The monk shook his head, as if he had glimpsed another world. “I’m sorry . . . it’s just . . . I have always been around books. They are everything to me. I have read hundreds, and even now”—he blushed again, but this time with pride—“I have been given the honor of becoming the assistant librarian at Santa Croce, even though I have not yet taken full vows.”
Now it was I who glimpsed another world. A world of words where the black characters printed on the parchment he held meant more to this monk than the people or places around him. I looked in his eyes and at that moment he saw through me. He knew that he had something I did not, and that for all my braggadocio and insolence, and my gutter-snipe ways, I would like to have what he had, and know what he knew.
“How old are you, signorina?”
This was a first. No one has ever called me “signorina” before. I was so shocked that I actually answered truthfully.
“I don’t know.” Now was not the time to recount that I came from Venice as a baby in a bottle. I decided a little more filth might help me regain ground. “I began my woman’s courses last winter, if that helps you.”
“Woman’s courses?” He brightened, no doubt thinking that I’d already embarked on a program of study.
I let him have it. “I bleed from my cunt once a month.” I leaned in conspiratorially and added in a stage whisper, “I have to stuff cotton rags up my gatto.”
He backed away and blushed again—hotter this time. I liked seeing it. But he was not such a booby after all—he had more in his armory.
“Young, then, but you will not always be young.” He was good—he used the ultimate threat to all women, impending age. His hand reached out as if to touch my cheek, then drew back, like one who reaches into fire. “You will not always have the face of an angel, as you do now. Will you still live this way, when you are old, signorina . . .?” His voice rose in a prompt.
I knew this one. “Luciana Vetra.”
He smiled, and was suddenly as handsome as an angel. I could see he had all his teeth, and white ones too.
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“It means the light in the glass.”
I stared. This was why I had been named so. Because I was the baby in the bottle. A glass bottle, from Venice, the home of glass. I saw, now, what book learning would do. And could not speak.
He saw that I was reeling and took his moment. He held my wrist and spoke urgently. “Signorina Vetra. The monks of Santa Croce are running a shelter for fallen women. For was not the Magdalene, most beloved of Our Lord, herself a prostitute? We plan to train women to earn money in gainful professions, and to instruct them in the Scriptures, learn to read, yes, and write too. Then they could find honest work, or even enter our sister order as nuns.” His grip tightened on my wrist. “We could help you. Let the light out.”
For a moment I saw a different life for myself. I wandered in the cloister with Brother Guido, psalter in hand, starched wimple framing my face. Perhaps if I improved myself, I would be able to find my true mother, Vero Madre, the sweet, kindly lady I had dreamed of for as long as I knew how to dream, the fragrant embrace, the strong arms around me. In my dreams she was beautiful, maternal, and confused with all those images I had seen of the Virgin, whenever I dared enter a church. At every shrine of Mary I saw, I spoke to her as if she were my Vero Madre. The monk’s words had held forth the prize to me: the shining grail. I could be a daughter to be proud of, instead of a cheap tart who would be better dead and lost forever, than found again in shame. Then I shook my head, more to myself than to the monk. I had let down my guard, I needed to regain the ascendancy. Where was my tough exterior? How had I let him talk to me like this? Why was I nearer to tears than I had ever been? Where was Chi-chi when I needed her? I summoned back my subdued persona. The monk had taken hold of me; very well, I would take hold of him. Quick as a flash I snaked my hand into the folds of his habit and accurately grabbed his cock. “I could help you too, you know,” I said, tugging away. “I’m damn sure I could let your light out!”
His eyes widened in shock. He jumped away as if burned, but not before I had discovered something which chastened me further. You should know that I have never, never laid my hand on a man’s member and not felt it harden for me. But this monk remained soft as a baby and, to my further chagrin, regained his composure quickly. Worse, his eyes now held pity tempered with a little contempt, as though I’d disappointed him. As if I’d reverted to type. As if he’d seen some good in me in that instant of connection, and I’d proved him wrong. He turned to walk away, and absurdly, I felt like crying again. But by this time a small crowd of rival whores had gathered, and I had to keep my end up. I stood up and bawled at him. “Come back if you change your mind!” I flashed my tits for good measure. “Just ask for Chi-chi!”
