Passion Play
I return to the city of my birth, as if back from the land of the dead. What could remain unchanged? I am a different man. Venice too must be different, a foreign city whose canals I somehow recall from a place out of time. And, after all this time, will he be waiting here as well?
For a year we sailed from island to island across black waters, following our Chinese mappa-mundi, loading pepper, nutmeg, cloves, cubeb berries and galangal, heading for Zeilan, three thousand li across the southern seas. The soft breezes were scented with sandalwood and anise.
Adim said the assassin would be there, in Zeilan, waiting for me when we arrived. I never saw him, but have no doubt he saw me.
Storms and disease thinned our numbers. We lost three ships in a typhoon that roared out of the Gulf of Siam. A month of fever filled the sea with bodies, until the ocean was gorged and appeased. Six hundred of our number died on the journey, though we Polos were somehow untouched.
In India, the heat was a kind of natural violence. It was there we heard of the Great Khan's death from other travellers. We delivered the princess to her fate, and Adim stayed to serve her. We parted in sadness, the dwarf and I.
We met traders in indigo, pepper and cinnamon; jewel merchants with diamonds sewn into their cloaks; and, once, a purveyor of birds, his line of camels dangling delicate wooden cages filled with kokatuas, luries, orange paroquets and bad-tempered peacocks, the bird that dreams its own tail.
And now this– a city of bright mist shimmering in the afternoon. Venice looks like a diamond in a swamp. Not an invisible city but a city made twice visible by the presence, on every hand, of water, the sea's water, breathing in and out of the canals. A city that exists in two places at one time, a city that surrounds you on every side, a city susceptible to weather, clouds rising at your feet, the sun glancing from a million places at once, the flash of night lightning multiplied at every turn. One city glittering with song; another dark with profound silence.
Venezia. Marco said the word to himself, trying out its sound on his tongue as he gazed at the city in the distance across the water.
The word sounded unusual coming from his own mouth. Venezia. What did it mean, this sound in a tongue now foreign to him, for his own language had grown rough with disuse over the years. Was he not a foreigner to this place? Or perhaps he had become a man without a land of his own. A perpetual traveller. The city continued to grow before his eyes as the ship cut through the water. Venice was coming back to him as he came back to it. A subtle echo of recognition, an empty mirror in his head filling up with a city.
As the ship neared Venice, the crew, pointing and jabbering, crowded the deck. Marco, his beard bushy and unkempt, was silent among them. His father and uncle stood nearby, sharing their thoughts quietly. They entered the scalloped waters of the lagoon, the winged Lion on its column sparkling in sunlight. Marco shifted his gaze to take in the rest of the city. He half-expected to see someone he knew hailing him from the small sandolos that came out to meet their ship. Marco, his father and uncle drew a few curious glances from the boatmen and others along the harbour, but in a city so frequented by exotic visitors, the Polos, with their faces only slightly more weatherbeaten than the average Venetian seaman, held but momentary interest.
When Marco placed his feet on the stones of Venice, an ineffable feeling arose in him. The city had existed as a patch of glittering gold light in his memory for so long it was as if a mirage hovering above the waters, out of nothingness, had come to life.
A short while later, when the Polos arrived at their house, they could hear a banquet in progress. Niccolo pounded on the door which was answered by a velvet-robed young man with thick black hair. “Who are you?” he asked. “We are celebrating a wedding feast. What is it you want?”
“This is my house,” said Niccolo.
“What? Who are you, old man?”
“Tell the guests that Niccolo and Maffeo Polo have returned from the East, along with Marco, the son of Niccolo.” Niccolo began to step through the doorway.
The young man put his open hand on Niccolo's chest to hold him back. “No, wait here.”
Moments later, he returned. “They say you cannot be who you claim to be. The three Polos who travelled to the East must have died years ago. Nothing was ever heard from them. You must be beggars, or impersonators.”
Marco stepped forward. “We have travelled far. Do not jest with us. Let us in.” With Marco in the lead, the three of them stepped brusquely inside. The smell, thought Marco, I remember the thick damp smell of this house.
Passing through the ground floor storage room they mounted stairs to the next level and entered. The spacious rectangular room, its floor strewn with reeds, a bow hanging on the wall, was filled with guests seated at tables, drinking and laughing. I recognize the faces, narrow, sculpted, pale, reserved. I recognize the intense, bulging eyes of the men; the softer lines of the women. As the three strangers entered, an uncomfortable silence settled on the wedding guests.
“Who are you?” spoke a man with curly hair seated at the central table.
“Who are you?” Niccolo squinted. “Are you Stephano? Or perhaps Giovanni?”
From another table a tall grey-haired man said, “I am Giovanni,” the crowd murmuring at the surprising revelation that the old stranger knew the names of some of their number.
Maffeo stepped forward and spoke. “Is Graziela here?”
A woman with wrinkles at the corners of her mouth said, “It is I.”
“Do you not recognize me, wife?”
Graziela approached, wide-eyed, and touched Maffeo's face with a frail, angular hand. “Lord of angels, can it be true? I…I do not know. I am not sure. It is too long. I thought my husband was dead. I stopped thinking about him years ago, and his face slipped from my memory a few short months after he left. There is something in the voice, yes…but, I do not know for sure.”
“Can you prove that you are the Polos?” said the one named Giovanni.
