Daughter of Venice (2 page)

Still, the gondola took us from our home doorstep to the
piazza
, with no stops along the way. That’s how it always is: we girls go from doorstep to doorstep. I’ve never walked on the paths between the canals, except to follow the little one out our back door, down the alley and across one bridge, to the church of San Marcuola.

There are so many alleys on this map. Why, there must be hundreds. And what Francesco, our oldest brother, has told us girls is true: the alleys don’t go in one direction for very long. They cut across each other all helter-skelter, and some end abruptly in canals. I can see why the boys talk about getting lost in Venice. I imagine it.

It dawns on me that I don’t recognize a single alley or street on this map. I can’t even be sure which
palazzo
is ours, which church is San Marcuola. It’s almost as though I’m a stranger in my own city.

I go cold with the odd sensation of being lost and alone. I know hundreds of facts about Venice. Thousands, probably. But I know them from memorizing what others say. I know almost nothing from my own experience. I’ve seen almost nothing with my own eyes. I hug myself and rock from side to side.

“There you are.” Cristina stands in the doorway. “What are you doing in this stuffy room? Is something wrong?”

I shake my head.

“Then come along, goose. You’re missing the fun.” She holds out a strawberry covered with cream.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

WORK

S
o?” says Laura, giggling in anticipation. “Did anything momentous happen at yesterday’s garden party?”

We older girls are sitting in a circle on the floor of the workroom, just the three of us. This is my favorite kind of talk—when no parent and no little one is near—and we can speak freely.

Andriana shakes her head and tries to look nonchalant. “No one’s description of her son overwhelms me with passion yet.”

I pinch her arm teasingly. “Or maybe everyone’s does?”

Andriana blushes. “Anyway, Mother warns me I mustn’t get carried away by what the women say. I am allowed to make suggestions—but in the end, Father will choose wisely for me. Being picky is a mistake.”

“Maritar o monacar,”
whispers Laura—marry or enter a convent—an old Venetian motto. “Tiziana Erizzo was picky.”

Tiziana is a few years older than Andriana. She refused the man her father chose, so her younger sister, who was about to enter a convent, married him instead, and it was Tiziana who got whisked off to the convent. The last time we saw her, when she was visiting her family for a party, she told Andriana she’s better off in a convent than in a miserable marriage, like her good friend Anna. It is rumored that Anna’s husband brutalizes her. Still, Tiziana admits she hates it in the convent. The company of pious women stifles her.

Unless I marry, a convent lies ahead for me, too. As it is, probably my dear Paolina will be pressed to enter a convent within the next two years. And little Maria, who is only four, will do the same when she comes of age. Thus far Laura and I have escaped such a fate merely because of the accident of our birth order—because a second daughter just might, with luck, get a marriage offer.

I fold my arms across my chest and shudder. “I’d die in a convent.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Donata. If that’s where we end up, we’ll make the best of it.” Laura turns her head away and plays with the end of a yarn strand from the giant spool in the center of the room. Her face is hidden from us, but she can’t hide the tremble in her voice. “Neither of us will die.”

“Maybe both of you will marry,” Andriana says brightly.

Laura quickly looks at Andriana, then at me. I share her shock at hearing our secret hope spoken so baldly.

When we don’t answer, Andriana takes each of us by the hand. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to make light of what I know lies too heavy on you. I’m sorry.” She squeezes our hands. “Maybe you can both be like Aunt Angela, and live here to take care of Francesco’s children when he marries. We can go to him together, the three of us, and ask him.”

Aunt Angela is Father’s youngest sister, and, though I love her, I can’t help pitying her. I pull my hand back. “Laura can do that, if she wants. She loves anybody’s children. But I couldn’t bear a life like Aunt Angela’s. Always trying not to be a burden. Tiptoeing around the house and never speaking my mind. It would drive me crazy.”

“You couldn’t keep from speaking your mind anyway,” says Laura flatly. “Francesco’s wife, whoever she turns out to be, would strangle you within a year of her first baby’s birth.”

It’s so true that I laugh in spite of myself.

Laura purses her lips. Then she laughs, too.

“Not a convent, and not a life like Aunt Angela’s,” says Andriana slowly. “What other choice are you thinking of, Donata?” She leans toward me. “Nothing else is mentionable.”

