The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel (40 page)

While we stuffed our grand accessories under a pile of refuse, we overheard the innkeeper announcing that a couple of
Cappe Nere
wanted to question them. The inn went instantly quiet, and we listened. The
Cappe Nere
kept their voices low, which somehow sounded more threatening than shouts would have done. A man and a boy—criminals, they said—had stolen expensive clothing from the majordomo. “They think they’re clever, parading around disguised in fine clothes, but we know exactly what they took. The majordomo is very upset. The doge has his guards on the lookout, too.” He described the ostrich-plume hat, the blue wool cloak, my green cape, and my beaded slippers. The
Cappa Nera
said, “These criminals might be carrying a book.” The mention of a book caused a rush of whispers (I could imagine their pulled eyelids), but everyone spoke over each other in their rush to denial.

“No,
signori
.”

“We’ve seen nothing.”

“We’re all regulars here.”

“Sorry.”

Our one advantage against the
Cappe Nere
was that everyone hated them.

We crept away from the inn and scooted across a bridge. Without the wool cloak, the book under the chef’s arm, shabby though it was, looked to me like an announcement of guilt, but the chef had a plan. He said, “There’s a church around the next corner. In the sacristy I can exchange my clothes for a cassock and surplice roomy enough to hide the book. We’ll get a choir robe for you.”

“That’s smart, Maestro.”

“It’s ironic. Let’s go.”

We turned the corner and came face-to-face with two tall, broad-shouldered
Cappe Nere
.

There are so many things I could have done. I could have called the chef Papà and complained about my school lessons; I could have pretended we were not together, clumsily bumped into the
Cappe Nere
, excused myself, and walked away; I could have done
something
. But the anxieties of that night converged in that moment and made me freeze. I stood rooted to the spot, staring at the
Cappe Nere
with a slack mouth. They looked at the book under the chef’s arm, then at my beaded slippers. They blinked, and I ran. The chef cursed and ran after me.

The
Cappe Nere
pursued us with knives and pistols drawn. We fled through the darkest, most convoluted
calli
I knew, but every time I thought we’d lost them, the next moment brought the sound of shouts and heavy boots close behind. We ran down a
calle
that looked deserted, and a dagger, seemingly out of nowhere, whizzed past my head and thwanged into a wooden door only inches away. I spun around and pushed the chef in the opposite direction.

If I’d been alone, I might have outrun them. I was younger, smaller, and quicker, unencumbered by heavy pistols and swords banging against my thighs. But the chef held me back. His breath became labored, and he lagged farther and farther behind me. The
Cappe Nere
were gaining ground, and it was only a matter of time before they caught us.

The chef had gotten us out of the palace with his daring and cleverness, but now, in the street with dark coming on, we were in my element, and it was my turn to be clever. I knew all the best hiding places in Venice. I called, “Maestro, this way.” I would take him to the thieves’ quarter, where everyone was accustomed to minding their own business. I led him through a street of prostitutes, where Marco and I had often gone looking for Rufina, knowing the girls would delay any soldier who came within an arm’s length.

To take a shortcut to our destination, I pulled the chef into a cul-de-sac and kicked aside a pail of garbage to reveal a jagged hole
low in the brick wall. “Through here, Maestro.” He put his head through, but his shoulders stuck in the narrow opening. I said, “Give me the book so you can wiggle through.”

He backed out of the hole and looked at me over his shoulder. I said, “Maestro, I know where to go, but we have to get to the other side of that wall.” After a moment, he handed me the book, then cursed as he squeezed through the hole, tearing his clothes on broken bricks.

I lobbed the book through the hole and scrambled after it. By the time I pulled myself up to the other side, the chef had the book tucked under his arm. I reached through the hole to pull the pail of slops back for camouflage, and we ran through
calli
so dark they reminded me of the tunnel in the palace. This time, the threat was real, and oddly it was more manageable than my flights of fancy. My breath came fast, and my senses buzzed, but not because of panic. It was the familiar thrill of the chase.

