The Blind Contessa's New Machine

by Carey Wallace

  Atop a hill at the back of their property was a Gothic chapel whose roof had now collapsed, and in this generation, the Rossis had developed the habit of hosting their parties in it. The setting made a spectacular dance floor, exposed to the stars but sheltered by the surviving walls. Torches lit to illuminate the dancers found out the fragments of stained glass that remained in the old windows and made them glow.

  Halfway up the hundred stone steps that led to the ruined chapel, Carolina stumbled for the second time.

  “All right,” Pietro said, steadying her with a laugh. “Maybe I should just carry you on my back.”

  Carolina shook her head and started off again, treading recklessly up the uneven stairs, following the music into the darkness.

  In a moment, his hand caught her arm again. “Slow down,” he said. “We are almost there.”

  Carolina knew that already from the sound of the instruments and the volume of the laughter. She could smell burning oil, wine, and traces of a dozen perfumes, along with the thick scent of tulips, which must, she guessed, be massed by the hundreds at the entrance.

  “Carolina!” Contessa Rossi exclaimed. “My darling! We have not seen you for a year!”

  “It hasn’t been a year,” Carolina said, surrendering her hand to the old woman’s grasp.

  Contessa Rossi’s cold, insistent hands seemed to check that all Carolina’s fingers were still intact, then released her. Carolina felt something pass before her face once, and again.

  “She cannot even see that?” Contessa Rossi said to Pietro in amazement.

  “My wife is not a toy for you to play with,” Pietro said curtly.

  “I suppose she is no one’s toy but yours,” Contessa Rossi said with a sly laugh.

  “This is a beautiful night,” Pietro said. “We are so grateful for your invitation.” He bowed briefly, and led Carolina in.

  “You will be happy by the music?” Pietro asked, his voice raised slightly over the strains of the dance.

  Carolina nodded.

  “Here is a seat.” He pushed her back a few short steps until her calves pressed against a chair. Carolina sank into it. Its delicate arms were upholstered in brocade.

  “What color is it?” she asked.

  “What?” Pietro said, confused.

  “The chair,” she said. “What color is it?”

  “It is gold,” he said. “With some black threads.”

  “Thank you,” Carolina said.

  Similar chairs seemed to be arranged on either side of her, she discovered, but Pietro didn’t take either of them. “Would you like me to bring you anything?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  Pietro had left her just steps from the dance floor, with the small band of musicians playing on her left. Carolina had not heard music since she went blind, and the effect was overwhelming. Her skin tingled from the violins. Her heart seemed to beat with each stroke of the cello, and the winds left her breathless. Forgetting herself, she closed her eyes. In her mind, the hill fell away below her feet and the musicians, the chapel walls, and the imagined dancers all rose gently into the black sky, as if suspended on glass in the heavens. Was this a dream, she wondered, or some other thing?

  “Carolina!” A woman’s voice: one she’d heard before, but didn’t know instantly. “It’s Sophia. You haven’t forgotten me?”

  Carolina opened her eyes to greet Turri’s wife, guessing at the location of Sophia’s face by her voice.

  “Oh!” Sophia said.

  Carolina smiled and held her gaze steady.

  Sophia’s recovery was swift. “I had to come give you a compliment on your beautiful dress,” she said. “Don’t you love the new year’s fashion?”

  “Thank you,” Carolina said. “But I’m afraid I didn’t choose it.”

  “Oh, of course not,” Sophia said. “I’m sorry. How thoughtless.” A rustle of fine cloth and lace settled into the chair beside Carolina. Sophia took her hand. “How is it,” she asked with elaborate sympathy, “to dress without sight, not to know whether a thing flatters you, or what you look like?”

  Carolina squeezed her hand and released it. “My husband tells me I am beautiful.”

  Sophia laughed as if Carolina had just revealed herself to be surprisingly clever, for a child. “Of course he must say so,” she said. “But how do you know?”

  “Sophia, there you are,” Turri broke in. “Princess Bianchi has been looking for you.”

