Time stretched out like a meandering road of questionable destination. Oriana’s head lifted, blinking eyes wide.
“They are your marriage papers. The da Fulignas have signed them.”
Sophia glowered at her sister, at the papers in her hand, at the ceiling and the upper floor and rooms beyond. Her heart hammered in her quivering being. “I must get us out of here.”
Eleven
I will stay calm. I will reveal nothing.
The thrumming cadence echoed in her mind with each clack of her wooden heels on the stone pavement. Sophia shuffled along the fondamenta, heading north and east up the Rio dei Vetrai toward her friend’s home, an oft-traveled route trod by rote. She crossed the Ponte de Meso and the brilliant sparks of light reflecting off the canal below blinded her, coaxing more tears to her eyes. She brushed them away with a rough, brusque hand, rubbing them off until her skin felt raw. She would have no more tears.
The morning had dawned with its usual brilliance and bustle, the sun prodding the world to wake, the bells calling all to their day. For the Fiolario family, the day had come from a night that never ended; their lives forever changed as the moon played among the stars. Mamma had insisted Sophia keep her plans with Damiana, to travel with her friend to Le Mercerie, off the piazza, to purchase the lace for the new curtains, and enjoy her childhood companion’s company, a rarity in her life of late. Sophia had argued, adamant that Viviana needed her to stay, that she must remain near to Papà, but Mamma would not be swayed. Sophia had sat by her father’s side through the night, long after his wife had collapsed with exhaustion. Sophia needed to get out, if only for a while.
She drew near to the tall campanile of the San Pietro Martire. The curved, onion-shaped dome, topped by a long, thin cross, cast its shadow like a compass’s hand to her friend’s home and the family’s small factory. The Piccolomini glassworks was not as sizeable or, historically, as profitable as La Spada, but it had grown over the last few years, as had the family’s fortunes. Recently the Colombina Bianca glassmakers had turned their talents to the manufacture of looking-glass, a method of backing a plate of flat glass with a coating of metal, a fusion of tin and mercury, that was fast becoming an enormously popular item among nobility the world over. Not long ago Damiana had expressed hope, the first she’d ever felt, that the family could afford a marriage portion to a noble family, an aspiration Damiana, like so many young Murano women, coveted greatly.
A bitter laugh lodged in Sophia’s throat, a tight lump of emotion, and she tasted the irony on her tongue. Arriving at her friend’s maroon attinelli brick home with its deep cerulean-painted door, she bit the taste and the tears back and brushed her face with her hands as if to wash away any shred of sentiment. She forced the taut muscles of cheek and jaw to relax, as she donned a mask of surreal serenity. She knocked on the door with a hand that trembled disloyally.
Within seconds, Damiana thrust the plank open, warmth and excitement bursting from her sparkling blue eyes and blushing cheeks, bright above her saffron silk gown.
“Buongiorno, Sophia! I cannot wait—” Damiana’s words screeched to a halt, her broad smile vanished and her jaw dropped. She grabbed her friend by the arm, gaze searching the calle behind Sophia as if the devil himself dogged her heels. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Sophia dropped her head into her hands, bereft at her own transparency, genuine emotions unshackled by her friend’s instantaneous and intuitive concern. She tossed her head back and forth, chin to chest, tears released upon her pale cheeks.
“I am going, Mamma,” Damiana flung the words over her shoulder, picked up her sweetgrass basket from the entryway table, and grabbed the door to pull it closed behind her.
“Wait, let me say hello to—”
Damiana flung the portal shut upon her mother’s call and any prying ogle. She entwined Sophia’s arm in hers, tugging her along the fondamenta, and away from the house.
“I can not believe how warm it is today.” Diminutive but determined, Damiana prattled on as if they were small girls once more, heading to the trattoria for a treat with a soldi in their pockets.
Damiana asked no more questions of Sophia, for she could have answered none. Sophia struggled to keep her feet moving, so constrained were they by the chains that suddenly bound her life. She surrendered to Damiana’s lead, relinquishing herself to the safety of her dearest friend’s care.
