ventidue
The next morning Lucia was trying to while away the hours until it was a socially acceptable time to call Tiziano to arrange Saturday’s meeting. In an attempt to appease her restless hands and racing mind, she took to La Scuola Rosa’s front window without her sling. She had done her time and, thankfully, she was feeling stronger and more capable.
Pushing past the hanging puppets and Carnevale display, she made herself comfortable by the glass pane. She collected a rolled-up poster from her basket of supplies, along with some fresh adhesive putty, and used the latter to adhere the poster to the window, for all on the calle to see.
She smiled, reading the reversed words – Domani sera! Film: Pinocchio , venerdì, ore 20.30 .
Lucia ran her hands along the edges of the poster, smoothing it against the glass. She gave the putty points one final press for good measure and was about to turn away from the window when, across the calle , Alex appeared.
Lucia watched as he locked La Commedia’s door, turned and stepped onto the pavers. He caught sight of her and, by the way he froze to the spot, Lucia knew he hadn’t expected to see her there. With two metres between them, plus the glass shield of the window, they stared at each other.
Lucia could see him properly for the first time. With no shadow of night-time, or a window ledge to hide behind, neither had any way to hide.
Despite the length of his thick coat, she could still make out his broad shoulders and long torso. A dark round-collared knit met equally dark slacks, which gave way to black leather boots. But it was his now familiar brown eyes that trapped Lucia. Although this morning, they were lined with fatigue. A few chestnut locks escaped his flat cap, falling by the sides of his forehead. His complexion was fair, but Lucia could make out a pink tinge to the skin above his stubble, brought on by the sudden assault of the cold winter air. In his left hand he held the ornate door key, and in the other, a bunch of flowers.
There was something timeless about Alex. As if he belonged to – or perhaps had been plucked from – another moment in history. He was classically rugged, but also gentlemanly.
The way Alex’s stare fixed on Lucia was all-consuming. He stood there and observed her, either ignoring or not having noticed the movie poster.
Lucia watched as something seemed to tick over in his mind, as evidenced by the way his brow drew together momentarily, then flattened once again. He tucked his bottom lip behind his top teeth, then opened his mouth as if wanting to say something, but eventually, either from insecurity or uncertainty, he closed it again.
He gave Lucia a gentle nod of acknowledgement. A little white flag, perhaps. But it was too late for that. White flag or not, Lucia had made her stance clear.
Alex’s attention dropped to the flowers in his hand, and he tucked them inside his coat to protect them from the breeze whistling down the calle . Then, striding away on his long legs, Alex was gone.
Lucia wanted to move, but she couldn’t. Something about Alex had unsettled her. Those soft cheeks and melancholic, tired eyes. The thought of his lips, poised as they had been to say something, stirred an unwelcome curiosity in her.
What did he want to say to me? And why was he carrying flowers?
Lucia had holed up in her apartment during the recess break to call Tiziano. It had taken several steeling laps of the kitchen before she could muster the nerve to dial. Foscari watched intently from the foot of Lucia’s bed, his little head tracking her as she paced.
‘ Pronto , Tiziano? It’s Lucia. Trevisan.’ They exchanged the necessary pleasantries. ‘I was calling to arrange that meeting we had agreed on. To discuss the outcome of the ball and formalise any—’ She stopped pacing to listen. ‘Yes, of course. Saturday morning. I’ll be there. Buona giornata , Tiziano. A presto . And thank you.’
She exhaled as she returned the phone to her pocket, and Foscari yapped up at her.
‘I think we will be ok,’ she said, reaching across to cup his chin in her palm. ‘I think he’ll pull through for us.’
Lucia darted to the top of the stairs and poked her head down to the second floor, spotting Francesco by the window, consumed by something on his phone.
‘ Psst ,’ she whispered, and he pivoted to face her.
‘ Che mi dici ?’
‘Tiziano. Booked for nine o’clock Saturday morning.’
He sat a little taller. ‘What did he say?’
‘Not much. But also nothing contrary to what we had discussed.’
Francesco grinned. ‘ Brava , Lucia!’
She exhaled a little sigh, and her eyes drew to the ceiling with hope. ‘ Speriamo bene ! Seventy days to lock in the balance of the cost,’ she said, knocking on the wrought-iron staircase. ‘Are you still ok to come film this afternoon’s culture walk for Venezia, Ovunque ?!’
‘I’m your man.’
She blew him a kiss before returning to collect her lesson notes from her desk. The afternoon session on the conditional tense would wait for no one.
