by Roberta Rich
“Che meraviglia!” She had never seen such a beautiful child. Wrapped around him was a white receiving blanket with the family crest embroidered in gold silk thread. She tucked the blanket more tightly around him and felt the outline of her amulet on his chest.
He cried, tossing his head from side to side, searching for a nipple. Hannah felt a tingling in her own breasts. Lucia must have experienced the same sensation, for she placed the kitten on the coverlet, climbed onto the high bed, and unlaced the front of her gown. She gestured for Hannah to pass her the infant.
“Maybe my milk will flow better today.” She exposed her breasts to Hannah, who winced in sympathy, so painful was it to see the deep fissures scoring her nipples. In the ghetto a woman would not expose herself in this way, nor would she treat a guest with such informality, yet Hannah felt herself relaxing and enjoying the sisterly camaraderie.
Most patrician women hired wet nurses so they could be at liberty to entertain and enjoy themselves, and Lucia was far too ill to be nursing Matteo.
“Apply some almond oil. That should help. Perhaps wait a few days and allow them to heal before you try nursing again.”
But Lucia did not appear to be listening, and coaxed the crying baby to her breast. Hannah took a small vial of almond oil from her bag and handed it to Lucia.
“I am endeavouring to feed him myself. My milk is better suited to Matteo than any wet nurse’s.”
“Does the Conte not want Giovanna to nurse Matteo to save you from the pain?”
“The truth is that my husband is so afraid of … of this child joining the rest of our babies in the family crypt that he is determined that I be the only one to nurse him.”
“Your husband is a devoted father.” Hannah was touched by the thought of the Conte’s being interested in the particulars of suckling a newborn. In her experience, fathers rarely paid attention to their offspring until they began to speak. Perhaps she could have a word with the Conte and convince him to allow Giovanna to nurse the child.
The nursing was not going well, and Hannah took the child from Lucia and jiggled him in her arms as his wailing reached a crescendo. The baby was plump, the creases in the fat of his forearms like bracelets. Whatever his feeding regimen, he was not starving. Perhaps Giovanna was feeding Matteo notwithstanding the Conte’s wishes.
Lucia stretched out her arms. “Please give him back to me,” she said. “The doctor says my lungs are poor and there is nothing to be done. I will enjoy him as long as I can.”
How could she discourage a dying mother from nursing her child? She passed Matteo, still wailing, to Lucia.
Lucia patted a spot on the bed next to her, indicating that Hannah should join her. “Tell me what you think of my treasure,” she said as though she were speaking to her friend, not her midwife.
The kitten sauntered over and sniffed at Matteo’s cloths; Hannah wished Lucia would shoo it away. It was not healthy to allow cats in the presence of infants.
“I have never seen a prettier babe.” Hannah glanced at the devotional painting of the Madonna and Child over Lucia’s bed. The baby in the painting resembled Matteo. Hair reddish-blond and eyes blue, Matteo was the very image of the Christ child.
“He has the di Padovani eyes, but other than that, I do not see a resemblance to either Paolo or me.” She held the crying Matteo in one hand and with the other turned the kitten upside down and tickled its belly. Matteo spit out her nipple and began to wail. “I must confess, Hannah, that since his birth, worry consumes me. My mind buzzes, desperate for a place to light.” She watched as Matteo became redder in the face. “I try to be a good mother to him. But I might as well be giving suck to a lion’s cub with sharp milk teeth.”
This was not the first time Hannah had encountered a mother who became overwrought after childbirth. “You had such a difficult confinement. You might try herbs—fenugreek and blessed chisel are known to help the supply of milk.” Hannah wondered if Lucia was still bleeding. Perhaps she should suggest that she insert cotton wadding, which sometimes helped staunch the flow after childbirth, a flow heavier than the monthly courses.
Lucia began to cry quietly herself. Hannah propped a pillow under her arm, tucking the blanket away from the baby’s face so he could breathe more easily. But Matteo continued to scream, his tiny body thrashing from side to side.
“Oh, Matteo, after all I went through to give birth to you.” She finally handed him to Hannah. “I will summon Giovanna to change him in a moment.”