Niccolo proceeded to list the names of his many relatives, some of whom were present. Guests began nodding their heads and whispering among themselves. A few began arguing against this miracle.
“Let us send for others of our neighbours and see if any of them recognize you,” said the young man who had answered the door. He sent two boys off to round up more distant relatives and the older of their neighbours.
“Offer the travellers a cup,” someone in the crowd said.
The Polos dropped their bundles, accepted the cups and drank, as more relatives began to arrive from nearby, in wonder and awe at the possibility that the three could have returned.
“Who was Doge when you left?” asked Stephano.
“Lorenzo Tiepolo.” Niccolo lowered his flagon of wine, as a ripple of surprise moved through the crowd surrounding the Polos. “And who is Doge now?”
“Pietro Gradenigo.”
“Ah, a Gradenigo.” Niccolo glanced at Maffeo who nodded.
“But two have since followed Tiepolo,” said Giovanni. “Jacopo Gontarini and Giovanni Dandolo.”
“But, let us not disturb your festivities, you must go on with the wedding feast,” Marco said to the assembled crowd, indicating the bride and groom. He stared at them as they sat at the main table, a young couple with fine skin and glowing faces. “And of the two, which is the Polo?”
A toothless crone, eyes glittering, spoke at his elbow. “Why, it is the groom. He is called Andreo Polo, the last son of your father's youngest brother, Tommaso, who died two winters ago.” She paused. “But the bride has a sister, Maria. A girl of the age for marriage.” She gestured to a young woman standing across the room by the wall.
Marco glanced at her, and she gazed back for a moment before turning away. In that momentary flash from her striking green eyes, he sensed a deep familiarity. He threw back his head and laughed.
In the middle of the night, Marco awakens and opens his eyes on the full moon hovering in his window. He hears the clear sound of footsteps approaching from a distance, hears them passing. He hears as he has not heard in years: a horse far off, clattering over a bridge of tarrred wood; the swish of a gondola as it slides along the canal, the small plash of its paddle, the gondolier's sigh; a woman weeping from several cortes away. For a moment, lying in the lonely timeless dark, he thinks he is a child and what he hears is his mother weeping as she sits on a step of their courtyard well. The clarity of the sound startles him. He rises from his bed, dresses and passes into the night.
Marco walks alone in the alleys and cortes of a sleeping city. He no longer hears the weeping. Nothing moves. All is still.
In moments, he is lost. Looking back the way he came to ensure no one follows, he takes an alley, crosses over a canal, walks along the riva next to the canal for a ways, turns into a covered lane. He wanders through the endless twists and turns of the place, the smells new and different as each bridge is crossed, the sounds echo more in one spot, are deadened in another. A gondolier passes down an eight-foot-wide canal, his head at the level of Marco's ankles, nods a greeting as he slips by and disappears around a turreted building.
The dark is unrelenting, though on a few squares torches burn in wall stanchions, scaring crazy shadows down nearby alleys.
The only sound his own footsteps, his own breath. Everything is compressed, he feels Venice inside himself, has always felt it there, though he barely recognizes it now, and yet there are echoes, smells, angles he recalls suddenly, like a detail remembered from a dream. The maze is compressing further and further until he feels the world has shrunk into this contorted city and the city has shrunk into a small bright point in his head.
Stopping on a bridge, he listens. He lets the silence sink into his bones, lets it come down inside him where it extinguishes all the exotic babble of the intervening years, as if washing him clean, emptying him.
Yes, against this silence I will remember all of it, each detail, each voice as it spoke, each trilling bird, each trickling chime, I will recall all of it, in high relief He hears the lap-slap-lap in the canal under the bridge on which he stands. He sees stars rocking on the water, looks up and gazes into their bountiful silence.
The next night, the three travellers mounted a great feast to celebrate their return. Word had spread that the Polos had arrived home, everyone–cousins and uncles, neighbours and curious strangers–from nearby and distant quarters, came to see them.
In strict accordance with Mongol custom, the three Polos decided to carry out an elaborate ritual during the banquet. In the midst of the feast, when everyone was talking at once, drinking from flagons and munching on seafood and grapes mounded high on platters, the returned travellers rose from their seats at the long table, disappeared into an adjacent room and changed from robes of crimson satin into robes of crimson damask. On returning to the crowded banquet they cut up the satin robes and distributed the pieces to the assembled guests. Rough hands and fingers paused over the satin cloth, luxuriating in its richness.
The Polos answered endless questions with patience. Some in the crowd doubted the truth of their identity, but kept their doubts to themselves, in hopes of gaining some of the bounty. In a while, the Polos again mysteriously disappeared into the adjacent room. The guests waited in anticipation. The Polos returned in crimson robes of velvet, over their arms the damask robes which they distributed to select guests.
And again, after a while, they did the same with the velvet robes. The crowd buzzed at the wonder of this ritual. Marco, his father and uncle were enjoying the slow and deliberate ritual, elaborate as a passion play. They were finally dressed in their Venetian robes when Marco called to the servants, “Bring in our old travelling garments in which we first appeared.”
“Things are not always as they seem,” he said, as he slit the clothes open and dumped out onto the table handfuls of pearls, diamonds, sapphires, rubies and other gems. “Are these wonders real?” old Graziela asked Marco. He nodded. The Polos distributed a portion of the gems. The rest they gathered up for safekeeping in a sturdy wooden chest.
