The Gondola Maker (8 page)

Chapter
12

Propelling the gondola down the Grand Canal, Alvise lets loose a outburst of cursing, most of it directed toward the artist Trevisan. “And who does he think he is, the Doge? He’s nothing more than a painter,” Alvise says.

But I am hardly listening. I sit on the aft deck holding Trevisan’s contract in my hands. All I can think about is the painting in the artist’s studio. That woman, My God, who is she? Is she real or just a figment of the artist’s imagination? I take a deep breath. Pull yourself together, I tell myself.

We pass the Piazza San Marco, and Alvise slows the gondola before what must be the Ca’ Leoncino. This is not just any house; it is a palace, its foundation of large, coursed stones and the upper parts of its façade decorated with pink, coral, and white stones laid in a zigzag pattern. Even the artist’s studio pales in comparison. Just as Trevisan described, the tall windows of the main floor are dressed with pointed arches, now considered old-fashioned but still elegant.

From the canal comes the shrill whistle of a gondolier, followed by the scrape of a pair of iron gates that protect the palace’s private boat slip from the vagaries of the canal. I can see that the slip houses no fewer than three elaborate boats, including a stunningly outfitted gondola with carved and gilded swans ornamenting the passenger compartment. Alongside the boat slip stretches a long private quay studded with metal rings for mooring boats, as well as two large mooring posts painted with red and white stripes.

There is already one gondola there, a masterpiece of a boat that I suppose was made by Samuele Malatesta, another of the city’s master boat makers and one of my father’s rivals. The gondola is spotless, its black sides gleaming and reflecting light off the waters. A great steel dolphin adorns the prow. I gauge that the dolphin itself weighs double that of the prows we fastened to the gondolas in our own boatyard. The
felze
, secured with thickly entwined red silk cords, covers a bench richly ornamented in red damask fabric with leather insets. The oarlock is a masterpiece, no doubt the work of my dear
remero
, Master Fumagalli. No one else in the city makes oarlocks like that.

I admire the boat for a moment as it rocks gently in the shimmering water. This gorgeous gondola makes the boat we are rowing look like a shabby heap of wood, its paint peeling, its finish dull even though I have spent hours polishing it. Alvise slows the boat near the quay, and I reach out my arm to grasp its cold, damp stones. I expertly tie a knot to one of the mooring posts, then climb out of the boat and up the stairs to the quay. I grip Trevisan’s contract, guarding it with my life.

I am nearly to the canal-side doors, which I judge to be a delivery entrance, when I realize that Alvise remains in the boat. I turn and shrug my shoulders at him.

“I’m going to let you handle this delivery yourself,” he tells me.

I hesitate. “But...”

Alvise raises his palms in a sheepish gesture. “Let’s just say I’m not in this household’s good graces.”

Two enormous rings, wrought from twisted iron, hang from the mouths of lions. Above hangs a door knocker in the shape of a dolphin. I reach up to the dolphin and knock four times, cringing a bit at its harsh metal sound. My heart races. I have never made a delivery alone to a patrician palace, not even knocked on the door. I have only gazed at such magnificent buildings from the canals. I clear my throat and wait. In a moment, I hear footsteps approaching the door then stop.

The door does not open. Instead, a small wooden window slides open at eye level. A pair of wrinkled yet clear blue eyes peers at me through an iron grille. “
Si
?” a woman’s voice asks curtly.

“I have a delivery from Master Trevisan, the artist,” I say as confidently as I can.

“And you are...?” the voice asks, again curtly.

“I... um, I am... from the Traghetto San Biagio. The painter Trevisan sent us to deliver a contract to His Most Excellent Councillor at this house.” I shift my weight from one foot to the other. My finger twirls one of the loops of the green string that binds the contract.

The eyes narrow. “
Un momento
,” the voice says. The wooden window slides shut, and I hear footsteps retreating.

I look up and marvel at the hulking building, its pale pink and white stones towering over my head. A windowsill made from a single slab of marble projects outward one story above. A pigeon peers down at me from its perch; even the bird carries a haughty air.

