The Gondola Maker (26 page)

Chapter
44

I can hardly believe how quickly the oarmaker has wasted away since the last time I saw him, nearly a year ago now.

The man has been scrawny for as long as I have known him, yet there has always been something solid, strong about him. Now Anton Fumagalli seems little more than a bag of bones. The oarmaker’s kneecaps protrude beneath the thin cover of his stockings. Loose skin hangs from his neck in bags. His eyes have grown dark and sunken into his skull. His walk is unsteady, and he grasps his workbench for support.

The
remero
’s poor physical state has taken its toll on his workshop. Dust collects in the corners, and the workbenches stand cluttered and neglected. “
Cavolo
,” the oarmaker says, scratching his forehead and surveying the mess that his youngest apprentice has left behind. A chisel, two hammers, and the core of a gnawed apple lie strewn across one of the workbenches. A stack of boat plans drawn on parchment lie unfurled across the design table in the back of the room. “I instructed the boy that he was to roll them and tie them neatly, then stack them on the shelves. He was too big of a rush to finish for the day and flee to his mother down the street.” He makes a fist. “It’s not that I expect perfection from my apprentices, especially brand new ones. It’s just that I feel I should not have to supervise every step involved in cleaning my studio.”

“
Remer
, please, sit. You are not well.” I lead him to a chair before a crackling fire in the hearth that warms the oarmaker’s workshop. Cool night air rushes in from under the door and swirls around our feet. With a skeletal hand, the oarmaker clutches a woolen blanket tightly around his shoulders. Under a worktable, I spy a pile of wood shavings and sawdust that litter the floor. I find a dustpan and broom hanging on the wall and squat to fill the dustpan with the shavings.

“I have been a fool,
remer
,” I say, breaking the silence as I stab at the floor with the broom.

He looks up at me from his chair and raises his eyebrows. “Luca, you do not owe me explanations. You are young. You make mistakes. I made them too, when I was your age. I have never told you this, but I left my father’s studio as a young man, just like you. I thought I was meant for something else.” He chuckles. “I even served my time as a rower of the galleys.”

“You? Really?” I struggle to imagine the oarmaker seated on a bench in the belly of a great merchant galley, rowing in unison with several dozen others as the great ship propels them far away from whatever they felt compelled to leave behind in Our Most Serene City.

The oarmaker shrugs. “Eventually I came back to the house where I was born. It is true that my own father was a more benevolent fellow than yours, but still, what else was I to do? My studio was here waiting for me.” He looks into the fire. “It is no matter. It’s all in the past. I do not have much time left now. This malady takes a little more of me each day.”

“Don’t say such things,
remer
. I am more likely to go to my grave before you are.” I lean on my broom handle and smile, but the oarmaker waves his hand at me in a gesture of dismissal.

“I cannot waste a moment talking about what’s already been done. We have work ahead of us, you and I.” The man who seems to be dying a little more every moment, before my very eyes, is prepared to hand over his workshop to me.

“Master Fumagalli, I am honored beyond words. I don’t feel worthy, I don’t feel ready to take over your work.”

He raises both hands now, then slaps them on his knees. “It’s already settled. I have already told you that you are the
only
one worthy to be my successor. This idea did not just appear in my head yesterday. I started thinking about it even before you left the
squero
, truth be told. After the fire, well, I saw my opportunity but then you vanished. You had better not even think of doing that again.” He wags a finger at me.

I continue sweeping, my eyes cast to the floor.

“At first I tried to find you,” the
remero
says. “Annalisa Bonfante is the only one of us who laid eyes on you after the morning you left my workshop. We all questioned her at length, of course, but I believe that she was honest about not knowing what became of you. Truth be told, I am not sure that she wanted to find you as much as we did after that anyway, poor girl.”

I shake my head and continue sweeping.

