Caterina herself did not sleep well. Dreams rushed in her head. Giacomo appeared to her—his golden waistcoat, his glittering eyes. She saw their son; he had been born after all. Giacomo was balancing him on his knee, kissing and nuzzling his ear. The boy was laughing. He was a beautiful, happy child. Caterina’s heart swelled to see them together—everything she had ever wished for.
She awoke in the dark, her body still, but her world spinning. For an anguished moment she did not know what had happened. The baby, Giacomo—they were both gone. Then she realized she was back in her bedroom, with Leda asleep beside her. At some point in the night, Leda had taken her hand, or she had taken Leda’s. The girl held it now, over her heart.
* * *
Caterina woke the next day to find Leda in the kitchen. This in itself was remarkable, as Leda was used to a life where servants—or, these days, Caterina—did everything for her. But there the girl was, mixing cornmeal dough and heating water for tea. The cups and saucers, small plates, and shining spoons were neatly laid out on the counter.
“Buona mattina!” Leda sang out.
“Buona matt . . .” Caterina mumbled. She was still in a daze from the night before. She had woken up empty, black inside.
“I am baking us zaletti!” Leda said with what sounded like determined good cheer. “Only we have no butter. I used oil instead.”
“That strong olive oil we have?” Caterina found her voice surprisingly sharp. “For cookies?” The oil was bitter, made from early harvested green olives.
Leda’s face fell. Caterina was immediately regretful. She reminded herself that Leda had no mother still living, no one to teach her what to do. How to run a household, how to take care of herself and a family one day.
“We will eat spicy zaletti, then,” Caterina said, managing a smile. “That will be a new experience!” When your heart aches, it is hard to do your best for the young who count on you. But Caterina sensed that forcing herself to be cheerful was good for both of them.
Leda smiled with what seemed like relief and began to busily shape the dough. After a minute or so, she was humming to herself.
Caterina delighted in watching her. Whether breakfast turned out sweet or savory, she mused, what did it matter? The girl was sweet.
* * *
A few days later, Leda brought home a kitten. Its fur was white, or more, dirty gray, with patches of black and brown.
“Where did that come from?” Caterina asked when she saw it clinging to Leda’s shoulder. She recoiled. It was probably diseased. How could Leda even touch it?
“I found her crying by the wellhead in the courtyard,” said Leda, kissing the creature’s nose. “Isn’t she pretty? Do you see these black lines around her eyes, like long teardrops? I named her Lacrima. She can keep us company!”
Leda brought the kitten over to where Caterina sat and tried to coax it onto her lap. But the scared animal stiffened its legs and refused to leave Leda’s arms.
“Clearly it likes you more than me,” Caterina said. She felt a little rejected. Her mother’s dog, Amor, had never liked her much, either. Still, it was good to see Leda caring for a living thing who needed her. Caterina touched its fur very lightly.
Leda placed the kitten back onto her shoulder and spoke soothingly into one of its mangled ears—something about anchovies. They went off toward the kitchen.
Caterina sat alone, wondering. The baking . . . the kitten . . . why is Leda doing these things? Is it simply for herself, to feel more like a mother? Or—a disturbing idea entered her head. Does Leda feel sorry for me? Feel that she needs to take care of me, that she has to make up for losses she cannot possibly undo? Caterina felt uneasy that maybe their roles were becoming reversed.
She got up to find Leda in the kitchen. She would show her where she kept the anchovies. And—Lord, how did she get herself into these crazy things?—how to wash a cat.
CHAPTER 53
The late July days grew hot. Who stayed in Venice now except the poor, the ones with no place else to go? All you could do was splash water on your face to stay cool, and sit wilting with your fan. Caterina usually got relief from summer at the farmhouse they owned near Asolo. It was a simple place inherited from Bastiano’s family. But this year, she wanted to stay in the city with Leda, who was too far along in her pregnancy to bump over bad roads and get stuck in a remote place far from a midwife. They decided that Bastiano would go alone to the mainland for the month of August, and return just before the baby was due.
He came upstairs early to say good-bye, on the morning he was leaving. Leda was still asleep.
“What are your plans for Leda’s delivery?” he asked Caterina in full voice from the entrance hall, as if they were alone. He did not really know how to whisper. Caterina came closer.
“Zulietta sent me the name of a good midwife in Venice,” she said in a hushed tone. “The woman is her midwife’s cousin.” This was as far as Caterina had gotten in making any plans.
“I see.” Bastiano took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his beaked nose. Caterina winced, as the sounds disgusted her. “The best surgeons are in Padua, at the university,” he said, wiping his nose again. It chronically dripped.
“Surgeon? Padua?” Caterina raised her voice in surprise. She felt instinctively she did not want Leda to leave Venice. “What is wrong with a midwife—here?” But at the same time, the memory of Concetta sweating over her own bed came back to her, the terrible fear, the bloody, stinking sheets.
“I was at the library consulting a legal book last week,” Bastiano continued, “and I did some extra reading on the care of women during and after pregnancy.”
“Truly?” said Caterina. The womanly reading was hard to imagine, and yet, not. Bastiano relished doing research. He could settle down with a large tome for hours.
