When the aluminum gunwale of our vaporetto scraped the dock, I leapt out of my seat. Forget Venice! Forget the crowds of tourists, the flash of cameras, the shrill wolf-whistle of the Gondoliers that ogled me as I passed. At last, the real Italy! Burano has the same colours, only brighter: the locals paint their houses with childlike abandon and slap on new coats of bright green or sky blue or deep red every year. Burano has the same smells too: the overtones of aged prosciutto and new bread mingle with the miasma of unclean water. It took one boat trip to escape the tourist trap. Of course, it would take much more to escape Scapino. However fluently I might speak Italian, my editor still insisted I have a translator. Like all translators, he acted as if the Doge himself had requested that he educate me.
“We avoid the Russians at the Fenice,” he instructed. “But Tchaikovsky touches the sublime. When I saw Odette’s death dance in Swan Lake, I found tears on my face.”
“Shut up, Scapino,” I said. “When do we meet Beatrice?”
“Noon o’clock, miss.”
“Good. Let’s find something to do.”
In time, I discovered a little back-alley museum that told the history of the island. It had become famous for the skill of its lacemakers. Sepia-toned pictures showed rows and rows of prepubescent girls hunched over masses of thread as they wove collars for the signiori of the main island. Scapino claimed that the Chinese made the lace sold in the shops these days, but I bought a little ribbon that had “Memories of Burano” embroidered on it to spite him. I used it to tie up my hair, because the wind tangled it like a cat’s cradle as I walked to the Piazza di Cigni, where my assignment lived.
On three sides of the quiet piazza, confectionary houses loomed. The shadow they cast defended the cobblestoned square from the sea breeze. A canal bordered the fourth side, and on its scummy surface, three white swans paddled. Behind them, a crooked belltower leaned like a curious gossip. I snapped a picture, then followed Scapino into a shabby house, through a faded curtain and up a rickety set of stairs until we reached a scummy room that overhung the canal.
At first, I thought that cobwebs had colonized the corners of the space. As my eyes adjusted to the weak light that filtered through the thick drapes over the open window, I realized that some industrious individual had hung strands of silk from tiny hooks nailed into the wall, each labeled with width and length. Crouched in the centre of the web like a black widow, a crone sat and stitched slim threads into a huge limp sheet that drooped over her lap.
I cleared my throat.
“Signora Beatrice?”
She looked up at me. Her black eyes glittered like plastic in their heavy sockets.
“Cosa vuoi?” she asked.
Scapino’s face brightened.
“She’d like to interview you-” he began, but Beatrice interrupted.
“You speak Italian?” she asked me.
“Sì,” I replied.
“Send your man away,” she said in her native tongue, “so we can talk woman to woman.”
Scapino skulked off.
“You wanted to talk to me?” the old woman asked. She peered back into her lacework.
“They say you make the best lace in the world.”
“Who says that?”
“Scapino, mostly.”
“He’s an imbecile. I make the last lace in the world.”
“Like that?”
Beatrice stared at her fingers as they tied tiny knots faster than I could follow.
“This? A shroud.”
“A commission?”
“No. For me.”
Her needle arced flashes of silver through the musty air.
“When they closed the school, I started my work,” she continued “The age of the lacemakers has come to its end. Just like the glassblowers on Murano or the merchants on the Fish. All have come to their ends. So must we.”
Gold filigree began to spark across the fabric like electricity.
“We refuse to dip below the horizon,” she said. “We demand a sunset before we end.”
“You could sell it on the Internet, the lace. You can keep the trade alive!’
“Girl,” said Beatrice, “If I can’t keep myself alive, can I save a trade?”
“Open a school. Train some girls. Teach me how!”
“No time. Look.”
The frantic buzz that had filled the old body slowed. I approached Beatrice, and for the first time could see what she had crafted. A lattice of insubstantial thread formed a shroud as sheer as a negligee. Around each filament coiled plants and animals in an elegant embrace. The graceful necks of tiny silk birds interlocked with filigree lions and thick cutwork dragons.
“My last work,” croaked Beatrice, “will shine brighter than my others. I need to burn the power left in these fingers. I came into this world with a needle in my hand. Now I put it down.”
“Che Bello!” I sighed.
“It’s almost finished.”
“Almost? What else does it need?”
“A body to wrap around.”
In an instant, Beatrice had crawled onto the window frame.
“Make them remember me,” she barked.
“They’ll remember better if you stay.”
“People only remember old people when they die.”
She tipped out the window. Her black dress fluttered behind her like a pair of impossible wings as she dived into the canal below and broke her head on the bottom. The swans, disturbed, began to honk.
They buried her in the church with the crooked tower. After the funeral, they put the shroud in the museum, with a plaque that read: Funerary Garment of Beatrice Leda, lace mistress, completed 2015.
I didn’t attend. I heard this from Scapino afterwards, over the phone. After my interview, I caught the next train from Mussolini’s hideous modernist station. As we sallied forth towards Verona, I pulled the ribbon from my hair. Halfway across the causeway, I let it fly out the window and disappear into the lagoon.
Judge’s comments
Dave Obee
A flawless short story. Good writing sets the scene and pulls the reader into the story without drawing attention to the writing itself. The writer has captured the images, the feelings, the sounds and the smells of the location, while setting up the plot. The climax is powerful, surprising, somehow contriving to be frightening and peaceful at the same time. My greatest concern has to do with the ribbon: It seems to have a great significance, but I am missing it.
Yvonne Blomer
Wow to the title and the first sentence. It hooked me with beautiful language, it set me in a place and it showed the character in action — leaping out of the boat. In fact, this piece is at the top of my list because as a reader I am fully located in it, I know what is going on and I’m dazzled by metaphors. There is a great pun-ish literary allusion in the name of the weaver — Beatrice Leda — recalling Leda from Greek mythology and Yeats’ poem Leda and the Swan. Fabulous work.
Sometimes the writer gets a little carried away or the metaphor puzzles. As in, “Her black eyes glittered like plastic…” Hmm that stopped me. Also some sentences go adjective- and-descriptive heavy. As in: “I snapped a picture, then followed Scapino into a SHABBY house, through a FADED curtain and up a RICKETY set of stairs until we reached a SCUMMY room that overhung the canal.” Sometimes less is more. That said, this narrator is exuberant, so I give half points for that!
Love some of the metaphors: “a crooked bell tower leaned like a curious gossip.” YES.
Dave Wilson
Suffers from the word “miasma.” Never use this word. Some cliché: “like a cat’s cradle,” “childlike abandon,” “like a black widow”; some weakness in its description: “rickety set of stairs,” “scummy room,” “heavy sockets.”
Beautiful attention to specific nouns and verbs, excellent description. Does it go overboard? I would never say that. But an editor, who is not me, might say that. I appreciate the use of Italian and I appreciate this line: “We demand a sunset before we end.”
Suffers from not having anything at stake, even through there is so much at stake. The tendency is to think that we need a reveal, a big moment — such as when Beatrice leaps to her death, sure — but in reality the best stories are stories that immediately reveal their emotional core, and then spend x-thousand words wrestling with that. Why are we in the dark as to where she is going, and why? It’s first person, and retrospective, and this should be made clear to us at the start. Something like: “Before Beatrice Leda leapt to her death, she told me, We demand a sunset at our end.” That would give the piece direction and structure and drama.