The Gondola Scam (9 page)

Across the lagoon the beautiful San Giorgio Maggiore rose from the
vague afternoon mist, and, away beyond, a suggestion of the Lido's buildings
showed where the Adriatic Sea was kept at bay. To the left was the Arsenale
shipyard, which had turned out a completed warship every day when the Serene
Republic was doing over the Turks. To the right across the water, the gold gleams
of the Salute church were still celebrating the end of the bubonic plague and
marking the start of the Grand Canal.

But where were the streets, the avenues, the cars? Odd, that, I’d
heard of Venice's canals, of course. I just wasn't prepared for the fact that
they were everywhere and completely displaced roads. I stood to watch a big
liner shushing slowly past, turning in towards the long raised spine of the
Giudecca island. Another odd thing—despite the bustle, no noise except for the
occasional muffled roar of a water taxi. I finally got the point of Joker
Benchley's cable home: "Streets full of water. Please advise." You
walk in tiny alleys between the canals, on bridges over the water, or in and
out of tiny squares, and that's about it. The fondamente, places where an
actual pavement exists, are practically major landmarks and rare enough to have
special names. All right, I thought. Venice is simply one hell of a tangle,
with hardly anywhere to put your feet.

But it was still the place where I would find that yacht-owning
lemon-colored smoothie and his two goons that did for Crampie and Mr. Malleson.
Ledger couldn't touch me here, and with luck some delectable antique might fall
my way.

Right, now. Where to start? I looked about expectantly.

"You find a welcome, signore?"

The boatman was smoking nearby. I nodded. "Yes, thank
you."

The water taxi which had brought us from the mainland airport was
idle at the wharf. From the way the driver was grinning he had spotted my
deception. And I thought I'd been so slick, mingling discreetly with the Cosol
tour mob who had flocked off our plane, getting a free sail into Venice. He
offered me a fag. I declined with a headshake.

"First time in Venice, signore?"

"Very first. It's beautiful." No grass, no countryside,
I suddenly realized with delight. Everything— every single thing —in sight was
man-made. Boats, canals, houses, wharves, bridges, hotels, churches.
Everything. It gave me a funny feeling, almost as if I'd come safe home.

''
Grazie
." He read
my glance with the keen skill of centuries. "We have trees and fields,
signore—out at Torcello island and places."

"
Deo gratias
,"
I said, thanking God with ambiguous politeness, which restored his approving
grin. "Your little signorina was upset because I, ah, borrowed a ride?"

The Cosol courier was a pretty but distraught girl who had engaged
in a ferocious whispered row with him at the airport. She was still inside the
hotel seeing to complicated room allocations. He pulled a face.

'The other girl refused to come this week. Signorina Cosima will
have to run all our tours." He shrugged eloquently as if that was the
ultimate calamity.

"Your boat wouldn't be free for a half-hour?" I said, a
little too quickly. The penny had dropped at long last.

"Possibly," he said in a way that left no doubt.
"Perhaps I show the signore the Grand Canal, the Rialto Bridge, the—"

"May I give directions?" I suggested politely.

He already had the painter in his hand. He nodded at my words, as
if Venice constantly received complete strangers who knew their way about.

The weird familiarity of Venice is quite unnerving. Like coming
across your own backyard in, say, darkest Abyssinia. Five minutes after leaving
the hotel I was looking expectantly for landmarks which I knew would be there.
"Vivaldi's church of la Pietd, non i veto?" I said even before we
cast off. It was only five or so buildings along the Riva wharf from the hotel.
An instant later, the romantically misnamed Bridge of Sighs, the Doge's Palace,
the great Campanile and the Piazza of St. Mark's. Every lovely thing exactly
where you expected. We swept grandly past them, me rapturously thinking I was
dreaming at the splendor of it all.

Thin crowds meandered between the long tethered line of nodding
gondolas and the start of the slender Marzaria shopping lane which runs off the
Piazza. Harry's Bar was in action not far from the waterbus stop. We came
abreast and plowed into the Grand Canal. I asked if it was always this crowded.