  “But I just spoke with her.”

  “The woman is adamant,” Turri said, an edge in his voice that Carolina didn’t recognize.

  Without another word, Sophia rose. Her skirts swung haughtily for a few steps, then were lost in the chatter and hum of the crowd.

  Turri took Carolina’s hand and held it for a moment. Then he kissed her fingers and settled into the seat his wife had left.

  “Everyone is wearing plaster masks tonight,” he said. “It’s the new rage. They’re not just for Carnevale anymore. I’m surprised Pietro didn’t order you one.”

  Carolina smiled.

  “My wife, for instance,” he continued, “is wearing a chicken’s head that cost me ten thousand lire.”

  “Are the chicken heads the most stylish, then?” Carolina asked.

  “I am not the man to answer that question,” Turri said. “Clowns,” he added after a moment, as if watching a pair pass by. “A cat.”

  In the background, Carolina caught her husband’s voice, approaching. He stopped several paces away and laughed, overloud, as she’d often heard him laugh in the company of pretty girls. Then his voice dropped into conspiratorial tones and disappeared below the music.

  “Contessa Rossi,” Carolina said. “Is she wearing the new fashion?”

  “Contessa Rossi,” Turri replied, “is a hungry wolf in a Milanese dress.”

  A warm hand settled on the back of her neck. Carolina started and shrugged it off, but under his touch her flesh had come alive, singing and clamoring. Turri had never touched her like this before, and she couldn’t understand why he would now. She struggled to keep her composure as heat beat through her in time with the music.

  Pietro laughed. Instantly she realized: it had been his touch, not Turri’s.

  “Turri,” Pietro said. He replaced his hand on Carolina’s neck. “You didn’t give me away.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Turri said.

  “Did you take me for a stranger?” Pietro asked Carolina, and bent to kiss the side of her face.

  “I’m afraid not,” Turri repeated low, speaking to himself. Another realization broke in on Carolina: Turri knew she had confused the two of them. He had seen her shake off the hand she thought was his.

  “You surprised me,” Carolina told her husband, to cover Turri’s words.

  “I was introduced to Princess Bianchi,” he said. “She is visiting from Florence.”

  “She’s very pretty,” Carolina said.

  “How did you know that?” Pietro asked in alarm.

  Turri laughed and rose. “I had just asked your wife to dance,” he said. “Do you object if she accepts?”

  “She can’t see your hand in front of her face,” Pietro warned him.

  Carolina rose as well. “I can hear the music and follow the steps,” she said.

  Maybe Turri waited for a sign of agreement from Pietro. She would never know. After a moment, Turri touched the small of her back and guided her to the dance floor.

  “I learned how to dance from a bear,” Turri told her.

  She laughed into what she thought might be his eyes.

  His grip on her tightened. He pressed his cheek against hers, his lips at her ear. “What do you see?” he whispered, urgent but without hope, as if pleading with one of the old gods for a kind of mercy they had never shown.

  Breathless, Carolina struggled against him.

  “All right,” he said, letting her go. “You will forgive me.”

  Carolina’s skin was aflame. Blood beat in her temples
louder than the music, and she felt dangerously weightless, as if only Turri’s hands kept her from rising slowly into the atmosphere.

  “Carolina?” he asked.

  When she looked up at him again, tears stood in her eyes.

  “No, no,” he said. “They already think I’m a monster. Don’t give them proof of it.”

  She laughed and a tear escaped down her cheek. In an instant, he had erased its track with his thumb.

  “You will come meet me,” he said. “At the lake. When?”

  “Tomorrow,” she whispered.

  Outside, the clatter of their carriage faded toward the stables. Pietro lingered for a moment, fumbling with something at the door. But as Carolina ascended the first few steps, he caught her hand.

  “You like the dress?” he asked.

  Carolina nodded. Then, realizing he couldn’t see her in the darkness, she spoke: “Yes.”

