The Glassblower of Murano Read online

  The Glassblower

  of Murano

  Marina Fiorato

  For Conrad, Ruby and, most of all, Sacha; you are all in this book somewhere.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Book

  As Corradino Manin looked on the lights of San Marco for the last time, Venice from the lagoon seemed to him a golden constellation in the dark blue velvet dusk. How many of those windowpanes, that adorned his city like costly gems, had he made with his own hands? Now they were stars lit to guide him at the end of the journey of his life. Guide him home at last.

  As the boat drew into San Zaccaria he thought not - for once - of how he would interpret the vista in glass with a pulegoso of leaf gold and hot lapis, but instead that he would never see this beloved sight again. He stood in the prow of the boat, a brine-flecked figurehead, and looked left to Santa Maria della Salute, straining to see the whitedomed bulk looming in its newness from the dark. The foundations of the great church had been laid in 1631, the year of Corradino's birth, to thank the Virgin for delivering the city from the Plague. His childhood and adulthood had kept pace with the growing edifice. Now it was complete, in 1681, the year of his death. He had never seen its full splendour in daylight, and now never would. He heard a traghetto man mournfully calling for passenger trade as he traversed the Canal Grande. His black boat recalled a funeral gondola. Corradino shivered.

  He considered whether he should remove his white bauta mask as soon as his feet touched the shore; a poetic moment - a grand gesture on his return to the Serenissima.

  No, there is one more thing I must do before they find me.

  He closed his black cloak over his shoulders against the darkling mists and made his way across the Piazzetta under cover of his tricorn and bauta. The traditional tabarro costume, black from head to foot save the white mask, should make him anonymous enough to buy the time he needed. The bauta itself, a spectral slab of a mask shaped like a gravedigger's shovel, had the short nose and long chin which would eerily alter his voice if he should speak. Little wonder, he thought, that the mask borrowed its name from the `baubau', the `bad beast' which parents invoked to terrify their errant children.

  From habit borne of superstition Corradino moved swiftly through the two columns of San Marco and the San Teodoro that rose, white and symmetrical, into the dark. The Saint and the chimera that topped their pediments were lost in the blackness. It was bad luck to linger there, as criminals were executed between the pillars - hung from above or buried alive below. Corradino made the sign of the cross, caught himself, and smiled. What more bad luck could befall him? And yet his step still quickened.

  There is one misfortune that could yet undo me: to be prevented from completing my final task.

  As he entered the Piazza San Marco he noted that all that was familiar and beloved had taken on an evil and threatening cast. In the bright moon the shadow of the Campanile was a dark knife slashing across the square. Roosting pigeons flew like malevolent phantoms in his face. Regiments of dark arches had the square surrounded - who lurked in their shadows? The great doors of the Basilica were open; Corradino saw the gleam of candles from the golden belly of the church. He was briefly cheered - an island of brightness in this threatening landscape.

  Perhaps it is not too late to enter this house of God, throw myself on the mercy of the priests and seek sanctuary?

  But those who sought him also paid for this jewelled shrine that housed the bones ofVenice's shrivelled Saint, and tiled the walls with the priceless glittering mosaics that now sent the candlelight out into the night. There could be no sanctuary within for Corradino. No mercy.

  Past the Basilica then and under the arch of the Torre dell'Orologio he hurried, allowing himself one more glance at the face of the huge clock, where tonight it seemed the fantastical beasts of the zodiac revolved in a more solemn measure. A dance of death. Thereafter Corradino tortured himself no more with final glances, but fixed his eyes on the paving underfoot. Even this gave him no respite, for all he could think of was the beautiful tessere glasswork he used to make; fusing hot nuggets of irregular glass together, all shapes and hues, before blowing the whole into a wondrous vessel delicate and colourful as a butterfly's wing.

  I know I will never touch the glass again.