I led the chef to a disreputable street where women sold themselves for sour wine and criminals met to plot their crimes. Those people wouldn’t look twice at a couple more
bandítí
who carried the scent of the fugitive. I hoped to blend in that unsavory crowd long enough to decide where to spend the night.

But I miscalculated. When I peeked around the edge of a tavern to check who was on the street, I saw
Cappe Nere
everywhere, busily rounding up scheming thieves and ruthless murderers, not to arrest them, but to provide descriptions of us and offer a reward. I had taken us to the one part of the city where anyone would gladly sell us for the price of a bottle.

I pulled the chef in the recess of a deep doorway. “Maestro, we have to get off the street.”

“Where can we go?”

“I know a place, but you have to trust me.”

“Let’s go.”

We dashed out of the thieves’ quarter and along a narrow
río
. I
heard footsteps behind us, so I rushed onto a certain humpbacked bridge that had saved Marco and me many times in the past. The chef hesitated when I ran over the crest of it in plain view but,
grazie a Dio
, he followed me. At the far side, I jumped down and scurried underneath. In the dark and confusion, it must have looked to the chef as if I’d disappeared into the canal.

“Luciano.” The chef sounded desperate. “Where did you go?”

I poked my head out from under the bridge. “Hurry up.” I pointed to where the irregular stones of the canal wall jutted out like stairs and ran down to a narrow ledge underneath the bridge. He climbed down clumsily, trying to get a handhold on the slimy canal wall while clutching his book. “Maestro, hurry.” He tried, but the ledge was covered with slippery algae, and he lost his footing. I caught his arm barely in time. I remember thinking he would have made a poor thief, and in the same moment, I understood how utterly his death would devastate me.

We stood on the ledge under the bridge and pressed our backs against the muddy canal; sludge squished and molded itself around my body. I sucked in my breath as the big-booted
Cappe Nere
stampeded across the bridge and stopped directly above us.

A rough voice asked, “Did you see which way they went?”

“Too dark. They just disappeared.”

“We have to split up.”

“Sì.”
This one sounded irritated. “Landucci wants them alive. What a nuisance.”

“Cut them down, but try not to kill them.”

“D’accordo.”

“Andiamo.”

Even after the sound of their boots faded to nothing, we remained motionless, pressed to the wet wall like weird outgrowths. I heard a cat meowing in the shadows, and I hoped it was Bernardo. The chef let out a long, slow, whistling breath. He sagged but held the book fast to his breast. The damp seeped into our
clothes, the night deepened, and fog curled under the bridge. The chef shivered. He said, “Where do we go from here?”

“Don’t worry, Maestro. I know a place in the street of fishmongers.”

“The fishmongers?”

“I have a friend there.”

I climbed out from under the bridge and pulled the chef up after me. Our once splendid outfits were spattered with canal filth, our hair was wild, and our faces were streaked with sweat and grime. The chef looked at me, then down at himself. He said,
“Dío mio.”

I said, “The dirt is good, Maestro. We’ll blend in with the street people. Just get that book out of sight. Will it fit under your clothes?”

He undid the buttons on his doublet and stuffed the book under his shirt. The mud-covered doublet gaped open, and the book made a bulky, unnatural bulge under his shirt, as if he had some freakish deformity. He said, “This won’t fool anyone.”

“It’s all right. We’re so filthy now we’re just two more poor people no one wants to look at.”

We made our stealthy way, listening and looking in every direction before choosing the most deserted
callí
. We crept along in the shadows and at the slightest sound of voices or boots we melted into the opaque dark of the nearest doorway.

We sneaked along a cobbled footpath beside a narrow canal, where three old women had stopped for a spot of gossip. We strolled along casually, but just before we reached the women, a pair of
Cappe Nere
appeared at the far corner and walked toward us. We pivoted in tandem to go the other way, but after a few steps, two of the doge’s guards, strutting and wielding halberds, turned the other corner and walked toward us from the opposite direction. I felt close to panic, but the chef turned his attention to a gondolier poling by, looking for a fare.

