The Mascherari: A Novel of Venice (4 page)

Ever daring in the advancement of my ideas, I had persisted with my research, even if I did not share my findings with Almoro. I returned to Tuscany to work as a teacher and marry, leaving behind the darkness I had seen in Venezia.

And today, here I was, faced with the death of three wealthy merchants and their leader, Giacomo Contarini.

***

It was believed that after a sumptuous banquet at a private party held by the marquis, Giacomo Contarini had taken to a balustraded balcony with his daughter, Giovanna.  Witnesses had watched him follow her as the evening drew to a close.

The servant had presented Giacomo with a drink but the signore had flatly refused. The servant recounted that Signor Contarini had a mean pout on his mouth as he stepped out into the night behind his daughter. It was, he said, a chilling contrast to the smiling row of pearl teeth which dangled from Signor Contarini’s mask.

All this I learned from the marquis who then promptly invited me to question two of his servants before excusing himself for a courtesy visit to the Signora Contarini.

“Where was Rolandino at that time?” I asked one of the servants, as I took notes.

The servant fumbled with his memory. Signor Vitturi? He had spoken to no one on the night. He brooded in contempt in a corner. His betrothed, the delightful Giovanna, had attempted to cajole him many times before fleeing to the balcony in tears. She fed him cakes and flounced around him like a child but Rolandino was in no festive spirits. No doubt he plotted to murder both father and daughter.

“Ubertino. What about Ubertino?” I asked.

The servants looked at each other.

“I think he died of food poisoning. Shell crab, it was, Signore.”

“Or the devil’s work,” said the other, crossing himself twice.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“They found the bloated body of Ubertino Canal shoved between silk cushions on a divan. We thought he was asleep but he was dead. A physician took him away to have him examined for blood poisoning. You should visit him, Signor da Parma. The third street down the San Lorenzo Church in Castello. A Jewish doctor–he won’t make a mistake.”

“
Si
. I shall see him. And, what about Guido Canal?”

“Guido, drunken Guido,” one of them chuckled.

The other servant gave an indignant huff and shrugged his shoulders. 

“He was an embarrassment to the marquis. A man with no breeding. Intoxicated quite early in the evening. Drunk himself to death,” he replied.

I stared at them for a moment.

“Could he have been poisoned?” I asked.

“No, Signor da Parma. Guido was drunk.  He fell into the canal and drowned.”

So simple, I thought. Two simple, unrelated deaths that Mother Nature engineers while a man commits two other murders on the balcony. Why had Almoro Donato boasted of obscure circumstances?  Is Nature’s simplicity too unsettling for the Consiglio that it should frown upon it? For a fleeting moment, I surmised that Almoro knew something that I did not.

“And, what of the fourth dead man?”

“Balsamo?”

I nodded.

There was a moment of hesitation as they looked at me, unable to speak. At last, one of them spoke, appearing a little flustered.

“Balsamo Morosini left early, Signore,” he said sheepishly.

“Do you know what became of him?”

At first, they refused to answer, eyeing each other with concern.  At last one of them broke the silence.

“He took to the brothels in Carampane,” he whispered in my ear, before standing back and looking sternly the other way.

I frowned.

“How did he die?”

“I do not know, Signore. You must see the Jewish physician who examined him. He will tell you,” he answered, smiling forcefully.

His voice was light and high-pitched, a tone I’ve often glimpsed in a lying Venetian. He handed me a card with the doctor’s cabinet address. I took it in silence, not understanding their sudden reticence to speak.

“You say Balsamo took to the brothels. Which was it? Did one of you order a carriage for the Signor Morosini?” I asked as they escorted me out.

“I will take you to the place where he was found. Tomorrow. I bid you good day, Signore.”

I left the marquis’ home much perplexed.

For now, these deaths were in want of motive. The simplicity in Rolandino’s presumed murders, the unconcealed nature of his crime and its location–a public place out on a balcony, surrounded by guests–seemed to me an improbable proposition.  No man in his right mind, that is, assuming that Rolandino was in his right mind, would endeavor such a feat without being sent to a certain death by the three
Capi
.

Once back in my Santa Croce apartment, I wrote notes in my diary:

Visit the dottore, Abram Elia.

