“Is there anything else you need, cara?” she asked me with surprising kindness. Her eyes were full of pity. How I longed for my own mother! I felt suddenly like an uncorked bottle, and all the tears of missing her were about to spill out.
“Nothing else,” I snapped. “Just the herbs and eagle’s stone. Please hurry.”
I felt a convulsion and something warm and thick run down my leg.
CHAPTER 48
I ran back to my room to clean up the blood with a sheet. I lay down on my bare mattress, afraid to move. I was afraid the baby might fall out. Still, I willed myself not to give in to despair. Maybe this was nothing. Normal bleeding, in the course of things.
Concetta returned in a few hours with the items I wanted from the pharmacy, and she brought some extra linens and rags. It was clear she knew my secret. Sweat beaded on her forehead. I noticed she smelled bad—like fear—as she leaned over to lay the rag she had soaked in the herbs and wine on my belly.
“There, cara,” she soothed me. “Get some rest now. I told the abbess you have a headache. No one will bother you.”
“Grazie, Concetta.” I gave her my first smile of the day. The bleeding slowed. I began to feel calmer, swaddled in all my mother’s cures. I rubbed the eagle’s stone in my right hand over and over.
Concetta surprised me and moved a chair next to the bed. She settled herself comfortably, muscular legs stretched out, and looked ready to chat for the rest of the afternoon. Hadn’t she just told me to get some rest? Instead, she started to jabber like the fishwoman she was.
“You’re in good hands,” she said, patting my forehead. “I will take care of you. I know a few things. Delivered my daughter Tonina by myself!”
She held up her strong, rough hands to show me. I wished she would leave, but at the same time, I did not really want to be alone.
“No midwife, no surgeon,” she went on. “They think they know everything! More than the mothers! Well, I will tell you a story. It will fry the hairs on your arms.”
I turned my head away and closed my eyes. I clutched at the pillow, longing for everyone in the world who loved me to come and lie beside me. Especially, Zulietta. I missed her most of all in these hours. Her steady kindness, her compassion. I wished I had had a way to write to her these past weeks. But she was out of reach, on the mainland.
“This peasant girl, she lived outside Padua.” Concetta was talking on. “She was eight months along with child.” I turned to face her, willing myself to be distracted.
“The girl was strong, healthy, out in the fields threshing grain. She brings down her flail, and each time the handle hits her in the belly.” Concetta slapped her own big stomach to show me. “By sundown, the girl notices she can’t feel the baby.
“She carried for another month. Her belly got swelled up to her chin. Got hard as wood to the touch. She stank from her body parts. Something is wrong, the girl knows. Her family calls a surgeon to deliver her. No midwife dared.
“This surgeon pulls out the baby’s head. But it’s rotted, no more solid than wet paper. The head comes off in his hands. Same with the foot—”
“Concetta!” I yelled out. “Stop!” I felt a grinding pain deep in my insides. This could not be right.
“Oh! I’ve frightened you!” she cried. “See—that surgeon didn’t help the girl at all! Died herself a few days later, poor thing. Black all over. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” She shook her head. “But don’t worry, Concetta will look after you—”
I sat up now, hysterical with fear. “Go to Ca’ Bragadin,” I begged her through clenched teeth. “Find Giacomo Casanova. I need him!”
Concetta ran out. She did not even stop to ask for more coins.
I squatted over the chamber pot and let some heavy blood drip in. I broke down in sobs. The loss was crushing me like rocks. All I had wanted was a sweet, fat baby to hold in my arms like Mary.
CHAPTER 49
The bleeding got worse. The few rags I had were soaked with blood. I shredded my sheets when the rags ran out. Heavy shutters kept all the sun from my room. I felt like an animal in a cave, clutched in a ball of pain. Every so often there would be a light knock at my door. I held my breath, tears leaking down my face. I could not let anyone know my secret.
