What Casanova Told Me Read online

  “No, dear girl. He said that God infuses all matter in the natural world, including our physical selves. Surely, if God is in nature, he is in our bodies.”

  “You confuse me.”

  “To a good end. Jouissance is the moment we all long for. Are you keeping yourself chaste for the marriage bed?”

  Down the shore, the young women were trooping across the sand with their laundry, their long walking dresses and embroidered shawls rippling in the afternoon breeze. In Quincy, I longed for a family of my own yet no suitor except Francis had come forward. Now, sitting by the sea with Monsieur Casanova, it struck me that I was glad I was not washing clothes like these Greek women whose forebears had done the same thing for thousands of years, though no one, not even antique travel writers like Pausanias, had bothered to describe their labours.

  “I would be unhappy confined to household duties in Massachusetts.”

  “Ah! And love? Would it make you happy?”

  “Love brings domestic servitude and sometimes death. My mother died in childbirth.”

  “Dear girl, there is no need for that to happen to you! If you practise what I teach,” he added.

  “What are you speaking of?”

  “You will see. You have a world of pleasure ahead of you.”

  I shook my head, but he had excited my curiosity.

  “I swear the mode of pleasure is infallible, Miss Adams. Its power lies in this: recognize the beauty of the opposite sex, and they will recognize yours.”

  “Is it so simple?”

  “Yes, all great truths are.” He paused. “If you enjoy men’s charms, they will enjoy yours. But you must accept your own beauty first.”

  The wine tasted less bitter on my tongue, and I found myself touched by my companion’s words. Still, he does not understand the burden My Poor Friend poses.

  “I fear it is not possible for a woman such as I to be so generous—with myself.”

  “In time, you will learn. Women, too, can enjoy their bodies. In this, you are no different from men.”

  “I do not believe there are such women.”

  “I have met them.” He stared wistfully up at a cloud drifting over our heads, ensnared by a memory. Then he laughed. “But you are weary after your journey. This must wait for another time. Your are coaxing me into giving away my secrets!”

  “And you?” I persisted, unable to stop myself. “Do you accept your body the way you accept the body of your lover?”

  He fixed me with his hooded eyes. “I am no longer young. That is something else again.”

  “Surely, if what you say is true and you ask me to believe it of myself, then it extends to those who have gone beyond youth?”

  He didn’t answer. And for the first time I wondered if he had doubts about seeing his beloved Aimée. But when I asked my question a second time, I heard the low whistle of snores. This is how it is with Jacob Casanova. When I expect him to look old, he appears vigorous, and when I decide he is younger than he has any right to be, he looks frail, like the old gentleman asleep on the sand beside me, happily oblivious of the ant crawling over his buckled shoe.

  Shivery convulsions shook the walls of the ferry as the rhythm of the engines changed and the boat began to slow. In his carrying case, Venus began to yowl as if he was being strangled. Luce slipped the cat a piece of tuna from her half-eaten sandwich and asked the waitress in the lounge to keep an eye on him. Then she hurried on deck for her first sight of Greece.

  The light had changed. In Venice, the spring sun had glowed softly grey and warm, not unlike the April light in eastern North American cities. But the Greek sun shone harsh and blindingly hot. It inflamed the bright chestnut of her hair and the brilliantly coloured silks in the jacket hanging like a cape from her shoulders. She stood with the throng of passengers on the upper deck watching the ferry pull into Igoumenitsa.

  The harbour nested in a bowl of limestone cliffs rising out of the sea to high, green-haired hills, a scene of wildness and simplicity, and for a moment Luce felt as if she too, like Asked For Adams, was sailing into a new beginning. Less than a day before, she’d been blown about by the spring winds of Italy, and now, here she was on the sunny threshold of the country her mother had loved.

  Across the deck, she noticed a white-suited officer, perhaps the ferry captain, perched ostentatiously on the railing, pointing out landmarks to four Scandinavian girls whose tow heads had been uniformly dressed in cornrows. She was glad they weren’t getting off in Igoumenitsa; they were taking the boat to Patras and going overland by bus to Athens. More hours of travelling lay ahead. She would have time to continue reading about Asked For Adams and Casanova.

