Daughter of Venice (3 page)

“All right. Go help your sister.” Mother rushes to the kitchen.

We girls race upstairs to the
piano nobile
—the noble floor—where our parents’ bedchamber and all the girls’ bedchambers are. It turns out that Andriana secretly chose the hat last night. And she already cut a hole in the top of it with a knife she snatched from the kitchen after dinner. Everything about the way she acts now is strange—sure and independent. The authority in her voice excites me as she explains what we each have to do.

Andriana dips her hair into the large bowl of fresh bathwater sitting on the floor in her room. Paolina holds the hat upside down, at the ready. Now Andriana stands and bends over the hat, letting her hair fall loose in front of her. Laura and I tuck and carefully pull Andriana’s hair through the hole in the hat.

“It’s all in,” I say.

“Stand back.” Andriana straightens up, flinging her hair, so that it flops over the edges of the hat. She goes to the balcony and sits with her back to the sun, her face and neck shaded by that wide brim.

Paolina spreads Andriana’s hair evenly in every direction.

Mother comes out holding a bowl of fragrant herb paste. She has on a wide-brimmed hat herself. “Don’t stand in the sun without a parasol,” she says to no one in particular.

We get our parasols and run back to the balcony.

Mother smears the herb paste along the locks of Andriana’s hair, moving from the scalp to the tips. It glistens green and bright yellow. I sniff several times. Ginger, I think. And juniper? Perhaps that brassy yellow is Spanish saffron. Translucent blobs of lemon pulp cling to Andriana’s hair here and there like tiny baubles.

The assurance in Mother’s actions surprises me, just like Andriana’s assurance in having the hat ready. No one has ever bleached their hair in this house, so far as I know. Yet Mother clearly has experience in this task. Did she and her sisters do this when they were girls?

Mother had only two sisters, and both of them died in the smallpox outbreak that left Uncle Umberto blind. It happened at their summer home in Treviso. Mother and her other brothers were lucky enough not to have joined the others at Treviso yet. I watch Mother now for signs of sad memories. But her face shows nothing but concentration on the job.

Andriana’s hair isn’t really dark. It’s light brown. Nowhere near as dark as Laura’s and mine. Paolina’s hair is even darker—the color of summer nights. This paste would never work on any of us, I bet.

“You’ve seen all there is to see.” Mother gestures toward the inside of the room. “Go on back to work. The three of you can do at least half the spool.”

We go back to the workroom slowly. Even Laura takes her time. We pick up the bobbins and walk round and round the giant spool.

“Francesco? Is that you?” calls Paolina. She was the one to call out, but we all heard the footsteps.

Francesco comes into the room. “Working, my lovelies?” He smiles. “Where’s your big sister?”

“Getting herself beautiful,” says Paolina.

“Is the Lando son looking for a wife?” asks Laura.

Francesco shrugs. “I don’t know.” He turns to leave.

“Tell us a story before you go.” I drop my bobbin. It rolls across the room, undoing almost all my winding. But I don’t care. Francesco’s stories are how my sisters and I learn about the Venice we never see—the Venice my brothers are part of. I rush to block his way. “You were out late last night, weren’t you?”

“I’m always out late.” Francesco grins. “That’s the fun of being young and male.” Francesco is twenty-two years old, old enough to take a wife. But so far he’s shown no interest in settling down. Instead, he enjoys the company of many women. And sometimes, though I’m not supposed to know this, he sneaks a woman into his room.

My cheeks heat up at Francesco’s words, but I’m so hungry for news that I persist, even at the risk that his tale will be bawdy. “So what did you see?”

Laura and Paolina put down their bobbins and come over to us now. “Tell us,” says Paolina.

“What is this? First Bortolo, now you girls. Does everyone need amusement today?”

“What do you mean, ‘first Bortolo’?” asks Paolina in a loud whisper. Her eyes brighten. “Did you hold his arms while he stood on the balcony railing again?”

“I’d never tell.” Francesco raises his eyebrows and smiles mysteriously. Standing on the balcony railing is expressly forbidden. And it’s something Bortolo loves. Francesco is the only one of us who dares to let Bortolo do it.

“Well, no matter what you did with Bortolo, telling stories to us is not simple amusement. It’s edification,” I say firmly. “And you hardly ever spend time with us anymore. Please, Francesco.”

“I did see something wonderful, and it has a great story behind it.” Francesco sits on the floor and we sit before him, like believers before a priest. He looks at each of us slowly, reveling in his power.