Finally, I hear footsteps approaching the door again. This time the metal bar scrapes, and the door opens to reveal a man. The man is about my age, and from his clothing I surmise that he is a manservant. He gestures for me to enter the house. I step across the threshold into a room paved with giant stones. The space holds a single piece of furniture, a narrow, uncomfortable-looking bench against the canal-side wall. Before me stands a curved marble staircase that disappears into the second story, from which I perceive only darkness.

The manservant sizes me up, then looks me in the eye. “You have come from Master Trevisan’s studio?” he asks.”

“Yes, to deliver a signed contract for a painting,” I say. By instinct I extend the contract to the manservant with my left hand, but he does not take it. I meet his gaze. The man grins slyly with tight lips. I switch to my right hand, and he pulls the contract toward him.

“Are you Master Trevisan’s new
barcherolo
?” he eyes me suspiciously.

“I... no. Yes,” I stammer. “I mean, well, I run important errands for him. Like this one.”

IN A MATTER OF WEEKS, Alvise has become my master in the art of gondoliering, and I, his unwitting apprentice. I live vicariously through Alvise, not sure I could ever hope or want to be so brash.

I watch Alvise charge four
soldi
for a trip to San Marco to a Venetian citizen who puts up a fight; for the same route, he asks for triple that price from an English couple who pay the fare with a trusting smile. On another day, Alvise makes the rounds of his favorite tavern owners, lashing the gondola to a half-dozen docks to collect his commission for ferrying passengers to his list of personally recommended establishments. By the end of his rounds, I calculate that Alvise has pocketed at least half of a gondolier’s daily salary on tavern kickbacks alone. All the while, Alvise regales me with stories of his days on the water, most of them so outrageous that I think they can only be true.

A steady stream of clients approaches the ferry dock in the mornings and afternoons, and the time passes quickly. Alvise and I transport a group of foreign visitors to the Lido for a picnic, where they play music for half the day on lutes and another stringed instrument that I do not recognize. We ferry middle-class passengers: shopkeepers, artisans, merchants, foreign visitors. We even sometimes carry patricians like Nardo Battistini, a wealthy banker who regularly contracts Giorgio’s boatmen to ferry him around as needed for business errands. “Costs less than maintaining his own boat and hiring a private boatman,” Alvise explains to me after dropping Signor Battistini off one afternoon at the exchange. “
Strónso
,” he adds with a frown.

Giorgio dispatches Alvise and me to deliver wood, wine, supplies, market provisions, documents, and messages to various fine houses around the city. Until now, I have rarely traveled outside my own quarter in Cannaregio, having spent my days cooped up, hard at work in my father’s boatyard. I have never been inside the house of a patrician, and I am compelled by these passing glimpses into the lives of the city’s upper classes. I come to recognize the distinctive canal-side façades of each residence, as well as their much plainer dockside doors that make for easy deliveries from our boats. I steal glances into cavernous kitchens, warm and dry from the fires in their giant hearths. Rarely do we encounter the upper-class inhabitants of these residences. Instead, Alvise introduces me to a host of servants: the cook with a large backside at the Ca’ Venier, who always wears an apron tied around her girth; the manservant with a harelip at the Ca’ Rossini, who regards Alvise with obvious disdain, though Alvise doesn’t seem to notice.

I begin to absorb the unspoken language of Venetian boatman, a complex set of hand gestures this cadre of men has developed over generations to communicate silently to one another across the water. Some of the signals are easy to divine: twirling fingers for “Let’s meet for a plate of pasta at the midday meal” or a left thumb over the right shoulder for “incoming tide.” Soon I learn the most common needs for communication: “high tide,” “low bridge,” “I will wait to enter the canal until you pass,” “I intend to tie up my boat there,” and “back up so I can pass.” Many other gestures I must ask Alvise to translate for me.

From Alvise, I also learn how to rent boats to those who prefer to row themselves around the city from our ferry dock. For just a few
soldi
an hour, a customer can take out a
puparin
or a
sandalo
, smaller versions of a gondola that even a novice can row. I fit people with the right-sized oar, ensuring that the oarlock fits snugly in its socket and that the oar is neither too tall nor too short for the rower. Of course, I already know how to do this by instinct. Of all of our tasks, fitting the oar to the rower is the one in which I take the greatest pride, even if my skill remains my own secret.

