Stone Virgin

by Barry Unsworth

  I had fish pie and radishes and a

  Conversations with him have always the same form. He does not speak of his own accord but he makes responses, always the same, so it is like a litany, he is my congregation of one. I remind him that we have our agreement and I watch his large head nod slowly and I wait for him to say yes it is so – he has a harsh voice and a thick accent of the Veneto. I ask him if it is certain that these papers of mine are being placed directly into your hands and he says it is certain. And without the knowledge of anyone else? Yes, without the knowledge of anyone else. And no reply? No, not yet. But he will bring it to me when it comes? You have my promise, he says. Once I give my word to a man it is sacred with me. Yes, I say, you are a man whose promises one can trust. Besides, you will be well paid. Sometimes it comes into my mind to try to overpower him and attempt an escape but I am enfeebled by these weeks in prison and the brute is strong. He is an ox and cannot read therefore I can abuse him at least.

  This time I surprised him by asking for a light, explaining that if I had a small lamp or perhaps candles I could continue my writing after dark. His first response was not favourable. It seems that it is no small thing that I have asked for. He says that he cannot give a man light without permission otherwise he will be out of the job on his arse but he will see what can be done and meanwhile I should make good use of the daylight. So I do my lord though it comes late into this pit and leaves early.

  When I was dragged out of there and thrown on to the cobbles that coward Nofri was nowhere about, it was the Muranese who helped me and he told me afterwards that the girl saw it and felt sorry for me and called to bring me up off the street before the signori di notte arrived on the scene but he did not do it. It was the same girl.

  He would have come the whole way home with me but as I walked I felt better, the bleeding stopped, and we parted at the Merceria. He is a good man and if he could be found I know he would give a true account of the evening. Andrea the first name and I think Bechine the second, from Murano.

  Once back in my room again I lay down on the pallet and almost at once sank into sleep but woke with the first light because of my bruises and did not sleep again but lay there as the light strengthened. I could see the dark bulk of the stone in the middle of the room. Her face came to my mind, faintly smiling. It is difficult to explain but I wanted to keep this memory of her face separate from everything else in her whore’s life.

  I never paid her a single soldo for sexual favours whatever that prying crone Fiammetta claims to have seen through my window. She was the model for my Madonna.

  I knew from that same morning that it would be so. I think I knew it from the time I got up to light the lamp having grown impatient or alarmed as I said and being unable to sleep again. The block of stone was lit up, its crystals glittered along the planes where it had been cut, it shone brighter for its wounds as also Christ did. I thought again of the illumination of her face. Slowly it came to me, like music, God’s intention, the quarrel with Fiammetta which upset me so that I walked without seeing, then the light everywhere about me and the impulse that made me choose that street to walk down, the song that made me linger, her face above me. It was clear to me in that moment that God had guided me to her. That was the evening when the light began also. Besides, what other explanation could there be?

  It was early still when I made my way back. I knew the house was one of those opposite the tavern. There were three doors that could have been hers but I chose without hesitation and it was the right one and that is a further proof that my actions were being directed from above. I mounted the stairs and knocked and a woman answered, middle-aged, she was wearing kerchief and apron and seeing my impatience smiled, mistaking the nature of it and she made a remark about the uccello that rises early. This was Bianca’s doorkeeper. She closed the door on me and kept me waiting there several minutes, ten minutes or so during which time my impatience grew so that my breathing was affected, I have said that my nature is excitable.

  Then she came back to admit me. Bianca was standing at the balcony window with the sunlight around her. The floor coverings had been rolled aside and the planks were shining wet – the woman had been cleaning the floor when I knocked. On the wall a caged goldfinch, struck by the sun, was singing in brief phrases. There was a music-stand with a sheet on it and red wall hangings. She was holding a book which she must have just snatched up.

  She did not move towards me. Good morning, she said. Did you bump into something on the way? I did not understand this at first but then I saw she meant my bruises. She was smiling, she too I think mistaking the purpose of my visit and my haste, haste which caused me to stumble a little as I went towards her but the smile soon went when I spoke. You have been chosen by God, I said, wanting to impress her with the seriousness of the matter but it was too sudden and she was frightened, as also perhaps by my stumbling entrance and swollen face and I have no doubt the light was shining from me. So I stood still and tried to smile and I told her not to be alarmed. This is good news for you, I said.

  You are the one outside in the street last night, she said. She crossed her arms over her bosom as if she thought I would attack her so it was clear that she was not reassured by my words or perhaps did it out of modesty seeing I was not a customer. She was still holding the book. She had dressed hastily and carelessly. Her hair was up on her head but some golden strands had fallen loose and hung down. She was wearing a blue gown drawn together at the front with white string. I saw that she had been roused by her attendant and had dressed and prepared herself hastily and this touched me even at such an important moment, this dutiful effort to get up and play the hostess, it was in keeping with the music-stand and the snatched-up book which I do not think she could read.