“Guglielmo della Motte, on the faculty at the medical school, has written a book on the subject,” Bastiano went on. “If you agree, I can write to him, and ask if he would attend Leda.”
“But she can’t travel. You know that.” Caterina could feel her negativity, a mood that often crept up when she dealt with Bastiano.
“Yes. True,” he said, patiently. “But maybe he would be willing to come to Venice and perform the delivery. For a price.” He smiled. His teeth were a little twisted, but his eyes lit whenever he smiled.
Now Caterina smiled back. “You would do this for Leda?” She began to warm to the idea. It would be a relief to know Leda was in the best hands.
“Of course! It is our responsibility to keep her safe.” Bastiano pocketed his handkerchief, now ready to go. “No one else is going to do it for us.”
Caterina nodded. She appreciated this part of her husband’s personality. He was careful about things, while she was not. In situations like this, it made her feel that he was looking out for her.
“Grazie, Bastiano.” On an impulse, she hugged him. His face reddened with pleasure at the surprise.
* * *
“Caterina,” Leda asked her one afternoon, “can I ask you a question?” Caterina noticed there was unusual tenderness in her voice. She suspected what might be coming next.
They sat in the main room of the house by the windows, shutters open to catch a water breeze. The air was salty and still. Even Lacrima the kitten could do nothing but stretch out on the terrazzo floor to keep her belly cool.
“Um—I’ve wondered since I met you why you had no children,” Leda said. “I guessed you could not conceive. Now I understand that you once did . . . and lost the child. Did you—did you not want another child after what happened?”
Of course, Caterina thought. A woman with no children has to explain herself to society. She pondered how to answer Leda’s question without dragging her further into the story of her past. She wanted to reassure Leda about her own future.
“Oh—I wanted a child even after Giacomo was gone,” she said. “In some ways, more than ever.”
“With Bastiano, do you mean?” Leda
’s brow furrowed. “Are you saying you wanted to have Bastiano’s child even more than Giacomo’s?”
Caterina opened the shutter a little farther and peered out to the sea. She felt trapped now, trapped into confessing difficult things.
“My feelings for Bastiano have always been different from what I felt for Giacomo.” She turned to look at Leda directly, which felt hard to do. To face her confusion, her innocence to the ways that love could feel not entirely full.
“I didn’t pick Bastiano to marry,” she explained. “My father picked him for me. Maybe—when you don’t feel strong desire for your husband, you dream even more of a child to fill your world. To create love. I had little else.” She looked down at her hands and rubbed the flesh of her finger where Giacomo’s ring had once been.
“Bastiano and I tried for years to have a child,” she went on. She didn’t blush too much saying this; Leda knew so much about her already. “Every month I waited for fertility signs to tell me it was the right time to try. And every month my bloody flow came to tell me we had not been successful. Eventually, I gave up hope. What good is a marriage such as ours—which was one of convenience—when you have no children? The disappointment, year after year, became too much for us. One day, Bastiano simply moved downstairs.”
“Was he angry at you?” Leda asked. “Did he blame you? Because it might have been his fault—”
“No, he never blamed me. I think that for him, wanting a child was an abstract thing, something you’re supposed to want. Something he would want when he was old—a son, or a daughter to take care of him. But for me, it felt like a need, a craving. To hold a baby against me . . . to kiss the top of its soft head . . .”
Caterina felt she was losing the path of what she had meant to say. Her voice had gotten shaky and she feared she might cry. But she got hold of herself for Leda.
“Sweet girl, when a pregnancy happens so young—as happened to you, and to me—you imagine your whole life stretched out in front of you. What is even the loss of it? ‘There will be others,’ Giacomo had told me. He believed it, and so did I. But other blessings do not always come. This is why you must try to see yourself as lucky now.”
Leda looked at her in disbelief. She clearly didn’t see herself as lucky, and Caterina knew it. But she planted the seed for Leda all the same, and hoped one day it would grow.
“Did you ever see Giacomo again?” Leda asked her.
“Hmm?” Caterina said, looking out the window again and trying to seem distracted. Did she ever see Giacomo again? Oh, yes. The meeting at the water gate was only the beginning . . . but also, the beginning of the end.
“Did you see your husband—Giacomo—again?” Leda repeated, moving her head to be more in Caterina’s line of sight.
This time, Caterina turned and allowed herself a smile at the memory.
“I did,” she said to Leda. “Do you think, having seen each other at the convent that one day, we could resist trying again? Love knows no bounds, carissima.”
CHAPTER 54
Murano, 1753
Three weeks had passed since my miscarriage. It was the feast day of the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist, the twenty-ninth of August. We all filed into the convent church. The iron grating of the choir screen served to hide the nuns and boarders from the laity. This service was more full than usual, as Saint John is such a popular saint. Marina sat next to me, craning her neck to look out. We could hear coughing, crying babies, murmurs of “scusi, scusi,” as people slipped in late. The hour was None, the service after lunch.
I yawned, already bored.