“Your father had enough on his hands, I suppose, but your brother and sister pled with me to find where you had gone, and I did my best,” he continues. “I inquired through my contacts at the Arsenale state shipyard and even the docks where the slave galleys embark. I lay in bed wondering about it every night; I just could not understand how you disappeared so completely. Finally, I had to convince everyone that we needed to wait for you to make your own way back. I was beginning to doubt that you would, but I held out hope, trusting that you would reappear one day and that you
would be willing to accept the life I have described to you, the life that I myself have lived.”

I know as well as anyone what it takes to pull the master oarmaker away from his workshop, his place in the world. I feel humbled and ashamed that he has gone to all this trouble for me. I move to where the oarmaker sits before the fire. I sink into the chair beside him, hang my head in my hands and shake it in disbelief.

“Your training begins first thing tomorrow morning,” he says. “Of course, it’s not something you can learn overnight. But you will learn quickly. I am sure of it. I promise you that I will teach you everything I know until I take my last breath.” His face softens. “And you thought that you were supposed to make gondolas,” the oarmaker teases me, chuckling to himself. For a fleeting moment, I glimpse the man I remember, full of vigor and eager to poke fun at me. “Son, sometimes your destiny turns out to be not precisely what you thought it would be.”

“Not according to my father,” I say with a hint of sarcasm.

The oarmaker’s face turns serious, and his voice lowers to nearly a whisper. “Your father accepted it even before you did, my son.” He looks at my face. “You will see.”

We sit in silence, and I contemplate this possibility as I watch blue veins dance inside the flames that consume the charred wood. I feel a draft across my feet, and I rise to stoke the fire with a long wrought-iron poker that Master Fumagalli has told me was made by Giuseppe Pontarin, the city’s best blacksmith, unfortunately struck down by the last outbreak of plague. I replace the implement in its iron holder next to the hearth, then watch the flames leap anew.

“
Remer
, there is one thing I don’t understand,” I say, breaking the silence. “They told me that I was released from the Doge’s prison because I had not one but two witnesses who could vouch for my true identity. Who was the second witness?”

“I was,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

The oarmaker remains silent for a moment while he studies my face. “Bring me that box on the workbench.” I notice a large, black wooden container with a metal latch sitting in the shadows at the back of the workshop. I bring it to the oarmaker and place it on the floor. The old man reaches over to unhook the latch. He lifts out a beautifully carved oarlock. He turns it over in his hands, examining it closely through his round spectacles.

I stand up with a start, a shock rending its way through my body. It’s the one I made in Master Trevisan’s boathouse with my own hands, the one that I assumed had gone up in flames with the rest of the old gondola. There is no doubt that the oarlock is mine; I would recognize its peculiar curvilinear silhouette anywhere. Indeed, there is not another one like it in the world.

“Clearly an oarlock made not only for a left-handed rower, but by a left-handed carver, too.” The
remero
smirks and shakes his head. “I should have known it was you the moment I saw it.”

I am nearly speechless. “How? How did this get to you?!”

The oarmaker focuses his gaze on my face. “The first witness delivered it to me: a young woman escorted here in a fine gondola, a striking lady with green eyes and a dog. That is how I learned what became of you.” The
remero
runs his hand over my oarlock, tracing one of the blond grains in the wood with a crooked finger. “It was she who brought me this box.”

It is only then that I notice there is more inside the box, a parchment folio with elegant script, and a flat parcel wrapped in blue paper. As I lift the parcel out of the box, I immediately recognize the familiar paper wrapping that the artist Trevisan uses to package his finished paintings, and I feel the hard edge of the rectangular frame. I do not have to tear open the paper to know what’s inside. I feel the heat rise to my face, and I wonder if the
remero
can see my cheeks turn red.

The oarmaker peers at me over the top of his spectacles. “I’ve been wondering how long it was going to take you to tell me who she is.”

MY DEAR LUCA,

You may find it unusual to receive this package, under the present circumstances.

