Lost in the City of Flowers (The Histories of Idan Book 1)

by Maria C. Trujillo

“Oh, how I love chestnuts!” squeaked Renzo.

  “Well how lucky we are that you have come to call on us.” Zia beamed. “But there will be no chestnuts for you until you clean your face.”

  “Can you bring the chestnuts to the workshop?” asked Renzo.

  “Are you not having a feast of your own?”

  “That is why I have come,” he cleared his throat and pushed the reef of brown curls that fell across his eyebrows. “Master Verrocchio wanted me to invite and escort you and Viola to our Christmas Eve feast,” he announced with an air of importance. Zia smiled with amusement at the gallant invitation, forgetting for a moment the woe she had just suffered.

  “It is a little late,” she said, glancing at the black window. “Tell me, Renzo, are we invited to enjoy the feast or to prepare and clean it up?”

  Renzo’s smile faltered but he found refuge in staring at the neat black boots that fastened around his ankles. “Both?”

  “So I take it Margherita has started her labor,” Zia said. Renzo’s eyes bulged with quiet affirmation. “Viola, would you be so good as to grab two logs of salami and a jar of honey from the cupboard? Could you snuff out the fire Renzo? Mind you, do not ruin your lovely tunic.”

  He nodded dutifully before carrying out his task. Once the chestnuts cooled, she put them in a wicker basket. After all was in order we set out onto the wintry path back to the workshop.

  The fires that burned from within the neighboring windows cast an orange glow onto the smooth cobblestones. Stragglers hurried past us to get home for their feasts, and merry families moved quickly to their gatherings. Lonely lights from the Piazza della Signoria reminded us that guards were still on duty.

  “Come, Viola,” urged Zia, hurrying me along frosted roofs and balconies barricaded by icicles.

  They reminded me of the ones my dad would snap off our own balcony. Every Christmas Eve, my family would eat turkey but with an array of immigrant twists. My dad would make cauliflower gratin and my mom would make her risotto while Clara and I played games against the murmur of old Christmas movies. It panged me to remember it as I knew that those precious years of celebrating Christmas together had come and gone without me realizing how truly special they were.

  “Has the midwife arrived?” asked Zia. The concern in her voice shook me from my melancholy daze. Verrocchio and Leonardo bent over what looked to be a chess game. The other workshop boys were grumbling from hunger or hovering over the shoulders of the two players.

  “Yes, they are upstairs in the library,” said Verrocchio, looking up from the match. Zia turned to the staircase and ordered me to begin preparing dinner.

  “No, I want to see Margherita first,” I protested.

  After a short stop in the kitchen to drop off the food, I followed her up the steps. The scent and flicker of tallow candles seeped into the hallway from the cracked door. Upon entering the room, I was surprised to see how many women were quickly bustling about. The midwife, a hefty woman in her forties, shouted directions at her two daughters, who were either arranging neat piles of pristine sheets or pouring clean water into a basin.

  A polished chair stood in the middle of the room. A wide round hole had been carved out of the seat’s center. The dividers had been pushed back to conceal the stacks of books, converting the library into a hospital room. Zia chatted with the midwife while the daughters waited for further instructions.

  Feverish groans gushed from Margherita’s dry lips. She had her back propped up by feather pillows, and her skin was pasty white. Fear filled her wide blue eyes. Streams of sweat slid from her scalp and down her neck. I tried my best not to look alarmed at her frail condition.

  Once she realized I was in the room, she called me forward. “Viola,” she heaved, “did you find a good family for my baby?”

  “Yes, of course. I told you I would,” I said, peeling strands of hair from her hot cheeks. “I found a couple who can’t have children but are very happy and much in love.”

  “How nice that sounds,” she said, closing her eyes.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “Is Salai here?”

  “I’m not sure.” My jaw tightened in an attempt to hold back the emotion rising inside of me.

  “I wish he was, even though I know I shouldn’t … Isn’t that terrible?”

  “Don’t worry, he still might turn up!” I lied, trying to pacify the wave of anxiety swallowing her.

  Her face contorted in pain while her fingers clenched together. I stroked her hair and hummed happy thoughts. She looked so young lying there. Her maturity and hard years usually masked her youth. It seemed so cruel that a girl of fifteen had to suffer so much pain.

  “Viola, please follow me,” Zia said, walking towards the entrance. She shut the door behind me and proceeded to the kitchen. “We need to start supper.” Although she listened patiently to my protests, she shook her head. “That room is far too small to hold so many people scampering about. Margherita needs space.” The kitchen was warmer than usual as some hungry person thought they would get ahead of things and warm the stove.

  “Did you make all this?” asked Zia, uncovering the large pots that sat on the burners.

  “I wish,” I said, cutting the cured salami meat. “Margherita prepared it yesterday.”

  “Bless her,” she prayed, wiping her face with her handkerchief. “Well let us hurry and heat this up. If we finish in time we can make mass at the Duomo.”

  “Can’t I stay behind?”

  “No … she will be very well taken care of and an extra body in the room would be a nuisance. You could help her much more through prayer.”

