“Really?”
“Really. Escorts. I don’t know what comes over me, what makes me say things like that. I’m so sorry. I get…lewd…and vicious. I don’t even know who I am. I wish everything were different, everything were how it used to be. Sometimes the only feeling I have is regret.”
Agnola is sure that’s true. Contrition softens Dolce’s face. This is how it always is. Dolce will be hateful—there’s no other word for it—then she’ll suddenly realize and she’ll be mortified at her own behavior. “It’s all right.”
“It will never be all right. But I wish it could be. I wish I could be someone else. Tonight let’s cook the meal and serve Lucia La Rotonda. Let’s make her favorite dishes. You and I can be partners, like we were with Bianca.”
“I’d like that. It’s a sweet idea.”
“Do you think I was ever truly sweet, Agnola?”
“I’ve known you sweet. Right now you’re sweet.”
“No, I’m not. For I’m aware of what I’ve done and what I must do.”
“What does that mean, Dolce?”
“Do you think my mamma loved me?”
“Of course she did! What a question.”
“Thank you for saying that. You have no idea how much I wish it were true. Without that, I’m broken forever.”
Biancaneve bites the side of her finger.
“What’s the matter, Neve?” Giordano is looking at her over the work in his lap.
She’s been leaning against the wall facing him, but she thought he was so absorbed in his carving that he wouldn’t notice. She looks at her finger. It’s bleeding. “Nothing.”
“Tell me. Did you hear something?”
“No, not at all.” Biancaneve looks around the room for an excuse. “I was just wondering if maybe instead of waiting until the evening to cook this octopus, I should do it now, and we can eat it cold later. I’m afraid it might turn funny, you know, off, if I don’t cook it soon.”
Giordano looks at her doubtfully. But he should believe her, because Pietro brought the musky octopus yesterday. He stopped in Padova to buy a basket of those apples and this enormous octopus, caught in the Adriatic.
Giordano gives a quick nod, stands, and stretches. “Go ahead and cook it. Then we can heat it again before serving and add those dried red peppers and oil and garlic. It’ll be perfect. While you do that, I’ll take a quick look outside.”
“I didn’t hear anything, really.” How can she say she half wishes she did? She never even told the men that Sebastiano had visited. How can she now say she hopes he visits again? And, really, she shouldn’t be thinking about Sebastiano. That was two weeks ago. She may never talk to him again. “Nothing.”
“I believe you. But sometimes people sense things. I saw the look on your face. Maybe you don’t even know what you sensed. I’ll be right outside. Keep my carving knife at your side, it’s sharp. And if anything happens, you shout.”
“I will.”
“If anyone knocks at the door or shutters, you shout.”
“I know the rules, Giordano.”
“Then why do you have such a hard time following them?”
Biancaneve deserves it, she knows. With everyone else in her life, she’s been bold. With these men, she’s apologetic.
Biancaneve turns her back so Giordano can’t see her face and bends over the bucket of seawater. She pulls out the octopus. It’s frigid, that water. The men kept the bucket outside overnight and it still hasn’t warmed up.
“Bolt the door behind me.”
Biancaneve slaps the octopus onto the table. She wipes her hands on a cloth, crosses the room, and lifts the bolt. It’s heavy, but it easily slides into place. Instantly she feels relief. She’s glad, really, that Giordano is making an inspection of the area. She hasn’t been calm since that comb nearly killed her and sickened the pup.
Usually Biancaneve fights off anxiety with hard work and conversation. There’s always a man with her these days, right in the cabin. They can talk, and these men have histories so much richer than she ever could have guessed. The things they’ve witnessed could put into prison some of the most important men of the kingdoms of Ferrara, Sicilia, and Milano. If those places have laws anything like that of Venezia. Apparently, nobility misbehaves in horrendous ways. Blackmail. Rape. Murder. All these crimes, committed right in front of a dwarf. Dwarfs don’t count as witnesses in the nobility’s view.