  He kissed her palm, and her wrist. Following the line of her arm, he climbed the stairs until his mouth found the lace where her dress met her breast. With a sigh and a shudder, he lifted her into his arms and carried her up to her room.

  Carolina awoke to the sound of a step outside her closed door. She turned her head and waited, as she so often had before, for shapes to emerge from the darkness. When none did, she pushed her hair away from her face and raised herself on her elbows.

  Silence.

  Then, although she heard no footfall, a board beyond the door creaked: a long groan, like a good soldier with a mortal wound giving his last warning.

  “Pietro!” Carolina whispered, very low, so as not to frighten the unknown visitor. “Do you hear it?”

  Pietro didn’t stir.

  A hand turned the doorknob slowly, with only the faintest clank and scrape of metal on metal. Carolina realized with a chill that if she were not already awake, the footsteps would be entering undetected. But the footsteps didn’t enter. Instead, they waited as the door swung wide. Then, making no attempt at concealment, they walked away, unhurried and confident.

  Long after they vanished, Carolina held still as a cornered animal, her fists balled in fury, as if she were the intruder in her own room.

  When she woke again, Pietro was gone.

  Outside, no birds sang and no servants complained.

  Carolina rose at once and went to her dressing table. Naked in the darkness, she sorted through her jewelry box until she found her pearl earrings. She put them on, fastened the matching necklace around her neck, and went to her closet.

  There, she chose a hunting dress with cotton lace at the elbows and bodice. She fastened it up expertly, then returned to her dressing table to pull her hair back in a quick knot. Her leather boots stood beside the closet. She threw a short cloak over her shoulders, cradled the boots in her arms, and descended the staircase barefoot. When she reached the front hall, she sat on the lower steps to pull the boots on and tie them. Then she crossed to the door and caught the knob.

  It was locked.

  Carolina twisted and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. She pressed both palms flat against the cracked varnish, then ran her hands over the entire surface, the angles and planes of the deep rectangles that had been cut in the old wood. She traced down the narrow gullies where the door met the frame, searching for another latch to turn, a forgotten key.

  Nothing.

  In the yard, a dove cooed experimentally. Another answered. Soon the two of them were arguing, each repeating its own points word for word with increasing volume. After a few moments, a lark began to scold them. Suddenly, the whole morning was alive with birdsongs, obliterating one another and Carolina’s thoughts.

  In the back of the house, a door slammed.

  Carolina gave the door a final pull. It held fast.

  Without missing a step, Carolina returned to the stairs. She laid her hand on the railing as surely as if she could see it through the scattering darkness, and climbed back up to her room.

  “I’ll want a pen and ink,” Carolina said that morning as Liza fastened a chain at the back of her neck. Liza dropped the clasp lightly onto Carolina’s flesh and stepped away.

  Carolina listened closely, to see if she recognized the step, but Liza was like a cat: Carolina didn’t catch another sound until the girl had almost reached the door, when a board gave her away with a faint creak.

  “Liza,” Carolina said.

  She had hoped to gauge the girl’s position by her answer, but Liza didn’t speak.

  “Paper,” Carolina added after a moment. “And wax and a flame.”

  Liza made no sound of assent, but after another moment Carolina knew with certainty that she had gone, as she still knew with certainty when daylight left a room.

  When Liza returned, Carolina was already seated at the small writing desk on which Pietro’s mother had once copied out the poems and composed the sentences of her own incomplete education. The desk sat at the window between the two wing chairs Liza and Carolina sat in to read.

  Without ceremony, Liza deposited the objects on the thick paper mat that protected the fine wood. Something rolled: the pen. Carolina caught it before Liza did.

  “The flame?” Carolina asked.

  “I put it at the back,” Liza said. “Reach out your hand.”

  Her palm flat, her fingers spread on the surface of the desk, Carolina investigated until she discovered the cold metal plate with its curled handle, the stalk of the candle securely fastened in the center. Liza had placed it at the far edge of the desk, just inches from the window. If it had been night, the light would have been evident for miles.