"Worse, signore.
L’estate!
''
The boatman rolled his eyes at the problem of the summer. "Even the
Accademia Bridge groans then. The trouble is, everything in Venice is
famous."

"You must be glad—so many customers," I said,
"though I suppose many bring their own boats?"

"Not many," he replied, slowing to deflect his prow from
a gondola crossing the canal up ahead. "Visiting boats moor over the other
side, facing the Giudecca."

Important news, for when the
Eveline
arrived. "I hadn't expected the Grand Canal to be so wide."

All innocent, I asked him to let me watch the gondola. In it, four
people stood solemnly upright while the gondola crossed the canal. Our boat
idled by the little wooden jetties.

"Fixed fare on the
traghetto
,
the gondola ferry." He spoke with scorn. "That's all they do—to and
fro."

My eyes were drawn to the adjacent buildings fronting the canal's
splashy water.

"Do many foreigners have a palace here?"

"Palazzo," he corrected politely. I'd used the English
word by mistake. "Merely means a grand house, in Venice. Yes, plenty come.
Most stay in hotels such as that, in the campo there by the
traghetto
jetty." His gaze idled
across the campo to the tall pink-washed palazzo opposite. "Others, the
rich, buy their own palazzi."

It was all I could do not to turn and stare at the building. What
was it old Pinder had said so dreamily by his fireside when trying to persuade
me to work for him?
The hours I have
watched the traghetto men smoke and talk in the campo below my window in the
Grand Canal!

"No pavement," I observed, my excitement just barely
under control. The houses just drop sheer into the water. Therefore no place to
stroll casually past in the dark hours and test the strength of the palazzo's
drainpipes, because there was simply nowhere to stroll.

"Vero," the boatman said. "Except one can walk in
the campo, and even reach the Basilica on foot."

The narrow space had once been a tiny field, hence its name. One
side, that hotel. The other side, the palazzo of Mrs. Lavinia Norman—if I'd
guessed right. I needed my map, where the palazzi were named.

"Are there many
traghetti
in Venice?"

"Very few." He coughed to draw my attention. "Signore.
The waterbus is approaching. And the
traghetto
has crossed long since."

"Ah. Sorry. Fine." I nodded for him to go ahead,
irritated at being too obvious.

The waterbus was creaming towards its stop, a wobbling T-shaped
jetty full of intending passengers.

"To the Rialto Bridge, signore? Or the Fenice Theater? You'll
know we Venetians invented opera."

"You've a lot to answer for." His face fell, but I
honestly can't understand why every little opera takes a fortnight. I glanced
forward. "Show me the shape of Venice, please."

''
Subito
,” he said, and
we took off up the Grand Canal.

Everything is fantastic when you think about it long enough. But
some things are just simply mindblowers by nature. Venice is one of them.

It's a man-made universe of alleys, ancient houses, and great—
great
—churches crammed onto a maze of
canals. And where? On 117 islets, in a lagoon over two hundred square miles
big, that's where, with the Adriatic Sea muttering sullenly just over a mile
from the main island cluster which is Venice proper. Like the water bloke said,
everything in Venice is famous. But to grow accustomed to Venice you'd need a
lifetime. I was amazed at everything.

Venice is singing cage birds at canal-side windows. Venice is
exquisite shops and window dressing. Venice is inverted-funnel chimneys,
leaning campaniles, wrought iron at doors and windows, grilles at every
fenestration, little flower sellers, droves of children and noisy youths.
Venice is bridges every few yards, narrow alleys where you have to duck to get
under the houses which have crammed so close they've merged to make a flat
tunnel. Venice is patchy areas of din—from speedboats racing to deposit their
owners in cafes to do nothing hour upon hour—and silence. It's uncanny, really,
how it can be broad day and all is silent. The canals glass. Nothing moves. The
calli empty. Bridges hang in permanent solitude of space and time, as if the
world was concentrating. Then, somnolently ambling round a confined comer,
you're suddenly wedged in a dense, crowded people-jam pandemonium between
glittering shops. It's the abruptness of the transition that gets me every
time: tranquillity into hubbub. Venice is a million separate sound barriers.
Venice even has its methods—police boats, waterbuses, grocery boats, even
funeral gondolas and barges conveniently moored facing the Madonna dell' Orto
church on the side of Venice nearest the cemetery island. And the whole set of
islands and lagoon on the go.

