5 - Her Deadly Mischief (9 page)

After bestowing kisses all around, Fortunata returned to her shop counter. Liya and I followed Pincas out the way we had come. I looked back at Signora Del’Vecchio’s observation post just in time to see the corner of the curtain fall back into place. I also noted something else as we passed the poultry shop. Tucked behind three jocular youths who sat plucking feathers from the limp bodies of geese was a dark gentleman in turban and robe. The very same, I was certain, who had dogged our steps from the entrance gates.

***

“Without a dowry, what sort of respectable marriage could she make?” Signora Grazziano shifted her gaze from Liya to me, then to Pincas.

She looked older than most other women I knew to be in their fifth decade. Where my theatrical colleagues were skilled in creating the illusion of youth, Zulietta’s—or Mina’s—mother seemed unconcerned. Her wrinkled face was bare of paint or powder, tendrils of silver-streaked hair escaped an untidy bun, and her massive hips filled every inch of the wide armchair.

Pincas was not an easily angered man, so it startled me when he shook a fist and nearly shouted, “The confraternity provided funds for your daughters’ dowries in addition to making sure you had this roof over your heads. There was no reason for you to hand Mina over to Signor Malpiero.”

A clay pipe with a goose quill mouthpiece lay between the lady’s fingers. She took several fierce puffs before answering. The smoke smelled like burning rags. “Two rooms for me and my daughters still at home. And two windows no larger than the bunghole of a wine cask. Is this what you call living?”

I followed her gaze around the tiny sitting room. It was stuffed with broken-down furniture, and in the corner, wet laundry hung from a rack set before a charcoal stove. Items of feminine attire dangled to the floor, and little rivulets of water ran from the tips of gray stockings across the bare, uneven floor. While the window was actually a good deal larger than a bunghole, the place was still dim and stuffy. And overheated. Whatever else the widow skimped on, it wasn’t fuel for the stove.

“You could have managed better, Esther.” Pincas was still fuming. “Davide would be heartsick to know that Mina turned her back on her people—and under such circumstances.”

“Settle down, Pincas,” Signora Grazziano said, “you know the price of eggs. When Davide dropped dead at his desk, he left us with only enough to last a month, if that. My husband must have believed he would live forever, or at least long enough to put money aside for the girls. My poor Davide could add three columns of figures in his head and never made a mistake in his ledger, but he seriously underestimated his allotted time on this earth.”

Signora Grazziano drew herself up majestically, as if she were the bestower of charity, rather than the recipient. “We welcomed the synagogue’s alms then—and still do—but you must admit they’ve barely been enough to keep a cat alive.”

While Pincas harrumphed and continued to decry Mina’s fate, it occurred to me that he was being uncharacteristically belligerent because Mina’s desertion reminded him of Liya’s. Back then, a generous ladle of tact and kindness could have prevented her flight to the mainland, but Pincas had bowed to his wife’s unusual and vengeful dictum that Liya must relinquish the child she carried to one of the Christian convents. Of course, my brave, determined wife was having none of that. She found sanctuary in Monteborgo, a remote village tucked among the ridges and valleys of Italy’s northern mountains where the inhabitants kept to the old ways and ancient gods.

Not for the first time, I considered how utterly destiny depends upon coincidence. If Liya’s mother had not been so implacable, if Pincas had found the will to follow his own lights, Liya would probably still be keeping the counter at the used-clothing shop and Titolino would be growing up as an Elijah or Solomon of the ghetto.

I turned my attention to my wife. Liya’s forehead was puckered, leading me to think this conversation was making her uncomfortable, as well. I reached across the narrow space that divided our hard chairs and clasped her hand. Answering with a squeeze, she settled our joined hands within the folds of her skirt.

Signora Grazziano had puffed at her pipe until the smoke wreathed her head in blue clouds. Now she cut Pincas off sharply. “Listen, if your esteemed confraternity had given me enough to get Mina married off properly, you wouldn’t be complaining now and I wouldn’t be mourning a dutiful daughter. I know of six or seven widows who receive twice what I’m given plus boxes of food on the doorstep every Friday morning. It wouldn’t be this way if Davide hadn’t been who he was. With only scraps to depend on, I went along with putting Davide’s precious treasure where she could do us some good. It was the gold Mina brought in that married off her sisters. Was I not wise, after all?”

