The True Adventures of Nicolo Zen (21 page)

At any rate, no matter how good my intentions, without money I could not have gotten Julietta out of Padua. Or brought her back to Venice. Or been able to buy her new clothes from my old friend Signora Gramani, the dressmaker in San Polo who had outfitted me for my audition.

While Julietta was in the changing room, Signora Gramani looked me over.

“I thought so,” she said with a sly smile. “I dressed you once, too, signor—a green dress with lace, as I recall.”

“Yes, that was me, I’m afraid.”

“I knew, of course.”

“How?”

“For one thing, the way you put on your shoes. No girl would do so while remaining on her feet.”

“You were very kind, and I’ve never forgotten it.”

“Well, you’re finely dressed now, a regular gentleman. But your clothes were not made in Venice.”

“I’ve been living in Vienna.”

“May I ask how your fortunes turned around so?”

I told her about my success as a performer.

“Bravo,” she said. “And such a pretty girl you’ve brought here. Is she your betrothed?”

“No, she’s a friend.”

“Ah,” she nodded.

“Not like that.”

Signora Gramani lowered her voice. “Does she know you used to dress as a girl?”

“Yes, that’s how we met, in the orchestra at the Ospedale della Pietà.”

“I see. So you were one of them,” she marveled.

“Briefly.”

Until that moment, I had no idea where Julietta could stay in Venice. We had both decided it was unsafe for her to return to the convent at San Girolamo, where Aldo and his gang would surely seek her. And a hotel was out of the question. We needed something obscure, out of the way.

“Signora Gramani, you could again do me a great favor—and
this time I can make it worth your while. If it’s too much to ask, please tell me.”

And that was how Julietta came to occupy the spare room in Signora Gramani’s apartment, above her shop. “I always wanted a daughter,” Signora Gramani said.

Julietta was only there a few days, but I knew she would be safe, while I myself was entering very dangerous ground.

Knowing I would need more than money and luck to find Adriana, I crossed the Campo San Polo a few minutes later and made my way to the shop of Gamba, the cobbler, on the Calle Filosi.

“Good morning, signor,” I said. “You may remember me.”

Looking up from his work, hammer in hand, he remained expressionless.

“You once lent me a pair of blue shoes. I wore them when I visited the magician Massimo on the Ramo Regina.”

He just stared at me.

“I would like to borrow them again.”

He started hammering at the heel of a boot. “If, indeed, you once visited that gentleman, you can return exactly as you are—so long as he doesn’t object.”

“Are you sure I can find his villa?”

“How should I know? Good day, and be on your way.”

I followed the route I had walked the previous year. Except this time, when I turned off the Calle della Chiesa, no mist descended, and the streets did not grow elongated and twist themselves into a maze within a maze. Along the Rio di San Cassiano I passed seemingly ordinary pedestrians: a laundress carrying a basket, a bespectacled old man with his grandson, two nuns fingering rosaries, a sailor eating a pear. The only anomaly was that each of them looked right at me and smiled in exactly the same way—neither
friendly nor unfriendly, just straight, vacant smiles. It was unsettling, but I kept my mind focused on the task before me.

The Ramo Regina was as I remembered it—the four houses, the high wall, the cobbled courtyard—but I held my breath before peering through Massimo’s gate. His house was there, all right, completely white, with its tall chimneys and shutters. The marble bench in the park looked the same, but there was no sign of Massimo’s statue or its pedestal. As I entered the courtyard, I did see something new at the far end of the park: a pen occupied by a single black pig snuffling in the dirt. I wondered why Massimo would keep a lone farm animal penned up in his elegant garden.

I rapped the front door with the lightning-bolt knocker, and Lodovico appeared.

“He’s been expecting you,” he said by way of greeting, and took my coat. “This way.”

We went to the end of a narrow hallway I hadn’t seen before, and he ushered me into a red room: walls, ceiling, carpet, furniture, curtains, candelabra—everything was red. If I tilted my head slightly, the room became one-dimensional, as if I were looking at a red wall, just a few feet away. If I straightened my head again, the room and its contents reappeared, correctly proportioned. I tilted and untilted my head several times, until I grew dizzy.