He carried on walking, till I lost sight of his black curls in the crowd. My greatest rival, Enna Giuliani, sidled up. With her yards of brass-blond dyed hair, and her lead-painted white skin, she looked like a bad copy of me. If someone had been cast to take my part in a play it would be her. I know that the johns all asked for Enna as a backup when I was not available. She knew I was the most popular, but Enna charged less, so she got more work. The tension did not make for a close friendship. Usually I could deal with the bitch but today my confidence was knocked. Worse, she had witnessed the whole thing, and knew as well as I did that I had failed to get a rise out of the monk.
“Losing your touch, Chi-chi?” she cackled, nudging me with a bony elbow. The raggedy polls around her smirked to see me brought low.
I felt tears prick again. Madonna. “You’d know all about that,” I rejoined. As I looked at her face, lined beneath the paint, and saw her sagging dugs peeping out of the top of her dress, I felt a sudden chill. The monk was right. We would all get old one day. Enna was twice my age, maybe five-and-thirty, and coming to the end of her use as a whore. She would earn less and less, and finally starve, or perhaps be murdered by those clients who liked their sex a little dangerous. Just one more dead tart, to be found floating and bloating in the Arno. I lifted my chin. Not me. I was on my way to Botticelli’s to be immortalized forever as the embodiment of youth. I flounced away.
“Pick up some borlotti beans for dinner?” wheedled Enna after me. (I forgot to say—my rival is also my house mate.)
Recovering my bravado, I raised my skirt and farted in her face. “Get them yourself!” I said. The polls snickered at Enna this time, and I left them cackling. Mentally removing myself from their low ways, I set off down the Via Cavalloti to the house of Signor Botticelli, and higher things.
4
Here are the three facts I knew about Botticelli.
Fatto Uno: he was actually called Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, but was nicknamed “Botticelli” after his corpulent brother Giovanni, a pawnbroker, who was known as Il Botticello, “the little barrel.”
Fatto Due: Botticelli was a Florentine by birth. He came from one of the poorest rioni of our city, Ognissanti. It’s so rough even I don’t go there.
Fatto Tre: he was totally in the pockets of the Medici. Even Signor Lorenzo de’ Medici, the father of our city, a man so great he is known as il Magnifico, thought the sun shone out of Botticelli’s arse. Apparently the Medici villa of Castello, which you can just see on the hill above Florence when the winter trees drop their leaves, is lousy with Botticelli’s frescoes.
A powerful artist then. But I was not nervous as I arrived at his studio. I merely told the acolyte who answered the bell that I was here to be painted. The boy was a negro, eyes and teeth bright in his face, and he gave me a look I was well accustomed to as I swept past. The studio itself was light and airy, with more glass in the windows than I had seen in all Florence. At the far end of the room stood a shadowy figure, but I hardly noticed him. There was something else there too. Huge, rectangular, and with color that captured the rainbow. I could see the panel was nearly finished, and it was wonderful. There were seven complete figures th
ere, all larger than life, with a fat baby cupid flying above. All the figures, even the cupid, dwarfed their creator who stood before the panel. The vibrancy of their color made him almost a silhouette. I saw Bembo had been canny with me; the eighth figure—Flora—who was a mere faceless sketch at present, stood slightly to the side and to the fore of the picture. A Madonna of sorts was actually the central figure, already complete and beauteous. She looked exactly as I imagined Vero Madre in my head and in my dreams. The sward on which she stood was dotted and studded with amazing flowers that peeped from the grass like fallen jewels. She was flanked by three dancing maidens in white, and a couple of other figures—mythological?—whom I did not recognize. I was well pleased with the work, and must have made some sound of approval, for Botticelli turned and looked at me.
He was middle-aged, perhaps five-and-thirty, with black hair worn long to his shoulders. He was pretty well favored but quite short. And now, thinking about it, the figure on the far left of the painting, the fellow with the sword, looked exactly like the man who regarded me now.