The boatman put me down exactly on the Riva. We had a high old
time arguing the price for my two-hour jaunt, but deep down I was badly shaken.
From every side I had been slammed by emanations from antiques—the buildings
and the treasures they contained. I could hardly see, let alone breathe or
argue sensibly. Even so, I had a shrewd suspicion the boatman surrendered too
easily to a price which was almost fair. Something was wrong. I made great play
of standing on his wood jetty watching the tourists stroll among the cafe
tables set out along the waterfront.

"Apologies to Signorina Cosima if I made you late."

"Cesare,” the boatman said. "Like Borgia."

"
Grazie
, Cesare.
Lovejoy,” I said. He didn't even guffaw.

He tried the name experimentally while folding the money away.
"Should you need to travel to the palazzo of your friends, ask along the
Riva anytime,
per piacere
." He'd
used the singular, palazzo. So he meant one in particular.

I said carefully, "Friends? I know no one in Venice,
Cesare."

"Of course not," he said with gravity. "I meant
should you wish to."

"You know all about Venice."

He smiled deprecatingly. "We Venetians know some, though not
all. Much is rumor—especially about newcomers in rich houses."

There it was. He had detected my interest in the palazzo. I smiled
and nodded. "It's a deal. Give me a day to find my feet. Oh." I
stopped on the stone wharf. "Give me a tip about Venice. Anything." I
explained away his puzzlement: "I collect facts." All too often they
mean survival.

"Ah,
capisco
."
He thought a second. "How long have you got?"

"Ten days."

"Then it will be useful for you to know that we Venetians buy
wine by taking an empty bottle for a refill. Make sure it's a one-liter
bottle."

Bigger bottle, same price. "Very useful. Thanks,
Cesare."

"Wait, signore. In Venice we too collect useful facts."

After a quick think I said, "Santa Claus is also patron saint
of prostitutes."

He nodded seriously, coiling the painter. "You are a careful
man, Lovejoy. My tip will be most useful to you. Yours is without value."

"Not everything is money."

His audible gasp at this heresy gave me a grin. On my way past
that daft plumed statue of Victor Emmanuel, the Cosol courier Cosima hurried out,
pretty with exasperation. Almost before she reached Cesare's water taxi, she
was blasting him for being late.

Ten days, minus one.

10

Food is definitely funny stuff. Miles from home it takes on a
weirdness that either turns you into a gourmet or repels you for life.

To me, a plate of spaghetti is a full meal. To Venetians if s no
more than a windbreak. After noshing enough to sink a fleet, they just soldier
on through a jungle salad, then wade into half a fried calf followed by a
gelato all the colors of the rainbow. It's nourishing just to watch. Mind you,
it takes nerve. Seeing a Venetian whittle a mound of whitebait is like watching
a seal cull.

Go away from the Riva down one of those little alleys where your
shoulders practically touch both walls, turn right, and you'll find one of the
best nosh places in Venice. It's tucked under the shoulder of a bridge before
the San Zaccaria. Venetian boatmen use it, so I felt it was as near to Woody's
caff as I was likely to find, and in I went for a slammer of a meal. Some kinds
of strange grub you can guess at, like how they'll do their veal. Others—fried
rings of squid, for example—you don't know until you take your courage in both
hands. Then there's polenta, which I tried because I'd never heard the word before,
and got this yellow woolly maize breadcake, toasted hot as hell. It's the local
equivalent of our pastie—filling, cheap, eaten anywhere anytime. Made me feel
quite at home, especially when I began to get slightly pickled on the wine.