I wanted Giacomo! I wanted my husband to comfort me. I remembered our last night together, desperate against the wall in Campiello Barbaro. My legs open . . . his hot breath on my skin. Was this the night that had led me to where I was now? Or one of the nights in my brother’s room? At some magical point, our baby had started to grow. But now, the baby was leaving me—why? When I wanted it so much, more than anything else in my life?
I heard Concetta slip into my room. “I am back, I am back,” she reassured me, whispering. She balanced a pile of sheets in one arm and dragged in a big satchel behind her.
“We stopped in the ghetto and bought a Jew’s whole stock of linens—oh, God!” she said when she saw me lying there in the dark. “You are covered in blood! It looks like a butcher’s shop in here!”
I could see pieces of her sweaty hair stuck onto her ruddy skin. She was working herself like a mule. She was not a smart woman, but maybe this kept her loyal to me. She just did things that she saw needed to be done, acted simply.
“Is he here yet—Giacomo?” I asked weakly.
“Yes, cara. He is at my house. He is crazy with worry, waiting for news. He wrote you something in the boat—”
Concetta fumbled for her pocket, pulled out a folded sheet, and brought it to me. I grabbed it with a strength I didn’t know I had. I forgot my pain for a breath or two.
The message was written in pencil with a shaking hand.
Be brave, my angel, I promise I will not leave until the bleeding stops. Promise me not to weaken yourself with thoughts of the child who is gone. There will be others. But there is only one Caterina, and you must be strong! I love you with all my heart, my innocent love.
I kissed his words. Giacomo was just outside the convent walls. I was safe. I felt I would not die.
I howled as new waves of convulsions brought out more bloody lumps. After, Concetta stripped away the old sheets and remade the bed around me. It felt good, clean, but more blood ran right onto the new linens almost instantly. I lay in a warm pool of my insides and felt I might faint.
“Lord, help me!” I heard Concetta say. She lifted my arm off the sheets and felt for my pulse.
“Dear child,” she said, still holding my hand, “you are the color of wax. You need a physician! Caterina—do you hear me? I don’t know how to stop the flow of all this blood! I have to get the convent physician.”
She started for the door, reaching to grab bloody rags as she went, and stuffing them under her skirts.
“No! No!” I screamed after her. “No one can know about this!”
“But the hemorrhage will kill you!” She paced around and spoke what looked like prayers to herself. She kept looking up to the ceiling as if someone up there might tell her what to do.
I was frightened for my life—yes. But I couldn’t let anyone at the convent know what kind of hemorrhage this was. I would be ruined in the eyes of everyone, forever.
“Send Giacomo—” I said, reaching into my memories for what to do, “—send Giacomo to find Elia at the Vivante pawnshop. Her uncle is a physician. He will know what to do.”
“This girl is in the ghetto?”
“Yes. Elia is—a friend.”
Concetta scowled her disapproval, but went to the door. When she opened it, Marina was standing there.
“What is going on?” I heard her say.
“Nothing—the signorina is sick.”
“I smell blood. I need to see her. Now.” She reached over Concetta’s head and started to push the door open.
“No—I am taking care of her! She doesn’t want any visitors.” Concetta pulled the door closed, pushing Marina back into the hallway with her strong body. I heard the door lock behind her. All became silen
t. The bells began to ring for Vespers.
Marina. I called for her, I think. But no one heard me and I found myself alone with my fears. My thoughts spiraled. Was Marina a friend? A friend like Zulietta? Or even like Elia? I did not trust her. She loved me because I was something new, like that shiny ring she had wanted to take from me.
I surrendered to tears. I cried for everyone I missed, one by one, in my old life. I cried for my mother. I cried for my cousin. I cried most of all for Giacomo. I curled myself into a ball, hugging the pillow against me as if my husband was there next to me.
Come to me, Giacomo! I cried into the dark air.
CHAPTER 50
I woke up to water being splashed on my face. Water and something else strong. It burned my nostrils. Concetta flicked liquid onto my hands, arms, and legs, then went to a basin and dipped a rag. She laid the dripping cloth across my belly.