Gondolas are expensive and very slow, not a good choice for
outrunning anyone. Yet, the chef stepped up to the canal’s edge and hailed the gondolier. I shifted from one foot to the other while the
Cappe Nere
approached from one end of the footpath and the doge’s guards from the other.

The gondolier leaned on his pole and looked the chef over: clothes smattered with stinking mud and clearly hiding something under his shirt. He wagged his head and started to pole away. The chef summoned him with a demanding voice:
“Venga qui! Adesso!”
The voice of the maestro giving an order. The gondolier looked at him again, and the chef raised his chin and held up a shiny gold ducat. The gondolier shrugged and then maneuvered his boat against the canal wall. The chef scolded him for dawdling as he stepped in the boat and waved me aboard.

I hesitated. The chef was accustomed to traveling in gondolas and didn’t realize what a suspicious scene two filthy street people would make climbing into such a luxurious means of transport. I glanced at the
Cappe Nere
closing in from one side and the doge’s guards on the other. They were looking for a man and a boy, and at that moment the best strategy would be to split up. As the chef widened his eyes, wordlessly urging me to join him, I lunged at one of the gossiping women and ripped the purse from her belt. She shrieked, and the
Cappe Nere
came at me.

CHAPTER XXX
T
HE
B
OOK OF
S
TRUGGLE

A
s the gondolier pushed his pole against the canal wall to get clear of the commotion, I darted left and right, then dashed between the two men in a well-practiced move. The gondola glided away, and I fled into the tangled embrace of my old city with the
Cappe Nere
clamoring at my heels.

I dropped the purse immediately after turning the first corner, hoping the
Cappe Nere
would be content to return it to the woman and let me go. That night they had more important prey than a common street thief. I ran a mad, senseless route until I was sure I had lost them. It was a relief to slow down, but as I made my way to the street of fishmongers I prayed that the chef would remember where to go.

He did, and as usual, there would be no cowering in alleys for him. I found him seated out on the docks, hunched over to hide the irregular bulge under his shirt, holding out a dirty, palsied hand and pestering passersby for alms in a wheezy voice. I helped him up, saying, “Time to come home, Grandfather,” and I led him to the house of Domingo’s fishmonger.

The fishmonger had given Domingo a small storage room at the back of his house in which to sleep. Sleeping indoors was a great
luxury for Domingo, who could sprawl out on his dry, wood-plank floor wrapped in as many burlap bags as he wanted for warmth. In that room, the fishmonger kept extra canvases to cover his stall, sturdy wooden crates full of straw to hold the precious ice on which he displayed his fish, and an assortment of knives for scaling and gutting. Domingo kept the knives clean and sharpened with the devotion of a future owner.

High on one wall, a small, glass-paned window that opened like a door allowed Domingo to come and go without disturbing the fishmonger’s family. He could lie there at night watching the stars through that window, drowsing and lulled by the liquid sounds of Venice. Even better, sometimes he could watch cold rain pelt the glass and listen to it pound the roof while he snuggled, warm and dry, under layers of burlap. Some nights, he watched the moon-glow play on the shiny surfaces of the fishmonger’s knives and dreamed of the day he’d be master of his own fish stall, perhaps even have a wife and family. Domingo loved his little room and he was happy.

I said, “My friend Domingo will help us.” I reached up and tapped the window with my fingernails, but Domingo, who was fast asleep, didn’t stir. I rapped with my knuckles, but still he slept on like an innocent. When the chef boldly pounded on the sash and shouted, “Domingo!” I gasped. The chef said, “A name called out once in the night attracts less attention than an eternity of knocking.” He stood on his toes and peered into the little room. “And it’s more effective.”

Sleepy Domingo had crawled out from under his burlap. He stood rubbing his eyes as he unlatched the window. I hopped onto the crate Domingo used to reach the window, pulled myself up onto the sill, and climbed through.

Domingo and I tried to drag the chef in, tugging on his shirt while he strained to lift his own weight, but he was already worn out from the night’s exertion, and the cumbersome book got in his
way. Domingo reached through the window, saying, “Give me that book.”