Stone Virgin Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Barry Unsworth

  Title Page

  Madonna Commissioned

  Restoration 1: The Lower Draperies

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  First Interlude: Coronation

  Restoration 2: All Below the Waist

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Second Interlude: Sanctification

  Restoration 3: The Form Entire

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Last Words

  Copyright

  About the Book

  For five hundred years a statue of the Madonna has watched over Venice. Now, dulled by time and pollution, she is prepared for restoration. As Simon Raikes immerses himself in the painstaking task of cleaning and repairing, he is inexorably drawn to the stories of violence and lust which have surrounded this stone virgin.

  Simon’s investigations lead him to Chiara Litsov, the wife of a renowned sculptor. A dangerous attraction develops between them and it appears inevitable that once again the stone virgin will bear witness to passion, betrayal and murder.

  About the Author

  Barry Unsworth was born in 1930 in Durham. He was the author of many novels, including Pascali’s Island, which was shortlisted for the 1980 Booker Prize; Stone Virgin (1985); Sacred Hunger, which was joint winner of the 1992 Booker Prize; Morality Play, which was shortlisted for the 1995 Booker Prize; Losing Nelson (1999); The Songs of the Kings (2002); The Ruby in Her Navel (2006); Land of Marvels (2009); and The Quality of Mercy (2011), which was shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. Barry Unsworth died in 2012.

  Also by Barry Unsworth

  The Partnership

  The Greeks Have a Word for It

  The Hide

  Mooncranker’s Gift

  The Big Day

  Pascali’s Island (published in the United States under the title The Idol Hunters)

  The Rage of the Vulture

  Sugar and Rum

  Sacred Hunger

  Morality Play

  After Hannibal

  Losing Nelson

  The Songs of the Kings

  The Ruby in Her Navel

  Land of Marvels

  The Quality of Mercy

  * * *

  Madonna Commissioned

  HE BRINGS ME writing materials without asking for money but he does not speak, I cannot be sure what his motives are, whether he has seen my worth and wishes sincerely to help me or whether he is merely acting on orders from his superiors or it is possible he has believed my promises to reward him when I get out of this hole but whatever the truth of it I take this chance of reaching you, noble lord, I beg you to find out who are my enemies and speak for me, I mean those behind my accusers. From you a few words would be enough. I am innocent of the girl’s death. I swear it by all the saints. Ask me to make any solemn oath and I will do it. I was in another part of the town when she was drowned. Those who say I was with her are lying, they have been paid to lie. You are my generous patron, you are one of the Three Hundred, you obtained for me the commission from the Supplicanti, having seen my work at Bologna, my lord please help me now or I will sink under this weight of false witness, why would I kill a girl for no reason? Besides she was a whore. I will tell you everything I can about Bianca and the carving of the Madonna.

  My landlady Maria Nevi has said in her deposition that I have a violent nature giving as evidence threats to her and threats to the boatmen on the day they brought the block, however she was not present on this occasion, she was buying fish in the market, so already she is perjured because she has said on oath that she witnessed this scene. Why has she done this? I know the hag dislikes me – I always called her Fiammetta as a joke though she is more than fifty and half her teeth gone and her thing pickled in its own vinegar. But there is more than dislike in this.

  I remember that day well because of the beauty of the stone and my own fury. At the last moment, before swinging the block across from the barge on to the fondamenta, everything ready, myself standing there on the edge to help guide the block over, at this moment the boatmen began to demand more money, two of them at least, the third remained silent. Perhaps he was ashamed – or dumb. These two spoke in turn encouraging each other.

  I see them quite clearly in my mind’s eye, the days in this cell have done nothing to cloud my memory, I always from childhood had the faculty of remembering well, not merely vividly but in detail, when I worked as an apprentice stone-cutter for the Carthusians at Pavia – having run from the life of goatherd in my village – I was known for my ability to copy window mouldings and all the details of modanatura from memory. (Umberto of Bavagna was my master then, I learned the elements of my trade from the monks and even some Latin along with the stone-cutting.) One was young and smooth-faced but he had a diseased eye, the other older, spitting frequently over the side, both grey with the dust of the depot, in loud voices they explained to me and others who had congregated – Venice being at all times of day full of people with nothing to do but stare – what labour it had been to transport this block of Istrian stone from the terraferma.

