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Casanova's Secret Wife

Page 10

by Barbara Lynn-Davis


  Was Zulietta herself changing in the face of her terrible experiences with Giorgio Contarini? Her rigid sense of rules, loosening? She seemed ready to throw herself on the altar of love with me, despite her earlier doubts. Her encouraging words gave me strength.

  I leaned out my window, and felt the late afternoon summer sun on my face. Remember that I believe in you, and in Giacomo Casanova, too. I decided to say Zulietta’s words over and over, until my father came home. Like a prayer. I said them to the green waves below me; I said them to God above. I said them to my little painting of the Virgin on the wall; I said them through my tears. I said them and said them until my mouth got so dry the words came out in broken pieces. Finally, I lay down on the bed. I must have fallen asleep.

  The door slammed downstairs, and I startled awake. I fumbled to find the watch I had hung at my waist, to track every minute. Two hours had passed, daylight faded.

  My father was home.

  CHAPTER 32

  Opening my bedroom door a crack, I heard him call for my mother in a firm voice. She came running, Amor barking after her down the hallway. My father closed the door of his study on the dog and I could hear the click-click of her toenails on the terrazzo floor outside. That was how I felt, too: shut out and frantic. I needed to know what was happening.

  I could hear no words, but I heard my mother start to cry. This was not necessarily a bad sign: Perhaps my father was telling her I was soon to marry. She would not expect it yet. She had lost Sebastiano when he was young; Pier Antonio was a gambler and a cheat. I was all she had—poor thing, she would miss me. I felt a seed of pity for her, but I dug that right out of my heart. I had my own plans, my own life to make happy.

  Shoes on the steps. My father was on his way up, alone. I closed the door silently and ran back to my bed. My heart was beating wildly. Amor must have tried to follow, because I heard him shout her downstairs. I dropped to my knees to pray. It would please my father to find me this way—and I needed the strength of God right now.

  The door burst open and I swung around. Oh! There are only a few times in your life when you see someone’s face transformed before you, and this was one of those times. My father looked like some creature who stoked the fires in hell. His face was red; the veins on his forehead blue and bulging.

  “So—ambushed, I was,” he yelled across the room. “I go for what I thought was a business meeting, and a stranger tells me my daughter—who is a child—is ready to marry. Who? Who is she ready to marry? A coward who does not even show his face.”

  “Because—”

  “Is he a merchant? No! He hides from me because he knows he is a good-for-nothing.”

  “That is not fair!” I cried, still on my knees. “You do not know him! He is a musician, and a writer—”

  “Basta! Enough, Caterina.” His eyes were burning. “You think I don’t know all about him? I do. Years ago—the whole city was complaining. A prankster and a wastrel. And now here he is, preying on my only daughter, saying he wants to marry her. For money—I’m sure of it!”

  Did no one believe Giacomo wanted to marry me for myself? I believed it.

  “He is changed!” I pleaded. “He is—”

  “If Signor Casanova wants to show me he is changed—let’s see him try. When you reach eighteen years old—and if he has a well-established position—he can ask me again.”

  Four more years? Impossible.

  “In the meantime—Caterina, I am sending you away.”

  “What! Where?” I stood up, grabbing for the bedpost. I felt that I was drowning, a huge wave about to take me under.

  “To a convent. On Murano. Your aunt Gaia boarded there, and has often told me it would be a good place for you. The nuns can keep a better eye on you than I can here.”

  “No! No!” I ran to him and fell on my knees again, hands clasped, and crying. “I beg you—don’t make me go!”

  “Do not resist me, Caterina! This is what you need. I have been a poor father, maybe—letting you run loose when I am away. Your mother is too soft to look after you. And the result is the bad situation we are now in. There is no cure for it but some time away from that leech, Signor Casanova.”

  I stood up now and began to pound my fists on his chest. I screamed more than cried. I felt insane with rage. He threw me off and I saw his eyes were flooded with tears. He turned to go.

