The Glassblower of Murano Read online

  Corradino blamed the Libro D'oro, The Book of Gold. In 1376, in recognition of the skill of glassblowers and their value to the Republic, it had been decreed that the daughter of a glassblower could marry the son of a noble. But no such dispensation was given for the daughter of a noble to marry a humble glassblower, even one that came from noble stock. There was no future for Corradino and Angelina. Corradino returned to Murano with no idea of how the affair had been discovered, or of the child that he had fathered. He confided only in his dearest friend and mentor, who advised him to stay on Murano lest the Prince should make good his threat to seek revenge.

  For two years Corradino heard nothing of his lover and worked as if a demon rode his back. Then he was given a dispensation to go into Venice to make a reliquary for the Basilica of San Marco and deemed it safe to return at last. On his first day in the city for two years he contrived to see Nunzio dei Vescovi.

  His entry into the Palazzo del Vescovi was quite different this time. The grand doors to the water stood open as Corradino's gondola drew near - one partly unhinged and hacked for firewood. The great salons stood empty; looted of all their riches, the rich draperies rat-nibbled or torn down. No servants remained, and as Corradino mounted the rotting stairs he began to guess why.

  The stench of the sickroom brought bile rising to Corradino's throat. Twisted on the bed lay Nunzio del Vescovi, cocooned in his vile coverlet, half his face eaten by the `male francese' - the `French Disease'. Syphilis. The man was dying. But the thing on the bed - once a Prince - began to gasp at Corradino and it was long moments before Corradino understood. Nunzio's face was twisted meat, the disease had eaten large portions of his lips, and the sibilants and plosives of speech were denied to him.

  `... ino.' A claw-like hand extended to the table by the bed. On it sat a flask of wine and a goblet, dusty with the syrup of an ancient draught slick in the bottom. God only knew how long it had been since the man had been tended by another human soul.

  Corradino crossed himself and poured the wine. A dead wasp fell into the glass, but it did not seem to matter. The Prince eased himself onto his shoulder with palpable agony, and drank, the wine dribbling like blood from his roofless mouth. Corradino knew he did not have long - he asked the only question he had. `Angelina?'

  `... ead.'

  Corradino turned to go. He had expected as much. He would send a priest for Nunzio, but he could do no more.

  `In ... hildbirth.'

  The hideous whisper halted him. Corradino turned.

  `There's a child?'

  `In ... ieta.... ell o-ne ... onour of family.... o-one:

  Very well. He could grant this last thing. He nodded, in an unspoken agreement to keep the secret.

  `And her name?'

  .. eonora. ... anin.'

  The supreme irony.

  She has my name.

  Corradino watched Nunzio die, the moment after the wretch had unburdened his heart. He shed no tears for the Prince and was no more than momentarily saddened about Angelina - he had done his mourning for her in his two years on Murano. And he had not loved her. Corradino had never been in love. But he went to see the two-year-old Leonora Manin at Santa Maria della Pieta and fell in love for the first time in his life.

  On the dock of San Zaccaria, at the entrance to the Piazzetta di San Marco, there stand two tall white pillars. They hold aloft the statue of Saint Theodosius of Constantinople, and the chimera of the winged lion, adopted and bastardized by the city as the Lion of St Mark. The Lion's paw rests on a book, the pages of which read `Pax Marce in Tibia' `Peace be with you Mark' - the fabled greeting of the Angels as they dubbed Mark the Saint of Venice. Three pillars were looted from distant Tyre to stand here, but the third toppled into the sea while being unloaded, and still lies at the bottom of the lagoon. At the instant that Corradino first laid eyes on his daughter, the Camelopard - thin and weary from its three year progress around the great courts of Milan, Genoa and Turin - was being loaded onto a ship bound for home. A mass of ropes encircling its long neck, it was but two short steps from the vessel that would carry it back to the African potentate who had lent it to the north. But the planks that ramped to the ship were glassy with rain; the creature reluctant to walk into the heaving sea. Like the pillar centuries before, the Camelopard pitched forward into the lagoon as its handlers leapt clear. Its enormous height meant that the noble head could be seen above the water, liquid brown eyes rolling, black tongue lashing, as it swallowed salt water. A gathering crowd pulled at the slippery ropes, but the creature's gawky limbs were too ungainly for rescue and, within an hour, the Camelopard died. It sank to the bottom of the lagoon, in silent peace, and in a last motion of grace the long neck and heavy head sank to rest over the lost pillar of Tyre.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Mirror

  Nora looked at her reflection and knew she had made a horrible mistake. She should never have come. There was none of the resolve in her eyes that had been there earlier.

