The Secret of the Glass (24 page)

“What’s really going on?”

Alfredo held steadfastly to Teodoro’s gray worsted sleeve. The men stood in the middle of the busy
fondamenta
, an island unto themselves in the sea of people bustling about, forced into separating to move around the rugged pair of men. Teodoro pouted sullenly, smooth-skinned forehead crinkled in confusion. His friend’s piercing green eyes narrowed, probing expectantly with unflinching, unwavering determination.

“Do not try and deny it,” Alfredo warned, his other hand rising to point an accusing finger in the familiar face before him. “You haven’t been yourself in many a day.”

Teodoro’s brows rose in sarcastic arches. “Who
have
I been?”

Alfredo sneered at him.

“Save your clever retorts for someone who would be fooled by them. Tell me what’s going on.”

With a one-shoulder shrug of capitulation, Teodoro gave a nod and a tic of his head, pulling his friend by the arm along the walkway.

“I…I have met someone…interesting.”

“You have met someone? Someone who? When?” Alfredo’s voice rose to an incredulous pitch.

Teodoro lowered his head, more bashful than embarrassed.

“Her name is Sophia Fiolario. I met her the other night at the Palazzo Ducale.”

“So
that
is why you went missing for so long. We looked everywhere for you.”

Alfredo cuffed him on the back, chuckling with a ribald laugh. Teodoro shook his head and smiled shyly, a child caught in a naughty act. The two striking young men continued to traipse along the busy thoroughfare, oblivious to the women, young and old, who stared after them, heedless of the appreciative smiles beaming down upon them from the young giggling girls hanging over second-story, dowelled railings.

“Sophia Fiolario. Sophia Fiolario.” Alfredo mumbled behind his hand, rubbing his mouth in thought. “I do not recognize the name.”

“You wouldn’t. She’s not…” Teodoro remembered Sophia’s strident voice when she told him who she was, remembered the small jut of her chin. “She is a glassmaker’s daughter.”

Alfredo’s step faltered, but he pressed on with a roll of his eyes and a scathing, dubious expression on his face.

“What is the point in this, Teo? She is most certainly betrothed to a
nobiluomo
or she wouldn’t have been at the palace to begin with.”

“I know…I know.” Teo’s mouth tightened.

Dawning light flickered in Alfredo’s widening eyes. “Ah, perhaps you will use your sad story as I do and—”

“No!” Teo snapped, his intense protest too telling by itself, his passion halting their progress yet again. “Um, yes, if…no, she’s not, she wouldn’t…” Teodoro’s voice drifted away, a flush splotching his tan cheeks.

“Then what? You cannot marry her, what’s the point?” Alfredo snipped with impatience.

Teo rubbed his forehead with a long hand, as if to clear his muddled mind.

“I don’t know. I know only that I want to see, need to see her again. We appreciate great works of art though we may never own them, do we not?”

“Is she that beautiful?”

“Yes…no…I mean yes.” Teo sputtered again, gently shoving Alfredo’s shoulder at his friend’s disbelieving chortle. “It is more than just her beauty. She is so much more than that.”

“
Sì?”
Alfredo swaggered along, pulling down on the edge of his doublet, flicking his hands down his chest as if chasing away lint. “Then perhaps I will marry her myself. If I must, she—”

“No!” Teodoro’s bark was as sharp and hard as a blow of his hand.

Alfredo snapped back as if struck. He gaped at his friend, Teo’s beleaguered yet ardent response erasing all jocularity from his elegant features.

“I’m sorry,
mi amico,”
Alfredo said, voice low and somber. “I didn’t understand. I will tease you no more.”

Teodoro nodded in relief, catching up with a few long strides. “
Grazie
.”

A rapport exclusive to treasured friends settled upon them as they continued their journey down the busy
fondamenta
. They passed factory after factory, almost all glassworks, their cleverly designed placards hanging from black steel rods above large wooden doors that swayed, spurred by the breeze, rhythmic squeaking resounding with every backward and forward motion. Upon each carved and lacquered surface rose the name of the establishment, a picture representing it, and the name of the family who owned it. One in particular caught Teodoro’s attention. The picture of the fiery bird, painted bright red, captivated his imagination; its writing sparked a thought.
Fenice
,
La Quirini Familia
.

