Daughter of Venice (18 page)

I lace my fingers through hers. “No matter what, Laura, I won’t marry Roberto Priuli.” I won’t marry anyone but the man I love, I think.

“Don’t promise that, Donata. You don’t know if your plan will work. And if I can’t marry him, then you might as well. At least one of us should have a good life.”

I can’t answer, my mouth is so full of sadness.

“Mother and Andriana talked about her wedding this morning.”

“I’m sorry you had to listen to that,” I manage to say. “I’m sorry for everything. Sleep now, Laura. I love you.”

Eventually her breathing tells me she sleeps. Eventually, I, too, yield to the night.

But I’m up at the first hint of dawn, waking from a nightmare. My heart thumps as if it will burst, so loud I fear it will wake Laura.

Slowly I realize the noise is not my heart at all. It’s coming from the corridor. I open the door.

Little Maria bumps along the floor on her bottom.

“Good morning,” I say, closing the door behind me, so that Laura won’t wake.

“Who are you?” asks Maria.

“Donata.”

“That’s what I thought from your chin.” Maria wrinkles her nose. “You never play with me anymore. You never give me rides.”

I get on all fours. “Climb on me now. But we mustn’t wake the others, so speak softly.”

Maria jumps on my back and rides me up and down the corridor. I have to stop frequently to untangle my nightdress, but that doesn’t disturb her joy. She whispers happy little words in my ears. And once, when she leans down to whisper, she lets herself collapse on my back and hugs me around the chest with all her might. Oh, how I’ve missed this.

I turn at the end of the corridor to make one last, long run, such as it is, when Maria says, “Look, Mother, Donata’s my horsie.”

Mother stands there with a sleepy smile on her face. “When we go to the country next month, you can ride a real horse. You’re old enough now.”

“Hooray!” Maria jumps off me and runs to Mother, hugging her around the legs. Then she runs back to me with a wrinkle of worry in her small brow. “But I love riding you, too, Donata. You’re a good horsie.”

I gather her into my arms and kiss and kiss and kiss her. Thank you, Lord, for a four-year-old sister.

“And you’ll be a good mother, Donata,” says Mother.

I wince. “What’s the point of having children and watching the girls go off to convents?”

“Donata!” Mother looks stricken. My words hurt her as much as hers hurt me.

But I won’t take them back. Even if she doesn’t feel sorry for her daughters, I feel sorry for us. I feel sorry for every daughter of Venice.

“Father said Paolina is going to the Convent of San Salvador next year,” says Maria. “What’s a convent, Mother?”

“It’s a wonderful place, Maria. We’ll talk about it later. And, Donata, you are not to say anything like this ever again.” Mother beckons with her hand. “Maria, come here.”

I grab Maria and give her one last kiss on the forehead. “I’ll play with you tonight,” I whisper in her ear. “Before I practice violin.”

She puts her lips to my ear. “All right,” she whispers loudly. Then she runs back to Mother and they go into the bedchamber she shares with Giovanni and the wet nurse Cara.

I rush to my room and grab the silk cloth. There’s no time to bind my chest now. I have to get downstairs before Mother comes out of Maria’s bedchamber. I race to the stairwell and run down as fast as I can. I go into the storeroom, bind my chest, and change. Then I realize it’s way too early to go outside. Noè has agreed to meet me in our usual spot, but that won’t be for a while yet. So I perch on a giant spool of yarn like a watchful bird.

This storeroom has a little window high up, because it’s against the alley side of our
palazzo,
the side away from the church of San Marcuola. Will I be able to hear the church bells? But I can judge by the light, what there is of it. I lean my back against the wall and wait.

***

T
HE HEAVY CLUNK OF
wet wood against stone wakes me. How long have I slept?

The fisherman talks with Cook, chattering of the goings-on about town.

What seemed interminable finally ends. I hear someone close the canal gates and secure them. Footsteps ring on the stairs.

I run out into the alley and pass to the next alley and the next, out to the Rio Terrà di Maddalena. Noè isn’t waiting for me. It’s not terribly late, but it’s late enough. I’ve missed him.

I set out walking with the big strides of Noè, the strides that should tell anyone who sees me that I’ve got a destination, I’m not a beggar.

I haven’t gone fifteen meters before the beggar boy’s face is in mine.

“I told you not to hang around here.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m passing through.” I move on around him.

He pushes me against the wall. “You can’t pass through here.”

“I have to,” I argue as firmly as I dare. “This is the path I must take.”

“I don’t like you,” says the beggar boy. “I don’t like your white skin or your fancy talk. The only good thing about you is that wound on your face.” He smiles suddenly. “Let’s make it last, eh?” With a swipe of his nails, he rakes the scab from my chin.