And with that, in answer to continuing questions from the guests, Marco began telling stories of their journeys. He did not notice that Niccolo and Maffeo at first stared down at the table in silent discomfort, then stole from the room as their relatives and neighbours crowded close.
A pallid light appears from the lagoon to the east. A breeze, silky and damp, lifts off the water with the rising dawn. Marco's tales have continued through the night. He is tireless, glowing with energy. Only the oldest and youngest among the guests have left. The rest are bewitched. “And in that way,” Marco recounts, looking at their upturned faces, “we were able to escape the Muslims. For wrapped in slabs of pork on the wagon driven by the Christian– a Nestorian, he was– we knew we were safe from harm. The Muslims, as you know, have a profound distaste for pork. We knew they would not check the meat, and so we escaped beyond the walls of the town into the nearby hills where we bought mules and were on our way, riding all night and hiding in the day until we passed well beyond that country.”
“And you kept the gold and jewels with you?”
“Yes. A meagre portion compared to what we had at the start. As you can see, we were wise to sew the jewels into our clothing, a ruse we learned from travelling merchants in India. A few other satchels of goods– mostly fine cloth– we were able to keep with us. Much else was lost. Ten times, a hundred times the value of what we brought back– which in itself is considerable– was left behind. Abandoned on the road. Paid out for food or horses or pack animals, or for safe passage through lands teeming with brigands.”
“Still, you are wealthy men.”
“Yes, it is true.”
“And you have also the wealth of your stories. I think in the end they will prove more valuable than all your jewels,” Maria says shyly.
He looks at her and smiles. “Yes, that too may be true.”
Within days, the tales of Marco Polo had spread throughout the city, infiltrating every obscure alley, every secret square. In the evening, people would come to Marco wanting to hear it for themselves and he would tell them of the endless adventures and wonders that befell him on his journey east. The stories appeared like a mound rising in the midst of the compact sequestered city, rising higher and higher as he added more details, as he remembered and recounted events in Cathay, in Persia, in India and the southern islands. No one could ignore it– and soon word had passed along the rivers up into nearby towns and villages where the people treated the accounts like myths, or the embellished temptations of Satan.
“What think you?” a white-haired fisherman asked his friend as they unloaded baskets of blue-green squid onto the quay. “Is the younger Polo telling truths or not?”
“His father never traded in exaggerations when he returned before,” said the other. “He stuck to jewels and cloth, the things he knew. As for me, I don't believe these tales. He says there are cities in Cathay ten, nay, twenty times the size of Venice, and life there is much like in Paradise. And the people act strangely, buying turtles and shellfish only to let them go back into the waters. He claims he saw palaces of gold and gems; huge birds that could lift a boat; savage people who run about naked and live on a milk that comes from the nuts of trees. I tell you, I think he suffers from a kind of madness, this Polo.”
The first fisherman lifted the last basket of squid onto the dock. The large lidless eyes of the squid stared up into the sky. “If he speaks truth, my friend, I tell you this: it is the end of our world.”
After watching a mystery play on the great square, my steps are traced in the night fog by one breathed up by the sea. At the moment I am about to slit the throat of my madness, the mist clears.
In front of the Church of San Marco, facing the piazza, workers had built a spacious platform to serve as a stage for the play, The Mystery of Adam, to be enacted that evening. A sizable crowd had gathered in the square and were avidly discussing the stage set. The floor of the platform was strewn with flowers, a number of bushes and plants had been set up, as well as trees bearing succulent fruits.
“Look at that,” a man near Marco pointed to a tree at the rear of the stage, “one tree bears both apples and lemons.” Those within earshot laughed, then went silent as the play began.
Out the doors of the church strode a white figure in a shimmering gold mask. He was immensely tall and his white robes seemed like snow on a mountainside. At centre stage he halted. Two angels came out leading Adam and Eve. Adam wore a red tunic, Eve a simple white dress. With flowers twined in their hair, they stood before God.
His voice thundered. “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth. He created man in His own image and likeness.”
A choir to the side chanted, “And the Lord God molded man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the spirit of life, and man became a living soul.”
Adam and Eve stood with heads bowed. “This is your paradise.” God's voice was strong but soothing. “You are to live here in happiness and joy, to delight in the green of the field, in the cavorting beasts, in the fruit of the earth.” God motioned at the paradise set upon the stage, and stopped with his finger pointing at the tree in the centre. “But there exists one tree whose fruit you shall not eat.”
What was it about the tree? Marco wondered as he stood watching with the crowd. Why was it there? How is the garden of paradise different than heaven?
At that moment, like dark thoughts flitting through the minds of Adam and Eve, a crowd of ragged demons scurried across a corner of the stage, up and then off. A moment later the half-dozen devils returned to hide behind the berry bush, unseen by the couple in paradise. Then they rushed out, a motley gaggle of horned beings, and startled Adam and Eve, encircling them, admiring their clothing, so rich in comparison to their own rags. The crowd gasped involuntarily as Satan appeared behind them, looking as tall and powerful as God himself (Is it indeed the same player? Marco wondered), but dressed in red and wearing a grotesque grimacing mask. He approached the couple.