Hannah settled into a chair by Lucia’s bed and rocked him in her arms. God be praised, he eventually cried himself to sleep, his translucent fingers curved to his cheek.
This was the last time she would see Matteo, she was sure, so she savoured the moment, committing to memory his woolly, milky smell, the way he arched his strong back when he was hungry, and the bits of sleep that collected in the corners of his eyes.
Hannah said, “I will change his cloths.”
She placed the sleeping baby on a table near Lucia’s bed and removed his wrappings, saw the amulet rising and falling on his chest. His penis rested like a tiny hooded worm between his legs. It was a strange sight on a child of two months. Jewish babies were circumcised on the eighth day after birth. When she had wrapped him in fresh cloth, Hannah nestled him into his cradle.
“What a relief. Thank you for quieting him.” Lucia smoothed her gown. “I am so tired.” Two bright red spots had appeared on her cheeks. Then she clasped and unclasped her hands in the manner of a consumptive. “What will happen to Matteo after I am gone?”
“Contessa, try to think happy thoughts. It cannot be healthy for your head to be filled with gloomy ones.” But Hannah shared her anxiety. Jacopo was no friend to the child. Perhaps his other uncle, Niccolò, posed a danger as well.
“Matteo will remain here with Giovanna when we leave for Ferrara tomorrow. He is not old enough for such an expedition. It is a hard journey, several days.”
“You could not take both Giovanna and Matteo?” If she had a child, she would not leave him for any reason.
“Why impose that ordeal on an infant?” said Lucia. A fragile look overcame her face. “Hannah, I am never sure how frankly I can speak,” she said, tugging so hard at the rope of pearls around her neck that Hannah was afraid she would break the strand and send the beads bouncing to the terrazzo floor. “But I feel I can be truthful with you.”
Hannah sat once more at Lucia’s side and squeezed her hand. “The experience of a confinement brings women together.”
“They say you forget the torture of childbirth. But I was in such agony.” Her hands began working at the coverlet, plucking at the velvet pile. “After you left me, the fevers came and then delirium. Giovanna told me I was calling out all manner of nonsense. She said I did not even recognize my own dear husband and kept calling out for my brother-in-law Niccolò.” She took her rosary from the bedside table and held it to her lips.
“But just think—for your pains you have a beautiful and healthy boy. A son, your heart’s desire.”
“I should be grateful, but all I can think is that if he were dead, he would be in the arms of the Lord, safe from all danger.”
Hannah was uncertain how to reply. A memory came to her unbidden. The young wife of the silversmith in the ghetto, unsettled in her mind after a difficult travail, had placed a pillow over her infant’s face, smothering him. When questioned by the authorities, she said she had done it to keep him safe from all harm. Surely the Contessa was not contemplating such an act?
“He is being watched over by the Lord now. That is why he survived his birth. You have nothing to worry about.”
“They say that with summer approaching, the plague will return to Venice. Suppose, after all my pain and struggle, he dies of it?”
Hannah remembered when the plague had struck two years before. Because the ghetto, unaccountably, had been spared, many Christians accused the Jews of bringing the pestilence to Venice.
“Matteo
will be fine,” said Hannah. “And so will you. You are weak and troubled in your mind. You need rest.”
Lucia’s lips pressed together in an anxious line. “I often wrestle with burdensome thoughts. I summon the priest to make confessions, but after he arrives, I cannot find the will.” She gestured to the leather-bound prayer book resting on the prie-dieu in the corner. “Sometimes I pray alone for hours.”
Hannah knew nothing of the rite of confession, nor of what this pale woman might have to confess.
“Tell me about your plans, Hannah. You leave soon for Malta?”
“In a few days.” A feeling of dread came over Hannah at the thought of Jacopo. “God willing.”
Matteo stirred and sighed in his sleep.
“I will take my amulet, Lucia. Matteo seems well out of danger. If I manage to board my ship, the amulet will protect me against stormy seas and pirates.”
“It has served him well, your Jewish charm,” said Lucia.
Hannah went to the crib, slipped a hand into Matteo’s swaddling cloths, and withdrew the amulet carefully. It seemed almost lifelike, still warm from the child’s body, as she adjusted it around her neck.