Visit the carampanas.

I shuddered, unnerved by the imposition of this case and its brutality on my senses. The Tuscan hills seemed faraway.

With a sigh, I added what appeared to me the most evident duty:

Question Rolandino in prison before his trial.

And finally, I took it upon myself to enrich my notions of the Contarini family.  The files spoke of a son, three and twenty– Lorenzo Contarini. The funeral would not be held until days later. Perhaps he would not mind speaking of his sister and father.

It dawned on me that Lorenzo, in classical thought at least, was a suspect.

I mused on that thought. A son would inherit all from his father’s wealth if the latter and his primary partner were eliminated. Was Rolandino Vitturi a victim of circumstances, perhaps?

I hailed a carriage and took to the Contarini estate in Castello.

When a son is asked to mourn his father by a society as hypocritical as the said father, I am convinced it is justifiable to laugh in society’s face and decline.  I would rather much expose my father for who he was, than lament upon his death. This I will do gladly and hope it profits the
avogadore
in his inquest.

Antonio da Parma has asked me to write down, as my deposition, everything I know about Giacomo Contarini and the circumstances of his death.  He has promised he will burn the letter before me as soon as he reads it and that it will never be seen by any member of the Consiglio dei Dieci. He will, however, relate as he sees fit, those ideas that serve his investigation.  This letter is to remain between us and the only reason I bring such a volume of words to paper is to give me enough time to recollect all that has transpired between the eve of Carnivale and the murder of my father and my dearest sister, Giovanna who I prefer to call Zanetta.

I have always scoffed at this popular pastime we Veneziani seem to have–of keeping diaries, of recording every idiocy that has amused us in a given day.  It seems that the citizen of the Republic believes that what he does or says is of such importance that it ought to be noted for generations to ponder over.  As for me, I never lay my deepest thoughts onto paper.  If I open myself today, it is only because it will aid in Antonio da Parma’s investigation.

And so I write.

On this morning, Antonio presented himself to our home. My mother was upstairs, nursing an eternal headache. She has no tears left for my father, having cried already for twenty years of marriage. I invited him into my new apartments, in the adjacent building.  I explained that the Contarini
casa
joins another via a marble and brick arch; that this arch, adorned with our family coat of arms can be seen to group the Contarini estates. He agreed to cross to the other edifice, so that we would not unsettle my mother in her mourning period.

As we crossed to my apartments I gave him the Venetian welcome. That is to say, I spoke of death, of old age and naturally, of our very ill Doge Mocenigo.  If I at all mentioned Doge Mocenigo’s illustrious time as an admiral, it was to point out that my grandfather had served under him at the Battle of Chiogga. We made small talk and Antonio shared that he had always been a great admirer of Tommaso Mocenigo since his earlier years as Doge, when he chose to make peace with the vanquished Saracens at Gallipoli. I asked Antonio if he had been to Constantinople and he replied that he had not, and had never ventured further east than Venezia.

I offered him a tray of almond sweets, laced in sugar coating. He graciously declined and instead took some grapes. I took note that he baffled at my high spirits especially given the tragic circumstances. How one could eat sweets at a time like this, was the question I read upon his face. It would be deemed more proper if I adopted a miserable countenance even when forced to work at this testimony. The ways of society are twisted indeed.

Antonio da Parma, meet Lorenzo Contarini. Yes, I am a happy man. You will frown at my joyful disposition and you will judge me and scorn me and entreat me as my mother does to shun Carnivale and the merry happenings of this period while I am a mourning son.   But I tell you that from now, until the next year and the year after that, when this state of affairs is long forgotten and the soul of my sister is close to our Lord in Heaven, just as the memory of her angelic laughter brings a smile to my face whenever I think back to her, I will be a happy man.

And you do well to ask me why, Signore, because I burst to tell you.

Do you want to know why, Signor da Parma?

Because I am a disciple of Petrarch. I am a man who loves.  I am passionately in love.  Courtship is all I think of, night and day and the scent of her enflames my soul, even when she is not by my side.  And this love, this dear treasure that I hold near, she who haunts my nights and delivers arrows to my bleeding heart, I would have had no recourse but to tear her own heart to shreds had my father, Giacomo Contarini, lived today.