Pincas glowered; Signora Grazziano puffed. Both seemed to have forgotten Liya and me entirely. The building tension in the cramped room could have bowed the walls out.

Confused at the turn the conversation had taken, I squeezed Liya’s hand and questioned her with a look. She leaned close. “Mina’s father was the ghetto’s tax assessor,” Liya whispered into my ear. “Known to his friends as an honest, upright man, but nevertheless, you can’t convince people that the tax assessor puts a fair value on their belongings.”

I nodded, understanding. Taxes are always unfair to those who pay them. Though cruel and senseless, the congregation felt it was getting some of its own back on the tax assessor by slighting his widow. Human nature at its ugliest.

But we were drawing no closer to solving the mystery of Zulietta’s murder. To break the Jews’ impasse, I rose, crossed the small space between us, and went down on one knee before the angry widow. Skipping over superfluous details, I told her how I had witnessed the death of her daughter and that I felt honor bound to assist the authorities in finding the wretch who killed her.

She gazed at me for a moment, then tilted her chin back and blew a long, meditative curl of smoke toward the ceiling. Finally she responded, “They say her latest lover murdered her—a Signor Pino from Murano.”

“That is by no means certain. I’ve met the young man. He professes the tenderest love for Zu—er, Mina and seems genuinely grieved.”

The wrinkles deepened around her narrowed eyes. “What do you think, then? Who killed my daughter?”

“I haven’t formed an opinion, but know there are others who wished her ill.”

“Hmmm.” Low and throaty, it was almost a moan. She shifted in her chair. “I can well believe that, but my good
signor
, how can I help you?”

“Please,” I replied. “Simply tell me about Mina. About her life here in the ghetto and what you know of her situation in the wider world.” Without breaking eye contact, I pushed up from my knee, pulled my chair close, and waited for enlightenment.

As a sterling example of silent support, Liya also rose and went to her father. Massaging his thick shoulders through the wool of his jacket, she stood ready to prevent any interruption he might offer.

Signora Grazziano had dropped pipe ash all over her lap; tiny round holes among the gray smudges gave evidence of past sparks. I was relieved when she set her pipe aside and shook her skirts out. “Mina was spoilt,” she said as she settled back. “Davide led her to expect the finer things, and as long as he was alive, she had them. I warned him that such indulgence was bound to cause trouble down the road, but…” she shrugged. “For all that, you couldn’t call Mina lazy or spendthrift. While her sisters helped me at home, she insisted on accompanying Davide on his rounds among the ghetto householders, and, if any business errand took him out into the city or down to the Piazza, our young princess was always ready to go. He gave her a leather-bound notebook when she was barely ten and dictated figures as they poked among our neighbors’ possessions. By the time Davide died, Mina shared his head for business and knew the worth of a ducat better than most young men hereabouts.”

Pincas was nodding. His expression had mellowed. “Mina was Davide’s little shadow in truth. When he was felled so suddenly, it was like someone jerked the rug right out from under the girl.” He pressed his lips together as Liya dug her slender fingers into his shoulders.

“Exactly so, Pincas,” Signora Grazziano went on. “For several months after Davide’s burial, our strong-willed Mina showed all the spirit of a boiled cabbage. Then Signor Malpiero came to call.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Do you know anything of him?”

“Only what everyone knows.” Among the patrician class, Malpiero had been the cream of the cream, a descendant of one of the original twelve tribunes who had elected our first Doge back when Venice was little more than a collection of mud flats.

On one hand, Signor Malpiero had been known for his intellectual pursuits. A fair poet, he frequented several literary salons and often penned selections of verse to open a fete or celebrate the election of a Senator or Procurator. In that vein, he also published pamphlets that espoused such revolutionary ideas as publicly funded education for any child willing to take advantage of it. On the other hand, his physical appetites were huge. Before he died several years ago, his reputation as a gourmand and shameless libertine had overshadowed his better qualities. None of his activities had taken him to the opera or involved him in my circle.