There was a knock at the door and a maid put her head in. “The Conte is returned from Maser. Dinner will be served shortly.”
“We will be down in a moment,” said Lucia.
The maid curtsied and withdrew.
“Dress me. We will go down to dinner. My brothers-in-law are dining with us tonight.” She reached for her looking-glass on the night table and brushed her red hair.
Giovanna entered the room, smiled insincerely at Hannah, and then scooped Matteo from his cradle, where he was beginning to stir. Hannah rose from the bed and approached them, planting a goodbye kiss on Matteo’s forehead.
“May God watch over you and keep you safe,” she whispered as Giovanna, holding him upright so his round face peeked over her shoulder, swept him from the room.
Hannah gathered her bag and the Conte’s cloak from the chair where she had placed them. The gold ducats felt heavy. Such a lot of money, enough for Isaac’s ransom and her passage to Malta. It was both the money and the dream of having Isaac back that Jacopo threatened to steal from her tonight.
“The Conte will need his cloak for your trip to Ferrara.”
“I will see that he gets it.” Lucia eased herself out of bed and disappeared behind a dressing screen. She emerged minutes later wearing a yellow silk dress inset with panels of green velvet. She turned her back so Hannah could lace her up. The dress was a poor choice—the yellow drew all the colour from her cheeks. The tight bodice emphasized her stomach, still slack from childbirth. But Lucia’s carriage was graceful for a woman of her age. Her back was straight and her chin held high. Her pearls gleamed against her throat. Hannah could only guess at the effort required for Lucia to slip on high shoes and act as though all were perfectly well.
Hannah made her way down the wide staircase holding the Contessa’s arm so Lucia would not trip on her treacherous shoes. Hannah placed her feet, shod in thin-soled sandals, firmly on each stair.
Near the bottom, she halted mid-step. Under the multifoil arch leading into the dining room, wearing an embroidered frock coat so tightly fitted it could not conceal a marble, never mind an object as large as her birthing spoons, stood Jacopo. With an abrupt jerk of his head he signalled for her to follow him into a small reception room.
Lucia shot Hannah a puzzled look as Hannah excused herself and walked toward Jacopo.
When she joined him, Jacopo closed the door. “Have you my money?” he asked. He advanced toward her.
“Where are my spoons?” she countered. She had no experience in dealing with men like Jacopo.
“We will make the exchange after dinner. I warn you—any word of this to the Conte and I will denounce you.”
Jacopo’s head was so close to her that she could see the bristles on his chin and the scurf in his hair and on his satin shoulders.
What would Isaac counsel? How she longed for her clever husband, who always knew what to do.
CHAPTER 11
LUCIA CHATTED AND laughed as they resumed their walk along the central hallway, the portego, which ran from the facade of the palazzo on the Grand Canal to the calle in the back. Still shocked by her conversation with Jacopo, Hannah did not hear a word Lucia said. Lucia, with her arm looped through Hannah’s for support, seemed unaware of her inattention.
As they entered the opulent dining room, Hannah slowed her pace to match Lucia’s. Jacopo crowded behind them so close that he nearly trod on the hem of their gowns. Then he darted around them and took a chair next to Niccolò’s.
On the dining table sat a centrepiece, a perfect golden replica of the bucintoro, the Doge’s ceremonial barge, which once a year carried the leader of the Republic to the lagoon for the ritual wedding of La Serenessima, Venice’s marriage to the sea. From the golden deck spilled strawberries, figs, grapes, and apples. All the porcelain and silverware bore the crest of the di Padovani family—warring stags with locked horns. Nothing here was makeshift. Nothing here had been designed with one purpose and ended up as something else. In her loghetto, Hannah employed a discarded glassmaker’s pincers to arrange the charcoal in her brazier. The chipped plate on which she ate had started life as a dinner platter.
The Conte and Niccolò lounged at the table, talking, their heads together, Jacopo’s bald and tonsured with a wisp of brown hair, and Niccolò’s adorned with a mop of tumbling curls that dripped with water like those of a spaniel just emerging from a lake.