I noticed Marina’s body did not relax even when the priest began to speak. She kept looking out from behind the choir screen. I pitied her a bit, that she imagined in that crowd of Murano fishermen, glassblowers, and their wives and daughters, there was anyone for her to see. Still, when she finally sat back I could not resist stealing a peek myself.
A flash of shimmering turquoise silk caught my eye—as it must have caught hers. A moment of sweet recognition flooded my whole body. My heart melted. It was Giacomo.
I could tell he did not see me, nor was he trying. He looked earnestly into his prayerbook for the whole service. He stood, sat, and kneeled at all the right times. He knew, clearly, that to glance into the choir stalls would arouse suspicion: about who he was, why he was there. Instead, I realized, he had come only to be seen by me, and to give me pleasure.
How I longed to kiss him, every inch of him! He wore his hair alla dolfina, the top part combed high and the back tail tucked inside a black silk bag. I adored this style on him the best, because it showed off the strong angles of his face. He looked like a dark-skinned god among the island plainfolk at prayer.
I tried to model my behavior on his, and show some self-control. But my face had grown bright pink, I could feel it, and my heart was racing. I squirmed in my seat, I even pretended to adjust my shoes and stockings, all to get a better view of him.
Of course, Marina noticed.
“Are you sure you do not know him?” she interrogated me after, on our way back to the dormitory. She grasped my elbow, trying to slow me down.
“Who?” I asked, avoiding her eager eyes. “The man in the blue silk suit you can’t stop talking about? No.”
“Then why were you all but opening your legs for him during the service?”
I flushed and stopped walking. How ashamed I felt! But more, I was terrified that I had revealed my secret like a fool. If it was ever discovered who Giacomo was, and that he had come to see me, he risked prison or exile. It was a serious crime to try to seduce holy girls in a convent. I had to protect him—and myself.
“He was handsome, that is all.” I took her arm and we continued walking together. “Do you think he will be back?” I asked innocently.
“Oh—I think so,” said Marina. She gave me a knowing smile like a cat who had just caught her mouse.
CHAPTER 55
Giacomo returned for every major feast day, five or six times in the month of September. Oh, how the nuns and boarders all waited for him! As soon as one of them spotted him dipping his hand in the font of holy water by the entrance to the church, she ran to get the others.
“He is back! Come—hurry!”
Our mysterious visitor was the talk of the convent. Young girls and old nuns, no one could stop gossiping about him.
“Maybe his wife has died, poor thing. He comes here to pray for her. He is alone!”
“No—he suffers from melancholy. He deliberately shuns the world.”
“Maybe he comes here looking for a new lover?” Squeals and clapping from everyone.
Except Marina. She kept apart from all the excitement, all the speculation.
It was tempting to tell the others who he was, but for once, I restrained myself. Privately, I swelled with pride. My husband came only to be seen by me. There was no hope of more. No gratification possible for himself. How lucky I was, to be so generously loved!
The last days of September came. The stone benches in the cloister sat empty most days. The lagoon smelled less bad, the church at Matins felt cold again. A new season was blowing in.
Concetta returned one Wednesday with no letter from Giacomo. That had never happened before. He always knew to wait for my letter on Wednesdays.
“What do you mean, he was not home?”
“I went by to deliver your letter; he was not home. I went back two hours later; he was still not home. I couldn’t wait there like an idiot!”
“Was his manservant there?”
“No. Ca’ Bragadin was empty.”
I sat on my bed, words failing me. Concetta made a few nervous efforts to puff my pillows and straighten my sheets and blanket. I handed her two coins. She left.
Giacomo did not appear in church over the next few days. I began to be sick with panic. I wrote him the following Wednesday.
My Giacomo,
I have been worried all week! Has something happened? Are you angry at me? I b
eg you to write and reassure me in my desperation that you are well, that all is as it was between us.
I love you from the bottom of my heart!
Your C.
I pounced on the letter that Concetta brought back from Venice.
Rest easy, my angel. You risk your health with worries. I am not angry with you. Still, I regret to tell you some news that will disappoint you. I cannot visit you anymore on Murano. Serious matters keep me away.
Adieu, my beloved Caterina. I kiss you a thousand times.
Your Giacomo
What was this? I paid Concetta four coins to deliver my letter back the very next day.
My Giacomo,
You deny me the greatest happiness I have here—that of secretly seeing you. What are these serious matters that take you away from me? Write me everything, I will accept anything, only love me still—come see me again—I pray you!
Your C.
He did not write back.
The girls all pined for him. Rumors started that he had been spotted at the convent. Had it been him in one of the private visiting rooms with an old woman? Kneeling and crying at an altar in the church?
I did not know what to believe.
All I knew for sure was that I had been abandoned.
CHAPTER 56
I surprised Marina in her room. She sat at her desk writing by candlelight, a stack of crinkled sheets beside her and a stick of red sealing wax waiting to be used. I had never seen her write so many pages to anyone before.
“Are you writing to your lover?” I asked her.
She jolted as if awakened from a dream and covered the sheet she was working on with her hand.
“Yes—I am. I miss him, you see. He has gone to Paris.”
“A long visit? He will not—not forget you while he is there?”
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