I pinch him on the leg. “Speak.”

“I saw a painting by Paolo Veronese.”

“A painting?” Laura’s face falls. “Just a painting?”

“No, not just a painting. A very special painting. It was entitled ‘The Last Supper of Christ.’ ”

I’m puzzled. None of my brothers is particularly pious, least of all Francesco. Nor does Francesco have a strong love of the arts. “What’s special about the painting?”

“The apostles use forks to pick their teeth; the soldiers hold mugs of wine; the servants have bloody noses; silly people stand around in the background with parrots on their shoulders.” Francesco’s hands paint the scene in the air as he talks.

“It sounds raucous,” I say.

“That’s precisely what the representatives of the Inquisition said.”

I draw closer in confusion. The Inquisition is the church tribunal that seeks out and punishes heresy.

“The Convent of Santissimi Giovanni e Paolo commissioned the painting, then the Inquisition denounced Veronese for it.” Francesco’s voice rises and his words quicken. “They said it was an offense to the eucharist and they demanded that everything that made the painting so vital and exciting be changed.”

The painter was denounced—my heart pounds. What terrible punishment did he receive?

Paolina turns to me, her eyes big. “Father doesn’t like the Inquisition telling Venice what to do. He’s said that before, many times.”

But Francesco laughs. “No one really tells Venice what to do. Or, rather, Venice never listens.”

“So the Senate found a way around the denunciation?” I ask, incredulous.

“A most elegant, and, thus, Venetian way.” Francesco’s eyes shine. “The Committee on Heresy simply changed the name of the painting to ‘
Il Convito in Casa di Levi
’—the banquet at Levi’s house.”

Elegant indeed. The lucky painter. I’m laughing.

“Who was Levi?” asks Paolina.

“A man in the holy testament who offered a banquet for Jesus,” says Laura. “You know that story, Paolina.”

“So Veronese is a free man and Venice got our wonderful painting as is.” Francesco stands and wags a finger at us. “Remember that, my lovelies. To be Venetian is to be practical.” He leaves.

I wonder where he’s going. It could be anywhere. Anywhere at all. That’s his right.

We are silent.

Finally, Laura picks up her bobbin. “Shall we be practical, my Venetian sisters?”

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

THE XILOGRAFIA

I
t’s late afternoon and I’ve finished my lessons—dance and music. Laura remains in the conservatory, practicing violin. She’s good at it. I, on the other hand, have a stone ear; I’ll never make anything but screeches with my violin, no matter how many years I practice. So I’m standing in the bedchamber I share with Laura, picking up the bronze statues of animals that Uncle Leonardo has given us. Every time he returns from his travels, he brings us another. The boar with the real bone tusks is my favorite. But the bumpy toad and the wide, scuttling crab are almost as precious.

The canals of Venice teem with crabs. Small boys crab all the time. I know that because of my brothers.

And I have a secret. Once, when I was Maria’s age, I overheard my older brothers as they went down the stairs, talking about which baits they’d use to lure the crabs and who would get to swoop down with the net at the just the right moment. I snuck into their bedchambers and searched through their clothes until I found the shirt I wanted. I was such a little fool, I picked one that had long sleeves with red lace at the cuffs and collar. I even put on a red cummerbund with lace, too. Somehow my four-year-old brain thought the boys would take me in as another brother if I wore boys’ clothes—and I chose the clothes I loved the best.

I raced down the stairs and found the boys on our
fondamenta
—our bank on the canal—squatting in a huddle. They laughed when I came up decked out in party clothes. All but Antonio. He handed me a string and told me to try crabbing. And he called me “little brother.” I actually believed he thought I was a boy. And, to everyone’s amazement, within minutes a monster-sized crab tugged on my string. But then Cook came outside and shooed me back upstairs with the threat of telling Mother if I ever tried that again.

What fun it was. What fun, just to go crabbing.

I glance out over the balcony at the canal below. A small boat, a
sandalo,
carries four young men, standing tall. It turns onto a side canal.

I don’t know the name of that canal. I’ve never been down it. And there it is, opening to my eyes, then disappearing behind the buildings.

Everything disappears behind buildings, around bends. Everything teases.

I think of the map in Cristina Brandolini’s home, the one that shows every alley and canal of my dear Venice.

And now I’m rushing down a flight of stairs to our map room. I pass the library, where the door is ajar, and I can hear Messer Zonico, the boys’ tutor, talking with Father. So the lessons must be over—the boys are gone, and Father is there. It’s odd that Father’s home this early.