  She caught sight of the lounge singer standing a few feet away. Alarmed, she leaned in the other direction, pretending to be absorbed in the stream of departing cars. When she looked again, the man was gone.

  Luce pulled the Venetian notepaper from her pocket and reread her wish: “I want to meet someone who can show me that love doesn’t mean disappointment.” Then she tore the paper into small pieces and threw the scraps over the railing, watching the wind from the wash of the departing ferry scatter them in all directions.

  June 29, 1797

  More about our arrival in Athens.

  The customs official gave us our papers, and we started out for Athens just before sunset. Monsieur Papoutsis hired a large cart driven by a friendly Greek. His face broke into a toothless smile when he saw me. I ignored him and helped Monsieur Gennaro with his luggage, to his surprise. He was concerned the journey would damage the painter’s tools. At last, the baggage was secured and we set off. Monsieurs Gennaro and Papoutsis rode in front with the driver who clasped a blunderbuss in his lap. In the back, Monsieur Casanova and I were bounced around by the road, doing our best to restrain Finette. Whenever we passed a shepherd with his sheep, the dog barked joyfully, sniffing the air as if she had never smelled anything so glorious.

  The sun was setting on the Attic plain, turning the boughs of the poplars and plane trees on either side of the narrow road a pale gold. The light fell on the groves of olive trees and harvested cornfields, colouring the withered corn plants the same honey shade as the retsina I had drunk with Monsieur Casanova. All around us, the land of Greece glowed with swallowed light. My large body felt light, as if I, too, was being transformed. Even Monsieur Casanova’s face looked youthful and happy.

  And then, darkness fell. There is no twilight in this beautiful land, I am learning. A mile or two along the lonely road, we came upon a house by some plane trees. Monsieur Papoutsis shouted to our driver who stopped the carriage, and without so much as a glance at us, he and Monsieur Gennaro climbed down with the driver and disappeared into the house.

  “Is the road safe from robbers?” I asked.

  But Monsieur Casanova was fast asleep in his seat, and so I sat with Finette in my lap, looking out at the ridge of low mountains whose bumpy hilltops glowed with a soft amethyst light. Athens lay somewhere in that direction. I felt alone in this rough place, and I cursed myself for having set off on this wild journey. Who in Athens, I thought, will know America? Perhaps even the name will only draw puzzled stares.

  In a while, and just as the moon peered over the top of the farthest hill, Monsieurs Gennaro and Papoutsis stumbled back out, talking noisily and clapping one another on the back. They clambered on board, urging the horses to a trot, which woke Monsieur Casanova from his nap.

  “Manolis and Domenico have been sampling the mysteries of the east,” he whispered.

  But when I looked puzzled, he did not explain. I told him I was thirsty and he poured me a glass of ouzo. No one thought to bring along food or water so I made do with the smelly liquorice-flavoured drink.

  For about an hour, our carriage rattled along the country road, barrelling through the towering trees whose trunks and branches could be clearly seen now because the full moon was high in the sky. I began to feel unwell and felt greatly relieved when we caught tiny glints of light mo
ving like fireflies on the craggy silhouette of a hill rising up out of a huge, dark plain. Monsieur Casanova said these lights were Athenians carrying lanterns in their hands. On the top of the moonlit hill, I recognized the bone-white columns of the Parthenon. And through the roof of this glorious antiquity soared the spindle of a minaret.

  “Oh, Venus, you who are known here by the name Aphrodite, bless this place,” Monsieur Casanova whispered, and crossed himself. My new friend is Catholic but he sees God differently from most Papists. In one breath, he speaks of the Supreme Being as his mistress, and in the next, he throws in womanly Providence for good measure. To Monsieur Casanova, it seems all great powers are feminine.

  We passed through cornfields whose silvery stalks glittered in the moonlight and came to the city wall that Monsieur Casanova said had been built to keep out pirates. By its gate sat a turbaned man, his feet swaddled in rags.

  “What’s wrong with his feet?” I whispered, as the guard swung open the gate.

  “Bastinado.” Monsieur Casanova hissed the word. “Beating a man’s feet is a common punishment in these parts.”

