Passion Blue (10 page)

Dinner party? Do nuns have dinner parties?
“Thank you, but I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

“Oh, pish. Certainly you’re allowed. I’ll speak to the Maestra. Good, that’s settled! And now I must get to work, or the good Lord only knows what tales Domenica will tell.”

And she returned to her stool, trailing the scent of roses.

Giulia turned to Suor Angela. “Can I really go?”

“As long as the Maestra agrees. I’m sure she will.”

“I didn’t think…that is, I thought everyone ate in the refectory.”

“Some of the wealthier sisters have their own
conversae
to cook for them.” Suor Angela began sweeping again. “Lucida is a Cornaro—so is Madre Damiana, actually, Lucida is her niece—and they’re one of the richest families in Padua. Domenica thinks she’s too worldly, and even the Maestra gets angry with her sometimes.” Suor Angela glanced toward the drafting table, where Suor Lucida was chatting to Suor Perpetua, exactly as if the homely nun did not wear a white veil and Suor Lucida a black. “But she has
such a generous heart.”

Later, after they had finished the sweeping, prepared yet more egg yolks, and torn up a dozen frayed sheets for rags, the girls knelt by the washtub, scrubbing egg-encrusted bowls. It was baking hot; the near-noon sun lay like iron on Giulia’s back and shoulders, making her heavy dress more uncomfortable than ever. She was thirsty, and though she had wadded up her skirts as a cushion against the stone, her knees were starting to hurt.

“Suor Angela,” she said after several minutes of splashing.

“I’m just Angela.” The young nun looked up to smile. “We don’t use titles here.”

“Um, Angela. When will we be allowed to draw?”

“We have drawing time with the Maestra every day, after the midday meal. And we can draw as we like if our other work is done.”

“Oh. I thought—” Giulia stopped.

“What?”

“I just thought I’d be spending more time sketching.” Giulia set a clean bowl upside down on the flagstones to dry. “Or watching the painters. Just…learning.”

“Instead of washing up?” Suor Angela—Angela—sat back on her heels, wiping sweat from her forehead with a forearm that was just as wet. “There’s more to being an artist than drawing and painting. To use color, you must understand where it comes from and how it’s made. To work on a wood panel or on a plaster wall, you must know how the wood is prepared and
the plaster laid. To run a workshop, you need to know every bit of its operation, down to the sweeping of the floors. You must be able to do it all before you can let apprentices like us do it for you, or you’ll never truly be mistress of your craft.”

“Don’t you mind? I mean…you’re a noblewoman. Sweeping floors can’t be what you’re used to.”

“Oh my goodness, Giulia, I’m not noble!” Angela laughed. “My father is a silk merchant. It’s for the very large dowry he gave to Santa Marta that I wear the black veil, not for my blue blood.”

“Oh,” Giulia said. “I didn’t know.”

“Anyway, you’re right. Noblewoman I may not be, but I grew up like one, with servants to wait on my slightest wish. Before the Maestra brought me into her workshop, I’d never so much as folded my own linen, let alone dusted a shelf or scrubbed a floor. I had to learn not just the making of paint and the techniques of drawing, but how to do those things as well.” She dropped her eyes. “You must think that’s silly.”

“No,” Giulia said honestly. “I was a servant, but I worked in the sewing room. I never scrubbed a floor either. And I had…privileges, because of my father.”

“Why because of your father?”

“My father was Count Federico di Assulo Borromeo of Milan.” Giulia met Angela’s gaze, feeling the color rise in her cheeks. “My mother was his seamstress. I’m illegitimate. My father never acknowledged me, but he let me live under his roof and do more or less as I pleased, as long as I got my sewing finished.”

“Oh my goodness, Giulia!” There wasn’t a trace, in Angela’s voice or face, of the contempt that Alessia and her clique had shown. “That’s funny, that you’d ask if I’m a noblewoman, when you’re the one with noble blood!”

“Not in any way that matters.”

“Well, that may be.” Angela leaned over the wash-tub again. “But we are all God’s servants. The meanest task, done with devotion, is as pleasing to our Lord as the highest work of art. So I give thanks for what I do for the Maestra, even if it makes my back ache and my leg hurt, for I know I will one day paint pictures that will speak God’s glory to all who see them. What could be more wonderful?”