The walkway filled with a swarm of people as the sun rose in the morning sky; everyone had somewhere to go, something to do. Merchants rushed to their businesses, women to market, as the cart peddlers hawked their wares up and down the fondamenta. The energetic crowd, fresh with the promise of the day, called out greetings and good wishes to their neighbors, and to those on the gondole that filled the waterway. Damiana called back, raising their interlocked arms as if both she and Sophia offered the greeting.
“Oca,” Damiana cursed under her breath, flicking her eyes heavenward as if pleading for divine intervention at the sight of the flightly and intrusive signora Gramsci and her equally annoying sister.
“Look at this, Sophia, isn’t it beautiful?”
With fierce protection worthy of a lioness defending her cub, Damiana led Sophia to a window display, any display, as the passing acquaintance seemed ready to strike up a conversation. Pointing and peering at the delights, real or imagined, on the other side of the clear pane, she kept them tucked away until the possibility for interaction came and went. She would allow no one to see Sophia’s splotched and mottled skin, the reddened eyes, would allow no gossiping tongues to speculate on their cause.
Sophia saw nothing but wavy, distorted images. The vivid colors of the buildings and the garments, the azure of the sky reflected on the seafoam waters of the canal, the smiling faces of the passing crowds, all swam and blurred in her watery sight. She allowed Damiana to lead her the entire distance to the shore and the ferry docks, obedient and submissive as a child.
As they arrived at the bustling port, they watched a wherry launch from the shore, its replacement still small on the horizon, a small dark dot where the sun-sparked sea met the cloudless sky.
Damiana released her hold on her friend’s arm, turned her by the shoulders so that they stood face to face, and beseeched her without a word.
Sophia swallowed hard, her throat bulged, and the clamp upon her tongue released its tenacious hold.
“My father is dying, and I am officially contracted to marry Pasquale da Fuligna.” The words rushed from her, a jumble and slur of sound. They hung in the air as if falling upon them from a great height.
Damiana’s shoulders slumped; her mouth fell open like a freshly caught fish gasping for breath. Without response, she snagged Sophia’s hand from where it hung limp by her side and dragged her to the farthest bench along the dock, where distance and privacy protected them as they waited for the next barge. In relief they sat, the cool breeze and tangy scent of the ocean enveloping them in a shielding mantle.
“Tell me,” Damiana urged, keeping her friend’s hand in her own.
Sophia heaved a deep, staccato breath, leaning back against the sun-warmed wood of the bench.
“I knew something was happening to my father for weeks now, he began to…to change. He lost track of his words, and what he was doing. He became confused so easily, and his confusion made him so angry.” Sophia’s gaze stretched out along the shimmering tips of the gentle ocean waves, a furrow came to her brow as if she tried to count them as they peaked and waned. “Last night was the worst yet. The physician said…it’s the dementia. There’s no…there’ll be no recovery.”
“Oh, Sophia,” Damiana cried, her pale eyes filling with her tears as she grabbed Sophia’s arm, her fingers digging into the soft, caramel-colored flesh.
The outpouring burst from Sophia like the storms carried on the scirocco, the southeast gales that carried the torrential rains of the flooding aqua alta. Her lips quivered as she told Damiana of her father’s illness, of its trudging a
ssault over the last few weeks.
Sophia rubbed at her tight jaw with her fingertips; she could speak no more of her papà just now, could think no more of it or her spirit would tear from the stabbing grief.
“And, you are betrothed?” Damiana sat forward on the bench and, with a tender touch, tucked in a strand of Sophia’s hair that had come loose in the breeze. Seagulls glided above their heads, held aloft by the invisible hand of the wind, their raucous cries echoing like mocking laughter. “To Pasquale da Fuligna?” Her voice rose higher, incredulous, and more than a little repulsed.
Sophia’s shoulders curled inward and her head flopped forward. Mired in worry over her father, she had somehow forgotten this distressing stratum of her chaotic future but the disheartening reality rushed back to her with a vengence. She dropped her hands into her lap.
“Sì, ’tis true.”
“This is not of your parents’ doing, is it?”