But this is all too much for you, Antonio, may I call you Antonio?  Your distant eyes tell me you are not a man who has loved the same way. What would you know of the passion burning in my blood? Forgive me, but you remind me of those priests who revile the flesh and expect women to lie still, waiting for their husband’s seed.  But what do I know of the signore? Forgive me. We, Veneziani, are a little coarse, at times, with our humor.

I think you will need to understand how it has been for me–the heavy burden of being Lorenzo Contarini, the only son of Giacomo Contarini.

For five years, this honorable merchant has plotted away my life to reap the profits of a marital alliance. He has betrothed me to a woman that I do not love.  What care I for her ample dowry and the rings on her fingers or the jewels that encrust her many silk dresses? What care I for the galley fortunes our alliance will secure? I do not even remember her name. Be her, Morosini, Canal, Contarini, or from another of our best patrician families– what care I?  It is my Daniela that I love. I would kiss her bare feet if she were destitute.

What care I for the fortunes to be made from a marriage between a tedious patrician and my unfortunate self?  Must we breed children in a loveless marriage and squander this life for ducats?  I have seen enough of my mother’s tears to choose this same torment. Giacomo can forget the family ducats. His son will marry Daniela. And now there is nothing Giacomo can do to stop him. Because, when he lived, how he tried!

“Lorenzo,” he once told me, “I allow you to further your education with the Moro girl”–this is what he called her–“but nothing more! This marriage will take place.”

“It will never take place, Father,” I would answer, always quietly, but with an assurance that never failed to displease him.

I dispensed retorts without a thought, because I knew how easily angered he was. 

It was always the same. As I prepared for my night outings, perfumed with scented oils, a sonnet in my pocket for my beloved, Giacomo glowered at me. He knew where I spent my evenings.

“Daniela Moro will never be a Contarini!” he thundered.

And then at dinner, after a good meal, he would find other tortuous ways to dampen my devotion by sullying the very people I had learned to cherish.

“Artisans,” he would say, as he fed morsels to his spoiled terriers. “I ask you. What do they do for the Republic? Signor Moro does not even paint. A true painter is an artist, one who creates masterpieces. Donatello! Now, that - that is an artist.  None of this dabbling at paint, splashing about on canvas while his daughter writes. What does she write? Poetry? Humph.”

“Poetry, Father. She also teaches.”

“What is it with Venetian women these days? Writing? What kind of a woman who has never raised children or suffered the pains of childbirth can write? I ask you. Lorenzo? Where are you going? Lorenzo, I am not finished speaking. You will remain seated!”

As he shouted, even the terriers at his feet set off to bark at me.

You know what we say, here– ‘
relatives, toothache
’. Yes, such was my father.

And sometimes I did not bother to respond to him. And he would venture into yet more malice, stinging at my heart with all the venom this Republic encourages.

“It is not just the pitiful dowry,
fio mio
. Do you forget her Jewish descent? Do you want your children to be little bloodsuckers?”

I shall spare you the venom of his ways.

Yes, Father. Unlike you, I can forget. I am in love, you see? In love. 

But Giacomo Contarini had other designs.  And we, the children of Giacomo Contarini, we were only pawns in his game and he saw fit to move us as he wished.  It would have pleased my father to see our Zanetta married off to that lout, that imbecile Rolandino.  What a splendid little arrangement if his own daughter could be married off to a primary commerce partner.  The genius of Giacomo!  How befitting that the dowry would not leave the Contarini coffers. What does it matter if his daughter inherited a toad for a husband?

They want me to grieve, but I rejoice, Signor da Parma.  In death, I know my sister is safe from this boor who would have never loved her for as long as he remained enslaved to my father.

So I come, now, to the question of Rolandino. Because this letter has in it much rejoicing and you will frown at me and accuse me of such and such. You will deduce that I, Lorenzo Contarini, lover of Daniela Moro, is guilty of murder.  For who else has much to profit as I, since I am blessed with free will and shall do as I please now that my father is dead.  But I have nothing to hide.  I will tell you what I know, Signor da Parma. And you will make up your own mind.