I step closer and listen.

“Piero, at twenty years old,” says Messer Zonico, “is the most persistent at his afternoon studies, though Vincenzo is the most brilliant.”

He doesn’t mention Francesco. That’s not surprising. Francesco recently refused to study anymore with this tutor. He’s too busy having fun.

But Messer Zonico doesn’t mention Antonio, either. Antonio is seventeen—two years older than Vincenzo. If the tutor is talking about Piero and Vincenzo, he should mention my sweetest brother Antonio, as well.

Messer Zonico bids farewell. He’ll come out the door any moment now.

I run to the map room and duck inside. The afternoon light hangs heavy. Maps are mounted on the top half of every wall, reaching practically to the ceiling. I see large land masses with mountain ranges, and lots of seas, and one vast ocean. Where in all this is the Venetian Empire?

My uncles could tell me. They have been almost everywhere.

Our only uncle who stays home with us is Mother’s brother Umberto—because he is blind and never travels. I’m glad that he’s always around, though of course I wish for his sake that he hadn’t gone blind. He’s my favorite uncle because he’s always been the most patient. And he knows a lot, because, as he likes to say, he was adventurous before he went blind, so he had all sorts of experiences, even though he was but Francesco’s age at the time. When I was small and everyone else would get annoyed at my incessant questions, Uncle Umberto would pull me onto his lap and answer question after question, until I was satisfied—at least for the moment.

But I have four other uncles. My father’s brothers. When they are in town, they live in rooms on this floor. They like living close to one another, and they gather often in this map room. The whole world matters to them. That’s where they are now, off in that wide world. Uncle Leonardo is on a trade mission to Constantinople, undoubtedly buying barrels and barrels of pepper. Uncle Giacomo is on a peace mission to the Sforza palace in Milan. And, most important, Uncle Girolamo is finally governor of Cyprus, after three separate times of being ambassador, and Uncle Giambattista is ambassador to no less than His Holiness, the Pope.

I can say the place names easily. But I don’t know where Cyprus is on these maps. I don’t know where Milan is. Or even the Vatican.

One wall has smaller maps. In a sense, they aren’t maps at all, but pictures of
campi
with churches. I find Piazza San Marco. It’s the only one I recognize. Though I was but a little girl, the facade of that basilica is painted in my memory permanently from my one festival there, as are the bell tower and all the arches—arches and arches and arches.

I remember standing on a long balcony with Andriana and Laura. Mother sat beside us on a stool. And so many other women and girls lined the balcony. Mother was pregnant and not feeling well. Carolina was inside her—Carolina, one of our three sisters who later died.

Father talks about the census figures, how many people live in each area of town, how many babies die, how many women in childbirth die—so I know that our family is far from alone in these sad matters. Indeed, while Mother’s and Father’s childhood families had more losses than most, the family they have built together has made up for it by being exceptionally lucky. Mother has lost only three babies to illness, and all of them girls.

It was a dreadful time. A lethal fever swept through Venice, bringing the stink of rot, which hung in the air for months. Loud, raspy coughs racked all the girls younger than Laura and I. Mother quickly quarantined them. Iole and Daria, the other set of twins, died, as did the new baby, Carolina. Only Paolina lived through it, though she was pale and skinny. Mother has made up for it by feeding Paolina the fattiest pieces of meat ever since. She’s now on the plump side, to be sure. Everyone knows the fattiest meat is the juiciest and the most delicious. But we don’t begrudge it to Paolina. She is everyone’s darling.

A rush of love for Paolina warms me. I’m so glad she didn’t succumb to the fever.

I remember everything about the day of the great festival. Mother felt so poorly, she almost changed her mind at the last minute and didn’t let us go. But Andriana cried and swore to hold Laura by one hand and me by the other, so that Mother wouldn’t have to do anything at all—just be there. Mother finally relented, though she sat silent the whole time.

The woman to my left explained what was going on to her daughter, and, naturally, I listened closely. She pointed out who was who in the procession in the
piazza
below. She knew which officials wore the gold and white, which wore the crimson. She knew who the standard-bearers were. Her daughters ate candied nuts from a silk purse on a cord around her wrist and laughed at the rising slope on the rear of the Doge’s hat. None of us could see the jewels from where we sat, but the woman described them in detail, as though she had actually seen them herself instead of just hearing about them from her husband. And she said, “Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist.” She said it three times.

