“No, it’s not,” Angelo murmured, embracing me. “See, I can touch you.” He rested his cheek against my breast, his thick hair spilling like ink over my skin. “This is real. We are together. I swear we will never be parted—I won’t let them. I’ll love you forever, Filamena.”
“I’ll love you forever too,” I swore in return.
He kissed me, the feel of his beard rough against my mouth. My loose hair clung to him as he pulled away to sit beside me. Desire flooded over me anew. However, it was checked by the torturous doubts Tullia’s words had awakened.
“You must be hungry,” I said, desperate to push all thoughts of her confession far away. “I know I am. What food do we have here? Shall we explore our island domain?”
He looked as though he would speak, then stopped.
“Whatever you would say, speak,” I coaxed, determined to keep my tone light. “If I’m to starve, I’ll happily do so as long as we’re together.”
“It’s not that,” he began. He took a deep breath. “I will only say this about Tullia: how could I mistake her for you?”
“I don’t want to know what happened....”
I placed a finger over his lips. How quickly my heart pounded!
He pulled my hand away, capturing it in his. “I want to tell you everything, so you will know the truth. Your sister was waiting for me in this bed. Her back was turned, but I knew instantly she was not you.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Water is not spirits, wine is not blood.... I know you, Filamena. I know the way you curve your neck when you’re pleased, the sound of your breath. No one else could be you.”
As my beloved spoke, the knot of fear I’d been carrying in my chest began to unravel. I found myself staring at his mouth anew. Once again, I felt desire—full, overwhelming, new—awaken within me.
That first day, Angelo explored the island together. As we tracked through overgrown woods and forgotten gardens laden with sweet-smelling vines, he told me of the summers of his childhood he had spent there. And eventually I told him about Tullia, and all she had revealed about myself, my parentage, our past.
“I still don’t know who my father is,” I admitted. “She wouldn’t tell me. All I know is he’s of noble blood from Florence.”
“Probably a Medici,” he teased. “Aren’t you grand? I’ll have to write poems in praise of your high rank for your favor.” His tone turned serious when my expression clouded. “Filamena, it doesn’t matter who your father or mother are. You are who you are, just as I am who I am.”
To comfort me, he took me to the fields where he’d walked as a boy. Yellow butterflies followed in our wake as we made our way through tall grass beside the shore. He confided this was where his mother had taught him to recognize the rhythm of sound by counting waves, noting their uneven but ceaseless intervals. “She said that if I waited long enough, the tide would come full circle. Like so much of life.” As he spoke, I imagined the music I would write, inspired by our time together on this island, brought into being with him beside me.
Later, he took me bathing in the sea, the first time I’d ever done so. As the sun began to leave the sky, I knotted my skirts about my knees. We waded into the water, ignoring the cries of the long-legged herons who protested our intrusion. Tidal pools, rich with mossy life and hidden shellfish, rushed about our bare feet—his broad from walking, mine thin and pale—leaving our flesh stained with sand and seaweed. He took my hand, leading me safely into deeper water where dark fish slipped past us, elusive in their world separate from ours.
“When was the last time anyone lived here?” I asked, the tide swirling about my waist. We were gazing out toward the horizon. No matter how I strained my eyes I couldn’t find Venice. The late afternoon sky was brighter than any I’d ever seen it, bluer than cornflowers.
“Years ago. Long before I left on my travels,” Angelo replied, his voice suddenly hollow as he stared at the sea. “I was born on this island. My father brought my mother here to spare her family the humiliation of my birth, but he never visited until about two years before her death. Then I became useful.” His mouth softened into a wistful smile. “My mother once claimed she gave birth to me in a tree, so I would be born between heaven and earth.”
“Do you think your mother was ashamed?” I asked, thinking of Tullia with an emotion I couldn’t name.
“She said she felt only wonder upon seeing my face for the first time.”
At his words, I shivered, feeling the first touch of autumn’s coolness. That night when he and I coupled, our bodies were scented with salt, with sea.