  My lord, they had been paid already. I would have given them something, una bene andata, but they were asking for a whole scudo. My eyes became confused with anger. Fortunately they were out of reach, God thereby saving me from violence, which he has done often before, otherwise they would have repented their insolence, sons of whores. I will confess that I am passionate by nature, my elements of heat are not properly blended, I was conceived in July, the worst possible month for the passions, my mother was barely eighteen, too young even for the limited balance women may achieve, Vegi tells us this, a woman cannot be ragionevole e intendere, even seconda donna, until she is twenty at least and moreover I suspect that my father was too eager and intemperate in his approaches to her, though naturally evidence for this is lacking.

  So in this heat of the moment I may have said unwise things, but nothing against Venetians or the state of Venice, that I can swear to. But there was hostility towards me in the crowd because of my Piedmontese accent – a crowd had gathered now, my neighbours the saddle-makers, Marsuppini father and son, who have since given evidence against me, two lads with trays of cakes, various idlers. But I never said anything against them, I have the highest regard for the citizens of this great Republic.

  They saw my weakness, that spitting rogue and the other with the crusted eye, and they exploited it to the full – typical Venetians. A barca loaded with grain was seeking to pass but could not because the rio is narrow and the barge took up the space so the oarsman of the other boat grew quickly impatient and joined in the shouting. I threw the silver down into the hold. This was from the money the friars of the Supplicanti had paid me on signing the contract for the Madonna, money to live on while I executed the work not throw down for these animals to scramble for, but they did not mind the indignity, being creatures of a low order, and were now all smiles and made haste to swing the block over, and I myself forgot everything else, seeing the stone settled on its rollers and manoeuvred into place on the workshop floor, workshop that was also living room and sleeping place to me.

  It was still with smiles t
hat they left. The third wretch, who had said nothing, was smiling too. Reverence and awe is what they should have felt, seeing me left alone there, understanding what a guest I was left with. They were men after all, though thieves. But they departed grinning.

  When they had gone I examined the stone again. There were the bruises from the quarrying but the grain was perfect and I knew that I had chosen well and I gave thanks to God who had whitened this stone in the darkness for my use and His greater glory and I repented of my sin of rage and crossed myself as I do now again. Anger that is past leaves a mood of vacancy sometimes and so it was now and in this vacancy I stood at the window and I looked round the room as if seeing it for the first time – the block made everything else seem unfamiliar. It was warm, though still only March, and there was sunshine in the room and dust moving slowly in it and reflections from the canal also moving slowly – over the walls and my work bench and the pallet in the corner and the rat tracks in the dust of the floor. Light moved freely inside the room, having passed without damage through the membrane of the glass. So the Holy Ghost entered the chamber of Mary’s womb as it is explained in the teachings of the blessed San Bernardo where he says that as the brilliance of the sun fills and penetrates a glass window and pierces it con una sottigliezza impercettibile so the Word of God, the splendour of the Father, penetrated the virgin chamber without hurt, senza ferirla. But there was more, my lord, because into the chamber of my room I realized that God’s seed had entered, the stone was God’s seed waiting to be transformed into an image that would glorify His Incarnation and it seemed that I could hear this dumb stone crying for its form and with a cry that was everywhere in the room like the light and inside the walls of my being and it was loud and silent. Then my body lost its weight and my mind became mingled with the light that was inside and outside and the pleading of the stone.

  When I came to myself again the Angelus was ringing and there was the fondamenta and the bridge and the older Marsuppini outside his workshop, bald head lowered over his work. Cutting and stitching all day long, who needs horses in Venice? But now that our new Doge is leading us to glorious acquisitions on the terraferma people will have estates and so horses – I hear his step, he comes for the papers now the light is fading and he takes them at once not giving me time to finish I will ask for a lamp

  I could not stay longer there with the mute stone, in the dying light, but it was my misfortune to meet Fiammetta as I came out on to the street and at a moment when she was already heated by an altercation with the fishmonger (I call this crone Fiammetta as a joke because it is a name much used in love songs. Her real name is Maria Nevi.)

