Marina nodded, the Dutchman looking from one sister to the other. “But I didn’t say she was in trouble.”
“You said she was afraid and needed your help.” Marina continued, her tone even. “Did you help her, Signor der Witt?”
“No.” he said bitterly. “Not in time.”
“In time? Why, what happened?”
“Gabriella has disappeared.”
Marina sighed, glancing at her sister. “You say she disappeared before you had chance to help her and I’ve already explained that she left the shop without explanation. Causing us much inconvenience. If she has disappeared, maybe Gabriella chose to. Perhaps she does not wish to be found.”
The Dutchman brushed away the explanation with one hand. “She was afraid, she needed help.”
“And if she had come to us, we would have helped her, but she never confided in myself or my sister.”
Marina was always discreet, but Lucia could not control her curiosity. “¿A qué le tenía miedo? Excuse me, signor, I asked ‘what was she afraid of’?”
Der Witt paused, his expression unyielding. “As you say…” he replied, moving to the door “…it is not your concern.”
Chapter Four
The Jewish Ghetto
Venice
Stepping over a pool of rain, Ira Tabat moved down the narrow alleyway towards his home, pushing open the doorway and climbing two flights of stairs. The rain had seeped through a crack in the roof, a sliver of water ribboning down the plaster. He consoled himself with the fact that it was worse for the Jews in Rome; their living quarters in the capital were flooded every year in the rainy season, and they were still forced to pay taxes for their board.
At least in Venice life was less Draconian; the Republic’s Jews allowed to work in the city in daylight. But at night they were forced to obey the curfew, the gates locked at dusk. Since childhood Ira had hated the sound, the dull metallic thunk of the gates slammed shut, the realisation that he was imprisoned, jailed for nothing but an accident of birth that had created him a Jew.
He took off his jacket and glanced over to the bed against the wall. As usual, his mother was asleep, breathing rhythmically like a clock. Tick, tock, in, out, tick, tock, in, out. But no alteration, no chimes, no striking of some relieving bell. Her clock was uniform, a silent soldier stomping down the minutes to some unknown destination, in some unfamiliar time.
“She’s resting well.”
He turned to smile at his sister, Rosella, solemn faced, but undeniably handsome; with great dark eyes and a long fine nose over a wide mouth. Within the last year Ira had seen her mature, noticed how the ghetto boys stared after her and he had warned them off, proudly protective – as their late father would have been.
“Did she eat anything today?”
“A little, but mostly she sleeps.” Rosella replied, setting out two places at the scrubbed table and then jerking her head towards the door. “Angelo Fasculo next door was caught by the shirri for not wearing his hat,” Ira thought of the yellow cap all Jews were forced to wear, along with a small yellow wheel on their jacket. If they forgot, or lost the badge, it was sometimes overlooked - but not if they were caught without the cap. “He was fined 50 ducas and they said he was going to have to spend a month in jail.”
Ira shook his head. “But he’s new here —”
“Angelo told them that but they still want the 50 ducas.” She sighed. “It’s stupid, everyone knows some people are allowed to stay beyond the curfew. I heard the Corenelli family have their Jewish lawyer and banker at their parties, and no one objects. Instead, they show their cleverness off to their friends, like a couple of Jewish dancing bears.” She cut some bread and cheese and laid it out on the table. “Someone else told me that Abel Solomon attended Mass at Chiesa di San Giacomo di Rialto with his employers. A Jew in a Catholic church —”
“He attended Mass, he didn’t take Mass.”
“Attend it, take it,” she retorted heatedly, “what’s the difference? It’s still a betrayal of faith. If we don’t defend who we are, we will become like everyone else.”
“And have easier lives,” Ira replied, smiling wryly as he began to eat.
“Easier lives, but false lives. We were born what we are and must remain true to it. We don’t belong to Venice, or Rome, or any other city or country. We are complete in ourselves.”
He smiled at her earnestness, her conviction. She was emphatic about everything. What was right, what was necessary, what must be fulfilled. All her life, Rosella had wanted to study music, but in a ghetto there was no money for tuition, so instead she worked as a maid for a Hyman Golletz, a Jewish piano teacher, and he had paid her in singing lessons. Her progress had been intermittent, his teaching uneven, but as she had grown and developed a strong contralto voice, Golletz’s interest had increased. At weddings and feasts in the ghetto Rosella had been encouraged to perform, her voice intense and haunting as she sang the ancient Jewish songs.
There was even talk of her having a career outside the ghetto, so when Rosella suddenly announced that she was no longer working for Hyman Golletz, Ira stopped, bread on one hand, cheese in the other, his expression baffled.
“What?”
“It’s selfish,” she said emphatically, cutting into the cheese. “what this family needs is to make money, not waste time pursuing a pointless hobby —”
“Hyman thinks you could be a professional singer —”
“Only in the ghetto.”
“Not necessarily,” Ira persisted, “he said that your voice had improved so much he might be able to find work in the city for you —”
“And a fat fee for him,” she retorted.
He studied his sister’s face, her hands busy, breaking the bread, crumbs falling onto the scrubbed table like dry snow.
“Has Golletz behaved improperly towards you?”
Her dark eyes were scornful. “Hyman’s seventy years old!”
“I just wondered, your decision seems very sudden.”
“It’s just that I feel...” Rosella ripped into the bread, “I feel guilty. I’m not earning much as a maid and I wondered if well... if there was another way to bring money in.”
Ira laid down his knife and leaned back on his stool, his gaze moving over to where their mother was sleeping. “Why do we need more money? We can’t do anything for our mother now. There is no more –”
“I know there’s no medicine that can help her. You know that. You’ve tried everything, God knows. You’re a doctor, Ira, you would know if you could do anything. You’ve even asked other doctors in the ghetto, but we all know our mother’s slipping away, she’s dying...” She baulked at the word, then moved on. “But if we had some more money we could get better lodgings, somewhere more comfortable for her, for all of us.” She hurried on, seeing a look of irritation cross her brother’s face. “You can’t work any harder, no man could. Your patients have grown to trust you, they ask for you, they rely on you. Ira, everyone values you. Even the traders come to you for advice —”
“For the pox.”