  “Pack your things,” he said on his way out. He did not turn back to look at me again. “You will leave tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 33

  I cried myself empty and fell into a short, black sleep. When I awoke, my mother was rubbing my back.

  “Figlia mia, figlia mia . . .” I heard her say.

  I realized suddenly how much I loved her. I did not ever want to leave the soft comfort of her. But I could not soothe her as she soothed me. I suppose this is what mothers do for daughters, but daughters rarely do in return. Instead, I pretended to be asleep. When she saw I would not talk to her, she kissed the back of my head and left.

  I knew she loved me; I knew even my father—spit on him!—loved me. But I felt completely alone.

  The sun had gone down. I lit a lamp. I was very hungry, but refused to eat. I wanted to need nothing, feel nothing anymore.

  I began mechanically to pack my things. I knew boarders at convents did not have to wear a nun’s habit. I laid all my dresses on the bed, too numb to choose among them. I decided to take them all, maybe run away one day. Run away with Giacomo. No dowry. No income. Only love.

  When I was sure my mother and father had gone to bed, I ran down to the garden. I was hoping for a last message from Giacomo in our secret place. But I found nothing. I slid my back down the length of the door, sat on the cold ground, and cried to the stars.

  “Caterina!” I heard on the other side of the wall.

  “Giacomo!” I jumped up, dizzy. I slid open the bolted lock and stepped into Campiello Barbaro. I still wore my dress from the day, rumpled. My eyes were swollen. But I never felt more adored, more alive than when I saw him that last night.

  “You have heard?” I asked him. His shirt was sweaty and clinging to his back. His face was unshaven.

  “I have heard it all,” he said. “That is why I had to come. We have nothing left to lose.”

  “I hate him. I hate my father,” I said.

  “I hate only myself,” he echoed, surprising me.

  “Yourself? Why?” I threw my arms around him. “I love you more than ever. For trying. For keeping your promise to me.” I buried myself in his warmth, and the delicious smell and feel of him.

  “I should not have taken this step,” he said, his voice full of self-loathing and regret. “I risked everything and I’ve ruined us.” He began to weep.

  “No—no!” I found myself comforting him. “We are not ruined. Never say that. I will wait for you. What is four years when you are in love? Will you wait for me?”

  “Of course! I will wait until you are freed.” He wiped his eyes.

  “Did you know,” he asked, and a ghost of his old mischievous smile came back, “one of my ancestors from Spain, Don Jacobe Casanova, abducted his lover from a convent the day after she took her vows—and fled with her to Rome?”

  “To Rome, then,” I said, finding some small strength.

  “To Rome,” he murmured, pressing a feverish kiss on my lips.

  He began to kiss my face, my shoulders. I melted against the wall and, right there in the shadow of my father’s house, let him hoist me up and take me. There was nothing left to lose.

  After, we heard footsteps nearby and I froze. But neither of us moved apart. We could not bear it.

  The footsteps receded. I could feel Giacomo’s hot breath on my skin and his heart still beating fast. How was I going to survive without him near me like this?

  “Do you know the name of the convent where you are being sent?” he whispered, tenderly kissing my forehead.

  “No. My father has not told me. Somewhere on Murano.”


  Giacomo let go of me to take out a leather pouch from his pocket. “Here—the last of my winnings at cards. Take it. You will need it.”

  “What for—?” I asked. It was true, I had no money. Pier Antonio had taken everything on the day he left for prison.

  “Find someone to help you,” Giacomo urged, pressing the coins into my hand. “Have them tell me where you are.”

  I nodded. He held my face in his hands and I stood perfectly still, memorizing my last look at him.

  “Oh, my love, my wife—” He convulsed, surrendering to despair, kissing my neck and, collapsing on his knees, desperately kissing my stomach, my wrists, my hands.

  My sorrow was immense, as deep as the sea. But I was sure this was not the end. My father could not kill our love.

