The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [9]
When Nora had arrived in Venice she felt unmoored - as if she drifted, loosed from harbour, flowing here and there on the relentless arteries of tourism. Carried by crowds, lost in babel of foreign tongues she was caught in a glut of guttural Germans, or a juvenile crocodile of fluorescent French. Wandering, dazed, through San Marco she had reached the famous frontage of the Libreria Sansoviniana in the Broglio. Nora fell through its portals in the manner of one stumbling into Casualty in search of much needed medical attention. She did not want to act like a tourist, and felt a strong resistance to their number. The beauty that she saw everywhere almost made her believe in God; it certainly made her believe in Venice. But the city had physically shocked her to such an extent that she began to feel afraid of it - she needed to find an anchor, to feel that she could belong here as a native. Here in the library she would search for Corradino. Kindly, tangible words, factual lines of prose scattered with dates would be the longitudes and latitudes to bring her into safe harbour. Here he would meet her like a relative at an airport. Let me show you around, he would say. You belong here. You are family.
The concierge at her hotel, a kindly, avuncular man, had recognized her mental state in the manner of one used to the effect of his city. It was he who had suggested the Libreria as a good place to learn of her ancestor, and of where she could view his work around the city. The short answer Signorina, he said, was `almost anywhere'. Nora was cheered by his familiarity with the name of Corradino Manin; he spoke of him as a familiar drinking acquaintance. But as to what to see in the city itself his advice was simple. He waved his hand expansively. `Faccia soltanto una passeggiata, Signorina. Soltanto una passeggiata.' Just walk, only walk.
He was right of course. From her pleasant hotel in Castello, she had wandered the calli, losing track of time and direction, and caring not at all. Everything here was beautiful, even the decay. Rotting houses stood next to glorious palaces, squeezed on either side by grandeur, their lower floors showing tidemarks of erosion where the lagoon was eating them alive. The stained masonry crumbled into the canal like biscotti dipped in Marsala but this seemed only to add to their charms. It was as if they submitted with pleasure to the tides - a consummation, one devoutly to be wished. Nora wandered the bridges, as enchanted by a string of washing hanging from window to window across a narrow canal, or by a handful of scruffy boys kicking a football in a deserted square, as she was by the delicate Moorish traceries of the fenestrations.
Nora resisted the notion of planning her direction. In London her life had been mapped out for her, signposted and marked down. She had not been lost, properly lost, for many years. She knew exactly how to get around her capital, aided, if need be, by the regimented, colour coded tube map or the A-Z. Stephen, always a mine of information, had told her that when the tube map was designed, the artist deliberately kept the distances between the stations constant, even though in fact they were widely different. This was an attempt to make the citizens of the metropolis feel safe, to accept this weird, subterranean mode of transport; to feel that they could move through exceptionally well-marked out quadrants of the city with ease and security.
But here in Venice Nora's desire for spontaneity was aided by the city itself. She had a map in the back of her hotel guide - it was useless. Only two directions were posted on the walls of the calli in ancient yellow signage - San Marco, and Rialto. But, as the S-shape of the Grand Canal dictated, these were often in the same direction. She actually arrived in one piazza where a wall