When Signorina Zanchi came to me to ask for my help with your situation, I must admit that I was more than a bit surprised, not only by the unexpected turn of events but also, of course, by the fact that I had been completely unaware of your rapport with the banker’s daughter.

After some reflection, however, I believe I better understand the motives that led to this most curious set of circumstances. Moreover, some of the unresolved questions that had occupied me about your talents as a boat maker have now been answered. As much as I regret no longer having you in my service as a gondolier de xasada, I consider that business arrangements are now settled between us. You should not bear any burden of obligation toward me or toward my studio.

What became of the old gondola is of course regrettable, but you must understand that it was the price of putting this matter to rest. I did manage to salvage the oarlock, which of course no one else noticed was missing from the boat. I hope that it will bring you not only some measure of consolation but of pride, as it is the mark of a fine craftsman.

Rest assured that I shall refer my patrons to your workshop for the repair and replacement of their gondola fittings.

Gianluca Trevisan

Painter

IN VENICE, THINGS ARE not always as they first appear. I contemplate this observation from my post on the aft deck of one of Master Fumagalli’s gondolas, taking in the panorama of bridges, domes, bell towers, and quaysides of my native city. I row into the neck of the Grand Canal, and, one by one, the reflection of each colorful façade appears, only to dissipate into wavering, shimmering shards under my oar.

As I head in the direction of the Convent of Santa Maria della Celestia, I try to imagine Giuliana Zanchi cloistered behind its stark walls. Has she traded her elegant gowns for the drab gray habit of the Dominicans, her opulent palace bedroom for a bare cell? I try to imagine her intoning hymns in the choir stalls for decades to come, but I fail to picture the image.

I pass the façade of the Ca’ Zanchi, the residence I have been watching at a distance for months. Her palace now stands empty, a cold, inhospitable mass of stone, marble, and wood, stripped bare, its black windows no more than gaping holes. An image of Giuliana Zanchi leaping into Trevisan’s old gondola from its quayside crosses my mind, and I feel the familiar pang of loss stab me under my ribs.

If the Councillor does not possess her portrait, it must mean that neither does he possess her innocence, nor she the money that would buy her freedom. Surely the sale of her jewels would not be sufficient to sustain her for years to come or provide a dowry worthy of a nobleman’s hand in marriage. A life in the convent is the natural solution, as much as she—and I—might wish for her a different fate.

I ring the brass bell outside the canal-side door to the convent, and a servant answers the door. Of course I know that they will not accept an unknown visitor, especially a man rowing a gondola, so I use the excuse I’ve prepared:

“I have been instructed to hand-deliver an important message to Signorina Zanchi,” I say.

“Wait here, please,” she says, latching the door back into position. I hear the murmuring of two female voices behind the door.

A nun in a gray habit cracks open the door, setting her clear, blue eyes on me. “You have a message for the Widow Zanchi?” she asks.

“No, I refer to her daughter, Giuliana Zanchi. I understand that she has taken her vows here.”

“I’m afraid you are mistaken,
missier
,” she says. “Signorina Zanchi has not taken her vows. She is not among us.”

I am stunned. “Where is she?”

“I am told that Signorina Zanchi has left the city. I understand that she is lodged with her cousins on terra firma while the family awaits the settlement of her father’s affairs.”

“When is she to return to Venice?” I ask.

“Of that I cannot say,
missier
,” says the woman. “I do not know more than what I have just told you. May I convey a message to her mother?”

“No,” I say. “Thank you for your assistance.”

“May God bless you,
missier
,” she says, then latches the convent door.

I row back to the studio, feeling a wave of relief followed by another pang below my ribs. Will Giuliana Zanchi return to Our Most Serene Republic, and if she does, will I find her before another man claims her as his own, or before she resolves to take her vows at Santa Maria della Celestia after all? Is there a chance in the world that she, in her reversal of fortune, might consider a life as the wife of an oarmaker?

For now, I hold onto a speck of hope, a collection of memories, and a painted souvenir.