“Dottore Vivante told us vinegar and water all over, child. Vinegar and water to stop the bleeding.” She laid a rough hand on my thigh.
“And—I’m sorry—I have to put a plug in. . . .”
I had too little blood left to blush. I opened my legs. I could feel the crusted blood there, with fresh blood still crawling over. Anything to make this stop!
Concetta made a ball out of what looked like coarse yarn and dipped it in the basin. She pushed it inside me. After the first shock, I felt soothed.
“There, child,” she said. She propped me up with a second pillow and poured watery-looking wine into a spoon. “This will thicken the blood and calm your spirits. Later, I will bring you some broth.”
She yawned. The poor woman was exhausted.
“And—Giacomo?” I asked, feeling the sweet effects of the wine already. “Is he still here?”
“He is.” She sat down with a great sigh in a chair in the corner. “He refuses to eat or sleep—he is in despair! What a pity! Tonina is doing her best to take care of him.”
My ears pricked at the mention of Tonina.
“How old is your—?” I started to ask. But Concetta was already lightly snoring. I closed my eyes, too. Sleep washed over me.
When I woke up, the shutters were open and fresh morning light shone in the room. Concetta was gone.
Marina was there.
“Buon giorno!” she said, kissing my forehead. Her black habit swooped over me like a great bird’s wings. “How relieved I am to see you awake!”
“What hour is it?” I asked, scrambling up.
“Just past Matins,” said Marina. “You must have slept through the night.”
She offered me a few spoonfuls of wine. My whole body relaxed. I felt bled out and empty. The hemorrhage had stopped, the crisis was over. But along with relief, I was also aware of a deep melancholy settling over me. The very skin on my face felt slack, as if it wanted to slide off my bones and lie in a sad little heap beside me.
“Is it—is it my fault this happened?” I spoke, barely audible, not so much to Marina, but more, to God. I turned to Marina, who eyed me with her brows creased in compassion, the first time I had ever seen so much feeling expressed on her face. “Did I exert myself too much? Or—or eat the wrong thing?”
“Caterina, stop.” She laid a finger on my lips. “These losses happen all the time. There is nothing that you did to cause it.”
I swallowed back tears. Still, I could not stop asking myself, what made this child not grow and thrive, when I wanted so much to bring it into the world?
“And—my husband—” I started again. I could not help myself. No one else except Marina knew my secrets. My dreams.
“Will my husband be revolted by me?” I went on, my voice rising as the full force of my fear and disappointment came over me. “He expected a baby, and I gave him nothing but bloody rags!” I started to cry, losing control of myself. Tears and mucus ran down my face.
Marina moved onto the bed and scooped me into a tight hug. I clung to her.
“Shh, shh,” she whispered. She released me and wiped my face with a rose-scented handkerchief. “It would be impossible not to love you.”
CHAPTER 51
My Giacomo sent me a letter stained with tears and full of repentance. He said he was beyond comforting. He was still on Murano, holed up in Concetta’s house. I wait so close by, he wrote, I can almost hear your beating heart behind the walls. Oh! That I could see him! It was sweet agony, to be filled with so much longing, to try to conjure over and over the picture of him painted by love in my mind.
Abbess Paulina came to visit me in my room, once the news had spread that I was recovering. Until then, Concetta terrified everyone, telling them the Evil Eye had fallen on me and would fall on them, too, if they came close.
“I hear you are improving each day,” the abbess said stiffly, keeping herself well away from my bed. She held a bunch of lavender to her nose to purify the air. “You gave us a scare.”
I saw her glance uneasily at the doorway. Clearly, she could not wait to get out of my room. Worried she might fall sick being near me! Lord, she had no idea what went on in that convent right under her fat nose.
Arcangela came to see me the next morning. She had no idea what had happened, either. She could never have imagined it. Hers was a little girl’s world, locked away in the convent for life.
She tried to cheer me with an invitation.
“Come—come with me!” she begged from a chair pulled to the side of my bed. “Leonora Vendramin has turned sixteen and is making her profession today! The convent is upside down getting ready for so many visitors. The abbess has said we can all go to greet them at the water gate!”