The widow continued, “As a Christian nobleman on the ghetto’s Board of Overseers, Signor Malpiero often had business with my husband and never made a secret of his attraction to Mina. When he made his belated condolence visit, he brought me an armload of flowers—useless things! Did he think we could eat them?—but to Mina he brought a new hat. With a bright blue feather. Can you imagine a more inappropriate gesture?”

I shook my head. “Was Mina pleased with her hat?”

“Of course, greedy, shameless creature that she was. Though Malpiero must have been past fifty and already in ill health, she became infatuated with him. I suppose in some small way, his attentions made up for the absence of her father. When the old rogue offered to move her into his palazzo and provide dowries for her sisters, she barely hesitated, even after I explained what would be expected of her.” Signora Grazziano paused to reach for her pipe but found that it had gone out.

“Rash,” Pincas put in. “That’s what Mina was. Headstrong and rash.”

The widow nodded, still fiddling with her pipe. “So don’t blame me, Pincas. I had the rabbi in to talk to her and she made his cheeks burn. ‘My person is my own, and I shall do with it what I please,’ she told him and flounced out of the room.” Signora Grazziano shrugged. “What was left for me to do but make the best of a bad situation?”

“So Mina Grazziano became Zulietta Giardino when she was only sixteen,” I observed.

“That’s right. She made the conversion your Venice demands of those who leave the ghetto to dwell in the city, and so she needed a Christian name.”

I nodded slowly. I’d toured the opera houses of Italy and Germany and even sung at Covent Garden in London. In comparison with other cities I’d visited, Venice treated her Jews well, but they were still regarded as foreigners, and with suspicion on account of opposing our faith, as well as their mysterious network of monetary ties.

Any Jew, male or female, adult or child, who wanted to live outside the walls and canals that ringed the ghetto had to pass through a certain religious house for instruction in Christian teaching and eventual baptism. Many did, if only to better their lot in matters of import or commerce—and a good proportion of those continued to practice their ancestral religion in secret. To join my household after our sojourn in Rome, my own Liya and Titolino had been forced to undergo this charade at the House of Catechumens.

I asked Signora Grazziano, “Was your daughter allowed to come back to visit?”

“Allowed, yes. Malpiero was quite liberal with her. Besides all her finery, he bought her books and taught her how to understand them. It was by her own choice that Mina barely set a foot through the gates these past eight years. She seemed content to go nowhere except in her protector’s company, and the company Malpiero kept I don’t even want to think about. Mina did do right by us, though. In addition to the dowries, she saw to it that the old reprobate sent a monthly purse by messenger.” She nodded toward Pincas and spoke with a touch of relish. “That money went to keeping my two youngest in school—fat lot your precious confraternity cared about that.”

Sensing another eruption coming on, I quickly asked, “Was Mina able to continue giving you money after Signor Malpiero died?”

“Yes. She was a good woman of business, you see. Davide could never have imagined the sort of business she would conduct, but he taught her well. Once she was on her own, she sent even larger purses. At first, a maid as black as the ace of spades brought them, then that ridiculous mannekin.”

“Pamarino?”

“If that is what the misshapen creature calls himself,” she replied. “I certainly wasn’t going to strike up a conversation with him. He’s like a golem in the old tales—a man that shouldn’t even exist. But I mustn’t complain. Gold is gold, whoever brings it. Over the past year, by being very careful, I eked out enough to set Aram up in business.”

Pincas shook Liya’s hands from his shoulders and sat forward. “That’s something else I’ve been meaning to discuss with you, Esther. Aram is trolling in dangerous waters—”

“Wait,” I cried, suddenly bewildered. “Who is Aram?”

Chapter Eight

“Aram is a shiftless wastrel who never did an honest day’s work in his life.” Pincas sprang up and began to pace the narrow floor space that was clear of furniture.

Signora Grazziano shook her head vigorously. “Aram Pardo is the husband of my daughter Reyna, Mina’s next youngest sister. He also happens to be the cousin of my aunt’s sister-in-law.”