  I see the portrait of a blinking idiot.

  It was her second day in Venice and she was on a trip to Murano, organized by her hotel. Thousands of tourists every year were shuttled over to Murano by the boatload, cameras in hand. Ostensibly they had come to have a trip around the glass factories and marvel at the glassblowers' skill. In actuality, such trips were little more than a shopping expedition for wealthy Americans and Japanese. The highlight of Nora's trip had come earlier - a five minute tour around the factory floor. She watched the men at work, blowing and shaping the glass, some with serious intent, some with crowd-pleasing theatricals. She looked at the building and the furnaces, and knew they had hardly changed in four hundred years. She wanted very much to be a part of it, knew she could do a little of what these men did. She stood, rapt, and was jostled by a crowd of impatient Germans eager to get to the point of sale.

  So that they could buy a conversation piece for their Hamburg dinner table, and say to the Helpmanns over coffee; `Yes, we picked this up in Venice, genuine blown Murano glass, you know.'

  This was their endpoint - this large shopping area, well lit, whitewashed, and bright with glass of every sort. Goblets stood in regimental ranks on the shelves, their orderly lines belied by the spectra of coloured helixes that twisted through their stems. Chandeliers and candelabri of astonishing baroque detail hung from the ceilings, crowding each other like the branches of some fantastical forest. Beasts and birds seemed moulded from volcanic larva of all hues of orange and red. Subtle pieces with the clarity and texture of cracked ice jostled with hideously ugly nineteenth century work; fat birds trapped in perpetual song by trellised cages. And the walls were crowded with mirrors, of all sizes, like a collection of portraits which featured only their admirers. I will frame your face, was their fickle promise. You are my subject. I will make you beautiful. Until you pass me by and the next face stares into my depths. Then only that visage will be my concern.

  Nora looked now into one such.

  Little wonder that a mirror is known as a looking glass. We're all looking for something when we gaze into one. But I am not looki►1c' at myself today, but the glass itself The glass, the glass is what matters.

  A mantra which was meant to make her brave again. She looked to the mirror's frame for reassurance.Weaving around it were glass flowers of such delicacy, such colour, that she felt she could pluck one and smell its scents. Such artistry convinced her - not to go on, but to go back.

  I am crazy. I will look round a little more and then go home, all the way home, to London. I must have been mad to think that I could come here and expect an entree into one of the oldest and most skilled Venetian professions. Just on the basis of my name and my own small talents.

  She clutched the A4 black portfolio which she had brought with her. It contained glossy photographs of the glasswork she had exhibited in Cork Street. She had been proud of it, until she saw this room.

  Mad. I will go.

  `E motto bello, questo specchio; vetro Fiorato.
Vuole guardare la lista dei prezzi?'

  The voice came close to her ear, shocking her out of her dismal reverie. It belonged to one of the smooth, well dressed gentlemen that helped the customers with their purchases. He looked elderly, proprietorial, kind. He could see that he had surprised her, and looked regretful.

  `Mi scusi, Signorina. Lei, e italiana?'

  Nora smiled, in apology for her reaction.

  `No, not Italian.' Now was not the time to explain her pedigree. `Sono inglese.'

  `I apologize,' said the gentleman in perfect English. `But truly, you have the look of an Italian. A Botticelli,' he smiled with great charm. `Would you like to see our catalogue, our price list?'

  Nora screwed up the last of her resolve. His recognizing her for an Italian seemed an invitation into the last chance saloon. `Actually, I wanted to enquire about a job.'