“Ahiii!” The blood streams. I press the heel of my hand hard against my chin to stop the flow. “What’ll it take to get you to allow me free passage from here to the Fondamente Nuove?”

“You’re going all the way over there?”

“I am.” I blink. Then I add, “If you’ll protect me.”

“You don’t need his protection,” comes an angry voice. Chiara, the shopkeeper, holds a broom over her head. “This’ll come down on your back if you bother my errand boy again,” she shouts.

The beggar boy turns and runs.

“Come on, Donato.” Chiara pulls me by the elbow across the wide street and into her box shop. “I hope you’re not planning on bleeding all over the place every day.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” I say. “It hurts this chin of mine.”

She takes my hand away and looks close. “At least it’s not full of dirt this time.” She hands me a clean square of cloth. “Seriously,” she says. “If I hadn’t been standing outside my door, I’d have never seen what was going on. What’d you do to that boy, anyway?”

“Nothing,” I say, pressing the cloth hard. “He just hates me.”

“Signora Donà doesn’t like you, either. She said you’re a ruffian.”

“Because of my chin,” I say.

“I thought as much.”

“Need anything delivered to the Fondamente Nuove today?” I ask.

“No.”

“I thought as much,” I say.

We both laugh, though it makes the blood flood more.

I kiss her hand, as I did yesterday. “Thank you again, kind woman.”

“God be with you. But just in case, learn to run, young man. With your eyes open this time.”

I leave at a run, staying close to the wall, dodging in and out of the peddlers and shoppers. Whether it’s the determination in my gait or the gory sight of my chin, I don’t know, but no one else bothers me the whole way.

I walk into the printer’s, past the two journeymen busy at setting type, down the corridor, and into Noè’s workroom.

He gets up, shaking his head as Chiara did. “Again?”

“Don’t say anything funny,” I warn quickly. “When I laugh, it bleeds more.”

“Have you washed it?”

“It wasn’t dirty this time.”

Noè grimaces. “Fool. Stay here while I get water.”

I go toward his stool.

“No.” He quickly drags the stool away from his desk. “I’ve been slaving over this page. I can’t take the chance of your blood getting on it.” He puts the stool in the center of the floor and beckons me to sit.

He’s back fast, with a basin of water, a bar of soap, and a clean cloth. Printers always have soap on hand, though it hardly helps against the stain of ink. “What happened this time?” he asks roughly, but he’s washing my chin as gently as if I were a baby. And his other hand is on my neck, steadying himself so that the hand that tends my wound will press no harder than absolutely necessary.

My insides stir at his touch. I can hardly stay still. And I’m ashamed that I allow him a touch that is forbidden by his religion. The moment he stops tending my wound, I get up and step away. “There’s no time to talk about it,” I say. I go to the table Noè set up for me yesterday and I take up my work where I left off.

Noè gives me no arguments.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

LAND ANIMALS

I
’m in my nightdress, having left the disguise down in the storeroom. I come racing up the stairs and burst through my door, only to find Mother waiting in my bedchamber.

Mother presses her lips together so hard they turn white. “Your chin is raw again,” she says in a thin, high voice.

“It looks worse than it is,” I say, which is senseless, since I haven’t seen how it looks.

“You haven’t dressed yet. And you didn’t do your work.”

“Paolina did it for me, didn’t she?” I say.

“She began to. But I stopped her. You didn’t keep your promise, Donata.”

“That’s not fair,” I say.

“That’s what you said when we talked about Laura the other night. Stop it, Donata. Stop saying everything is unfair!”

“But if you’d have let Paolina, my work would be done. Then I’d have taken the responsibility for getting it done. That’s the best I can do—and that’s all I promised.”

“Leading your sister into the path of perdition is not the best you can do, Donata.”

The way she says that gives me the shivers. “Have you punished her?”

“She’s confined to her room.”

“I asked Paolina to help me. She agreed to do my chores. Please, Mother, that’s not something that merits punishment.”

“She wouldn’t tell me where you were. That merits punishment.”

“She didn’t know. It’s a secret.”

“A secret. The way you talk—and what you said this morning about not wanting children because the girls will go to convents—such crazy talk—and in front of little Maria.”

“I spoke only the truth.”

“What truth? All of my children are fortunate to be part of a noble tradition. Your children will be fortunate, too.”

“You said yourself, Mother, that if you had been born a man, you’d have broken with tradition and used bright colors in wool weaving. Your face glowed when you said it.”

“We were both born women, Donata.”

“That doesn’t stop us from knowing there are lives better than what tradition affords us.”

“And there are lives much worse. Look at your life and be grateful.” Mother’s eyes glitter with tears. “I’m at my wits’ end. You’ve been stubborn before, but never like this. And this secret. A secret that involves bloodshed is indecent.”

