The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [54]
Adelino felt the solid shape of the heart in his jacket pocket. Then without knowing why, he opened the door of the firehole to watch the crystal hearts bleeding and dying on the red coals, melting down into one mass. He had spoken the truth. He knew the girl was good enough to be the first maestra on Murano, but he hoped the men would accept this. He closed the door and shivered. Like Leonora before him, he had stared into the flames and looked for trouble.
It soon came, and from a not entirely unexpected quarter.
`What?' Roberto del Piero's shout sounded unnaturally high. The glassblower snatched up his latest piece - a beautiful pasta vitrea vase, clear glass with bright beads of colour trapped inside - and threw it against the furnace where it smashed into a million gems. Adelino had gathered the ►naestri together in the morning and made a short announcement of Leonora's promotion. There had been a stony silence from all the men - save one.
`You can't do this.You can't make this puttana a maestra. First those ridiculous adverts and now this. We'll be a laughing stock,' spluttered Roberto.
Leonora reacted instantly to the insult, and, as the whole the room froze following the smash of the vase - even as Adelino's white eyebrows drew down into a frown - she crossed the floor and landed a stinging slap on Roberto's face for the second time in their short acquaintance. `Not so much of a puttana that I would sleep with a man like you. That's what's bothering you - you got turned down.'
Adelino intervened at last, grabbing the two of them like brawling cats.`In my office, both of you.'With a strength that belied his years, he carted them off to his inner sanctum, an iron grip on their upper arms. Once inside and released, Leonora and Roberto eyed each other, she with anger, he with a malice that chilled her bones. She could hardly believe that such hatred had been engendered by a brush-off outside a Murano bar.
Adelino sat behind his desk, with a deep sigh. The trouble he had foreseen had come to pass. He knew of their altercation in the bar - staff gossip always reached him - but he sensed too that Roberto's hatred ran much deeper, and hoped to God he could be silenced before the truth, whatever it was, emerged. `Roberto,' Adelino began, `that vase would have fetched three hundred euros.That amount will be taken from your wages.'
`Take what you like,' the man sneered. `But I will not work with this, this ...'
`Don't say it again,' Leonora interjected, deadly serious.
Adelino broke in. `Leonora. Silenzio. Now, Roberto, am I to understand that you are giving me an ultimatum? That if I make Leonora a maestra you will go?'
Roberto, cooling, nodded. Adelino sighed again, refusing to meet Leonora's questioning eyes. She couldn't believe what was about to happen. Last night she had thought hard on the boat home and concluded that, whatever the state of play with Alessandro, she had achieved a great thing - she was the first female glassblower on Murano, a maestra. She had what she came to Venice for. She at last had the job that she wanted - an outlet for her creative and artistic passions.
And after one short night it is to be taken away, I'm to be pushed back down to servente, through the malice of a man I hardly know. For Adelino will never get rid of Roberto. He is the best glassblower on the island.
At length Adelino spoke. `This is very difficult for me.' He raised his eyes, but met those of the man not the girl before him. `Roberto, you are the best maestro here, but your head is as hot as the furnace. You can collect your money from accounts and go. The vase was on me.'
Leonora gasped, and turned to Roberto, almost expecting him to strike Adelino. But the maestro turned on her instead. Before Adelino could stop him, Roberto had Leonora against the wall, his hand cruelly twisted at her throat, holding the glass heart in his palm, the blue ribbon twined round his hard fingers. Their pose held