  Don’t be frightened, I said. You must realize that this is a great compliment. Out of all the women in Venice you are the chosen one. And I explained to her about my commission for the Madonna Annunciata and about the block of stone waiting there.

  Then she laughed but still with distrust. She kept her arms crossed over her body. Me for the Madonna? she said. Me for the Santissima Vergine? You will be beautiful, I said to her. You will live for ever in the stone. The power of my talent will transform you completely, you will be immortal. Think of it, up there on the façade of the church for everyone to see. Also there will be dressing up to do, you will dress up in the robe and headdress of the Madonna.

  She liked this idea as I had thought she would. Her hands slipped down to her sides. White, she said, and the robe should be high-waisted and it should have a full skirt. Brava! I said. And the face as nature meant; no powder, no paint, no beauty patches.

  She laughed again. Listen to him, she said. Everybody knows the Holy Virgin didn’t use those things.

  I will pay you, I said. I will give you one whole scudo for every hour. In advance.

  This offer of money decided the matter as it does most matters, coming on top of the favourable circumstance of dressing up. All the same she was not laughing when she finally agreed, she sounded sad, or resigned rather, as if she had lost some argument. Yes, as you like, she said. I will come.

  She came that same afternoon bringing items of her costume in a beadwork bag, she was wearing a beauty patch at the corner of her mouth and

  She came decked out in her best, a puff-sleeved gown of blue and crimson with a brocaded corselage, a lace shawl over her shoulders, red silk stockings and little gold shoes with those block heels that are so much the rage now in Venice, God knows why, the women can hardly walk in them. I complimented her on her appearance reflecting that she must make some money from her trade to dress so and have an apartment and employ a ruffiana to keep the door and it surprised me she was beautiful but not very clever and harlotry is competitive in Venice, this terra delle donne. In obedience to my instructions she was not wearing any paint but she had not been able to resist a beauty patch at the corner of her mouth and I asked her to remove this. Then she introduced a
commercial note by asking for some money in advance.

  I have just the one room not so very large with the privy at one end of it so there was nowhere else for Bianca to change into her cose di Madonna as she already called them. I wanted nothing underneath, no bodices, no petticoats, nothing to spoil the line. She showed some modest reluctance about undressing in these unfamiliar surroundings and for this unusual purpose and seeing this I kept my back to her and busied myself moistening the clay. When I turned to her again it was a revelation, she was transformed. She was standing in the middle of the room beside the block of stone. The full white gown – it was a nightgown she had brought – covered her from neck to ankle, she had arranged the headcloth a little towards the back of her head no doubt with an instinct of vanity but I saw at once that it was exactly what was needed, it framed the face and showed her wide brow, her brow is not high but it has good width, and the front part of her hair was also revealed. The gown itself by fortunate accident was traditional in style, gathered high at the waist and fitting quite closely over the upper part of the body. The line of Bianca’s shoulders and the full shape of her breasts were clearly visible but the cloak, which I clasped at the throat, concealed the bosom partially as was becoming.

  She saw my approval but misunderstood the nature of it I think. She looked down at herself, she was pleased at being dressed up. She had that smile on her face, secretive somehow. Half the time she was in a world of her own. I want you to put your hair down, I said. Take out the combs. Perhaps she heard something of awe in my voice not for her but for the Holy Virgin whom she now represented because her own face became more serious though that inclination to smile never leaves her face, it is in the shape of the mouth. Excuse me my lord that I speak of her sometimes still in the present. I do not always remember that she is dead. I never went anywhere near San Maurizio the night of her death, I was in my room. Those who say they saw me with her have been bribed to lie. My lord I beg you while there is still time to have the witnesses questioned privately.

  She did as I asked her and her hair which as I have said was dyed gold and curled with tongs fell down over her shoulders concealing the sides of her face. No, no, I said, use the combs to gather the hair behind, at the back of the neck. Then the hair will be loose at the temples but off the face, I want to see the sides of your face. She did this and I arranged the headdress as I wanted it and I set her at the window where the light could fall evenly across her face.

  The pose was difficult. Here is a girl, a virgin, she has just been told that she is to be the mother of Christ, a shining archangel is standing before her she cannot be unmoved she cannot be simply a monumental detail for the decoration of a church façade as we often see these days. Well, I said to Bianca, the Angel Gabriel has just announced to you that you are to bear the Son of God. You are in your house reading the Bible and in these familiar surroundings, quite unexpectedly because you have had no warning at all, you are quite unprepared, the archangel appears bright and resplendent, possibly he reduces his splendour because shining beings are able to contain their light, I know that from my own experience, but a startling sight in any case. He gives you the news. How do you behave?