Giulia looked at the other girl, up to her elbows in cloudy water, sweat dampening the edges of her wimple, her soft mouth curved in a smile. A sudden, surprising envy gripped her—for Angela’s serenity, her calm certainty of her place in the world.

She picked up another dirty bowl and went back to work.

At the bell for Sext, the noon Holy Office, Domenica, Benedicta, Lucida, and Angela departed for the nuns’ chapel. Sext was the only daytime Office they were required to attend—to avoid interrupting their work, they had special exemption from Terce and None, the midmorning and midafternoon Offices.

With less difficulty than she’d feared, Giulia found her way back to the novice wing, where the other novices were gathered for the daily prayer service. Angela
was waiting to escort her back to the workshop once the midday meal was done.

As they left the refectory, Giulia saw an unusual group approaching—unusual, because one of its members was male, and not wearing the clothing of a priest. He was escorted by two elderly nuns, as if he were a prisoner under guard. With an odd little shock, Giulia realized that this was the same young man who had turned to stare at her on the day she arrived at Santa Marta. She’d gotten only a glimpse, then, but she remembered his long curly hair and his wide mouth.

He looked at her today too, or rather at her and Angela, a brash, assessing glance—and then he winked.

Without thinking, Giulia turned to watch him go past.

“Giulia!” Angela whispered. “You are too bold!”

Hastily, Giulia turned away.

“I thought men weren’t allowed in Santa Marta,” she said, when they reached the workshop.

“They aren’t.” Angela’s pretty face was disapproving. “That was an extremely disrespectful young man. I should report him to Madre Damiana.”

“Why is he here, then?”

“Things need to be built or fixed sometimes, and when we can’t do it ourselves we have no choice but to bring in those who can. He must be the craftsman who’s repairing the refectory fresco. Tiles blew off the roof in February and rain got in. The Maestra is afraid the plaster will come off the wall.”

That explained the scaffolding. “So…he’s here all the time?”

“Until the repair is finished. Well, except for when we are having meals, that wouldn’t be proper. Look, there’s the Maestra.” Giulia turned; Suor Humilità was just coming in from the corridor. “It’s time for our lesson.”

“My two apprentices!” Humilità came toward them, smiling. “How are you settling in, Giulia? Is Angela taking good care of you?”

“Yes, Suor Humilità. Maestra, I mean.”

“Excellent! Come.”

Humilità led the way over to a portion of the workshop marked out by benches. There, shelves and cabinets held a strange jumble of objects: household and kitchen items, seashells, cushions, bits of armor, several plumed hats, a gilt crown and scepter, stuffed birds and animals, even a gruesome-looking collection of human skulls. Beneath the shelves, chests contained secular clothing, cloaks and gowns and other garments in modern and antique styles. These, Angela had explained, were the costumes worn by the models Humilità used for her paintings. There were also several life-size statues of saints in wood and stone, and a number of marble busts.

A tableau had been arranged on a table: a clay cup, a glass flask half-full of water, a pottery dish heaped with apricots. Humilità set Angela to drawing it, then sat down by Giulia.

“So,” she said. “I already know you have talent, Giulia, but today I want to test it.” She handed Giulia
a sheaf of paper, a tablet of wood to rest it on, and a stick of charcoal wired to a wooden holder, then sat back and folded her arms. “Draw me that stuffed fox over there.”

Giulia was not used to drawing while anyone was watching; especially, she was not used to being judged. The sketch went wrong almost at once.

“May I try again?”

“As many times as you like.”

It went wrong again. And again. But it felt so good to have paper under her hand and charcoal in her fingers; and on the fourth try the rhythm of it came to her, and she forgot Humilità on the bench beside her, forgot the sounds and smells of the workshop around her, saw only the fox, knew only the flow of image from eye to hand, the transformation of one reality into another.

Humilità did not comment on the finished drawing. “Now San Sebastiano.” She pointed to the statue of the saint.

Giulia drew him, his arrow-pierced body contorted with suffering, his head thrown back in agony. She drew a stuffed bird, a skull, a glass dish, the court viewed through the arches of the loggia. All the while Humilità watched, her dark eyes intent, her expression giving nothing away. It was intimidating to be the focus of such concentrated regard—but also oddly thrilling. No one had ever paid so much attention to her drawing, not even Maestro.

“Now I want you to draw from memory,” Humilità said. “Draw me someone you know well.”