  We met at the corner of the Marsuppini bottega just a few yards short of the sotoportego that leads off into Campo Sant’Angelo, five paces more and I would have been under the archway and missed the hag altogether, as it was we met face to face on the corner and she at once began raising her voice. Five liras, eight soldi, she screeched at me – it is her usual practice to utter the exact amount of my debt loudly and repeatedly like a parrot, not listening at all to anything I might say in reply and in this way she achieves several of the triumphs to which her hag’s life is devoted, for example causing others to overhear and thus offending my dignity and also by showing such an exact knowledge of the amount she puts herself in a commanding position or so she thinks but she is mistaken, io me ne frego, and God has justified this through the gifts He subsequently made me, which I am not at present free to reveal, not even to you, noble lord. And the poverty is not my fault but caused by the unfair practice of closed guilds here in Venice so it is impossible for anyone not native to the place to set up his own bottega.

  So I merely felt sorry for her as she stood ranting there clutching the mullet to her breast and her face working, she is a hysteric also, I mention this to show that her evidence is not to be trusted. Five liras, eight soldi, she shouted again. He thinks a poor widow can live on promises but promises will not put sausages into my mouth. (Marsuppini has said in his deposition that I answered her lewdly and obscenely at this point but that is lies.)

  Still she railed on. This great maestro, she said, when will he pay it? She put this question to the sky, it seemed, looking upwards, her jaws working and her eyes blinking but she gets just as excited talking with the fishmonger and I paid no special attention. Here is a great fuss, I said, but she was not listening she was laughing falsely up at the sky exposing the interior of her mouth in which many teeth are lacking, clutching the fish as if I was threatening to despoil her of it. Here is a great fuss to make out of a few paltry liras, I said, speaking calmly but again the demon rage was climbing up, my face had become suffused with blood. Have I not told you about this new commission? I said. The block has come. I shall have money when the Madonna is finished. (I did not mention the advance they had paid, I needed all of it.) What is five liras? I said, and I tried to get past her into the sotoportego. Five liras, eight soldi, she screeched straight into my face with her breath of sour milk, the capomaestro is a great man, he can forget about the soldi, but I am only Signora Nevi.

  Go and fuck your fish, I said. Imagine my feelings, confronted by this detestable crone upbraiding me in full hearing of others though of course I am indifferent to the opinion of others, as I have said, but she was raising her voice more and more and I was trapped there, once again base talk of soldi dinning into my ears, the block of stone in the workshop, my great task all before me, my first independent commission in Venice after seven years – yes my lord seven years of servile work at others’ bidding, trimming stone, labouring over obscure details of decoration, jobs no one else wanted to do. It was from this you rescued me, thanks to your good offices I had the commission from the friars of the Supplicanti, a Madonna Annunciata for their new church soon to be consecrated, destined for a prominent place on the façade, a work of high and holy importance and one in which I should express my veneration for the Santissima Vergine, the Mother of God, and through her the respect due to all women and here was this hysteric hag with her mummified cunt and her withered tits in their black fustian of a fictitious widow, the husband never existed, she is a poxed-out puttana. Go and fuck your fish, I said to her, I have no more time to waste here, and I got round her into the sotoportego. Scum of Piedmont, I heard her shout after me but I took no notice. Other things too she shouted, threats. She has said I told her to go and fuck her fish, and that is true, but I did not push her aside and I did not invoke the devil against her by making the sign of the horns. However, it is true that I told her to go and fuck her fish, which profanity I regretted when my anger had cooled.