As I mentally unraveled those tangled relationships, the widow continued with a proud smile. “Aram does very well selling furniture and household goods from a shop on the main square.” She sent a glare to the man pacing the floorboards. “And I’ll thank you to speak of him with more respect, Pincas.”

My father-in-law halted in his tracks. “If Aram earns my respect, well and good. So far he’s done just the opposite. Do you know what he’s doing with that shop you bought so dearly?”

The guarded expression on Signora Grazziano’s face made me think she knew exactly what Pincas was talking about, but I could hardly wait for him to answer his own question.

“Aram has managed to open the bricked-up windows that overlook the canal at the rear of his building. When they’re closed they look right and tight to the passing patrol boats, but when he swings them back, he has an unauthorized market. Goods go back and forth all night long, in between the patrol’s rounds. Mind my words, he’s going to bring trouble down on all our heads.”

Signora Grazziano was beginning to look uncomfortable. She worked her jaw back and forth as Pincas continued.

“The Board of Overseers makes no distinction among us,” he said, face red and brow sweating. “We are many nations here, but to them, a Jew is a Jew, and if one Jew transgresses, we are all punished.”

“You must speak to him, Papa. You and the other men,” Liya said forcefully. Her face was growing pink, too. Since when had Liya cared a fig about the trials and tribulations of the ghetto? Though our new house existed practically in its shadow, weeks had gone by without her so much as mentioning it.

“We have talked to Aram,” Pincas went on. “Several times. He always promises to shut up his illegal entryways but then goes on as he pleases. You can tell him this for me, Esther. Aram had better mend his ways, or we will see that he does.”

Signora Grazziano nodded with a scowl, but didn’t have time to form a reply. The door flew open and a pair of small boys rushed through it on a burst of pumping knees and boisterous laughter. Each claimed a portion of Signora Grazziano’s wide lap. Hugs and kisses were bestowed, and suddenly the widow was all smiles.

I got to my feet and joined Liya at Pincas’ side. A bone-thin woman followed the boys into the room. With only a sidelong glance and sharp nod to acknowledge our presence, she flopped down at the table with a girl of perhaps three years on her lap. The woman’s red slash of a mouth never stopped talking, warning the boys of dire punishments that would follow any misbehavior and throwing questions at the older woman without pause for reply.

The next person through the door was a weasely looking fellow attired in a dark broadcloth jacket and a black tie-wig that wouldn’t have looked out of place at the Piazza’s most respectable coffeehouse. A jaunty red rosette on his tricorne enlivened his dour ensemble and seemed at odds with the tight, belligerent expression he aimed at Pincas most particularly. Signora Grazziano introduced him as Aram Pardo and the woman as his wife, Reyna. Speak of the devil, they say.

While Pincas offered the newcomers a cool nod, I bowed from the waist, one eye on Liya. Her nod was even frostier than her father’s. Aram’s suddenly blossoming smile twisted back into a sneer.

I didn’t need Liya’s cards to divine that Aram was known to my wife and she to him, but I would have to wait until later to learn just how. While the two boys charged around the room picking up small items and tossing them aside, the conversation turned to Aram’s recent call on the rabbi.

“Did you manage to persuade him?” Signora Grazziano asked anxiously once Aram was also seated at the table.

The young Jew shook his head, refusing to meet her eyes.

“Oh, I had so hoped…” The widow hung her head, hand to her brow. “Rabbi Uziel seems to set great store by your opinions.”

“You do me too much honor, Mother Grazziano. I did argue that Mina had continued to help you while she lived among the Christians, and I explained that she had made a will that splits her estate among all her family members…” He shook his head. “I even went so far as to claim that Mina had never truly relinquished her beliefs and celebrated Shabbat so far as—”

The last drew a derisive snort from Reyna as she contended with her small daughter. The girl wiggled and struggled on her mother’s lap, arching her back in search of freedom to run with her brothers.

“Give her here, do,” Signora Grazziano said in a subdued voice, holding out her arms.

“You can’t handle her. She weighs a ton and she’s into everything.”

