The Venetian by Mark Tricarico Page B

world. So Tomaso would come here, not to ponder the mysteries of faith, but when he required inspiration. He would come, pretending to worship, promising to stay for just twenty minutes but inevitably would remain, staring at the floor for three times that. He would stare at the griffons, their ochre bellies with five white stripes, checkered necks and hindquarters, their unfurled wings, majestic in their breadth, sharp talons, and snapping beaks. When he looked upon them, he was filled with hope and amazement at the capacity of man to create meaning and celebrate beauty. He did not see God when he looked up at the cross. He saw God when he looked down at the floor. They were magnificent. But today, they were only stones.
    As glorious as the griffons were, the church was known more for its bones; the bones of Saint Donatus of Arezzo, and even more famously, the bones of the dragon he supposedly had slain in Greece, each over a meter long, hanging by wire behind the stone altar. Bones—Donatella’s bones, Ciro’s bones. There would be no peace here.
    Tomaso rose to go. He hadn’t opened the workshop since the day Ciro was killed. He couldn’t. Ciro had looked upon it with his dying eyes, every corner, every wall, every piece of metal. He could not stand before his workbench. Was this the last thing he saw? They were all covered in blood. The glass that had so inspired Tomaso, had filled him with such joy, served now only to focus his horror. He would never work there again.
    He had not spoken to Paolo since the interview with the deputy at the Palazzo Ducale. He could barely remember the incident, had already begun his descent by then, each moment more like a dream, there but not. He could see that Paolo did not understand, could not understand. He no longer had the words, or the will, to explain.
    Tomaso walked from the church, out toward Murano’s Grand Canal, a scaled down version of the great Venetian waterway. He heard the soft lapping of the water and longed to be enveloped by its brine, to fill his lungs with brackish water, sucking at death greedily as an infant sucks at life. Tomaso would never visit the church again. There was nothing there for him, nothing but bones.

Ten
    P aolo read the note for the third time. He wasn’t sure why, it was all of twelve words. He would not glean any additional meaning from reading it more than once. My father would like you to dine with us today. Three o’clock. Chaya.
    Chaya. The thought of seeing her again caused him to stir with anticipation—and apprehension. Fool. He was acting like an idiot boy. Think Paolo. He hadn’t been thinking much lately. If he were at all honest with himself, he might admit that he hadn’t been thinking for quite some time. He had rejected his father and his trade, causing a rift that had devastated his family and, according to Tomaso, killed his mother. Of course his father would say that, but wasn’t it true? They both bore the responsibility, but who bore the greater share? And why? Why did he leave? Because he was the future and his father was the past? Because the Arsenale held wonders that couldn’t be ignored, and it was his duty to explore them? That’s what he’d been telling himself all these years. Was it not a father’s duty, his sacred obligation, to steer the child down his path? Not the father’s path, the right path. There was much of the self-righteous in the philosophical conversations he held in his head, when he chose to have them, which had been more and more infrequent over the years. He no longer felt the need to justify his actions. In truth, he no longer wished to think of those days at all.
    Paolo sighed. Maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe it was simply because he was a child, and it was in a child’s nature to rebel. He didn’t know. Too many questions without answers. He had always been told that with time came clarity. A lie, however well meaning. With time the questions may have become clearer, but the