  Instantly the man's demeanour changed. Nora had slipped, in his eyes, from wealthy customer to worthless backpacker. He had such enquiries for shopwork daily. Why couldn't they all go to Tuscany and pick grapes? `Signorina, I regret that we don't take foreign nationals to work in the shop!

  He made as if to leave her. She said, with desperation, `I don't mean in the shop. I want to work in the fornace. As a glassblower. Una soffiatrice di vetro.'

  She wasn't sure if the request sounded more ridiculous in English or Italian.

  The man laughed with derision. `What you suggest is impossible. Such work takes years of training. It is a highly skilled profession. A Venetian's profession. And,' this to her blonde tresses,'a man's profession' He turned from her to a German couple arguing loudly over a goblet set.

  `Wait,' Nora said in Italian. She knew she had to leave, but not like this. Not with this man thinking her an idiot, a nuisance. She could not be dismissed this way. `I wish to buy this mirror.' She wanted the mirror of flowers to take back to London. She had gazed into it while her dream died, and the flowers would serve to remind her of what a beautiful dream it once was.

  Seamlessly, the man altered his manner again.With smooth charm he gave orders for the mirror to be packed, and took Nora downstairs to the shipping desk. He asked for an address in England and Nora, on an impulse, gave her mother's. The mirror could stay with Elinor until Nora sorted herself out. She despondently wrote out her own details and signed the Amex slip, while the man checked her signature with a cursory glance.

  She was actually walking down the staircase before he called her back.

  'Signorina?'

  She returned to the desk, now weary of the trip. All she wanted now was to be able to leave, to get back on the boat with all the rest of the tourists, for that was where she now belonged.

  `Is there some problem?' she asked.

  The man was looking at her mother's address, and back to her Amex slip.

  `Manin?' he said. `Your name is Manin?'

  `Si.'

  He took off his half-moon glasses as if dazed. In Italian, as if unable to compute his English anymore, he said, `Are you - do you know ... have you heard of Corrado Manin, known as Corradino?'

  `Yes, he is my direct ancestor. He is the reason I wanted to come here, and learn the glass.' She suddenly felt tears pricking her eyes. She was an abject failure, failed mother, failed wife, failed adventurer on a fool's enterprise. She wanted to go, before she cried in front of this man. But, surprisingly, he stayed her by holding out his hand. `I am Adelino della Vigna. Come with me for a moment, I'd just like to check something:

  Nora let him steer her by the elbow, not down the main staircase but through a side door marked, forbiddingly, `Privato.' The Germans looked on with interest, sure that the fraulein had been caught shoplifting.

  Nora followed Adelino down an iron staircase, until the smell and heat told her they were approaching the factory floor. He led her through a heavy sliding door, its materials warm from the temperatures within. She felt the full blast of the forno for the first time.

  Like the fifth of November when your front is toasted by the bonfire but your back stays cold.

  Adelino led her to the flames, answering in swift Italian the whistles and teases of the maestri who made predictable comments on old Adelino entering with a young blonde. The old man stripped off his jacket and reached for a blowpipe. Nora began to proffer her portfolio, but Adelino waved it away. `You may as well throw that on the fire. Here we begin all things new' He pushed the blowpipe into the fire, raddling the coals till they spat. `I run this place. All I deal with now is point of sale and shipping, but I used to work the glass, before my lungs went. Show me what you can do with this.'

  Nora took off her coat and slung it behind a pile of buckets. She took the rod gingerly, knowing she had only one chance.

  Help me, Corradino.

  Nora collected the gather from the forno and began, gently, to blow the glass. She rolled it, reheated, shaped and blew, holding her breath out until the parison had formed. Only when satisfied did she breathe in again. Corradino had heard her. It was perfect.

  Nora drank the evil, dark espresso Adelino had poured her while he hunted round his chaotic desk for a pen.

  `I'm taking you on as an apprentice, for one month, on trial. The pay is low, and you'll just be a servente helping the maestri. No finished pieces. You understand?'

