The Serpent of Venice

  “I will not! Go, look upon what you have done. Yonder lies my lady, strangled by her lord, Othello, who did stab himself in the heart while still kneeling over her. This blood is on them both, on you!” She leapt at him and wiped her bloody hands down the front of his shirt. Iago grabbed her wrists, threw her aside, and drew his dagger.

  “You would draw your blade on a woman?” The senator and his attendants had backed away from the screaming woman into a bunch, forming a phalanx of dread from which they had been watching. “This is your wife?”

  “Aye!” said Emilia. “But whatever evil I did to deserve a curse such as this, only heaven would know. Cursed!”

  “Signors,” said Iago, awkwardly trying to pretend that he had not raised his dagger over his wife’s breast and instead had somehow accidentally found it in his hand: a foreign thing magically appeared. Forward with the plan. “Othello has been wronged, and although luck has favored him on the battlefield, he is not the master of his temper.”

  “He’s bloody dead, you git!” said Emilia. “And he would have never harmed a hair on my lady’s head, even spoken an unkind word to her, had he not been driven by your lies.”

  “What of this?” said the senator, emboldened now by Emilia’s complete lack of fear in the face of her husband’s dagger.

  “Good sir, this woman, who I took as my wife out of pity, for she was a simpleton and so had shared her favors with many wanton boys in her neighborhood—even though she was such spoiled goods, out of charity, I took her in, but her mind has never been right.”

  “Thou mendacious fuckweasel,” said Emilia, almost spitting it, disgusted now rather than hysterical.

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” said Iago.

  “Methinks the lady protests just the right amount,” said Emilia. “Methinks the lady is just getting fucking started protesting.”

  Iago blazed on, ignoring her. “Even last evening, when I was at his side, Othello went to Cassio’s house, and heard the young captain rutting with Desdemona.”

  “That was me,” said Emilia.

  “What?” Iago lost his train of thought and looked to the Venetians as if they might give him a hint of what to say next. “Then”— he paused, trying to find some way to stitch this calamity back into some advantageous order—“then the Moor went mad, hearing his beloved wife making the howling of the beast with two backs—”

  “Also me,” said Emilia, a smile crossing her lips now, pure triumph between her teeth.

  “She is mad. She does not make that sound in bed.”

  “I do when I’m being done right. Ask any of the boys in my neighborhood, you berk.”

  “I tried to calm the Moor, but Cassio’s betrayal, and his wife’s, was too much for—” He turned to Emilia. “What of Bianca? Wasn’t she supposed to—I mean . . .”

  “She was there. I gave her the bloody handkerchief you promised her and sent her away.”

  “She did,” came a man’s voice from the hall. Michael Cassio came through the doors, his sword drawn, and put the blade between Emilia and Iago. “Signors,” Cassio said, nodding to the Venetians. “Sheathe your dagger, Iago, or lose the hand that holds it.”

  Iago thought for a second, just a second, that he might fight, but he knew the Florentine, alert and sober, would go through him like a hawk through a spiderweb.

  “I confess, signors,” said Iago, dropping his dagger and raising his hands to yield before Cassio. “I am the instrument of a plot laid by a great and powerful Venetian—following his instructions. I am only doing the business of the council. No one could foresee the Moor would act in such a rash and tragic manner.” Live to fight another day, he thought. Throw it all on the backs of Antonio and Brabantio—let them condemn their own kind. “I shall say no more,” he said.

  “You will have your opportunity to make your case before the council,” said Lovichio.

  Cassio put the point of his blade under Iago’s chin as he relieved the traitor of his sword. “Chain him in the hold of the next ship bound for Venice.”

  ACT V

  A Pound of Flesh

  Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

  —King Lear, King Lear, Act I, Scene 1

  TWENTY-ONE

  Savage Puppets

  Gratiano and Salarino were strolling through St. Mark’s Square on their way to the Rialto when they spied the Jew walking, head down, hunched into the wind, carrying his box of papers under one arm while he held his yellow hat in place with the other. Despite it only being noon, the young merchants were half drunk and fully fascinated with the sheer fabulousness of being them, and so did not notice the cold.