How have I reduced my strong mother so severely? I put my hand on her arm to console her. “My chin is an accident. It’s not part of the secret. It won’t happen again.”

“But it did happen again. And the other night you burned yourself with wax.”

“The candle fell, Mother. I told you that.”

Mother hugs herself, as she did yesterday morning. “Cara and Aunt Angela and I searched the
palazzo
. Where were you?”

“I didn’t want to be found, Mother.”

“We looked in closets, under beds, on balconies.”

“I didn’t stay in a single place.”

“Were you . . .” Mother grimaces in fear and sucks air in through her clenched teeth. “Were you outside the
palazzo
?”

“Do I look as though I went outside? I’d never go outside in my nightdress, Mother.”

Mother blinks and a tear escapes. It runs down the side of her long nose. “Do you swear before the Lord?”

My tongue feels too thick to move. But I’m swearing that I didn’t go outside in my nightdress. That’s what I’m swearing, no matter what Mother thinks I’m swearing. “I do.”

“Thank the Lord for that at least.” Mother brushes away the tear. “Would you rather I ask your father to talk with you?”

“No. Please, Mother. I have nothing to say.”

“Of course you do.” She drops her arms. “Hiding in your nightdress, tearing your chin open, burning your arm. Oh, Donata, you’re beside yourself. You’re one of those girls who . . .”

“Who what? What girls, Mother?”

She heaves a sigh. “Speak your mind, Donata. Ask about what troubles you.”

“The questions that trouble me are not ones you can answer.”

Tears well in her eyes again. “Do you want to talk with a priest, then? Don Zuanne could be fetched immediately.”

I can see that she won’t give up. “Not a priest, no, Mother. But if you insist, I’ll talk with the tutor.”

“Messer Zonico? I never heard of such a thing—a girl turning to a tutor for counsel.”

“Boys turn to tutors for counsel.”

Mother makes a tsking noise and I can see she wants to snap at me for saying that. But then she seems to think better of it. “Messer Zonico is sensible.” She rubs my hands now, though the day is hot already. “I’ll tell him to take you aside this afternoon for a private talk. For now, stay in your room.”

The air in the corridor was full of the odor of roasted lamb when I came up the stairs. Now it curls in under my door. “I haven’t eaten anything yet today, Mother.”

Mother’s eyes widen. “You’re not eating?” She puts her hand over her mouth; then she shakes her head slowly. “Perhaps an empty stomach can help clear the brain.”

“I’ll accept that,” I say. “But please let Paolina eat with the family. I swear she doesn’t know my secret. No one does.”

“Don’t use your sister ever again, Donata. It can lead to nothing but problems for both of you.” She leaves.

I watch the closed door, half-expectant. But none of my sisters comes in to talk with me.

I look briefly in the mirror. My chin is a mess. My hair falls in tangles. I have the air of a madwoman. No wonder Mother is so frightened for me. I dress slowly.

And now it hits me: Paolina was confined to her room. And both Father and the boys came in before me. Surely one of them must have thought to lock the door behind them. So who unlocked it for me?

Who in this
palazzo
knows my comings and goings? Bortolo, perhaps. But is he reliable enough to come down and unlock the door at just the right time every day?

I can’t figure this one out. And, surely, whoever it is means me no harm, or harm would have come already.

I work on my hair, combing loose every last knot. I wrap my hair with one of my white veils, so that my face and shoulders are free of locks. The young woman in the mirror now seems subdued, though the telltale wound on the chin can’t be ignored. I go out on the balcony.

The Canal Grande is almost empty. No one works during the midday mealtime. The water is green as precious stone. It laps sweetly at the
fondamenta
on the far side.

Venice is deceptive when the canals are empty. It seems the perfect city, the Serene Republic, completely and lastingly peaceful and innocuous. But Noè and I talked today about how far from innocuous it is. Violations of voting procedures have been increasing, as has the harshness of punishments for offenders. The copyists’ handbills today detailed those punishments.

Now if a noble is found guilty of seeking to influence votes to advance the interests of a foreign lord, he will be excluded from offices and commands for ten years, and he will pay a fine of 500 ducats. A citizen will likewise be excluded from office, though he cannot hold commands in any case, and he’ll pay 200 ducats. And a member of the people, who has no voting rights anyway, will be exiled for ten years and pay 100 ducats.

All of this does not seem so terrible. How can a republic survive if the voting process is not protected against such assaults, after all?

But there is something awful. The handbills list one more proclamation: If someone knows of a voting wrongdoing and does not report it, his right hand will be cut off.

Noè says this barbaric punishment proves Venice has not risen far from its Byzantine past. He predicts that corruption will persist, and, with no benefit whatsoever, we will become a sorry republic in which each member acts like a watchdog against his neighbor.