Taking Adam by the hand, he leads him to the tree. Adam is powerless. Eve trails behind, peaking around Adam at the Devil. Satan picks a fruit, admires it and offers it to Adam who refuses it. He offers it again and Adam again refuses. Placing the apple in the crotch of the tree where two branches divide from the main trunk, Satan shows no anger but walks slowly off into the audience. The standing crowd divides as he passes, half in terror, half in delight. Satan appears to be thinking over his plan. As he wanders through the crowd, the pack of demons on stage watch with curiosity, as do Adam and Eve. Eve looks back at the apple. Satan sees her do this and slyly works his way back to the stage where he takes Eve gently by the hand and leads her to the tree. She quivers in fear but Satan strokes her arm and she begins to relax. Meanwhile, the demons have blindfolded poor Adam who is down on his hands and knees crawling in circles as they prod him and laugh. Satan and Eve have their backs to the audience. When they turn about she holds the apple in the cup of her hands, her arms held straight out before her. She appears stunned, staring at it in disbelief. The apple glows with an impossible redness as if it were alive and pulsating. Satan smiles broadly, calls to his pack and they exit the stage, climbing down beneath it where they send up an otherworldly wailing. Eve remains frozen, staring at the apple. Adam has fallen asleep on his belly, still blindfolded.
After God banished Adam and Eve from paradise, the devils cavorted about the stage, banging on iron pans as they placed the couple in chains and fetters. Marco noted that the crowd seemed to enjoy this display more than any other. The play ended with Adam and Eve being hauled down to hell under the stage from where smoke trailed out into the evening air.
The crowd began to drift away. Marco stayed back to talk in the square with friends. A mist of quiet settled on the city.
In mottled dusk, Marco takes his leave and slips into a narrow street at the far side of the piazza. Fog, crawling up out of the sea and tasting of salt, sends its soft colourless tendrils down lost alleys and slick cloacal waterways. A pair of disembodied heads appears out of mist and slips back into it, voices muffled and echoing from unexpected places. Ghosts. Voices of ghosts.
Marco walks for a while, turns, looks back. Hears behind him light footfalls that stop when he stops, start when he starts. The gauzy fog so thick he cannot tell if night has already fallen or if dusk is yet drifting into the creviced alleyways.
He walks on. Stops again. Hears a sound behind him and wraps his hand around the haft of the knife under his shirt. He walks on, a little faster.
From a stone bridge he hears the slap slap of black water. A gondola slides by into silence.
“Who goes there?” His own voice. It sounds overly loud but is swallowed a few feet from him.
He spots a figure half-immersed in fog, a single eye, a horn protruding at an angle from the forehead above it. Then nothing.
A demon then. I am traced by a demon. Is it him? Is it him at long last? He fights an urge to flee.
“What is it you want?” His shout dies in the mist. Turning, he walks on, not quickly but at a steady pace, hand gripping his knife.
In his home corte, a torch flickers in an iron wall stanchion rimed with salt. He sees the familiar well at the center of the courtyard and walks to it.
He halts. Looks behind, sees nothing. Gazes down into the impenetrable dark of the well.
The blackness. The same blackness I saw when I was a boy, when I stood here with my aunt and met my father for the first time.
When he looks up, a demon from the play stands on the far side of the well, staring at him. A pair of horns protruding from its forehead, a grotesque face with a mouth frozen in a scream, a long hairless tail.
“What do you want?”
The devil says nothing, continues staring. Marco walks around the well. As he does so, the demon too moves around the well, keeping its distance.
“Why have you followed me?”
Marco approaches again and the demon retreats. He stares at the figure. It must be him, come to confront me at last– but why does he not speak?
“Speak!”
The demon stares at him, turns and flees into the mist.
He waits in the fog and dark. He is teasing me– trying to heighten my fear.
He stands by the well with the patience of a fisherman checking his octopus pots. As he waits, the arms of the mist embrace him.
Late in the heart of the night, he looks into the well again– and, when he looks up, the demon is staring at him.
Marco tries to approach and, as before, the other keeps its distance on the far side of the well. The knife is in his hand, under his shirt, near his pounding heart.
From across the small square they hear the sound of someone passing. The devil quickly turns and disappears in the fog.
Again Marco waits, for hours and, with a start, realizes he has been gazing thoughtlessly into the well, gazing down into its unfathomable sleep, its blank dream, that seems to connect in some deep place with all other wells, all other sleeps and dreams.
Near dawn, he wakes, looks up and sees the devil staring at him as before.
“Why do you torture me? You have dogged me for years, burdened my sleeps, haunted my days. Your mouth is frozen in a scream yet no sounds come forth from you.”
The demon tilts its head to the side, and slowly lowers its gaze.
A long tense silence pours out of the night all around them. Behind the devil the torch on the wall gutters and throws a spark, and with that Marco leaps across the well and tumbles the demon to the ground, the knife instantly at the devil's throat.
“Wait.” A woman's voice, not a man's.
The knife falls from his hand and clatters on the cobbles. Now that he is close he can see, staring at him from behind the mask, her green eyes.
A messenger summoned Marco to the chambers of Giorgio Contarini, his boyhood friend, who had risen to a position of considerable importance as a Franciscan prelate. Marco walked across the Campo di Santa Margherita, stepped under a stone archway and entered a circumscribed courtyard paved with stones in a herringbone pattern. As he crossed the shadow of the threshold, Marco noticed a small woman sitting on a step at the foot of a well. When she looked up, it appeared as if she had been waiting for him. She stood and ambled over on her unnaturally short legs. The dwarf had long, straggly, greasy black and grey hair and wore a shift that was little more than a rag. Her enormous eyes bulged out of her head.