Giulia’s hand moved almost of itself to shape Maestro’s features. She drew him as she remembered him best, hunched over his worktable in his felt cap and his frayed-at-the-collar doublet, a quill in his fingers and an ink pot close by. Finished, she sat looking down at him, feeling the press of tears behind her eyes.

“Who is he?” Humilità asked.

Giulia drew a deep breath. “Maestro Bruni. My teacher.”

“You love him.” It wasn’t a question. “I can see it there, on the paper. Now, one last test. Draw me someone from your imagination. Someone you have never met.”

Giulia put charcoal to paper and sketched a head. She added a torso, then a pair of arms and two long legs. She dressed him in striped hose and a loose-sleeved shirt, then gave him hair, curling long onto his shoulders. Last, she gave him features—eyes, nose, a wide smiling mouth.

“Who would he be, if you knew him?” Humilità asked.

“I don’t know.”

It was a lie. A hundred times over the years Giulia had drawn this man, wearing a hundred different faces, mostly imaginary but sometimes taken from life: the man in her daydream, the man she would marry. Today, she had borrowed the face of the brash young man in the corridor. As she thought of him, she was conscious of the talisman, the stone as warm as a promise against her skin.

“It’s interesting that both your choices are male.”
Humilità took the portraits, holding them at arm’s length. “Not quite proper for a pledged novice, perhaps.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Maestra, I didn’t mean—”

“No, no. It’s a good thing! The paintings we make here must include men, our Lord Jesus Christ among them. The drawing of men poses difficulty for any woman, who for the preservation of her virtue isn’t supposed to look upon the unclothed male form”—there was a distinct edge to Humilità’s voice—“but especially for nuns, who cannot look at any man at all, apart from priests and members of their own families. That is why we have those busts and statues over there. They are a poor substitute for flesh and blood, but all we are allowed.” She returned the portraits to Giulia. “But you have a natural sense for the male form. These are very good.”

Not till Humilità’s praise was given did Giulia realize how very much she had wanted it. “Thank you, Maestra.”

“Now, you have some bad habits, which isn’t surprising considering that you are self-trained. I will be addressing those in our lessons. We shall also have to teach you about anatomy, as much at least as a nun is allowed to know.” That edge again. “Angela will train you in the manual tasks, preparing pigments and making gesso and all the rest. Benedicta will help you with color lore. You must completely master color before you begin to paint, and that will take time. But as you are already so far along in your drawing skills, I see no reason why you shouldn’t
start to work with paint in, oh…” She considered. “Two years, perhaps.”

“Two
years
?” The words were out before Giulia could stop them. Humilità’s eyebrows rose.

“That’s not long, child, did you but know it. Perpetua was four years just learning color. Angela has been with me three years, and is still not ready to put her brush to a commission.”

“I’m sorry, Maestra.” Giulia knew it was foolish to be disappointed. “It’s just that it seems like such a long time.”

“You’ve much to learn, and about much more than color.” Humilità’s dark eyes bored uncomfortably into Giulia’s. “Now go sit by Angela, and do as she’s doing, and I will be with you both in a little while. Oh, and I’ve arranged for you to accompany us to Lucida’s supper on Thursday.”

“Thank you, Maestra.”

Angela had nearly finished her drawing—a very good drawing, Giulia noted—and soon put down her charcoal. She sat watching as Giulia, working quickly, roughed in the objects on the table and began to add detail.

“You’re awfully good, Giulia. I can see why the Maestra was so excited when she found out about you.”

Giulia looked up. “Was she really?”

“Oh my goodness, yes. She showed us all your drawing. You’re the first novice she’s ever taken as an apprentice, did you know?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, it’s true. I’m one of the youngest she’s chosen, but I’d made my final vows almost a year before she took me on.”

Humilità returned from speaking to Domenica and Benedicta at their lecterns, and for the next hour the girls drew under her supervision. She was a challenging teacher, able with a single question or observation to turn an assumption inside out or flip a perception on its head. Maestro, too, had been that way, though he’d been gentler with it.

Later, while Angela prepared yet more tempera, Giulia knelt again at the washtub. The egg mixture spoiled quickly in the heat, and the clotted yolk smelled foul as she scraped it down the drain beside the fountain. Yet she felt none of the discontent of the morning. Perhaps it was being able to draw again. Perhaps it was
what
she had drawn. In her mind’s eye, she saw her sketch of the man who was her heart’s desire, wearing a borrowed face—imaginary now, but soon to be real.