Chapter 139: Mi Vuoi Sposare?

Down the stairs, into the gondola and through the water-gate, the grille shut behind them on its windlass.

Vito rowed standing up, facing forward, the long oar in its notched post. That was how every boatman in Venezia rowed, and he wouldn’t do it any different.

Caterina sat amidships on the cushions, hood up and chin raised, a fleece spread over her knees.

The cold bit at his teeth, his breath rising in clouds. The lantern at the prow cast a golden circle on the water as they passed slapping pilings, wet brick walls, and shutters with candlelight showing through the cracks.

The place was wet through.

Vito made a fine show of the first two strokes, but the third went crooked. He adjusted the gondola’s lean before Caterina could even turn her head, the purse at his hip knocking against him with every pull.

Her gloved hand wandered to her hip, where she kept the notebook, but found only her cloak. It returned to her lap, plainly dissatisfied with the arrangement.

The shadow of a low wooden bridge passed over them.

Caterina resumed the business at hand unfazed. "Cloves in winter, ma dai! Such a lot does not sit on a shelf, Vitale, Ca’ Zorzi would swallow the whole thing and the patricians will have it from their cook by supper, true or false, trimmed and fringed. So! Which door?"

Vito flung his reply at the dark ahead, the oar swinging in his fists. "Ma che porta, moglie. A man who sits on cloves in this frost does not own a door, he owns a black gondola, and he rows the whole city every night so that no merchant, no cousin, no creditor can nail him to one street."

The clove merchant existed entirely behind his mind, and he was doing his best to keep the fellow important. He squinted at every skiff and bellowed across the water at a moored barge that was, by the evidence of its snores, deeply and comfortably asleep.

"Sior Garofalo! Ehi, Sior Garofalo, show your face! We come in peace and with grossi!"

Her voice came up from the cushions, pitched like a playful fit. "Insomma, are we to chase one man through every rio of Venezia, in a gondola, in this frost, at this hour? Dimmi di no, Vitale, tell me we must not."

Vito bent into the stroke with serenity.

"Sì, moglie. Sì, sì, e ancora sì, all night, if God and the frost allow it."

She huffed, sending a golden breeze of breath into the prow lantern’s light. Vito laughed, the voice bouncing off the brick walls, and her shoulders relaxed a little.

Caterina sent her next words teasingly. "Ah, eccolo, exactly as in Constantinople. You marched into that office as if announced by trumpets, and I asked who was paying for all of it and you said, so grand, so serene, ’whoever I can talk into it.’ Whoever you can talk into it, per l’amor di Dio, Vitale, I have known corsairs with a better business plan."

Vito let the stroke wide and slow, and grinned. "Ma certo and on purpose, every inch of it. But your question, ah, that one I could not charm. So I said yes to the books, and look at you, reading them over my shoulder ever since, a hawk on a mast."

He clicked his tongue and returned the tease. "And on the dock, with Andrea green as a pond, you kissed my cheek before the whole harbor and swore to me it was a scheme. I have seen your schemes, bella, they do not linger."

She sniffed, chin high, but the corner of her lips betrayed her to the stars. "Scheme, sì, a piece, but most of it was Andrea’s face, and who could blame me, the foolish sight was enough to feed the heart for a year. And a grosso’s worth was you, Vitale, so do not gloat."

Then she bent her eyes at him, warily.

"I can hear you gloating from here, your shoulders are gloating!"

The reply was a feigned stiffness of his shoulders, and she let it be with a strangled smile.

Few moments past, under the fleece, her fingers found a clay jug that was still warm. "And this? Commandaria, hidden under my own fleece, in my own gondola, by my own husband, like a thief in a sacristy. Eh, no, no, no, I will enter it under miscellaneous provisions, marito, right beside the wine you buried on the way to Crete, may it rest in peace."

Vito whooped, so delighted that the oar was nearly forgotten and the gondola shuddered in protest. "Scrivilo, scrivilo, moglie, write it in gold leaf. Let it come out of my share, a merchant should be so lucky as to be robbed by his own bookkeeper."

Caterina rolled her eyes and drank, deep and thoroughly unladylike, and passed the jug back with a flick of the wrist.

When she spoke again, the wine had put a flush under her cheekbones and an edge on her vowels. "And since your wine is in me, I will speak! Knossos! Knossos, Vitale! You kissed the top of my head like an aunt at a christening, pat, pat, buona notte, and I stood there like stone with my mouth shut! I have brought my answer around ever since like a hot coal in my glove. I have a mouth, Vitale, mind you, an excellent mouth, and it has been waiting, waiting, waiting!"