  As he entered the Merceria dell'Orologio the market traders were packing away their pitches for the night. Corradino passed a glass-seller, with his wares ranked jewel-like on his stall. In his mind's eye the goblets and trinkets began to glow rosily and their shapes began to shift - he could almost feel the heat of the furnace again, and smell the sulphur and silica. Since childhood such sights and smells had always reassured him. Now the memory seemed a premonition of hellfires. For was hell not where traitors were placed? The Florentine, Dante, was clear on the subject. Would Corradino - like Brutus and Cassius and Judas - be devoured by Lucifer, the Devil's tears mingling with his blood as he was ripped asunder? Or perhaps, like the traitors that had betrayed their families, he would be encased for all eternity in `... un lago the per gelo avea di vetro e non d'acqua sembiante ... a lake that, frozen fast, had lost the look of water and seemed glass' Corradino recalled the words of the poet and almost smiled.Yes, a fitting punishment - glass had been his life, why not his death also?

  Not if I do this last thing. Not if I am granted absolution.

  With a new urgency he doubled back as he had planned and took the narrow bridges and winding alleys or calles that led back to the Riva degli Schiavone. Here and there shrines were set into the corners of the houses - welltended flames burned and illumined the face of the Virgin.

  I dare not look in her eyes, not yet.

  At last the lights of the Orphanage at the Ospedale della Pieta drew near and as he saw the candlelight warmth he heard too the music of the viols.

  Perhaps it is she that plays - I wish it were so - but I will never know.

  He passed the grille without a glance inside and banged on the door. As the maid approached with a candle he did not wait for her inquisition before hissing: `Padre Tommaso - subito!' He knew the maid - a surly, taciturn wench who delighted in being obstructive, but tonight his voice carried such urgency that even she turned at once and soon the priest came.

  `Signore?'

  Corradino opened his cloak and found the leather gourd of French gold. Into the bag he tucked the vellum notebook, so she would know how it had been and one day, perhaps, forgive him. He took a swift glance around the dim alley - no, no-one could have drawn close enough to see him. .

  They must not know she has the book.

  In a voice too low for any but the priest to hear he said: `Padre, I give you this money for the care of the orphans of the Pieta' The mask changed Corradino's voice as he had intended. The priest made as if to take the bag with the usual formula of thanks, but Corradino held it back until the father was forced to meet his eyes. FatherTommaso alone must know him for who he was. `For the orphans,' said Corradino again, with emphasis.

  Recognition reached the priest at last. He turned over the hand that held the bag and looked closely at the fingertips - smooth with no prints. He began to speak but the eyes in the mask flashed a warning. Changing his mind the father said, `I will make sure they receive it,' and then, as if he knew; `may God bless you. 'A warm hand and a cold one clasped for an instant and the door was closed.

  Corradino continued on, he knew not where, until he was well away from the Orphanage.

  Then, finally, he removed his mask.

  Shall I walk on till they find ine? How will it be done?

  At once, he knew where he should go. The night darkened as he passed through the streets, the canals whispering goodbye as they splashed the calli, and now at last Co
rradino could hear footsteps behind keeping pace. At last he reached the Calle della Morte - the street of death - and stopped. The footsteps stopped too. Corradino faced the water and, without turning, said `Will Leonora be safe?'

  The pause seemed interminable - splash, splash - then a voice as dry as dust replied.

  `Yes. You have the word of The Ten.'

  Corradino breathed relief and waited for the final act.

  As the knife entered his back he felt the pain a moment after the recognition had already made him smile. The subtlety, the clarity with which the blade insinuated itself between his ribs could only mean one thing. He started to laugh. Here was the poetry, the irony he had searched for on the dock. What an idiot, romanticizing himself, supposing himself a hero in the drama and pathos of his final sacrifice. All the time it was they who had planned the final act with such a sense of theatre, of what was fitting, an amusing Carnevale exit. A Venetian exit. They had used a glass dagger - Murano glass.

  Most likely one of my own making.