As I look back upon this time, I am touched to think of our innocence. We were like children at play, creating our own world apart from our parents—a secret world where we could love; a refuge from the harsh realities of the lives we’d been born into.
Like savages, we gathered wild strawberries, figs, apples, and olives to eat. We fished and dug for shellfish. We drank sweet rainwater, found a cask of wine inside the villa that had not turned sour. We were often hungry, but our spirits were satisfied.
Mornings we spent together, rising with the sun’s appearance. Most afternoons Angelo worked on his poetry at his desk, sometimes breaking his labor to share a passage he struggled with, or took special pleasure in.
I was industrious as well. Angelo had brought me a new instrument he had found during his travels, what many now call a violin. Similar to a lute but bowed with horse hair and a slender whip of wood, I never grew proficient enough to play it well, but I used it to compose as I committed my songs to paper for the first time.
Often, as I worked in the light-filled library, whose towers of books we organized into neat rows on long oak shelves, Angelo would quietly join me. He would watch my hands struggle to coordinate the length of the bow with the body of the violin. I could sense his warm breath upon my shoulder, although he would not touch me.
This silence of his energized me, waiting as it was to be filled with song—the melodies I had heard in my imagination during my long hours alone; the new music which lay within me, like seeds hidden beneath the earth’s surface.
I hold those hours in the library closest to my heart. Even now, I remember the unspeakable pleasure of his company. It was as if our devotion to each other had crystallized into his silence, and my struggle to give voice to emotion.
The weeks passed. The apple trees turned russet. The air turned thin and crisp. In the library, the sun did not linger as long on the table where I worked. As the days grew colder, Angelo and I prepared the villa for winter. We aired all the rooms and discovered a garden of flowered upholstery and tapestries hidden beneath bleached muslin. The terrazzo floors were rubbed with linseed oil, bringing a long-forgotten sheen to the marble surface. We washed windows with rainwater, tearing the white dust clothes for rags. Angelo nimbly climbed the roof to clear out the chimneys. A supply of wood was laid in for the first frost.
One morning soon after this bout of cleaning, we were startled from our sleep by a loud crash. A jackdaw had flown into the mirrored room through an unblocked fireplace, and was trapped within its deceiving confines. Crazed with panic, it hurled itself over and over against the reflective walls. Long black feathers littered the white marble floor, a stark map of the bird’s quest for freedom.
I watched silently from the doorway, a blanket wrapped around me, my hand pressed against my mouth. Angelo chased the jackdaw about the room, his manner soothing as he tried to stop it from destroying itself.
“I can’t watch,” I cried, biting my lip.
“It will grow tired,” he responded. “Trust me.”
I cannot describe how difficult it was to wait and watch that bird struggle—surely there is no greater pain than to witness another’s distress without being able to help. But, true to Angelo’s word, the jackdaw gradually flew in ever smaller, tighter circles.
When it finally collapsed in exhaustion, Angelo threw a cloth over the frightened bird, and gathered it f
rom the floor. He murmured sounds that calmed me as much as they calmed the bird. The jackdaw went limp in his arms. But, as Angelo took it outside to be joined with its kind, it jabbed his thumb with its beak, drawing blood.
I washed Angelo’s wound, and wrapped a thin strip of muslin around it. It took some time for the bleeding to slow.
Later that afternoon while we walked along the shore, we spotted a boat in the distance. As it approached the shore, I recognized Tullia’s boatman. He was rowing Caterina toward us.
Angelo and I looked at each other, awakened to our situation. We had tried to forget the world, to forge a life apart. But the world had not forgotten us.
THE PATH TO SORROW IS EASED BY PASSION.