  CHAPTER 34

  I was up all night after Giacomo left. I could not sleep, knowing what I faced in the morning. Just before dawn I took some bread from the kitchen and decided to sit outside in my loggia for the last time. I wanted to see the sun rise over the city, see the domes of the churches, the clay-tiled roofs, the funnel-shaped chimney pots—the sights of my beloved Venice, and of home.

  On my way upstairs from the kitchen, I stopped in the garden. The plants and tiny shells on the paths were moist with dew. The sky was turning pink—what was it I had once read about a pink sky? Something Aunt Gaia had read to us, when she used to tutor me and Zulietta as girls. Rosy-fingered dawn.

  Oh! How I hated my aunt now. I could never forgive her for convincing my father to send me away to a convent. She would never send her own daughter there, I was sure. Her single treasure, Zulietta.

  I was surprised to see a folded square of paper stuck in the crack of the old back door. My last message. Perhaps Giacomo had been unable to sleep, as well, burning a lamp at his desk and wandering the dark streets, alone. I ran to get the note, and then, breathless, hurried up three flights to reach the loggia. I began to read as the sun rose high.

  My beloved angel—

  Do you still remember the verse by Dante I once sent you, about Paolo and Francesca? Here it is, the poet’s plea to the lovers:

  But tell me, in the time of gentle sighs, with what and in what way did Love allow you to recognize your still uncertain longings?

  I promised you sometime I would tell you the rest of their story. And after saying good-bye to you tonight—plunged into misery!—I know this is the right time.

  Francesca’s answer is that they were conquered by their desires while reading together the legend of Lancelot and Guinevere:

  One day, to pass the time away, we read of Lancelot—how love had overcome him. We were alone, and we suspected nothing.

  And time and time again that reading led our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale, and yet one point alone defeated us.

  When we had read how the desired smile (this is Guinevere, my love)

  was kissed by one who was so true a lover, my Paolo, who never shall be parted from me, while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth.

  Lancelot and Guinevere . . . Paolo and Francesca . . . their love was forbidden, eternal. As ours is. I kiss your desired smile a thousand times, my love! And I will kiss you ten thousand more in my mind while you are gone. Nothing shall part you from me.

  I pressed the poem against my heart and took my last, long look out. Nothing shall part you from me. I vowed the same to Giacomo, wherever he was.

  The birds had started to sing, and church bells to ring, when I finally rose to meet my fate.

  CHAPTER 35

  Venice, 1774

  “But—where is he? Why is he not here with you?” Leda’s face had gone as pale as the lovers in the poem. Caterina realized she had frightened her, the opposite of what she had meant to do.

  “Giacomo had to leave Venice many years ago,” she explained, intending to close the book on this story. “I doubt he will ever come back.”

  Caterina stared out the windows of the main room, where they sat together over their cold tea. The lagoon shone in the noonday sun, and the sight of so many gondolas and fishing boats made her realize the day was slipping by.

  “The convent you were sent to,” Leda whispered, “was it Santa Maria degli Angeli?”

  “It was.” Leda was beginning to get dangerously close to where their stories intersected: not only with the convent, but with Marina Morosini herself. Caterina itched to get away.

  “It has gotten late,” she said briskly, standing up from the table. “Soon the markets will close and we will have no food for pranzo.”

  “Did Giacomo forget you—” Leda persisted, “forget about you while you were locked away in the convent?” Her striking blue eyes were wide with apprehension.

  Caterina perched on the arm of her chair. She couldn’t leave Leda like this, a rag wrung out on her story and terrified it would happen to her.

  “Do you ever wish Filippo would come back for you?” Caterina asked her, speaking softly. Leda looked down and Caterina admired her long black eyelashes. They were wet with tears.

  “All the time,” Leda said, keeping her eyes hidden. “But he won’t.”

  “You don’t know that,” Caterina reassured her. In the moment, she believed it because she wanted to believe it. For Leda.

  She rose and kissed the top of the girl’s head. Her hair was softer than she remembered. She felt a stirring in her heart, a sweet tenderness that almost hurt. She put on her cloak and left, noticing she felt a little shaky.