Biancaneve can’t see how anyone who talked with these men for five minutes would not realize their intelligence, their sensitive feelings.
She goes to the table. Her eyes fall on Giordano’s carving. It’s almost complete. He’s making her a comb from the antler of the stag that Giallino shot. She tears up.
Heavens, she’s being silly today. Crying because others are kind to her? And letting her mind wander to that Sebastiano, who might not even be who he said he was. She pulls the octopus toward her and cuts off each tentacle close to the base. This octopus died for them. She cries again.
A bang comes at the door. “It’s me, Neve. Giordano.”
Biancaneve wipes her eyes. She lets Giordano in and returns to the octopus. “My mamma—my stepmother, I mean…”
“It’s not your fault,” says Giordano.
She swallows. “What are you talking about?”
“Call her The Wicked One, Neve. That’s what she is. It’s not your fault. You said it the first day we met you. Believe it.”
“That only makes it worse, Giordano. It hurts so much, it’s like eating glass.”
“Sit down, Neve.”
Biancaneve sinks onto a stool. “Don’t speak ill of her. Please don’t do that. She was a good person. Somewhere deep inside, that good person still lives. She cried when she watched me use the poisoned comb. Oh, Giordano, everything has gone wrong.”
“You’re all right here.”
“Of course I am!” She reaches across the table and grabs his hand. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. What’s gone wrong is her. It’s as though some awful thing inside her has grown and taken over. Somehow something bad, as bad as anyone can imagine, got planted in her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She does strange things. She talks to mirrors. Or, rather, to one mirror.”
“That’s not so strange.”
“It’s the way she does it. Not like you and me. She makes them.”
“Really?” His eyes cloud. “Who taught her?”
“I don’t know. She learned as a girl.”
Giordano pats Biancaneve’s hand. He seems distracted.
Biancaneve sits across from him, still as a stone, until she feels almost calm. Then she stands and goes back to preparing the octopus.
“You know,” says Giordano, without looking up from his carving, “I knew a girl who made mirrors once.”
Biancaneve chooses an onion to chop. “Really?”
“She was a big person. Like you.”
Biancaneve’s head feels strange. She remembers being with Mamma that night on the fondamenta. She remembers Mamma talking about foot-fishing with a man. She can almost hear Mamma saying his name. She strains to listen to her memory. Giordano. Could it possibly have been this Giordano?
“The girl was troubled,” says Giordano, half to himself. “But it wasn’t her fault. She was isolated. Treated cruelly. Called a monster. Her mother should have let her be adopted in Venezia so she could grow up among big people—that’s what everyone else did when they had a child like her. I always wondered what happened to her. She disappeared one day. Her mother died and she just disappeared.”
Biancaneve drops the onion.
A rap comes at the shutter.
Giordano jumps to his feet. “Who is it?”
“I don’t mean to disturb.”
“Well, you do. Go away.”
“I’m not a thief.”
“Go away, I said.”
“Then are you also saying I might have this?”
“What’s this?”
>
“This, what’s at my feet.”
Giordano goes to the window, clutching his knife handle so the blade points down. He looks murderous. Gentle Giordano actually looks murderous. Biancaneve thinks of Mamma holding the knife handle the same way that day she attacked the oiled-paper windows. She follows Giordano. “Get back!” he barks at her.
But the voice from outside answers: “I’m nowhere near the window.”
Giordano opens the shutters a bit. Biancaneve can see over him. There’s a woman out there, not old, not young. Her shabby winter cloak covers most of her. Her kerchief covers the rest. At her feet is an apple. Her hands are bare and, oh, they’re red and scabrous.
“Is this apple yours?” asks the woman.
“Who else’s would it be?” snaps Giordano. “Apples don’t just lie around in the middle of the forest.”
“Someone dropped it.”
“Giordano,” Biancaneve whispers, “let her have it.”
“No.” Then to the woman, “Apples stored all winter don’t come for free. Don’t touch it. Besides, what are you doing here?”
“Scavenging. Have you no pity for those less fortunate?”