Our eyes were on a level as he studied me. He took hold of my chin, and moved my head left and right, and forward again. Then he looked into my eyes and smiled. “Perfetto,” he said. His accent was heavy and a contrast to the beauty before us. But I understood him well enough. Perfect. I smiled back. This was the second time today I had had a man lay hands on me uninvited, and, as with the monk, I knew in an instant that Botticelli was not interested in me for sex. He wanted Flora, and I was here to give her to him.
He motioned to me to get ready and I followed his pointing finger behind a screen where a brocaded dress awaited me. The dress had numerous flowers painted onto the creamy white silk. And was beautiful and heavy. The screen told me that Botticelli did not know what kind of woman I was; he clearly thought I had some modesty. He did not know that I would have stripped in the middle of the room in a heartbeat. I put the dress on, shook my hair loose at his bidding, and came forth: Flora personified.
I could tell that he was pleased, though he said little. I knew I was in the presence of greatness as he circled me, arranging my pose. There was a silver ewer of coral roses by the window and he filled my skirt with them, counting them in—twenty, thirty, more—pulling the heads forth so every bloom may be seen. He showed me how to hold the skirtful of roses, my left hand beneath with the thumb tucked away for grace, and the right hand dipping into the blooms as if I was to scatter petals on the sward. I stayed still as a puppet, exactly as he had placed me, and he seemed pleased. Finally, he twisted my hair behind my shoulders. “No need to hide such a face,” he said, and I began to like him.
“As to your expression,” he said in his coarse Florentine, “I want you to give a tiny smile, as if you have just enjoyed yourself in bed.” Perhaps he did know what kind of girl I was. I thought about the night before, for I had trained Bembo well enough to please me. He had a little trick with his tongue . . . I thought of the monk doing it to me and my face heated and my lips curled. “Esatto,” said Botticelli. Exactly. And began to paint.
He painted all day. He said little and I said less. He let me take breaks and walk around, but then was exacting about my return to my pose. I watched the golden motes of light from the windows revolve like the gnomon of a sundial as the shadows lengthened and the room heated with low sun. At last he laid his brushes down and his palette too. I looked at the work and had to put my hands to my face to check it still rode atop my neck, so perfectly was it reproduced on the panel. My expression was replete, comely, and . . . well . . . cheeky all at the same time. No painted Madonna I. Bembo was right. I was a beating heart, a wet sex, a warm bed.
Flora.
The dress was still a sketch, though my hands were complete. “Will you not need me again?” I said, for despite my aching limbs I had enjoyed the day, enjoyed being a part of history.
He shook his head. “No. For I can paint the dress anytime. Such things are commonplace. You are a rare Florentine treasure. Bembo was right.”
I shook my head in turn. “A Venetian treasure,” I corrected him.
He raised a brow. “Truly? I have never been to the place, but I have heard of its beauty.”
Now I am always a great advocate for my home city, although in truth I know no more of it than the artist does, for I was a mere babe when I was bottled and shipped to Florence. So now I nodded proudly. “Indeed. A city of great beauty, and great trade too. Much greater than Pisa or Naples or Genoa, her seafaring rivals.” (Three more cities I had never seen.) Something about Botticelli made me want to seem intelligent, more than just a cheap pair of tits, so I trotted out, verbatim, this slice of travel-ogue that I had once heard Bembo say. But I had said something very wrong, for Botticelli went white and began to shake.
“What did you say?” It was little more than a whisper, from lips turned tight and blue. His face was ghost-pale, he looked as if he might faint.
What had I said? Perhaps the artist was so dazzled by Florence and the slums of Ognissanti that he hated to hear the wonders of other towns. And yet it had been he who had mentioned Venice’s beauty. I babbled, trying to retract. “Of course, Florence is the fairest city of them all. The Duomo, the Baptistery, your own fair paintings.” But it didn’t work. He crossed the room in a flash and grabbed my chin again, this time with real violence. I could not breathe.