The Conte rose to greet them and said, “Hannah, my dear, thank you for coming. You have retrieved your amulet, I see.” He nodded at the silver charm hanging on the red cord around her neck. He kissed her hand and smiled so warmly that for an instant she forgot Jacopo’s threat.
“Ah, yes,” Jacopo said. “How kind of you to come.”
Niccolò stepped forward to greet Lucia, his dark eyes looking as though he had just woken up from a particularly satisfying sleep. He wore a coarse linen waistcoat smudged with mud. He kissed Lucia’s cheek. Then, turning to Hannah, he said, “Will you take some wine?” Without waiting for a reply, he signalled to a servant, who stepped forward with a crystal glass filled with wine that appeared black as canal water and placed it on the table in front of them.
Hannah and Lucia sat down on armless chairs and arranged their skirts, the men across from them on the other side of the table. Hannah felt stiff and awkward. Her shoulders always crept high around her ears when she was nervous. In the ghetto, men and women did not eat together. The women served the men, then withdrew until the men had finished. Only afterward did they serve themselves. Hannah was discomfited by the liveried servant who stood behind her chair, anticipating her every move and every want.
And only at Seder dinners had Hannah tasted wine. Grasping the glass by the fragile stem, she raised it to her mouth and took a sip. It tasted so sour her lips puckered as though she had sucked a lemon. She replaced it on the carved table in front of her. The Conte, without comment, took a pitcher of water and poured a measure into Hannah’s glass, turning the wine a watery pink. Hannah acknowledged his gesture with a nod. He was trying to put her at ease, but his ministrations and solicitous looks only make her more tense.
The Conte turned to his wife. “And you, Lucia—are you better tonight? No more coughing?” He bent and lifted a tendril of her hair from her face. “Have a fig. I brought them back from the villa. They are sweet this year and very sticky.” He reached into the bucintoro and tore apart a small brown fig. “Eat,” he said, offering her the fruit. “It will give you strength.”
“You must not worry about me so much,” said Lucia. “I am much restored.”
But Hannah could see, and so could the Conte, how Lucia’s hands trembled and how her veins, in the midday light from the windows, showed blue above the bodice of her yellow dress.
The Conte popped an entire fig into his mouth. “We are lucky H
annah was able to visit us before she leaves for Malta.”
Jacopo pursed his lips. “And what, pray tell, are we serving our honoured Jewish guest? A difficult point of etiquette, since Christians do not eat with Jews, and servants do not eat with nobility.”
Lucia gave the Conte a look that said, Say something to your brother. Admonish him.
Comments such as Jacopo’s fell frequently from the lips of Christians. To mock Jews was a tradition in Venice. Every year at Eastertide a number of Jewish men, leaders of the ghetto, were forced to run a footrace naked through Venice, their buttocks turning red under the willow switches of the jeering crowds. Hannah wished she were anywhere but in this fine palace with its hard reflective surfaces that looked as though they would shatter at any moment.
“We will dine on peacocks,” the Conte replied to his brother, adding, “And, Jacopo, that is quite enough.”
Hannah was reassured. The Conte had defended her.
“We are grateful for your presence at our table, Hannah,” the Conte said. “And now we will enjoy our meal together, rather a splendid luxury. A succulent bird made irresistible by a rich cream sauce of pomegranate seeds.”
Lucia laughed. “ ‘Splendid luxury?’ You hated the shrill squawks of those birds. Once you commented that they were like beautiful courtesans with the voices of fishwives.”
The Conte looked sheepish. “It is true that one curiously stupid cock invaded my orangery and then settled his wide arse on my fruit trees, crushing them. So, yes, I was delighted to see him hanging by his feet in the larder.”
Two servants entered, carrying between them an enormous platter of roasted peacock, its braised tongue surrounded by a mound of pâté in the shape of a star. Following behind them came more servants bearing platters. Soon, calves’ brains, liver and onions, fegato alla Veneziano, beef hearts, and truffles from the lagoon island of Burano covered the table. There were fish dishes, too: bisato su l’ara, eels in vinegar; seppie al nero, cuttlefish in its own ink; and tiny artichokes.