Rupert Thomson - Secrecy

‘I danced as you,’ she said, ‘even though I’ve never seen you dance.’

‘I’m terrible.’

‘People wear masks all the time, not just at carnival. In the theatres, the cafés — everywhere. No one can judge you. Everyone is equal. Free.’

She lay back and stared up into the canopy of leaves, her eyes serious, her hair laid over the raised root of a tree.

‘Such freedom,’ she said, ‘in Venice.’

By the time we left the woods, it was getting dark. Walking back along Via al Prato, I saw the man with the cages and the banner. This time I went over, curious to know what he was selling. Each little cage was made from sorghum stalks, and contained both a cricket and a mulberry leaf. They brought good luck, the man said, and were popular with children. Thinking of Fiore, I bought one.

I said goodbye to Faustina on Porta Rossa, and as I watched her disappear into a narrow, lightless gap between two grimy buildings I had the feeling, once again, that she had slipped through my fingers. Even though she was back, and we had spent the best part of a day together, I hadn’t had enough of her, and I was tempted to run after her, but I knew at the same time that it wouldn’t change anything.

Back at the House of Shells, Fiore was sitting on the floor in the parlour, arranging some bits of metal that she had found. A rusty spoon, what looked like a terret from a bridle. One half of a pair of scissors. I handed her the cricket, explaining that it would bring her luck. She thanked me, then suggested that we give it to Ambrose Cuif.

The signora glanced up from her sewing. She wanted to know if the Frenchman’s nocturnal antics disturbed me. I had got used to it, I told her, though I was still intrigued by his voluntary withdrawal from the world. She didn’t think it was entirely voluntary, she said. Cuif had appeared at court on stilts with a broomstick strapped across his shoulders and black robes down to the ground. Putting on a mask that made him look cadaverous, he had delivered a sermon on the value of hypocrisy and the benefits of fornication. It was clear that he was mocking a member of the Grand Duke’s inner circle. It was also clear that he had overstepped the mark, and the Grand Duke’s mother saw to it that he was banned from performing in the palace ever again. I nodded slowly. Cuif’s attitude to Stufa was beginning to make sense. Equally, I had learned something about Stufa himself. I wasn’t sure if it was true that Vittoria had found him by the roadside and taken pity on him, but she certainly protected him as if he were one of her own.

Fiore pulled at my sleeve. ‘We can still give him the cricket, can’t we?’

‘Not a bad idea,’ the signora said sourly. ‘If he’s really making a comeback, he’s going to need all the luck he can get.’

As I climbed the stairs with Fiore, I decided to pretend I didn’t know the real reason for Cuif’s reclusiveness. The last thing I wanted to do was to humiliate him.

When he opened the door, he was unshaven, and his hair lay flat against his skull, like grass flattened by the rain. I suspected that he had been asleep, though he denied it.

Fiore handed him the cage, which he took gingerly, between finger and thumb.

‘It’s for good luck,’ I said.

Fiore looked from the Frenchman to the insect and back again. ‘It’s just like you, isn’t it — shut in its little room.’

He scowled. ‘Thanks very much.’

Setting the cage down in the corner, he mentioned that several months had passed since he had seen me. No one had seen me, I told him. I had been working.

His eyebrows lifted high on his forehead. ‘I’ve been busy too, actually.’

He described the new act he had been rehearsing, but the language he used was so vague and abstract that I found it impossible to follow. He lapsed into a sullen silence and began to pick at his fingers.

In an attempt to lighten the mood, I told him about the German I had seen at court the previous summer. Fiore was laughing, but Cuif only gritted his teeth.

‘So that’s what I’m up against now, is it?’ he said. ‘Armless Germans?’

On the Grand Duke’s return from Rome, I received a personal note from him, instructing me to deliver the commission to a chamber high up in the east wing of the palace. He was at pains to reiterate the confidential nature of the undertaking. He would dispatch his most reliable servants, he said, but they must not know what they were carrying.

To transport the girl from my workshop to the palace, I wrapped her in numerous layers of muslin and hessian. Then, with Toldo’s help, I slid her carefully into an oblong packing case.

The day came.

As I followed the Grand Duke’s servants through the garden, it struck me that we resembled a funeral procession, with a closed coffin, two pall-bearers, and a solitary mourner, and I had the sense, once again, that I was honouring the dead girl. I glanced up at the back of the palace. More than one hundred windows reflected the raw spring light. So far as I could tell, though, nobody saw us.

After passing a series of rooms the servants called ‘The Eyes’, on account of the large, round windows that gazed impassively out over the city, we arrived at a locked door. Beyond it was an unused passage, the tiled floor so thick with dust that we left footprints, almost as if we were walking on snow. We started up a steep flight of stairs. I made sure that the servants kept the packing case horizontal, one holding his end above his head while the other walked backwards, bending low, his hands down near his feet. We came out into a modest, unfurnished apartment. One half-open door gave on to a strange, empty space that had a rough grey convex floor, and I realized we must be above the flamboyant rooms with vaulted ceilings where the Grand Duke held court. Covert and neglected, the apartment felt like the kind of place where I would meet Faustina. I sneezed twice. Here, too, the floors were voluptuous with dust.

At last, we reached the chamber mentioned in the note. I unlocked the door, and we passed into a circular, domed room. The walls were painted duck-egg blue, and the floor was a vanilla marble, veined with brown and grey. The only windows were narrow and high up, where the dome gathered to a nipple. An oak table stood in the middle of the room. Nearby were two chairs, their gilt arms shaped like lions’ paws. The servants looked at me, waiting for instructions.

‘On the table, please,’ I said.

Once they had gone, their voices fading in the corridor — a murmur, a stifled laugh — I lifted the sliding panel. Slowly, carefully, I eased the shrouded girl from her container. I removed the hessian, but left the final layer of muslin draped over her naked body like a veil. It was late afternoon. The Grand Duke was due at any moment. Sitting down, I fell into a kind of reverie. I was outdoors, on a smooth, green hill. I couldn’t tell what country I was in. England, perhaps. There were wild animals nearby, but I didn’t feel in any danger. The air was warm, the ground soft and yet resilient. To be alive was such a blessing, such a –

‘Zummo?’

Dazed, I sprang out of the chair. The Grand Duke was standing by the door. He wore a cream-coloured wig and scarlet clothes, the fabric glittering with gem-stones and trimmed with little clouds of fur. He must have come straight from an important engagement. I apologized for having dozed off.

‘You work harder than any of us,’ he said. ‘You put us to shame.’

‘I doubt that very much, Your Highness.’

He was weary too, he told me. He had spent most of the afternoon with an Austrian diplomat, one of Leopold I’s advisers, who was intent on involving him in a political manoeuvre that didn’t interest him in the slightest.