The oar crooked and the gondola snapped in a drunken lurch. Vito, for once in his life, took refuge in the jug and said no words at all.

The narrow canal fell behind them as the rio parted open onto a wider stretch of water. Frost glittered across the boat as he continued into a longer, steadier stroke.

Caterina leaned her head back to look at the stars. "And then came Candia, and a proposal squeezed in between a crate of wax and a very impatient distillery order. Mezza frase, half a sentence, and no ring, and not so much as a bended knee, and then the pier, you stood there with your arms flung wide like a scarecrow in a gale, and I walked right past you to ask Bepi about the salt."

Vito let it to the heavens, offended to his bones, the oar dragging a silver furrow through the black. "Ma va’ là, the finest courtyard on all of Crete, moglie, give the stonework some credit. And you said yes, to an implication, sì, but that was plently enough. And the pier, three ports and a whole season I carried that welcome in my arms, and it went, ostrega, to a comito with rope."

Her voice climbed on its own indignation, higher and higher, and then, between one breath and the next, came down off its high horse and landed soft. "Husband and wife! Marito e moglie, we call ourselves, before all of Venezia! And you come home roaring in your cups, and what do I do? I give you my lap and call it a dividend. God forgive me, and still, still, a blank sits in a draft, wide as my thumb, and it will not fill itself."

Then nothing. The gondola ached with the silence, and Vito’s stroke slowed to keep time with it.

He lifted the blade from the water.

Caterina spoke one word.

"Resta."

The gondola drifted on for a moment before slowing to a stop. The last ripples spread across the water and died, leaving the surface black and smooth as poured pitch.

The moon lay whole on the water, every star shining beneath it. Across the basin, lamplight caught the Basilica, and the bronze horses stood across its front.

Caterina turned on the cushions, her hood fallen back and her olive cheeks flushed. Her braid had slipped forward, loose strands slipping free, and her full, chapped lips parted as her breath curled into the cold.

Her green eyes turned up at the corners, catching both lantern and moonlight. She sat like a cat on a wall at midnight, watching the street and the man standing in it.

Rosewater drifted through the smell of woodsmoke.

Vito had no joke this time. His hands hung empty, the purse against his hip.

He moved forward and sat facing her, knee to knee. The little gondola rocked beneath him, then lay still.

Vito held out his open palm. The ring lay there, a plain band of gilded silver.

The name came out low, stripped of all its padding.

"Caterina."

His voice dropped. "Anima mia. The first time didn’t count, I know it, I know, it was a courtyard and a crate of wax and a coward. So I ask you now, properly, with the stars for witnesses and the lagoon for notary, on what passes for my knees. Mi vuoi sposare?"

Caterina breathed out a white cloud and hurled her eyes skyward, as if to summon San Marco himself from his basilica to witness the outrage.

Her eyes had gone bright and brimming with tears, the traitors. "Finalmente, Dio ti benedica. ’When I decide the moment is right,’ you said, so grand, ’not a breath sooner.’ Months of breaths, Vitale, months! Look at me, bawling like a fishwife at the Pescheria. It is the chill, you hear me? The chill makes my eyes run! So do not you dare look pleased with yourself!"

She tore the glove off and thrust her bare hand into the lantern light, a smudge of ink on one fingertip, trembling like a leaf in the very moment she scolded it to hold still.

"Dai, mettilo, amore. And hold it properly this time, with both hands."

Vito let out a low, unsteady laugh and slid the ring onto her finger. It fitted as though the goldsmith had measured her through a wall.

She slipped off the cushions and knelt between his knees, the gondola swaying beneath her as she looped her arms around his neck. Vito steadied the little craft with his calves and drew her close until their foreheads lay together, their breaths mingling in the cold.

He kissed her then, his cold nose brushing hers as he pressed his lips to her, and whatever unsteady breath escaped her was lost against his mouth.

Vito slid a hand into her hair, holding her gently as she drew him closer by the nape, and the kiss deepened, unhurried and lingering, until the taste of wine on her lips mingled with the warmth of his mouth.

Caterina smiled against him, and he followed her when she leaned in again, their noses brushing, their foreheads meeting between kisses as though neither could quite bear to put any distance between them.

The gondola rocked softly beneath their knees, turning with the tide while they held each other close, with no need to hurry back to the world beyond it.