‘And can you imagine living with that kind of fear? As if anything you might do or say could be misinterpreted, or retold in such a way as to tarnish your reputation? The Republic knew no mercy. Especially the Doge. So that is why le maschere were worn.’ Lucia held a vintage leather Arlecchino mask of the Commedia dell’Arte theatre tradition aloft. ‘See how the mask has been designed with exaggerated facial features? The large nose and disproportionate cheeks.’ A sea of bobbing heads danced before her, the backs of which Francesco caught in the bottom of the GoPro frame. ‘There were two reasons for this. The first was practical. With so much theatre happening in the open and in front of large crowds, the larger-than-life masks ensured that the characters were easily distinguishable and visible to the audience. Some people may have been very far from the stage, so any facial expressions from the actors might have been missed.’ She clicked her spare hand and waved the mask through the air. The tension was palpable. Lucia had the group of twelve students completely transfixed. ‘The second reason, however, is far more interesting.’ She lowered her voice and leaned in, coaxing the students to do the same. ‘Actors could hide behind these masks.’ She let the statement linger on the wind which was blowing under the portico. ‘ L’anonimato assoluto . Absolute anonymity. The right mask could hide you from the world.’
Francesco caught her gaze for a moment, and they shared a loaded look between them. She appreciated his kind, reassuring smile and encouraging nod to keep going.
‘Ok, pensateci bene ,’ she said, raising the index finger of her free hand to the sky. ‘What, in the life and times of the Venetian Republic, would anonymity mean?’
An eager hand was raised at the rear of the group. ‘Protection? Security?’
‘ Esatto . You could say and do just about anything behind a mask. You could blaspheme. You could be a heretic. You could express your disagreement with social norms, or even with the powers that be.’ She gestured to the Palazzo Ducale over her shoulder. ‘A mask was a shield of sorts. Without it, you risked your name ending up in here.’ Lucia stepped to the side to reveal a ghastly looking human face carved into the palazzo’s marble facade. ‘La Boca de Leon,’ she said with her best Venetian intonation. ‘A letterbox. A direct line between the people of Venice and the mean guys upstairs. Anyone, from anywhere, could leave un biglietto , a note, in these, accusing someone of an offence in the city.’
A few students gasped while others craned their necks for a better view.
‘Like a confessional?’ asked one.
‘Yes. A very dramatic one! Every single message left in one of these was taken seriously. You did not want to find your name in a Boca de Leon. It would certainly be bad news.’
‘What would happen?’ asked the same student.
‘You would be sought out, tried in the courtrooms here in the Palazzo Ducale, and if found guilty, you were punished, detained, or executed for your crimes.’
‘Executed?’ a voice called.
‘It would have been a more dignified end than rotting in the jail cells. Well, depending on the cell. The ones on the lower floors of the prigione would flood on account of the high water, so any prisoner left in there would drown, trapped and shackled.’
This was met with moans of horror from the students. Francesco tilted the GoPro to catch their reactions, then returned to Lucia.
‘Very few people who entered the Palazzo Ducale for any reason other than a ball or party came out unchanged. Or, at all .’
‘Is this Boca still used, Lucia?’
She laughed. ‘No. Could you imagine if it still were?’ She made her way over to the menacing marble face. ‘The mouth is almost closed over.’
‘Try, Lucia!’ goaded someone from the front.
‘Shall I?’ Lucia giggled. ‘ Va bene ,’ she said, pulling a notebook and pen from her bag. She scribbled her name and held it up for all to see. ‘ Eccomi qua ,’ she announced. ‘Trevisan, Lucia. Calle del Leone.’
Looking down at the note in her hand it suddenly seemed ironic that she lived in a sort of lion’s den, Calle del Leone , and was about to cast herself symbolically into a box of the same name.
She poked the note as best she could into the small space the lion’s open mouth afforded. She couldn’t push it all the way in, but figured the gesture was enough to prove a point.
Behind the camera, Francesco asked, ‘ Che significato ha il leone , Lucia?’
‘What does the lion represent for Venice? La potenza ,’ she replied, smiling back at him. ‘Strength. And power.’ She pointed to Piazza San Marco behind them, and to the burgundy and gold flags featuring the Leone di San Marco whipping in the breeze. ‘The leone is everywhere in Venice.’ She turned to her left and gestured to the lion high on the column at the end of the piazzetta. ‘This leone faces back into the square, protecting Venetians from the menacing unknown of the open waters beyond.’
