The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [30]
His father and Monsieur Loisy were now joined by a third man. He was not masked and cloaked, and by his dress and scaly hands Corradino knew him for a fisherman. The three men began to nod and a leather purse changed hands. Corrado beckoned and led the family to the dark recesses of the covered market. There lay a large fishcrate, and, incredulously, Corradino watched his mother lie in the bloodied straw.
`Go on Corradino,' urged his father. `I told you we were going on an adventure.'
Corradino lay down in his mother's arms, and soon felt the heavy press of his uncles and father by his side. He thought of the fishes that he had seen packed into their boxes, their silver shapes straightened and compressed.
We are fishes too.
Corradino saw his tutor's face through the wooden slats as the lid closed. `Au revoir petit.'
Corradino was cheered by the form of words. He loved his tutor and his French was excellent for his years. Surely if Monsieur Loisy meant never to see him again, he would have used the more final form `adieu', rather than, `I'll see you again?'
Corradino settled into his mother's arms and smelt the essence of vanilla again. He felt a lifting and a rocking as if on water. Then he slept.
He woke with a sharp pain in his side and shifted with discomfort. Soon a heavy jolt told of their landing and the lid of the crate was prised loose. Disheveled and stinking, Corradino clambered out, blinking in the early morning light. He looked about him at the small ranks of red houses by a canal, and behind him, the spires of San Marco from what seemed a great distance. He had never seen Venice from such an aspect before. The water on the lagoon was dappled silver like the skin of a fish, the smell of which remained in his nostrils. He watched as his uncles Azolo and Ugolino paid the boatman. Uncle Ugolino looked ill. Perhaps the odour of fish, thought Corradino. But now there was a new smell - a sharp, astringent, burning smell. `Where are we?' he asked his mother.
`Murano,' she said. `Where they make the glass.'
Then he remembered. Corradino reached into his jerkin to find the place where he had felt the pain. He drew out his glass horse - it was in pieces.
I am sick of this house.
It seemed to Corradino that he had been inside for years, though he knew it had only been two days. The house was a tiny, whitewashed shack, with only two floors and four chambers, not what a little princeling was used to. Corradino was wiser than he had been two days ago. He had learned much. Some he had been told, some he had worked out.
I know that this house belongs to the ,fisherman father met in the Pescheria and he was paid to bring us here in the crate and keep us hidden and my father is in trouble with the Doge and uncle Ugolino found out in time and warned him we must escape. Also Monsieur Loisy has helped us - he made the contact at the Fishmarket and suggested that we come to Murano because glass deliveries go from here to France and Monsieur Loisy has friends in France that could help us and we must hide on Murano for a time until we can be smuggled out. To France.
Corradino knew little of France, despite Monsieur Loisy's enthusiasm for his homeland. He had even less desire to go there.
My father and uncles have told me that I must not leave the house where we hide, even for a moment.
But as the days went by they all began to feel a little safer, and Corradino felt his legendary curiosity begin to surface.
I want to explore.
So, on the third day, Corradino waited till his mother was at her toilet