“As I was saying…” Aram frowned, clearly annoyed at being booted from the center of attention. “Mina cannot be buried as a Jew and that is the rabbi’s final word on the matter. If her body goes in the ground, the Christians will have to arrange it.”

“No more than she deserves. Miss High and Mighty made her choice long ago.” Reyna punctuated her remark with a loud slap on the bare skin between her daughter’s skirt and the stocking bunched around her ankle.

“Reyna, Reyna.” Signora Grazziano heaved herself from her chair to rescue her pipe from her rampaging grandsons. “What a thing to say. And after Mina has made such generous bequests to all of us.”

Reyna shrugged her bony shoulders. “It’s the least she could do, after the shame she’s brought to our name and our family…”

Her rising inflection made me think she might go on, but Aram trapped her gaze with his own dark look and Reyna locked her lips tight together.

The din from the boys and the fretting girl and their grandmother’s ineffectual protests made it impossible to discover much else of consequence. The two middle Grazziano sisters had married cousins from Livorno and hadn’t visited Venice for well over a year. The two youngest were still in school and, like most well-brought-up young ladies, Christian or Jew, were kept close to home when not attending classes or marketing under their mother’s watchful eye. Liya, Pincas, and I soon took our leave.

Once we reached the crowded pavement, I let Liya and her father stroll ahead while I scanned the recesses and doorways for our turbaned follower. His identity had me completely baffled. What had I done to become the object of veiled scrutiny? I saw several men in eastern robes, but not the man I sought.

Putting that matter aside for the moment, I gave my watch hasty consultation. It was already after ten, the time that Maria had set for her assignation with Emilio. How long would she wait for my arrogant rival? Squeezing between Liya and Pincas, locking elbows with father and daughter, I did my best to hurry them along.

“Where exactly is Aram’s shop, Papa?” Liya was asking.

“The northwest corner of the Campo Nuovo. Turn right directly as you step off the north bridge and you’ll run right into it.”

“I know just the place,” Liya replied excitedly. “The rear of the building overlooks the canal just off the Rio di San Girolamo, and across the water is the sheer wall of the convent. No prying eyes. How convenient for Aram.”

“He’s certainly exploiting it to the utmost,” Pincas said in a low voice. “Esther thinks he has the rabbi’s ear because of his scholarship and piety, but I’ve never been impressed with Aram’s learning. At prayers, he’s as likely to be dozing as paying attention. I hate to say it, but Aram’s influence depends more on the fat donations he’s been giving to the synagogue.”

The pavement had broadened, allowing us to move more quickly. As we would soon reach the gates I posed a question that had occurred to me back at the widow Grazziano’s apartment. “Forgive my ignorance, Pincas, but how does trading out the back door benefit Aram? Can’t he get the same price for his bits and pieces through the front?”

Pincas emitted a short laugh, rather like a bark. “Though our commerce may look like a topsy-turvy jumble to an outsider, matters of trade are actually highly regulated by the overseers. Since dealing in new commodities is a Christian prerogative, our shops sell only secondhand goods. Every business has a license to provide certain types of goods, to certain people, in certain circumstances. The prevailing fees and regulations would take me an hour to explain.”

“No need. I’m beginning to see how Aram orders his affairs.” I lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Aram’s sharp, hungry expression should have been enough to tell me his interests would be dishonest.

Liya had been thinking, too. She halted, pulling on my arm. “Aram is not the man,” she announced, staring at me with a keen, pensive look.

“What man?” Pincas and I asked in unison. We had come to the gates where we’d entered the ghetto earlier that morning. The sun had climbed high enough to clear the tops of the buildings, and the noisome alley seemed even dirtier under its penetrating rays.

“Aram is not the honest man my cards foretold, the one who hides behind a disguise.”

At the mention of divination, Pincas dropped Liya’s arm and gave a dismissive shake of his head, but she seemed not to notice. Despite my cautioning whistle, she plowed on in a voice loud enough to be heard on the roofs above us. “Aram is hiding something to be sure, though it’s not an honest face. But Reyna must be the openly disagreeable woman I saw in the cards. She’s clearly jealous of Mina—now that I recall she always was—and she makes no effort to disguise her vicious character. Did you see how she smacked her little girl? And Aram said that Mina had made a will that left money to them all.”