Orpheus was taught by the sun god Apollo how to soothe the hearts of humans with song. Though he was blessed to love and marry Eurydice, the gods did not bless Eurydice: she died of a serpent’s bite soon after their wedding. Grief-stricken, Orpheus wandered far and wide before he arrived at the gates of Hades. Desperate to bring Eurydice back from the dead, he descended into the underworld to plead for her return. The gods, moved by the passion of his music, agreed to reunite Orpheus with his wife on one condition: he must not gaze at her as she followed him out of Hades. Caught between heaven and earth, Orpheus looked back in a moment of weakness, and lost his beloved forever.
This is the part of my fiaba I have most resisted writing. Yet this is the part so many know so well. My esteemed Patroness, it is painful to recall how happy Angelo and I were, and how quickly everything changed after Caterina’s visit. As I write this, I am tempted to put down my quill despite my vow to share my story. But I will force myself to continue—by now I am almost to the end, my dark tapestry nearly unfurled.
As soon as I saw Caterina alight from the boat, my anger and sorrow surged as I remembered how she had lied to me for so many years; I’d trusted her, just as I’d trusted Tullia. I remained silent as the ruffiana followed us into the villa, her full skirts trailing awkwardly in the sand, her face a stoic cipher. “This way, signora,” Angelo said with a resigned air. He led us past the great hall into a small antechamber, where I imagined his father once greeted dignitaries. Once we were seated, Angelo resolutely shut the door, ignoring Tullia’s boatman waiting outside.
We three sat stiffly on heavy wooden chairs, as if we were strangers to each other. Several moments passed before a table clock, newly oiled after years of neglect, struck the hour, startling me out of my distressed reverie.
“Why are you here?” I demanded, my mouth dry.
“You’re a pretty picture, signorina, with your sunburnt cheeks and unplaited hair,” Caterina said flatly. “Here, I’ve brought you some food—fruit, cheese, a capon. Laura sends greetings.”
I ignored the basket she proffered. “You knew Tullia was my mother,” I cried, no longer able to contain my emotion. “You knew I had no father. How could you have mislead me? I’m not who I thought I was. Nor is Tullia. All those years I thought my mother was dead. I mourned her. Tullia mourned her.” Suddenly I did not trust myself to speak.
She looked away, unable to meet my gaze. “It was necessary. No courtesan with a child would be admired. No future could be yours. It was for the best.”
“The best for Tullia,” I snapped. “Not me.”
Angelo took my hand to calm me. “What do you want of us, signora?” he asked Caterina quietly.
Caterina sighed, her rigid posture relaxing for the first time since her arrival. “Signora Tullia is very ill—I would not have come otherwise. She’s been asking for Filamena.”
“Why should I believe you?” I cried. “Tullia lied to me. You lied too.”
“You’ve both been away from Venice too long to know how many are stricken,” the ruffiana countered. “I took a risk by even coming here, but I’ve known you since you were born, Filamena—can you really turn your back on your own mother? And you, signore, what of your father? He is not a man easily thwarted. It is only a matter of time before he finds you and bends you to his will.”
Caterina waited a moment for my response. When none came, she shook her head. “We all make the best of what fate offers us. Sometimes the choices are cruel.”
Caterina returned to Venice that same day. I could not accompany her to the shore to see her depart. Nor did I bid her farewell. It hurt too much. My head spun as I considered how soon before others would arrive to drag us back to Venice. “I was wrong to think we wouldn’t be discovered here. We must leave,” Angelo said. “But where to go?”
That night, I dreamed of strange things—of Tullia lying alone in a mussed bed, of that stag in the forest hunted without mercy. I even dreamt of the sea turning red as fire while I sailed with Angelo. Tidal waves swirled about us, confusing my sense of direction. I was only released from my nightmares when the starlings woke me before dawn. I reached across the bed for my beloved, but felt empty space.
I opened my eyes.
Angelo was already awake and dressed for the day. He sat across the room, curled over his desk in intense concentration, the red book open. At first I thought he was studying the maps to decide where we should flee to. Then I realized he was writing.