  My temper had reached its breaking point and I was officially sick of people telling me what to do. Searching for an outlet, I ran into the courtyard. An icy gust tried to cool my temper while I stood ignoring Zia’s words. I was shivering but didn’t care. It was nothing compared to the pain that Margherita suffered. My ears perked up at the approaching footsteps.

  “Now is not a good time, I promise.”

  “What is the matter?” asked Leonardo.

  “I don’t want to go to mass! I want to be in the library with Margherita.”

  “That makes the two of us.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Dead.”

  “Why?”

  “What is happening up there is a miracle of science. I wish I could be there to record how it all happens … and to support our dear Margherita, of course,” he added after noticing my disgust.

  “She is not a science experiment, Leo! What if something bad happens? There is no doctor here to help her. No hospital for an emergency.”

  “You do not have to tell me,” retorted Leonardo, squaring his shoulders. “That is the way of it here. Midwives are very skilled in their profession. She is in good hands. By your skeptical tone I imagine they do it differently where you come from.”

  “I think it is safer, at least in many parts.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because medicine is more advanced—”

  “And how did it become so?” he snapped. “Through observation and study.” He folded his arms. I parted my lips searching for a clever comeback but nothing came. With only my bad mood for company, I left Leonardo in the courtyard.

  When I came into the kitchen, Zia was serving the polenta and salty trout to the hungry boys. As everyone ate, I brooded in my corner. Although I was starving, I barely touched the food she served me. Somehow, it did not seem right to eat the meal prepared by Margherita while she was suffering upstairs. There were only eight of us at the tables. The girls and the midwife took turns coming down to eat. Each one told of how well Margherita was doing.

  “Such a young, strong girl should not have any trouble at all,” they said, piling food into their mou
ths.

  Once the last daughter had vanished upstairs, I interrupted the loud chewing and lip smacking. “Where is Salai?” The boys and Verrocchio himself shook their heads uncomfortably. “What a coward,” I hissed, loud enough to make sure they heard me. Never in my life could I recall ever disliking someone so much.

  “Andrea, you will clean the plates while Viola and I go to mass,” announced Zia, fastening her cloak.

  “Which mass?”

  “At the Duomo. If anything should happen, send Renzo.”

  We rushed out of the workshop amidst lads arguing as to who would be the lucky one to clean the stack of dishes. Our feet soon joined the flock of devotees that rounded the corner of the Piazza del Duomo. By the time we finally spilled into the cathedral, the nave and side aisles were bursting. We had to stand close together near the entrance of the Duomo. The bishop leading the mass was a speck in the distance. Thousands of candles glittered across the sea of people that hummed and whispered the prayers. The smoke of the musky incense swirled up towards the ceilings, adding itself to the layers of soot covering its painted surfaces.

  I didn’t really want to be there. I wasn’t even sure what praying truly was. Shutting my eyes tight, I prayed so hard for Margherita and her baby that the moments under the domed cathedral felt like an instant. The occasional bump of the shoulder by a late arrival snapped me out of my meditative state.

  “Scusi! Scusi!” repeated Leonardo as he pushed and hurled his way through the crowd. When he met my eyes, he did not stop but plunged forward into the mob with more determination.

  “Zia...” I bent to whisper in her ear “...Leonardo is making his way to the front of the church.” She stopped rubbing her rosary beads between her fingertips.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Si, he didn’t stop to talk to me.”

  “Then we should wait for him outside … we will need to hurry.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” I asked, treading carefully past our pious neighbors. Once we were out the golden doors, I knew something had gone terribly wrong. “Zia! Please tell me what’s happening.”

  “I will not need to, sweet Viola,” she said, staring at her rosary beads. Just then, Leonardo came out from behind the giant entrance.

  “Leonardo! Tell me—” I cried. A young priest soon stepped from behind the door waiting for Leonardo’s instructions.

  “No time to explain, we have to run,” pressed Leonardo as he and the priest took off at a sprint. Zia and I followed their wake at the quickest pace she could muster.

  “I’m sorry, my dear, that I cannot move faster,” she lamented. But her apology just made me sadder.

  In less than ten minutes, we were rushing over the workshop’s threshold. A baby’s cry echoed through the abandoned workshop. When we entered the room, one of the midwife’s daughters rocked the baby. Verrocchio, Leonardo, and the priest loomed over Margherita.

  “No!” I gasped. Suddenly, I realized what was happening.

  The neat white piles of sheets had transformed to heaps of fabric soaked in scarlet. A jumble of instruments lay on a tray in a shallow murky puddle. The babe’s cry had reached a high pitched scream. Zia and the midwife were trying to talk over its wail, and the priest was doing his best to compete with the tragic cacophony that filled the room. It took me a while before I was able to work up the courage to look at her. Margherita was losing so much blood that the sight of it made my knees buckle and my head dizzy.