Then Massimo entered, all in black as before. “Welcome back, Nicolò.”

I shook his hand. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“This is part of a new act I am perfecting—are you enjoying it?”

“The room?”

“Yes, of course, the room. But the room is only the spatial
component, it’s just the beginning,” he said, sitting down at the red desk and beckoning me to a chair across from him.

I tilted my head slightly, and he smiled.

“No, you won’t see it now,” he said, “so long as I’m present. Anyway, that’s not why you’re here.”

“I need your help, Massimo. It’s important.”

“You certainly did need it. And it was important. But now your friend is safe.”

“Adriana?”

“Remember, I know Herr Hoyer well. He holds you in high regard and he was concerned about you. He dispatched a special courier with a detailed letter who left Vienna well before you did. Hoyer told me why you were going to Padua, about Adriana and your other friend. I trust she is also safe.”

“Yes, she’s here in Venice.”

“Your fears for Adriana were well founded. I intercepted her before she could leave Venice for Padua.”

“But how?”

“Come, Nicolò,” he said dryly, “you’re not really surprised that I could pull off such a feat.”

“Where is she now?”

“In the safest place in the Republic, outside of the Doge’s Palace. My house.”

“Adriana’s here?”

“She has been my guest for the past week. She will join us shortly.”

I was stunned. “Does she know I’m here?”

“She knew you were coming, eventually. Meta went upstairs
to inform her that you arrived. She is, indeed, beautiful and talented, Nicolò. She played her viola for us one evening. You should know that I have invited her to become one of my assistants.”

“You have?”

“Don’t worry,” Massimo smiled. “She hasn’t accepted as yet.”

“It would be an honor, I’m sure,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But she is a musician.”

“And that’s how she would assist me: playing music during my performances. Of course, she might seek employment elsewhere—another orchestra, a chamber group—but it would be a far less rewarding path.” He sat back. “As for you, Nicolò, your clarinet has served you well in the world, as I knew it would.”

“I will always be grateful to you for that. But we need to talk about it as well.”

“All right.”

Suddenly it hit me fully that I was soon going to be with Adriana for the first time in fifteen months. I had no idea how she would react. She had never seen me as my true self. I had been one of her girlfriends—a painful thought—with whom she had played music and shared a dormitory, both of us in dresses or shifts.

“Well, what is it?” Massimo asked impatiently. “About your clarinet.”

“While journeying from Vienna to Padua, I had a lot of time to think. And I decided it would be best if you removed your spell from my clarinet. That is, I respectfully request it.”

I caught the surprise in his eyes. For once, it was I who had aroused
his
curiosity. “Never mind the formalities,” he said. “Exactly how did you arrive at this conclusion?”

“One event, in particular, opened my eyes. My clarinet was nearly stolen. Had it not been for one of Herr Hoyer’s housekeepers, I would have lost it.”

“That would not have pleased me.”

“I know. But, in addition, I had to acknowledge that I truly rely more on that clarinet than I rely on myself. It horrified me. Things have come too easily to me. Not just music, but the way I’ve been leading my life.”

“I have heard about some of your adventures, and misadventures.”

“I feared that I was becoming corrupt.”

“Don’t be so rough on yourself. You’ve suffered your share of hardships at a very early age. Now the world has opened its doors to you. That does not happen to everyone, and it doesn’t always happen for long.”

“Still, no one gets something for nothing.”

“Maybe not. But Hoyer told me how hard you’ve worked.”

“That doesn’t make up for the advantage I was given. I don’t believe any charade can be as satisfying as true achievement. And I don’t want to feel as if I am perpetuating a fraud. My father once warned me that if you benefit from something you didn’t truly earn, you will pay a price eventually. Your self-respect, your dignity—maybe even your soul.”

“It’s ironic that it was your father who gave you the clarinet. Do you think he would have done so if he had been aware of its powers?”

“I don’t know. I know he didn’t want me to have to struggle the way he did.”

“That might have overridden his ethical concerns.”

“Whether it would have or not, I need to start fresh. On the basis of my own talent, I want to become the great clarinetist others think I am.”

“Can you do that?”

“I can try. I must. Surely you understand. You yourself worked tirelessly to become who you are. You told me so.”

