The Watercolourist (38 page)

‘No, and I don’t think I ever will,’ Bianca says.

‘Ah, but it’s worth it,’ Tommaso replies, turning the key in the lock. ‘Another of the amazing secrets of Brusuglio to discover.’

Inside, he rummages about with a flint and a lantern that seems to have been placed randomly on the floor. But there is nothing random about it, she realizes; he has wanted to bring her here.
Her heart skips a beat. Is she scared? Scared of Tommaso? The door is still ajar, she can still escape. But curiosity gets the better of her.

The dim light reveals a low brick vault. It is surrounded by alcoves and inside there are blocks of ice wrapped in clean cloths. She can see the squares of paralysed deep green water; they are
opaque and have the same colour as the lake. The place feels like a Roman catacomb. She shivers not only on account of the cool air, which makes the room as cold as a cellar, but for what lives
within. It smells strange. It reminds her of the mix of dust and bones she had inhaled during archaeological visits, when not even a handkerchief in front of her face had been sufficient to
suppress the musty air. Here, the cool air enters her nostrils and rises to her head. It is the coolness of the abyss.

Bianca blinks. She feels like she did when she needed to rise from the depths of the lake’s dark waters that she remembers with love. She is almost amazed to see Tommaso still by her side.
He lifts the lantern and shines the light all the way around.

‘Nice, huh? In its own way, of course. This place is full of surprises. You should come to see my home, one day. Up in the attic . . .’ Then he stops and suddenly becomes serious,
almost bitter. ‘I can’t even go there any more. They treat me worse than a mouse. Do you know why I have brought you here?’

Let him speak
, Bianca tells herself. And he does.

‘Of course you know why I brought you here. I am sure of it. A young, bright woman such as yourself. Sharp and cold as a blade. You are the ice queen. Why are you so cold, Bianca,
why?’ He places the lantern carefully in one of the alcoves and kneels down before her. He takes her by the hand and gazes at her with the expression of a transfixed martyr. How ridiculous he
looks. The dim light gives him the appearance of a wax statue. ‘I kneel here before you as humble as an ancient cavalier, ready to serve you, prepared to dedicate myself to you.’

Bianca takes her hand out of his with a small laugh.

‘Go on, laugh at me,’ he continues. ‘But I am serious. Do you understand me? Serious! Is it possible that only other people’s seriousness attracts you? Mine is not an
insurmountable wall or a deep trench that separates. It is the opposite: it is a solid link, a bridge of souls, an arch in the sky that begins at your feet.’

What is he talking about? What does he mean? Does he have a fever? Without thinking, Bianca feels his forehead with her fingers, as she would a child. He looks at her with a calm smile.

‘There. You see how easy it is to take pity on me? And how little it takes to make me happy? I can do the same: I can make
you
happy, today, here, on this earth. If you let me.
Let go of fantasy, forget about them, and choose me. For some time now, I have worshipped you from the shadows.’

Bianca is dumbfounded. She hears the alarm of danger, a voice in her head. It is freezing in here. She wraps herself tightly in her shawl and takes a step back as he goes on.

‘Ah, I see the shawl I gave you. May you always be enveloped in my passion. Did you realize it was me?’

Heavens, no
, she thinks. She was convinced that the gift came from somebody else. What about the other things? Instinctively, she jerks the fabric off her shoulders. It is the shirt of
Nessus, poisonous when it is recognized as such. He watches her and mutters.

‘You torture me. Does it bring you pleasure? What pleasure could there be in other people’s grief?’

Bianca is tired of this. It is cold. She turns around and walks out. Tommaso stands and follows her. She begins to run. She hears him close the iron door behind her and turn the key, as if to
close in his prey, though it has already fled. Or has it?

The following day, in the sunlight, all that cold air seems never to have existed. It feels only like a vague aversion, a mosquito bite that has almost healed, but then
reawakens, the venom still pulsating under the skin. An irresistible bother.

Nothing has happened.

And yet it feels like everyone knows. Donna Clara sings an old love song; Nanny smiles faintly; Innes reads his newspapers in silence and doesn’t pass her tea. What do they know? Bianca
thinks, growing annoyed. There really is nothing to know.

But every time she runs into Tommaso, she blushes. And it seems like he bumps into her on purpose: in the living room, the greenhouse, the garden. Always with no witnesses around. Even when
there are witnesses, it doesn’t matter. He keeps at his game. He will kneel down, put his hand on his heart, over the lightweight batiste shirt that he wears unbuttoned at the top, like a
true romantic, as if posing for a portrait. As quickly as he appears, he’ll then disappear, swallowed by the folds of a curtain, a door, or a hole in the ground. Bianca feels like there might
be an entire army of Tommasos, ready to jump out in front of her, disrupt her train of thought and make her blood boil. Why? For what? In the end he is just fooling around. No one ever takes him
seriously and she will not be the one to start. But her irritation begins to mix with something else too: for truthfully she likes it. She likes it a great deal.