  When I reached the foot of the bed, Leonardo’s hands were covering his mouth but his eyes did not stray from Margherita’s beautiful face. While her neck stretched across the pillow, her lids rested over her frightened eyes. Blonde hair lay in a matted nest about her. I shivered as I witnessed her ivory skin turn grey. Death was slowly sucking the once precious life from her splintered lips. She mouthed something but no one heard her quiet plea. Verrocchio drew his ear close to hear her wishes.

  “Viola, come quickly!” He moved aside, allowing me to squeeze to the side of her bed. I kissed her clammy hand and held her limp fingers in my own trembling ones.

  “I want to see you hold her before I go,” she breathed.

  “Pass me the baby,” I hollered over the noise. The baby girl was a beacon of life in a room shrouded in sorrow. Her scream calmed to a whimper in my arms.

  “What shall we call her?” she asked

  “How about Margherita?” I offered with a briny smile.

  “A new beginning,” she heaved. “With a happy couple in love.” The tears that dripped down my face lost themselves in the baby’s blanket.

  “I’ll always—” I looked up from little Margherita’s pink skin but her mother was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Milk

  My heart broke. What a loving mother she would have been if only the world had been less cruel, I thought as one of the midwife's daughters took the baby from my arms.

  The midwife swaddled the baby with the only clean linen left while the others cleaned up the debris of childbirth. The acrid smell of blood hung in the room, and the taste of metal lingered in my mouth. It was impossible for me to stay, but I knew that once I left it would all be real. The hope I had clung to the entire wretched night would be dashed. Worse than that, one of the few friends I had would turn into another painful memory.

  Once I finally moved I was the only one left in the room. I wanted to kiss her goodbye but the fear of death that infects so many suddenly forced me from the room. Zia and Verrocchio blocked the hallway as they discussed the miserable situation.

  Little Margherita had fallen asleep and was being rocked by Zia. “So the father wants nothing to do with the babe?”

  “He has yet to admit he fathered the child.” Verrocchio grimaced.

  “And you have such a scoundrel in your employment, Andrea?” retorted Zia.

  “He was himself abandoned as a lad … perhaps he knows no better.”

  “So what are we to do with the babe? Does Margherita have any family?”

  “No, she was left at the Opsedale delgi Innocenti,” explained Verrocchio. “I am sad to say she has no one.”

  “It appears she will have to share the same beginning as her mother.”

  “No!” I protested. They both exchanged wary looks as I entered their conversation. “She will have a different beginning. That’s what her mother wanted.”

  “Viola, I’m not sure you understand. Yes, it is an orphanage, but there she is sure to never lack for food or warmth. They have an army of wet nurses and nuns that will take good care of her. For a little girl who does not have a family, she will be protected and educated,” said Verrocchio.

  “You mean taught how to sew, clean, and cook?” I interjected bitterly, but he ignored my outburst.

  “When the babe grows up she can decide either to become a nun or get married. If she decides to marry, they even help secure a dowry for her.”

  “So those will be her options, a nun or a wife?”

  “She could also set out to find work on her own,” said Verrocchio, trying just as hard to convince himself.

  “Like Margherita?” I asked biting my lip.

  “What would you have me do, Viola?” he spat. “It is not that I am indifferent. I feel partially responsible for this catastrophe. Not to mention I cared for Margherita a great deal,” he confessed, rubbing his eyes on his dusty sleeves.

  “I would have you give me little Margherita for a few days while I try to find her a family that will take good care of her.”

  “You will have a tough time of it,” warned Verrocchio.

  “That might be true, but I have to try … I promised her mother I would give her a new beginning, not the same one, and especially not the same ending.”

  “Sweet Viola, I admire you for wanting to fulfill you
r promise but—”

  “But what?” I interrupted Zia.

  “Well, correct me if I am wrong, but you do not know the first thing about caring for a baby.”

  “That is true … but you do.”

  “When this baby wakes up, she will be very hungry and we have no means of feeding her.” I thought for a moment on this and paused to admire the wonders of modern-day-baby formula.

  “What about Giulia?” I asked triumphantly.

  “I don’t think she will take her. She already has a contract for Luca and she has her own baby girl.”

  “Why are you both so determined for this to fail?” I yelled, no longer able to cap my feelings. Although the hallway was dark, I could see the pity in their eyes.

  “Margherita entrusted a small savings to me. You are welcome to take it, but I’m afraid it will be just enough for some clothes after you pay Giulia for a few days of work,” he said before disappearing upstairs to his living quarters.

  “I’m sorry, my dear, I know you are upset. We all want what we think is best. Would you hold her?” she asked, carefully laying the baby in my arms. “I’m afraid that I am attached already.”

  When Verrocchio returned, he handed Zia a small drawstring bag and a blanket. “I will take care of the funeral arrangements. Renzo will call on you shortly to tell you where the ceremony will be held.”

  Zia nodded and led the way downstairs. Before we braved the frosty night, she meticulously wrapped the baby with the woolen blanket. It was not until we turned the street corner that I realized we were walking under the early morning’s twilight. The stones were slippery with drops of the impending dawn. The sky was clear but grew pale as we walked towards Via dei Benci. It was a slow pace, but Zia was happy to oblige.

  “I have never seen anyone die before,” I said.