Barbero Alessandro - The Eyes of Venice

Notice to the Reader

Foreign words and unfamiliar technical terms are explained briefly in the glossary in the back of the book.

The sun had been shining all day, but now the breeze off the lagoon had turned cold and the sky over Venice was growing turbulent. Matteo, standing on the main scaffold of the building under construction, wiped away the sweat with his sopping shirtsleeve for the hundredth time. In the summer the work day started early and never seemed to end. He looked at the sun to see how long it would be till sunset. None of the churches had sounded vespers yet, not even the Frari, which for a while now, because of some obsession or other of the bell-ringer, had taken to sounding it before all the others. Then he looked down at his men as they worked, pausing a moment over each one. Anybody else standing where he was, 65 feet above ground, would have avoided looking down for fear of vertigo, but Matteo had been a mason his whole life and was equally at ease on a scaffold as he was on the ground.

Beneath him, at the height of the second floor, three laborers were working quickly, unloading bricks from a nearly empty basket. Down on the ground, in the little square now covered in shade, a barefoot boy was stirring a tub of cement with a wooden stick, waiting for them to tell him to bring it up to them. Big and husky, used to thinking calmly about his business and staying on top of things, Matteo wondered if he shouldnt hire another laborer, or maybe two. If the owner really wanted the job done in a year, with the crew he had now he might not be able to deliver on time. But the mason wasnt sure if Senator Lippomano, despite his sumptuous garments and the proud crest with the rampant lion emblazoned on the cabin of his gondola, had enough cash to pay for the entire job. The hassle he had given him before paying for last months work bothered him. No need to rush, Matteo thought, theres plenty of time to hire more workers, and relying on the rich is always risky business.

Making his way down to the lower level of the scaffold, the planks vibrating perilously under his weight, he told one of the laborers to go down and get another basket of bricks, gave a pat on the back to the last of the three, his son Michele, and then went down a few more steps before jumping directly into the court. The building was coming along nicely; even the architect whod designed it on commission from the senator would have to admit thatand God knows Matteo had spent most of his working life fighting with architects. If theyd taken a brick in hand just once, instead of spending all their time sitting at a desk with a ruler and a quill pen, they wouldnt make such impractical demands! Among his fellow masons, it was common knowledge that once, a long, long time ago, buildings and churches were built by master craftsmen, without all the drawings and no need for a diploma, and, take a look around, all the buildings that were built back then are still standing. But as everybody knows, the world gets crazier all the time.

Sighing, because at the end of a days work even a giant like himself began to feel tired, Matteo went to take a sip of wine from the flask they kept cool in the well bucket, right in the center of the square. The boy whod been mixing the cement had left the tub and was now helping the laborer carry up the bricks, carefully piled in the wicker basket. Matteo had hired him the week before, when the other boy had quit; the pay was too low, he said, I can make more somewhere else, and if not Ill go to sea. The master mason shrugged, he knew it was hard to live on todays wages but he had a family to support. One ducat a month was all he could afford to pay, along with meals and a place to sleep on the floor in the entryway to his house. But at least there was always plenty to eat, thank God, nobody who worked for him ever had to climb up on the scaffold on an empty stomach. But he couldnt work without an apprentice and luckily hed happened upon this lost Albanian. There were a lot of them in the city, and they worked hard and you had to pay them as much as anyone else, but this one here was still a kid, just arrived in Venice, and alone, as far as he could tell. Matteo liked him right off the bat, and so did his wife. Well yes, keep him, Zanetta had told him. Theyd made an agreement: room and board until the end of the year, and thats it, just like a shop apprentice. Then, if you learn the job, youll get paid. In the hope that Lippomano keeps paying every month, because if he doesnt cough up the zecchini the rest of us will starve to death. Now the boy was there on the job, climbing the scaffold, struggling to keep his hold on the handle of the overloaded basket. Zorze, his name was. Hes going to make a good mason, Matteo thought, gazing at his skinny legs that now, however, were starting to thicken at the calves.

Then all of sudden the kid slipped. The heavy basket turned over on him, and he fell off the scaffold with a piercing scream. Bricks came pouring down after and on top of him, and a second later he was sprawled motionless on the pavement. Virgin Mary! everyone cried out. Matteo ran and in a minute he was kneeling next to him, while Michele and the other mason came scrambling down, making the scaffold tremble. Only the last laborer, the one whod been carrying the basket together with Zorze, was still frozen in his tracks with his hands over his mouth. They could see right away there was nothing to do. The boys bones were broken internally, and a lot of the bricks had come crashing down on him, hitting him in the chest and the head. Blood was seeping through his blond hair, his head was moving slowly, his glassy eyes rolling back, like the eyes of a cat thats just been clubbed to death. Virgin Mary, Matteo said again, afraid to touch him with his oversized hands. They all looked at each other.

Should we take him home? Michele said, in shock.

I dont know, murmured Matteo. As always happened to him when things went wrong, the pain he felt inside was muffled by a smoldering rage. Why me? Damn workand damn life...

By now theres no use, look at him, said the last laborer, who meanwhile had come down off the scaffold, white as a sheet. And then everybody realized it was useless, the boys eyes had turned into opaque glass, and his body had stopped moving. Michele knelt over him, touching him awkwardly, his pulse, his chest. He couldnt feel anything.

Hes gone, poor lad, he mumbled, and made the sign of the cross.

All the others did the same.

What do we do now? Michele asked. He hadnt yet turned twenty, and although his father had let him get married, he was still used to obeying him in everything. This time, however, even the master mason seemed baffled.

Poor lad, he said again, tears welling in his eyes. Just then, the bell tower of the Frari began ringing out vespers, and Matteo pulled himself together. The first thing we need to do is tell the owner. Then well take him home. By now its late, well think about the burial tomorrow.

While Michele ran home to tell the women, one of the two laborers was sent to look for Senator Lippomano. Matteo staggered back over to the well, grabbed the flask and took another long swig, then he noticed the remaining laborer staring at him, curled up under the scaffold, and he motioned for him to come and take a drink. This is the last thing we needed, he thought, and he felt as though his head were spinning more than it should have been. What the hell, he thought, its not my fault. I treated him good.

Just then Michele came back, with his mother and his wife. Their house was nearby, on a little square identical to the one where they were working, looking out on the Giudecca Canal. The two women knelt next to the dead boy, crying uncontrollably. Even though hed only been living with them for a few days, everyone liked Zorze, so blond the way he was, and with that funny way of talking, the half-mastered Venetian dialect that sounded so strange with his hard pronunciation.