Chapter Text
Shylock
It is Friday. I do not like Fridays.
Of course, to an impartial man it would appear that I don't like anything, these days. I certainly have not the patience to deal mildly with the drunken carousers now caroling outside my doors. For these particular men, I have noticed, Friday is the day they drink dry barrels of Venetian wine and lie with women they never mean to marry. Tomorrow, I suspect, they'll be laid low with headaches and contrive explanations for their empty purses, and, come Sunday, they'll confess.
I will confess on Sunday, also. Unlike most who attend church, I will never confess anything I've actually done. I create an imagined life for myself in confession. Father, forgive me, for I have sinned. Each week I'm a different kind of sinner. Sometimes I've robbed one man, sometimes lain with another's wife, coveted what I could not have, or worked on the Sabbath. And I always finish by saying that I have lied to a hypocrite. The priests do not need to know they are the hypocrites I'm speaking of.
If I had true belief, if I thought in some idiocy that their Christ possessed everlasting mercy—unlike his followers, that's for certain—I might confess truly. I would have to confess wrath, without a doubt. A general spite against the world. Lack of faith, for though my church attendance is mandatory since my conversion, I will never believe in Christ as the Messiah. Casting off my child, though she cast me off first.
Jessica believes. Jessica confesses. The thought drives me half-mad.
Mistake me not—I always knew this world was a merciless place for a Jew. I only lasted as long as I did because the Christians saw me as no threat. Perhaps I was a usurer, but my so-called sin was that kind from which they could benefit. But the minute I sought revenge in a way that might actually succeed, it became necessary to get rid of me.
The carousers are leaving now. I'm only glad that Bassanio and Gratiano and Lorenzo are among them no more. They are off to Belmont, all three, where Bassanio will relax in the arms of his heiress. If I could pity a Christian, I might pity that lady. I doubt she has any idea what—or rather whom—her new husband enjoys in a city ready, men and women both, to lie with him for coin. My coin, I might add, borrowed time and time again before he found a certain merchant who gave him what he wanted at no cost. A moneylender knows everyone's secret vices, whether or not he wishes to.
I do not light the candles on Friday anymore. I refuse to worship a God who has forgotten me. All my life, I've tried to live by the laws of the Torah, and it's earned me a wife who died long before her time, a daughter who forsook both her heritage and me, and enough persecutors to make stepping out of my house frightening. Now I'm condemned to practice the religion of those persecutors if I do not wish to be hanged. I doubt I'll find even comfort in lighting Shabbat candles.
There's a fearsome racket outside. I dearly hope the carousers are not back, for they give me a headache. (And if my sole servant, the lazy Ignazio, were here, he would no doubt point out that all things give me a headache). But these sounds are more menacing than those foolish noisemakers. Shouts and—I wrench open my window and look out to see nearly a score of men bearing torches under my window. One has a rope wound about his arm, and others carry broken paving-stones or daggers. All are dressed in peacock finery, but rich men are no better than poor ones when the murderous fever of the mob takes over. Are they here for me? I spent the first few months after the trial hiding in my house for fear of gangs like this one, out for revenge on a newly-converted former Jew.
"You there! Up at the window!"
Well, that answers one question. They do not know who I am; therefore they cannot be here for me.
"What is it?" I snap. "They can hear you up at the palace, young fools!"
"Have you seen a man run by?"
"I've seen men run by from the duke's treasurer to the boy who empties the chamber pots. Can you describe him no better?"
"Let me speak, dolt." Another man elbows the first out of the way. "His clothes were fine once, but now they're all torn and muddy. And—"
"I've seen no such man." Even if I had, I wouldn't tell them so. I relish the thought of these fools getting lost in their drunkenness, stumbling through Venice's dark streets. "Go to!" I yank the window shut.
The mob clears off swiftly enough—a small blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. I've no envy for their target if they catch him. From hard-bought experience I know it matters little if your tormentors are spoiled rich brats or made of sterner stuff. If they outnumber you, you will shortly be in pain.
I stomp down to the door and peer out to see if any are still loitering around. No, they have gone. I'm about to close the door again when I hear a groan by the corner of my house.
I resist the urge to swear. My bad luck has returned to plague me, for that is probably one of the mob voiding a bellyful of wine next to my house. "I said go to, drunkard! You'll fall into a canal someday, and I only hope I'm there to see it!" I'm considering helping this drunkard on his way with a kick or two when he speaks.
"Shylock?"
I know that voice, and curse fate. Of all the men to land sick near my house, it has to be the one I hate with more venom than any other. I must admit I'm surprised, though. He was never much of a drinker, and I did not see him in the crowd.