  He laughed harder with the last of his breath. He felt the assassin's final twist of the blade to snap handle from haft, felt his skin close behind the blade to leave no more than an innocent graze at the point of entry. Corradino pitched forward into the water and just before he broke the surface he met his own eyes in his reflection for the first and last time in his life. He saw a fool laughing at his own death. As he submerged in the freezing depths, the water closed behind his body to leave no more than an innocent graze at the point of entry.

  CHAPTER 2

  Belmont

  Nora Manin woke at 4am exactly. She was not surprised, but blinked sleepily as the digital numbers of her bedside clock blinked back. She had woken at this time every night since Stephen left.

  Sometimes she read, sometimes she made a drink and watched TV, numbing her mind with the inane programming for insomniacs. But tonight was different - tonight she knew there was no point even trying to get back to sleep. Because tomorrow - today - she was leaving for Venice and a new life, as the old one was over.

  The digital clock and the bed were all that remained in the room that didn't wait in a box or a bag. Nora's life had been neatly packed and was destined for storage or ... or what? She rose with a groan and padded to the bathroom. Clicked on the fluorescent strip that blinked into life over the basin mirror. She splashed her face and then studied it in the glass, looking for resolve in her reflection, finding only fear. Nora pressed both hands to the place on her front between her ribs and stomach where her sadness seemed to reside. Stephen would no doubt have some medical term for it - something long and Latin. `It wearies me,' she said aloud to her reflection.

  It did. She was tired of being sad. Tired of being bright and breezy to those friends that knew Stephen's defection had left her shattered. Tired of the mundane workload of dividing what they had bought together. She remembered the excitement with which they had found and bought this house, in the first days of marriage, when Stephen had got his post at the Royal Free Hospital. She thought that Hampstead seemed impossibly grand for a teacher of glass and ceramics. `Not when they marry surgeons,' her mother had dryly said. The house even had a name - Belmont. Nora was not accustomed to houses so grand that they deserved their own names. This one sat, appropriately, on the beautiful hill that led to Hampstead village. A model of pleasing Georgian architecture, square, white and symmetrical. They had loved the place instantly, made an offer and had, for a time, been happy. Nora supposed she should be glad. At least the money from Belmont had provided her with security. Security - she smiled wryly at the word.

  I have never felt less secure. I am vulnerable now. It is cold outside of a marriage.

  For the thousandth time she began to take an inventory of her reflection, looking for clues as to why Stephen had left. `Item - two eyes, wide and indifferent green. Item - hair; blonde, long, straw-coloured. Item - skin; olive. Item - two lips; chapped with the perpetual chewing of self doubt.' She stopped. For one thing she was no Shakespearean widow, despite the fact that she felt bereaved. And for another, it gave her no comfort to know that she was younger and blonder and, yes, prettier than Stephen's mistress. He had fallen for a forty-year-old brunette hospital administrator who wore severe suits. Carol. Her antithesis. She knew that Carol wouldn't sleep in an ancient Brooklyn Dodgers t-shirt and a scruffy plait.

  `He used to call me his Primavera,' Nora told her reflection. She remembered when she and Stephen had seen the Botticelli painting in Florence on their honeymoon. They were both taken by the figure of Spring in her flowing white gown sprigged with flowers, smiling her slight, hermetic smile, beautiful and full of promise. With her burnished blonde ropes of hair and her leaf-green hooded eyes she bore a startling resemblance to Nora. Stephen had stood her by the painting and taken down her hair while she blushed and squirmed. She remembered the Italians calling `bellissima', while the Japanese took photographs. Stephen had kissed her and put a hand on her stomach. `You'll look even more like her when ...'

  It had been the first year they had been trying for a baby. They were full of optimism. They were both in their early thirties, both healthy - she was a runner and Stephen a gym fanatic - and their only vice was quantities of red wine, which they virtuously reduced. But a year went by and eventually they visited a colleague of Stephen's at the Royal Free, a round and cheerful aristocrat with a bow tie. Interminable tests later, nothing was found. `Unspecific infertility'.