When we do not have passengers, we spend our time working in the boathouse or on the dock, loading and unloading goods from the steady stream of gondolas affiliated with Giorgio’s
traghetto
. I now recognize a surprising number of boatmen, though I only know the Christian names of a few; everyone is called by a nickname instead. One of the men is named Nedis, but everyone calls him Lupo. His face is stuck in a permanent snarl, and I try to keep my head down whenever Lupo approaches the dock, as he seems only to bark commands and insults, nothing else. Another regular is an enormous hulk of a man everyone calls Little John. The other boatmen treat him with quiet respect, tiptoeing gingerly until he rows out of sight. Alvise tells me that Little John has served on the galleys and was even taken into slavery in Tunis but escaped by murdering his captors with his bare hands.

When the traffic slows, Alvise gives me a formal tour of the boathouse. I have toiled inside it nearly every day since my arrival, but out of respect for my new teacher, I pretend to know nothing. With dramatic sweeping motions, Alvise describes each aspect of the boathouse as if he were describing the interior of a grand palace. He reviews a vast variety of ropes suspended along one wall, describing the purpose of each one: tying down boats, towing rafts, fashioning pulleys. I don’t tell him that not only do I already know all of these ropes, but I also know how tie them into several dozen specific knots, each for a different function.

I rarely speak, which is a relief, as I do not wish to explain myself. Alvise, on the other hand, talks constantly. He explains how the
traghetto
guild has reelected Giorgio numerous times and pays him to keep the station running.

“He’s a callous old
strónso
,” Alvise chuckles, “a man of few but choice words. He may be an employee of the guild, but you and I know that the old man earns his salary the way they all do—kickbacks, side jobs, gambling, selling off any goods that linger in the warehouse. He’s on the inside with all sorts—bankers, costume renters, glassmakers, water-sellers, you name it. Now that I think about it, he’s very skilled at pocketing extra money along the way.” Alvise grins.

“Does he have a family?” I am curious.

“Not anymore. He used to have a wife, but she died. Poisoned... Nobody really knows what happened, but...” Alvise makes an incomprehensible gesture with his hand, and I struggle to understand what it means.

Alvise snickers. “The Old Man’s the only one I know who’s actually been put in the stocks for cursing. You and I both know they don’t enforce the public cursing law, but I guess if you break it too many times, they have no choice. You ever notice that scar on his calf?”

I shake my head.

“The rumor is that Giorgio was tortured with fire for spitting in the face of one of the censors. Needless to say, it’s no wonder we’ve reelected him so many times as our
traghetto
warden. He’s a hero!” Alvise laughs again.

Alvise lowers his voice and moves close to me. “Okay, you’re a quiet kid, so I’m going to let you in on a little secret that only I and a few others know. On the side, Old Master Giorgio singlehandedly supplies young boys for those in the city who, well, those who
want
them.” He winks and clicks his tongue. “Know what I mean? That’s where the real money is.”

I suck in my breath, trying to absorb this information.

“That’s one of the reasons that painter Trevisan uses Giorgio’s services. He hires male prostitutes as models for some of his pictures.” Alvise chuckles. “I’m sure the ones he hires must consider posing for a picture easy money compared to the alternative.”

Alvise is already onto the next topic, but I am still grappling with the thought of the gruff, unkempt Giorgio as an underground broker for what I have only heard described from the pulpit of my parish church as the great Sin of Gomorrah. All I know is that homosexuals are supposed to burn at the stake, though I personally have never witnessed that particular punishment meted out between the columns of justice in the Piazzetta San Marco. I force myself to refocus on what Alvise is saying. I wonder why he has shared this detail with me, apart from being proud of himself for owning this choice bit of information about our master.

Giorgio has a name for each of his boats, Alvise is telling me now, and even treats them as if they were pets. One of the gondolas is called Vecchina since it is the oldest of the fleet. I admire the old carving of a sea nymph on the aft deck, which I know requires great skill to achieve; I know of no one who carves like that anymore. Nerina is Giorgio’s favorite, Alvise tells me, and that’s the one he normally takes when he is running his own personal errands. Alvise is moving on to tell me about the cargo rafts when Giorgio’s gruff voice interrupts us.