Sophia shook her head adamantly. “No. No, of course not, it’s strictly the da Fuligna’s efforts and insistence that has brought this about and I have no idea why.” She raised her shoulders high, her hands thrust wide in abject confusion. “I have no acquaintance with the man at all.”
Her teeth ached as she spoke of da Fuligna, his unpleasantness, and his sour family. Her hands fluttered in the air like two frantic butterflies as she told Damiana about her visit to their home. Wherries came and went and still the friends remained on their seats, like two stunned, battle-weary soldiers having just quit the field. There was but one more thing for Sophia to tell Damiana and she felt an entirely unfamiliar pang of fear at the thought of it. But for her friend to comprehend the entirety of the situation, and Sophia needed her to, needed someone to, Damiana must know it all; Sophia must tell it all.
“There’s more.”
Sophia faltered, looking down in shame and embarrassment.
Damiana ducked her head, retrieving their lost connection.
“Tell me, Sophia. You can tell me anything.”
Sophia heard the unconditional love and her heart swelled with it. She took a steadying breath.
“I make the glass,” she whispered, her admission like an adulterer in her weekly confessional. “I’ve been making the glass for many years.”
Damiana’s hand rose to her mouth, pink lips rounding in a perfect circle of surprise.
Sophia held her breath. The silence unbearable, she feared it spoke of her loving friend’s disapproval.
“Say something, anything, please,” Sophia beseeched her, clutching Damiana’s free hand, enduring the torturous scrutiny as the pale blue stare scoured her face.
When it came, Damiana’s hushed response was nothing less than shocking.
“You make the glass? How wonderful.”
“What!” Sophia’s tear-stained face screwed up in utter confusion.
“It explains so much,” Damiana laughed. “There was always something, a deep part of you, that I couldn’t understand and it troubled me so, as if you were not as much my friend as I was yours.”
“No, no,” Sophia gasped, grabbed her friend’s shoulders and hauled her into a clenching embrace. “I did not want to burden you, to force you to break the law with your knowing as I did with my actions.”
Damiana returned the affection, the emotion. Sophia forgot all else for a moment and reveled in relief. The friends laughed together as they separated and saw their matching tears. Beyond all else, they had found a deeper connection, a joining of spirits that transcended the physical, the earthly. It bound them spiritually and for a stolen snippet of time, they lived in the moment of joy. They sat wrapped in their bond, sharing a wisp of linen and lace.
“Oh, Sophia, your papà,” Damiana sobbed against the cloth and it became Sophia’s turn to console.
As her arm encircled Damiana’s shoulders, strength infused her. Grief still ravaged her, fear for her future still clutched her, but with the sharing there arose a buttressing, as if the telling of her stories, the revealing of her burdens, had fortified her.
“You always know that you will lose your parents but it always seems so distant, a reality but surely not a possibility. To lose my father means I will not be his child and I want nothing of it.” Sophia stared out, far beyond the undulating, never-ending sea before her.
Damiana’s red-eyed stare raked over her friend’s grief-mottled features. “What will you do?”
Sophia shook her head. “I’m not sure…yet.”
Damiana frowned, unfamiliar with the angry, determined light that suddenly appeared in her friend’s eye. “What are you—”
“Come.” Sophia jumped to her feet, putting a halt to any more questions. “Another barge has arrived. We must be on this one.”
Sophia towed the smaller woman to the ramp and onto the flat, square ship, an ungraceful vessel of function, elbowing past and around the ballooning group of passengers. Packed together like fish caught in a net, there would be no chance for a private conversation yet no possibility of a normal one with what hung suspended between them, and the girls rode in a companionable yet pregnant silence.
As they stepped off the boat and onto the Molo of St. Mark’s, Sophia led them north toward Le Mercerie.
“After I speak to our fattori and purchase my mother’s lace, I would like to visit my Zia Elena.”
Damiana faltered, hanging back as Sophia entered the piazzetta. It wasn’t often that Sophia visited her mother’s sister and her family, except on rare special occasions. After the untimely death of their parents, the sisters had grown apart, a breach made all the wider when Viviana married a glassmaker and accepted his life of confinement and seclusion.