  Athenians filled the evening streets, many of them carrying the lanterns we had seen from a distance. As we turned down a dirty lane, I felt my stomach churning. Elevated gutters ran along its sides, spilling out foul-smelling sewage. I made out half-starved dogs in the shadows of a Christian church that stood beside a small mosque. As we rattled by, the dogs barked and howled at us, until the whole village rang with their cries. So this backwater is Athens, I thought. I am disappointed.

  June 30, 1797

  Dear Isaac,

  My health is better, my friend, than it has been in months. We arrived yesterday in Athens—only four days from Corfu under a hot, cloudless sky. Sadly, my friendly overtures to the Mussulmano family were misunderstood by the father. I will not go into it here, Isaac, except to say that providing the customs official with baksheesh saved the Mussulmano’s wife and child.

  Thanks to my reputation as a man of letters, our guide was able to find us lodgings at the home of the widow Mavromatis. The name means black eyes, but hers are a cornflower blue—the legacy of a Venetian ancestor.

  As we unpacked, she brought out letters from English guests who had stayed with her that year and asked if I would write to them and offer cheaper rates upon their return. My hostess was surprised when I explained that English is a language I have yet to master. (Please excuse the blotches, old friend. The widow secured the ink from her son who says he makes it himself from Aleppo galls grown near Smyrna, along with sulphate of iron, water, gum Arabic and verdigris—if I understood his Greek. He keeps this primitive concoction in a wooden keg for months before he strains it into one of the little bottles sitting before me. As I write, I am careful not to touch it with my fingers in case the green goo burns my skin.)

  We have our own suite of rooms opening onto a pretty courtyard with five or six large lemon trees; my room has a writing desk—apparently a gift from the French consul—and several chairs, a rarity in Athens whose inhabitants still practise the habit of floor sitting.

  The night is as close and warm as the day, so some hours after we arrived, I went out to a small bathing shed in the courtyard, looking for a jug of water to wet my sheets—the method you taught me for keeping cool on hot nights so many years ago. I stepped inside the shed. The wall of the partition separating the sexes is designed for beings smaller than myself and I could see easily across the barrier into the women’s area. I looked there out of curiosity and spotted a head of auburn hair. A moment later, the lovely coppery head swung up, and I was staring into the frightened eyes of the Puritan girl.

  She stared back horrified and then bowed her head.

  “Monsieur Casanova,” she sobbed. “Help me! I am inebriated.”

  “Jacob.”

  “Yes—Jacob.” I heard her retch miserably.

  “I will look after you, dear girl.”

  The confined quarters in which we are lodged have had the happy result that I am on better terms with Miss Adams. Of course, she is not a true Puritan although she exhibits a charming interest in self-improvement. Those joyless folk were, after all, her ancestors.

  I bade her sit and tenderly bathed her forehead with a wet cloth, and when she could walk with some steadiness, I took her to my room. For all her brave boasts about not needing a protector, my young companion is still an innocent. After I settled her on my couch, I lay wearily upon my own bed. In minutes, my limbs were damp again with perspiration, and, for the first time in many months, I experienced the full breadth of myself. My head, my heels and my hands, each of my limbs equidistant from the next, like the five-pointed star that is Leonardo’s splendid sketch of a man. This is the genius of Greece. It gives us mortals back our bodies, and reminds us that the base of all metaphysics lies in the physical. No wonder Philhellenes the world over offer up thanks to the cloud-free skies of Greece.

  I slept under the widow’s late husband’s bedclothes on a straw mattress stretched across two trestles, and I was as comfortable as if I was lying in the Doge’s Palace. And in the morning had the pleasure of watching the widow’s daughter sweep the dust with her hand broom into a large crack in the floor seemingly designed for that purpose.

  And now, dear friend, it is time to turn to a copy of Ad Helviam by Seneca. I intend to prove to Miss Adams that her beloved Seneca scoffs at the notion of Platonic forms. If I have learned anything in this lifetime, Isaac, it is this—one should never try to realize the ideal, but find the ideal in the real.