She’s talking about becoming a courtesan. The houses of prostitution are filled with the daughters of failing merchants and poor men. No noble daughter would choose that wretched trade.

I stand up and pace.

Paolina comes in, breathless. “I’m sorry I’m late. I had to dress Maria because Aunt Angela isn’t feeling well.” She stops and blinks. “You haven’t even started the work yet? What’s the matter?”

Andriana gets to her feet. “All this yarn.” She runs her hand along the giant spool. “We’re supposed to get all of this onto the bobbins in a single morning?”

“We’ve done a full spool in a morning before,” Laura says, ever the obedient one. She’s standing now, too, with the end of a yarn strand still in one hand. “The weavers depend on us.”

I look toward the window, where the noises from the busy canal outside come spilling in. I’d rather sit on our upstairs balcony and watch the world. “The weavers can wait. Who wears wool in this weather anyway?”

“Are you complaining, Donata?” Mother walks in. “Summer is Venice’s best trading time. I’m surprised you don’t know that. Your sisters obviously do.” This is my typical luck: Mother didn’t hear Andriana complaining, only me.

“Other girls from noble families don’t have to do guild work,” I mutter.

“You’d be surprised the work that goes on behind doors.” Mother picks up a bobbin. “Yesterday morning spoiled you. We can’t go to parties every day. The storerooms still hold ten giant spools from the early spring wool, and all of them have to be transferred to bobbins for the looms before we leave for the hills in two months.” Mother loosens a strand at the top of the giant spool and walks around it slowly, winding the yarn onto the bobbin with just the right tightness to keep it free of snags, yet just the right looseness not to strain it. I imagine her at my age doing the same. And at ten and eight and maybe even six. Mother’s been an expert at this probably as long as she can remember.

Laura picks up a bobbin and works from the center of the giant spool. Paolina and I follow. We aren’t as expert as Mother, but we’re good at it.

The business of producing woolen goods is not ours, naturally. Nobles are not even allowed to be members of guilds. Nobles run the government—that’s their duty. Most of my friends consider crafts beneath their dignity. They’d never guess that a noble, and a girl at that, had passed so many mornings doing this sort of work. Just yesterday, upon taking my hand, Teresa exclaimed at how soft it was. People say that to Andriana and Laura and Paolina, too, even to Mother. The lanolin in the wool nurtures our skin.

Uncle Alvise, Mother’s brother, inherited his wool business from Mother’s father, who died before I was born, like all my grandparents. Uncle Alvise is the chief officer of the huge wool-weavers’ guild—1,541 members. The only guild with more members is that of the boatmen—1,741 members.

I know these wonderful numbers because I am a master eavesdropper. I eavesdrop when Father gathers my older brothers to discuss business. And I eavesdrop outside the library when my brothers are having their afternoon tutorials—if I’m lucky enough to slip out of my music lessons, that is.

Father talks a lot about the wool industry, because woolen cloth is what our family sells. That, and pepper. While nobles cannot make goods, they can trade them. That’s how Father met Mother; she was the daughter of his major supplier of woolen cloth.

Mother had to do this work when she was a girl, but she doesn’t have to anymore. She does it because she wants to stay within the tradition of her childhood family.

I duck past Laura and Mother as I walk around the giant spool. We don’t do this work nearly as often as Mother did it when she was a child. Still, we do it too much. “The wool industry is a bore,” I say.

“This part of it, perhaps.” Mother winds steadily.

“This is the only part of it I know,” says Paolina.

“Tell her the details, Mother,” I say, “like you told us when we were Paolina’s age.”

Mother keeps winding, but she looks at me thoughtfully. “There are the beaters and the carders and the combers and the spinners and the weavers. And, finally, the sellers, like your father. It’s a wonderful industry. The weaving, especially. Learn to appreciate it, for it’s your heritage.”

“Have you actually seen weaving?” asks Paolina.

“Of course.”

Of course? This is something I haven’t heard before. My step quickens. “When?”

“My family’s factory is across the Canal Grande, on the waters of the Rio Marin in Santa Croce. Most of the wool industry is there. Because I lived on the island of Murano, I couldn’t just walk into the factory anytime I pleased. But now and then I’d beg my father, and he’d take me along.”

“Describe it to us,” says Paolina.