When we got home, I taught that saying to Andriana and Laura. And later we dressed up and played procession in our bedchamber, chanting those words as we marched around the room. I felt important—as though I were a soldier or even a senator, marching for everything good and holy, unflinching no matter what assailed me. Invincible. We played procession often. Then one day Andriana decided she was too old—and that was the end of it. Just like that.

I walk around the map room slowly now, but there’s no aerial view of Venice. Nothing I can study to learn about this world I live in.

On the table by the window lies a picture which must be waiting to be mounted. I stand over it. It shows a ducal procession in Piazza San Marco. I smile; it’s as though my memory a moment ago has come alive and materialized on the table, just for me. The men in the procession are talking to one another or playing instruments or marching fiercely ahead. One of them looks remarkably like Father, and I am sure now that the artist has tried to make the likeness of members of the Senate, for these men wear red gowns with fur trim. Why, there’s Uncle Girolamo. It’s uncanny the way the artist has captured his smile.

Along one side of the
piazza
women gaze down at the procession from a long balcony. That must be where we sat years ago. Beneath the balcony are arches. I remember the arches on the Basilica—but I didn’t realize there were arches under where I sat, as well. I count them now. One hundred. Precisely one hundred arches. How perfect.

And now I look at the women on the balcony. I go from face to face. I don’t recognize anyone, but perhaps these aren’t noblewomen. Wait, this woman looks a lot like another one. Yes, it’s the same face, the same dress, the same pose. Twins, like Laura and me. But, oh, the woman next to her is like the woman next to her twin. Two sets of twins? It can’t be.

I scan the whole balcony. The women are repeated every twelve panels. They were done from a pattern.

But each man in the procession is unique—even though there must be over a hundred of them.

“Donata? Is that you?” Antonio comes in, carrying Nicola on his back.

I step away from the table. “I could be Laura.” Of our seven brothers and three sisters, none can tell Laura and me apart. Unless we’re undressed, that is; I have a blue-black birthmark on the bottom of my right foot and another on my back.

Antonio lifts his eyebrows in doubt. “If you were, you wouldn’t be here.”

That’s true. But it doesn’t matter, because I know Antonio won’t get mad at me. He’s the one who showed me how to crab, after all. He never gets mad.

Nicola smiles at me. “Antonio is my horse. I’m going to race him in Campo San Polo.”

“I’ve never been to Campo San Polo,” I say.

“I’m going,” says Nicola.

I bet that’s true. I bet little Nicola will go to Campo San Polo and I never will. He’ll watch the horse races and I never will. Maybe he’ll even ride a horse in a race some day, though Campo San Polo is not in our section of Venice.

Antonio gallops around the table with an exaggeratedly high gait, so that Nicola bumps wildly, letting out shrieks of glee. He halts in front of me and prances in place. “What are you doing in here?”

“Do you know who made this wood engraving?”

“Matteo Pagan. He has a shop on the Merceria.”

“The Merceria,” I say. It’s the biggest commercial street in Venice.

“When Father and Piero and Vincenzo and I go out in the morning, we take the gondola to the point on the Canal Grande near where the old Rialto bridge stood before it burned down. You know that spot, right?”

I nod. Mother comments on the site of the old bridge every time we pass it.

“The Merceria runs from there to the Piazza San Marco. The four of us walk the full length, listening to trade news. Then Father continues on through the
piazza
to his work in the Senate, while we boys wander back slowly.” He smiles. “Getting our fill of current events.”

“And going into shops is current events?”

“In a way. We have to know what Venice produces, after all. And it’s fun.” Antonio grins now. “That’s a fine
xilografia,
don’t you think?”

“The men are real,” I say. “The women aren’t.”

“What do you mean?”

A thickness forms in my throat. I feel unreal myself, like the women in the
xilografia
, as though everything I am, everything I think, is merely an idea, a dream—and a flimsy dream, at that. I know nothing. “Have you ever seen a map of Venice that shows all the
palazzi
and the canals and the alleys—all from above?”

“Jacopo de’ Barbari made such a map.” Antonio stops prancing. “Why?”

“I wish we had one.”

Antonio frowns. “I could get a copy, I’m sure. But what’s on your mind, Donata?”

“Venice,” I say. “Simply Venice.”

“Keep going, horsie!” Nicola shouts. He squeezes Antonio’s nose playfully. “Go go go.”

They gallop out of the map room.