Giordano is the most generous of them all. Biancaneve can see the muscles in his neck slacken a little. “Those are for Neve. Special for her. To keep her healthy.”
“Healthy? Is that beautiful girl behind you ill? She doesn’t look it. You want to see illness….” She holds up both hands, with the backs toward Giordano and Biancaneve, and walks forward. Biancaneve clutches her stomach.
“Please let her have the apple, Giordano.”
“Please,” echoes the woman.
Biancaneve knows this is Mamma. The disguise doesn’t matter. The missing nails and scabrous skin don’t matter.
“Half?” says the woman. “Half, then?”
“All right,” says Giordano.
“That should make me half healed,” says the woman. “After all, a whole apple heals wholly, right?”
Biancaneve trembles now. Her mamma—her first mamma—said apples healed.
The woman coughs. “I’ll bring this apple to you, kind gentleman. You’ve already got a knife in your hand, I see.”
“No! Don’t touch it. I’ll come get it and cut it.” Giordano looks at Biancaneve. “Bolt the door behind me, just in case.”
“Don’t go, Giordano,” she whispers. “It’s Mamma.”
“You recognize her?”
“No. But I know it. It’s Dolce, reminding me that she’s my real mamma now.”
“Dolce?” Giordano’s cheek twitches. “That’s the name of the girl I knew. The one I was telling you about.”
“She was a princess, wasn’t she?”
Giordano’s mouth hangs open.
“See? That’s her out there.”
“I don’t understand. The Dolce I knew became your stepmother?”
“Stay inside. Let her have the cursed apple.”
Giordano shakes his head. “I want to see her up close, see if she’s the Dolce I knew.” He opens and closes a fist. “Bolt the door.” He goes out.
Biancaneve doesn’t hesitate; she bolts the door and watches from the window. This is what doom must feel like.
Giordano picks up the apple. He cuts it in half. Then he stands tall. Biancaneve senses a change in him. It’s as though he’s meeting his maker. Maybe he recognizes doom too. “Which half do you want?” he says to the woman.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“This time is an exception. Choose.”
The beggar looks from one half to the other. “They seem the same to me. They smell luscious.” She pulls a pair of gloves from a pouch, puts them on, then picks up an apple half. Then she pulls a cut orange from her pouch and squeezes it over the apple half.
“What did you do that for?”
“Orange keeps it fresh. This way I can eat slowly. Make it last all day if I have to.” She brings the apple toward her face.
“No.” Giordano takes it from the woman and hands her the other half. “This is your half. Take a bite. Right now.”
But the woman has already taken a bite. She looks happy. She looks sublime, in fact. Biancaneve can sense how very proud she is of her cleverness; she foresaw how Giordano would try to trick her. She outsmarted him. “Thank you,” says the woman. She wanders off, nibbling at the apple.
Giordano comes into the cabin holding the apple half. It glistens with orange juice. Good Lord, the aroma of it is pungent. And odd. Something’s wrong about it.
“That was your Dolce, wasn’t it, Giordano?”
“I can’t be sure. The shape of her face, her nose and mouth and eyes, all that seemed familiar. But that woman was emaciated, missing teeth, and she looked at me hard, as though she couldn’t really see me clearly. The Dolce I knew was young and beautiful…she should still be.”
If her mamma really was the Dolce that Giordano knew, then she grew up among dwarfs. Those moments on the fondamenta are all rushing back at Biancaneve. Mamma said, “The heavens conspired against us.” She said, “They made you steal my future, but then you stole my mamma. You stole everything.”
Biancaneve has no idea what Mamma meant about stealing her future, but the rest of it…That story Mamma told her, about the woman whose child was different from everyone, that woman was Mamma’s mamma.
“Tell me, Giordano. Ricci used to belong to the Loredan family. Pietro belonged to the Zeno family. What families did Giallino and Alvise and Baffi belong to?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Of course I know. Baffi belonged to the Barbaro family, Giallino to the Dandolo family, and Alvise to the Orseolo family.”