“Come in, come in,” she said in a high sing-song voice that instantly told Marco she was mad. “Let me look at you. The Virgin preserve us, I know you, the Greek-tongued Lucifer! Tongue of the Devil!” She tilted her head. “I know you. Mentitore, liar, the mad one they call you! Fantastico! Mad! You! Si, si, it is true, the truth of God and angels, but your tongue is black, it's black! Signore lingua nera bocca nera, si si, falso mendace bugiardo sbagliato favoloso favolatore, lingua di favolatore….”
Marco backed to the stone stairs in a corner of the courtyard as she cursed at him, spitting as she shouted.
Giorgio heard the commotion and came to the head of the stairs. “Ignore her, Marco. She is a madwoman, but harmless.”
Marco hurried up the stairs and with an embrace greeted Giorgio who wore a long grey tunic with a white cord at the waist. After passing through the parlatory, reserved for receiving non-clerical visitors of lesser importance, they entered the priest's private chambers.
The room was dark and had little furniture: a few chairs, a writing desk. One wall held an ominous crucifix with a blood-splattered Christ.
After the formalities were disposed of, Marco said, “I hear you are a man of much power now, Giorgio. You have come far from the young novice I once knew.”
“Yes, I do not deny it.” Giorgio took pride in the fact. Power rested comfortably on his wide shoulders. He sat straight in his hard chair, an unspoken resistance turning every smile into a sneer. “But all my powers are ultimately in the service of God.”
“Of course. But why is it you have sent a messenger to summon me? I would have come to visit in a few days more, in any case, but now I have the excuse to come sooner. Tell me, dear friend, why have you sent for me?”
“Yes, Marco. To the point. It is these…tales…you are disseminating throughout the city. Oh, yes, word travels fast, especially when such fabulous notions are put about. The people are in a fever of imagination over it. You must desist, Marco. I urge you to cease telling these lies which inflame the congregations.”
“Lies? These are no lies! I am telling what I have seen with my own eyes or what others have told me.” Marco leapt up and went to the window, stared out with his back to the other. “There is much I have not yet revealed of those astonishing lands. I do not tell lies.”
Giorgio held up his hand, palm out. “Please. Be calm. Aquinas teaches us to beware the innate dangers of travel taken for the sake of curiositas rather than pietas. Your travels were certainly no pilgrimage, I am sure of that. You might ask yourself, Marco, what it is about your tales that disturbs our people. Surely it is not that the stories are marvellous. These people feast on the marvellous. It is your claim that these tales are true. True! Are you mad that you claim they be true?”
Marco heard the door behind him open. Another friar entered. He barely glanced at Marco's back before whispering in Giorgio's ear. That voice! A cold light pricked Marco's heart. He swung about and saw before him the wiry form of the bitter-faced assassin. He turned back to the window, stared at his hands and held his breath. The monk consulted with Giorgio, then left the room.
Giorgio continued. “You might believe you have seen and experienced such things but it is my contention that you have been misled by demons. I believe you have been, in a way, possessed. And because you have become a vessel of the Devil's, you see the truth as lies and lies as truth. Is it not so?”
“Is this an inquisition? Am I to be doubted by my oldest friend?”
“Please, do not disturb yourself. This is not an inquisition and I do not believe you have acted with malice in your heart. But I do believe– and I have spent much time in prayer over this vexatious question– I do believe you have been duped, tricked by evil powers who wish to use you for their own purposes. The Devil works in many subtle ways. I only ask you to be silent, to cease telling these outrageous stories. Is that so much?”
Marco turned and looked out the window. The still air hung heavily, dirty clouds had gathered over the city, as if a storm were about to break. Giorgio awaited a response. Marco walked to the door and without glancing back, left.
I watch her come and go from her house. I am hidden in the shadows. I don't know what draws me here, only that I must follow the promptings of my heart.
The thin, perfectly round, gold bracelet sat on the smooth stone of the doorstep. Marco watched patiently from the shadows of a covered walkway across the narrow canal. Next to the door, a flowerbox below a window spilled vines of red flowers in the early morning sunlight.
She came to the door, stood looking out on the new day, a brown and white cat luxuriating in her arms. Maria's green eyes searched the morning sky between houses, as she stroked the cat, nuzzling under its chin, rubbing its ears. Marco could see the blondish hairs of her bare forearms.
As she turned to go back into the house she stopped short, having noticed the bracelet on the doorstep. Quizzically, she bent down, letting the cat flow from her arms and picked up the bracelet. She turned it in her fingers, then smiled to herself and slipped it on. She admired it a moment, took one more glance about the empty courtyard and turned back into the house.
The next morning, in the same place, she found a bracelet of finely entwined silver rings thin as horsehairs. And the morning after, one with tiny gold bells. Each morning, she added them, one by one, to her arms– bracelets of jade, lapis lazuli, mother of pearl.
On the twelfth morning, she found one of twisted gold holding a fine scroll of parchment– a note Marco had paid a local scribe to write for him.
“This eve, when the sun is about to empty its shining heart into the sea, meet me on the stone bench beneath the tree on Campo Santa Margherita. Marco Polo.”
Maria wondered at the boldness of the note, but was also intrigued by it. Perhaps this strange ritual is something done in the East. Perhaps he never learned our complex rules of courting. Of course, it was forward of me to follow him to the well. She rubbed the bracelet along her cheek and slipped it on.