Rolandino is owed many ducats. My father played him for a fool, but I do not think Rolandino knows it. Deep down he may, or at least, he suspects. But what can he do?  For months, he was trapped. On the one hand, there was Zanetta, whom he very much wished to marry–much as an imbecile marries who will have him–and on the other hand, there was the sum of one thousand ducats he had lent to my father and expected in return with forty percent interest.

Forty percent. Even the Jews my father called leeches do not lend for that price. But these are the Vitturi dealings. It is not for nothing that we, Veneziani, say
money is our second blood
.

So what I know, is that five days ago, Rolandino was at his wit’s end.

“It does not add up, Giacomo,” I heard him say, as they peered into my father’s account book.  I remember feeling amused.  Like my father, Rolandino keeps two account books– one for the tax assessors and investors, and the other with the real figures.  

I heard my father’s voice soften and knew, already, that he was fibbing.

“Rolandino, I know there were three ships. But only two of them returned. Shall I plunge into the Adriatic and retrieve the merchandise for you? Is it my fault if the mercenaries of the
muda
cannot do their work?”

“Useless! They ought to have caught those Saracen pirates! Now I am ruined!”

“Rolandino, Rolandino! Calm yourself.”

There were muffled exchanges and then I heard Rolandino’s whiny voice through the door.

“You told me it was a safe passage and that I’d nothing to fear. I invested all the ducats I had. I had faith in you, Giacomo! And look at me now.  Everything I pay is through letters of credit.  I cannot continue like this!”

“I know, Rolandino. I know. Patience. You will have your money.”

They continued for hours and when they emerged from the room, I noted that Rolandino was in a sour mood.

As I passed into the kitchen, my father saw me and lowered his voice, but I heard him whisper something to Rolandino about visiting all debtors in Santa Croce to put both their affairs in order.  He patted Rolandino’s hand before embracing him. That seemed to settle Rolandino a little.

I come to the end of my deposition now.

You will ask me to think back and to remember what happened before the banquet at the marquis’ house. Did Rolandino appear disposed to committing murder, perhaps?  Was he at odds with my father? No. No, I can offer you nothing there.

I have thought long about this. Maybe I have missed a meaning that you might understand, Signor da Parma. So I will tell you everything.

I will tell you about that day.  The day Rolandino murdered my father.

I will start from the instant my mother presented the morning’s banquet in the main living room downstairs, to the moment when my father, his four friends, Giovanna and myself, headed out for the marquis’ home.

What I remember, of that morning, is seeing our friends’ gondolas outside our house.  Early. All of them. 

I can see into Rio del Pestrin from the top of my bedroom and as I looked down, the first person I saw arriving was Balsamo in his black and gold gondola, the drapes of his
felze
in brocaded velvet, emblazoned with the coat of arms of the Morosini–the entire gondola fitted and trimmed so as to best make an appearance as only Balsamo knew. I was furious at my father for refusing to invite Daniela. I longed to join her, but I knew I could not absent myself from the marquis’ salon until later that evening. And so I had little patience for Balsamo’s antics and his airs.

Soon afterwards, as I dressed, there was a loud noise beneath my window. I leaned across, in time to see Rolandino’s rowdy Nicolotto gondolier take to our water door. Shouting to some other Castellano gondolier who had refused him passage, he was qualifying this one’s mother with all the nouns he could pronounce. There was much blasphemy downstairs as Rolandino tried to shut him up for good.  Rolandino was still fuming when he entered our
casa
. I heard the bull terriers bark at him and he responded in kind.

The Canal brothers came soon after. Only Ubertino seemed happy. Ubertino was always excited at the thought of a meal. He pressed my mother with his nonsense, kissing her hand and marveling at her toilette. No sooner had he parted from his mantle, that he ambled in the kitchen, hassling the servants. Ubertino had an appetite for everything. I knew well that he’s had his hands up one of our maids’ skirts. And I knew he was fondling more than fresh bread from the ovens, when I heard him squealing about. I’ve often wanted to report him, just to be a nuisance. Eight days in prison for his crime against our household would have taught him some manners. Of course, I knew the only thing he’d really miss was his food. Glutton that he was.