  “Look, it is the Jew!” called Gratiano. “Shylock, we heard you were on the Rialto, crying of your bad fortune.”

  “Oh, my daughter! My ducats!” mocked Salarino. “My ducats and my daughter are gone! I know not which is worse!”

  Shylock stopped and squinted at them over his new spectacles. “She is not my daughter. She is dead to me.”

  “She’s not dead to our friend Lorenzo,” said Gratiano. “He enjoys her and your ducats even now on Cyprus.”

  “Unless he is done with her already and passed her over to my brother,” said Salarino.

  “Then they’ll throw her in the sea and live off your ducats.” Gratiano laughed. “Oh, your ducats, your daughter!”

  “Laugh at my misfortunes, young man, but I am not the only one who has suffered withering loss.”

  “Ha!” said Salarino. “We know you sent a Jew to Belmont to rig the boxes for Bassanio’s try for Portia’s hand. We talked to your gondolier, he has no loyalty to you. He was the same one my brother hired, he had his dagger.”

  “You know this, do you?” said Shylock, nodding. “He had your brother’s dagger, did he? I see. Well, it is strange that you know these things when I know nothing of them. I have no gondolier, and I have no interest in who Brabantio’s daughter marries. You know all these, which are not true, and not important, but you do not know what is word on the Rialto this morning, because you have been in an alehouse, drinking to your good fortune and my bad, no?”

  “Say what you will, Jew.”

  “Word on the Rialto is that a second of Antonio’s ships is lost. Taken by pirates off Gibraltar. The crew were stranded on the Moorish coast and the ship scuttled offshore while they watched. One of the sailors, who was picked up by a Spanish ship, returned this morning. Tell me, did I do this? Do I, because I am a Jew, control storms and pirates that cause Antonio’s misfortunes? There is one week left, young brigands. Tell your master to look to his bond.”

  The two young men, suddenly sobered and drained of their hubris, looked to each other, not sure of what to do, what to say. As Antonio’s fortune went, so went theirs.

  “Go, go,” said Shylock. “Off to the Rialto to confirm my story for yourselves. You know how we Jews lie.”

  Like scolded puppies, the two hurried off to the Rialto, desperately hoping to find that the Jew was lying.

  It was true. It was true. They had actually spoken to the sailor from the sunken ship. But now, how to tell Antonio? They found him in his chambers, sitting with Bassanio, the two drinking wine that had been warmed by the fire, on the table what was left of a simple luncheon of bread, cheese, and thin slices of Parma ham.

  “Come, join us,” said Antonio. “There is enough left for a meal, and I’ll wager you two haven’t eaten yet today.”

  Gratiano and Salarino hurried to the table, but neither sat down. They stood.

  “Friend Antonio,” said Gratiano, the tallest.

  “Good Antonio,” said Salarino, the roundest.

  “Good friend Antonio,” said Gratiano.

  “Are you two going to sing?” said Bassanio, the handsomest. “I’m in no mood for your singing.”

  “Noble, most generous Antonio,” said Gratiano.

  “What?!” said Antonio. “What? What? What is it?”

  “Another of your ships has been lost,” blurt
ed out Salarino. “Sorry.”

  Antonio set his goblet on the table and pushed back, his eyes closed, as if he was letting a wave of nausea pass through him before he spoke. Then he said, “Where did you hear of this?”

  Gratiano looked to Salarino, who looked back. Should they say they had first heard it from the Jew? No. “It was passing on the Rialto,” said Gratiano. “But we found a sailor from the lost ship.”

  And so the two took turns telling small bits of the tragedy, so at any time, when Antonio’s brow began to show a shadow of hatred or anger, the other would take the next fragment of the story to attract his attention.

  When they were finished, Antonio pushed back in his chair yet again and spoke with head tilted back, eyes closed. “I have one argosy yet to deliver its goods and return safely to port, and with it I will pay my bond to the Jew.”