When she arrived at the Campo that evening, Marco was waiting on the bench. Maria walked to him, took his hand in silence, looked into his eyes and, before he could speak, leaned forward and whispered in his ear.
On a glorious day in spring I wed Maria of the green eyes. Thousands attend the ceremony in the glittering depths of San Marco. I am so elated, so weightless with joy, that I hear as I have never heard before: the sound of a feather falling on an island in the distance; the sound of sunlight warming the cobbles of the piazza; light penetrating the green waters of the lagoon. My relatives tell us that our faces are radiant and our eyes shine. Even the sight of the assassin watching from the high reaches of the church cannot stain this day.
The bold brown and white cat, its tail and nose in the air, strutted through the doorway, sniffing. Neither Maria nor Marco saw it, for they had their backs to the door as they inspected the long hake frowning on the wooden table. The cat paused, realizing its path to the fish would have to be slightly more circuitous than anticipated.
“Is it big enough?”
“I'm not sure.” Maria, holding a cleaver in her left hand, flipped the fish over. “It's thin. How many will we be?”
Marco ignored her question and nuzzled her neck and hair, which smelled of rosemary. As she turned to him, the cat timed its leap with perfection, snatched the fish in its mouth and made for the door.
“Stop him!” shouted Maria.
Marco leapt after the cat, grabbing its tail for a moment before it slipped free and shot down the stairs, Marco and Maria in pursuit.
“Stop him!” she shouted again.
“I'm trying to,” Marco cried over his shoulder.
At the bottom of the stairs, the cat realized the door to outside was shut, turned instantly, shooting between Maria's legs, whacking her ankles with the head and tail of the fish, and fled back up the stairs, the others again in pursuit.
Maria still had the cleaver in hand and when old Niccolo saw them in the hall, he surmised, quite logically, that she was attempting to plant the fish-cutting implement into the back of Marco's neck.
“Maria!” he shouted. “Alto!”
“I'll kill him!” she stormed.
“My only son! So soon after the wedding!” Niccolo limped along the hall. “Dio mio. Alto!”
Meanwhile, the cat had scurried under a table and along the wall, knocking over small barrels and jugs with the fish as it ran. Dried peas trickled across the floor.
“Where is it? Do you see it?” Marco asked Maria. They turned in circles in the center of the room. Niccolo stood in the doorway, weeping, “Maria, Maria, do not do this thing.”
“There it is!” Marco leapt for the cat as it slipped by Niccolo and out the door again, the fish still clutched in its jaws. The cat, not one to repeat its mistakes, this time made down the hall where it found an open window and escaped. Marco watched, cursing, as it fled down the alley, the tail of its prize flapping in the breeze.
Back in the kitchen, Maria raised the cleaver high over her head and sunk it an inch deep in the wood of the table. “Now look what you've done.”
Niccolo bowed his head. “I thought you were going to kill Marco.”
She turned around, smiling, and shook her head.
Marco stood looking from the second-story window at the boats moving along the sparkling waters of the Grand Canal. “How can this be? So soon?”
Maria sat on a divan, her head bowed. “Two months have passed since the wedding. Long enough. It is a sign, I think, Marco, a sign that we are meant in this world for one another.”
“Yes. Sometimes I think I came back from the East, without knowing it, for you and you alone. For nothing else. And now this. A child. I am very happy.”
Sitting on the square with a small group of friends, Marco pours round another pot of wine.
“And did this truly happen, Marco, this tale of the carpet-maker of Kierman, or is it a story you have invented for our entertainment? You know the people are calling you Marco Milione for your exaggerations. Did these things truly happen?”
“I know what I have seen, my friends. I know what I have experienced. But I tell you this– we live a tale every day, a story of our own invention, that is what I have learned from the storytellers, from the carpet-maker, from Rashid, from Adim and others.”
He could sense that the faces of his friends began to darken with doubt. Only Maria was with him, and she smiled sadly from across the table. In the awkward silence that followed, Marco felt pierced by a loneliness of an order utterly different than that found on the empty wastes of desert or plain.
I begin to see that my tales, offered only as entertainment and a source of knowledge about the wide world– certainly not the teachings of wisdom– have disturbed the people of Venice. Their hearts and minds are in a ferment. This was not my intention. I grow isolated now, alone with my dreams and memories. It is not the world I imagined for my wife and child.
“My good Christians and fellow Venetians, it is said that the angels are the pure messengers of God. But if you believe in angels, as you must, for men have seen them all about us, you must also take note of the presence of devils in our midst, devils who whisper lies and deceit in the ears of God-fearing men and women.” Giorgio's voice boomed from the raised pulpit. Marco, with Maria and baby Anna, had filed into crowded San Marco on the feast of the Ascension, carrying their stools which they set down on the stone floor. Marco stared at his boyhood friend and marvelled as he stood above the congregation, his voice resonant, his chest swelled, his mouth arced in a permanent frown.
A dozen acolytes swung censers that puffed out clouds of thick roiling incense. The church filled with the sickly sweet fog. The clouds drifted up into the towering domes of the church, muting the brilliance of the mosaics.
Giorgio preached, his strong voice filled with authority and conviction. “Let me read to you now from the Book of Revelations of St. John:
And round about the throne were four and twenty seats, and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and they had on their heads crowns of gold.
And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices, and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal, and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.
And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast was like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within….
