European fiction for almost 25 years. Recently announced funding withdrawal is threatening their continued existence. Please check out their website, www.dedalusbooks.com, for more details on their books and the campaign – Don't Let Dedalus Die.

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