Antonio, the so-called merchant of Venice, buries his face in his hands. "Of all people, it had to be you who finds me like this."
I squint into the darkness. What does he mean, like this? I cannot see his face, and his clothes are fine as always—but tattered, mud-covered, and this puzzles me. The man always refused to be made part of the dirt and noise of the streets. He was always the one guiding Bassanio or Lorenzo out of some tavern. It was common for him to stand watching while his friends tormented me, and I could hear his thoughts at those times clear as glass: he had no desire to dirty his hands touching the Jew. Better to double-cross him, take his money, assist Lorenzo in the taking of his daughter, and stand high and untouched. That isn't to say he did not kick me and spit on me himself—but generally when we were alone, and no one could see him do it.
"Go on." Antonio glares at me. "What are you waiting for?"
I frown. "What am I…?"
"Call them back. Call them back so they can put that rope around my neck. I know how much you'd like to see that."
I'd love to see a noose drop over Antonio's head, but now I'm curious. "It's you they're after? Why?"
Antonio spits on the ground. "Oh, you'd like that, for me to gibber and confess my sins at your feet? See me humiliated?"
I smirk. "Measure for measure, they say."
"Aren't you the fine Christian." Antonio starts to drag himself to his feet, but bends double and falls. I resist an urge to kick him, but only just barely.
"Only when there's no help for it. Why are you here? The last news I had was of your visiting Belmont, playing at lord with Bassanio." Antonio eyes me, clearly trying to gauge how much I know of what he and Bassanio have done. I sigh in exasperation. "I know lust made fools out of you two." I might have told, but who would listen to me? "I thought he'd have you like a kept whore, now that he's married and has money for it."
Antonio sags and glares up at me. "You take such pleasure in this, don't you?"
"Absolutely," I say without hesitation. "So why are you here in the gutter instead of at Belmont?" I'm not even sure why I'm asking—spite? Curiosity? I don't know.
Suddenly Antonio seems to shrink, crumpling over. "It has a certain irony, in truth. Portia—discovered Bassanio and me together. And she accused me of—of seducing him, of tricking him into my bed."
Easier for her to believe that, I suppose, than acknowledge her husband is willing to betray her with another man. "And how did this exemplary heiress react when she learned the truth?"
"She does not know it still." Pain flickers across Antonio's face. "Bassanio would not vouch for me. He feared losing her love. They sent me from Belmont—he begged me to understand, before we parted ways. To understand why this was his only choice."
I roll my eyes. "And so for your loyalty, such as it was, you receive the silence of the man who claims to care for you. That's a Christian friend for you." Despite my show of scorn, this is not what I expected. Anyone with any intelligence can see Antonio favors Bassanio's regard for him above even his own life. His bond with me showed as much. I would have expected some return of those feelings.
"The ones who attacked me were not my friends," Antonio snaps. He coughs and then grabs his ribs as if they pain him. "Those men heard the rumors that started when Bassanio and Portia sent me away. They said as much, and came after me for that. There are plenty in Venice who would hurt a man for no more reason than his favoring other men."
This is true, and it's likely Antonio has experienced attacks of this kind before. I care little, however. That pain did not make him any more inclined to show me mercy—for I do not consider life with a forced conversion to be any kind of mercy—and thus it does not matter to me.
Antonio coughs again, and gasps, clutching his stomach. "If you will not call them back, then let me alone, you—" The words get lost between rough, heavy breaths.
I raise my eyebrows. It takes a great deal to stop Antonio before his insults are finished. I shove the door open farther, letting light flood the area outside. My enemy yelps and throws up his hands, but not before I see the black bruises covering his face. And if his wincing motions are any indication, there are more on his ribs and stomach.
Bruises are far from a mystery to me, mostly thanks to Antonio, his friends, and others like them, always ready to taunt the Jew with jeers and blows. I can tell that these bruises, at least the ones on his face, were not made by fists. I had come home with marks like that after a gang had cornered me in an alley and started hurling stones. If Antonio experienced something similar, he's lucky not to have been killed.
It occurs to me, as I watch the man I most despise choke with pain by my house, that this is a far better opportunity for revenge than enacting the terms of my bond. No one would miss the famed merchant of Venice now. If I called the mob back, I could probably incite them to put their own justice into practice, and not need to soil myself with the deed at all.
But I do not, because I know from my moneylending days that such men are far from innocent, and I take a perverse pleasure at the notion of outwitting them. And I absolutely love the idea of putting Antonio in my debt and getting the chance to watch him flounder in suffering. "Get up."
"If I could, do you not think I should be running still? Away from you?"
He has some gall to say that now, when his own lover has turned on him so. "I don't doubt it. You always were a coward." Oh, I do love to insult him.
