Twenty-one: Savage Puppets

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.