  Nora nodded, incredulous. He handed her a form, covered in his inky scrawl.

  `Take this to the Questura - the Police Station - in Castello. It's on the Fondamenta San Lorenzo.You need to get a residency permit and a work permit. This will take a while, but it should help that your father is from the city, and that you were born here.' For now Nora had recounted her history to Adelino. `Meantime get this form franked by them and you can work here while the paperwork is being processed.' He shrugged expressively. `This is Venezia, and she takes her sweet time.'

  Nora put down her cup gently on the desk, afraid that any sudden moves would break the spell; that she would wake and find herself back though the Looking Glass again, staring at her reflection in the shop. Adelino caught her eye.

  `Understand this. You have a small talent for this work, which may grow But I'm hiring you solely on your name, and my respect for Corradino's art. Try to live up to him.' He rose dismissively. `Be here on Monday at 6am sharp. No lateness, or you'll be fired before you are hired.' He allowed himself a smile at his small witticism, which lightened the asperity of his speech. `Now I must get back to the shop.'

  Nora stumbled into the daylight, dizzy with disbelief. She looked at the long low red building that was her new workplace, at the small ranks of red houses by the canal, and the faded street sign on the wall. She stared.

  The Fondamenta Manin. Manin Street. The main street of Murano is named for Corradino. For Daniele. For me.

  The spires of San Marco spiked in the distance, a tiara of piercing beauty crowning the lagoon. Nora had never seen Venice from such an aspect before. She jumped as high as she could and screamed with joy, and went to join the baffled Germans on the waiting boat.

  From his office window, Adelino watched her, and narrowed his eyes meditatively in an unfathomable expression which his late wife would have recognized as a danger sign. His gaze lighted on the same street sign that Nora had just seen. The Fondamenta Manin. The whole place was named for her. Her family is glassblowing, time out of mind. She had talent - talent that would quickly grow. She had the great Corradino on her team. And she was certainly beautiful.

  He turned his back on the vista and faced his office and reality. This was not the seventeenth century. No longer did this foundry, or this city, hold the monopoly on glassmaking. Murano and San Marco were crammed with glass factories and gift shops selling gew-gaws and bon-bons of glass, confections for the tourists to take home. Competition for the patronage of the wealthier tourists, those Americans or Japanese who would invest in a larger piece, was fierce. Adelino was forced to make ruinous deals with the more exclusive hotels to run glass tours, and more often than not in these times the tourists would take
photos and get back in their boats having ordered nothing from his shop.

  He sat down heavily at his desk. His business was in trouble, so why had he just hired a green girl, whom he would have to pay a wage? Why were his fingertips damp with perspiration? Why did his heart quicken? Adelino began to tingle, as the age-old mercantile tides ebbed and flowed in his veins. A lovely girl, a famous genius of an ancestor, and his own struggling glass factory.They all added up to one word; Opportunity. It was one of his favourites.

  Four days later, Elinor Martin received a well-wrapped parcel at her Islington home. It was a Venetian glass mirror of great beauty, sprigged with glass flowers so delicate it seemed as if they lived. There was no note. Elinor sat at the kitchen table, looking in the mirror resting on the debris of its wrappings, at her sixty-year-old face. She began to cry, her hot tears splashing the cool glass.

  She felt as if somehow, from beyond the grave, the mirror was from Bruno.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Lion and the Book

  The Questura in Castello was an attractive building. Like many municipal offices in Venice, the Police Station had a past life as a palazzo and its former existence was betrayed by the Moorish mullions of its windows. Even so, Nora would have been happy to visit it just the once.

  This was not to be.The slow workings ofVenetian administration meant that this was her sixth visit in four weeks. She had filled in form after form, all with incomprehensible names or numbers. She had produced every single paper or certificate that had documented her life, from birth certificate to driving licence. And each time she had dealt with a different policeman, recounting her tale from the beginning, dealing with reactions that ran the gamut from frank incredulity to plain indifference. This English Signorina had somehow been given an apprenticeship with the maestri on Murano, and now needed a living permit and a work permit. Each official had a different take on her plight.