  `You may as well try blue smarties, they'll work as well as anything,' said the colleague, flippantly. Nora had cried. She had not fulfilled the fruitful promise of the Primavera.

  I wanted something to be found - something that could be fixed.

  They put themselves through a number of invasive, intrusive and unsuccessful procedures. Procedures denoted by acronyms that had nothing to do with love or nature, or the miracles that Nora associated with conception. HSG, FSH, IVE They became obsessed. They took their eyes off their marriage, and when they looked back, it was gone. By the time Nora entered her third cycle of IVF both knew, but neither admitted, that there was not enough love left between them to spare for a third party.

  It was around this time that a well-meaning friend had begun to drop hints that she had seen Stephen in a Hampstead bar with a woman. Jane had been very nonchalant about the information - she had not been damning, as if to say; `I'm just telling you this in case you don't know. It may be innocent. I will say nothing which you cannot ignore with impunity, if you choose to. Nothing from which you cannot draw back. Nothing is lost. Only be aware.'

  But Nora was consumed by the insecurity of her infertility and challenged Stephen. She expected denial, or admission of guilt and pleas for forgiveness. She got neither. The situation backfired on her horribly. Stephen admitted full culpability and, in his misplaced conceit of honourable behavior, offered to move out and then did. Six months later she learned from him that Carol was pregnant. And that was when Nora decided to move to Venice.

  I am the cliche after all. Stephen is not. He left a young blonde woman for an older brunette. A jeans-wearing artist for a beancounter in a suit. I on the other hand, instantly enter a mid-life crisis and decide on a whim to leave for the city of my ancestors and start again, like some bad TV drama.

  She turned away from the mirror and looked at her packing, wondering for the millionth time if she was doing the right thing.

  But I can't stay here. I can't be always running into Stephen, or her, or the child.

  It had happened, with astonishing bad luck, on a fairly regular basis, despite Nora's attempts to scrupulously avoid the environs of the hospital. Once she met them on the Heath, of all places - all that square mileage and she had met them while running. It occurred to her to keep going, and had she not been attempting civility with Stephen over the division of Belmont, she would have. Stephen and Carol were hand in hand, wearing similar leisure clothes, looking happy and rested. Carol's pregnancy was clearly evident. Nora was bathed in swea
t and confusion. After a stilted exchange about the weather and the house contracts, Nora ran on and cried all the way home, tears streaming into her ears. Yet Stephen had been more than generous - he had all but given her the house. He has acted well throughout, thought Nora.

  He is no pantomime villain. I can't demonize him, I can't even hate him. Damn him.

  The house sale had given her freedom. She could now embark on her adventure, or her mistake. She had told no-one what she planned, not even her mother Elinor. Especially not her mother. Her mother had no love for Venice.

  Elinor Manin was an academic who specialized in Renaissance Art. In the seventies she had gone on a tutor exchange from King's College London with her opposite number in Ca' Foscari at the University of Venice. While there she had rejected the advances of the earnest baby professors from Oxford and Cambridge and fallen instead for Bruno Manin, simply because he looked like he had stepped from a painting.

  Elinor had seen him every day on the Linea 52 vaporetto which took her from the Lido where she lived to the university. He worked on the boat - opening and closing the gate, tying and untying the boat at each , fermata stop. Bruno twisted the heavy ropes between his long fingers and leapt from the boat to shore and back again with a curious catlike grace and skill. She studied his face, his aquiline nose, his trim beard, his curling black hair, and tried to identify the painting he had come front. Was it a Titian or a Tiepolo? A Bellini? Which Bellini? As Elinor looked from his profile to the impossibly beautiful palazzi of the Canal Grande, she was suddenly on fire with enthusiasm for this culture where the houses and the people kept their genetic essence so pure for millennia that they looked the same now as in the Renaissance. This fire that she felt, this continuity and rightness, did not leave her when Bruno noticed her glances and asked her for a drink. It did not leave her when he took her back to his shared house in Dorsoduro and bedded her. It did not even leave her when she found that she was pregnant.