  Bianca paused to give this her consideration, I saw the faintest of frowns mark her brow. Then her face cleared. I say the Magnificat, she said. No, no, no, I said. You say nothing, you have a desire to run away but you cannot because after all he is a visitor, a holy one, you have your duties. And then, you are a virgin, you are confused at this talk of conceiving a child.

  But it was useless to explain, she liked posing and pretending but she had no imagination, she could only see herself as the Queen of Heaven. I wanted that drama of the pose I had seen as a child in country churches in Piedmont, they were crude but they had life and movement. I made her stand with the right leg advanced and the trunk turned away slightly from the announcing angel though her face regarded him still, her right hand laid over her breast the left against the side of her thigh – this I changed later. I did not know at this stage exactly what I wanted except that drama of the turning body and to show the inadequacies of Bartolomeo Bon who carries all before him here in Venice with his uninspired carvings where you can simply see the original shape of the block and the limbs either touching the body or joined by drapery and all outlines smooth and continuous, completely primitive. He goes on with this because it is all he can do and the people have no sense of what might be better and so he is rich and has a big workshop and many assistants.

  So I spent time getting the girl into the right position. I took her shoulders and turned them to the angle I wanted. Now look towards me, I said, and when she did so I experienced a surprise almost like a shock at the gaze of those eyes of hers dark brown flecked with lighter colour in the sunlight from the window, she had beautiful eyes, vague-looking – she may have been short-sighted. As I moved her this way and that I remembered it was her trade to move her body in ways that men wanted and this thought disturbed me because she was also my model for the Madonna and was wearing the Madonna’s robes.

  And so I began to handle the clay and while I moulded and kneaded it to make sure the moisture was properly distributed and adding sometimes water from the bowl I had there and played with the clay as I always do before I start the modelling to get the right feel of it and get my hands used to the texture and also to warm the clay because no one can make a living form out of cold clay, God warmed the dust before he made Adam. Afterwards when I began on the figure we talked, she was I hear his steps outside, he comes earlier for the papers now

  She talked to me, once the first constraint had worn off. Her voice was low not much inflected and so rather monotonous to listen to, not grating but it was easy not to attend to it or I mean attend only intermittently and that is why much of what she said I cannot now remember or only imperfectly. Also I was absorbed in modelling the clay which was of excellent quality just stiff enough and I had bound it with jute fibre to make it hold better. The figure being complicated I had made a wire armature and this was fixed to my work bench. I was moulding to one-fifth life size building up the form by addition – I never cut the clay though I have seen others do it.

  It was gossip mainly. She stood at the window posed as I had posed her in the white clothes, the headdress, the high-waisted gown with the silk girdle, the cloak fastened at the neck, her face peaceful and self-absorbed she had that smiling expression, accident of the mouth. She spoke about her neighbour Corsetta who was there on the night of the quarrel in the tavern when my only offence was to defend Carmagnola against those pigs of Florentines, he was Piedmontese my lord as your lady wife is and as I am and for this I was knocked senseless and thrown out, she is a whore too that will be a nom de guerre not her real name. She lives on the floor above or did then – these girls come and go but if she could be found she might be able to throw some light on Bianca’s movements the night she was killed. They were friends so Bianca said. And there was another girl she mentioned whose name I have forgotten or perhaps I was not told it but called Sfregiata because of her scars, she had been slashed on the cheek for coming late to an assignation – only some minutes, according to Bianca she had been visiting an aunt at the Convent of the Convertite though that seems unlikely, but in any case the man thought she had been with someone else during the time he had paid for. Bianca herself had been beaten once at least and badly though no bones broken. For laughing she said, but I cannot remember the circumstances. She laughed often. Also, but she spoke of this later I think, she had once been subjected to a form of the trentuno, but only by six. The man had taken her for a pleasure trip to Chioggia, given her a good dinner and wine to drink, treated her like a princess she said then afterwards she was pushed into a room with six of his friends waiting and they all fucked her some of them twice. I asked her if she had given the man offence and she said no he had done it for a joke.

  As you see my lord it was trivial matters she talked of. I try to remember anything that might he
lp you in your efforts on my behalf but it was tittle-tattle of the streets. This was in March my lord you will remember that they had just executed the transvestite known as Rosso and the girls were talking of it as he had been an attendant of the courtesan Masina, they had paraded him through the streets in women’s clothes slit up the front to show his genitals and after that he was garrotted in the Campo di Santa Maria Formosa and his body burnt. He was weeping, she said. What, I said, while they strangled him? A man cannot fight for breath and weep at the same time. No, she said, before, when they led him through the streets. She had not stayed to see the execution. I wish now I had not joked though it was funny to think of tearful Rosso in his skirts with cock and balls hanging out but I am sorry I joked now that I know what happened to Bianca, they strangled her half to death before they drowned her.