“And I repeat: full of eyes before and behind, and they were full of eyes within….And so must we be, with our eyes looking in every direction, forward, backward and even within, for the Beast is everywhere among us ready to rob us of our souls, the Beast clothed in the cloth of our neighbours and friends, the Beast in our midst. And even as Angels are the bearers of good tidings, so too are there evil messengers, the willing messengers of Satan, those who would deliver the message of un-godly beliefs, of foreign ways, of distant pagan teachings.”
Marco felt as if Giorgio had picked him out of the congregation and was staring at him. He began to feel that others in the church knew who the priest was speaking of and many turned to stare, boldly or surreptitiously, at him and his family, for he was easily recognized by the citizens of the city.
“We must learn to block up our ears, to block up the mouths of those who speak such untruths, such outrageous exaggerations and lies, for they are indeed lies, every one; they go against the teachings of Christ the God, the very word of God, for they are a calumny hidden in the fascinations of the new and exotic and different. They are calumny for they slander God himself. Let us silence them in any way we can for they come to destroy the earth and all good Christians upon it, they are Satan come to earth in human form just as Christ came to us as a man. Let us not doubt for a moment that Satan has power, endless resources at his behest and will use them in any way possible to steal souls to people his infernal regions. Though Lucifer be frozen upside down in ice in the deepest depths of Hell, he sees much and he knows much. He reaches out in the form of his minions to grab us about the throat and swallow us into his evil. To know too much is an evil thing–leave knowledge to the priests who know what to do with it. Leave the fine distinctions between quod est and quo est to those of us who have studied the mind of God and understand the language of the Popes.”
Marco looked at the blank faces about him as Giorgio continued in the private and priestly language. Neither Marco nor any of his neighbours understood Latin. When he had finished speaking a few lines, he continued with the sermon.
“I demand that the people of Venice take it upon themselves to rid the city of this vermin, the beasts that bring back the seed of the unholy from distant places, the exaggerations of hellish paradises, the lies from over the seas.” Giorgio lifted his fists in the air, sharpened and raised his voice, his brows knitting together with intensity, his face severe and hard. “All is justified, all is demanded. We must cleanse ourselves, cleanse our city of such unholy filth, or we will be dragged down into the lair of demons, there to suffer eternal damnation, eternal degradation, eternal suffering beyond the rescue of God or His saints. Act now, or face eternal damnation. Amen.”
When the mass was finished and Marco and his family were exiting the church, the crowd kept its distance. Marco heard whispers, but kept his head down and, holding his stool in his hand, left the church for the piazza. Maria, her eyes proud and defiant, walked by his side holding Anna.
In the capacious square, stalls had been set out for the Ascension Day fair but Marco and his family hardly looked at the booths displaying wares from all over Europe. Venetian merchants haggled with traders from Pisa, Florence and Milan, from France, Spain and Germany. But Marco and Maria walked briskly through the square in silence seeking the haven of their home quarter.
As they walked, Marco thought about the invitation to join the Doge later that day on his gilded barque, the Bucintoro, for the ritual Ascension Day ceremony.
Surrounded by hundreds of lesser craft, the Doge's golden barge eased through the port of San Nicolo and headed through scalloped waters for the open sea. Forty-two elegant painted oars dipping rhythmically in the brilliant waters propelled the two-storey ceremonial ship of state. The Doge's parasol was mounted on the prow and a golden winged lion, rampant, guarded the stern. The barque was a floating drawing room, the long assembly hall lined with benches where now sat all the wealth and power of Venice in their best robes of gold, silver or blue. They conversed in small groups, gesturing at the fineness of the day.
At the head of the assembly hall, a great goddess held a sword and balancing pans. The figure of Neptune stood near two winged cherubs, an empty suit of armor and, high on the prow, four gods of wind with carved gusts sweeping from their perfectly circled mouths. Swirling above in a sun-swollen sky, grey and white gulls turned in endless complaint.
Marco breathed the salt breeze and was surprised to feel himself shiver with pride at being a free man of the great city of Venice. The memory of Cathay was slipping inexorably away. Nearby him stood Niccolo and Maffeo looking august in their finery, but still lean and stiff as weatherbeaten masts wrapped in sail cloth.
A single cry went up and the oarsmen, in elegant livery, raised the oars out of the water. The great ship bobbed in the vastness of open sea as hundreds of smaller boats gathered behind. The Patriarch of Venice, his clerical robes flickering in the breeze, his mitre standing tall on his head, walked to the prow and ceremoniously emptied a cruet of holy water into the sea, raised his hands high and declaimed to the assembled multitude:
Keep safe from stormy weather; Oh Lord, all
your faithful mariners,
safe from sudden shipwreck and from evil,
unsuspected tricks of cunning enemies.
Next to the Patriarch, Doge Pietro Gradenigo, his lined face like a peach stone topping robes of golden silk, passed his hand over the seas. From a pillow held by a retainer on his left, he took the golden ring in his fingers, raised it high where it circled the sun and flung it with a flourish into the waves. Once again Venice was “married” to the sea. The crowds burst into cheers and chanted: Pax tibi Marce Evangelista meus! and Viva San Marco! Thousands of white flowers filled the air and littered the waters, sending the gulls into a frenzy.
During the return journey, a guard led Marco to his audience with the Doge. Marco went down on one knee and then was given a seat. The retainers and servants backed away to allow a private conversation.
