The Lion of Venice. Mark Frutkin
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Название: The Lion of Venice

Автор: Mark Frutkin

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Контркультура

Серия:

isbn: 9781459716803

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ and removed a layer of weeds and soil, dropping them to the piazzetta below, taking care to miss my master and his acquaintance. I breathed in the smell of earth and was calmed by it, my heart eased by the simple odour. As I slid my spade under another patch of black loam, I thought– suolo di cielo, the earth of heaven– it is a contradiction, no? It struck me that the soil had flown bit by bit on the wind and collected on that high place since before my father's father's time. It seemed to me that the soil belonged to the Lion himself, was a part of him, the earth under his feet. I looked out to the nearby lagoons and the shining sea– water everywhere surrounded us– while in my hand I held a bit of soil. I placed it in my pocket and later saved it in this box.” Gesualdo motioned to the box in Marco's hand. “Si, put it away now. And keep it with you. You might need to make use of its magic.”

      I didn't know what he looked like, my father, as he had left on a long journey to the East when I was very young. But then he appeared, like a ghost by the well in the corte, and I remembered. It was like looking in an ancient mirror.

      Marco walks with Aunt Graziela to the well in the courtyard. They each carry a pair of wooden buckets with rope handles. Aunt Graziela is slow-moving, with a double-chin and a quick smile. Marco watches her lower the bucket into the black of the well. He hears the distant splash and gazes down into the depths.

      From behind he hears a whisper and straightens up. Across the corte the dazzling light of mid-afternoon surrounds a pair of gaunt, shadowy figures standing under an arched alleyway. The two men stare at him. Graziela too turns to look at the strangers. No one moves, no one speaks. The men walk forward, ghosts coming out of the past and into the light.

      One of the strangers is running towards them. “Graziela!” he shouts, his arms out. “Maffeo!” she screams, as they embrace and she covers his face with kisses. Marco stands back and watches as does the other man. Finally the man takes a step forward and Graziela embraces him too. So great is her emotion, she is unable to speak. She wipes her eyes with the hem of her skirt.

      “Where is Adriana?”

      Marco looks up sharply. That voice. I know that voice. He stops looking at the man and turns to Graziela who has brought her hand to her mouth.

      “You…you don't know?”

      “What is it?”

      Marco knows now, suddenly realizes with a shiver who this man is.

      “A little over a year ago,” Graziela stares at the ground, “a sickness, we don't know what it was. The priest said he had never seen anyone die so quickly.”

      Niccolo drops to his knees. Marco can hear the cry rising in his father's throat long before it shatters the silent square.

       My father won't tell me about the magic of those lands to the East. But I can feel it oozing out the pores of his skin, can hear it echo in his head. He would rather stick to bolts of cloth and weighing pearls. But I can hear into his dreams. I can listen with the patience of stones.

      Marco watches his father test a bolt of wool from a load recently arrived from Bruges. Niccolo rubs his long hands across it as if he has a secret intelligence lodged in the tips of his fingers. He is judging the wool for its lanolin content, deciding on its quality, determining its value. Niccolo is tall and thin with an aquiline face and a pronounced widow's peak. His long straight nose and slightly sad drooping eyes are lowered, looking down now at the wool in his hands.

      Despite the years they have spent apart, Marco feels there is no one he knows better. He has absolute trust in this stranger, a man returned from those distant places whose names alone thrill Marco to the depths of his heart.

      “Marco,” his father asks without looking up. “Why do you spend so much time staring out to sea?”

      “I am listening, father.”

      “Listening?”

      “Yes– to the chimes of Cathay.”

      Niccolo shakes his head. “Never mind. Feel this.” He holds out the bolt of wool and Marco rubs it between his fingers. “Now smell it.” Marco takes in a deep draught from the wool as he has seen his father do in this warehouse many times before. “Now this one.” His father holds out another bolt of cloth. “You see the difference? You understand? This one has more lanolin in it,” he says pointing to the first bolt. “Don't forget. You won't forget, will you?”

       I stand, staring at the sea, listening. I hear so clearly now, I am hearing beyond the present, and into the past as well. I face east and hear a voice calling to me– and from behind I hear whispering from my shadow, as if my shadow itself has been given voice.

       The voice from behind strikes terror in my heart, but the voice from the East shatters softly into a tinkling of glass, and draws further away, tempting me to follow, calling to me like the sea waves washing down the strand and hissing with foam. And beyond it all I am deaf with a vast silence that never leaves me– as if I can only hear with such clarity because beneath the sounds rests a profound silence.

       I hear us preparing to head East again, hear the sound of the wind, the whip of the sail, the waters flowing. If I am to travel well I must learn patience. I must learn how to listen. I must learn about death.

       I knew little about death until that night at the shipyards. Since then it has never left me, not for a moment. It is my unshakable shadow, my ticking angel. Its journey an exact replica and echo of my own.

      Uncle Maffeo was on his way to check out a small coastal ship he owned with Marco's father. The ship, which usually plied the Adriatic between Venice and Brindisi carrying casks of olive oil one way and loads of timber and glass the other, was undergoing winter repairs. At the last moment, Marco had asked if he could come along.

      Broad-shouldered, reserved, Maffeo always appeared to be brooding. Those who didn't know him read the look in his wide face as anger, but Marco knew that as soon as someone spoke to Maffeo his face would light up in a friendly smile.

      A weightless snow was falling in late afternoon on the line of empty caravelles shifting at anchor in the yards of the Arsenal. As they stepped from his uncle's gondola, poled by Tadeo, a bearded rangy servant renowned for his silence, Marco could see winter's darkness climbing out of the lagoon and settling down on them from the thick grey sky. Walking past the deserted docks, Marco and his uncle heard the sound of workmen busy inside the sheds: echoes of hammering, shouts, metal clanging on metal. They reached the fourth shed on the left and entered.

      Inside the warehouse, the Polo ship stood on logs used to roll it up the ramp from the water, rippling cold and black. An acrid smoke filled the cavernous building, coming from a cauldron of pitch about twelve feet across. Inside the cauldron, the pitch bubbled, writhing and pulsing as if alive. A spidery catwalk rimmed the interior of the building, high above in the drifting dark.

      Labourers dipped long-handled pots into the viscous pitch and disappeared down into the ship's hold. Others fed the fire with splits of wood. Still others leaned forward, hammering planks.

      “Come with me,” Uncle Maffeo says above the din.

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