He mulled the name over in his mind; he knew it, but from where he couldn’t quite grasp. When he remembered, a wave of sadness washed over him. This family had lost a son, his life coming to a violent end not so very long ago, violence perpetrated by their own government. The missives and duty passed on to him by two council members rushed back to his recollection. Savino Cicogna and Baptiste Loredan were no friends of his, no more than colleagues and of an older generation, but they had given him the dispatches knowing of his closeness to the Doge and his sympathy with their cause and that of the glassmakers.

Teo stepped closer to the door, staring at the black wreath hanging from the rusty nail embedded in the painted evergreen door. Standing here, at the home of this young man, in truth no more than a boy, younger than Teodoro himself, made him so much more real, his death so much more tragic.

“Is this it?” Alfredo stopped beside him, shielding his fair eyes from the sun with a hand to his brow, and peering into the large display window.

“No.” Teo, turned from his morose thoughts, slapped his hand upon his friend’s broad shoulder, and hustled him back along the quay. “Just a little farther, I think.”

Not far up ahead, the long, imposing sign of La Spada was hard to miss, as the metallic sheen of the painted sword sparkled in the sun. Teodoro squinted against the glare as it flashed in his eyes, sucking in a nervous breath. He faltered at the corner, at the intersection of the smaller
calle
that led to the factory’s entrance, questioning his own impetuous actions.

“We’ve come this far.” Alfredo prodded him in the back, forceful and yet compassionate. “There’s no turning back now.”

Teodoro marveled at how familiar he and Alfredo were with each other, offering a weak grin and an uncertain nod in response.

“May I help you, signore?” The young, skinny boy rushed from his stool in the front corner and bowed before them. The two young cavaliers strained to hear him over the ruckus of so many hands and tools at work.

Bright morning light streamed in the high windows, finding the blaze of each
fornace
as if it were the energy that lit the fires within. The dripping resin of the alder wood pinged onto the flames, releasing its tangy odor into the air.

Teodoro opened his mouth, his lower jaw working uselessly. He could think of nothing to say. He had come hoping to see Sophia, had hoped to find her on the grounds of the factory as if waiting for him to arrive. It was a nonsensical fantasy but it had been with him for days. Now he felt little but disappointment. He could ask for her father but, as they were unacquainted, the meeting could prove awkward.

Alfredo put a supportive hand on Teo’s shoulder.

“My friend here would like a gift for his mother, a glass swan, and we’ve heard this is the best
vetreria
in all of Venice.”

“Sì, sì
.” Teo found his voice, offered a smile of thanks to Alfredo, and bobbed his head with enthusiasm, grateful for the lifeline and the return of his senses. “A swan, for my mamma.”

Metal pans fell upon the stone floor with a horrendous clatter, their noise raucous and splitting, as if all the bells of San Marco cracked and tolled at once.

“Porco mondo
.”

The female voice rent the ensuing quiet, distinctive with its feminine tone, surprising with its guttural curse.

His voice, one so clear in her recollections, sent Sophia spinning to the sound, her flailing hand knocking the metal sheets to the floor. She bent, reaching out clumsily, trying to pick them all up at once, trapping them against her body, her arms contorting gracelessly. She leaned forward and dropped them back onto the
scagno
, creating yet another banging barrage of bombilation. Her hands flapped against them, slapping them to stillness, feeling as silly as she knew she must appear.

Rolling her eyes heavenward, an infuriated gesture of impatience with her own clumsiness, an impassioned entreaty for help from above, Sophia dared to look around. All eyes were upon her; the men stared at her in confusion, some of the younger ones, those akin to brothers, giggled at her ungainliness. Through the forest of their faces, Teodoro’s rose like the tallest oak, tinged with surprise and, perhaps, pleasure.

Sophia gave herself a mental prod, pushed back some of the errant strands of hair from her forehead, and took a few steps forward, rubbing her hands, front and back, on the skirt of her plain, smudged work gown.

“Signore Gradenigo.” She dipped a slight curtsy to Teodoro, her legs quivering far too frantically to attempt anything grander. “What a surprise to see you here.”

Teodoro bowed. Rising up, he looked upon her face, and the smile of pleasure that touched his mouth lit in his eyes.