  Yours,

  Jacob

  On the bus to Athens, Luce reread Casanova’s phrase, “find the ideal in the real.” Was he talking about the need to appreciate daily experience, or the dangers of idealizing those you love? She carefully put down the photocopy so she wouldn’t waken Lee sleeping in the next seat. Luce had never heard of Casanova visiting Athens. In the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire had extended to Athens and much of the eastern Mediterranean, although its power had started to decline long before Asked For Adams began her travels. She found it exciting to think of him in this part of the world. If only his letters were easier to read! There were black spaces on a few of the photocopies indicating the places where the dark “green goo,” as he put it, had eaten through the paper. In graduate school, she had written a paper about the old recipes for ink made from homey ingredients such as lamp black and pine resin. She felt sympathy for Casanova, who had run out of his gold ink from Venice and was obliged to turn to a local Athenian brew. History bristles with stories of wars and battles, she decided, and ignores such crucial tools for human improvement as a dependable ink that doesn’t destroy the paper it’s written on.

  June 30, 1797

  Last night, very late, I awoke to the sounds of moaning. At first, I thought I was delirious from fatigue and insect bites, and then I understood the noise was coming from myself. Across the moonlit room, a corpse-like figure lay beneath a mosquito curtain.

  “Jacob?” I whispered, still uncertain about using his name. At the sound of my voice, Finette leapt onto my stomach and licked my face.

  “Come here, Finette! That’s a good girl!” The corpse-like figure shook off a layer of bedclothes and I beheld Jacob Casanova in a long undershirt. A rope of reddish-grey hair hung down beneath his nightcap. I have never seen him without his wigs, and indeed, wig bags of all shapes and sizes lay on the writing desk by his bed. I stood up and the room whirled about me. I fixed my eyes on the desk in an attempt to steady myself. The desk was as fine as any in Mr. Franklin’s formal house in Passy. It was large and curved, with a bronze lip at its edges to prevent papers sliding onto the floor, and he had placed his journal with its packet of scraps and letters on the veneered surface. But it was no use. The room still spun wildly. I sat down quickly and he turned away from me. As he bent over his plate chest, I noticed that his nightshirt was hitched up at the back. I tried not to stare at his pale haunches glowing in the moonlight. D
espite his age, Jacob Casanova’s buttocks are manly and firm.

  “You drank too much ouzo, Miss Adams,” he said, pulling down his nightshirt and handing me a goblet of water. “If you feel well enough, I can accompany you to your room. I will be no danger to you.”

  “You have not harmed me before so there is no reason to think you will do so now.”

  He laughed. “Miss Adams, you have an empirical habit of mind, like my friend Monsieur Voltaire. You would get along with him, whereas I had difficulty doing so.”

  “You and he did not agree?” I was making conversation to hide my nervousness.

  “Voltaire argued that we must be free of superstition. But superstition is linked to faith. And faiths of all kinds—both big and small—are how we understand the mysteries of our lives.”

  “I have faith in you, monsieur,” I said.

  “And that, Miss Adams, is possibly the very place you should not put faith. I am, as you can see”—he tugged the greying rope on his shoulder—“less than I appear.”

  “That is no reason not to trust you.”

  “Dear girl, I am honoured. But do not depend too greatly on Giacomo Casanova.” He seated himself next to me and I could feel my heart battering my ribs.

  “Do you ever worry what Aimée will look like now?” I asked. “Perhaps—perhaps she has grown fat.”

  He startled me with a laugh. “What does it matter, when I am not as I was? Every part of me is crumbling. Look!”

  He lifted his hand so I could see his fingers clutching a small ball. For the first time, I realized the knuckles on his thumb and forefinger were badly swollen.

  “Rheumatism. See! I loosen my hand every day with Finette’s toy.”

  I could not answer him. The truth was I felt greatly excited to be alone with Jacob Casanova.

  I do not know when it happened. Perhaps when his hand fell glancingly across my chest, grazing my skin with a touch like a Massachusetts sea breeze. I shuddered, thinking of the twinkling glints of light the sun makes on the great Atlantic. And my lower regions rang like a wind chime, reverberating with delicious sensations that echoed one upon another in a chaos of feeling I lacked the skill to orchestrate.