  “You may close the door when you go,” Carolina said.

  As the door thudded shut, Carolina covered her collection of tools with both hands. She laid the stick of wax at the top of the mat, parallel with the line of the desk, like a dessert fork laid lengthwise above a dinner plate. She set the small heavy seal just above it. The glass bottle of ink she placed to her right, beside the pen. She set the paper to her left, then laid a single sheet down in front of her to write on. She lifted the glass stopper from the inkwell. In order not to lose track of it, she put the stopper in the glass trumpet that sprouted from the side of the well to hold the pen between thoughts so that the inked nib didn’t stain the page. By this time, she no longer remembered the exact location of the paper. To remind herself, she found the top border of the page with her index fingers and ran them lightly out to the corners and down the sides of the sheet. Then she picked up the pen and dipped it in the ink.

  As she raised the pen to write, a heavy drop fell on the desk. Carolina moved to set the pen back in the glass, but the stopper was in its place. Instead, she set the nib on the cusp of the inkwell just above the deep pool of ink, the length of the pen jutting up. Now she could only guess where the drop had fallen. She walked the fingers of one hand like a spider over the desk until her thumb found a small puddle. With her other hand, she pulled a handkerchief from her bodice and wiped the drop away. Then she reached for the pen again, but her motion was imprecise. The pen dropped into the well, submerging the entire nib in ink. Carolina retrieved it. Then, to prevent further spills, she carefully dragged the inkwell across the desk so the small bottle rested at the edge of the unwritten letter.

  All morning Carolina’s heart had been clogged with phrases and thoughts, incomplete confessions, pleas for help. She had begun a hundred sentences only to see them break apart in a flood of feelings her young mind could barely distinguish from one another: tenderness or desire, rage or fear, gratitude and love. But in her struggle with the pen and paper, all of that had gone. Hot with shame, she only wrote, in letters that she knew must seem ill-formed and childish, “Your Carolina.”

  Slightly dizzy from the smell of the ink, she waited for the letter to dry. Then she folded the paper into thirds and picked up the stub of sealing wax. With one hand, she grasped the root of the candle. With the other, she pressed the burnt wick of the sealing wax against the candle’s smooth curve. Using th
e candle as a guide, she lifted the wax until one wick met the other and the sealing wax flamed up with a small hiss and a tiny gust of wind.

  She fumbled again for the lifted flap of the letter, found it, and pressed it flat. Then she tilted the burning wax to seal it.

  No drops fell.

  Carolina turned the sealing stick upright and counted again, waiting for the dark wax to melt and pool below the flame. A moment later, searing heat splashed over her knuckles. With a short cry, she dropped the stub and began to blow frantically to snuff out the invisible flame. Moments later, her fingers found the stick again, the wick still hot, but unlit. Flecks of wax covered the desk and dotted the face of her letter.

  Stubbornly, Carolina repeated her procedure, lit the wax, and held it over the raw edge of the paper. This time a stream of hot sealant poured evenly into place. Carolina blew out the second flame and laid the stub down. Then she pressed her own finger into the warm pool to seal the letter.

  Her knuckles still burned. She stood, leaving the mess of ink and wax, and crossed the room to lay the letter on the table beside her bed. Then she rang for Liza.

  Liza laughed. “It looks like you killed a cat,” she said. “A cat with ink for blood.”

  “You may take it all away,” Carolina said. “Scrape the wax and bring me another mat. And I’ll want one of the boys from the stables.”

  “You’re going riding?” Liza asked.

  When the boy arrived, Carolina sat on the edge of her bed, her burnt hand submerged in the pitcher of water from her night table. In the other, she held the letter.

  The boy stopped at the door and indulged in a long moment of silence, to observe her, to collect his thoughts, or perhaps because he was young enough to believe he could not be heard until he spoke.

  “Giovanni,” he finally announced, with the frighteningly perfect mimicry of a child aping a man. From the timbre of his voice, the boy could not be much older than ten or eleven, but he spoke like a commander of numberless forces.