THREE NIGHTS LATER, Othello—and Emilia and myself—were summoned to the senator’s again. This time it was a dinner party for about twenty, at which Othello was the guest of honor for his defensive leadership against Ferrara. We were the only nonpatricians at the affair, and Emilia looked as if she’d spent her life around these people. I found it almost poignant that we had been drawn together in part by our dislike of Venetian superficiality, and yet we found ourselves increasingly willing to float within that sea. Not only willing, but in Emilia’s case, extremely capable. We were accepted by all these people as if we shared their birthright. I confess we were both fired up by it. I was physically stronger and at least as educated as any of these gentlemen. I need not scorn them, but I need not be sycophantic either. I deserved the company and was determined to continue in it. Especially to watch Emilia glow.
Emilia attached herself to Desdemona, and I hardly saw her all evening; Othello was of course besieged by curious sycophants and did a fine job maintaining his cheerful composure, although I hardly saw him, either. I spent most of the evening being chattered at by minor gentility, who wanted to know what it was like to be a confidant of a Moor. I failed to give them any useful information, as I had nothing to compare it to, and no report at all of bizarre or un-Christian ways.
Over the next several weeks, Othello was constantly feted everywhere, and brought Emilia and myself along. On more than one occasion, I had to listen to the passing comment that the general had a beautiful wife or mistress or concubine, and each time, I took a deep breath before explaining that no, he did not. There was nothing improper in Othello’s and Emilia’s behavior toward each other—I knew that, I realized it was pure presumption on the speakers’ parts. I did not begrudge my wife and my friend a public ease with each other. But I was concerned that Emilia might innocently establish a light reputation for herself. And I disliked the humiliation of setting things straight with strangers. A bigger man than I, I am sure, would have found amusement in the misapprehension; I wished I were that bigger man.
BRABANTIO’S PALACE WAS the one to which Othello was most often summoned. Othello stopped complaining about these invitations; to that house alone he seemed content to go, even eager. It became common for the summons to reach him in his office at the Saggitary, while I was with him. The custom had developed that he would hand me the embossed card and say, “Meet me at the Arsenal gate at seven bells. With Emilia, if she is so inclined.”
“He likes the girl,” Emilia said conspiratorially at about half-six one evening as we were dressing. “And she likes him.”
“That,” I announced, “is ridiculous in both directions.”
“Do you think he is so fond of the senator’s pomposity that he looks forward to a new dose of it several times a week?” Emilia demanded, brushing some lint off the back of my jerkin.
“Certainly, the girl is food for the eyes,” I said. “Prettier than any of the other unavailable female flesh he might have occasion to ogle.”
“She likes him too.” Emilia grinned, moving around to my front to make sure my laces were neat. “I was with her at that first large dinner party. She never took her eyes off him.”
There was a single sharp rap on the door. I crossed, and opened it. An officious young man who clerked at the Saggitary saluted and then informed me that Othello did not require our presence that evening.
“Why did he not come to tell us himself?” I asked in surprise.
The youth looked at me as if I were an idiot. “The general does not run such errands,” he said.
I dismissed him.
“Do not even say it,” Emilia said at once, reading my expression. “This has nothing to do with you, Iago. The lad’s quite right, it would be odd for Othello to come in person.”
“He came in person to summon us, the first three times!” I protested. “He came as a friend, asking our assistance! Why can he not, as a friend, now come and at least thank us for our service to him, or explain the rudeness of dis-inviting us?”
“It is hardly our service to him,” Emilia countered. “We have been the ones dining far above our place for weeks now. It was if anything an indulgence on his part, to take us along.”
“That may be how it looked to outsiders, but that is not the real matter, and you know it,” I argued. “He ordered me to go with him, his need of my company was so great.”
“Go meet him at the gate and ask him why he didn’t come in person himself, then,” Emilia suggested with a comfortable shrug. She turned her back on me. “Here, loosen my corset for me if we’re not going out tonight.”
“There will be people at the gate; I would look like a fool,” I snapped, not offering to help her.
“Since when do you, Iago, care what other people think of you?” she asked, amused.
That brought me up short. “I do not care what others think of me, just what he thinks of me,” I said brusquely, and grabbed her laces to untie them. “He would think it foolish of me to upbraid him at the gate.”
“That’s because it would be,” she said in a tone of exasperation, amplified by a sigh as the laces loosed. “I think it is wonderful that he has gained his equilibrium enough to navigate the artificial sea of Venetian manners. Good for you for teaching him to steer it; good for him for being an apt pupil.”
“I never thought of it as student and pupil. I thought of it as two friends appreciating each other’s company,” I growled through closed teeth, tugging at the lower laces. “I do not see why I should suddenly be deprived of his company because I have been a good enough friend to help him feel comfortable on his own.”
She glanced over her shoulder at me with a look of confusion, and then laughed. “Iago, my dear, are you jealous? Are you jealous of the whole of Venice, just because Othello, heaven forbid, might make another friend from among its many inhabitants?” When I did not answer, she added in a knowing tone, “Or are you jealous there is one in particular who might borrow your friend’s heart and not return it?”
A spasm of anxiety gripped me. “What do you mean?” I demanded.
Emilia turned to face me, stretching, sinuously arching her torso beneath the loosened corset. If I were not distracted, I would have found this irresistibly seductive. “No man ever likes to see his friends give up their bachelorhood, even if they themselves are married,” she said comfortably. “My father had three widowed friends, and each of them, remarrying, distressed him more than he had words to say it. He never liked their new wives.”
“Are you mad? The man’s not getting married. He’s never even spoken a word in private with that girl. And good Lord, she must have the most desirable dowry in the city—do you think her father would dispose of her to a man who is not a patrician? Who is not even a Venetian? Who would forever change the family’s race?”
Emilia blinked in shock. “Do you really think that way?”
“Of course not, but Brabantio does. I know these men, Emilia, I grew up in their shadows. That girl will be married off to—”
“Her name is Desdemona, you know,” Emilia interrupted sharply. “You’ve never once to my ear called her that. You call her ‘that girl,’ as if she were an object, not a person.”
“That’s because she essentially is an object,” I said heatedly. “No fault of hers, and certainly I pity her for it, but she will be married off according to her father’s will. It has not even entered my mind that Othello would cease to be a bachelor. So stop preaching at me for being afraid that it could happen. It cannot, and it will not. She will be married, yes, and probably soon, but by her father’s choosing.” A new thought came to me, and I felt strangely comforted by it: “I am sure Othello does not realize that. Perhaps you’re right that he fancies her. But just as he did not know he should pull her chair out, perhaps he doesn’t know the rules here. I am probably the only man in Venice qualified to tell him so, without his losing face.”
Emilia grinned and pushed the corset off elegantly. “Excellent, a way to make yourself more important than the girl,” she said. “I am so glad you’re not the jealous type.”