"You're fit for naught but misery, you churlish, weather-bitten miser!"
"Tell me something I don't know, whore."
He's like a wounded animal, cringing away from me. And—something in my chest twists. Do I pity him? It seems only a kind of generic pity, as when I see a stray dog in the street, but it still shocks me that I feel anything but glee at his pain. And I am glad to see him hurting, but now it's mixed with this pity and I don't know quite what to say. So I say nothing, and instead walk over and yank Antonio to his feet.
"Get your filthy hands off me!" He struggles.
I roll my eyes. "It hardly suits you to call me filthy, when you've been rolling in the gutter. If you don't stop insulting me, I'll call back that mob." They're probably far gone by now, but I judge him too scared to realize it. "Get inside."
He stills. "I don't understand."
"I don't want to trip on a corpse when I leave the house tomorrow," I explain, in the overly-patient voice I would use to a misbehaving toddler. "You might as well stay here tonight." I can't tell if Antonio is agreeing to this or simply stunned that I offered, but he lets me steer him inside and lock the door.
"You reek like a hog pen," I inform him. I intend to enjoy this. "Sleep on the floor." The floor of a former Jew—we shall see how he likes that. Part of me expects him to march right out, that his situation is not as bad as he's said, and now that the mob is gone, he'll return to his own house. Or at least show some indignation. But instead, he's turning red. Embarrassed. Now I'm puzzled again, just when I believed I'd grasped the situation. "What is it?"
"What do you expect of me?"
"To sleep on the floor. Do you listen to nothing but your own voice?"
"I didn't mean that." Now he's really flushed. It's an interesting sight, but mostly I'm vexed. I spend ten minutes trying to shame the man, and now he's embarrassed and I can't even tell what I did to make it happen. "I mean…in return."
I'm definitely missing something here. "You're speaking foolishness. Not that I expected you to speak anything else, but—"
"You must know I can give you no money!" Antonio's voice is climbing in what sounds like fear, and I would be amused if I merely knew why. "There's but one way I can pay you, but one reason for which you would have taken me in, and though it shames me, I must agree to it! You can do whatever you like, but tell no one I am here. I'll be your whore, as you call me, just do not bring them back!" He grabs the door frame, shaking.
Realization—and revulsion—hit me so hard I feel dizzy. He expects me to demand that he lie with me, to demand to use him, in return for my so-called hospitality. It's the ridiculous element of the situation that hits me first; I almost start laughing like a mad ape at the mere idea that I would ever want that. But then fury hot as a goldsmith's forge slams into me. Antonio has mocked me for being a moneylender and a Jew before, but he's never shot so directly at my honor. To insist that an injured guest lie with his host against his will—only the lowest of the low would even propose such a thing. Who exactly does he think I am?
I'm ready to strike the man when I take another look at his twisted posture and ashamed face and something in my mind flips. This isn't about me at all. The offer he's making me is that of a man desperate for any security, even be it only a floor to sleep on for the night. What could have brought this proud merchant so low? He'd begged the way I always wanted to beg when I'd been hit and kicked for so long I could barely tell the sky from the ground. And I made it worse, no doubt, by jeering at him. That does not seem so entertaining, all of a sudden.
"You're an idiot who swapped minds with a pigeon," I snap, covering my shock with the familiar train of insults. "I will not call that gang back, the last thing I want is for you to whore for me, and you'd better be careful not to insult me so again!" I whirl around and storm up the stairs, not bothering to wait for a reaction.
Another group of revelers is skittering around my house, but I'm too confused and angry to go chase them away. Confused by my own actions, as I'm unable to categorize them as just the desire to watch Antonio suffer. The pity involved is undeniable. And I do not want that. I have no interest in seeing Antonio as human. He certainly does not see me as such. And I'm angry. Angry at my strange houseguest, for all the humiliations he's visited on me, for all the disgrace before the court and my conversion, and now, despite all that, for somehow getting me to take him in.
Why does he have to be in such a pitiful state? One would almost think him a dog, one who deserves to be kicked…horror slams into me as I realize what I just thought, what I just did. Have not I been kicked and called dog a thousand times? Have not I cursed my tormentors every day since? Always consoled myself by claiming they were the real monsters, that I was innocent in God's eyes at least? And now here I am, imitating the monsters, calling my enemy a whore and a dog for the sheer pleasure of hurting him, to make myself feel self-righteous and in control. God forgive me.
Why did I think that? What God would listen to me? Not that of the Christians, for certain. Not my own God either, or I doubt it. I sit down on one of my money-chests, resting my head in my hands.
For the first time in a very long time, I desperately want God to speak to me, to tell me what to do. But I do not think He will. I'll just have to figure this out on my own.