He hasn’t tried to kiss her. Bianca doesn’t realize it then, but this is how he wins. Now all he has to do is wait.

He hasn’t pronounced the word ‘love’, either. Not even once. Bianca doesn’t pay any attention to that. She doesn’t even think about it. She doesn’t think
about the gifts or about the gift-giver. She understands the shawl, but the rest of them? They are too elevated to be the fruit of the intelligence of this boy. He hasn’t claimed them, even
if he could have. And so Bianca keeps on deceiving herself, and keeps nurturing a small certainty, which is good for her.

And then the heat comes: the white heat of summer, impossible to escape from, except in the early hours of the morning. It lasts all day and deep into the night and it
isn’t even summer yet. Everyone is irritable, the children most of all. They are tired of the same old nursery games and forbidden from going outdoors during the peak hours. After only a few
minutes outside, they are drenched in sweat and covered with dust. Soon they have violet circles under their eyes, as if they have been persecuted by insomnia. Their cheeks are as pale as
winter.

Bianca doesn’t have time for them. She feels sorry for this, but she has to finish a series of hydrangeas before they lose their freshness. She knows that in August the plants will be
faded and although she prefers them that way, rather than as they are now, with their big, tousled pink and green heads, her portraits are meant to capture subjects across their lifespan, not only
during one interesting state of decay. If it had been up to her, she would have willingly set aside the assignment in favour of a brief holiday. She can think of many ways of entertaining the
little ones far better than Nanny is doing.

Bianca smiles to herself as she prepares her colours. She remembers how easy it had been to say goodbye to a governess once she had been used up, and how exciting it had been to wait for a new
one to arrive, descending from the sky, equipped with a flowery carpet bag of new tricks and distractions. It is time for Nanny, the poor thing, to change her lifestyle and get married. But how
will she find a husband? She should forget about Innes. Tarcisio is the one. Tarcisio would be perfect for her. He is a peasant, yes, but a landowner. He is independent, not shy and clumsy like the
others, and he has a certain rugged handsomeness thanks to his impossibly blue eyes. What magnificent children they would have – with Nanny’s copper-coloured hair, the only remarkable
thing that she possesses. Bianca shakes her head, scolding herself. But then she starts in again. The game is irresistible. The pair could live in that little house beyond the town walls. It is
small but fair. All it needs is a fresh coat of paint, maybe a nice pink, like the shade they use for homes at the lake. She wonders how pink will look against that landscape. Surely Nanny could
afford to buy a new outfit too, perhaps in a light grey, a skirt with a fitted jacket that accentuates her waist and plumps up her flat chest. Bianca begins to draw the outfit she envisions: the
skirt fluttering at the bottom, a braided row in front, on her head a simple hat held in place by a knot under her chin, and a small bouquet of three blossoming peonies surrounded by magnolia
leaves.

If I ever grow tired of flowers
, Bianca thinks,
I can devote my time to fashion.

The problem with Bianca’s work is that when she finishes the flowers, she has too much time left over for thinking. And desiring. She wonders what the watermill is like at this time of
year, if the water is still green and translucent like the fountain of Melusina. She has no time to go there though, no time at all. The hydrangeas call out to her.

Sometimes, at dusk, a small procession of carriages come from the city, friends in search of cool air, who pass the evenings fanning themselves and watching the ice gems from the ice chamber
melt in their glasses. Even their conversations seem limp and tired. By the end of the season, all the gossip has dried up. Not even Bernocchi is able to scrape a scandal together. Don Dionisio
gets older and sicker. He has to stop every three steps to catch his breath. Pia is always nearby, ready to offer him a cool beverage.

Essentially, nothing really happens. If Bianca was a little older, she would know that this is how a storm announces itself. A bubble of still air pushes forward, a river of emptiness is
created, and then things fall apart. Attention is lax and omens fade. Later, she will say that it has all been predictable, and therefore avoidable. Later still, she will tell herself that no good
comes of thinking that way. It has happened and nothing can be made right again.

It is an accident. These things happen in a household full of children. A ball made of Florentine leather – this time a real one – flies through the open French
window and crashes into the glass bell jar that sits on the mantelpiece above the French fireplace. The objects under the bell jar are also French. Donna Clara has told their stories countless
times; they are relics from a life that seems to belong to someone else, far off in the distant past. They are neither beautiful nor ugly, and of value only to the person who owns them. They are
small, motionless things of questionable taste. There is a stuffed dove, its marble eyes fixed on nothing. There are some gesso flowers and fruit created by Garnier Valletti of Turin, based on
certain garden fruits of the Hesperides. And finally, there is a miniature tree, which in reality is merely a small branch shaped like a tree trunk. From it hang three small, straw-like garlands in
pale, almost unnatural colours: one blonde, one nearly grey, and one almost white. They are three locks of Carlo’s hair that have been cut at different times of his life. The last lock of
hair was cut shortly before his death.