“Your zia?”
“Sì, come, paesana,” Sophia called to Damiana with the distinctive endearment of those who shared a village, took two steps back and jerked her hesitating friend along with her into the teeming square. Mid-morning at market was the busiest time, and it would be impossible to explain more while in the clutch of such commotion.
Though not as riotous as during the Marriage of the Sea, the smaller piazzetta and the broader piazza pulsated with activity nonetheless; the gaming tables beneath the two mighty columns flourished with customers, native and foreigner alike, while courtiers, magistrates, and councilmen rushed in and out of the palace and other government buildings.
Along each continuous range of the Procuratie Vecchie and Procuratie Nuove, the latter less than two decades old, vendors’ tents lined up like trees in a dense forest. The colorful booths, aligned with the bands of light-colored stone of the courtyard running parallel to the long axis of the piazza, festooned the fronts of the government buildings and offered every conceivable trinket and foodstuff for sale beneath the shade of their huts. Voices and music filled the air and the ears, colors and shapes of every variety assaulted the eye, and tempting aromas of meat sizzling on braziers mingled with the acidic scent of unwashed bodies. Harried and hurried shoppers jostled by strolling sightseers and tumbrels overflowing with flowers, fruits, and breads plowed through the crowds, driven by owners calling out as they hawked their wares.
Passing through the long, dim shaft of shade thrown by the campanile, the women crossed to the two-storied Romanesque arch of the clock tower. Sophia’s gaze rose to the face of the mammoth Torre dell’Orologio. The concentric dials of the enameled face showed the hours of the day, all twenty-four, the signs of the zodiac and, in its cobalt center, the phases of the moon and the sun. Perched far above the clock on the roof of the tower, beyond the plinth directly above the clock supporting the Madonna and Child, past the fourth bay and the statue of the Winged Lion of St. Mark, two bronze statues crowned the zenith. Long since blackened by hundreds of years of exposure, the Moors, as they were now called, swung their giant clappers every hour, the clangs ringing out the passing time.
Sophia’s head tilted farther and farther back as they crossed beneath the enormous clock, its size and significance a symbol of her burdens. She could almost feel the
weight as it passed above her. Once the long pool she languished in, time had become her enemy; an unrelenting, unwavering soldier that she would fight against with every ounce of strength she possessed.
It was a few short steps down the Mercerie to the large stall of La Spada glassworks. As usual, a crowd huddled round its perimeter, men and women exclaiming over the beautiful creations displayed within, willingly passing over many ducats to possess their own pieces. The haggling rent the air like a goose’s gaggle, until the deal was made, then the hands would slap and shake, and the deal struck. For a fleeting moment, Sophia allowed the satisfaction of their praising words, their approbation of her work, to wash over her, but only for a moment. Today was not a day of celebration but one of work, all types of work.
Squeezing between two large patrons, Sophia caught the attention of one of the busy men stationed behind the linen-covered tables.
“Afternoon, signore Balbi,” Sophia called out.
The diminutive, gray-haired man squinted into the brightness beyond the shaded stall, his bushy brows flicking up with affectionate recognition.
“Signorina Sophia, how good to see you.”
Rushing away from the table, Lorenzo Balbi exited from the back of the stall and met Sophia as she rounded its side. Balbi had served as the fattori, the representative for the Fiolario family glassworks, since before Sophia’s birth. It was his job to see to the distribution of their finished goods and deal with the merchants who supplied the raw materials. The diminutive man welcomed Sophia with a tender embrace and a paternal kiss on each of her firm cheeks.
Sophia counted this man among the blessings in her life; his efficiency, his honesty, and his dedication to her family enabled the continued prosperity begun so many years ago and allowed Zeno, and Sophia, to concentrate on their creations.
“I see business thrives, as usual.”
“Oh, sì, sì, in fact…”
The energetic man spun away, slipping behind the thick golden canvas of the stall, returning in a flash with a small, rolled parchment in his hands.
The Secret of the Glass Page 12