  “But there is only one week,” said Bassanio.

  “Yes, there is only one week, and the ship is overdue by two weeks already, so you must go to your Portia, who has still had no one pass her father’s test, and ask her if she will help you. I ask you to do this, Bassanio, as your dearest friend, who loves you most. You must do this.”

  “I will, Antonio. I think she has no access to the family fortune unless her sister, who is away in Corsica, relents, but I will ask her to show her pity for you as if it were for me, for in my heart it is.”

  “You two,” said Antonio, still not looking up. “You must find Shylock, in the city, not on the Jewish island, and you must make a plea to him to meet with me. Not here, and not on the Rialto. Someplace private, down one of the streets where there are no windows.”

  “What will you say to him?” asked Salarino.

  “I will say nothing, as I shall not be there. Instead I will be at Signora Veronica’s, where many witnesses shall see me. But you two shall ask the Jew to give me grace, more time to make my bond. Two months, a month, a week even.”

  “And what if he says no?”

  “Then you will kill him and dump his body in the canal. Be quick, be quiet about it, and leave quickly in different directions. Do not come to see me until the next day, where you will find I have made a drunken spectacle of myself before passing out in the brothel.”

  Salarino looked to Gratiano, who looked to Bassanio, who shrugged, as if to say, “I have my part to do, you must do yours.” They did not answer, did not jump to be agreeable and frisky at the prospect of helping their friend. Yes, they were arrogant and strutted and bullied their way around Venice, and they had drawn blades in fights, even drawn blood. But they were not killers. Salanio and Lorenzo, they had been the cruelest of the crew.

  Antonio let his chair fall forward and when the legs touched the floor he came out of it with a violent fist to the table that made the wine splash and the bread jump. “Do you have questions? Friends?”

  “Um,” said Gratiano, “we are most willing and able to do what you ask, but shouldn’t it be done by proper ruffians? We are gentlemen, and surely not suited for such dark doings.”

  “If you hire ruffians, then you will have to kill the ruffians to eliminate the ruffians. You see, a proper gentleman is efficient in his business. What would you rather do, face off with two experienced cutthroats, or take down one feeble Jewish dog?”

  “The Jewish dog,” said Salarino with a pout.

  “But if Shylock dies the bond passes to his daughter, then a cousin from there,” said Gratiano. “The Jew told us this himself.”

  Antonio sighed. “And they will have to find his daughter, which will buy me time, and if they find her, then you can hide her again, at the bottom of a canal.”

  “Are there Jewish dogs?” asked Bassanio. “I would think that it would be hard for them to keep to the kosher diet? I’ve never known a dog that wouldn’t eat a pork rib when given it.”

  “Ah, my beautiful Bassanio,” said Antonio, shaking his head. “Go see your lady. I need to have a lie-down in the dark.”

  For two days Gratiano and Salarino watched Shylock from a distance and memorized his ambling clockwork movements. Two days in which they hoped that news of Antonio’s third argosy, now the ship of his rescue, would arrive in port, and indeed, after two days, the word fell like angry hands slapped against their ears (with pain, an unsteady step, and a residual ringing): The wreckage of the ship had been found floating in the Black Sea with no sign of the crew. They would have to go to the Jew and ask for mercy, and if denied, deny it in kind and kill him.

  “I’m not so sure,” said Gratiano, as they made their way to the Rialto toward the end of the day, “that we shouldn’t be exceptionally friendly. Perhaps we should approach the Jew in an expansive and laughing manner—slap his back like the good fellows that we are—assure him that all is well. Say, ‘What is a few weeks among friends?’ and he may relent. Perhaps we should take him a pie. Do Jews eat pie, I wonder?”

  “Unless it has pork,” said Salarino. “Or prawns. And they have some rule about milk and beef in the same pie. Oh bugger all, I don’t know what goes in a Jewish pie, let’s just fucking kill him. He’s not going to believe we’re his friends, we’ve been horrid to him.”