  Out on the street, Caterina leaned against the chill stone of a doorjamb. She put a hand on her gut, trying to hold in all the memories coming up inside.

  Caterina took a quick gondola ride across the Grand Canal and walked the rest of the way to the Rialto market. She avoided Piazza San Marco, with its cafés, and music, and cheerful crowds. Leda’s questions echoed in her head. Where is he? Why is he not here with you? She was in danger of sinking too far into the past. It felt as though a strong spell had been cast over her. It is all so many years gone, Caterina. Stop. Wake up. She tried to pull herself back into the real world of stone and lapping water all around.

  As she approached the market, she could smell fish, and soon she saw tables laid out with creatures of the sea. Men in bloody aprons were cleaning their catch. Caterina waited in a deep crowd of women to be served. She had decided she would make boiled stockfish for herself and Leda, with polenta. Yes, nothing brought you back into the present like fresh fish just pulled from the water. Their scales glistened like tiny mirrors, still reflecting their lost home.

  She tried to move to the front of the crowd, but found herself pushed aside by rude maids and wives. Their sharp voices, their endless lists of wants: “Dammi . . . e poi . . . e poi . . .” The madness of the need to fill one’s mouth each day.

  Caterina started to feel vaguely queasy, and wandered away. More than anything, she longed for an altar. A place to sink to her knees. To lose herself in stillness. She walked on, remembering she was near the church of San Giovanni Crisostomo, where she had not been in years.

  In less than ten minutes, she reached the side entrance to the stone church, hung with a burgundy velvet curtain. Inside, all was empty, echoing silence. Who could be bothered with prayers when it was almost mealtime? Caterina stumbled to the first altar she saw, near the transept, where dozens of candles had been lit. She dropped onto the prie dieu, buried her face in her hands, and surrendered to the noise of a thousand demons in her head.

  “Did Giacomo forget you—forget about you while you were locked away in the convent?” What made her keep telling Leda more than she should—talking and talking? What good would ever come of it, for herself, or for Leda?

  She looked up. Directly in front of her, she noticed a large painting of Saint Jerome on a rock in the wilderness. The dark gray stone columns of the actual church had been painted into the picture, so it looked like the church wall itself suddenly broke open to the outside air. She imagined herself climbing the rock and running into the distant mountai
ns of the painting, under the dome of blue sky with its pink and gray clouds and soft, clear light.

  A gypsy approached, startling her. She held a child swaddled in a coarse red cloth at her breast. The child was large, maybe two years old. The gypsy had hungry, deep brown eyes.

  “Vi prego . . . Signora.” She put out her hand. Her nails were long and dirty. Caterina went against her better instincts and gave her a coin from her pocket. After, she patted the pocket under her skirts, protectively.

  “Il bambino, Signora . . .” the gypsy begged for more. Softening, Caterina reached into her pocket and gave her another coin. The woman smiled to receive it, showing her buck teeth, and disappeared into the shadows.

  Caterina’s mind went from the gypsy mother to Leda. Her own strange, wandering girl. Waiting at home for her. Waiting for all the little things—like food, which she had forgotten to buy!—and needing bigger things, too. Like Caterina’s care, and maybe love.

  She crossed herself and rose to her feet. Leda needed her. And just as much, she was beginning to see that she needed Leda.

  Caterina heard Leda running to the door as soon as she took out her key. Impulsive girl, she pulled it open so that Caterina flew forward inside. They both laughed at the farcical entrance, embracing for the first time since their lives had crossed two months before.

  Yes, it was good to be home. Good to have someone who waited for you, and good—yes—to have someone to care for.

  “I found some of your favorite cheese at the market,” Caterina said to her. “The hard orange kind from the Veneto. You must be hungry!” She had not managed to buy much more, just a loaf of crusty white bread.

  “You sit down,” Leda said, guiding Caterina by the shoulders. “You look tired. I will make you a surprise.”

 

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