My head buzzes. Mother’s father took her places. And the way she’s talking, it sounds as if she had the freedom to walk around Murano. How different must the childhood of a citizen be from that of a noble. I wish Mother would tell us all about her childhood. We’ve asked many times, but she rarely offers details.

“The apprentices warp the looms. Then they operate the pulley strings that control the heddles that raise or lower the threads of the wool. That’s all they do. All day long. My brothers were apprentices when they were young and they’d complain about cramps in their shoulders.

“The journeymen often operate the pulley strings too, because it takes two men—one to each side of the loom. But sometimes the master lets the journeymen actually weave. That’s where the skill comes in—the weaver is responsible for gauging the tightness and ensuring the evenness. And that’s where the artistry comes in, too. For it’s the weaver who chooses the colors and their arrangements. A master weaver sees the fabric that lies dormant in the waiting yarn, so that his cloths please the eye as well as the skin.”

We are silent, caught up in Mother’s description. I realize I’ve never before heard Mother say so many words without stopping.

“You know so much,” says Laura finally. “I don’t even recognize some of the words you said.”

Mother gives a laugh. “Nothing’s difficult about it. Nothing’s mysterious.”

“Everything’s mysterious if you haven’t seen it,” I say.

Mother walks just ahead of me. Now she glances over her shoulder. “When you’re a woman, if you like maybe I can get your uncle Tomà to take you to a factory someday.”

“Me too,” says Paolina.

When I’m a woman. Maybe. Does that mean when my reputation no longer matters? When I’ve entered a convent and am beyond scrutiny?

“Talk about the colors,” says Laura.

“What?”

“You said the artistry of weaving is in choosing the colors. Tell us about that,” says Laura.

“Actually, I was talking more about my own little ideas than about what happens.”

“What do you mean?” asks Laura.

“The colors of the wools are muted. I always thought that if I were a boy, I’d break tradition and tell the dyers to make the wools as vivid as silk threads or blown glass.”

Venice’s silk is famous for its colors, especially scarlets and crimsons. So is the blown glass. We have blown glass chandeliers in splendid colors.

“Have you seen glass blown, too?” asks Paolina.

Mother nods. “The Gritti family factory is on Murano. Every child in Murano has seen glass blown.”

“Even noble daughters?” I ask quickly.

“Some of them, maybe. Not all,” says Mother. Her tone is a warning. She’s not in the mood to hear me complain about Father’s strictness. But I have no intention of complaining now. I don’t want to do anything to stop Mother from talking to us like this.

“I know something about the Gritti factory,” says Paolina.

“Is that so?” Mother laughs. “Do tell.”

“It used to be here in Venice, but they moved it out to Murano because of the danger of fire. Glass factories have hot hot fires, and it’s too dangerous to have them near homes. Giulia’s mother talked about it once.”

“That’s true,” says Mother. “But it’s not the only reason, or even the most important one. They moved the factory because the dyes in the Gritti factory are the best of all the Venetian Empire—it’s important to our economy to keep those dyes a secret. It’s easier to protect the factory from spies if it’s isolated out on Murano.”

Spies. Mother makes the business of Venice sound alluring. I want her to talk and talk and talk.

“Mother?”

We all look over at Andriana. She’s sitting on a stool by the door. She hasn’t been working with us at all. I’m immediately curious. Andriana is not as scrupulously obedient as Laura, that’s true, but she’s also never been a rebel.

Mother stops circling the spool, so we all do. “What is it, Andriana?”

“Yesterday, at the party, Signora Lando remarked on how dark my hair is.” Andriana curls a lock of her hair around one finger. “I was wondering if I should bleach it this morning. What do you think, Mother?”

Signora Lando is Teresa’s mother. And Teresa’s oldest brother is several years older than she is. He must be thinking of marriage by now.

Mother’s face is quiet, but I can guess she’s made the same calculation I have, for she puts down her bobbin. “I’ll go ask Cook to gather the herbs. You find the widest-brimmed hat in the house.”

Andriana stands with a smile. “Thank you, Mother. And ask Cook for lemons, no? I’ve heard lemons make the herbs work better.”

“Get to work, you three,” Mother says distractedly to the rest of us.

The world of Mother’s childhood has been swept away. But that’s all right, because I’d like to know about the present, too. Some of my friends bleach their hair, it’s true, but I’ve never been there when anyone did it. “Can’t we see first?” I ask. “We could help Andriana find the right hat, at least.”