Massimo nodded. “All right, then. Do you have the clarinet with you?”

“Yes. I always carry it with me now, for fear of losing it. That in itself seems unhealthy.”

“You realize that the life you are enjoying now—the fine clothes, the victuals, the freedom to travel and to look after your friends—you may lose all of that.”

“Yes.”

“Not to mention your fame: it’s difficult to acquire, and more difficult to reacquire.”

“I understand.”

“I hope you do. Put your clarinet on the desk.”

As I took it from a pouch inside my jacket, my hands were shaking. Massimo did not close his eyes and deliver an incantation, he did not even touch the clarinet; he merely placed his hands, palms up, on either side of it for about ten seconds, exhaled deeply, and sat back again.

“It’s done,” he said. “And can never be undone. Good luck to you, Nicolò Zen.”

I took back my clarinet. It looked and felt the same, and I was eager to play it. But I felt some trepidation as well, and nervous as I was about seeing Adriana again, that was not the moment to try it out.

Massimo walked to the window, parted the curtain, and gazed out at the garden with his back to me.

“In Vienna you met another magician,” he said.

I waited, but he didn’t say any more. “Yes, I saw him perform.”

“What did you think?”

“Of his performance?”

“What else?”

“Extraordinary. It reminded me of the performances of yours that Meta told me about.”

“There are certainly similarities,” he said dryly.

“I dined at his house as well.”

Massimo turned around slowly. “That must have been interesting.” Before I could reply, he said, “Ah, here are the ladies.”

Meta entered the room, wearing a red silk dress with long sleeves, a four-tailed dragon embroidered in black on one shoulder, a lightning bolt on the other. “Hello, Nicolò,” she said pleasantly.

She was followed by Adriana, wearing a similar dress, but without the embroidery. Against the backdrop of the red room, their skin looked pale and Adriana’s blond hair shone. Not surprisingly, she was more tentative than Meta, obviously as dazed as I was by all the redness. A week would hardly be enough time to acclimate oneself to the alternative universe inside Massimo’s villa. But when she saw me, her face lit up, and I lost interest in sharing a cryptic conversation about Maximus with Massimo.

Adriana embraced me, and kissed me on both cheeks, and said, “I know what you did for me, and I will never forget it.”

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

“You can thank Signor Massimo for that. And Meta, who
appeared out of nowhere at the dock in Santa Croce. Though I thought I had done a good job of disguising myself, she came right up and whisked me away minutes before I was to embark for the mainland. It was a miracle.”

“No miracle, my dear,” Massimo said. “Our friend Nicolò looks well, does he not?”

“He does. They have told me all about your great success,” she said to me.

“I have been fortunate. And I feel especially fortunate right now.”

“This is indeed a happy occasion,” Massimo said. “It’s clear you two have a lot to catch up on. And Meta and I have work to do.” He opened the door and took a silver bell from his robe. “Lodovico!” he bellowed, ringing the bell. “Prepare the rehearsal room.” Then he looked back at Adriana and me. “We’ll gather for dinner at seven o’clock.”

Adriana was more beautiful than ever. Like Julietta, she had grown from a girl into a young woman, taller and with a fuller figure. On the way upstairs, I told her how I had brought Julietta out of Padua, and put her up at Signora Gramani’s house, and she started weeping.

“I have been worried sick about her,” Adriana said. “Thank you, Nicolò.” And she kissed me again.

Massimo had given her a corner bedroom on the third floor that overlooked the Rio di San Cassiano through tall windows. Sunlight was dancing on the water and flooding the room. There were freshly cut roses, red and white, in a vase on the mantelpiece. A sleek white cat was curled up on the bed, and we sat down side by side across from it.

“That’s Marco,” Adriana said. “He has a sister, Marcella, who is—”

“Silver.”

“How did you know?”

“We once met.”

Adriana searched my face and touched my hair. “It’s so short. You had such lovely hair. It fooled everyone. Or almost everyone, I guess. I knew there was something odd about you. I couldn’t understand why I was so attracted to another girl.” She blushed. “That never happened to me before.”

“Nor I. That is, not while I was pretending to be a girl.”