  “Well, we were being horrid on Antonio’s behalf, not our own,” said Gratiano defensively. “We were obligated by friendship to be horrid.”

  “Quite right,” said Salarino. “Loyalty is virtue, and we were being virtuous indeed.”

  “Indeed. And he is a Jewish devil.”

  “Well, yes. Who slew our Lord and Savior.”

  “So, really,” said Gratiano, “we are obligated by friendship and faith to be horrid bullies, provoke Shylock to deny any grace to Antonio, and then take just revenge for him and our Lord and Savior by dirking the Jew and throwing him in the canal.”

  “Well, I feel better,” said Salarino. “Our time tracking him won’t have been wasted. And I did sharpen my dagger.”

  “I’ll hold him and you can stab him, then. I’m taller and can catch him around the neck so he can’t scream.”

  And then they saw him, doggedly making his way toward the narrow alley he used as a shortcut that he took every day on his way home, where he would come out on a canal that had a walkway on only one side, and make his way past several bridges until he came out to a wider street that led to the dock at St. Mark’s. The shortcut didn’t seem any shorter to Gratiano and Salarino, but it was out of the wind, which perhaps is why Shylock took it, but perfect for their purposes, as it was very sparsely traveled. Only two doorways opened onto it, and those were back doors, so unless someone had their window open—and who would do such a thing on a cold winter evening—they would have a few moments of complete privacy, and a few moments was all they needed. They had discussed it.

  “How now, Shylock,” said Salarino, stepping onto the walkway from the recess of one of the doorways. “What news today among the merchants?”

  Shylock pulled up, startled. “If you want the news, go to work on the Rialto as an honest merchant would. Maybe you would know as much about your master as you do about my daughter.”

  “It is about Antonio that we are here,” said Salarino. “To make a proposal.”

  “We?” said Shylock, backing away from the portly man.

  “Aye, we,” said Gratiano, coming around the corner a few yards behind Shylock.

  “What is it you want?”

  “Time, Jew. Only a little time. Antonio, who is the most kind man in Venice, the most generous, the most gentle, asks only for a little more time on his note.”

  “Antonio sends you? Like a beggar who will not show his face on the Rialto. Tell him he has four days to look to his bond.”

  “What if he forfeits?” said Salarino. “I’m sure you would not take his flesh. What is it good for?”

  “To bait fish with . . . ? I care not. If nothing else, it will feed my revenge. Antonio has hindered me in my business half a million ducats over time. He has laughed at my losses, mocked my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my fri
ends, heated my enemies—and what is his reason? That I am a Jew.”

  “Well what do you expect, you are a Jew,” said Salarino.

  “I think we’re all in agreement there,” said Gratiano, moving closer.

  “Hath not a Jew eyes?” said Shylock, pointing to his eye in the manner of the Turks. “Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Are we not fed with the same food?”

  “Do you eat pie?” asked Gratiano. “We were thinking of bringing you a pie.”

  “Are we not hurt with the same weapons?” continued Shylock. “Subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?”

  “I’m going to say yes, on the weapons,” said Salarino.

  “Counting on that one, really, since we didn’t sort the pie part out,” added Gratiano.

  “I didn’t know there was going to be a bloody quiz,” said Salarino. “We’re woefully unprepared for it.”

  “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what must he endure for the wrong? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, then how should he endure it, by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will do better than your lesson. Revenge!”

  “Well, if that’s how you feel,” said Gratiano, “I suppose that the pie ploy wouldn’t have worked anyway.”

  “Might just as well have put ham in it and eaten it ourselves,” said Salarino, as he glanced around and began to draw his long dagger. “What is that?”

  A soft jingle sounded from down the canal behind Gratiano and the tall man turned just in time to see a monkey dressed in black, bounding down the walkway behind him, little bells jingling on its tiny jester hat as it approached. It leapt into the air, landed on his shoulder, slapped him with a tiny monkey paw, grabbed his hat, then jumped to the ground and made for Salarino, tossing a tight parchment bundle in the air as it passed Shylock, who clutched the paper to his chest.