I said nothing. The difficulty of creating a society in which all can flourish seems greater now than I would have believed possible a couple of months ago. So many people, with so many needs. Poor people. Women. In some ways Venice is already a sorry republic.

I have the urge to jump into the Canal Grande and swim away. Forever.

My stomach growls in hunger. Mother told me to stay here, but what she really meant is that I should be excluded from the midday meal. She won’t care if I go to the library. I open my door.

Giò Giò stands in the corridor. He looks at me.

“Why aren’t you serving the meal?” I ask.

“Your mother told me to keep an eye on you.”

A chaperone within the house. But I can’t blame Mother—she’s right. “I’m going to the library.”

Giò Giò follows me down the stairs, but he stays in the hall, while I go inside and sit at the long study table.

I open the volume by Saint Thomas Aquinas and read. The arguments seem less tedious today. There’s a strange attraction about the clean way they proceed, their tightness. I read with growing interest.

At some point Messer Zonico comes in. He doesn’t utter a greeting. Instead, he lays a large book on the little wheeled table and flips through the pages. I know his silence is not out of any disrespect, but, to the contrary, out of deep respect for the fact that I am reading this work of theology. And I realize that in my head I have called him by his rightful name for the first time since that very first lesson. I smile to myself and keep reading.

When my brothers come in, we move to the cluster of chairs by the window and the lesson begins. It is a continuation of yesterday’s lesson, the nature of life on land. Messer Zonico goes on and on about the habits and life cycles of wild creatures that do not live in Venice proper. Our mainland summer home allows us just “a bit of countryside,” as Father says. Mother has already starting packing our things to go there, muttering little complaints about how the heat here is becoming unbearable. Most of my knowledge of land animals comes from our visits to that country house. I’ve seen goats there, and rabbits, squirrels, foxes, badgers, ferrets. I’ve chased snakes and frogs through the grasses by the little lake. I’ve climbed trees and looked out on hillsides covered with flocks of sheep. And, of course, we ride horseback—a great pleasure. Other than that, land animals are known to me in the form of food or leather or wool.

And of course, Venice bursts with cats. And there are rats, big and fat.

I wonder if the beggar boy who torments me has ever had the privilege of seeing a fox.

And now that I think about our summer home, I realize I’ve never seen beggar boys from our coach as we ride along. But surely there are poor people in the country, too.

Messer Zonico solicits questions now.

“What do poor people on the mainland do?” I ask.

Messer Zonico looks at me blank-faced.

“What’s the matter with you, Donata?” asks Vincenzo. “Haven’t you been listening?”

“People are land animals,” I say in defense, though I know my question is misplaced. “Poor people in Venice are greengrocers and ribbon makers and box makers and cat castrators and servants and thieves and beggars and so many things. What are poor people on the mainland?”

“They are dirt farmers,” says Francesco. “And sharecroppers and day laborers.”

“They dig irrigation ditches and serve as stable boys and lackeys,” says Piero.

“Why should you care?” asks Vincenzo.

“We should all care,” says Antonio.

“Exactly,” says Messer Zonico. “Life is life, whatever its quality. And human life is sacred.” He pulls up a chair and sits in front of us. “Everywhere you go, some poor people work, scrabbling to make a livable life, and some poor people struggle in misery or prey upon the more fortunate.”

“Tell us about the habits of poor people,” I say, thinking about my friend Chiara and the copyists Giuseppe and Rosaria and Emilio. “Where they live, what they eat. Tell us about their life cycle.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” says Francesco. “We have little to do with poor people.”

“On the contrary, we deal with poor people every day,” I say. “Consider how much our family talks about the combers’ petition for a raise. Why should any one of us care about whether it costs one
soldo
or two and a half to adjust the teeth of a comb? A
soldo
is worth so little to us. Nothing. But the people who made those leggings you wear count their
soldi
. As do the people who made the glass in this window and those who fitted it in place, and the people who cut down the wood for that shelf and those who carved it, and the people who printed the books that surround us and those who bound them. Oh, yes, we build our life on the backs of poor people.” I have risen at some point during this stream of words and my hands have been jabbing at the air, pointing here and there about the room.

My brothers stare.

I sink into my seat.

“Be grateful we do,” says Francesco at last. He gets up and goes to the long study table. “I’m doing my own work now.”

“Me too,” says Piero. He goes to the study table.

Vincenzo follows.

Antonio and I remain with our tutor.

“Some live in tenements right beside the rest of us,” says Messer Zonico in a low voice. “But some live in wooden sheds on the edges of the city. If they’re lucky, a family occupies a single floor. If they’re not, they might crowd into a single room.”