“And Giallino has been with you only this winter, right? He came most recently, right?”
“Right. But what has that to do with anything?”
“The last tiny mirror Dolce gave was to the Dandolo family. Oh, Giordano, she made mirrors for the families you belonged to. All who were slaves, she set free.”
“I don’t understand.”
“How could you? I’m only beginning to.”
Giordano’s cheeks slowly sag, eyes wide and sad. “She worked with the quicksilver all along.” He shakes his head. “She must have known she’d get sick. She saw it happen to Venerio. The beginnings, at least—when his hands shook and he’d fall all the time.”
“Venerio, the mirror maker. Bini told me about him.”
“He went mad, then died. Dolce did that…for us…and after the way everyone treated her…Only her mother was good to her.”
When Mamma told that story about the woman and child, Biancaneve said the woman didn’t love her child. Biancaneve had hurt her. Fiercely. She trembles. “I told you. She’s mad, not wicked.”
“You’re right. There is no Wicked One.”
Biancaneve can’t think about this any longer or she will go mad herself. She didn’t mean to hurt Mamma, to be her enemy. She breathes hard. This is not her fault. She sinks onto a stool. “This half of the apple is poisoned, Giordano.”
“Probably.” He sets it on the floor.
Biancaneve leans forward to look closely at the little bits of orange pulp that sparkle and smell so odd…but it’s a familiar smell. A fish smell. Shellfish?
At the same moment Giordano stomps on the apple.
Spray flies into Biancaneve’s face. She snaps her mouth shut in surprise, but she doesn’t swallow. She mustn’t swallow! She rushes for the wine, sloshes it around her mouth, spits it out the window.
Giordano is at her side. “Good God, what do you feel?”
“Nothing.”
“I’ll get rid of the damn thing. Bury it.” Giordano wipes the squashed mess into a cloth and carries it outside.
Biancaneve sits on a stool and waits. She can’t think of what else to do.
It begins as a burning around the opening of her nostrils, then her lips. Tingling in her face, arms, legs. She observes it happe
ning as though it’s someone else dying, not her. Now her head hurts. She staggers to a bed, dizzy, nauseated. She feels like she has no body, no weight, as though she’s a feather floating in a current of air. And this air that she knows is frigid feels so very hot.
She can hardly hear Giordano’s calls. She can’t lift her head. She can’t move. She can’t breathe.
“Pietro!” Agnola runs to him. She takes his hands. “What’s the matter?”
What can he say to her? Pietro’s eyes meet Antonin’s. The man’s gaze moves pointedly to Pietro’s hands within Agnola’s. Antonin turns his head to the painting hanging on the wall. Pietro should pull away, but he’s glad Agnola’s holding on to him. He’s glad her attachment to him makes her oblivious to Antonin. He is so much in love with this woman. How is it that he’s gotten into the unbearable position of not being able to tell her all the things that have been going on? It’s a wicked twist of fate.
“I need to see the signora,” says Pietro.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“I…” He has to tell the truth as much as he can. “A friend has died.”
“I’m so sorry. Someone dear to you?”
“She’s become dear.” Pietro hadn’t realized that before, but it’s true. In his visits to the cabin in the woods, he has come to know Bianca…or Neve….She was not the vapid thing he’d thought her to be. Not at all. She was strong.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No.”
Agnola looks bewildered. “But you want to see Dolce?”
“I need her help.”
Agnola shakes her head. “Her help but not mine?”
“It’s a matter of money.”
“Money?”
“Please, Agnola. I need to talk with the signora.”
She bends forward and speaks softly. “Every day she’s worse.”
Good. The world will be better without her. “I won’t make her worse.” In fact, she’ll probably rally at the news. She’s finally succeeded.
Agnola nods to Antonin. “Please announce our visitor. Pietro and I will wait in the music room.”
“You don’t have to accompany me.” Pietro walks ahead. “I know the way. I’ll wait alone.” He goes quickly into the music room.
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