As he wrote, his hair spilled over his face, hiding his features from my view. How distant he seemed at that moment, under the sway of inspiration! Every so often he paused to look out the window at something that caught his eye; he would wipe his quill on the ink-stained linen of his sleeve before resuming his labor. The only sound beside the scratch of his quill was the tide, perhaps returning from some faraway land mapped in his book. I tried to think of all the places we could run away to, countries whose names I knew only from his stories. Despite my efforts, all I heard was Caterina’s voice as she confided of Tullia’s illness.
As the sun rose, I watched the play of light on Angelo’s shoulder for as long as I could. Once I could no longer deny morning’s arrival, I called out, “What should we do?”
He scrawled something on a fresh sheet, blotted and folded it. He rose from his table and came to me, the page still in his hand.
His eyes scanned my face. “You want to return to Venice,” he said gently. “Ever since Caterina told you of Tullia’s illness, your thoughts have been with her. You should go to her.”
I shrugged, turning to stare out the window. “She’s probably lying.”
He stroked my hair, his words as tentative as his touch. “I never saw my mother when she was so ill. I regret this even now.”
My face grew hot. I sobbed, “Why can’t they just leave us be?”
Angelo held me as I wept. When I regained my composure, he offered me the paper in his hand. It looked like a sheet of ice shearing the space between us.
On it, he had scrawled a single sentence:
Beloved, like Eurydice following Orpheus, I will follow you on the lover’s path wherever it may take us.
I stared at him, confused.
“I know this is a small thing,” he explained, “but I wanted you to have my vow in writing. No matter what you decide, I will go with you. I will never leave you.”
“What of your father?” I shook my head, despair mingling with relief. “And what of the risk?”
“We can stand before our parents as one, or we can flee. But whatever happens, we will never be parted. I swear this, Filamena.”
And here he bent to kiss me, his lips soft and reassuring. Yet I could not let him take me to that place where I felt safest. All I could think of was Tullia, of how benevolent and light she seemed to me when I was still a child, and knew nothing of her lies.
Many have heard what happened that last day, though I’ve never spoken of it. Nor have I ever written of it until now, dear Patroness. Yes, we did return to Venice. Yes, we would see Tullia and his father one last time, to make our peace; to openly declare ourselves, and to announce our intention to wed. To avoid the illness ravaging the city, our visit would be short. I dared not think what I would do or how I would feel if I found Tullia already
departed from life. It was a prospect too terrifying to consider.
That last day there was a disquieting fragility in the air that spoke of winter’s decay rather than autumn’s harvest. The sky was clotted with heavy grey clouds. We waited until evening to leave the island, hoping the mask of darkness would allow us to travel without notice. As Angelo pushed the row boat from the shore, the tide rushed against us with an eagerness that did not match my mood. He kissed me before taking the oars. Because of the keen wind slicing the air, I donned the red cloak.
As we traveled, I tried to mirror Angelo’s serene expression. He seemed at peace with my decision, more so than I. I sang for him as he rowed. He beat time with the oars, matching my voice’s rhythm. Sea birds followed our path, cawing like warning sentinels. Surrounded by water, we were a shifting island unto ourselves in the night. I began to tremble, though I did not know if it was from cold or emotion. I stopped singing, pulled up the cloak’s hood to cover my head.
Suddenly rain began to fall, sharp and icy. Undeterred, Angelo rowed on. I tucked the red cloak even tighter about myself.
“We should turn back,” I said, wishing we’d never left. The closer we came to Venice, the more I feared what I might find there.
“We’ve gone too far,” he replied calmly. “I can see Venice.”
And he was right: there it was, a floating city of shimmering marble and water, its silhouette visible despite the night and rain.
Within myself, a soft voice rose: Water and sorrow—that is how we found our way.... My throat grew tight as I recalled Tullia’s words to me so long ago, when she’d given me that portrait of my mother. And the rain grew harder still. It poured off Angelo’s shoulders in sheets. It splashed against my hood, pooling at our feet inside the boat.
I quickly bailed as much water as I could. Somehow this action calmed me, but only for a moment; my sense of foreboding returned, stronger than ever.
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