“Say it again.”
I was badly frightened and could hardly speak. My confused brain leaped and circled like a coney as I tried to remember my words. “I said that Venice was greater than Pisa or Naples and Genoa, and—”
His fingers bit deeper. “What do you know of these places? Who told you?”
“Told me what?” I choked the question through gritted teeth, for his hand still gripped my jaw fast.
His gray eyes bored into mine like bolts. “Who put you up to this? Was it Bembo?”
“What? No one told me anything! What do you mean?” For the second time that day, I felt tears prick my eyes. But as quickly as I had been captured, I was suddenly freed. Abruptly he let me go and turned away, as if he were too angry to trust himself. My knees gave way and the painted dress fell about me in a great silken bubble as I sank to the ground. I was shaking still. When he turned back, he was smiling.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he said. “Just a bit of fun after a long day. Did you enjoy my jest?”
Now I have seen plenty of bad actors. I live in Florence, don’t forget. Dreadful players litter the streets and offend the air with their posturing and wailing. But I’ve never seen a less convincing performance than the one I was watching now. He held out a hand and I took it as he hauled me to my feet. “Just a little joke about our maritime states. No need to mention this to Bembo. Get changed, signorina. You can go.”
Bewildered, I took myself behind the screen, playing the scene in my head. Something had gone badly awry, but I was more frightened by the sequel to the violent episode than the violence itself—the denial of his anger, the cover-up of any offense. I heard the artist leave the room and the door close behind him. Fear left with him. Then, in the safety of my solitude, hidden from sight behind the screen, I began to get angry. I stripped the dress off as if it burned me, so quickly that I ripped the delicate fish-scale fabric of one sleeve. And cared not. What a waste of a day! I could have been turning tricks in the piazza all daylight long, but now the night had fallen the watchmen would arrest any whores that were not safely indoors in their own beds or someone else’s. I’d lost an entire day’s income, for I dared not ask for money from Botticelli now. As I pulled on my clothes I fixed my eyes to the wooden panels before me, replaying the conversation in my head, trying to see where I’d erred.
My memory failed me but my eyes did not—one of the oaken panels had a darker line along three sides.
A secret door, no bigger than a Bible, which was a little open.
I pulled it wide and took out the single rolled parchment that was within. I forgot my anger and confus
ion for a moment, for there before me was a copy of the painting, perfect and complete save for my own face. The Graces were there, the tubby cupid, the martial figure that was the image of Botticelli. The Madonna too; the other figures and my faceless form in the silver dress. Even the same flowers dotted the grass. All that differed from the full-sized panel was the miniature form and the fact that there was a fine charcoal grid dividing the drawing into squares, as if the whole had been captured in a net.
Now you should know that I am not usually one of those whores who steal. Light-fingered tarts are wont to lose their fingers, and working girls that stick their noses in others’ money chests or jewel cabinets are likely to have those prying members cut off by the watchmen. Many a pretty polly has been ruined by the loss of her nose, or her pleasuring hand. But today I was angry, and unpaid, and the picture was so beautiful I wanted to take it, just to look at it some more. To mitigate the crime I took the monk’s pamphlet from my purse, rolled it, and left it in the panel, closing it with a click. Let the artist look to God for what he’d done to me; done to Chi-chi. I shoved the painting in my bodice and flounced out and past the servants.
The minute my shoes hit the warm cobbles of the sundown street I regretted what I had done. I dithered, ready to go back in there, then I heard the negro lock the door and relented. The hour was late—if I didn’t get home I’d be arrested by the night watch. I’d give the painting to Bembo in the morning and tell him that it had somehow come to be in my bodice when I got home. Bembo trusted me—always the honest whore.
Comforted, I set off for the market, my perturbation about the stolen picture almost eclipsing my confusion about what I’d said to offend Botticelli. I hoped he would not scratch out my face and use another girl’s now for the image of Spring. But I thought he would not. He had liked me well enough, that was clear. And I had liked him, until our inexplicable falling-out.
The Botticelli Secret Page 2