“I could say the same for you.”

Sophia lowered her head with a rueful grin. The hiss of cooling glass rang out in the preternatural quiet of the
fabbrica
. Sophia looked slowly over her shoulder, grimacing as she found the attention of the workers fixated upon her and the visitors. She pinched her mouth shut at them, her eyes widening with exaggerated exasperation, and the men returned to their work, making an elaborate show of it, the noise of banging metal punctuating the rumbling of masculine voices.

Sophia turned back to Teodoro.

“You look for a gift for your mother?” she asked, her creamy skin flushing in the ever-pervasive heat of the factory and the warmth of her embarrassment.

“I do,
sì.”
Teodoro dipped his head, his clasped hands fidgeting in front of him. “She is quite partial t—”

Alfredo cleared his throat—an overdone, spastic cough—and smiled at the couple with feigned, wide-eyed naïveté.

“Oh,
mi scusi
,” Teodoro rushed on. “Signorina Fiolario, please allow me to introduce my friend, Alfredo Landucci.”

Alfredo stepped forward and bowed low, one hand thrust out like a dancer, the other taking Sophia’s hand in his. He brushed his mustached lips across her skin with slow deliberation.

“His
best
friend,” he said, rising up and batting his eyes at her like an innocent coquette.

“Yes, well, there’s not much to choose from where we come from,” Teodoro quipped, grunting playfully, dramatically clutching his abdomen as Alfredo’s elbow connected lightly with his gut.

Sophia smiled, withdrawing her hand from the dashing man’s embrace, smiling at him as if she knew his secrets. They made a dichotomous pair, these two, but their friendship stood firm between them.

“As you were saying, signore?” Sophia asked Teodoro.

“Yes, my mother’s gift. She is partial to swans, you see, they swam in the pond behind her childhood home in Padua. I was hoping to find one made of glass.” Teodoro pried his gaze from her face and searched about the vast factory and the many men in it. “Perhaps I could speak with your father and see what he has to offer?”

“My father is not here, I’m afraid, he’s…he’s…” Sophia sputtered.

“Signore Fiolario is away on business at the moment.” Ernesto stood just behind Sophia’s left shoulder and bowed. “I can help you, signore, if you would allow me.”

Teodoro’s eyes flicked from Sophia to the older man and his friendly features.

“Of course, of course. The renowned reputation of La Spada belongs to you all, for certain.”

Sophia stepped back, sharing a look with Ernesto, allowing him to take control of the situation and the transaction, only a quick, gentle touch of her hand on his back said anything overtly between them.

“We have no swans just now, signore, but I can show you our sketches and if you like them, we could have one ready for you in two days.” Ernesto raised a hand, motioning them further into the workshop, a glance and a wink over his shoulder to Sophia.

“That would be more than acceptable,” Teodoro agreed, following Ernesto’s direction down the center path of the factory, feeling no need to mention the fact that his mother’s birthday was not for another two months.

Sophia followed demurely behind the three men, straining to hear their conversation. She knew Ernesto would take great care with these customers, but she needed to make sure for herself. Taking the scorched rag she carried in the pocket of her coarse-fabric gown, she busied herself with cleaning Ernesto’s
scagno
as the
maestro
displayed the elaborate
abbazati
upon the table beside it.

“What about this one, signore?” Ernesto asked, a note of wry humor in his age-roughened voice, forcing Teodoro’s wayward attention off Sophia and back to the drawings before them.

Alfredo slapped his friend on the back, an insouciant raised brow upon his refined features; Teo’s torso jerked forward.

“Ah,
sì, sì
.” Teodoro looked quickly down, brows knitting in determined study. “Actually, yes, that’s perfect. The long, graceful curve of the neck is just like my mother’s.
Che bello
.”

Sophia’s lips fluttered into a smile, one hand rising to her chest. Her mother had always told her that a man who loved his mother, who showed no reticence to display that love, was a man who would love his wife well.

“Would you like it clear, or white with an orange beak?” Ernesto asked.

“White, if you please,” Teodoro replied. “And perhaps just two dots of blue for the eyes?”

Ernesto bobbed his head. “Like the blue of her son’s eyes.”