Lucifer's Shadow

9 The route to the ghetto

The piece of paper Leo gave me read, “Dr. Levi, Ghetto Nuovo.” Nothing else. No directions. No instructions on what to do when I got there. I left Ca’ Scacchi just after midday in a state of mild anxiety, walked straight into the campo to the wellhead, and gulped down a cup of musty water. From across the square came a long, familiar whistle. Gobbo was there, ostensibly seeking out some rare kind of mushroom for his epicurean master from the markets round the corner, though I think the unmistakable smirk on his face as he watched a few of the painted ladies go by told of another intent.

“Tell me where the Ghetto Nuovo is, Gobbo,” I pleaded.

“Why do you want that place?” he asked, instantly suspicious. “You’re not a little Jew in disguise, are you?”

I would trust Gobbo greatly, but not with my life. One Venetian improvisation of which I was uncomfortably aware at that moment was the gilded and gaping lion’s mouth one sees on street corners and in important buildings. These lions are there for the suspicious to rat anonymously on their fellow citizens for whatever civic misdeeds they suspect. I did not fancy finding myself in the Doge’s Palace, explaining away my actions, just because Gobbo failed to keep his trap shut down some Dorsoduro drinking dive.

“Of course not, you fool! My master is a printer. Some Hebrew wants his memoirs put on the page. If they pay the money, we’ll publish it, however dreary the old fart happens to be.”

“Glad to hear it!” he said, relieved, and gave me a painful slap on the back. “It seems to me…”—he pulled himself up almost to my own height, to add weight to this coming observation—“that those slimy bastards got o f altogether too lightly for murdering our Lord like that.”

“Your grasp of learning never ceases to amaze me, Gobbo,” I sighed. “I had no idea theology was among your talents.”

A quick grin split his ugly face. “Really? Thanks. The Ghetto Nuovo’s up in Cannaregio. Fifteen minutes on the water at the most.”

I held out my hand with the paltry coins in it. He looked at them and grimaced. “Leo’s a tight-fisted bastard, eh? In that case, you’ll have to leg it over the Rialto and head past San Fosca. Won’t take you more than half an hour, provided no one whacks you on the head along the way.”

“Thanks…”

“I had a master like that in Turin. Stuck him with a penknife before I decamped out of the window with a bag full of silver. Pick a generous guvnor next, my friend. It saves so much grief.”

“I’m an apprentice, Gobbo. Not a servant.”

“Oh!” he said with a mock bow. “I do apologise, sir. I’d give you a lift on my way back, of course, but it’s in the wrong direction, and one couldn’t expect one to share a seat with the hoi polloi. Besides…” A ragged-haired whore with a painted face had just made eyes at him from the warren of alleys beyond the church. “I may be a little time.”

Without wasting another breath on the infuriating chap, I strode o f eastwards, following the tangle of “streets,” little more than dark corridors, which I knew would take me to the Rialto. I have thus far not told you the truth about walking around this fair city of mine, dear sister, and that is for one reason alone: I do not wish to worry you. I am now sufficiently familiar with its ways to know I can survive, but many, I fear, never reach that happy stage. Even by day, Venice is a nightmare to navigate on foot, a tangled warren of passages and gangways, few of them running in a straight line for even ten paces, and mostly built up on both sides so that the weary and confused wanderer can scarcely see where he is going. If an alley should turn into a cul-de-sac — and one that may deposit you in the unsavoury waters of the canal — you may be assured there will be no warning of the fact until the point at which you almost tumble into the grey and greasy lagoon. Should there be the luxury of a bridge, be assured that it will have no handrails, so that a single false step in the dark will tip you once again straight into the drink. On Saturday nights, when the osteria around the corner from our house fills to the seams with rowdy boozers, I lie in bed listening to them trying — and failing — to cross the plankwork that spans the rio into the Calle dei Morti (so called, I imagine, because this is the quick way to walk coffins into the church). For a good two hours after midnight, it is always the same: plop, curse, plop, curse, plop … Ah, Venice.

The Rialto is no such bridge. It is the single way to cross the Grand Canal on foot and, as such, must naturally reflect the glory of the Republic. It does, too, in abundance, being a veritable community above the water, with shops and houses and hawkers and quacks, the latter bellowing their wares into the hubbub as the water seethes with traffic beneath them.

I had no time to dawdle in this pleasant mêlée of humanity. The Jewess awaited me, and Vivaldi after that, so I broke into a loping jog and pushed my way through the throng, past churches, through oddly shaped squares and the low, vulgar architecture of Cannaregio, on to the area where Gobbo had directed me. Then, turning a corner, I found the Ghetto Nuovo, a sight so odd I stopped in my tracks, leaned against the nearest wall, and wondered whether to turn on my heels at that very moment, return to Ca’ Scacchi, and pack my bags.

What stood before me seemed to be a single, small island in the city, like many others, but guarded by a wooden drawbridge — yes, the kind that goes up at night — with a bored soldier scratching his backside by the entrance. Behind, on the island, like some monstrous building that had grown of its own accord, towered a single line of housing six or seven floors tall, with washing hanging out of every window and such a cacophony of cries, young and old, singing, too, and a yowl of argument, that I wondered if an entire city might live behind these black, bleak walls. For a second, I thought that I had taken a wrong turning and stumbled upon the Republic’s prison instead. But no. I walked entirely around this curious kingdom in miniature — no larger, sister, than that little field at the back of our farm where our father grew those waving heads of artichoke in the summer — and found two more such bridges, each with a solitary guard and each capable of being drawn up when required. This tiny piece of land, surrounded on each side by canal, was indeed the Ghetto Nuovo, and I cursed my uncle once again for failing to tell me what lay in store when he ejected me so ruthlessly into the street.

As boldly as I could, I walked up to the guard and said, “I wish to see Dr. Levi, sir. Is he at home?”

The soldier almost clouted me on the head with his fist. “What do you think I am, son? Personal secretary to these bloody monsters? You get your arse in there and find the little kike for yourself. Don’t go asking the Republic’s soldiers to do your dirty work for you.”

I apologised profusely, touching my cap several times, and stumbled over the bridge beneath a dark arch and found myself, wide-eyed and more than a touch fearful, in the realm of the Jews.