  I did not notice which way I walked at first owing to the disturbance of my feelings but there was a strong light everywhere, I remember that evening for the brightness of the light on everything, on the water and on the buildings and yet the sunset bells had rung some time before, I had heard them while still in my room and so there is something difficult to understand about these memories of light, but I cannot be mistaken. I think now that I was bestowing this light on things, that it was in me, this evening was the beginning of God’s gift of light to me which remained with me all the time I was carving the Madonna and accompanies me still even here in this prison. (When I close my eyes I can feel the sweetness of this light within me and sometimes, in certain conditions, I see it on the surface of my skin.)

  So I walked for some time at random. Campo Sant’Angelo then over the rio but by the long bridge, Ponte dei Mercatori, I must have wandered south a little. They were working on the façade of San Zaccaria, hammers and bells and the booming of the cannon as the ships coming into the Bacinto saluted the image of the Virgin on the Basilica of San Marco. The city was crowded with visitors come for the Spring Fair – more than a hundred thousand it was said. It was Wednesday, the market was open, sausages and cockles and the smell of sawdust and wet fish. Pan buffeto. I remember everything about this evening on which I met Bianca, even the prices of things – prices are nostalgic fo
r men in captivity my lord. Ten snails, four soldi, a secchio of wine, thirty-five soldi. I had the friars’ money in my pocket that day and I had hopes.

  In one corner of the Campo Santa Maria Formosa there were actors performing on a platform hung with lamps and I stopped to watch. They were good, especially the Pantalone, he was a good tumbler, dressed all in red with a fierce mud-coloured mask and he had Turkish slippers too large for him which he kept tripping over and falling on to the platform with a great clash of bells, he had bells inside his clothes somewhere. He wanted to creep up and spy on two behind a screen who wore the masks of lovers, the one with the male mask was trying to put his hand up the skirts of the other and just as he succeeded every time a crash of bells and they sprang apart. The people in the crowd were laughing and some were shouting advice of an obscene nature.

  After this I began crossing the square towards the north side. For no particular reason I turned down that street about midway across which is called after the church and leads into the warren of the San Severo district. As I was thinking to retrace my steps I heard a woman singing somewhere above me not very loudly but distinctly enough in a voice low in register but very sweet and the notes lingering, a haunting song, not Venetian by the sound of it.

  Tu m’hai promiso quater

  O mocatura o mocatura

  I looked up but the street was narrow and the balconies were high and I could see no one. I had to go to the end and then turn to look, before I saw her. She was sitting at the edge of the balcony, looking over the street and she was in a red dress with her shoulders bare her hair dyed gold and her face painted. She was smiling a little as if she had pleasing thoughts. But this was the habit of her face, as I learned later, she had few thoughts. This was my first sight of Bianca. I knew she was for sale, how else could it be, alone there, in that exposed position and singing to draw the gaze? But that was not important in my mind. Also she was very beautiful but it was not that. She seemed pleased and self-conscious like a child dressed up. My lord I had never seen her before but I knew her – it was that which kept me there, I stayed gazing but she did not look towards me. People were passing, they stared at me, a thing I hate, and still she did not look, she was lost in some dream. I had to move away but her face stayed in my mind. There was a tavern on the corner with a sign of crossed silver keys and so I entered, not to go too far away, not expecting trouble of any kind – it was chance that I went there. It is true that a man came in who was known to me but after seven years it would be strange indeed if I had no acquaintance in Venice. This was Rodrigo Nofri who used to be a painter of masks, a bad one, and now is in the silk trade and making money the dog has made money out of this business, he has testified that I uttered treasonable sayings against the state of Venice and in support of her enemies, particularly Francesco Bussone, Count of Carmagnola, and that I caused an affray. My lord this was in March it was before the arrest of Carmagnola I said nothing against Venice and as for the fighting it was the Florentines who began it. There is a web of false evidence against me, I am enmeshed in it. I beg you to find Nofri and question him privately. I know he has been bribed. Not only that, he has been frightened. With him there was another man and his name I think was Bechine, from Murano. I did not discover his occupation but if from Murano almost certainly to do with glass, a big man, rather taciturn but not quarrelsome, none of us was quarrelsome, it was the Florentines who began it all. I will tell you what happened.