Suddenly, the lion and all its qualities – its proud stance, protective paws, fierce teeth and grotesque face, the name which connected her to her special corner of Venice, her beloved calle – seemed something of a protector.
She looked to the darkening skies. ‘And speaking of protection, let’s get back to school before the rain arrives.’
Alex alighted from the San Zaccaria – Piazza San Marco vaporetto stop just as the heavens opened above the city. Drawing in a breath, he noted how the usual salty-sweet scent of the open waters had been replaced by a mud-laced metallic tang, typical of an impending deluge over the lagoon.
Alex grimaced and pulled his coat closed around his middle. Now that he no longer had his flowers, his hands formed a visor to keep the drizzle off his face.
He darted between the remaining tourists along the rio , turning left onto the piazzetta. The cloud cover was thickening, and quickly smothered the trademark peach and golden hues of the Palazzo Ducale’s patterned facade with a dull grey.
Giving in, Alex darted under the covered arcade of the fourteenth-century palazzo, immediately grateful for the shelter. While he wasn’t alone, most others chose to head into the bars and restaurants across the piazzetta, and many simply disappeared, as if absorbed by Venice’s winding calli .
The icy breeze picked up and forced its way under the Palazzo Ducale’s wide arcade, whistling as it was caught then released by the Gothic arches which framed the facade.
That whistle.
It was enough to torture Alex. His cold hand dipped into one of the inner pockets of his coat, and he withdrew a pair of yellow foam earplugs. He popped them into his ears, muffling the sound of the changing weather so that it was nothing more than a throbbing white noise.
It wasn’t ideal, but it would be enough.
Staring across Piazza San Marco, he watched as workers – who had seemingly been conjured from thin air – rushed to reposition the raised walkway platforms into long stretches across the square’s expanse.
The damn water.
His eyes flicked back to his left, noting how the sea had turned choppy, and Lido island – just across the water – was now obscured by the rain’s opaque haze.
All he could do was wait. He found a quiet nook in the arcade and began to pace back and forth, focusing on how his feet were grounded securely to the patterned pavers underfoot. He tried to distract himself from the rain’s increasing force, which was now gathering in pools along the lower points of the square.
In his mind he berated himself. He should have been back earlier. He had known the rain was on its way. But it was the wind that reminded Alex that the weather had a mind of its own. It rushed past him under the arcade before smashing against the facade of the Basilica di San Marco a few metres ahead of him. He braced himself, knowing it would come hurtling back towards him. And it did, with a fury known only to those who worked on the open lagoon waters during the winter season.
In a vain attempt to shelter himself from a second and more powerful gust, Alex pinned himself against the wall of the Palazzo Ducale, closed his eyes, and waited for a lull. When it came, he blinked his eyes open to find himself face to face with the Boca de Leon. He couldn’t help but smile, and reached out to trace the outline of the face’s bushy eyebrows, then the eyes, and the contorted bulbous nose. He looked to the mouth, and there saw a small wodge of paper jammed into the narrow gap between the deep-set tongue and parted lips.
His brow furrowed. Alex’s initial thought was that it was rubbish left behind by a lazy tourist, but something about it piqued his interest. It seemed more purposeful than that. Picking at the paper, it came loose and fell into his palm. It was folded over and over onto itself, and it took a few moments for his cold-stiffened hands to loosen it and flatten it out.
And then, there she was.
Trevisan, Lucia. Calle del Leone.
He had to look twice.
It was unmistakable. Alex turned on the spot, feeling as if he might have an audience. As if someone were playing a trick on him. But there was no one even remotely interested in his presence there by the Boca.
His eyes traced the ornate cursive once again. It was certainly his calle . But was this the Lucia from the school? The intriguing woman he had been watching – studying, really – with great interest? The quick-witted, confident woman with those long legs?
If only she weren’t so stubborn. But then again, you aren’t that easy to get along with either, Alex.
Bewildered, he turned and pressed his back against the wall. It didn’t make sense. He refused to believe that anything other than a coincidence was at play.
Noting how the rain had begun to ease, Alex flipped up the collar on his coat, adjusted his flat cap, and slipped the note into his pocket. Checking his watch, his heart skipped a beat. The best part of the morning was already behind him, and he still had a few commissions to complete overnight for the Carnevale deadline. And right now, sleep awaited him.
As he set foot onto the piazzetta, he chose to leave his wondering and curiosity there by the Boca.
But he took Lucia’s name with him.