“As you know, Marco Polo, our ships will soon be leaving for battle against Genoa. We suspect we will confront the Genoese fleet before too long. I would like you to accept a commission as a Gentleman Commander.” The Doge held up his hand before Marco could speak. “Let me be frank. I have much admiration for you and your family, but there are many here who are less than happy with your successes. Call it ancient antagonisms, or perhaps jealousy. I don't know. In any case there is little I can do about it. Perhaps if you were to distinguish yourself in battle, it would be helpful. This much I do know: it would be an auspicious time for you to leave.”
“And my father, my uncle?”
“Because they are old, they no longer pose a threat to anyone. They are safe. But you, Marco Polo, have caught the notice of too many eyes and ears. Your tales are believed by some and feared by others. I, for one, know not what to make of them, although I know all things are possible in this world. At any rate, I wish you well. Godspeed.”
I see where all my storytelling leads. At last I confront him. I am speechless.
Preceded by a distant churning of voices, the animated crowd echoed as it approached the square through a constricted alley.
Marco glanced up in the direction of the sound. He and Niccolo were taking the evening sun in the wide square near the Polo palazzo. On stone benches under a wall lit sienna, they sat talking to a few of Niccolo's old friends and drinking vino nero from tankards. Marco had been telling them of his selection as a Gentleman Commander.
“When will the ships leave?” Niccolo asked sadly.
“I don't know. Soon.”
Three- and four-story houses of muted tangerine or powdery apricot circled the square, the colours of the houses so dusted by the slow passage of time that they blended and harmonized perfectly. Two old shapely trees, not large but voluptuously curved, completed the tableau.
Marco noticed how his father had aged since their return, touched by the alchemy of time, his hair gone white, his eyes a weak yellow, his skin thin and mottled as hammered silver.
“What are they shouting?” The old man leaned forward as the crowd, loud and dissonant, spilled into the far end of the campo.
Tilting his head, Marco listened.
“Dio mio!” He leapt up, grabbed the startled Niccolo by the arm, hurried him down a nearby calle, over a stepped bridge and into a doorway cut in the wall.
Once inside, Marco latched and bolted the heavy door while Niccolo waited.
“What is it? What are they shouting?”
“They shout, ‘Marco Milione, diavolo, demonio!’”
“Aieee! Let us get our swords and gather the servants!”
Upstairs, Maffeo, Graziela, and Maria, with the child in her arms, rushed to the door. “What is it? We heard the crowd.”
As Marco hurried to the window overlooking the square, Niccolo said, “They are calling him Marco Milione. Jealous ignorant fools!”
Marco looked down into the corte. About two dozen young men, several well-known troublemakers among them, had gathered below, shouting and shaking their fists. His eyes searched the square for the assassin but he was nowhere to be seen.
“There he is! Marco Milione!” someone cried out below and a rock cracked against the palazzo wall beside the window, followed by a hail of shouts. Around the square, doorways filled with people who had heard the commotion. Some yelled at the mob to desist and go home, a few others joined in. After a bit more shouting the crowd's energy descended into mumbles and half-hearted complaint. Small groups broke off and drifted into the descending dark, leaving the square silent and empty, but for one of their number sprawled out drunk on the cobbles.
Marco undipped his sword and dropped into a chair.
Out of the heavy silence, Maffeo spoke. “They say the Great Council has met to discuss how your tales have disturbed order in the city. Some are saying we will be called before the Doge.” He placed his arm around his wife who whimpered into her hands.
Niccolo looked at his son. “What say you now, Marco? You see why I ceased speaking of my travels when I returned from the East the first time? Do you see what folly it is?”
Marco bowed his head.
Late that night, Marco threads his way through the solidified dark of the city. He follows deserted alleys until he enters into Piazza San Marco, and hurries unseen across it to the Molo at the edge of the lagoon. The restless mephitic water shifts back and forth, smelling of fish and seaweed. The walls of the square seem to close in. He is caught and can hardly breathe. As he takes the small box of soil from his pocket and slides it open he can feel the attention of the winged Lion at his back. Marco pauses.
Gritting his teeth, he flicks the soil across the water, flinging the box after.
He hears the sound of a breath behind him and turns. The assassin stands ten paces away, his dull eyes staring without emotion.
“At last we meet.” Marco bows slightly. The other remains still and says nothing.
The assassin suddenly rushes at Marco and knocks him down. A stilleto flashes and catches Marco in the palm, pinning his left hand against the cobbles. He stifles a scream for he does not want the Doge's night guards to come running. He does not want the struggle stopped. He knows their confrontation must come to an end this night. The assassin tugs his knife out of Marco's hand and in that moment Marco lunges up with all his strength, slamming his shoulder into the other's chest. The friar loses balance, goes tumbling backwards and slams the back of his skull into the column of the winged Lion. Immediately his skull is crushed.
The assassin slumps to the cobbles and Marco approaches, holding his injured hand against his chest. A trickle of blood oozes from the dead man's mouth, his eyes wide. Marco sees something on the ground at his feet and bends down to pick it up. With a start he realizes what he holds in his hand– the assassin's severed tongue.
He looks up into a sky full of glistening stars. No sound but the water slapping the wall. Marco stares a long while. Out of the clear sky he feels a drop of rain on his face, slow rain, dark and rich as ink, sparkling, gold-rimmed, floating down like seeds out of the opulent black night.