“No, thank you,” I said. “I’m not in the mood to join everyone coming to see that poor girl marry Jesus Christ.” The only marriage I was interested in was my own.
Arcangela’s face fell. After all, this would be her fate in a few years, too. I regretted my careless words.
“Do you think Leonora will wear a beautiful white robe?” I asked, pretending to be excited for her sake. I could feel my face warm with a little blood and a smile.
“Yes! She will! And at the best part of the ceremony, the patriarch will give her a special ring—just like a wedding ring!”
Arcangela’s face glowed with the vision of it. Who was I to ruin her happiness? Ruin it by telling her Leonora was not so much a bride in my eyes, as a witness to her own funeral?
“Let’s go together,” I said to keep her happy. “I can lean on you if I feel too weak to reach the gate on my own.”
“Oh!” Arcangela gave me a sloppy hug and kiss. “Thank you!”
I got up slowly and started to dress with her help. I felt dizzy at times, and moved like an old woman. I could see in the mirror my face was very white. What a picture we must have made limping together down the hallway, the figure of Death and her good friend, the Hunchback.
We reached the shaded arcade of the cloister. I kept my arm around Arcangela’s waist. But when we stepped out from beneath the stone arches, I felt the blessed sun kiss my face. I looked up, grateful I had been spared dying. Grateful and sure of God’s love. I felt a small pulse of vigor return, the spark of being alive.
I heard the sounds of fiddles and tambourines in the distance, and saw the flash of lagoon water down at the far edge of the lawn. I dropped my arm from Arcangela’s stooped body.
“You go on,” I said to her. “I am slowing you down.”
“You don’t mind?” She gave my hand an affectionate squeeze.
“No—I will catch up later.” I kissed her cheeks, then pulled my hand away.
Arcangela ran awkwardly to join a group of nuns ahead of us. I felt relieved to be free. I did not need her as a crutch. She was trapped in her deformed body for life, but mine was healthy—born to be out of this place, to be a lover, be married, be a mother someday.
I went on alone and slowly down the wide brick path that ran across the lawn. The younger boarders skipped and sang beside me, and some nuns were even dancing in the grass. Eventua
lly, I reached the gate to the convent. Waves of visitors were stepping out of gondolas and being greeted by the girls’ high-pitched shouts and squeals. I watched the empty, bobbing boats left on the water: Oh, to jump in one—escape home! I leaned against a thick old tree, steadying myself in my fantasy. It scared me, it felt so real. I closed my eyes, dizzy and spinning as wildly as the white ribbons that blew in the branches above me.
I opened my eyes. The crowd was swarming. My gaze caught on a golden waistcoat sewn like a tapestry and gleaming in the sun. A pair of black, glittering eyes held me still.
Giacomo! Not four paces away from me!
I wanted to run to him, throw my arms around him, have him lift me and carry me home. But he put a finger to his mouth as if to say, Be careful. Keep our secret. Do not come closer. I obeyed, backing up against the tree.
He watched me with a lover’s tormented longing for what he cannot have. His face looked pale. My heart melted with love for him—my husband. I loved him more than ever. For staying with me, for refusing to leave my side, until he had seen me and given me the happiness of seeing him.
Giacomo closed his eyes, kissed two fingers deeply, looked at me, and blew. The kiss floated in the air, carried on the bright beams and magic of the day. I will wait for you, he seemed to be saying.
The bells rang to call us back to prayers. And then he was gone.
CHAPTER 52
Venice, 1774
When Caterina had finished her story, Leda did not immediately get up from where they sat huddled together on the bed. There was no clock in the room, but it felt to Caterina as if several hours had passed. It was probably past midnight, she imagined.
“Can I sleep in here with you tonight?” whispered Leda. Caterina nodded, grateful not to be left alone. Leda snuggled into the feather pillow and closed her eyes. Soon, she was breathing lightly, the easy, sound sleep of the young.
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