I didn’t like the triumphant glimmer I saw in Liya’s eyes. Sensing my dismay, her voice became even more strident. “Don’t you see, Tito? Aram sneaked out of the ghetto through the back of his shop, went to the theater and killed Mina. He and his greedy wife wanted their inheritance. Aram is the murderer.”

This struck me as highly unlikely for several reasons. I voiced one: “Liya, how do you suppose Aram would have known that Mina would be at the Teatro San Marco that night? Her appearance in the Pino box was supposed to be a great surprise to everyone except her closest associates.”

For a moment, I thought Liya was stumped. She scrunched her forehead and balled her hands into fists as she pulled her cloak up to her throat. Finally, she murmured, “I don’t know, but I intend to find out. I’ll go back to the cards. And I heard of a new method for consulting the scrying pot—melted candle wax dripped into still water. I must get home right away.” After giving Pincas a distracted kiss on the cheek, she hurried through the open gates and out into the Christian world that scorned her pagan beliefs even more than those of the Jews who lived behind these walls.

Pincas and I could only watch her go. While his doughy face drooped with regret, mine, if I could have held a mirror to it, would have reflected worry and concern.

***

As promised, Luigi was waiting for me as I hurried toward the gondola landing by the Ponte della Guglie. He was slouching against the bridge’s spired corner post, whistling a popular tune from last year’s Carnevale. His musical efforts didn’t interfere with his ogling of the water girls bearing their precious liquid from a well in the nearby square. I admit they made a winsome sight, their hips swaying in easy motion as they balanced copper buckets suspended from wooden yokes. To his credit, Luigi abandoned this pleasant vista and sprinted to the boat the minute he caught sight of me.

“Murano, Signore?” he asked as he handed me in.

“No, Luigi. The Campo San Barnaba.”

His jaw dropped. “But Messer Grande—”

“You heard me—San Barnaba—and row like it’s the Holy Week regatta and your most hated rival is two boat lengths ahead.”

He still looked dubious.

“There’s an extra
zecchino
in it for you if you get me there in twenty minutes.” That brought the desired result. As I settled in against the leather cushion, Luigi’s strong, young arms propelled the boat under the bridge and toward the Grand Canal. There, an endless line of balconied palaces rose from sun-kissed waters, and heavily laden barges seemed to wallow motionless in our wake. If my mind had not already been overloaded, I would have enjoyed the swift, gliding ride immensely. But I couldn’t forget Messer Grande awaiting me on Murano, no doubt checking his watch, wondering when I would arrive. To add a few grace notes of unease, another thought occurred to me about the time Luigi swept us under the Rialto Bridge. As Liya had hastened to consult her oracles, I had neglected to find out just how she’d known the oily Aram Pardo in her old ghetto days.

When the gondola made an abrupt right turn into a smaller channel, I forced my thoughts to the matter at hand. Reaching inside my waistcoat, I fingered the thick paper of Maria’s note. She was a naïve, convent-educated girl, seventeen at most. How she had fallen in with Emilio I could only imagine. In other circumstances, I would treat her gently, coax information out of her as if I were a kind uncle concerned only for her welfare. But there was no time. I was planning how to wield the note as a weapon, and suddenly, I didn’t like myself at all.

Luigi set me down at the canal-side square that plays host to Venice’s down-at-the-heels aristocrats. Snuggling the pavement, a barge offered pyramids of vegetables half-wilted by the unseasonable warmth, and across the
campo
, a leaning bell tower threatened to flatten a shabby church. In between, the flagstones were crowded but not jammed. I waved away several professional beggars and a man selling anise water. A barefoot, hooded Franciscan begging for Christ fastened himself to my elbow, and my purse was considerably lighter when I finally found the
calle
that Maria had specified.

At the end of this narrow alley was a café with a front window nearly obscured by bars and steam. The door stood open to admit the warmth of the day. I hesitated on the threshold, allowing my eyes to adjust to the dimness, letting the hum of conversation and clatter of cups and saucers wash over me. Had Maria waited? Or was I too late?